Directed and written by Chor Yuen, this is the story of Little Flying Dagger Li (Ti Lung), who has such strong ideals that he has lost almost everyone in his life, including Lin Hsin-ehr (Li Cheng), the woman he loves, who he feels unworthy of after a rival sword fighter saves his life. Now he wanders the countryside, drunk all day, for ten years with his assistant Chuan Jia (Fan Mei-Sheng). He then learns that the Plum Blossom Bandit is endangering his homeland. When he comes home, he meets Ah Fei (Derek Yee), another warrior who is looking for a gold armor shirt that can protect its user from any strike. Seeing as how the Plum Blossom Bandit kills with darts, this vest is very important.

Based on Gu Long’s Sentimental Swordsman, Ruthless Sword, this finds its hero wine drunk and pining for someone he knows he should have fought for. Seeing as how he’s the third best fighter in the world, he has a lot to deal with and all he wants to do is look at nature and, yes, drink to numb the pain of losing the only perfect woman he’ll ever know. Even when the bad guys poison his wine, he drinks more wine to get over it.

Funny enough, Li doesn’t use a sword but a fan. The name works for him, I guess, because it sets up all those people coming to fight him up to think he has a blade and instead he whips around a metal fan, which is a pretty interesting weapon and one I figure not many people have prepared themselves for.

Chor Yuen made seven movies in 1977 and its amazing that this looks as good and works as well as it does. That’s hard working.

Ah Fen (Hsiao Yao) is best friends with Xi Xi. Just look at them having fun in the fields together.

Xi Xi is a snake.

Ah Fen is his owner.

Rich college boy Tang Shi-De (Tsung Hua) is in love with Ah Fen.

And then there’s Man-Ling (Dana), who has a plan with her lover Hu Lin (Frankie Wei Hung) where she’ll seduce Shi-De and steal his family’s money.

Hu Lin has some of his gang kidnap Man-Ling and Tang Shi-De, but they get Ah Fen instead. The poor daughter of a farmer and child of high caste fall in love and get married, so Hu Lin tries to blow up their limo, but the bomb gets foiled by the snake. Yes, this really happens.

But Shi-De hates Xi Xi.

He hates all snakes.

A snake killed his mother.

Now he’s forced his wife to leave her reptile friend forever, just in time for Hu Lin to try and kill her again.

As if that’s not enough, it feels like there’s a sex scene between Man-Ling and Hu Lin every few seconds.

Ah, Shaw Brothers, you are more than just martial arts. You have directors like Sun Chung, who also made Human Lanterns and The Devil’s Mirror, creating movies where gorgeous actresses handle cobras and a mongoose vs. snake scene is the best fight in the whole film. Actually, this movie, if anything, needs more Xi Xi and less humans.

Also known as Kung Fu Warlord, this is the first of three Shaw Brothers movies based on Louis Cha’s novel The Legend of the Condor Heroes. There are also two sort of sequels, The Brave Archer and His Mate and Little Dragon Maiden.

The children of rebels, Guo Jing and Yang Kang are rescued after the deaths of their parents and trained separately in kung fu in an experiment to see who is the best master. Guo learns from the Seven Freaks of Jiangnan while Yang Kang becomes the son of a prince, so this becomes a prince and the pauper situation.

Guo Jing’s adventures include meeting a beggar who ends up being Huang Rong, daughter of Huang Yaoshi, master of Peach Blossom Island. They travel together, as Guo Jing is taught new styles such as the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms. To prove himself, Guo Jing must learn several martial arts manuals and increase his abilities.

Directed by Chang Cheh, this film quickly forgets the opening of the two infants and the challenge as to which will be the better martial artist. However, this is a longer adaption between all of the movies, so I’m looking forward to seeing what happens. There are a ton of things happening here, but if you love wuxia movies, this is a great choice. Some reviewers think that there’s too much that happens, but I was interested by everything that happens in this.

Eyes Behind the Wall tells the story of Ivano (Fernado Rey, The French Connection), a wheelchair-bound man who has an apartment filled with audio-visual equipment that allows him to spy on Arturo (John Phillip Law, Danger: Diabolik) and his various sexual conquests. He also gets off making his wife Olga (Olga Bisera, The Spy Who Loved Me and obviously a confident woman, as she was the partner of Luciano Martino — who had been married to Edwige Fenech and Wandisa Guida — from 2004 until his death in 2013) watch these shenanigans. But now, he wants her to seduce him and be part of the action. And that’s where things get…giallo.

There’s also an astounding disco sequence with Bava-esque lighting, public nudity and a song called “Disco Boogie” that made me lose my mind. There’s nothing quite like a disco scene butting its way in to a movie that has nothing to do with dancing and these scenes are always quite welcome. I mean, everyone in this scene is going for it in a way that I never could on the dance floor.

Giuliano Petrelli was usually an actor — he’s in Massacre in Rome and The Italian Connection — and this was his one and done as a writer and director. It’s a shame, because this definitely has some great moments and was way better than I thought that it was going to be. It’s an adjacent giallo, I guess, as it’s more Rear Window than The Bird With the Crystal Plumage. And I did not expect that post-disco scene coming where  Arturo’s black friend (Jho Jhenkins, The Perfume of the Lady In Black) takes him from behind on the floor while Ivano gleefully watches and Olivia runs screaming to her bedroom.

Seeing as how the movie starts with Arturo assaulting and murdering a young girl on a train, these things certainly can’t end well for anyone. And what’s with the butler, who seemingly worships Olga, picking up her body hair and underwear in an almost state of religious ecstasy?

This is an adjacent giallo that could fit into the sex thrillers of the late 80’s and 90’s, except that it doesn’t have any negative attitude toward sexual behaviors, from normal to, well by the end of the movie you learn more, totally aberrant. Nor does it shy away from male nudity, so it’s totally the least closed minded pervy 1977 Italian movie you’re ever going to see. And hey — that Pippo Caruso (Primitive Love, Escape from Women’s Prison) soundtrack is all over the place, from that aforementioned disco number to the strange ambient music that Arturo listens to and the score that drives this film.

The end of this movie will either make total sense to you, gross you out or all of the above. Here’s to 70’s movies that end on the flaming wreckage of their main characters.

Some fun facts:

The Last House On the Beach takes the disco scene from this movie. That one is pretty brutal, as it has a murder occur in full view of a Scrooge McDuck poster, which I have never seen in any other movie.

Known in Italy as L’occhio dietro la parete, this film was produced by Cinemondial, who also made A Whisper In the Dark. Strangely, despite never playing China or Hong Kong, many sites list Shaw Brothers as the producers of this movie. I have no idea why they’d get involved!

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Mr. Billion was on the CBS Late Movie on September 22, 1982 and July 1 1983. 

Jonathan Kaplan started his career by making movies like Night Call Nurses, The Student Teachers, The Slams, Truck Turner and White Line Fever. He’d eventually make acclaimed movies like Heart Like a Wheel and The Accused. On an episode of Trailers From Hell, he called this movie “the biggest failure of his career.”

Written by Ken Friedman (who also wrote several other Kaplan film, such as Bad Girls; he also wrote Death By Invitation),  this was an attempt by Dino De Laurentiis at making an American movie that starring Italian actor Terence Hill, who was already well-known to American audiences for They Call Me Trinity.

The result? According to Variety, Radio City Music Hall in New York sued 20th Century-Fox for $107,123 because the tickets sold so poorly.

”When a simple garage mechanic suddenly inherits a billion dollars, he gets more action, excitement, romance and riotous adventure than money can buy!” Yes, Terence Hill is Guido Falcone, an Italian mechanic who is the only relative that didn’t beg his rich American uncle for money. When he gets the entire estate, his uncle’s business manager John Cutler (Jackie Gleason) flies to Italy to try and con him. Despite his sweet nature, Guido is way smarter than he appears and wants to look over the estate; he has to be in San Francisco on a certain date to accept the offer. Cutler, wanting the money for himself, hires Rosie (Valerie Perrine) and her friend Bernie (Dick Miller) to distract Guido and keep him for signing his estate papers.

Lily Tomlin was supposed to be in the movie, but the studio didn’t want her. And Perrine, as urban legend tells us, introduced herself to the sweet natured Hill by telling her that she could light a cigarette with her vagina. They did not get along after that and had to play that they were falling in love.

The supporting cast includes R.G. Armstrong as a Southern sheriff, Chill Wills as a military leader, Slim Pickens as a rancher, William Redfield as a lawyer for the company, Sam Laws and Johnny Ray McGhee as a father and son with differing views on life and even Leo Rossi as a kidnapper. As I say, it’s the kind of cast I personally would call all-star, even if no one else would agree.

Hill would also appear in another box office bomb the same year, March or Die, which also had Gene Hackman and Catherine Deneuve in the cast.

I have no idea why Hollywood would hire Hill and have him play in a movie that’s nothing like what he did best. At least he was able to work with Bud Spencer again and make plenty of late 70s and 80s buddy movies, as well as Super Fuzz as a solo movie three years later.

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Moonshine County Express was on the CBS Late Movie on September 21, 1979 and October 16, 1981.

The Hammer Sisters are the kind of tough Southern girls that deal with their daddy’s murder by taking over his moonshine business, grabbing some weapons and being way tougher than any of the men they battle. Is that enough to get you to watch this movie?

What if I told you that it was directed by the same man who brought us The Evil, The Side Hackers and the movie based on the song Take This Job and Shove It?

Not yet? How does John Saxon playing a Southern stock car racer and moonshine runner sound? Not yet?

How about Susan Howard, former Dallas actress turned 700 Club host and NRA supporter?

William Conrad? Jeff Corey? Len “Uncle Leo” Lasser? Maurine “Marcia Brady” McCormick? Still not sold?

I get it. John Saxon was enough for me. But then I thought, I bet this movie has Claudia Jennings in it. And I was right. And that’s all it took.

What was it about American pop culture that took hicksploitation from the drive-in to the mainstream? I remember it myself — everyone had a CB radio, we all turned into The Dukes of Hazzard and watched Smokey and the Bandit on HBO. Heck, I even had a silver NASCAR jacket that made me look like a 5-year-old pit crew member.

From the very first moment that John Saxon appears on screen and does his best version of a Southern accent, I was thoroughly entertained by this silly trifle of a film. It’s a Roger Corman 1970’s drive-in movie, so you’re going to get plenty of cars getting smashed up, scummy bad guys and “100 proof women” like Candice Rialson (Chatterbox, Pets).

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Holocaust 2000 was on the CBS Late Movie on February 29, 1984.

Of all the things the devil’s done, I wonder exactly how he was able to get Kirk Douglas — KIRK DOUGLAS! — to be in an Alberto De Martino ripoff of The Omen? I mean, this is the same director who made The Antichrist and Miami Golem! What horrifying secrets does the First of the Fallen have to make one of the lead actors of Hollywood’s Golden Age appear in this burst of Satanic majesty?

Holocaust 2000 (AKA the Chosen and Rain of Fire) was written by De Martino, Michael Robson and Sergio Donati, who wrote some of the script for Once Upon a Time In the West and Duck, You Sucker! as well as Orca, early Arnold vehicle Raw Deal and the original version of Man On Fire.

You gotta hand it to Robert Caine (Douglas). No matter how many people protest, no matter the fact that his wife was stabbed in front of him at a party or the killer went nuts in a mental institution and sliced his own wrists in front of him, he’s not giving up his plan to build a nuclear power plant near a sacred cave in the Middle East.

He soon learns that he has bigger problems. His son Angel (Simon Ward, The Monster Club) is the Antichrist and the plant he wants to build looks just like the evil beast that the Whore of Babylon will ride at the end of the world.

Seriously, after a bit of crumpet, Caine falls asleep next to his way too young new girlfriend (Agostina Belliand, who was in the original Scent of a Woman) watches the nuclear plant rise from the sea, with multiple heads rising from the currents.

An Italian and UK co-production, this movie also features Ivo Garrani (Bava’s Black Sabbath) as The Prime Minister, Alexander Knox (who nearly won an Oscar for 1944’s Wilson before his liberal views got him chased out of Hollywood during the McCarthy era), Adolfo Celi (who wasn’t just Emilio Largo in Thunderball, he was also the Captain in Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man and the villainous Ralph Valmount in Danger: Diabolik), Geoffrey Keen (Minister of Defence Frederick Gray in six James Bond movies and one of the three noblemen using Dracula in Taste the Blood of Dracula), Peter Cellier (Sir Frank Gordon from Yes, Prime Minister), Denis Lawson (Wedge Antilles!) and Tony Clarkin, who played a stormtrooper in the second and sixth Star Wars movies, as well as appearances in The Monster Club as a vampire and Outland.

In Europe, this movie ends with Caine living in exile with his newborn child, as Angel begins developing the plant intended to cause Armageddon. But in the U.S., Douglas returns to his company and blows everybody up real good.

You can watch this on Tubi.