Thanks to the British Film Institute, there’s a list of films that played Scala. To celebrate the release of Severin’s new documentary, I’ll share a few of these movies every day. You can see the whole list on Letterboxd. 

This movie — and Xanadu — are why the Razzies exist, awards that celebrate the worst in movies. But what do they know?

This is the only movie that Nancy Walker — Rhoda’s mom and the Bounty paper towel lady — ever directed. It’s Bruce Jenner’s film debut. And I don’t care what anyone says, I love it in spite of everything bad you can say about it.

You can see why the movie happened. Producer Allan Carr was riding high off the success of Grease. Disco had finally hit the mainstream with Saturday Night Fever. And there was probably so much coke going around that everyone had a constant nasal drip. The time was ripe for what people had been clamoring for: the origin story of the Village People.

Wait — what?

The Village People — you probably know the words to “YMCA” — were created by Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo. While in New York, Morali attended a costume ball at the Greenwich Village gay disco “Les Mouches.” There, he was taken by all of the macho male stereotypes that he saw in the room and thought — this could be a music act, with each member being a different gay fantasy. Soon, they were signed to Casablanca Records, where their songs “San Francisco (You Got Me),” “Macho Man” and “In the Navy” played in clubs all over the world.

The truth is that the Village People were all one person at first: Victor Willis. Once the album became a hit, Morali and Belolo quickly put out an ad that said: “Macho Types Wanted: Must Dance And Have A Moustache.” From that big success to the time this movie was ready to come out, disco was just about dead, a fact that Carr had foreseen, changing the title from the original Discoland–Where The Music Never Ends! 

So what’s it really all about? Jack Morell (Steve Guttenberg, Police Academy) — named for Jacques Morali, of course — wants to be a composer. But for now, he’s DJing at Saddle Tramps, a disco. His roommate, Samantha Simpson (Valerie Perrine, Superman) is a newly retired supermodel. He writes her a song and everyone loves it, so she uses all of her connections to get him a deal. Her ex-boyfriend Steve Waits of Marrakech Records — get it, Casablanca Records? — wants her back, so he agrees to listen to a demo.

However, Jack’s vocals pretty much suck. So she recruits all of her fabulous friends, like waiter Felipe Rose — the Indian! And model David “Scar” Hodo — the Construction Worker! Randy Jones needs dinner, so he joins up as the Cowboy! We almost have formed Voltron…I mean, the Village People!

We’re treated to a solo song by David the Construction Worker called “I Love You to Death” where he fantasizes about all of the women who will be chasing him once he’s popular. When this scene played in San Francisco, supposedly movie screens were decimated with eggs.

Meanwhile, Samantha’s former agent (Tammy Grimes, who is one of the commercial stars in The Stuff) wants her back in the modeling business and orders her secretary Lulu to make it happen. Somehow, Ron White (Jenner), a tax lawyer, gets mugged on his way to delivering a cake to Sam’s sister, but then Lulu gives Jack drugs, then Ray Simpson — the Cop! — shows up and the four sing the song “Magic Night.” It’s all too much for Ron, who runs away.

The next day, Ron and Sam get back together and hook up. Now that he has a reason to help, he offers his office for further auditions, where we meet Glenn Hughes — the Leatherman! — and Alex Briley — the G.I.! — who finally form the full version of the group. Blink and you’ll miss W.A.S.P. frontman Blackie Lawless trying out! Finally, Ron’s boss Richard says (Russell Nype, who is also in The Stuff) that their company shouldn’t have anything to do with the group, so Ron quits the firm.

The band then goes to the YMCA to rehearse, which leads to a musical number for the song of the same name. If you’re looking to see plenty of naked men in a PG movie, well, here you go! I won’t judge! Marrakech offers too little money for their contract, so the gang decides to throw a party to raise some funds.

Seriously: this is the most raw dong I have ever seen in a non-porno movie.

Samantha agrees to model again for a milk commercial, as long as the Village People can be there, too. The TV spot — with six small boys dressed as the band — starts with Samantha pouring them milk and turning into the song “Milkshake.” Of course, the milk company balks at this. I’ve been in advertising for some time. I can only imagine the meeting where they showed this video to them and the blank stares turning into faces filled with pure rage.

Norma White (Barbara Rush, It Came From Outer Space) decides to help and invites the guys to be part of her fundraiser. Sam lures Steve to the show by suggesting they can canoodle, so Ron dumps her. Meanwhile, on Steve’s jet, Jack and his mother Helen (June Havoc, sister of Gypsy Rose Lee!) win the record company owner over and the Village People are signed!

Everything works out just fine. Ron and Sam get back together. He gets his old job offered back. And following a song by Morali’s other band The Richie Family, the Village People finally unite for “Can’t Stop the Music.”

If only reality had been so kind. After all, the infamous Disco Demolition Night in Chicago, the evening most people claim was the death knell for disco in the United States, happened two weeks into filming.

Even with a TV special — Allan Carr’s Magic Night — featuring Hugh Hefner and Cher, along with a new Village People song “Ready for the 80’s!” that was cut from the film, it was to prime America for a movie that by the time it was filmed no one really wanted to see.

Oh man, the lyrics to that song:

I’m ready for the eighties things look positive
I’m ready and I’ve got a lot of love to give
There’s hope in every heart and love on ev’ey face
The eighties promise everything is just gonna be great

But hey — Baskin Robbins had a flavor made for the film. Can’t Stop the Nuts was offered for the whole summer of 1980. Think I made this up? Nope. I have evidence.

It’s also one of the first appearances of Ray Simpson as the Policeman. The previously mentioned Victor Willis, the original lead singer, quit the group during pre-production. Turns out he wanted to let everyone know he was the straight man of the group and had insisted that his wife, the soon to be divorced and renamed Phylicia Rashad, be written into the film as his girlfriend. Her role in the film ended up being played by Sammy Davis Jr.’s wife Altovise Davis.

Even crazier was that filming in New York was constantly delayed by protestors who were upset about the film Cruising. Many of them thought that this film was that film, so they protested against the wrong movie!

The film failed. Disco died. But why are we talking about this all thirty-some years later? Simple: disco never really went away. And neither did the Village People. Victor Willis is even back in the group, after years of fighting. Sure, there are two different Village People bands touring. But people love them. They’re a part of our culture, even if this movie is pretty much forgotten (outside of Australia, where it’s a New Year’s Eve tradition).

I also want to inform you for some reason this movie is 2 hours and 3 minutes long. I have no idea why it has to be so long. Plan your evening accordingly.

“Very rare Godzilla film made for Hawaiian TV in 1980 by Filmways TV USA, 99% stock footage and a bizarre wrap around plot involving physic powers make this a very strange film.”

Yet another strange mash of footage that some believe came from Hawaiian TV and others think is a hoax, Monster King Godzilla puts together various Showa-era Godzilla moments with another Toho movie, 1974’s Jun Fukuda-directed ESPY.

That movie is all about the International Psychic Power Group, a team of psychic superheroes who are the X-Men if they were funded by the U.N. After four politicians from Eastern Europe are killed, the psychic team is called into action, but must deal with Ulrov and his mental powered killer Goro.

Now imagine that movie but someone would rather watch footage of Godzilla fighting Megalon, Hedorah, Mecha Godzilla, Titanosaurus, King Caesar, King Ghidorah and Gigan instead of letting you know most of the plot of ESPY.

The copy of this that I have has sound that cuts out from time to time, making this an even more disconcerting experience. It’s like this was dubbed into English, back into Japanese, dubbed into French, then Spanish, back to Japanese, a side trip to Switzerland and then back to English before, again, someone wanted every Godzilla fight in the 1970s dubbed in, just because.

Big love to the psychic girl in this with a white miniskirt, gigantic glasses and a white fur coat. Well done on the metallic orange lipstick, your outfit has choices and you made all of them.

You can download this from the Internet Archive.

It’s no accident that Severin used our review for sales copy for this, reminding viewers that this movie is “absolutely insane.” What began as the epic global zombie apocalypse screenplay by Claudio Fragasso and Rossella Drudi became – via the inimitable vision of director Bruno Mattei and a fraction of the original budget – this wild effort, now on UHD and scanned in 4K from the original camera negative for the first time in America, complete with a CD of its soundtrack.

There’s also a brand new novelization by Brad Carter, who worked with original screenwriters Claudio Fragasso and Rossella Drudi!

The sale will take place from 12:01am EST on 11/29 to 11:59pm PST on 12/2 at Severin’s site.

Bruno Mattei got hired to make this, being asked by Spanish producers to make something like Dawn of the Dead but happier, if that was possible. He made this under the name Vincent Dawn, which the producers requested. Two scripts were written by Claudio Fragasso* and Rossella Drudi, with the one being picked not being the script Mattei preferred.

I wish I could have seen that script** because what got made is absolutely insane.

The movie starts in a top-secret chemical research facility called Hope Center #1. There, the male workers talk non-stop about sex like this:

Technician #1: She may not know much about chemistry, but in bed, her reactions are terrific.

Technician #2: I’m not surprised with that cute little ass.

Technician #1: I’m a tit man, myself.

In the middle of this locker room talk, a rat causes a chemical leak and comes back to life as a zombified rat*** that eats the face of a worker, turning every single person there — eventually — into the living dead.

Meanwhile, four commandos — Lt. Mike London (José Gras, billed as Robert O’Neal), Osborne (Josep Lluís Fonoll, Wheels on Meals), Zantoro (Franco Garafalo, The Other Hell, billed as Frank Garfield) and Vincent (Selan Karay) — wipe out some eco-terrorists who are demanding that the Hope Centers be revealed to the public.

Now that the Hope Center we’ve seen at the beginning of the movie has lost contact with the world, the commandos go to New Guinea to find out why. There, they encounter journalist Lia Rousseau (Margit Evelyn Newton, The Adventures of Hercules) and her cameraman Max (Gabriel Renom), along with a fighting husband and wife who are soon dispatched by a zombie doctor and their dead son.

Their fight dialogue really needs to be shared:

Josie’s husband: These bright ideas you get… bringing a 7-year-old child through this filth! Only YOU could have thought of it!

Josie: There was absolutely no way of knowing the trouble we’d run into.

Josie’s husband: Dumb broad! The living image of a modern mother! You couldn’t be so mean to leave our boy at a nice safe school for a couple weeks! Not her! “Oh, no! Not to bring our boy along with us would be cruel!” Doesn’t matter if he’s eaten by mosquitoes… or wounded by a native lunatic!

Lia Rousseau: Oh, please! You’re not gonna begin that again!

Josie’s husband: Oh, no! I’m sorry! Naturally, the great Lia Rousseau can’t possibly be disturbed listening to the complaints of a man who’s upset about his boy! No, she’s on a special mission. The idol of a TV audience who doesn’t get enough violence and BLOODSHED!

In case you’re wondering, “Is this a Bruno Mattei movie?” Let me satisfy you: when they go to a native village, footage from the documentary New Guinea, Island of Cannibals gets added into the movie and Rousseau having to strip down and get her body painted up. Of course, the mirth of the native village ends up with a zombie attack and the commandos — and journalists — make their way to the overrun hope center, where they learn that Operation: Sweet Death was made to destroy the world’s population so that overcrowding could be stopped, starting with the poor people, of course.

I love the ending of this, as politicians throw paper at one another while zombies have spread into the major cities.

In case you watch this and think, “This music sounds familiar,” I have the answer. It’s all Goblin, which was licensed instead of getting an original score made. It has songs from their album Roller, as well as their songs for Dawn of the Dead, Beyond the Darkness and Contamination.

Alternate titles include Hell of the Living Dead, Zombie Creeping Flesh, Night of the Zombies, Virus Cannibale, Os Predadores da Noite (The Night Predators) and Zombie Inferno.

I absolutely love the absurd dialogue in this! There’s so much, but this is my favorite back and forth:

Vincent: Patience is the chief virtue for those who have faith. Mahatma Gandhi, New Delhi, 1946.

Lt. Mike London: Up your ass. Lieutenant Mike London, Shit Creek, the year is now.

Also, it has the strange air that the terrorists are right, despite their actions being wrong. Pretty much humanity is doomed in the world of Mattei. Really, for all the bad I’ve heard about this movie, it’s a total success in my eyes.

I mean, it has a scene where a commando puts on a dress, sings a song from Singin’ in the Rain, causes a zombie kitten to leap out of a dead woman’s stomach and then dies while everyone yells, “Bastards! Filthy jackals! Look at them, look at THAT! They’re eatin’ him like PIGS! Goddamned rotten ghouls!”

You can watch this on Tubi.

*In an interview in GoreZone, Fragrasso said this movie was, “designed with lots of love, but in the end it came out a test tube baby, a kind of abortion. But I’m satisfied with the end results.”

**In that script, Fragasso wrote of “an entire Third World made up of an army of zombies, who the armed forces of the industrialized nations would have had to fight.”

**Spoiler warning! I wonder if this rat is the father of the rats we meet at the end of Rats: The Night of Terror?

You can listen to the podcast about this movie here:

Available during Severin’s Black Friday sale, this UHD of Umberto Lenzi’s film has so many extras, including commentary by Nathaniel Thompson and Troy Howarth; an interview with Lenzi; a Deodato Meats Lenzi featurette; the documentary Me Me Lai Bites Back; interviews; newly discovered alternate footage; a trailer and an exclusive booklet by Claire Donner Of The Miskatonic Institute Of Horror Studies.

The sale will take place from 12:01am EST on 11/29 to 11:59pm PST on 12/2 at Severin’s site.

What happens when you throw assassins in New York City, cannibals in the jungle and a Jim Jones-like cult leader into a big pot and set it to boil? You get Eaten Alive!

Sheila (Janet Agren, City of the Living Dead, Hands of Steel) is searching for her sister, Diana (Paola Senatore, Emanuelle in America)who has disappeared in the jungle. She hires Mark (Robert Kerman, Cannibal Holocaust) to help her find her way through the jungle. Oh yeah — and there are killers in the city using blow darts. That doesn’t matter so much once we’re in the jungle.

When they find Diana — after being chased by cannibals — they learn that she has joined the cult of Jonas (Ivan Rassimov, everyone cheer when he shows up to make this movie awesome), who abuses, murders, manipulates and mindfucks everyone and anyone he gets close to. Seriously, the minute Jonas shows up, this film goes off the rails. First, he burns a man on a funeral pyre and then orders his wife Mowara (Me Me Lai, who thanks to appearances in this film, Last Cannibal World and Man from Deep River is pretty much to this genre as Edwige Fenech, Barbara Bouchet or Nieves Navaro are to giallo) to be ritually raped. Then, he hypnotizes Sheila and takes her on an altar using a snake phallus covered in venom and blood (yep, really).

Jonas preaches the Book of Isaiah and pretty much owns everyone he can get his hands on, but Mowara, Sheila, Mark and Diana all attempt to escape. Diana and Mowara are overtaken by cannibals, with Diana graphically devoured while her sister and Mark watch helplessly. A helicopter arrives at the last minute to save them while the film goes into full exploitation mode, with the cult killing themselves ala Jonestown, leaving only one female survivor.

Oh man, I forgot! Mel Ferrer (The Visitor, Nightmare City) shows up as a professor!

Director Umberto Lenzi knows how to make a down and dirty film. He also knows how to keep it entertaining. Just witness other films he’s done like Ghosthouse! Plus, he’s the master of recycling, as this film re-uses the crocodile death and a woman being eaten from his 1972 film Sacrifice! (also starring Rassimov and Me Me Lai), Me Me Lai’s death from Ruggero Deodato’s Jungle Holocaust and a castration, a monkey being devoured and a man being eaten by a crocodile from Sergio Martino’s Slave of the Cannibal God. You could say he…cannibalized those movies! Sorry.

Again, keep in mind that these are rough films. They’re nearly indefensible, to be honest. I kind of wish the story of Jonas and his cult was more of the movie, with less of the cannibals. But you know, I can’t send notes back to Lenzi with a time machine or anything!

In this movie, director Chih-Hung Kwei is remaking his frequent collaborator Chang Cheh’s The Invincible Fist and telling the tale of “Killer Constable” Leng Tian-Yin (Chen Kuan-tai). He’s been ordered by security chief of the Forbidden City Liu Jing Tian (Cho Tat-wah) — who has been commanded by Manchurian Empress Dowager Cixi — to bring back the five thieves that stole 2 million taels from the Royal Treasury dead or alive. When you’re called the Killer Constable, you never bring them back alive.

Trying to assemble his five best men, Leng learns that not even his brother, Cun Yi (Gam Sai-Yuk) wants to join him. He is tired of the brutal justice that his brother delivers. We witness this as Leng follows the thieves to a watermill and tortures one of them in front of his family. Yet you’re left to wonder if his rough style is warranted when one of his men, Peng Lai (Ai Fei), is rewarded for feeding the starving villagers by being staked and must be killed by Leng to ease his suffering. The thieves also hire Fan Jin-Peng (Jason Pai Piao), a killing master who murders elder constable Ma Zhong (Gam Biu) and injures Leng before being defeated.

Finally, after a battle with the leader of these thieves, Fang Feng-Jia (Ku Feng), and are helped by the intervention of Cun Yu. Leng is almost killed but is nursed back to health by Fang’s blind daughter Xiao Lan (Yau Chui-Ling). When Fang enters his home, instead of fighting, the Constable and he pretend to be friends in front of his daughter. In truth, it was Liu Jing Tian who stole the gold and sent Leng after him, as he knew that no one would survive. Another group of killers attack and Fang sacrifices himself to allow Leng to live, making him promise to care for his daughter. However, the Constable is driven with rage after his brother is killed, so he attacks Liu Jing Tian, killing many of his guards before wiping out the corrupt man. However, a trap also kills Leng, leaving Xiao Lan waiting for a father and protector who never arrives.

Kuei said that, “I simply wanted to depict how insignificant commoners are and how, under totalitarian rule, they turn out to be the victims.” While showing off the violence and combat that one expects from a Shaw Brothers movie, this also goes beyond to show the very real suffering that comes from that same brutality. As the only good person in the film is a blind woman — a scene repeated in The Killer as Ah Jong and Li Ying pretend to be old buddies for the benefit of the sightless Jennie — the moral is simple. The only pureness in this bloody universe can’t witness it.

Kuei was also inspired by another classic film: “I love Dr. Zhivago. In Killer Constable, I want to create a character like Zhivago. Despite his position in the high court, the protagonist is a righteous man. Yet in the corruption and poverty-stricken era at the end of the Qing dynasty, there is not much good he can do on his own. Hence he is deluded by society and lives his life foolishly.”

And yet in America, the most violent country in the world, all of this complexity struggles to be understood, as this played under the exploitation title Karate Exterminators.

Killer Constable was Chih-Hung Kwei’s only period wuxia film. He’d make his mark on many other genres, including women-in-prison (The Bamboo Dolls), modern crime (The Teahouse and its sequel Big Brother Cheng), women in trouble (The Bod Squad), comedy (Rat Catcher) and of course, his many horror films such as The Killer Snakes, Hex and Corpse Mania. In the 1990s, he moved to the United States where he opened a pizza shop. Yes, at one point in our reality, you could order a pizza made by the visionary director of The Boxer’s Omen.

His son, Ming Beaver Kwei, a producer of movies like My Lucky Star and The Meg, said of his father: “He’d bitch about his work every day, never quite satisfied how his work had turned out, or how it was being distributed. He was only ever happy when he knew for a day that a film had worked at the box office, then he’d start worrying again. He’d be so happy to know that his films were getting a second look today.”

The Arrow Video Shaw Scope Volume Three box set has a brand new 2K restoration of Killer Constable as well as three commentary tracks one by film critic and historian Tony Rayns, one by Frank Djeng and another by martial arts cinema expert Brian Bankston; alternate scenes from the South Korean version; an alternate English title sequence and a trailer.

You can get this set from MVD.

I discovered this movie from Unsung Horrors, who said that it was “Somewhere in between Jean Rollin and Ogroff.”

How could I not want to see this?

EDITOR’S NOTE: Friday the 13th was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, November 6, 1982 at 1:00 a.m.

After the success of John Carpenter’s Halloween, every studio wanted a piece of the horror pie, which to this point had been exploitation fodder. Paramount Pictures was first. Sure, critics salvaged the film, but after $40 million in profit, no one really cared.

Produced and directed by Sean S. Cunningham (Last House on the Left), this movie was envisioned as a roller coaster ride. The script came from Victor Miller, a soap opera scribe. And spoilers — but this movie doesn’t even really have Jason in it!

The movie starts in the summer of 1958 at Camp Crystal Lake, where two counselors sneak off and have sex before being killed. This sets up one of the many rules of slasher films: never fuck in the woods.

The camp closes for 21 years, but on Friday, June 13, 1979, that’s all about to change. That said, no one in the town wants it to happen. When Annie Phillips arrives in town, everyone treats her strangely or acts like Crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney, who shows up in the next film and was the narrator for Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood). She lasts for about five minutes, as she gets killed after her third hitchhike of the day. I’d say this is more of a warning against hitching in the late 1970s than I would serial killers in the woods.

The other counselors — Jack (Kevin Bacon!), Ned, Bill (Harry Crosby III, son of Bing), Marcie, Alice and Brenda (Laurie Bartram, The House of Seven Corpses) — and owner Steve Christy all show up to get the camp ready. This is where you’ll notice just how different fashion is. Becca and I have seen this live several times in a theater now and everyone laughs as soon as Steve shows up in his short shorts and bandana.

Ned is killed pretty quickly, then Jack is killed with an arrow and Marcie takes an axe to the face. Brenda is murdered as she responds to the voice of a child. Steve gets killed on the way to camp. Before you know it, Alice and Bill are the only ones left, but Bill lasts pretty much seconds. Then we have another future slasher trope: every body is discovered, hung like trophies.

Now, we have our Final Girl: Alice, who ends up meeting Mrs. Vorhees, who tells the tale of how her son Jason drowned and the horrible counselors who allowed it to happen. Much like the giallo/pre-slasher film Torso, the movie now focuses on the battle between Alice and the real killer. Alice ends up beheading her and sleeping in a canoe. As the police arrive, she has a dream that Jason rises from the water to kill her. This scene wasn’t in the script, but special effects king Tom Savini thought a Carrie-like ending would be more powerful.

Another way that the film pays sort of homage to Italian filmmaking is in the snake scene. It was another Savini idea after an experience he had in his own cabin during filming. The snake in the scene? Totally real, including its on-screen death — someone alert Bruno Mattei!

Some trivia: the film was shot just outside Lou Reed’s farm. The rock star performed for the cast and even hung out with them! Sweet Jason?

To me, the film works because of how great Betsy Palmer is as Jason’s mom. It’s a fine film, but nowhere near the excesses that the series would grow into. This was also the start of critics really hating on slasher films. Gene Siskel was so upset about Betsy Palmer being in the film that he published her address in his column and encouraged people to write her and protest. Of course, he published the wrong address.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

Also known as Any Which Way You Punch, Duel Under the Burning Sun and Dragon Connection, this stars Angela Ma as a kind of Zorro character, as she’s the daughter of a Warlord Tung and also the masked vigilante Violet. And like so many Hong Kong movies imported to America, this liberally steals the score of Star Wars.

This is set in the 1920s, as warlords like Ma’s father are trying to take their own pieces of the country and gain power. She keeps taking the firing pins from all of his weapons while he has no idea that his daughter is his enemy.

She soon joins with the mysterious Pai Tien Hsing (Peng Tien) as one of her father’s men (Yi Chang) is trying to go into business for himself. He has some poison knives that really create some disgusting kills.

You also get Lo Lieh and Tan Tao-liang as two escaped criminals who work alongside our heroes, even getting caught inside a room that has moving spikes at one point.

In Germany, this was released as Der Gorilla mit der Stählernen Klaue (The Gorilla With the Steel Claw). This does not happen in the movie I watched but I wish that it had.

When 21st Century released it, they called it The Bruce Lee Connection. They also licensed it to Continental Video as Dragon Lady Ninja.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

Jack (Jack Lee) has come to fight in a martial arts tournament run by his friend Peter (Bruce Le). He’s brought a book of JKD secrets that was written by and given to him by Bruce Lee himself. After a rival fighter, Miguel (Romano Kristoff) defeats Peter, Jack gives him the book to learn from. However, Miguel kidnaps Peter’s girl Miriam (Carla Reynolds) and demands the book.

The best thing I can say about this movie is that it has the song “Shanti Dance” by Droids in it. A band that was the invention of Fabrice Cuitad, they had one album, Star Peace and a single, “(Do You Have) The Force.” Cuitad was a label manager at Barclay and founded the label Egg. Musicians Yves Hayat, Richard Lornac and Jean-Paul Batailley play on the album and in most live appearances, Hayat and Lornac performed.

Director and writer Bill James mainly worked as an actor. This also has Bruce Le take a girl on a date to a cock fight, which in no way feels like romance. And if I get confused by this, it’s also because it’s almost the same movie as They Call Him Bruce Lee.

How many books did Bruce leave to people after he died, anyway?

I’ve seen this listed as a 21st Century release but can’t find any proof. Anyone know if they had it at some time?

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

Brice Mack was a background artist at Disney before becoming a director, working on Rooster: Spurs of Death, Jennifer, Half a House and producing Ruby and Mara of the Wilderness. This movie, written by Steve Krantz (Jennifer, Ruby) feels like the perfect idea for a sitcom: a drive-in and flea market populated by wacky characters. You can just imagine the guest stars that show up to sell things or buy from the regular characters.

Also: The Farmer cinematographer Irv Goodnoff was the original choice to direct.

Ziggy (Danny Goldman, the voice of Brainy Smurf) wants to make this the best swap meet in the world, but he also wants to find love. He’s one of the many stories in this episodic movie, along with Doug (Jon Gries, who is amazing in everything he’s in, even this not all that worthy movie; beyond Napoleon Dynamite, he was also in Joysticks, Real Genius, Fright Night 2, The Monster Squad and TerrorVision), who wants to impress the ladies in car races, and his friends Buddha (Loren Lester) and Billy (Dan Spector, the voice of Robin on Batman: The Animated Series), who just want to pick up the ladies. Two of the girls include regular sellers Nancy (Ruth Cox, Jennifer) and Susan (Deborah Richter, Cyborg). When they’re not trying to get people to buy turtles, they’re at war with the obnoxious children that won’t leave their table.

Rich kid Roy (Jed Cooper) also is in love with these girls and to get rid of Doug and his gang, they destroy their T-Bird — Doug’s dad’s car — so that they can’t race against his Ferrari. They turn to Max (Danny DeVito, yes, really) to fix their wrecked car. And if you don’t believe DeVito is in this, so is Rhea Perlman as one of the mothers of the horrible kids that won’t leave our hippie girls be.

How did DeVito get in this? Well, he did it as a favor for original director Goodnoff, who he met on the movie The Van. According to the September 19, 1979 issue of Variety, DeVito “requested no more than feature billing” as Taxi was just starting when this was released. When Dimension Pictures placed newspaper ads, they put his name above the title as Danny “Taxi” DeVito, which caused him to send a cease and desist. There were no hard feelings between Goodnoff and DeVito, as the actor hired him to shoot his directorial debut, the TV movie The Selling of Vince D’Angelo.

Filmed at the Roadium Swap Meet in Torrance, CA, which is still open, this will make you miss drive-ins if all the ones in your area are gone. This played double features with H.O.T.S. and yet its VHS box said, “Starts Where H.O.T.S. Finished!” Don’t be rude, Swap Meet.

Anyways, George Memmoli from Phantom of the Paradise and The Farmer shows up, as does Beatrice Manley (The Baby), Eric Greene (Loki from Space Academy), Pigs director Marc Lawrence as drive-in owner Mr. Booth and Cheryl Rixon as Annie, the homeless sex worker who lives at the swap meet and turns tricks at night with the help of the other teenagers, which seems bleak. Rixon was the December 1977 Penthouse Pet of the Month and 1979 Pet of the Year, so she adds the sex appeal that this movie is otherwise missing. She’s also in Used Cars.

There’s also a disco theme song, “Swap Meet,” which is played in the beginning and when most of the cast goes to The Great Gatsby Discotheque Part II.

After 21st Century bought all of Dimension’s films, they re-released this.

It’s not a great movie, but if you love spotting cast members from other movies, are a Marc Lawrence or Jon Gries fan, or just have to watch every 70s and 80s sex comedy, then you’re going to like Swap Meet a lot more than every other reviewer online, who seemingly had their pets abused by this movie.

You can watch this on YouTube.