Short Musical (in Technicolor)

 

 

 (imdb)

PIRATE PARTY ON CATALINA ISLAND-1935-This technicolor musical short starts off with a big band where all the musicians are wearing masks of famous comedians (Laurel & Hardy, Chaplin, Joe E Brown). Then Chester Morris (dressed as a pirate) narrates. With appearances by Cary Grant, Randolph Scott, Errol Flynn, Mickey Rooney, Marion Davies, Leon Errol, Robert Armstrong and some banjo playing, singing, dancing and actor Buddy Rogers and his orchestra. The uncredited director is Gene Burdette.

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Down Under Boar

 

 (moviesrankings.com)

RAZORBACK-1984-In Australia a professional kangaroo shooter is accused of murdering his grandson but is released for lack of evidence. It's actually a giant mutated razorback boar. 2 years later an American reporter (Judy Morris) goes there to investigate the slaughter of kangaroos. Some inbreeding local trash beat her up and almost rape her. She gets away from them but is killed by the wild hog. 

Her husband Carl Winters (US TV actor Gregory Harrison) goes to investigate. After being abandoned in the desert, he wanders around, hallucinates and sees the giant boar. He's rescued by a woman (Arkie McWhiteley; also in ROAD WARRIOR (1981)) who's friends with the grandpa. Eventually after getting revenge on the two assholes, Winters somehow lures the monster piggies on to a conveyor belt where rotating knives slaughter them. 

Director Russell Mulcahy made this weird but mundane horror film while in the midst of directing Elton John music videos.

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Bad...

 

 (moviesandmania.com)

ANNA-2017-Two obnoxious imbeciles steal a cursed doll from a private museum. The dialogue is ridiculous and most of it is so dark you can't see anything. Don't waste your time. The director Michael Crum also made LAKE FEAR (2014) and ANNA 2 (2019).

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Crime Drama

 

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AIR PATROL-1962-This is a little murder mystery that seems more like a condensed version of a TV show, a crazy whodunit about the theft of an expensive painting using a helicopter as a getaway car. 

Mona Whitney (Merry Anders) gets conked on the head but is also a suspect because she once hit a cop. Grouchy police Lt. Taylor (Williard Parker; THE EARTH DIES SCREAMING (1964)) and Sgt. Kurnitz (Russ Bender) investigate and call in Sgt. Bill Castle (Robert Dix) from the police air patrol, who also narrates. Murcott (John Holland), the owner of the painting, is mad and having financial troubles. Insurance investigator Howie Franklin (George Eldredge) helps out. A faded actor (Douglas Dumbrille) also figures into the plot. Mona is forced to be the drop off and Castle follows her by chopper. Ray Dannis (THE UNDERTAKER AND HIS PALS (1966)) is a security guard. 

AIR PATROL was directed Maury Dexter, who made THE DAY MARS INVADED EARTH the same year. It's not very interesting but it's short!

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M2

 

 (letterboxd.com)

M-1951-Los Angeles is terrorized by a child murderer (David Wayne). The police are baffled. Things get so bad, innocent people are attacked. Two cops (Howard DeSilva and Steve Brodie) investigate as the mayor (Jim Backus) blows his top. The killing of a councilman's granddaughter stirs things up. Mobster Charlie Marshall (Martin Gabel), who's gang includes Raymond Burr, Walter Burke and Norman Lloyd, hatches a plot with a drunken lawyer Langley (Luther Adler) to find the killer themselves because the cops are too close to their operations. They hire bums and other street denizens to comb the streets while the cops interrogate recently released mental patients (William Schallert plays one of them). The pathetic whistling killer collects kids' shoes and plays the flute. His problems seem to stem from his mother. When the killer gets himself trapped in a warehouse with a little girl, the gang goes in and gets him (a kind of ridiculous scene). 

The finale is an interesting mock trial where Langley turns the tables on Marshall. Not a bad remake of the classic German thriller (from 1931) with solid acting, by Jospeh Losey (THE BOY WITH THE GREEN HAIR (1948)) who was soon after blacklisted and fled to England.

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Cohen Returns

 

 (imdb)

GOD TOLD ME TO-1976-This opens with a sniper on a water tower killing people in NYC. Police officer Peter Nichols (Tony Lo Bianco) tries to take him down but the sniper jumps to his death after saying “God told me to”. Later Nichols visits a guy in the hospital who randomly stabbed a bunch of people. When asked why, he replies “God told me to”. At the St. Patrick's Day parade, a cop (Andy Kaufman) goes crazy and shoots several people. Before getting fatally shot he yells “God told me to”. The religious cop has a hard time coping while investigating and is eventually suspended. People riot when it seems 'God's own hand” is driving the murders. A drug dealer kills a cop and this too is blame on God. Meanwhile a cartel of businessmen worships a “living” God. Actually, a glowing, sexless offspring of an alien (Richard Lynch) and an Earth woman (Sylvia Miles in the present). Later the alien seems to take over Nichols and he makes a pimp kill some other thugs then himself. The alien/God wants a kid of his own but Nichols causes its destruction in the freaked-out finale, ending with Nichols arrested for murder and committed to a mental hospital. Some of the plot also involves Nichols' ex-wife (Sandy Dennis) and his new girlfriend (Deborah Raffin). 

This quirky, even strange, story was the concoction of writer/director Larry Cohen (two years after IT'S ALIVE) and as usual features weird dialogue and characters but some of the scenes seem out of place, not part of the story.

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Change

 

 (imdb)

CHANGE OF MIND-1969-White attorney David Rowe has his brain transplanted into a new body because he has terminal cancer. His new body is that of a black man (Raymond St. Jacques). David retains all the memories and feelings he had before except now he's black which he's OK with (he knew beforehand) as he's just happy and astonished to be alive. It's every one else who has a problem including his wife (Susan Oliver) and his mother. Later David has to defend a racist sheriff (Leslie Nielsen) accused of killing his black mistress.

 This is not a straight science fiction story as only the operation itself lends itself to that. This is basically a morality tale (filmed in Toronto) focusing on a white man who know must now face a new life. This one of only a handful of feature films directed by well-known TV director Robert Stevens.

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Time For a Lecture

 

 (imdb)

DEATH DRUG-1978-Nice guy plumber and aspiring musician Jesse (Phillip Michael Thomas) is accepted by a music conservatory but two record producers convince him to forget that because he's going to be bigger than Donna Summers and The Bee Gees. He has a real meltdown Shatner style, while at a nursing home visiting his father who's rejected him because he wouldn't be a doctor. Later we hear from a TV broadcast that Jesse has hit the big time with his new album ("The kids love it!").

Unfortunately, he starts smoking angel dust and imagines his hairbrush is an alligator! He can't function at work (apparently not big enough yet to quit his day job) so he goes to his pusher to score. His assistant keeps his stash in the handle of his tennis racket. Later he gets very paranoid and attacks his boss and abuses his girlfriend. At a session with The Gap Band, he imagines they are making fun of him and rants at his producers ("Don't Mess With Me!") and winds up losing his contract. When his girlfriend gets pregnant her doctor (Rosalind Cash) takes her on a tour of PCP ward. Later Jesse tries to reform but freaks out in a supermarket and attacks an oncoming truck. Cut to a newscaster who informs us Jesse has been struck and killed by a truck. 

The newscast turns into a drug lecture. Girlfriend has her kid. 5 years later she and son (both dressed in white) visit Jesse's grave where she breaks down and the credits roll. Then Thomas comes back to speak again. 

What a mess! 

And DJ Frankie Crocker plays a drug dealer. Bad everything scare film. Director Oscar Williams also made THE FINAL COMEDOWN (1972) with Bill Dee Williams.

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Steele

 

 (imdb)

THE GHOST-1963-In Scotland 1910, wheelchair bound and sickly, Dr. Hitchcock (Elio Jotta) conducts some weird seances while his younger wife (Barbara Steele; in Fellini's 8 ½ the same year) and his doctor Livingstone (Peter Baldwin) plot his demise. After they kill him, some strange things happen and a key they need to open a safe is entombed with hubby. They get the key but they see hubby several times. Is it his ghost? Everybody dies in this well-made thriller by Riccardo Freda (THE HORRIBLE DR. HITCHCOCK) only hampered by atrocious dubbing.

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Not a Horror Film

 

 (amazon.com)

CHAMBER OF HORRORS (aka THE DOOR WITH 7 LOCKS)-1940-Miss June Lansdowne (Lilli Palmer) receives a key with a mysterious note telling her to go to a nursing home to meet Mr. Silva. She goes and meets him. He appears to be in ill health and talks like he's being held prisoner. He wants to tell her about the door with seven locks and who besides herself possesses the keys to them. But before he can, he's shot dead. She tells a nurse who plays ignorant, and the body disappears. She runs away and gets help from a just resigned police officer (Romilly Lunge). They, along with her annoying friend Glenda (Gina Malo) try solving the mystery of the door of which she has one of the keys to. The trio and lawyer Havelock (David Horne) go the estate of Dr. Minette (Leslie Banks), a guy with a pet monkey and a collection of torture devices. The door with 7 locks is in a tomb on his place. He's actually in league with some others to get the seventh key. 

Old style mystery melodrama directed by Norman Lee, advertised as a horror movie which it isn't. Star Leslie Banks had starred in THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME (1932) and was the lead in the first version of THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934).

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Velvet Vamp

 

 (imdb)

THE VELVET VAMPIRE-1971-Diane LeFanu (Celeste Yarnall; BEAST OF BLOOD (1970)) is a vampire who kills a would-be rapist (Robert Tessier) then sets her sights on a young couple Lee (Michael Blodgett; BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1970)) and Susan (Sherry Miles). They go to Diane's house in the desert. After having a strange abstract dream, Susan is terrorized by a bat when the trio explores an abandoned mine. Then while Diane seduces Lee, Susan is bitten by a snake. Diane saves her. Lee and Diane have sex but the next day he wants to leave. After killing Lee Diane runs to put the bite on Sue but she escapes (in only her bikini) to the city. Diane follows her. Somehow Sue gets some hippies to help her destroy Diane but it doesn't turn out well. 

There's some terrible cliché acting. Director/co-scripter Stephanie Rothman started out working as an associate producer for Roger Corman (one of TVV's producers) on things like QUEEN OF BLOOD and VOYAGE TO THE PREHISTORIC PLANET, later working on the infamous BLOOD BATH (1966). Her husband Charles S. Swartz co-wrote and co-produced THE VELVET VAMPIRE.

 (imdb)

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Rabbit Magic

 

 (imdb)

GET TO KNOW YOUR RABBIT-1972-Crazy counterculture comedy about an executive (Tom Smothers) who quits his high-pressure job to become a tap-dancing magician trained by Mr. Delasandro (Orson Welles). He's hounded by his boss (John Astin) to come back. He goes on the road and is pretty much a success at gin mills and strip joints. He meets a “terrific looking girl” (Katherine Ross) and they have an affair. Later he gets pulled back into the corporate lifestyle but has his way in the end. Allen Garfield, Charles Lane, King and M.Emmett Walsh are also in it. Timothy Carey appears un-billed as a cop.

Director Brian De Palma made this offbeat comedy the same year as SISTERS and two years after HI MOM! His next movie would be PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE IN 1974.

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Out West

 

 (imdb)

CONVICT STAGE-1965-A gunslinger named Latimer (familiar TV actor Harry Lauter) searches for the two outlaws who killed his sister. The US Marshall (Don “Red” Barry who also co-scripted) arrests them. He puts them on a stagecoach to take them to trial along with some other passengers (including the outlaws' mother (Hanna Landy) who wants to help them escape). They hold up in an abandoned town and talk a lot. The rest of the gang closes in.

 Low budget black & white little western that seems like a TV episode but longer. Director Lesley Selander may hold some kind of record for directing the most western movies, though he did step out of the genre to make THE VAMPIRE'S GHOST in 1945.

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