Reap This Righteous Rift

 

 

 (wikipedia)

REET, PETITE AND GONE-1947-Bandleader Louis Jarvis (the great Louis Jordan) goes to visit his dying father but is too late. In the old man's will, Louis inherits everything if he marries a woman dad describes in the will. Oddly the woman described matches their crooked lawyer's (Lorenzo Tucker) secretary. Louis and his manager Sam (Milton Woods) advertise for the leading woman in their new play who must match the description for Louis' wife. Despite the thin plot, this is really a showcase for the real Jordan to show off his talent doing the title song, “The Green Grass Grows All Around”, “Ain't That Just Like A Woman” and more. 

Director William Forest Crouch directed many musical shorts featuring Jordan, The Jubalaires, Nat “King” Cole and others.

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Before Craven's Nightmare

SWAMP THING-1982-This adaptation of the DC comics character takes place in “the unexplored reaches of an un-mapped swamp”. Adrienne Barbeau (who was in a segment of George Romero’s CREEPSHOW the same year) is Cable some kind of government liaison assigned to the secret lab of Dr. Alec Holland (Ray Wise) who’s experiments involve recombinant DNA and making plants more aggressive. Unfortunately a thought to be deceased evil genius Arcane (over acting Louis Jordan) is alive and takes over the compound. Holland is accidentally doused with is own rejuvenation formula and goes up in flames. He’s reborn however as a big green galoot (Dick Durock) who’s very strong, impervious to bullets and can bring people back to life! Cable escapes into the swamp and gets help from a young black kid named Jude (Reggie Batts).

While it’s certainly no classic SWAMP THING is ok especially for a comic book adaptation. Most of the SFX are pretty cheesy. The monster Arcane turns into at the end for the final battle is horrible and many of the scenes seem all to deliberately to be spotlighting Barbeau’s breasts but it is cool to see Nicolas Worth and David Hess (as Arcane’s lead henchmen) have decent speaking roles!

Writer/director Wes Craven was still 2 years away from NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and he still had his roots planted in low budget exploitation.

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