Hash

SINISTER HARVEST-1930-This is an early exploitation short added as a bonus feature on the Alpha Video DVD of MONDO BALORDO. It's suppose to be an examination of drug smuggling in Egypt. It shows how healthy strong Egyptians males become hashish junkies. They are shown in opium dens, smoking then getting caught. Some victims go through cold turkey while others are beggars and outcasts. Some are sent to “the pit”. The narrator's ever bombastic voice mentions that all this could happen in America with the repeal of the 18^th amendment (prohibition)! And just three years later it would be repealed! This version is called SINISTER MENACE (a re-release from 1934) and is presented by Dwain Esper. (MANIAC, MARIHUANA). It's very bleak...

 

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Ma Barker

MA BARKER'S KILLER BROOD-1960-Lurene Tuttle (Mrs. Chambers in PSYCHO the same year) is the infamous lady gangster who raises her kids to be killer/bank robbers after training them to steal from their church's collection plate. She's very mean and calls her oldest son Herman (Don Grady; later in TV's MY THREE SONS) a sissy because he plays the violin (which she smashes). She seems to be so mean and violent because she had to wear homemade “bloomers” when she was young! When her husband protests and lectures her she just laughs at me and throws him out. She plots several heists with her “young-uns” but the sheriff runs them out of town. 

By 1933 she has trained her 4 sons to rob an armored car. Grown up Herman (Donald Spruance) is suppose to kill the guard but loses his nerve and Mom has to run the guard over (twice!) but takes time to slap Herman a few times. Her other “boys” are Doc (Ron Foster), Lloyd (Rex Holman) and Fred (Eric Morris). She sets up a kidnapping for Machine Gun Kelly (Vic Lunden; later The Lobster Man in an episode of VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA). Myrna Dell plays his girlfriend. Ma throws a party where Baby Face Nelson (Robert Kendall) and John Dillinger (Eric Sinclair) show up and son Lloyd and his date (Ginny Barry) sing “Little Joe Carew”. Paul Dubov plays Alvin Karpis, a killer who joins the gang. Tristram Coffin is Ma's second husband a drunk who they force to play Russian roulette (he loses) after he squeals. When the gang kidnaps a banker their trouble starts. Stupidly, Ma hires a sadistic alcoholic doctor (the great character actor Byron Foulger) to change one son's fingerprints and face. When it doesn't work they set him on fire! She's eventually machine gunned by federal agents in Florida where one of the agents compares her to the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood. 

The story ends with scenes from another movie and a narrator quoting The Bible. MA BARKER was directed Bill Karns who one year later made 5 MINUTES TO LIVE with Johnny Cash as a psycho hit man. His other output seemed to be devoted to the 1954 TV version of GANGBUSTERS and it's subsequent movie. 

MB isn't bad as a low budget crime drama but it is nasty and violent for the time. The acting and hateful dialogue Ma spouts is very good. The story is choppy though: the fates of two sons are kind of forgotten about until the narration at the end and two bank robbery scenes are suddenly narrated by Ma as if perhaps originally she was suppose to tell the story. I was also shocked at one point in the final shoot out when it sounds like Ma says “I kill ya, ya fuckers”! But re-listening she actually says “ya butchers”... 

“None left his mark. Each left his stain”, so says the sexist narrator...

Myron Healy has an unbilled role as a bank robber. Music composer Gene Kauer's score was also used later in THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS. 

Like many crime dramas of time (and even now) based on real characters this is fictitious. In fact the real Ma Barker is considered to have only been a willing accomplice to her sons' crimes not the criminal mastermind she has been made out to be. Much of her notorious reputation was probably the work of J. Edgar Hoover to minimize the FBI's actions of shooting an old lady.

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It's A Crazy World!

MONDO BALORDO-1964-(A FOOL'S WORLD)-I really don't care for these MONDO movies but Boris Karloff's serious yet friendly narration really make this whole “real life” movie bearable. 

It begins with Franz Draco, a 27 inch Elvis type impersonator who does back flips, splits and drops his pants while singing. Karloff makes mention (he says Japan where Franz was born is “the land of miniatures”) that the public is more interested in Draco's “dimensions than by his imitations” (while he performs “I Ain't Got Nobody”). Next some scenes from several Italian “strong man” movies are shown which leads to workers who must carry away the debris from these stunts. (of course the “debris” probably weigh nothing). Next up is Paddy Whose, some English guy who has women crowing like birds to stay young while he munches crackers. Then comes a very short scene concerning some Bedouins who sell their women as “call girl Bedouins” to tourists. Then suddenly the action shifts to Las Vegas where at a convention women are judged by their breast sizes. Karloff's monologue at this point doesn't make sense. 

Anyway, we switch to Hong Kong (“with all the temptations of the Orient”) where, we are told a “mixed race” dancer entices an all male audience. Then (we are still in Hong Kong) we see some bondage photos being made. Then some bound women wrestle while smiling businessmen watch and approve. After this zebras fight each other (in Africa) for dominance, a lion feeds on the loser. A white hunter kills an elephant and his “Negro bearers” will eat like kings. The hunter gets the tusks. Another weird segue involves an “arranged” marriage between an 81 year old man and his 24 year old prostitute bride. Then in Barcelona we visit a transvestite party. Later in Munich at a beer hall party, Germans in Lone Ranger masks have sword fights hoping to scar their opponents. Then a visit to a German transvestite nightclub (there are German subtitles when a song is sung). Now we go to a Lesbian club in Hamburg. 

After this at a carnival in “Northern Europe” women wrestle with balloons attached to their bodies. They must pop the balloons to win. Then some real “mondo” moments take place. First, fishermen in Ceylon quickly slaughter turtles (“mild and innocent, symbol of slowness”). Back in Africa soldiers (dispatched by England) hunt natives who are not allowed to hunt animals (although the white hunter is). While on the coast of India we get to witness an exorcism. A witch doctor eats a live chicken (Funny..I thought they didn't eat meat in India...??). Then women and children in Ecuador are shown munching cocoa leaves (“even children learn to use the leaves before they can walk”). Back to Hong Kong we meet prostitutes addicted to cocaine and morphine. Unfortunately for them their pusher is late. Fortunately for the viewer they get to see a scene of said addicts going through an “erotic” withdrawal. Added to this are scenes of opium addicts smoking their pipe. After this a Maharajah in India makes it rain. Back in America Jehovah's Witness's baptize folks into their faith but they also baptize followers in Germany. (Karloff's narration here is a put down) He also talks about the “Archipelago of desolation", The Berlin Wall, smuggling, lottery tickets and a guy who thinks he's the reincarnation of Rudolph Valentino.

 MB is mostly staged and very mundane. Perhaps it would have been a little shocking when first released but by today's standards it's just slightly bizarre. There is found footage of actual events but most of it is taken out of context or just plainly fabricated. The thing that holds it all together and makes it watchable is the presence of King Karloff who's narration is earnest yet has occasional tinges of irony and skepticism.

“It's really a crazy world. Sincerely Boris Karloff”.

The original director of this Italian production was Roberto Bianchi Montero. The American version (presented by AIP) was directed by Albert T. Viola.

Thanks for reading! Sincerely, CavedogRob

  

Quick Review On A Cold Day

SEVENTH MOON-2008-This horror tale from Eduardo Sanchez the co-director of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT is marred by herky-jerky camera work and some scenes that are just too dark to see. 

A Chinese guy named Yul and his American wife Melisa (Amy Smart) are honeymooning in the China countryside when their car breaks down and their driver disappears during "the hungry ghost festival". No one in the small town they come upon wants to help them. With good reason! Weird creatures from hell are after the living! It starts off well but quickly goes down hill due mostly to the weak story line and aforementioned shaky camera and bad lighting. 

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Star Wars, Where Is Thy Sting?

STARSHIP INVASIONS-1977-After some strange looking aliens abduct a farmer (he looks like he could be one of the 3 Stooges) and he has sex with a woman on the ship (not shown!), we are introduced to Prof. Duncan (Robert Vaughn) a serious, easy going UFO investigator. His wife (Helen Shaver) thinks he's becoming obsessed with his research and says that UFOs “are such bizarre things”. Christopher Lee is Captain Ramses, an alien leader from the planet Alpha paving the way for a “massive migration” of this race to invade Earth before his planet's sun explodes. He talks by telepathy, which is a good thing since he looks like if he had to speak the lines he'd break out laughing! 

The group abduct a woman and stick a big needle in her. Later they all wind up dead. Ramses visits “The League of Races”, a group of different space aliens whose headquarters is in The Bermuda Triangle. They even have an intergalactic whore house! Most of the league aliens look like normal humans in funny clothes but some have round bald heads. Ramses and his small crew take over the base and plan on wiping out Earth inhabitants through a beam that makes everyone kill and/or commit suicide. The alien league fights back however and enlists Duncan to help stop Ramses' deadly plan. 

 There's a lot of low budget effects, some unintentionally funny interview segments and a couple of wobbly saucers but the acting is played straight. Some very funny looking robots make an appearance too. It was filmed in Canada by director-writer Edward Hunt who later made THE BRAIN. 

The soundtrack by Gil Melle' (NIGHT GALLERY, KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER, 6 MILLION DOLLAR MAN) is an interesting mix of orchestra pieces and electric piano driven Jazz. 

The same year Lee played an alien in the similar END OF THE WORLD, was in the big budgeted AIRPORT '77 and was on-screen narrator of MEAT CLEAVER MASSACRE. Among other things in 1977, Vaughn was the un-credited voice of the computer in DEMON SEED.

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Why? Why?

CAPTIVITY-2007-Another in the seemingly unending treadmill of torture-horror-bullshit overrated hits like SAW have inspired. Now more than ever I feel the people who churn out crap like this really need psychiatric help. Don't get me started on the audience!

Jennifer (Elisha Cuthbert from HOUSE OF WAX and THE GIRL NEXT DOOR) is a top fashion model who's drugged at bar and kidnapped and imprisoned by a sadistic nut (Pruitt Taylor Vince). Occasionally she's forced to watch films of the killer torturing previous victims (and also of herself being interviewed). Eventually she meets another captive named Gary (Daniel Gillies; John Jameson in SPIDER-MAN 2). They try to escape a couple of times but don't succeed (unfortunately for the audience). The loony kills her dog and subjects her and Gary to a bunch of disturbing mind games (while watching them on video).

 It has to do with two brothers (Oh! What a giveaway!) who were molested by their druggie mother as kids. Things take a real stupid turn when 2 FBI agents show up. 

One of the screenwriters was Larry Cohen who once made good B-type movies (IT'S ALIVE, THE STUFF, Q). Director Roland Jaffe made films like THE KILLING FIELDS and THE MISSION, so like what happened?

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The Last Man

THE LAST MAN ON EARTH-1964-Despite it's low budget drawbacks and some bad dubbing this first version of Richard Matheson's novel “I Am Legend” is pretty good. It inspired George Romero and John Russo on NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. 

In 1965, three years after a mysterious plague turned the world populace into undead vampire like creatures, Dr. Robert Morgan (Vincent Price) is the title character, a scientist who is immune to the disease. He spends his days scouring the city looking for the secret hideout where the creatures are staying and when he finds any stragglers he drives wooden stakes through their hearts. At night he holds up in his house where a gang of the un-dead try to break in while their “leader” (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart; later in SNOW DEVILS) ( a former living friend of the doctor's) intones “Morgan, come out Morgan!”). They have decidedly vampire like weaknesses too. They only came out after sun down, don't like mirrors, garlic or crosses! 

Flashbacks reveal how things started with Morgan a once happy scientist with a wife and small daughter watching while the plague spreads throughout the world killing everyone around him with corpses (some still living) thrown into a huge burning pit. After his daughter is thrown there he vows not to let his wife go the same way and when she dies, he buries her, only to have a visit from her a few nights later! Back in the present Morgan finds a living dog and makes it his pet but the animal has the virus too and he has to “stake it”. Soon after he meets a mysterious woman (Franca Bettoia) named Ruth who suspiciously shows up and is allergic to garlic. It turns out she's a spy from a reorganized society that has found a temporary cure for the virus! But the group views Morgan as a “monster” and a “legend in the city” because many of the “vampires” he killed were actually part of the group. Ruth was dispatched to keep Morgan at bay so the group can come and kill him at night. “Your new society sounds charming”. Couldn't they have just sent a postcard saying: “Please stop”? 

After giving Ruth a transfusion of his own blood and curing her completely Morgan eludes the group (they seem to bring their women and children along on the hunt) for a short time but he's eventually shot and speared in a church after intoning “You're freaks. I'm a man. The last man”.

LMOE was produced by Robert Lippert and  Samuel Arkoff and filmed in Rome Italy (the film is supposed to take place in Los Angeles) and proved a drawback. As Price himself said “if there's one city on the face of the Earth that looks less like LA it's Rome”! Also the climatic chase scene finale is badly directed, very choppy and dark. Morgan somehow out runs his would be killers who are driving trucks and though they are only a few feet beyond him while chasing him up some stairs they never use their guns! 

Still scenes of the deserted streets littered with abandoned cars and corpses are well staged and the whole film has a eerie claustrophobic feel. The original Italian director is Ublado Ragona. The US version is credited to busy TV director Sidney Salkow (who worked with Price the same year on TWICE TOLD TALES). 

Price gives his all to the role evoking lots of sympathy but never going overboard. By today's standards he's probably miscast (so was Will Smith in the 2007 (second) remake) but who else would have starred in THE LAST MAN ON EARTH in 1964?! He made THE TOMB OF LIGEIA and THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH the same year. 

Richard Matheson co-wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym Logan Swanson (he didn't care for the results of the film). He'd co-written THE COMEDY OF TERRORS (which co-starred Price) the year before.

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