Blue Sunshine

BLUE SUNSHINE-1978-People are losing their hair and going crazy! At a small get together a guy sings and dances but it's revealed that he's wearing a wig. He bugs out and runs away but later returns and burns three women to death. Nice guy Jerry Zipkin (Zalman King) is blamed for the murders. He and his girlfriend Alicia (Deborah Winters) investigate. It seems everyone who goes crazy graduated from Stanford in the same year. It all leads to Edward Flemming (Mark Goddard), a former drug dealer now running for office and a type of LSD called "blue sunshine". The weirdest part is when a babysitter (Ann Cooper) freaks out, takes off her wig and tries to kill two kids. It's basically a good story done in by poor direction, a dumb script, bad acting and out of place close-ups of King. The funniest part is when Flemming's bodyguard (Ray Young) goes crazy in a disco and starts throwing everyone around ("There's a bald maniac in there. He's gone bat shit!"). The piss poor ending tries to make it seem like it's based on a real story. Also with Robert Walden as doctor, familiar TV actress Alice Ghostley in one scene, Brion James and pro-wrestler Rock Riddle.

Writer/director Jeff Lieberman had made the worm horror movie SQUIRM in 1976 and later made the TV movie DOCTOR FRANKEN and the hillbilly slasher JUST BEFORE DAWN.

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Just In Time For Mother's Day!

THE BIG CUBE-1969-Stage actress Adriana Roman (Lana Turner) retires from acting to marry rich widower Charles Winthrop (Dan O’Herlihy) whose daughter Lisa (Karin Mossberg) has mixed feelings about it. Her friends are a bunch of psychedelic mod hippies who like to hang out at clubs, say weird things and experiment with acid. Her gold digging boyfriend Johnny (George Chakiris from WEST SIDE STORY) is thrown out of his college for making LSD in his lab. When Dad breaks up a party where a dancer (Pamela Mason) does a striptease Lisa blames her step-mom (who in actuality is her real mom). When Dad gets lost at sea Mom inherits his estate and the right to choose who their daughter should marry. Naturally she sees through Johnny boy and will not give her consent. After sex Johnny convinces Lisa that mom actually killed dear old dad. They spike her pills with LSD and she becomes a paranoid nut who’s colorful “trips” are pretty wild. She's committed to a sanitarium and Lisa marries Johnny. After Lisa realizes Johnny’s a dirt bag she helps Adriana’s manager (Richard Egan) bring her out of her funk by having her star in a play he wrote that relates her trouble! Johnny winds up having a pretty bad acid trip of his own.

Shot in Acapulco by director Tito Davidson.

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Stink-A-Roo

SKIDOO-1968-Otto Preminger directed this all-star stink bomb of a movie that tries to be a satire on the ‘60’s Hippie and drug culture and a comedy. It fails in both departments.

Former hit man Jackie Gleason is recruited by Caesar Romero and Frankie Avalon to assassinate a gangster (Mickey Rooney) turning state’s evidence. While in jail he gets help from Frank Gorshin, Michael Considine and Richard Kiel. He also accidentally ingests LSD and has a weird trip. Groucho Marx (in his last film role) is God, leader of the crime syndicate. George Raft is the captain of the ship he hides out on. Carol Channing is Gleason’s wife who sings. Arnold Stang is his friend who’s killed at the beginning. Also appearing: Peter Lawford, Burgess Meridith, Slim Pickens, Fred Clark, John Phillip Law and Austin Pendelton. Harry Nilsson (who also has a cameo) sings the end credits!

Screenwriter Doran William Cannon later wrote BREWSTER MCCLOUD and a TV adaptation of BRAVE NEW WORLD. Otto made this between BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING and TELL ME THAT YOU LOVE ME, JULIE MOON when his once great career was in a tailspin. He’d played the villain “Mr. Freeze” on an episode of TV’s BATMAN in 1966. I’ve read Preminger took LSD while making this movie. He must have been on something…

Apparently this has not been released on DVD (or VHS). One day it may escape!

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