Satire In Wolf's Clothing

 

 (imdb)

WEREWOLF OF WASHINGTON-1973-Reporter Jack Whittier (Dean Stockwell) is having an affair with Marion (Jane House), the president's daughter. He wants to break it off, so he asks his paper to transfer him to Budapest. He has a car accident and while looking for his girlfriend Giselle (Katalin Kallay), kills a wolf and is wounded in the process. It turns out he killed a gypsy woman's son, a werewolf (sound familiar?). Whittier doesn't believe the gypsy (Despo Diamantidou) when she says he will become a werewolf. He thinks it's a government plot. A police bureaucrat (Thayer David) makes them leave. Back in the US, the president hires him as press secretary. Whittier becomes a werewolf when the moon is full. His first victim is the talkative Mrs. Captree (Nancy Andrews). Then he kills a newspaper publisher. 

Michael Dunn is wasted as a mad scientist named Dr. Kiss.

It's supposed to be a horror comedy/political satire but it's not very funny. Writer-director Milton Moses Ginsberg made COMING APART with Rip Torn in 1969 but after WEREWOLF he only made a few short films

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Cameron, Cuba, Cahn

 

 (imdb)

PIER 5 HAVANA-1959-Steve Daggert (Cameron Mitchell; in FACE OF FIRE the same year) goes to Cuba (but this was filmed in LA) soon after Castro takes over, looking for his alcoholic friend Miller (Logan Field; a TV actor). Right away the chief of police (Michael Granger) has him picked up and they meet Mrs. Miller (Allison Hayes; ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN the year before) who separated from Miller before he disappeared. She's a singer in a club and has a rich boyfriend Fernando (Eduardo Noriega). Later a guy named Schluss (Otto Waldis) wants to get rid of Daggert. It seems Miller's disappearance may be tied to a plan by Schluss and his boss Lopez (Nestor Paiva) to put Battista back in power. Miller is presumed dead but shows up later to warn Daggett that Battista's supporters plan to bomb Havana! 

Ok political espionage with good acting from the leads in a low budget production by director Edward L. Cahn who made INVISIBLE INVADERS and THE FOUR SKULLS OF JONATHAN DRAKE the same year. Co-producer/co-scripter Robert Kent worked on most of Cahn's '50's output.

 Mitchel, Granger, Hayes, Paiva and Waldis had all worked with Cahn before.

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Senator Billy Jack

BILLY JACK GOES TO WASHINGTON-1977-In this whack job of a movie Billy Jack (Tom Laughlin) is given full pardon by a governor (Dick Gautier) and made a state senator after the incumbent (Kent Smith in his last role) dies. It's really just a phony ploy by a powerful industrialist (Sam Wanamaker) but of course it backfires and Senator Jack with the help of his wife (Laughlin's real life wife Delores Taylor) wants to build a children's camp on land designated for a nuclear power plant. Later Billy is framed by senator Paine (EG Marshall). He almost gives up but the words of Thomas Jefferson and a walk around DC change his mind. He creates a filibuster in Congress and almost dies. Later Paine admits he's a corrupt bastard and Jack and his unreal world live happily ever after. Since this movie is a mess the vice president of the US (Pat O'Brien) does a lot of narration. 

Director,/co-writer/co-producer/star Laughlin blamed the failure of the film on a government conspiracy. Another sequel THE RETURN OF BILLY JACK began filming in 1986 but was never finished.

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Cuban Rebel Flynn

ASSAULT OF THE REBEL GIRLS-1959-Usually referred to as CUBAN REBEL GIRLS, this is Errol Flynn's last role. In it he plays himself on assignment for The Hearst newspapers in Havana to interview Fidel Castro. Most of this pro-Castro propaganda is only narrated by Flynn. The main story concerns "the Cuban rebel girls", two young ladies (usually referred to as little girls) Jacqueline (Jackie Jackler), a Cuban  and Beverley (Beverley Aadland), an American who's boyfriend Johnny is in Cuba helping Fidel overthrown the Batista government. Secret police chase Flynn's contact Maria (Maria Edmund) when she tries to recruit some locals and Flynn's narration explains the goings-on and the terror the rebels feel while characters walk, run and deal arms with only a minimal of scenes with synchronized dialogue at first. Later as the story progresses there's synchronized scenes but it can't over come the the bad acting, shoddy direction and marginal budget. Flynn meets Beverley ("Haven't I seen you someplace before? On TV or somewhere?") and Castro takes over and the world lives happily ever after.

ASSAULT is  crummy piece of work and really shows how the once great Hollywood actor Flynn had fallen. Despite good roles the previous year in TOO MUCH, TOO SOON and THE ROOTS OF HEAVEN wild living and problems with the IRS had taken their toll on him. Although usual credits list him as the screenwriter, the film's credits just say from a story by Errol Flynn. He died of a heart attack in October of '59 before the movie was released.

This messy docu-drama was put together by Flynn's manager producer/director Barry Mahon who although born in California had served with distinction in the Royal Air Force during WW2. It's said the Steve McQueen character in THE GREAT ESCAPE is based in part on him! In ASSAULT he doesn't show much but later in the '60's Mahon became a  prolific and highly successful exploitation filmmaker (BUNNY YEAGER'S NUDE CAMERA, THE BEAST THAT KILLED WOMEN, NUDE A GO-GO).

The role of Beverley was played by Beverley Aadland who happened to be Flynn's 17 year old girlfriend! Though she had made un-credited roles in other movies before this, ASSAULT  was her last movie.

Most of the other actors had no other film credits but John McKay who plays Johnny was later in two other Mahon productions, THE DEAD ONE and ROCKET ATTACK USA.

The assistant director on ASSAULT  was Allen Baron (he also has a small role) and the director of photography was Merrill S. Brody. They would team up in 1961 to make the low budget film noir classic THE BLAST OF SILENCE.

"When you become a rebel you give up a lot of of things that make a feminine life easier".

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