Blood Bath AKA

 

BLOOD BATH-1966-After it seems like a vampire killed a woman, some beatniks (including Sid Haig & Jonathan Haze) check out Max (Karl Schanzer) the artist's new painting. Then waitress Daisy (Marissa Mathes) has a discussion with ballet dancing Dorean (Linda/Lori Saunders) about a secret meeting she has with a man. 

While looking at some paintings Daisy meets artist Antonio Sordi (William Campbell), who's artist ancestor was burned at the sake after being betrayed by his mistress Melizza. While having a flashback/hallucination, he turns into the vampire and kills Daisy with a meat cleaver. Sordi is also the person Dorean was meeting on the beach. Later at a party, he attacks a woman who falls into a pool. Daisy's sister Donna (Sandra Knight) goes looking for her (Max recognizes her from Sordi's latest painting) but Sordi denies knowing her. She learns about Sordi's ancestor who came back as a vengeful vampire after being burned, eventually being staked. 

Donna sees a connection between the missing women and Sordi. She decides to shadow him but he kills her on a merry go round (while others do nothing). His vampire self terrorizes Dorean but she escapes. Max has a fight with the vampire who seems to fall to his death but his body disappears. Poor Dorean seeks shelter at Sordi's bell tower residence where she discovers a dead corpse (Patrick Magee). Sordi isn't dead and thinks Doreann is Melizza come back to him. Fortunately some of his victims come back to life and throw him in bubbling wax. 

This movie has a crazy history. It started out life as a US-Yugoslavian production called “Operation Titan” for which Roger Corman provided American actors William Campbell and Sid Haig as he planned to distribute it in the US. Corman was unhappy with the resulting film and finally asked Jack Hill to write a new script and shoot new scenes while incorporating some of the original. Hill turned it into a horror film called “Portrait in Terror”. Corman was still unhappy with this new version and hired Stephanie Rothman to shoot more scenes. Unfortunately star William Campbell refused to do anymore re-shoots and an unidentified actor portrays the vampire monster which is why the Sordi character transforms into a totally different monster! Sid Haig's character also grows a beard for his later scenes! New scenes were also shot for a TV version called “Track of The Vampire”. 

There's always a story with Roger Corman!

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Gunn

BLACK GUNN-1972-Gunn (Jim Brown) is the owner of a slick club whose brother Scotty (Herbert Jefferson Jr.) is involved with the Black Action Group, a radical faction run by Seth (Bernie Casey). He also has some stolen mob ledgers. A mob boss (Stephen McNally) puts Russ Capeli (Martin Landau) who fronts as a used car dealer in charge of getting the ledgers back. Psycho thug Krigley (Bruce Glover) and cohort Rico (William Campbell) beat up parking attendant/informer Sam Greene (MLB pitcher Vidal Blue). A congressman Carl Adams (Gary Conway) can't get a table at Gunn's club and his bigoted friend Winman (Keefe Brasselle) starts a fight and gets thrown out. Adams associate Toni (Luciana Paluzzi; THE GREEN SLIME) can't persuade Gunn. After Scotty is killed Gunn wants his killer who turns out to be Krigley. Gunn beats him up. He goes after Capeli but is captured and tortured. Fortunately the BAG Bros come to the rescue. 

The crazed ending features a bloody shootout, a car chase, explosions and Capeli being set on fire. It ends with Gunn being arrested. Deacon Jones plays himself and Timothy Brown is also in it. This all star blaxploitation crime drama by England born Robert Hartford-Davies who before coming to the US had directed CORRUPTION with Peter Cushing. He followed up GUNN with another blaxploitation movie (also made in the US) THE TAKE with Billy Dee Williams.

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Death Row

CELL 2455, DEATH ROW-1955-Little juvenile delinquent Whit Whitter (R. Wright Campbell) grows up to become a full fledged murdering thug (William Campbell; Wright's real older brother) gaining fame as the vicious "red light bandit", pistol whipping men and molesting women at local lover's lanes. The smug and unrepentant Witter is eventually arrested and sentenced to death. He wages a successful effort to win stays of execution on death row. It's based on the then well known book by death row denizen Caryl  Chessman (who was executed in 1960 for similar crimes; at the time he was the longest serving death row inmate) although the character's name is changed (Whittier was Chessman's middle name) and a disclaimer says the whole thing is a work of fiction. 

Less workman like than other outings by the prolific Fred Sears, it is unusual for a film at the time to spotlight such a slimy character in a kind of “justice story”. Today most lead characters in movies are slimy assholes you couldn't give two shits about and they are usually the heroes!

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Late Corman, Early Coppola

DEMENTIA 13-1963-This begins with a husband and wife out in a row boat at night discussing his mother's inheritance. He has a heart attack and dies. She fears that she will be cut out of MIL's will if his death is discovered so she throws his weighted body into the water. After some brief credits, the woman Louise (Luana Anders) packs hubby's suitcase and forges his signature on a note to his mom (Eithne Dunne). Louise is living in an old Irish castle with her two brothers in law. William Campbell is the older brother Richard, an artist who works in metal and is engaged to Kane (Mary Mitchel). Billy (Bart Patton) is the younger bro, shy and weak. They are all haunted by the memory of Kathleen, a sister who drowned when she was a little girl. The woman schemes to make MIL change her will by making the old woman think Kathleen has come back. Her plan doesn't work as she is killed by a mysterious ax murderer who also decapitates an old poacher. Patrick Magee is the weird family doctor who figures it out. 

Producer Roger Corman wanted a low budget PSYCHO rip-off made with money left over form his THE YOUNG RACERS (which had featured Campbell, Anders and Magee). He hired Francis Ford Coppola (only his third film) to write and directed it in Ireland. It's dark and bizarre and the acting is very good. Corman and Coppola clashed over the final cut's running time and Corman added a  "gimmick" prologue (directed by either Jack Hill or Monte Hellman) to pad it out.  So Corman wanted to rip-off Hitchcock and William Castle??

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