January 17 - 23, 2026

 

To answer these trivia questions, please email me at scinema@earthlink.net.

Brain Teasers:

By what name is Lee W. Beaver better known?

George Grimes and Angel Rivera knows it is Carlo Lizzani.

Which Italian film director committed suicide by jumping from the balcony of his home in the Via dei Gracchi in Rome?

George Grimes and Angel Rivera knows it is Carlo Lizzani.

By what name is Susan Scott better known?

George Grimes, Rick Garibaldi and Angel Rivera knows it is Nieves Navarro.

And now for some new brain teasers:

By what name is Sara Bay better known?

By what name is Montgomery Wood better known?

By what name is Montgomery Ford better known?

Name the movies from which these images came.

George Grimes and Rick Garibaldi identified last week's photo of Aldo Sambrell  in 15 FORCHE PER UN ASSASSINO, aka 15 SCAFFOLDS FOR A MURDERER, aka THE DIRTY FIFTEEN.

Above is a new photo.

Can you identify from what movie it came?

Charles Gilbert and Rick Garibaldi identified last week's photo of Nello Pazzafini and Alan Steel in GLI INVINCIBILI TRE, aka THE THREE AVENGERS, aka URSUS AND THE THREE AVENGERS, aka URSUS, SON OF HERCULES AND THE THREE AVENGERS..

Above is a new photo.

Can you name from what movie it came?

George Grimes identified last week's photo of Fabio Testi and Jorge Rivero in MANAOS, aka VIOLENCE IN MANUAS, aka SLAVES FROM PRISON CAMP MANAOS.

Above is a new photo.

Can you name from what movie it came?

No one has identified the above photo yet.

Can you name from what movie it came?

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I am interested in knowing what movies you have watched and what you enjoyed or not. So please send me an email at scinema@earthlink.net if you'd like to share. Here's what I watched last week:

Enjoyed: 

American Experience "Bombshell" (2026) - How did the U.S. government keep the development of the Atomic Bomb a secret for so long? How did the U.S. government get news reporters from revealing any information about what what was going on? How did the U.S. government spread misinformation about the destructive power of radiation for so many years after the bombs fell on Japan? What was the impact of Black American newsmen on getting the real story out?

AVATAR FIRE AND ASH (2025) - While some complain about this installment being too much like AVATAR THE WAY OF WATER, it held my attention for three hours and seventeen minutes. Reportedly, FIRE AND ASH was not intended to be a third film, but part of THE WAY OF WATER. It became a third film because including all of it would have made WAY OF WATER too long. Sometimes I had difficulty identifying one Na'vi from another, but I particularly like the new character played by Sigourney Weaver. As with the STAR WARS movies, I get a bit frustrated that the villains do not die unpleasantly on screen.

Golden Eve (2026) - The Golden Globes honor Helen Mirren & Sarah Jessica Parker. I'm a big fan of Mirren, so a review of her career is always fun. However, it was not mentioned that early in her film career she was noted for her nude scenes. That's how I first became aware of her - walking down a staircase completely naked in director Ken Russell's SAVAGE MESSIAH. They did have a montage of her shooting guns, but no clip from THE TEMPEST. I am not a big fan of Sarah Jessica Parker, and have never made it through an episode of Sex and the City, but her portion of the program gave me a new appreciation of her and her career.

83rd Golden Globes (2026) - I've seen few of the nominated TV and Cinema productions, but host Nikki Glaser helped to keep the show moving along during the three hour broadcast.

Olivia In Concert (1983) - I have never been a fan of Olivia Newton-John, but I loved looking at her. I was a freshman at college when "I Honestly Love You" became a big hit and I couldn't get away from it. She never made the kind of music that I liked. I was in high school when I got the original Broadway soundtrack album for GREASE and I loved it. The original show was about an high school reunion with adults remembering what it was like to be teenagers. When the movie came out the characters were no longer adults looking back. We were supposed to accept that teenagers were singing those songs, and I hated it. And I hated that they added a song by Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees to the soundtrack. The plus thing about XANADU, which I saw in a theater, is that it featured a couple of songs by Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra - which were the first tunes by Newton-John that I liked. Anyway, when Victor Oppenheim fled Los Angeles to Florida around 1984, he dumped his home video collection on me. He was supposed to send me money in order to mail him video tapes, but all he ever asked for were pornographic movies. Recently, I came across his recording of Olivia In Concert, recorded off HBO in 1983. Unlike most of his VHS tapers, it is not recorded at the SLP speed but at SP. The quality is remarkably okay for something fifty years old which is before cable broadcasts went digital. Also before Vic had an HiFi VCR. After not enjoying the more recent live performances I've seen - where all of the women seem to want to be strippers - it was refreshing to see a singer perform without an elaborate stage show or dancers. For the most part, the show just had Olivia in front of a band, headed by Tom Scott, doing her hits. She looked great and was quite charming with her banter with the audience. Of course, she ended the show with "I Honestly Love You".

TO BE OR NOT TO BE (1942) - Carole Lombard is luminous in this Ernst Lubitsch directed thriller/comedy. With Jack Benny as the star, this film is obviously a comedy, but the suspense generated by the World War 2 plot takes it into thriller territory. Only Sig Ruman's portrayal of Gestapo Colonel Ehrhardt smacks of buffoonery. Now I know from where the Looney Tunes running gag of shouting "Schultz" came. Wasn't Robert Stack pretty in his youth?

Mildly enjoyed:

Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates, Jr. "American Dreams" with America Ferrera and Darren Criss, season 12 episode 1.

Nurse Jackie season six (2014)

Did not enjoy:

AVENGING FORCE (1986) - Steve James came to most people's attention as Robert Ginty's black friend who gets hospitalized in director James Glickenhaus's THE EXTERMINATOR. Perhaps the best thing about the three AMERICAN NINJA movies he made is that he survives in all of them. Actor James Booth is the credited screenwriter of AVENGING FORCE, which, reportedly, started out as a sequel to INVASION U.S.A. Chuck Norris turned the project down, so Michael Dudikoff became "Matt Hunter". (Did Norris, who had no problem killing invading communists, object to killing home grown right wing lunatics?) So producers Yoram Gobus and Menahem Golan decide to reteam Dudikoff with James, only, this time, James returns to his position as the black friend who dies in order for the hero to go on a killing spree. It turns out that there is a group in Louisiana called the Pentangle. Four members of that group like to put on dorky masks and hunt men in the swamp in what they call "The Great Hunt". As James is running for the Senate, the Pentangle decide that he, and his family, must die. To lure Dudikoff to be the prey in "The Great Hunt", they kidnap his sister. As usual with a film directed by Sam Firstenberg, the action is poor, with all of the fights looking like professional wrestling bouts. For the ending, the filmmakers suggest that this might be the beginning of a series with Dudikoff vowing to find out who is the fifth member of the Pentangle. Thankfully, a sequel did not appear.

CANDY STRIPE NURSES (1974) UCLA gradutate Allan Holleb was hired by producer Julie Corman to write and direct what turned out to be the last of the "nurses" movies made by New World Pictures, which began with 1970's THE STUDENT NURSES. This effort did not push Holleb forward, and he didn't make a second feature film until 1985 when Roger Corman's Concorde Pictures hired him to make SCHOOL SPIRIT. That seems to be end of his career. CANDY STRIPE NURSES is a very tame sex comedy that does feature the beautiful Candice Rialson, who is better used in HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD. Three different nurse volunteers work out three different storylines. Rialson is tapped to help a rock star get over his impotence, which prevents him from working. Maria Rojo works to prove the innocence of a man falsely accused in a gas statio robbery. Robin Mattson works to help a basketball player who is being drugged. None of this material is compelling, or funny, or erotic, no matter how many shots of topless women are provided.

CHATTERBOX - As beautiful as Candice Rialson is, she isn't enough to put up with this lame brain "comedy" by director Tom DeSimone. After a session in bed with her boyfriend, Rialson starts to hear derisive comments about the boyfriend's performance. She suddenly discovers that her vagina can talk, and the vagina is not happy about how her life is going. The next day, at her job as an hairdresser,  Rialson's vagina makes more derisive comments, and even seduces a female client. Rialson goes to see her doctor for his advice. Once the doctor discovers that the vagina can also sing, he begins to launch her show business career. Billed as "Virginia", the talking and singing vagina is a popular success. It appears that the filmmakers of CHATTERBOX couldn't figure out how to show the vagina performing undraped, so while Railson spends a good portion of the film topless, we never get to see "Virginia". As Rialson is making her motion picture debut, the woman can't handle being bossed around by her virgina any more and plans to jump off a cliff. Standing on the edge, "Virginia" begins to sing "Beautiful Dreamer" accepting that death approaches. However, "Virginia" is suddenly joined in the song by a male voice. Rialson looks over and sees a man also planning to kill himself. We never get to see his "member", but it becomes apparent that he is tired of living with a talking and singing penis. Having found true love, the two race towards each other, until we hear both voices becoming muffled. Director of photography Tak Fujimoto had already worked with Terrence Malick and Jonathan Demme before making CHATTERBOX. It wasn't long before he left low-budget movies behind working not only with Demme, but also John Hughes and M. Night Shyamalan. Rip Taylor and Professor Irwin Corey appear and do not provide any laughs. There is some enjoyment in seeing glimpses of Hollywood Blvd. as it was in 1977. 

THE INVINCIBLE KILLER (1980) - During his years at Shaw Brothers, Wai-Man Chan, aka Michael Wai-Man Chan, proved to be a formidable fighter, usually as a villain. After Shaw Brothers, he starred in various low budget modern day films as an hero. THE INVINCIBLE KILLER has Chan, now with a wife and child, finding it hard to get a straight job after leaving the gangster life. His former boss wants him back, so he frames Chan for a murder. You know that eventually the boss will have Chan's family kidnapped in order to force Chan back into the gang. Meanwhile, there is conflict within the boss' harem. Liu Hui Ru, aka Terry Liu, is the neglected older member of the harem, so she has a liason with bodyguard Hsiung Kao, aka Eddy Ko. The boss finds out and punishes them both. Later, after Chan's family has been kidnapped, another member of the harem feels threatened by the boss' attention to Chan's wife, so she sets out to "fix her". Liu comes to the rescue but gets a fatal stabbing in the process. Even though gravely wounded, Liu races to inform Chan that his family is now safe and that he can now stop the boss' plan for a bank robbery. After the boss shoots Liu dead, Chan battles the boss' small army in every nook and cranny of a warehouse. The highlight is a battle between Chan and Ko, which shows both men as skilled performers. Just as it looks like the boss will shoot Chan dead, the police arrive and arrest all of the bad guys. Chan's family appears to provide the film with an "happily ever after" freeze frame. This is only the second credit on the IMDb for director Shen Liang. Michael Wai-Man Chan went on to make over 100 more movies, usually playing bad guys in the bigger budget films like CHOCOLATE INSPRECTOR and PROJECT A Part 2.

JAWS OF THE DRAGON (1974) - The car belonging to a gang boss is stopped by a man in the street. The boss orders one of his men to kill the man, which he tries to do by throwing a knife into him. The man, now wounded, gets up and kills the driver of the car. Suddenly, a small army of men wearing odd masks surround the car. The boss orders his man to protect the case and the woman. Getting past the men in odd masks, the man takes the case and the woman away. However, when the woman insists on sitting down, she pulls out a secreted knife and kills the man who had been trying to rescue her.And that's how this nonsensical flick begins. James Nam, aka Seok-hoon Nam, is in a nightclub when the woman at another table decides to leave those men to be with Nam. Naturally, this leads to a club destroying fight. Eventually, we get to the main plot, which is a Chinese gang and a Japanese gang are fighting over a shipment of heroin. Even after the two sides seem to reach an agreement and exchange a case filled with drugs for a case filled with money, the gang wants their money back. For the most part, Nam isn't involved in the fighting, but when the guys from one gang decide to rape his girlfriend, he goes ballistic and bodies start piling up - after a lot of huffing and puffing and kicking and punching. I suppose writer Ai-Wei Chen and director/star Nam expect us to be moved to tears by the ending, but I wasn't.

GIRLS FOR RENT, aka FATAL PURSUIT, aka I SPIT ON YOUR CORPSE (1974) - Obviously producer Samuel M. Sherman and director Al Adamson had difficulty deciding how to market this wannabe action flick. The attempt to ride the success of DAY OF THE WOMAN, aka I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, is pretty limp and so is the action provided here. Susie Ewing-McIver is a prostitute who is given a sedative for a client who is a politician. It turns out that it wasn't a sedative, but poison. McIver freaks out and tries to getaway. Georgina Spelvin and Rosalind Miles are sent to kill her. The murderous duo get to every stop that McIver makes and kills all potential witnesses. At one point, a farmer picks up McIver and promises to shelter her at his farm. However, it turns out that he wants her to introduce his backward son into the pleasures of the flesh. The son isn't so keen on the idea, and McIver runs away again. The murderous duo arrive at the farm and Spelvin takes an interest in the virgin man. She rapes him and then shoots him in the head at the point of climax. Needless to say, she also soon shoots the father. McIver soon meets Preston Pierce, who is camping in the mountains. He agrees to try and help her. They are soon found driving on the road by the villains. This leads to a shoot-out in the mountains, when Pierce jumps and kills Miles and gets her gun. Spelvin chases down McIver and kills her. Spelvin is soon joined by one of her bosses and drives away. Pierce, with Miles' gun, commandeers the dune buggy of an innocent bystander in order to chase down and kill the bad guys. The screenplay is credited to John D'Amato, but I don't think there's any relation to Aristide Massaccessi, aka Joe D'Amato.

THE GREAT TEXAS DYNAMITE CHASE (1976) - The film opens with Claudia Jennings running down a hill wearing a smock. I guess that the smock is supposed to suggest a prison uniform. She meets up with her sister Tara Strohmeier who has a car and a change of clothing waiting. How are they going to save the family farm from foreclosure? Jennings decides to rob a bank using dynamite. It just happens to be a bank where Jocelyn Jones has just been fired. Meeting up on the road, Jones decides that she wants to team up with Jennings - and it isn't just because the two look like twins. Needless to say, the cops in Texas don't take kindly to this sort of thing, and they are a trigger happy bunch. Along the way, the duo take Johnny Crawford (of TV's The Rifleman) hostage, and they soon become an happy threesome. There is a goodly amount of topless female nudity here, but, as previously suggested, it is hard to tell which naked woman is which. After an unarmed Crawford is shotgunned to death by the cops, the duo pull one last bank job. It turns out to be a trap, but, eventually, the two women escape on horseback. End titles report that both women became very successful business women. This feature provided director Michael Pressman with an entry into the movie business which he was able to exploit to have a successful career. After a few more movies, Joceyln Jones settled into becoming a respected acting coach and wrote ARTIST: AWAKENING THE SPIRIT WITHIN.

GRUESOME TWOSOME (1967) - Perhaps in a bid to be called surrealist, director Herschell Gordon Lewis begins this movie with two styrofoam heads with wigs and paper faces talk to each other. Soon we will learn the lesson that young women should not try to rent a room next to a shop selling wigs made of 100% human hair. Old lady Elizabeth Davis owns the wig shop, and when the potential renter asks to see the room, the renter is sent behind a locked door. Behind the locked door is Davis' crazy son, Chris Martell, who harvests the 100% human hair. Oddly, Martell kills each victim with a different technique. At first, he scalps the woman alive. The second victim has her head sawed off at the neck. The third woman is gutted. A rule-of-thumb regarding gory effects is not to linger too long or the phoniness of the effect will become apparent. Lewis and his editor George Regas obviously don't abide by that rule. I don't know if they think that holding the shot will sicken the audience, but it has the effect of exposing just how poorly executed the gore is. At least it gives the audience some relief from the awful dialog the poor actors are speaking, credited to Louise Downe. At a certain point, the film seems like a Nancy Drew mystery, with Gretchen Wells setting out to solve what is happening to her classmates. Luckily boyfriend Rodney Bedell shows up with the cops in the nick of time. I've never seen an H.G. Lewis movie that I liked, but at least BLOOD FEAST and 10,000 MANIACS had some campy lines worth repeating.

THE LITTLE HERO OF SHAOLIN TEMPLE (1984) - The last remaining Ming Prince has a red mole on the sole of his foot. He is hidden by the monks in the Shaolin Temple. Orders from the new Ching Emperor arrive granting the senior monks of the Temple the right to have a pilgrimage. They leave all of the children monks with one adult abbot to guard the Temple. Of course, this is a ruse by an evil Ching Princess to have free reign to murder the supposedly hiding Ming Prince. In the night, a number of boys are murdered. The assassins gather to claim they have killed the Prince because all of the dead had red moles on their feet. Obviously, the Temple prepared for the coming attack by having many decoys made. When the adult abbot is mortally wounded by an assassin, he gives over the role of abbot to the most promising boy, who rallies the others to resist. There are many battles between the boys and the villains, with the villains all using deadly weapons. We never get a real idea of how many boys are at the Temple, but there must be many because they suffer heavy casualties. At one point, the boys all retreat "to the mountain" where a terracotta jar is punctured and out pops a mysterious monk who is not afraid of killing bad guys. Meanwhile, the boys undergo new training "in the mountain". The next day, the mysterious monk has become a skeleton and the boys are ready to fight back in amazing acrobatic formations. The Princess is encouraged to bring out "the Japanese contingent", who turn out to be Ninjas. More boys are killed. In the morning, the young abbot has strapped dynamite around his waist, with the idea that he will give himself up and take out as many enemy as possible. This inspires other boys to take the dynamite from the abbot, grab on to a Ninja as a "suicide bomber". After all of the Ninjas have been blown up, the Princess tries to flee, but the boys capture her. The Princess' brother hears of this and brings his army to the Temple with the idea of killing everyone inside. The young abbot puts a sword to the Princess' neck in defiance. Finally, all of the adult monks return to the Temple and inform the villains that the Prince they seek was spirited away during the pilgrimage and it no longer at the Temple. He makes the Prince agree to a deal in which he will get the Emperor to order "hands off" for Shaolin in exchange for the release of his sister. Taiwanese director Cheng-Ta Tang is also credited as the writer of this movie, which seems to have been inspired by the knowledge that there was an amazing troup of child acrobats which could be used. 

MIJN NACHTEN MET SUSAN, OLGA, ALBERT, JULIE, PIET & SANDRA, aka MY NIGHTS WITH SUSAN, OLGA, ALBERT, JULIE, PIET & SANDRA (1975) - Finding a Dutch movie on the Private Screenings label, one would expect a standard soft-core sex movie. Well, this isn't that. In fact, even though the film starts with two young women inducing the male driver of a car to stop for them on the road, there is no female flesh on display, even as the man has sex with one woman. The other woman soon kills the man by bashing him over the head. The first skin on display is Hans van der Gragt as a newly arrived man on a motorcycle, who takes a shower. Van der Gragt takes a liking to Willeke van Ammelrooy, who owns a farm house. Van Ammelrooy offers an home for lost people, not knowing that Franulka Heyermans and Marja de Heer are murderers. Marieke van Leeuwen seems to sleep all the time, until she sneaks into the wall where Serge-Henri Valcke is living. Nelly Frijda is a nearly feral woman living in a shack nearby. When Frijga finds the body of the murdered man, she drags him to her shack where she cares for him as if he was alive. When they see der Gragt and van Ammelrooy becoming cozy, Heyermans and de Heer set their sights on seducing him and then killing him. Not surprising, this all ends with violence and death, but not in the ways I was expecting. Back in 1969, director Pim de la Parra had American student filmmaker Martin Scorsese work on a script which became the movie OBSESSIONS with Alexandra Stewart. In 1973, de la Parra made FRANK & EVA starring Willeke van Ammelrooy with Sylvia Kristel in her first feature film. Aside from being purposely weird, I have no clue as to why MIJN NACHTEN MET SUSAN, OLGA, ALBERT, JULIE, PIET & SANDRA is the way it is.

SAVAGE STREETS (1984) - Asshole teenage tough-girl Linda Blair goes out for a walk on Hollywood Blvd. at night, with her girlfriends, and takes her younger sister Linnea Quigley along. Quigley is a deaf mute, and is dressed more conservatively than the others. Asshole teenage psycho Robert Dryer is cruising on the Blvd. with his friends Sal Landi, Johnny Venocur and Scott Mayer. After Dryer and Blair exchange insults, the girls steal Dryer's car. Obviously, Dryer is going to want payback, and when he finds Quigley alone in the high school gym while her sister is having a cat fight in the girl's shower, he sees his opportunity. Since Landi is still a virgin, the guys force him to be the first to rape Quigley, Before the others can all take their turn, they are interupted and Dryer kicks Quigley in the head. No one has any idea who is responsible. Later on, Blair's pregnant friend Lisa Freeman is walking home with her newly purchased wedding dress, when Dryer and the boys chase her in their car. Dryer lifts her over his head and throws her off of a traffic bridge. Landi is so upset over the thought that Quigley might die, that he goes to her hospital bedside to apologize. Blair walks in on him and she begins to get an idea of who is responsible. Later, she gets Landi to tell her where to find Dryer. She then goes to the Supply Sergeant on Hollywood Blvd. to buy a crossbow. Dryer drops Venocur and Mayer at their hideout, while he goes off to run over Landi who is trying to leave town. After a long game of cat and mouse, Blair kills Venocur and Mayer. When Dryer arrives, he finds his two dead friends and Blair puts an arrow into each of his legs. Dryer has a gun and wastes all of his bullets by firing wildly. Instead of killing Dryer, Blair sets up a situation where by Dryer steps into a rope trap and is hanging upside down. Not wanting Blair to kill him in cold blood, the filmmakers then contrive to have Dryer clobber Blair so that she will become the hunted. After a long chase in a dark warehouse, Dryer is finally killed just as police arrive. The film ends with the surviving girls, including what seems to be a completely recovered Quigley visiting Freeman's grave. No mention is made that a police investigation should have proved that Blair is guilty of murder - of at least Venocur and Mayer. Instead, the girls tell Blair that she "made things right". For me the best thing about SAVAGE STREETS is that it is a record of what Hollywood Blvd. looked like in 1984. Not surprisingly, the film editor fractures the geography of the street, and if you watch carefully you'll notice that the characters keep going back and forth on the same block that has the old PussyCat Theater, the Supply Sergeant, and that record store of which I can't remember the name. Was it a Peaches?

TWO WONDROUS TIGERS (1979) - Shan Chin, aka Kum San, receives a bridal palanquin. However, when the flap is pulled away, the bride is tied and gagged - evidence that she has been kidnapped. When male members of her family show up to rescue her, Chin sends henchman Wilson Tong Wai Shing to take care of them. Later, Phillip Ko Fei is walking home when he finds a body near the road. He awakens John Chang, aka John Cheung, aka Wu-Lang Chang, aka John Cheung Ng-Long, who immediately wants to fight because he was having a nice dream about getting married. The two spend most of the movie competiting with each other until they find Chin's son trying to force sisters Pan Pan Yeung, aka Yang Pan Pan, and Mung Kwun Ha, aka Meng Chiu, to marry him. Ko and Chang fly into action, while the sisters struggle out of their bounds and join in the fray. Along with their brother, Tiger Young, aka Tiger Yang, the sisters let it be known that if no man can beat them at kung fu, no man will ever marry them. Chin's son then announces a reward - money and marriage - to whomever can defeat the sisters and their brother. After many fighters try and lose, Ko and Chang decide to give it a try. The two defeat Tiger and Mung, so Pan Pan fights alone. When it looks like a stalemate, Pan Pan allows Chang to win, so Ko leaves. When Chang goes to collect the money from Chin's son, he is forced to fight Wilson. With the help of two benches, Chang beats Wilson. He is then told by Chin's son that it doesn't matter as Chin has already set out to get Pan Pan. Chang meets Chin on the road, and finds Pan Pan tied up and gagged in a palanquin. Chang battles Chin while Pan Pan struggles out of her bounds. Oddly, all of Chin's minions have vanished before Pan Pan joins Chang in defeating the villain. On their wedding night, Pan Pan teases Chang that she let him win over Ko. The two then spar until Chang says that he can go to bed alone. The film freeze on the image of Pan Pan jumping into the bed to join him. According to the IMDb, this is director Sum Cheung's 32nd feature film. He knows how to balance action with comedy and with skilled performers like Ko and Chang, the results are good. When Ko and Chang first face off, Ko does a remarkable Bruce Lee imitation, while Chang does a pretty good Jackie Chan bit. Unfortunately, the plot isn't compelling.

WHEN NATURE CALLS (1985) - As the brother of the head of Troma Films head Lloyd Kaufman, Charles Kaufman tried his hand at moviemaking. After writing SQUEEZE PLAY, he directed the notorious MOTHER'S DAY. For WHEN NATURE CALLS, the billing was "A Charles Kaufman Comedy". The film opens with a series of phony trailers that are lightly amusing: BABY BULLETS, about an infant that becomes a gangland terror, RAGING BULLSHIT, a Martin Snoreasy Production and GENA'S STORY with Gates McFadden (a couple of years before Star Trek: The Next Generation) doing a spoof of Jill Clayburgh in AN UNMARRIED WOMAN. "Watergate celebrity" G. Gordon Liddy appears in a public service spot. The feature film is THE OUTDOORSTERS about a family of four that decide to leave the city to live in the wilderness. This is where the movie becomes a bit of a drag, until you recognize that the native of the Kay-O-Pectate tribe is David Strathairm, three years after he appeared in RETURN OF THE SECAUCUS SEVEN and one year after he appeared in THE BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET. When Strathairm explains that the native word for Corn is "Maze", Willie Mays steps out of the corn field for a cameo. That gives you an idea of the level of humor in the movie. Reportedly, Kaufman was only interested in making movies for the money, and when his work at Troma turned out to not pay well, he moved on to TV work.

THE YOUNG GRADUATES (1971) - The second of three films directed by Robert Anderson, THE YOUNG GRADUATES is a fairly tame entry into the high school hijinxs film. About 30 minutes into the film some young women go skinny dipping in a river. About ten minutes later, three young lovelies take showers after gym class. Without showing much skin, high school senior Patricia Wymer seduces married teacher Steven Stewart, who is said to be on the outs with his wife. Wymer begins to "freak out" while waiting for the results of "the Rabbit Test", so she decides to go to Big Sur with Jennifer Ritt. Fearing what might happen to two young women hitchhiking, Stewart sets out to find them with high school students Bruno Kirby and Dennis Christopher. Wymer and Ritt have a variety of dangerous adventures, including almost being raped by a "biker" gang, but they reach Big Sur and join a large Pot Party on the beach. The Pot Party gets busted by the police. Stewart, Kirby and Christopher are waiting at the police station for the wayward girls to be brought in. The seniors finally graduate and attend a last dance at the school. Since the rabbit lived, Wymer is quite happy to find a new dance partner, as a theme song reporting that "Young love is like shallow water" is heard over the finale.

                                                        

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David Deal Enjoyed:

TIP NOT INCLUDED (66) - Refer to The Eurospy Guide for a complete review of this Jerry Cotton entry.

WESTBOUND (59)

THE FULLER REPORT (67) - Refer to The Eurospy Guide for a complete review of this fave Ken Clark entry.

GOLIATH AND THE SINS OF BABYLON (64)

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER (25)

CHARLIE CHAN AT THE OPERA (36)

KILL, PANTHER, KILL (67) - Refer to The Eurospy Guide for a complete review of this fave Kommissar X entry.

THE FACE OF FU MANCHU (65)

Mildly enjoyed:

ZABRISKIE POINT (70) - A young man who may be involved in the killing of a cop goes on the lam, stealing a plane and heading out to Death Valley. There, he meets up with a young woman who is as disillusioned about life as he is. As quickly as they meet they are separated, each to their own destiny. Michelangelo Antonioni's counterculture fable bears some of the filmmaker's trademark insight, but, to me anyway, it is so much a product of its time that it doesn't have the transcendence of some of his other works. Part of the wonder of much of his oeuvre is a timeless feel, like the reflection of an eternal moment. This did not ring that true for me.

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Angel Rivera Enjoyed:

"ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER" (2025)
A welcome fantasy adventure thriller, it stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro, among others. The plot is a little convoluted but can still be understood. Well worth the price of admission.

"DOC SAVAGE: THE MAN OF BRONZE" (1975)
Back in high school while sitting in a boring science class which I found easy, I borrowed and read a classmate's copy of a Doc Savage novel and enjoyed it. Later I picked up the Marvel Comics comic book magazine of Doc Savage which announced a Doc Savage movie was being made and would be released soon. Saw the film in the movies and enjoyed it: not knowing it had failed at the box office. Fast forward to one afternoon when I saw it was listed to air on one of the premium no commercial channels. Caught and enjoyed it all over again While still a slightly flawed piece of film work, it is  still entertaining. Ron Ely who had previously played Tarzan in a TV series was well suited to play this pulp superhero and makes the film worthwhile. Still worth a viewing even with its flaws.

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Charles Gilbert watched: 

The Veil (1958) B&W. Antholgy series similar to Thriller and hosted by Boris Karloff who acts in all but one episode:

"Vision of Crime" Episode 1. A sailor gets a vision while out to sea of his brother being murdered. Upon returning to shore to his wife he discovers she did it for the life insurance the two men had. Patrick McNee plays a constable.

"The Girl on the Road" Episode 2. Todd Andrews stops his car on the road to help Eve Brent in her red sports car that ran out of gas. Turns out she died in a crash off the clift nearby, and he was visited by her ghost.

"Food on the Table" Episode 3. Sailing captain Boris Karloff schemes the poisoning of his wife when he discovers a paramour has come into some money.

"The Doctors" Episode 4. The parents of a sickly child prefer the care of an elder physician to that of his son, who is also a doctor.

"The Crystal Ball" Episode 5.  Booth Coleman can see the romantic indiscretion of his friend's lecherous wife in a crystal ball she gave him.

"Genesis" Episode 6. Brothers dispute their father's will in the local court where Morris Ankrum presides as judge, and Boris Karloff and Thomas Browne Henry are the attorneys each for the young men.

"Destination Nightmare" Episode 7. While flying with his older brother in their father's freighter plane Pete (Ron Hagerthy) sees an apparition through the cockpit windshield of his father's old war buddy (Roy Engel)

"SUMMER HEAT" Episode 8. A man witnesses a murder through his window in a city sweltering from the heat of summer.

"The Return of Madame Vernoy" Episode 9. A young woman returning to India claims to be the mother of handsome young man named Krishna (George Hamilton), but they're the same age. Must be reincarnation.

"Jack the Ripper" Episode 10. Nial MacGinnis plays a clairvoyant who foresees the murders commited by the notorious Jack the Ripper.

"Whatever Happened to Peggy" Episode 11. Whit Bissell as a doctor cares for a disturbed Denise Alexander, suggesting she live with her uncle Boris Karloff a while for treatment.

LOVE IS FOREVER (1983) In Michael Landon's best film he plays Australian photographer/journalist John Everingham who is accused by the communist Laotian government in 1977 of being a spy. The dastardly leader (Jurgen Procnow) of the Russian occupation forces in Laos, in this true story, becomes jealous of the love between John and a local medical student Keo Sirisomphone played by Laura Gemser, credited as Moira Chen. Everingham is exiled to Thailand alone, and immediately plans to get Keo out of Laos, too. That means across the Mekong River furtively at the bottom of its murky depths where a dead horse and human float. It's misleading on the posters for this film to show Landon and Priscilla Presley juxtaposed as if she is his love interest. In fact I read that in film production he was rather disrespectful to her. Laura Branigan sings the title song.

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