So after the movie MANDINGO and the T.V. mini-series ROOTS were big deals a handful of these "African slavery was really really bad!" films appeared to cash in. This one might be the most obscure which is a little odd because it has a pretty famous cast including Ray Milland as an evil Arab slave-trader, Cameron Mitchell as one of his cohorts and Britt Ekland as a sexy Swedish lady and the love interest of pretty much everyone she meets which is understandable. There's some fairly shocking stuff for the time including a newborn black baby being stomped to death, slaves in a pond being used for target practice and generally being treated like subhuman garbage. Overall this was pretty well done for what's basically just a big epic Eurotrash(it was made in Germany) exploitation flick and is pretty watchable Saturday afternoon viewing if you don't mind the downer vibe.
Probably the weirdest bit of trivia about this film is that it was allegedly released on VHS in France as MAFIA COP?? That's just bananas!!
So rumour has it that this was directed by Jess Franco under the pseudonym A.W. Steeve. Apparently the truth is Steeve is actually a French director named Alain Deruelle who worked with Franco at times(co-directed JAILHOUSE WARDRESS from 1979) so this thing plays like a sub-par Franco cannibal flick if such a thing is imaginable. The plot deals with a couple of knuckleheaded thieves who decide to kidnap a little girl and hold her for ransom. Things eventually get too hot so they flee to a safehouse that just so happens to be located right next to cannibal country(which in this case seems to be in the countryside of Spain?). There's a rape scene, gratuitous bathtub nudity and one big gross-out gut-munching moment but for the most part these cannibals are just used as background characters. Also these might be the most European-looking cannibals ever used on screen with some of them barely having a tan and just some paint on their faces making them resemble Toucans for some reason. As far as cannibal flicks go this isn't a very good example of one but it has peaked my interest in Deruelle's filmography since I don't think I've seen any of his other films and with titles like RAGE PORNO I'm not sure I can just pass those up.
OK, so this Italian giallo, which actually plays more like an 80s American slasher movie for a lot of it's runtime, might have one of the stupidest scenes I've seen in a long time. A lady is being threatened by our midnight slasher with a large knife and she fights him off with an electric egg beater. Now I will grant the movie that they look like they had some sharp attachments on the end of them but they were still basically just a couple of rotating whisks. To put an appropriately dumb exclamation point on this scene after she inevitably pulls the cord out of the wall she just gives up and turns her back to this knife-wielding maniac I guess in hopes that he will magically change his bloodthirsty mind. Not director Lamberto Bava's best work but if you just want to see something very simple and bloody that gets a bit repetitive before it's all over and throws in an absurd ending then give it a look if you can find it. AKA YOU'LL DIE AT MIDNIGHT and MIDNIGHT KILLER
I guess this movie has at least one fan since someone went through the trouble of making a music video for it:
Most of this French thriller starring Alain Delon is a pretty dull affair but there is one crazy car chase scene so that's something. The story has to do with Mr. Delon getting involved with some mobsters after helping a guy who he thinks was in a car crash but was actually executed. Delon was way better back in the stylish 60s artsy films he is more well known for and French cinema in general was better. In addition to the car chase and a few gunfights leading lady Dalila DiLazzaro, who I recognized from a few giallos and other Italian horror flicks, is nice enough to get nekked for the viewers still I wouldn't really recommend this one to anyone.
If you ever wanted to see how amazingly fit Charles Bronson was in his prime this would be a good place to discover that. When I say "in his prime" that's not exactly accurate since he was a little over 50 years old at this point but I can't imagine how he coulda been in any better shape at any point. This is the film where Bronson plays a half-breed American Indian, named Chato, who is on the run from a posse, lead by Jack Palance, seeking revenge for the killing of a white-man that Bronson made in self-defense. For a lot of the movie Bronson stays unseen and Palance is really our main focus portraying a Civil War veteran who leads our justice-seeking band of fairly racist pale-skins. Papa Walton(Ralph Waite) is another memorable member and a real jerk here. There's rape(offscreen), a scalping, a cooked dog and some other exceptionally violent bits that I would imagine could never be acceptable in any PG-rated movies for the last 40 years. A great cast and top-notch acting put this one towards the top of the western and Bronson heap for me.
Director Michael Winner would work a whole bunch more with Bronson after this. Most importantly on the first 3 DEATH WISH films.
Weird-ass double-feature paired up with this comedy/drama from a few years earlier:
The idea of a cult of naked, hump-crazy hippies that worship Laura Gemser as a divine goddess seems like something I must have dreamed a few times in the past. Little did I know there was an actual film which put my dreams down for posterity. The plot here, what little of it there actually is, is obviously a take-off on the whole Jim Jones Jonestown massacre but with a way sexier outcome. There's a lot of things to love about this one besides just worshipping the Black Emanuelle though including Tanga, Gemser's constantly flexing-for-the-camera henchman who dispatches of those who dare leave this cult of love and mandatory orgies, a bunch of clunky 80s disco, a blonde head hippie fellow(Christian Anders, also the film's director!) who prances around like a stoned John Philip Law and of course tons of naked flesh. A goofy sexploitation ride that's a new favorite up there towards the top of the Black Emanuelle series pile probably just under EMANUELLE IN AMERICA and EMANUELLE AND THE LAST CANNIBALS for me. AKA DIVINE EMANUELLE: LOVE CULT
Black Emanuelle series:
THE REAL EMANUELLE (1974) Obviously made before the first Black Emanuelle film but retitled for it's English release to be part of the series later on.
BLACK EMANUELLE (1975) BLACK EMANUELLE 2 (1976) The one film without Gemser
BLACK EMANUELLE, WHITE EMANUELLE (1976)
EMANUELLE IN BANGKOK (1976) BLACK COBRA WOMAN (1976)
EMANUELLE ON TABOO ISLAND (1976) EMANUELLE IN AMERICA (1977)
SISTER EMANUELLE (1977)
EMANUELLE AROUND THE WORLD (1977) EMANUELLE AND THE LAST CANNIBALS (1977)
EMANUELLE AND THE PORNO NIGHTS (1977) EMANUELLE AND THE WHITE SLAVE TRADE (1978)
EMANUELLE IN THE COUNTRY (1978)
EMANUELLE'S DAUGHTER (1980)
DIVINE EMANUELLE: LOVE CULT (1981)
VIOLENCE IN A WOMEN'S PRISON (1982)
EMANUELLE: QUEEN OF THE DESERT (1982)
Annette Funicello was America's sweetheart and beloved by all, thanks to all those BEACH PARTY movies, when she starred in this. With that in mind I found this a strange role for her since her character steals a guy(fellow 60s popstar Fabian) away from his girlfriend(Diane McBain) and comes off as a pretty big jerk. Thankfully that's not the main plot point here though and it's pretty hard to stay mad at Annette. The main drama concerns Fabian, as stock car driver Tommy Callahan, and his quest to getting back into the racing game after proving he's a nutjob who blacks out during races and murders guys with his car. You would think after sending a fellow driver to his fiery death that might be enough for Tommy to call it quits but I guess with the power of positive thinking and Annette by your side anything is possible. While I didn't care too much about the racing scenes everything moves along briskly enough and you get a raucous party with beer poured over heads, gymnastics and 60s go-go stripping! A goofy fun enough watch that is basically a slightly toned-down version of one of the BEACH PARTY movies on wheels.
Before the 1980s came along and Bronson got lazy and also typecast into playing just one role over and over again in every movie he was able to stretch his acting ability a bit. This time out he plays the old west gunfighter Wild Bill Hickok. While Hickok was a real person this film takes him on a fictional quest to hunt down the bigass beast of the title. Along the way he runs into "Chief"(Will Sampson) from ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST who's out for revenge against the monster buffalo who stampeded over his kid. The film plays like a monster movie wedged into a western which gives it a unique feel and you almost get a JAWS-vibe here and there due to the similarity in battling a giant mechanical menace. Good example of a decent Hollywood-flick before Hollywood turned into a giant cesspool.
Watching this blaxploitation classic in 2018 the one thing that stood out to me the most is when our main character confides in his best friend about how he beat the crap out of his girlfriend and his buddy tells him that she will come back to him because sometimes women just need to be smacked around a bit. Talk about different times! The main focus here is not about abusing women though it's about this law student(Glynn Turman) who gets possessed by a vengeful spirit who seeks revenge on a young-ish Louis Gossett(before he started calling himself Jr. I guess) and his brother. It fits into the blaxploitation, revenge and horror genres which makes for an interesting mix. I've seen some reviews put down the acting in this but I thought it was all done surprisingly well especially the lead role which has our protagonist convincingly turn from a sweet young man to a raging razor-wielding asshole sometimes within the same scene. An interesting entry in 70s black cinema which, to me, the only downfall was the soundtrack being fairly bland.
I've never seen the first BLACK EMANUELLE movie, which starred Laura Gemser, but it doesn't seem to really matter much since this doesn't seem like a real sequel. Also they switch Black Emanuelle's on us here and give us someone with the unruly name of Shulamith Lasri(crowned in the English version with the notably more Americanized name of Sharon Lesley) in the title role. This would turn out to be Miss Lasri's only film role and while she does seem more black than Gemser I'm a loyal fan of the real Black Emanuelle and find her much more entertaining to watch. This movie is a weird softcore sex flick. Weird mostly because it focuses on Emanuelle's mental problems that stem from her brother's murder and her near rape and not so much on anything all that sexy. There is one fellow who likes to hang anchors off his erect schlong to show off which I found amusing. Apart from that and lots of bare breasts, including the lovely blonde giallo-regular Dagmar Lassander, there's lots of psychological mumbo-jumbo and a plot that doesn't seem to ever go anywhere up until the very end. It does have an amusingly wonky soundtrack but it's probably safe to skip this one and stick with the original Gemser BLACK EMANUELLE sex epics for more titillating thrills. AKA THE NEW BLACK EMANUELLE
Dubbed version which strangely enough has a couple of extra sex scenes not in the Italian print:
I coulda sworn I'd seen this one before somewhere over the years but after giving it a watch last night I realized I had only ever seen the sequel, CLEOPATRA JONES AND THE CASINO OF GOLD, numerous times before. This one is a bit of an improvement as it seems to have a bigger budget and while we don't have Mr. Roper(Norman Fell) here, as in Part 2, we do get a whole slew of other big-name stars including Huggy Bear(Antonio Fargas), Dr. Black(Bernie Casey), Mama Evans from GOOD TIMES(Esther Rolle) and of course Cleopatra's arch-nemesis Shelley Winters as the evil drug lord Mommy. With a script written by THE MACK(Max Julien) himself it's a pretty simple action-filled blaxploitation spectacle where drug-pushers, pimps and racist cops are punished equally by our extra-tall martial-arts proficient hero. Also while chopsockeying bad-guys she makes some similar sounds as BLACK BELT JONES so perhaps they were related. Tamara Dobson as Miss Jones cuts a sorta strange figure for a believeable ass-kicking character. I mean she's definitely got the height advantage on almost everyone but she seems more like a groovy model(what with the changing of her ultra-fashionable wardrobe almost every scene) than someone who's been in many brawls, but what do I know? The only other questionable thing is the PG-rating which seems to keep things from getting very raunchy and keeping it firmly in the mainstream sensibility of the times. This was popular enough though to enough folks that the sequel(produced by one of the Shaw Brothers!) was released 2 years later. Also it has a pretty sweet soundtrack as is usually the case with any blaxploitation from this era.
This is a Ralph Bakshi directed and animated film that I knew nothing about until finding it the other day on an old VHS tape. Being a big fan of Baski's 70s output I had some high expectations going in. Sadly they weren't all met. Not to say that this is terrible, the animation, as usual, is top-notch and quite trippy and the idea of the film is cool. The main problem for me was the music used. Even though the film is set in the 50s everytime some tune from the soundtrack played the audience is abruptly reminded that the film was made in the 80s and that's a bit jarring. Also the story is kind of a mess with some pretty appealing characters that are hard to latch onto. Even our cool Fonzie-like hero turns out to be a cowardly wuss by the end. While this may be some deep comment on the nature of humanity it doesn't exactly make for a compelling viewing experience. I suppose this one is for Bakshi-completists only or people that don;t mind their fake 50s cartoons being extra fake.
The history of the making of this film seems more interesting than the final product. Apparently it was started way back in 1974 as a mix of live-action and animation. That version, which allegedly included some footage of The New York Dolls performing, was completed in the late 70s but Warner Bros. didn't care for it and made Bakshi go back and animate all the live-action parts which took him up to '82 to finish. The original live-action mix doesn't seem to exist anymore which is a shame since it seems like it would at least have been interesting to check out as some kinda proto-WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT? but made for adults.
