THE MAGIC GARDEN OF STANLEY SWEETHEART (1970)

         "Are we hippies? You think we're hippies? I bet people think we're hippies, right?"

 Don Johnson's first movie is a total hippie-dippy, freakout story, based on a book, about a college student in New York looking to get laid and find some deep-philosophical truth about life in the process because this was made way back before deep-philosophical thoughts were banned from all forms of popular entertainment. You get lots of nudity including a quick full-frontal glimpse at Don's Johnson and plenty of nekkid hippie gals. While not a great film overall(and it does have that wacky kiddie "Sweet Gingerbread Man" song oddly pop up a couple of times!?) it is an interesting and surprisingly downbeat example of a flower-power flick complete with nihilistic 70s suicidal ending! I was glad to get to view a rare 35mm screening of this recently on the big screen hosted by film critic Joe Bob Briggs who is a big fan and if it's good enough for Joe Bob it's certainly good enough for me.

 

JENNIE: WIFE/CHILD (1968)

 Set to the groovy tunes of Davie Allen and The Arrows(who I know from the awesome soundtrack to THE WILD ANGELS) this is the tale of a farmer(Jack Lester) who gets himself a young wife(Beverly Lunsford). He mostly treats her like crap so she gets the hots for the hunky, but also slightly retarded, farmhand(Jim Reader). So we get a love-triangle situation that leads to a weird ending with people chained in a basement and redemption through the act of screwing the local tramp(Virginia Wood). There's a skinny-dipping segment that uses the song "Birthday Suit"(which I recall from hearing when I was a little kid on the cartoon THE CATTANOOGA CATS which is a strange connection).
 A pretty good dramatic weird sexploitation flick from just before the XXX explosion came into being. AKA TENDER GRASS and WIFE/CHILD

At the drive-in with a Bert I. Gordon comedy!:

Drive-in triple feature with an early 60s crime thriller (which isn't a biker flick) and an old 50s horror flick!

COMMON LAW WIFE (1963)

 For what's mostly a silly sexploitation flick this one has a pretty bleak ending. Without giving too much of anything away I'll just say ii involves a couple of murders and a suicide. Not exactly the way you would think a film of this type would end up but that's cool. The plot concerns an older gentleman named Shug (whose name reminds of that rap guy Suge Knight) who wants to trade in his lady friend for his young niece, named "Baby Doll", because according to Shug(short for Shugfoot) incest is just a word. But surprisingly to the old fella, she's legally his, you guessed it, common law wife. There's lots of drama and love-triangles(rectangles?) to wade through but it does have a sweet climax. I'd give it a 6.5 out of 10 if I rated things like that.
 This was directed by cult fav Larry Buchanan who would go on to make a bunch of clunky sci-fi flicks throughout the 60s.

UNKISSED BRIDE (1966)

 I guess technically this should be titled UNSCREWED BRIDE but that title might not have gone over well back in 1966. The story deals with a newlywed couple that can't consummate their marriage because every time the groom hears or sees something related to a Mother Goose story he passes out and apparently in the world of this film people are constantly referencing fairy-tales which makes things rough. For a film that seems to be marketed as sexploitation this is pretty tame with no nudity and fits more into the lame sex-comedy category. Comedian Henny Youngman shows up for a second to call someone at a drive-in(that's showing nursery rhyme cartoons, of course) stupid and old-timey shock-jock Joe Pyne has a couple of lines. This was directed by the producer of THE BLOB so The Blob gets name-checked. Overall this is a pretty dated and not very funny film that's only saving grace to me was some cool L.A. go-go dancing scenes which hardly made it worth the time. AKA MOTHER GOOSE A GO-GO

 

THE RIDER OF THE SKULLS (1965)

 OK, so this was originally a Mexican serial featuring a masked(very Lone Ranger-like) hero battling various foes and they spliced 3 of these episodes together and released this. Because of this it does get a bit repetitive watching this as a feature-length film. On the plus side they do jam pack three ridiculous monsters into it including a ratty-ass Wolf man, or Lobo Humano in the native tongue, a vampire who has a hairy Wolfman-like face and frequently turns into a big rubber bat on a string and finally a Headless Horseman who manages to regain his big paper-mache head before battling our hero with the cool skull-covered shirt. There's tons of day-for-night shooting which leads to our vampire worrying about the sun coming up while clearly standing in bright daylight with shadows all around him. The werewolf has a unique way of transforming where he first completely turns into a skeleton before becoming a Wolf-Man. It's all very silly and watching this in a theater it was a bit difficult to stay awake during some of the drawn-out parts but worth checking out if you want to seem some obscure Mexican monster weirdness.
 The director here, Alfred Salazar, is the brother of bigtime cult Mexican actor Abel Salazar. He also made some Aztec Mummy movies and a few Santo flicks. He has been dubbed the Mexican Ed Wood and that's not too far off from the truth.

It all starts out with a lovely tune!:

THE DEVIL HORSE (1975)

 This is a weird Mexican flick that's all over the place. It starts out as a wacky western musical comedy with a dad and his two sons who call themselves The 3 Musketeers and get into bar fights and other shenanigans. Then shit gets serious as one of the sons gets brutally murdered and a Satanic horse brings him back from the dead in exchange for the father's soul. I think this part is based on some Mexican folklore/legend thing and this tale has been done more than a few times over the years. It finally ends up being a sort-of EXORCIST rip-off as they try and get rid of this new violent(towards people and animals) and rapey devil-man. While certainly not a Mexican horror classic I found it worthwhile for it's weird disjointed plot line and it's probably the most artsy film that director Federico Curiel(who also made a few Santo flicks) did.

There was also an earlier neat-looking comic book featuring our black Satanic Devil Horse!:

DEATH COLLECTOR (1976)

 Never heard of this New Jersey-based mobster flick until I found it at the local video store on glorious VHS for 33 cents. Gotta say it was definitely worth the purchase. Reading up on this it turns out this is the film that Martin Scorsese discovered Joe Pesci and Frank Vincent in and this seems like it overall would be an influential movie on later mafia stuff like GOODFELLAS and the SOPRANOS series. The main character here(Lou Criscuola) even has that young seething Robert DeNiro-vibe going on. There's also a strong Eurocrime-feeling you get while viewing this. Sadly this is not more well-known since it is such a strong entry into the mafiosa/hitman genre but it looks like it's out there really cheap so pick it up if you like watching wiseguys getting bumped off. AKA FAMILY ENFORCER, THE COLLECTOR and THE ENFORCER



The cheap-o DVDs all try and cash in on Joe Pesci being in this even though he's not the star: