WHO FINDS A FRIEND FINDS A TREASURE (1981)

 This time around Bud Spencer and Terence Hill wind up on a tropical island in search of buried treasure. They run into a Japanese soldier still fighting World War II, natives who babble like idiots in pig Latin, some gangsters and a gang of pirates who dress like gay leather-daddy bikers. Directed by the great Sergio Corbucci, who also made some classic spaghetti-westerns including DJANGO, this one is an entertaining enough watch for a Sunday afternoon but being more of a fan of the Euro-westerns I can't help but rank those generally higher if just for the way better soundtracks. These movies are also probably more fun for nostalgic purposes, just like Abbott & Costello are for me, if you were raised on them as a kid which many folks seem to have been. AKA A FRIEND IS A TREASURE and KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF THE ISLAND

DOUBLE TROUBLE (1984)

 Bud Spencer and Terence Hill team up once again in this stupid 80s comedy that has the plot of something that Hollywood would spit out which concerns two fellows who look exactly like a couple of rich guys and have to take their place to make a million dollars. I'm gonna guess the idea may have come from that Eddie Murphy movie TRADING PLACES except they added a bunch of fight scenes and took out any of the actual funny bits(oh and sadly no Jamie Lee Curtis' boobs). You do get to see big ol' Bud as a sexy sax-blowing jazz man and as his look-alike who is a big pussy who runs away from every hint of violence. Hill, for his parts, plays a daredevil and his rich sophisticated doppelganger so the boys do stretch their acting chops a little bit here unfortunately it's a bit too dumb and repetitive to give this a thumbs up and I'd say stick to the duo's westerns for better quality action.

No boobs in this but there are some nice Brazilian asses on display!:



Known in Germany as 4 FISTS FOR RIO and in France as WATCH OUT FOR DAMAGE ?:

GOD FORGIVES ... I DON'T (1967)

 This is historically important as the first film to feature Terence Hill and Bud Spencer together on screen. Most of the film does focus on Hill as a character named Cat Stevens(but I'm pretty sure he's not a Muslim) aka "Pretty Face", who gets involved with a gold robbery and a red-headed gangster fellow(Frank Wolff). We do get to see the two familiar 'Trinity' faces working together more towards the climax. It's nothing like the 'Trinity' movies though as this one is done in a totally serious tone. There is supposed to be a re-edited cut-down version of this that has comedic elements inserted but I've never seen that and I'm not sure how well it would work that way. It was also released as a Django film in Germany as GOD FORGIVES ... DJANGO NEVER! Overall it doesn't really stand out but is more of a curiosity to see where Spencer and Hill started out from and you get to see them fight it out which is unique. AKA BLOOD RIVER

This was followed by 2 films, ACE HIGH (1968) and BOOT HILL(1969), in a director Giuseppe Colizzi trilogy.

THEY CALL ME TRINITY (1970)

 One of my all-time favorite spaghetti-westerns and, outside of the Leone ones, probably the one I've gone back and re-watched the most. It's got a great theme song, head-bonking action and some silly comedic elements but the main draw are the two main characters of Trinity and Bambino, two outlaw brothers portrayed so well by Terence Hill and Bud Spencer. These two had teamed up before but this is the movie that really brought them fame (in Italy anyway). The only thing missing is the sex and violence but this is a G-rated comedic western and as far as those go this one is most likely one of the best examples.
 There was one slightly less-great official sequel where we get to meet the brother's family and then a bunch of movies that were re-titled with "TRINITY something, something" that have nothing to do with this(and some of those don't even have Terence Hill in them which make them extra disappointing rip-offs!  AKA MY NAME IS TRINITY

THE MUTHERS (1968)

  Not to be confused with the 1976 Filipino blaxploitation/action flick of the same name, this is a 60s sexploitation deal about bored suburbanites who become swingers.
 There's a song by the 60s freak-out hippie band The Fugs called 'Saran Wrap' which is about not having a condom and desperately choosing to use saran wrap instead. I'd always thought that they had invented this bizarre practice but it is on display here so maybe they saw this film also(or maybe wrapping your dick to avoid babies, and for added freshness, was just a groovy kind of thing to do in the 60s??). Besides this one odd moment the rest of this film is pretty standard sex stuff with lesbian humping, schoolgirl orgies and that sort of thing. There is a bar called The Pink Swan where all the housewives go to screw around and seems to be some sort of whorehouse but no one ever pays up so I'm not sure how they make any money. Besides this mystery it was all pretty uneventful, and very softcore, but still a pleasant enough, boob-filled spectacle to watch on Mother's Day and the ending, which even features some bloody violence!, really comes out of left-field.
 The very next year director Don Davis took scenes from this, and a few of his other sex-filled films, and made something called WILD OUTTAKES which is a compilation flick that I have yet to see.

THE MUTHERS The whole filthy film!

SISTERS OF DEATH (1976)

 There are a few things to like about this 70s exploitation flick, the main one being a whole gang of sexy ladies, including Claudia Jennings, who would go on to be in a few other drive-in films before dying young in a car crash getting into a scary sorta-proto-slasher situation with our gals being picked off one-by-one by an angry father after his daughter is murdered during an initiation rite gone wrong. There are also a bunch of clunky illogical things that happen, the main one being our ladies getting into a car with two complete strangers who drive them an hour into the country and drop them off at some weird abandoned house and they only mildly question all of this. Also, without spoiling anything, the ending doesn't seem to add up, unless I missed something. If you don't think about these things too hard though it's a decent 70s horror ride.


                             
                               Neat middle-eastern poster with some original artwork!:

WICKED SINS (2002)

 One of the most boring, badly-made things I've seen in awhile.  I mean sure it's an "erotic thriller" so you get some very attractive nekkid folks humping away in softcore porn fashion but everything else just seems like some terrible TV-movie of the week with a heaping helping of the worst acting you'll ever see. The fact that this was made in 2002 seems mind-boggling to me also. Wasn't hardcore porn pretty easily accessible by everyone at that point? I'm sure if I was 12 years old and it was still 1983 this would be wonderful but watching it in 2017 it's quite a sleep-inducing drag! You get straight and lesbo sex antics, a murder scene and a mystery that you couldn't care less about. Go watch some crappy porn instead.

This version isn't in English but the dialogue sucks anyway and you still get all the nudeness!:

NIGHT CREATURES (1962)

 Working my way through The Hammer Horror DVD set this is one that I'de never heard of but it's pretty good. This mostly has to do with Peter Cushing and Oliver Reed who are always excellent and the fact that the film moves along pretty briskly unlike many other Hammer films from this era. If you're looking for an actual horror film though this one barely qualifies being more of a dramatic tale of booze smuggling villagers (and pirates) and the king's army who are out to stop them. The titular "Night Creatures"(who reminded me of those bullies in THE KARATE KID who wore the skeleton pajamas) are not really a main focal point and the original British title of CAPTAIN CLEGG is more fitting, if not as exploitative. To sum it all up a good film that's not exactly a good example of Hammer horror but worth a look for something slightly different from the famous studio.

Double Chill Show with Hammer's PHANTOM!:

NIGHTMARE (1964)

 Somewhat dull Hammer flick that deals with a young lady(Jennie Linden) who sees her mom go nutzoid and stab her dad to death. She then has recurring nightmares and sees things that may, or may not, actually be there and goes a bit wacky herself. There's a couple of twists and turns that really reminded me of an old EC comic story. You know those ones where evil is punished at the end and justice is served. As is always the case with Hammer everything looks great, even in black and white, and the acting is fine but it's probably not one I would go back to rewatch anytime soon. AKA HERE'S THE KNIFE DEAR: NOW USE IT

Shock show double-feature with this Hammer FRANKENSTEIN epic!:

THE HEAD (1959)

 I've heard this described as a German rip-off of THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE, except that movie didn't come out until 1962. So unless we're dealing with time-traveling filmmakers this is just a movie that shares the ol' living-head-in-a-pan gimmick from that film. While I prefer the American '62 head flick to this one, mainly because there's a lot of this that's tough to stay awake through, this one does at least offer us a sexy dancer lady who get her head swapped with a humpbacked crippled lass, so that's something. There's also all the standard mad doctor schtick and, of course, a talking head full of wires which make for some fairly typical b-movie scenes. Oh and as a little bonus you also get a living dog's head-in-a-pan! AKA THE SCREAMING HEAD and A HEAD FOR THE DEVIL



            Played in England on an X-rated double-bill with this Italian vampire flick!:

Known in Germany & France as THE NAKED AND THE SATAN!:

4D MAN (1959)

 This scientist fellow(James Congdon) is working on an experiment that makes solid objects pass through other solid objects on a molecular level which I guess is obtained bu entering into "the fourth dimension". Somehow this ends up screwing up his brother(Robert Lansing), who's also a scientist working on some super-metal, allowing him to pass through any object but also speeding up his aging process. While I'm not too sure about the scientific validity of anything that's presented in this 50s sci-fi flick I do know that it's another example of the science-gone-bad genre which was very popular at the time. A lot of the plot has to do with the drama of our main scientist involved in a love-triangle with his brother and his fiance(Lee Meriwether, who went on to be Catwoman on the BATMAN TV show). It's kinda hard to be very sympathetic to the hero since he's stolen one of his brothers girlfriends in the past and does the same thing for a second time here. Once our "evil" brother starts sapping various folks to gain his youth back things get very clear cut though. While not the most exciting movie of the era it's a tolerable time-waster for classic sci-fi appreciators. AKA MASTER OF TERROR