DAY OF THE ANIMALS (1977)

   This is that movie where Leslie Nielsen takes off his shirt and fights with an angry grizzly bear. It's not done for laughs though since this was years before Nielsen became known for being a funny man. In fact in this he's about the biggest douchebag you could imagine!

  Directed by William Girdler, who just one year earlier had given us the similarly-themed nature-run-amuck epic GRIZZLY, this one throws dogs, snakes, birds, wolves, mountain lions and few other creatures into the mix of revenge-seeking animals. There's also a pretty dumb ecological message about the ozone layer thrown in to explain everything that's going on. Good goofy 70s fun that would make a great double feature with FROGS. 

Re-released as SOMETHING IS OUT THERE to trick people:

    Also released on VHS under this title(there are sadly no crazy monkeys in this movie):

FOUR RODE OUT (1970)

 Only in the 70's would there be a western where Leslie Nielsen plays a bad guy who gets a little rapey with a young lady complete with a soundtrack by 60's folk-singer Janis Ian.  I'm not sure how graphic this film originally was since the print I viewed seemed to be some sort of TV-cut version with offensive language censored out but I at least got to see Nielsen get a little molesty.
 This American western somehow ended up in my spaghetti-western box-set (which I've watched 20 films from in the last week) and I guess that's because it was filmed in Spain.  The story centers on four main characters and is about two men searching for a suspected Mexican murderer/bank-robber and his girlfriend decides to tag-along so he doesn't get himself killed.  The gal is played by the chick in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA and seems way more of a 60's chick than an old west chick and along with the folk ballads sprinkled throughout, the whole movie has that feel.  Although the film is boring in many parts it does have enough tension and fighting going on between all the characters and even has a great 70's downer ending that I would give an A+ to so it didn't feel like a complete waste of time.

Janis Ian shows up as "The Singer" in the intro and then is never seen again. Was she some kinda hippie ghost?: