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CULT MOVIE REVIEWS

Horror, sci-fi, exploitation, erotica, B-movies, art-house films. Vampires, sex,
monsters, all the fun stuff.





WEDNESDAY, 3 NOVEMBER 2021


PICTURE MOMMY DEAD (1966)



Picture Mommy Dead is a 1966 horror thriller produced and directed by Bert I.
Gordon.


Edward Shelley (Don Ameche) and his new wife Francene (Martha Hyer) go to
collect Edward’s teenaged daughter Susan (Susan Gordon) from the convent where
she’s been since the accident. It’s actually more of a mental hospital than a
convent. The accident was a fire in which Susan’s mother Jessica was killed. At
the time of the accident Francene was Susan’s governess.


Jessica had been very wealthy and she made a complicated will. Susan was left a
vast fortune but it’s tied up in trust until she’s 25. Edward was left a
sizeable sum plus the paintings and furnishings of Jessica’s palatial house
Flagmore House. The house itself was left to the state with the proviso that it
would not pass to the state during Susan’s lifetime as long as Susan is willing
to live there.


There are further complications. If Susan dies or goes permanently insane the
fortune goes to Edward. If Edward dies everything goes to Jessica’s cousin
Anthony (who was left a measly five hundred dollars in the will).


And Edward is broke. He’s spent all the money Jessica left him so he wants to
sell off all the paintings and furnishings of Flagmore House. He manages to
persuade Susan to agree to this, much to the disgust of the family lawyer,
Clayborn (Wendell Corey).




That will clearly has plenty of potential to cause trouble. 


It soon becomes very obviously that each one of the major characters could have
had a motive for killing Jessica (we don’t believe for a moment that her death
was an accident). They also have good motives for killing each other. Edward,
Francene and Anthony are all morally corrupt in their own ways. And then there’s
Susan, who seems like a nice young girl but she is clearly disturbed and could
be totally innocent or a homicidal maniac. What’s also interesting is that while
it’s possible that one or more people are trying to drive Susan insane, she may
or may not be already insane. Or she may be completely sane but simply unable to
remember the events of that fateful night. 


There are major sexual and romantic complications to add extra layers of
motivation. And extra layers of perversity. Major league perversity.




There’s a hint at the beginning of the film as to the solution but it’s a
cleverly ambiguous hint and you don’t want to make the mistake of drawing too
many conclusions from it.


In fact you don’t want to make that mistake at any stage in this film. Some
elements are predictable enough but there are other elements that are truly
devious plot twists and the ending is one of the great endings in cinema
history. And no, I’m not exaggerating. It’s seriously brilliant and twisted.


Andy Warhol once said that in the future it will be possible to be famous for
being famous. Zsa Zsa Gabor had already achieved this. Her film career amounted
to very little but she was very very famous indeed for being Zsa Zsa Gabor. What
she adds to this film (her rôle consists entirely of flashbacks) is her presence
and her notoriety.




Susan Gordon, the daughter of Bert I. Gordon, had a brief career as a child
star. Picture Mommy Dead was her final film rôle. The character she plays in
this film is supposed to be a teenager (I’d assume she’s supposed to be about
fifteen) and it was a bold move casting a 17-year-old actress since it’s quite a
demanding rôle. Susan Gordon carries it off exceptionally well. It’s a pretty
extraordinary performance. She just nails it.


Don Ameche had been a fairly big star in the 30s and 40s but made only a handful
of movies after that until staging a major late comeback in the 80s. He’s very
good here. Martha Hyer adds glamour and perversity and it’s appropriate that
she’s the same physical type as Zsa Zsa. Maxwell Reed as Anthony is deliciously
slimy as well. Wendell Corey’s rôle is very brief, not much more than a cameo,
but he makes the most of it as the most cantankerous lawyer you’ve ever seen.


I’d always assumed that Bert I. Gordon was just a hack director of schlocky
B-pictures but clearly I was wrong. He does a great job here. This is a very
well-crafted movie and it has some very nice visual moments (and lots of
symbolism). Robert Sherman’s screenplay has an intriguingly cyclical touch to
it. Events repeat themselves, but do they repeat themselves exactly?




While the ending is a shock if you watch the movie a second time there are
definite clues pointing in that direction.


Apparently the movie encountered no major censorship issues. I can only assume
that the censors simply didn’t understand what the movie was about. If they had
understood they’d have gone crazy.


Picture Mommy Dead has been released on both DVD and Blu-Ray by Kino Lorber,
with an audio commentary (by Howard S. Berger and Nathaniel Thompson). It’s a
movie that really benefits from the commentary since there’s a surprising amount
to unpack in this movie. 


Picture Mommy Dead is just a wonderfully twisted motion picture. There’s just
enough of a camp sensibility and there’s a lot of outrageousness. Very highly
recommended.


I discovered this movie through a review at Michael’s Moviepalace.

Posted by dfordoom at 17:41 2 comments:

Labels: 1960s, camp classics, contemporary urban horror, gothic horrors



SATURDAY, 30 OCTOBER 2021


LIVE LIKE A COP, DIE LIKE A MAN (1976)



If you’re going to make a movie in the poliziotteschi genre could you come up
with a better title than Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man? That’s the title of
this 1976 entry in the genre directed by Ruggero Deodato (the original Italian
title is (Uomini si nasce poliziotti si muore).

It starts off with a manic motorcycle chase. A woman has not only had her purse
snatched she’s been brutally beaten by two men on a motorcycle. Two cops set off
in pursuit. It’s not only a frenzied adrenaline rush of a chase it also tells us
quite a bit about these two cops. Alfredo (Marc Porel) and Alberto (Ray
Lovelock) are partners and they work together like a well-oiled machine. They
never give up. And they have no time at all for such legal niceties as due
process or suspects’ rights. Their idea of crime-fighting is that violent
criminals need killing and they’re happy to do the killing. They’re nutters so
it’s just as well they’re on the side of the good guys.

We find out that they work for a police Special Force. It’s an elite squad that
doesn’t mind bending the rules a little. Alfredo and Alberto don’t just bend the
rules, they ignore them completely. Even in the Special Force they’re considered
to be dangerous and crazy but they get results.

The main plot thread concerns a big-time gangster named Pasquini. The Special
Force has been trying to nail him for several years. Now Pasquini has had a
senior Special Force officer assassinated. So Alfredo and Alberto are now really
keen to get Pasquini. Their task may however be complicated by police corruption
at a high level.




Alfredo and Alberto find time to get involved in plenty of other violent
situations, such a siege which they deal with in their own individual style.
Their style is messy but it works.

They also find plenty of time to chase women.

Our two cop heroes decide to put some pressure on Pasquini, which they do with
the aid of lots of explosions. That’s usually a good way to get someone’s
attention.

The trouble with Pasquini is that he’s obsessive about covering his tracks.
Nobody knows where to find him. Alfredo and Alberto do however know where his
sister Lina lives. They decide to interrogate her. Their interrogation methods
are somewhat unorthodox. They involve both Alfredo and Alberto having sex with
her. They don’t get any useful information but Lina really enjoys this method of
interrogation.




Unfortunately while our two rogue cops are hunting Pasquini at the same time
Pasquini is also hunting them. Their best chance of survival is to find him
before he finds them.

That opening motorcycle chase is justly famous but it’s just one of a series of
amazing action set-pieces. The shoot-out at the quarry is inspired. It’s also
like something out of a spaghetti western. Ruggero Deodato had been assistant
director on Sergio Corbucci’s classic spaghetti western Django and Live Like a
Cop, Die Like a Man does have a bit of a spaghetti western feel, with the two
heroes being more like gunslingers than cops.

It’s an extremely violent movie. I’m not always a fan of ultra-violent cop
movies but the violence in this movie is stylish and imaginative rather than
merely crude and the movie lacks the extreme nihilism that sometimes afflicts
the poliziotteschi genre.




The humour has some lighter moments to balance the violence and some of the
violence has a definite black comedy tinge to it.

There’s a bit of nudity but not too much. In fact by 1976 standards very little.

Marc Sorel and Ray Lovelock make a great team. They’re both charismatic and they
both have a rogueish charm. The presence of Adolfo Celi in the cast (playing
their long-suffering boss) is a bonus. The entire cast acquits itself well.

I should add that Ray Lovelock gets to sing - his ballads are interspersed
throughout the movie.




The Raro Video DVD (they’ve released in on Blu-Ray as well) offers an excellent
transfer and is apparently pretty much uncut (it’s a movie that had quite a few
censorship problems). There are some sparse liner notes and a very good
42-minute documentary, Violent Cops, featuring interviews with many of those
involved in the production including director Ruggero Deodato and star Ray
Lovelock (both of whom are, quite righty, proud of this movie).

I have mixed feelings about the the poliziotteschi genre but Live Like a Cop,
Die Like a Man is now easily my favourite representative of the genre. It’s fast
and furious and incredibly stylish and very entertaining. Very highly
recommended.

Posted by dfordoom at 09:03 No comments:

Labels: 1970s, poliziotteschi



TUESDAY, 26 OCTOBER 2021


ATRAGON (1963)



Atragon is a 1963 Japanese science fiction movie directed by Ishirô Honda.
Ishirô Honda is of course best known as the man who first brought Godzilla to
the screen. He also directed the wonderful 1957 sci-fi epic The Mysterians.
Atragon includes just about everything that I personally could hope for in a
sci-fi movie.

An engineer is kidnapped and the witnesses, including a glamour photographer,
tell the police a strange story of a man emerging from the sea. The police start
to get really worried when other engineers start disappearing. The police
inspector in charge of the case is even more worried when he encounters a
strange guy who claims to be an agent of the Mu Empire. This guy really does
disappear into the sea.

As everybody knows (or at least everybody in the movie knows) the Mu Empire
vanished beneath the ocean 10,000 years ago.

The agent of the Mu Empire, Agent 23, is interested in a man named Kusumi (Ken
Uehara). Kusumi had been a Vice-Admiral in the Imperial Navy. His protégé
Captain Jinguji (Jun Tazaki) had been a genius designer who had designed an
incredibly advanced submarine, the A400. It came too late to affect the outcome
of the war and the last of the A400 boats, the A403, was lost with all hands
(including Captain Jinguji) in the final days of the war.

Agent 23 is convinced that Captain Jinguji is still alive, and that he is
working on a new submarine, the Atragon, which will be a mortal threat to the Mu
Empire. The world’s most advanced submarine, the American Red Satan (!), has
just been destroyed by the Mu Empire but the Atragon would be a much more
formidable threat. The Empress Mu intends to extend the Mu Empire’s dominion
over the whole planet.




The news that Captain Jinguji might be still alive is a shock to his daughter
Makoto (Yôko Fujiyama). She was three years old when the war ended and has been
raised by ex-Admiral Kusumi.

Captain Jinguji is alive and he has built a new super submarine. The problem is
that Captain Jinguji is quite mad. He has not accepted that the war is over. He
has established a secret base on an island from which he intends to re-establish
the Japanese Empire.

There is of course a very obvious and conscious parallel being drawn between
Captain Jinguji’s crazy plans and the equally crazy plans of the Empress Mu. In
both cases it’s an attempt to revive the glories of the past. Admiral Kusumi on
the other hand represents the new world and the new Japan. He has come to terms
with the end of the Japanese Empire. He is a man of peace, although he also
accepts that the Mu Empire will have to be destroyed.




So there’s lots of stuff about Japan trying to find its place in a new world,
trying to move forward to a peaceful future, but with some elements in society
still looking to the past. There’s a conflict between Japan’s official pacifism
and the need to counter a real threat.

You tend to expect political subtexts in Japanese movies of the 60s and 70s. At
least in this case it’s a more complex and subtle political subtext than usual.

The political aspects are also intertwined with some emotional conflicts.
Admiral Kusumi and Captain Jinguji have tried to deal with the shock of Japan’s
defeat in different ways and for Jinguji there’s the difficulty of trying to
re-establish a relationship with a daughter who finds his actions and attitudes
incomprehensible. There’s some surprising nuance in this movie.




This movie has super-submarines. It has secret agents. It has secret island
military bases. It has monsters (yes, it has monsters). It has a threat to
Civilisation As We Know It. It has a beautiful but evil queen. Best of all it’s
a lost world/lost civilisation story, a genre of which I’m extremely fond. This
movie ticks all my boxes. And it has not just a super-villain but an ambiguous
villain-hero as well.

Of course you know there’s going to be a climactic battle between the Mu Empire
and the forces of Earth, but in the meantime there’s the kidnapping of Makoto by
agents of the Mu Empire to provide further suspense and excitement, and to
provide the necessary Woman In Peril angle. It always helps if the woman in
peril is young and pretty and Makoto qualifies on both counts.

The miniatures work is very impressive. The special effects are excellent. There
are some cool sets.




The acting is also generally extremely good.

The Cheezy Movies DVD release only offers the English dubbed version but it’s in
the correct aspect ratio (the film was shot in Tohoscope) and the anamorphic
transfer is very good. There have been other DVD releases but this one seems to
be the easiest to get hold of at present.

Atragon offers all the ingredients that made Toho’s science fiction and monster
movies so much fun and adds some thematic subtlety. This is just a terrific
movie and it’s highly recommended.


This is another great movie I discovered through Michael's Moviepalace.

Posted by dfordoom at 00:48 3 comments:

Labels: 1960s, japanese monster movies, sci-fi



FRIDAY, 22 OCTOBER 2021


SEDUCTION (LA SEDUZIONE, 1973)



Director Fernando Di Leo has gained quite a cult following in recent years for
his 1970s work in the poliziotteschi genre. He worked in other genres as well,
an example being his 1973 erotic melodrama Seduction (La seduzione).

Giuseppe (Maurice Ronet) is a middle-aged man who has returned to Catania in
Sicily after a long absence. He has to wind up his deceased father’s affairs but
he’s really come back in the hope of seeing Caterina (Lisa Gastoni) again. She’s
now a rather beautiful widow in her late 30s. Maybe this time he can make it
work with her.

They begin an affair. Everything goes wonderfully well. It’s just like it was
all those years ago, only better. They hit it off in the bedroom, and out of it.
And to make the situation even more perfect Giuseppe gets along well with
Caterina’s daughter Graziela (Jenny Tamburi).

But maybe Giuseppe and Graziela get along a little too well.

The first time Giuseppe stays the night at Caterina’s house he gets up during
the night to visit the bathroom. He can’t help noticing that Graziela’s bedroom
door is open. He also can’t help noticing that Graziela sleeps nude and somehow
or other, by some unlucky mischance, she’s managed to toss the bedcovers onto
the floor so Giuseppe gets a good look at her nude body. Perhaps unwisely
Giuseppe has another look on his way back to Caterina’s bedroom.

At this stage Giuseppe isn’t sure that Graziela is flirting with him but she
soon makes it very obvious. When she drapes her legs over Giuseppe it is perhaps
not an entirely wise thing for him to start caressing those very attractive
legs, and it’s definitely not a good idea to start caressing her in more
intimate places. But that’s exactly what he does.




It’s obvious that Graziela intends to seduce him and it’s equally obvious that
he’s not likely to offer much resistance.

In fact he offers none at all. As to who does the seducing, it’s pretty much
mutual.

Giuseppe’s judgment is not all that great. Having sex with Graziela while
Caterina is out of the house is risky enough but having sex with her while
Caterina is asleep in the bedroom next door is really really dumb.

It’s no surprise at all that Caterina walks in on them at a most inopportune
moment.

This is by no means the end of the story. Giuseppe, Caterina and Graziela come
to an arrangement which involves Giuseppe and Graziela promising not to get up
to any more sexual hijinks but you know that’s not going to last long and then
further complications arise when another player joins the game. And neither
Caterina nor Graziela can stop loving Giuseppe.




Maurice Monet’s rather diffident performance works. Giuseppe is a guy who really
doesn’t seem to appreciate the dangers of the minefield he’s wandered into. Lisa
Gastoni is excellent. She’s beautiful and glamorous, and she has some some
fairly steamy sex scenes. Jenny Tamburi is convincingly dangerous. Ornella Muti
was originally cast as Graziela but Lisa Gastoni vetoed that casting. She was
probably right to do so. Muti was just too gorgeous and that would have harmed
the film since we have to believe that not only is Graziela a convincing rival
to Caterina but also that Caterina is beautiful enough to be a convincing rival
to Graziela. Jenny Tamburi is certainly beautiful, but not to the extent of
totally overshadowing Gastoni.

Giuseppe’s friend Alfredo (Pino Caruso) provides the comic relief and he is
genuinely amusing. He’s entirely inept with women but he likes to give the
impression of being a Don Juan. And occasionally, and surprisingly, his
observations on relationship prove to be on-target. He’s certainly right about
Graziela.




Most reviewers succumb to the temptation to make comparisons to Lolita but
that’s not necessarily helpful since once that comparison is made it becomes
difficult to discuss the movie sensibly. Graziela’s age is never mentioned but
she’s clearly considerably older than the title character of Nabokov’s novel.
There nothing in the movie to explicitly suggest that Graziela is legally
underage and Jenny Tamburi was twenty-one when the film was made. We can guess
that she’s supposed to be around sixteen. This is not quite a Lolita story.
There are some Lolita-esque elements but I think that if you get too focused on
them you’re likely to be led astray in trying to understand the point of the
movie. It’s a twisted romantic triangle that becomes a romantic quadrangle.

Graziela is young, sexually fairly inexperienced (although it’s implied that
she’s not a virgin) and very keen to get some more sexual experience but she’s
no child. That’s the problem. She’s a woman but young enough to be an emotional
time-bomb for anyone who becomes involved with her. The point of the story is
that Caterina has a younger rival and that rival is her own daughter, and that
both Graziela and Giuseppe become involved in a sexual-emotional game that is
likely to have momentous consequences.




The Raro Video DVD offers a very satisfactory anamorphic transfer. There’s an
interesting documentary featuring the film’s director, cinematographer and
producer plus Jenny Tamburi (who is charming and amusing). There are also liner
notes but I wasn’t overly impressed by them. The snippets included in the
documentary suggest that the print used as the source for the DVD is not an
uncut version.

Seduction generates an atmosphere of both erotic and emotional explosiveness but
it adds some touches of humour and even at times of farce. It’s one of those
movies that could never get made in today’s much more moralistic climate but it
is a genuine attempt to deal with fairly inflammable subject matter in an
intelligent and sensitive manner. It certainly doesn’t let either Graziela or
especially Giuseppe off the hook. They removed the pin from the hand grenade and
they have to accept the consequences.

Highly recommended.

Posted by dfordoom at 18:47 No comments:

Labels: 1970s, erotic movies



MONDAY, 18 OCTOBER 2021


THE LIBERTINE (1968)



The Libertine (the original title is La Matriarca) is a 1968 Italian sex comedy
directed by Pasquale Festa Campanile which was picked up by Radley Metzger’s
Audobon Films in the United States (and released there in a slightly different
cut). It’s a lot more sophisticated and stylish than the average Italian sex
comedy of its era (in fact it’s a lot more sophisticated and stylish than the
average US or British sex comedy of that period as well). This was obviously why
it attracted Metzger’s interest.

Of course it has to be said that Italian sex comedies of this era are largely
unknown territory outside of Italy so their poor reputation might well be
undeserved. It also has to be said that The Libertine is not quite a sex comedy
- it’s more of a sexy romantic comedy with a satirical edge.

Margherita (or Mimi as she is known, played by Catherine Spaak) is a very very
young very pretty widow. And a very rich widow. She’s a bit puzzled as to why
she doesn’t really feel anything about her husband’s passing.

Then she makes an intriguing discovery. Included in her rich industrialist
husband Franco’s estate is a large penthouse office complex which nobody knew
anything about. She decides to investigate. It turns out not to be an office
complex at all but a luxury apartment fitted out as a private love nest. The
revelation that her husbands kept a mistress (or mistresses) doesn’t shock Mimi
too much. What does shock her is her discovery of his extensive film library. It
comprises films of sadomasochistic sex games involving her husband and various
women, including Claudia (an apparently very respectable friend of the family).




Mimi is somewhat appalled, but she’s surprised to discover that she’s also
slightly disappointed that Franco never invited her to join him in these sex
games. I mean, if your husband’s a pervert the least he could do would be to ask
his wife to share his perversions.

Mimi also realises that her sex life with her late husband had been pretty
boring. It had obviously been boring for him but now she realises it was boring
for her as well. She decides that she needs to do something about this. She
needs to explore her sexuality. Franco’s luxurious penthouse love nest will
provide the perfect headquarters. She’s bought herself a copy of Krafft-Ebing’s
Psychopathia Sexualis. She wants to learn all about sexual perversions. She
thinks she may be a pervert. Or rather she hopes that she is. It sounds like
fun.




Now what she needs are some men to practice on. Initially the results are not
entirely satisfactory. She is however a determined young lady and she’s not
giving up. She takes a total stranger back to her penthouse where he slaps her
around and rapes her. She enjoys this, but not as much as she’d hoped to (this
is not a politically correct movie).

Mimi throws herself into the world of kinky sex and then along comes Dr Carlo de
Marche (Jean-Louis Trintignant). He has sex with her but then he wants to marry
her. Mimi thinks that men never want to marry the women they want to have sex
with so she’s rather reluctant. Carlo is determined and persuasive, and his
methods of persuasion include giving her bottom a good spanking. Not as sex
play, but just because she’s being a naughty girl. Like I said, this is not a
politically correct movie.




It’s unusual in being a movie that deals with sadomasochism and various sexual
fetishes in a very positive way. Mimi discovers that she is in fact kinky, and
that’s a good thing. It suggests that sadomasochism is empowering for women,
even when they play the submissive role. This is a movie that is not just a
collection of prejudices about kinky sex - it was obviously written by somebody
who’d bothered to learn something about the subject and maybe even give the
subject some thought. Even more surprisingly it’s a movie that doesn’t imply
that women should be punished for exploring their sexuality, no matter where
those explorations might take them. And Mimi discovers that she has a very
unusual sexual kink indeed, but that’s OK, whatever your kink happens to be
there’s bound to be a member of the opposite sex who will be delighted to share
it with you.

Jean-Louis Trintignant shares top billing with Catherine Spaak which in
commercial terms made sense. He had plenty of star power at the time. It is
however Catherine Spaak’s film. Her performance is the one that matters and
she’s an absolute delight. She’s quirky, unpredictable, adorable, sexy and very
funny.




The set design is impressive, especially Franco’s secret sex hideaway. I love
the chairs in the form of a pair of scales. Miss Spaak gets to wear some
fabulous 60s clothing (which she takes off frequently - there’s quite a bit of
nudity). This movie is packed with late 1960s style.

The Nucleus Films Blu-Ray includes a lively audio commentary by Kat Eflinger who
managed to convince me to go looking for more of this director’s films) plus a
featurette on the production design and the US cut of the film.

The Libertine is a playful and very stylish sex comedy that manages to be very
amusing without treating sex as a dirty joke. An excellent movie, highly
recommended.

Posted by dfordoom at 17:23 No comments:

Labels: 1960s, sex comedies



THURSDAY, 14 OCTOBER 2021


RICA 2: LONELY WANDERER (1973)



The Rica trilogy, which began with Rica in 1972, was a very successful if rather
atypical example of the pinky violence sub-genre, that fascinating genre of
1970s Japanese exploitation movies. Rica 2: Lonely Wanderer followed in 1973.

The pinky violence genre, an off shoot of the pink film genre, was a desperate
attempt by a number of Japanese studios to keep themselves afloat in the face of
the devastation that television was inflicting on the Japanese film industry.
The idea was that if you wanted to tempt audiences back to movie theatres sex
and violence was the way to do it.

As Rica 2: Lonely Wanderer opens Rica (Rika Aoki) is in reform school but she
naturally has no trouble at all breaking out. She wants to find her friend
Hanako who is in trouble. Hanako, like Rica, is only half-Japanese and therefore
occupies a slightly uncomfortable position in Japanese society. Rica’s father
was an American serviceman who raped her mother during the Korean War. Rica was
later raped as well.

Hanako’s problems began when she was one of a number of girls who were
“entertaining” American soldiers on board a ship, the Tohuko. The ship
mysteriously blew up. The Tohuko was at the centre of complicated illegal yakuza
activities which we will discover have something to do with a yakuza kingpin,
Boss Shimamura.




Boss Shimamura is old school yakuza and feels very strongly that yakuza should
settle their differences without harming innocent bystanders. But he is an old
man and he is dying. The new boss of the Shimamura Gang is going to be his
beautiful young daughter. And she’s a lot more ruthless. Yes, this time Rica
will be going up against a glamorous lady gangster.

Rica’s interest in the Tohuko case is very inconvenient for a lot of people.
Four professional assassins are sent to kill her. Four men against one girl is
just not a fair fight. Those guys don’t stand a chance. Rica is not just a girl,
she is a one-woman army. Eight guys might have had a chance. She has no
difficulty killing three of the assassins and terrifying the survivor.

Finding Hanako will be more difficult. Rica tracks her down to a mental
hospital, but getting her out of the hospital will be a challenge.




She can’t expect any help from the cops. They’re in the pockets of the yakuza.

Then some mysterious guy named Hachiro shows up. Is he on Rica’s side or not? Is
he a yakuza, or a cop, or something else? More importantly, could he be the man
Rica needs? Rica is an awesome killing machine but she’s still a woman. What she
needs is love. If she can find love she might be able to give up killing people.
And she obviously thinks Hachiro is kinda hunky.

The plot is a bit creaky but it’s mostly an excuse for an endless series of
fight scenes so it doesn’t matter too much. The thinking behind this movie seems
to have been that if the action slowed down for thirty seconds, just have half a
dozen guys leap out of the bushes and attack Rica for no obvious reason. I have
to say that it’s a technique that works fairly well.




This movie has an odd tone. There are countless fight scenes, most of them
pretty impressive but at times rather stylised. The violence is, on the whole,
rather restrained compared to the more famous pinky violence films. There’s also
not all that much of the sex and nudity which were such distinctive features of
this genre. At times the tone becomes whimsical and at other times slightly
surreal. There’s a definite cartoonish feel.

This movie could be described as Pinky Violence Lite. There’s a huge body count
but no fountains of blood. The delirious sleazy excesses and the sadomasochism
of bona fide pinky violence classics like Terrifying Girls' High School: Lynch
Law Classroom (1973) are not to be found here. Rica 2: Lonely Wanderer is not
exactly wholesome family entertainment but it’s wholesome by pinky violence
standards.

There’s a great scene in which Rica and Hachiro are tied up and are about to be
fed to the sharks. Then Rica remembers that she has a knife in her panties (a
sensible girl never leaves home without a knife concealed in her panties). If
only Hachiro could reach that knife. But they’re both tied up. There’s only one
thing for it. Hachiro will have to use his mouth. He’s a brave lad and he’s
willing to give it a try even if it does mean having to bury his face in her
panties.




The Rica movies made beautiful half-Japanese actress Rika Aoki a major star but
her film career was extremely brief. She made just four movies in total. The
truth is that compared to the queens of pinky violence (Meiko Kaji, Miki
Sugimoto and Reiko Ike) she just wasn’t quite as good an actress and she didn’t
have their star quality or their charisma. She does get to sing several times.

She also gets to wear a rather cool cape which is the sort of thing you wear if
you’re a kickass action heroine.

The Media Blasters Rica DVD set includes all three movies on three discs. The
anamorphic widescreen transfer for Rica is excellent.

Rica 2: Lonely Wanderer compares reasonably well with the first Rica movie. It’s
fast-moving and entertaining. It’s recommended but if you’re new to pinky
violence then I’d suggest movies such as Girl Boss Revenge (1973), Sex and Fury
(1974), Terrifying Girls' High School: Lynch Law Classroom (1973) or Female
Prisoner #701: Scorpion (1972) as being more representative of the sleazy
delights the genre has to offer.


Posted by dfordoom at 21:00 No comments:

Labels: 1970s, japanese exploitation movies, japanese pinky violence



SATURDAY, 9 OCTOBER 2021


FLY ME (1973)



Shout! Factory’s Lethal Ladies Collection volume 2 offers three wonderfully
trashy Roger Corman’s produced 70s exploitation movies, including the excellent
Pam Grier vehicle The Arena plus Cover Girl Models and Fly Me. Fly Me is the one
we’re concerned with at the moment. It was helmed by Cirio H. Santiago who did
lots of these sorts of movies for Corman. The king fu sequences (yes, you read
that right, this is a stewardess movie with kung fu) were directed by Jonathan
Demme.

It’s set in Hong Kong, Manila and Tokyo and it was apparently filmed in Hong
Kong and the Philippines.

At first it seems like it will be a typical 70s stewardess movie - some nudity,
some jokes, some exotic settings, some melodrama. But take a look at that
tagline about stewardesses battling kung fu killers. This is a stewardess action
thriller.

There are of course three stewardesses (much the same formula as Corman’s nurse
movies) and they’re all babes. Pat Anderson (who really is drop-dead gorgeous)
plays new stewardess Toby. Toby is looking forward to some fun when the plane
gets to Hong Kong and she’s met a handsome doctor on the flight who should be
able to provide just that. And then Toby makes a grisly discovery - her mother
is on the flight as well. And her mother is going to be on her next flight as
well. Mother is determined to defend Toby’s virginity. Of course back in the 70s
(if we’re to believe all those stewardess movies) trying to defend a
stewardess’s virginity was likely to be an uphill battle.




Andrea (played by Lenore Kasdorf who is also pretty darned cute) has a problem.
She was going to meet her boyfriend in Hong Kong but he’s disappeared. This is
our first hint that this is to be a thriller.

And then the third of the trio of stewardesses, Sherry (Lyllah Torena),
disappears as well. In fact she’s been kidnapped. And she’s about to be sold
into white slavery.

Meanwhile Andrea is being stalked by those kung fu killers but fortunately
Andrea is a martial arts expert (stewardesses needed a wide variety of skills in
the 1970s). She’s also being stalked by a blind assassin.




The three female leads are not great actresses but they’re certainly
enthusiastic. The other cast members are not so great in the acting department.

The kung fu scenes are not exactly of the standard you’d find in a Hong Kong
kung fu movie of this vintage.

The plot is all over the place. Trying to keep three plot strands (one for each
stewardess) going simultaneously is always a bit of a challenge and in this case
the result is something of a confused mishmash.

The plot strands eventually come together, with the aid of some unlikely
coincidences. This is not what you would call a tightly plotted movie.
 



Fortunately this is a Corman picture so when the action starts to flag you can
be sure that one of the girls will take her clothes off.

The jokes become more sparse as the movie progresses but there are some
genuinely amusing moments early on. In its later stages it relies more on
suspense and thrills, but the suspense isn’t that suspenseful and the thrills
aren’t that thrilling. Which doesn’t really matter. This is a silly goofy movie
and we’re certainly not expected to take it the least bit seriously. It’s very
much a popcorn movie.




The anamorphic transfer is a bit iffy with quite a bit of print damage early on.
It’s not a major issue and in this type of movie it actually adds a bit more
seediness so in some ways it’s a bonus.

Fly Me is not by anybody’s standards a good movie but if you’re in the mood for
light-hearted entertainment with three pretty female leads who have trouble
keeping their clothes on then you’ll probably enjoy it.

Most people are going to buy the Lethal Ladies Collection volume 2 for The Arena
so if you think of the other two movies as bonus movies you’ll be well
satisfied.


Posted by dfordoom at 14:14 No comments:

Labels: 1970s, martial arts, roger corman, thrillers

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