House of Dark Shadows(1970)d/Dan Curtis

Dan Curtis,master of television horror,the man responsible for 1,225 episodes of the groundbreaking hit gothic soap opera,Dark Shadows,successfully took his act to the big screen in 1970,spawning a sequel a year later(coming soon to this site,keep your eyes peeled!).Essentially a condensed cinematic version of four years worth of the same tv hijinks he'd been serving up Shadows fans,the film is an enjoyable if somewhat predictable vampire romp for anyone who loved the show,packed with a few bloody sequences and adequate performances from all involved.The only glaring complaint I can manage is the one brush stroke characterization of most major characters from the show may leave those unfamiliar with the soap opera scratching their heads before too long.

Someone's been raising cane around Collinwood.
Willie Loomis(Daughters of Darkness' John Karlen),handyman for the Collinwood(turned Collins-Stoddard)clan,searches for the missing Collins jewels in the family crypt.He stumbles onto a chain-laden coffin,and upon opening it unwittingly frees a 200 year old vampire from his cursed resting place.At the same time as bodies begin popping up near the estate,the family is paid a visit by their cousin Barnabas from England(who's a dead ringer for the Barnabas Collins who lived some 200 years earlier...hmmm),even producing the lost family jewels as a gift and requesting a stay in the old mansion next door.He turns cousin Carolyn into a vampire,but notices governess Maggie's uncanny resemblance to his lost love Josette,and focuses on rekindling his old flame.Carolyn,jealous and bitter,tries to turn her brother David into a blooddrinker,earning her a stake through the heart at the hands of Professor Stokes(a professor who almost instantly buys into the concept of modern-day vampires,fancy that!).

Barnabas Collins(Jonathan Frid)prepares to plant a vampiric hickey.
Dr. Hoffman(Grayson Hall) inspects the vampire's victims,and manages to isolate a bacteria that causes the illness,and before too long discovers Barnabas' secret identity,offering him a cure for the curse that has plagued him for two centuries.This treatment allows Collins to walk in the sunlight and quells his blood hunger after a while,but when Hoffman gets wind of his plans for Maggie,she gets jealous and overdoses him on the drug,causing him to age 200 years in minutes!Barnabas kills the doctor and goes on a rampage,killing nearly everybody and turning them into vampires,before planning his wedding with his reincarnated beloved,leaving only Maggie's boyfriend Jeff and Willie to rush to thwart the vampire's scheme at the conclusion of the film,which you'll have to watch for the action packed details...

Carolyn(Nancy Barrett)has matters of the heart at stake.Ouch.
Some have slagged off the big screen adaption of the hit series,but in my opinion,it actually improves on the tv show,in production values and special effects,both sorely lacking during the soap's early days.Curtis' sequel Night of Dark Shadows was a sort of swan song for the Dark Shadows phenomenon,and that same year,1971,marked the end.The series itself enjoyed a rebirth on videotape in the 90's,although neither film has been released on dvd at the time of this writing.I'm giving the first film:

Barnabas is not all pleased with the turnout at his wedding.

Octaman(1971)d/Harry Essex

Sometimes when you go back and revisit one of your favorite artists or performers earlier work,you're pleasantly surprised,and you gain a greater appreciation for them.I've always championed the special makeup effects work of Rick Baker,who is without a doubt a master of his craft.That being said,this early Baker outing is like an upper decker some drunken wiseass pooped into your toilet's cistern at a party last month,and by now your whole place reeks of its putrefying stench.In Mr. Baker's defense,his creature suit(co-designed by Doug Beswick)isn't the only thing that suck about Octaman.Just about every aspect of this movie sucks.In fact,the only way it could possibly suck MORE is if it was remade these days by Uwe Boll or Rob Zombie.Maybe.

Eyeee eyeeee eyeeee eyeeeeee....Yeah I took the low road here.
A scientific expedition in Mexico(California)led by Kerwin Matthews and Pier Angeli(who overdosed and died during the filming,by the way) uncovers small rubbery mutated octopi specimens in a lake they soon deduct got that way by nuclear waste dumped into the sea which has seeped into nearly all its tributaries by this point.One of their ridiculously corny, stereotypically non-Mexican Mexican guides tells them of stories his grandmother told him of a sea serpent with many arms that terrorized the area for years,then produces a crude drawing he made of the legendary creature.Nevermind the fact that two thirds of their previous group is missing,and one is dead.Nevermind that octopi don't naturally occur in lakes.Come to think of it,throw anything you may already know about anything and strain your eyes to the poorly lit interior shots,and the abysmally lit outdoor shots.You may even thank the film's producers for the vast number of dark shots,having less cheezy garbage to actually see and laugh mockingly at.

How does an Octaman walk around on dry land?Why,his rubbery octaboots,that's how!
When Octaman lumbers on camera,he tends to swing his four tentacled arms(two are attached to his legs,mind you)around listlessly,sometimes pimpslapping fake Mexicans,sometimes into inanimate things on location.Either way,he's obviously pissed that these scientists have tried to octa-nap his little rubber cousins for research purposes,often picking up Pier Angeli and trying to make off into the lake with her,King Kong-style.The actor in the octa-suit probably doesn't enjoy the enormous latex Mardi Gras octa-head Baker designed for it too much.He gets momentarily captured in a net,he downs a tree so the team can't leave the site,he attacks team members on a row boat,he pops out of their Winnebago and slaps them around,he tries to carry off Angeli again,then gets pumped full of bullets,before lumbering listlessly to the edge of the lake and submerging himself.A fake Mexican guide chucks a carved likeness of him into the water and the credits roll finally.Will man's folly create another Octaman?Let's fucking hope not.

Not the greatest makeup work Rick Baker has ever committed to the big screen by a long shot.
Did I say earlier that this movie sucks?I wasn't bullshitting you.Thankfully,Baker's work improved by leaps and bounds,winning him six Oscars.I'd suggest viewing this one for unintentional comedic aspects,but unfortunately,they don't even exist here.Though it received a lot of press in old issues of Famous Monsters which endears it to many horror buffs,I can't in good conscience stamp this turkey with any other rating than:

The late Pier Angeli,as seen in dynamic new Octavision(which only has five lenses...)!

Exponerad(1971)d/Gustav Wiklund

Apparently the dvd cover art is too hot for Photobucket.Fancy that!
How amazingly beautiful is Christina Lindberg?Some of my more avid readers may remember there was once a "Thriller:A Cruel Picture" review early on(I'll be updating that post and other Lindberg movies sometime in the near future) on the site.My ex-girlfriend(25 years old at the time) was SO intimidated by my gushing praise for Christina,who is now 59 years old by the way,she hounded me until I finally caved to her demands to take the review down.So what's so special about a middle aged woman that she gives a girl half her age feelings of gross inadequacy?Just look at her,ferchrissakes.She has to be the most breathtaking creature to ever breathe oxygen.This film,her third,was touted as banned in 27 or 36 countries,depending on what tagline you read,because of its frank depiction of human sexuality.Your humble N is here to tell you,though it doesn't live up to that reputation,Ms Lindberg does NOT disappoint,in various stages of undress throughout.Who gives a fuck about anything else in the movie really?That's right.Not I.

Lena(Christina)takes naughty snaps for Helge(Heinz Hopf).
Lena is alone in the city while her parents vacation,torn between her boyfriend Jan and the older,more experienced,sadistic and influential Helge(Heinz Hopf,of Thriller:A Cruel Picture fame).She decides to tell Jan about her liason with Helge,which causes her boyfriend,who looks like the lost fifth member of ABBA,to reach back and pimpslap her for her honest repentance.Nobody likes a jealous dick,so Lena hits the bricks and hitchhikes to Jan's mother's cabin,with the help of an open couple,Lars and Ulla(don't you love these Swedish names?),who swim nude,sunbathe nude,and fuck right out in the open,oblivious to their young beautiful friend right in the doorway watching their copulatory exploits.

Ahem,another candid shot of Lena.You complainin'?Didn't think so.
The next day Jan shows up and escorts his little lady back to the urban landscape.They have obligatory make up sex,but something has spurred on her dormant feelings for Helge.She has flashbacks of memories with him,where he takes candid photos of her nude form on a bed,and groovy Swedish sex parties where he serves her up to whoever is interested,as he watches in a chair in the doorway while other sex kittens play with his nipples through his wide open disco shirt...and yeah,you get the idea.She has fantasies about Helge tying her to a bed and making violent love to her.The line between reality and fantasy is heavily blurred at this point,drawing to a conclusion.But is it real or just in Lena's active imagination?Watch and find out for yourself...

My first time machine destination?Directly under this right here.Yeah.
My copy of this one is in Swedish with no subtitles,and Swedish not being one of the languages I happen to be fluent in,made following the story a bit difficult the first time around,but I didn't mind watching it once or twice more to uh...understand the plot more clearly(wink,wink,nudge,nudge).Either way,an excellent opportunity to see Ms Lindberg at her very best,and for anyone who feels the same way about her as I do,this one is an absolute MUST-SEE.She's so stunningly gorgeous in every shot,clothed or nude,your eyes drink in every inch of her the entire ninety minute running time.My obvious Lindberg-fetish aside,the film is interesting,if a bit soft on the sexuality it promises to deliver,apart from some light bondage and voyeurism(and who doesn't like that,eh?).On the almighty Wopsploitation scale,it scores:

Do I have to say anything about this face?I'll let it speak for itself.

Rudy Ray Moore,81,dies.Bitch,are you for REAL?

Taken from his official MySpace page:
Legendary actor, filmmaker, comedian, singer, Godfather of Rap and King of the Party Records, Rudolph Frank Moore better known as Rudy Ray Moore or Dolemite has left this earthly plane.
A 60 + year veteran of the stage, the first x rated comedian, one of the first African American filmmakers and the third most sampled man in the world, his self made comedy records and films have inspired and influenced generations from a thousand walks of life and a hundred nations.
He had recently finished work on "The Dolemite Explosion" with longtime friend and costar Jimmy Lynch (his first self made film in 30 years), an album of soul ballads called "Let Me Sing To You Before I Drift Away" with his daughter Rusty, and had been Highlighted by Hadjii in an episode of "Somebodies" and was looking forward to a resurgence and a country album.
After a long battle with diabetes and obscurity, he passed peacefully on Sunday at the age of 81.
He was a good God fearing man who loved his friends and family.

editor's note:
The world is a little less pimp-o-docious without Dolemite and his humour.I'll be doing a post or two about him and his exploitation films at a later date.

Wop

Hunchback of the Morgue(1973)d/Javier Aguirre

Spaniard Paul Naschy(real name Jacinto Molina)has had a long successful career in horror movies,most notably portraying the heartiest old school lycanthrope this side of Lon Chaney Jr.,though this entry is arguably the most insane of his early movies.That's saying a lot for a guy who's squared off as a werewolf against vampire women,and even a yeti!This classic headspinner has rats,rotting corpses,graverobbers,hunchbacks,mad scientists,underground labyrinths,live burning rats(!),decapitated heads(they used a real cadaver for Jacinto to behead,but even after two swigs of whiskey he couldn't get past the initial neck slice!),and the single best flesh-devouring walking pile of burnt scrapple vs. enraged hunchback finale ever filmed!That's no typo,fiends!

Even a hunchback like Gotho likes to get a little head now and then.
The local tavern is filled with boisterously drunken miscreants who like big beers, and big bobbly boobs,but none more drunk or mentally challenged than Udo,who decides to stumble home on his own.Its his bad luck that he ends up getting parted out on a slab in the basement of the medical school by local hunchback Gotho(Paul Naschy).Udo's squeeze is Ilsa,a terminally ill young girl who is one of the few townspeople who ever treated Gotho with respect.Everybody else cruelly namecalls,throws rocks and maltreats the titular morgue-dweller,and when Ilsa buys the farm,Gotho isn't there for her,as he's busy catching his daily dose of ridicule from the med students,enraging the human camel,killing one of his tormentors while stealing Ilsa's body and lumbering off to his subterranean lair with it.There in his labryinth,Gotho awaits Ilsa's awakening,keeping the hungry rats off of her body with a torch(insert shots of actual burning rats scurrying in all directions,sorry PETA).

This guy now knows the extent to which Iron Maiden rules.
Logically,this would be the point in the story where the mad scientist is introduced.Enter Dr.Orla,who wants to create life from dead people,and promises Gotho he will awaken the hunchback's rotting love interest if he will only:move the doctor's intricate laboratory setting(complete with full electricity and obligatory sulfuric acid pit) down to the catacombs,and supply the M.D. with fresh specimens for his research.Check,aaaaaaand...check.Gotho does both with reckless abandon,proving he's very handy for a homicidal heartbroken hunchback.As usual,Orla renegs on his promises,and instead creates a huge humanoid-esque scrapple monster,that needs to be fed live humans in order to grow to its full potential(naturally).From here on in,anything goes,as people get snuffed by the hunchback and the scrappleganger,there's teenaged sadomasochistic lesbians in a woman's reformatory,iron maidens,acid baths,more rats,and the boffo square-off between Gotho and Scrapple-o!If your head isn't spinning 360 degrees by the film's climax,you need new ball bearings in your neck!

Like most Spanish hunchbacks,Gotho is a misunderstood head-stealing,rat burning teddybear.
If you're not familiar with Naschy's work,this one,possibly the dictionary definition for "Eurosleaze", serves as an outrageous introduction to it.The shortcomings may be numerous(low budget effects,ridiculous dubbing,etc),but the payoff is worth it,and Morgue remains a very enjoyable screener for rabid fans of the gruesome and the grotesque.Director Aguirre,the man responsible for Naschy's earlier effort,"Count Dracula's Great Love",still takes the directorial chair to this day.I'll be taking a look at some of Naschy's other shroud-pleasers some time next month,but until then,I recommend this movie, and score it:

I don't exactly know what it is,either,but I'm ordering a plate of it next time I go to the Moosic Diner.

Clones of Bruce Lee(1977)d/Joseph Velasco

I paid forty bucks for this on Beta in the eighties while you safely nursed on your mother's lactating teats.
Here it is,the ultimate piece of Brucesploitation ever filmed!When the Little Dragon joined the choir invisible on July 20th,1973,filmmakers in Hong Kong tripped over themselves to churn out hundreds of celluloid stinkpies with countless imitators trying to capture the on screen energy of Bruce Lee and cash in at the box office.There was Bruce Li,Bruce Le,Bruce Lai,Bruce K.L. Lea,Dragon Lee,Bruce Ly,Bruce Liu...by the gods,it was neverending for a while there!Though some of these exploitation films aren't all THAT bad to sit down to,this is arguably the worst one of the lot.Seriously.And that in itself makes it highly entertaining!

Professor Lucas(Jon Benn) and a very colorful super computer indeed.
When Bruce Lee dies,the BSI takes matters into their own hands.Aided by the brilliant Professor Lucas(Jon Benn,the Roman gangster in "Way of the Dragon"),they manage to clone the martial arts master not once,but three(four?) times!Amazingly,none of the clones resemble Lee all that much,and even more incredibly,the identical clones don't even look like each other at all!First on the agenda,Lucas controls their minds with a state of the art combination spaghetti strainer/mind control device,and gives them each ingenious names of their own:Bruce Lee Number One,Bruce Lee Number Two,and Bruce Lee Number Three...must have lost hours of sleep deciding on those,huh.Next up,he incorporates Yang "Bolo" Sze and Chiang Tao to train the clones in the martial arts,making sure that all three kiai like a horny cat in a back alley dumpster every two and a half seconds,lest we forget these guys are supposed to be Bruce Lee!As if the giant seventies-tastic sunglasses and gold pimp medallions weren't giveaway enough already!The Lee three are given separate missions:Dragon Lee is sent to take on a gold smuggler,and Bruce's Le,Lai,and Thai are sent to shut down an evil mad scientist in Thailand.Where'd the fourth Bruce Lee come from?Ah,nevermind...

The aptly named "Bruce Lee number three"(Bruce Lai)and a combination mind control device/spaghetti strainer.
Dragon Lee is successful,no doubt due to the seven hundred and fifty three times he thumbs his nose during his fights(was he cutting himself some rails of booger sugar in between takes?).And the three other Bruces also succeed,but not before two of them take to the beach in speedos(!)and purposely avoid a bevy of horny naked Asian women playing with each other's tits in the frothy surf."They'll eat you alive." warns Bruce Le.What's wrong with that,exactly?Next they take on a hoard of slightly overweight bronzemen in underwear,who they defeat during the battle by feeding them poison grass(?).Yeah.Anyway,when they get back to Lucas,he turns them on each other in a huge rumble to the death,so he can have the strongest one to do his bidding.The prof's assistants manage to unplug the big colorful box of lights,effectively ending his mind control over the imitators,and the three clones(what happened to the fourth one?)win the day!

Three Bruce Lees,three pairs of friggin huge sunglasses.
Anytime a kung fu movie travels to Thailand,you know what to expect:floral print shirts with butterfly collars,bellbottom slacks,platform shoes,and a sleazy low budget feel.Add to the equation four Bruce Lee imitators,hokey movie science and technology,flabby bronzemen who are allergic to grass,sub par fight choreography,atrocious dubbing,gratuitous nudity,music culled from "Rocky" and "The Warriors" and you have Clones of Bruce Lee,the most entertainingly idiotic chopsocky movie of all time!But it still gets:

Dragon Lee and Bruce Le square off to see who's the best Bruce Lee clone.Nobody wins on screen,nobody wins in the audience either.

The Mutations(1974)d/Jack Cardiff

In horror circles,freaks are good copy.Tod Browning exploited them to glory back in '32,weaving a cautionary "What goes around,comes around" tale with pinheads,midgets,and bearded ladies as window dressing.This particular film doesn't quite take the dignified road where the different people are concerned,but it's still worth a view or two.Cardiff instead goes for the "mad scientist makes plant monsters with freaks as a backdrop" kind of story,and apart from the obligatory hokey laboratory and some cheezy foam rubber plant moster effects,he manages to succeed to a degree.I mean,with Tom "Doctor Who" Baker in elephantiasis makeup,how could you lose?For good measure he throws in Donald Pleasance,and a bevy of bakenaked British birds,and the aforementioned real-life freaks as insurance.

He doesn't represent the Lollipop Kids.
Students from the local college are disappearing as Dr. Nolter's(Pleasance) experiments push the boundaries of scientific research,developing animal/plant hybrids by mixing their respective dNa.Helping the good doctor secure "specimens" for his research are a slew of sideshow freaks,led by Lynch(Tom Baker),a man brutally deformed by elephantiasis of the face.In his lab which looks like a throwback to the 1940's on a Universal Studios set someplace,Nolter has bypassed natural selection,speeding up the evolutionary process and creating man-sized meat eating plants, among other oddities.Apparently when you play god it causes time lapse photography to occur,and plants grow to full size in mere seconds.Apart from the herbal hijinks abound,the freakshow has the townsfolk "ooh"ing and "aah"ing to Popeye Pete's protruding peepers,the alligator skin girl,human torsos,midgets,human pincushions,all the while young girls are being snatched up right from under their noses.Lynch and his merry band of midgets kidnap the birds,on the promise that Nolter has made to fix his fucked up grill-piece.Something tells me the good doctor's got no intention of squaring up with his misshapen buddy in the future...

Nope you're still hideous.Unhook the webcam and try a MySpace angle.
In the meantime, three students ( Jill Haworth, Scott Antony,Julie Ege) befriend a visiting scholar (Italian 60's sword and sandal regular,Brad Harris) from across the pond, who is here in dear old blighty to look in on Professor Nolter’s...cough,cough... research, and all four become entwined in his web of unnatural bio-treachery.See,at least one of the doc's failed experiments is lumbering around London,half man/half man-eating plant,and that's never sexy,is it?When all the smoke has finally cleared,Lynch battles the yank to the death,only to be vanquished by the freaks he despises,the good doctor is paid a visit by the man-plant,and reduced to a beef jerky covered skeleton as his lab goes to blazes,the naked heroine is rescued,and the good guys win out in the end.Scientists return to cloning harmless things like sheep,freaks all move to a trailer park in Bradenton,Fla,and the only plants getting the full lab treatment these days cost about eighty bucks for an eighth of an ounce(if you're not buying the commercial shwaggity-shwag,that is!)and can't kill you,but if you partake in enough of their content,you might be faced with a killer case of the munchies afterwards.

Like I was gonna pass up the opportunity to put up a pic of Popeye Pete.You've gotta be joking...
An odd movie to watch,no doubt.A 70's update of Browning's classic(and David Friedman's 60's homage, "She Freak" if we're splitting hairs here) with a memorable cast(some made up,some real freaks),some decent soundtrack music from Basil "Dr. Phibes" Kirchin,and gratuitous nudity as was the norm in Britain by this time,all adding up to an enjoyable viddy for any horror-starved droogs out there.Cardiff never directed again after this one,instead opting for cinematographer credits til very recently(if I'm not mistaken),and got some slack for this finished product by his peers,undeservedly.On the exploit-o-tron,this one scores :

This latex fly trap eats ham(my actors) exclusively.

Encounter with the Unknown(1973)d/Harry Thomason

The video box almost looks as disheveled as Serling does in this one.
A tv staple in the seventies,I wonder which aired more often,this Canadian horror anthology,or Don't Be Afraid of the Dark.Answer?That's right:Who cares.Narrator extraordinaire Rod Serling looks more than a bit under the weather here,rocking a frazzled toupee and looking as though he's just smoked seven thousand cigarettes with Yul Brynner somewhere.Director Thomason utilizes several of S.F. Brownrigg's regular players here,including 70's mega-fox Rosie Holotik(I may have to do a tribute post for Rosie one of these days,she was cute as a basket full of kittens in knit mittens,she was).Serling didn't write any of the three stories featured here,and though they suffer for that,there is a good deal of suspense and atmosphere present,and it succeeds in being adequately creepy after all these years.

Whoa,easy with the eyes,lady.You're giving me the effin heebie-jeebies.
After being informed that certain cemeteries in the country tend to draw more unexplained phenomena and strange deaths than others,we're introduced to the first allegedly true story.Three sporto-type college pukes play the obligatory cruel trick on the local groovy-looking nerd,only to get the dork killed when he pays an amorous call on a girl and he's accidentally shot in the process.At the funeral,the dork's mother,who looks like she's just hatched from a creepy egg,binds the wrongdoers together with a wide-eyed spell/puzzle,and informs them they will all be dead once seven has come around three times.One by land and two by air,beware the heptagon,Salagadoola mechicka boola bibbidi-bobbidi-boo,etc.,etc.They all die just like she predicted.Insert Serling's gravelly "I told you so" right here.

Creepy lady warned me and my buddies we'd die,two by air,one by land.Skydiving sounds pretty choice right now...
Next up,is a small rural community at the turn of the twentieth century that stumbles upon a sinister hole in the earth,that billows smoke like Michael Landon behind the prop barn between takes on the Little House set, and inhuman groans and growls echo out of.A young boy coaxes his father to get lowered down into the hole to search for their dog,but when he's pulled up,he's gone perma-crackers and runs off totally out of his mind.Cue Serling again.Last up is the familiar "ghost on a bridge" story,where a senator returning home from a party offers a young girl(Rosie) a ride home when he sees her standing on a bridge,but she disappears from his back seat,and is later informed by the girl's father that she died when her car drove off the bridge some years earlier.Rod,we're gonna need you to wrap this one up for us.You can smoke after you lay the audio.Yeah.

This hole in the ground billows more smoke than Rod Serling's lungs between takes.
In a decade that heavy-hitting anthologies like "Trilogy of Terror" and "Dead of Night" were released,this sleeper usually gets forgotten in the wake.In the spirit of the season,your humble N asks you to screen it for yourself,and see if it doesn't have a little bite to it.If this was 1973,I'd make Rosie Holotik a piece of my personal arm candy.If you're reading,Ro,appy-polly-lodgies in advance,because Christina Lindberg would STILL have to be my main squeeze...Anyway,I always enjoyed watching it when I was a kid,and you probably will too,if you can hunt down a copy.It merits a decent score of:

For the record,I'd ALWAYS give Rosie Holotik a ride ANYWHERE she wanted to go.Ghost or not,she's still a cute ghost.

White Dog(1982)d/Sam Fuller

What the hell ever happened to Kristy McNichol?Once upon a time many,MANY moons ago,you couldn't dump Pop Rocks into your yap without seeing her in a teenage sex comedy like "Little Darlings",or a dramatic turn like this lost film by the director of the fantastic "Shock Corridor"(1963).Fuller really went above and beyond the call of duty here,showing his audience that even dogs can hate!We've seen dogs as Dracula's pets,hounds of hell;we've even see them have flashbacks as in "The Hills Have Eyes Pt. 2"(1982).Now in the very same year we've got a loverly white shepherd that is just that:a WHITE shepherd,trained to attack all tinted chappies on sight.Fuller never made another American movie after documenting this TRUE story written by Romain Gary,after it happened to he and his wife,actress Jean Seberg.Although this is near to impossible to find a decent copy of here in the States,you really oughta give it your best,as this one is CLASSIC.

Don't be black around this white dog.He's liable to chew you like snausages.
Julie(Kristy)takes in a stray white German Shepherd after accidentally hitting it with her car,and though the dog seems loving and protective of the starlet at first,it soon reveals that it don't very much like bloody darkies,thank you(!).While Julie wonders where her new pet has disappeared to,he's sneaking off to murder unsuspecting men of colour,returning with a muzzle full of soulful blood.Being an actress,and cringing at the thought of the beautiful beast being put down just because he's a little prejudiced,she decides to take him to Noah's Ark,a training facility for animals used in movies.The director,Mr. Carruthers(Burl Ives!),tells her that once a dog has been trained for such a heinous purpose,it is virtually impossible to untrain.Julie's only hope is the top trainer,a man named Keys(Paul Winfield),who takes on the task as a personal challenge,albeit a very dangerous one,as he himself is black.

Carruthers(Burl Ives) exclaims:"You can't untrain an attack dog,baby!"
The dog refuses the training at the outset,escaping the facility to murder a brother in a church in the middle of the night.This latest obstacle only sharpens Keys' resolve,and he works the dog even harder to try and break it of its propensity for hate crimes(!).Julie runs into the previous trainer of the dog,an elderly gentleman and his granddaughter,and when the man boasts that the dog is the finest WHITE dog she will ever come across,she calls him a son of a bitch something like 35 times in a row,and assures the cracker that the dog has been cured of his racism!Keys,certain that his training has paid off,schedules one final test to prove the dog is now bruvvah-friendly.The dog runs to Julie,and is gentle and loving as she remembers him.But when it notices Carruthers,it turns and charges him,mauling him to the ground,and forcing Keys to put the animal down with a well-placed bullet.The trainer and the starlet,defeated,take the badly injured businessman to the hospital.

Sure,he's biting you,soul brother,but he hates the taste of you in his mouth!
Unbelievably NEVER released in the States,and only shown on HBO a few times,this would yet today be a hard pitch to a major movie company for the blunt truth of life contained within its pages.White dogs were actually very common in the heyday of the Ku Klux Klan,and I'm sure a few are still out there snarling at the first sight of a black guy somewhere.I've read reviews of the film that purport the dog's racism was turned to whites,as it attacked Burl Ives at the climax of the picture,but I'm gonna go ahead and call bullshit,as it happily gave affection to McNichol just seconds beforehand,who is also white.Maybe the poor creature got sick of hearing Ives singing "Have a Holly,Jolly Christmas" on the set.We may never know.

Kristy's so cute when she stands diametrically opposed to animal racism.

The Girl Can't Help It(1956)d/Frank Tashlin

"There's nothing funnier to me than big breasts."-director Frank Tashlin
I'm not all that into blondes,but if I had to pick a favorite,it'd be Jayne Mansfield,hands down.The broad was not only beautiful,but she knew how to party.She even hung out with Anton LaVey and his gaggle of satanic rascals towards the end there.Gotta respect that.This Tashlin vehicle exists to showcase the rock n' roll and r & b acts of the day in glorious colour,and Jayne's massive mammarian mcgillicutties.It succeeds on both levels.If you came here for an intricate storyline or Oscar-worthy performances,you're in the wrong gin joint,Jack.But if you want sweet Jayne at her finest,dressed in skintight outfits,showing off her outrageous 40-17-36 meausurements,exuding sex at every juncture,you've come to the right place.Let's make it,cats!

Fuck Marilyn.I'm a Jayne-iac myself.
Fatso Murdock(Edmond O'Brien) is a gangster in the midst of a steady downward slide in reputation.In desperation,he hires an alcoholic music agent(Tom Ewell) to transform his moll Jerri Jordan(Jayne) into a singing star in six short weeks,the catch, being Jerri herself.No man alive can resist her buxom charms,as she melts ice,cracks eye glasses,and causes milk to bubble over merely by strutting down the street.At first she feigns having a voice that resembles a tea kettle's shrieking whistle,but despite that,the agent falls in love with her.By the time Murdock realizes he's lost his girl to the agent,he has a chart topping gimmick single about prison rockpiles and enjoys his newfound teenybopper idol status,allowing Tom and Jerri to further pursue their love together.And there's some boob jokes,too.

Whatever I say here,it'll be obvious anyway,so I'll leave it out instead.
Performing live in the film,are Little Richard,doing the familiar title track and She's Got It,The Platters doing You'll Never Know,Julie London doing Cry Me A River,Fats Domino doing Blue Monday,Eddie Cochran doing Twenty Flight Rock,and a myriad of others that includes Eddie Fontaine,The Chuckles,Abbey Lincoln,Ray Anthony,The Treniers,and a spirited Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps doing their trademark hit,Be Bop A Lula,the top act showcased in this film, methinks.Jayne actually lends her pipes to the soundtrack,recording the siren screech for "Rock around the Rockpile",obviously a very silly little number in its own right.

Gene Vincent's Be Bop A Lula can't even make powder blue cabbie hats cool.
As airheaded as these gimmick music movies can be,I do enjoy one every once in awhile,especially when an actress of Mansfield's...ahem....stature is on the bill.The wedding dress she wears in the film was loaned to her for her real-life wedding to weightlifter Mickey("Bloody Pit of Horror") Hargitay in 1958.The film's producers wanted the King himself on loan for one tune for the film,but manager Tom Parker wanted too many samoleans for three minutes worth of gyrating pelvis and Billy Idol-lip.Give this one a shot,and you may be pleasantly surprised by what transpires on the small screen.For its energy and eye candy,I'm giving it...

Little Richard being himself on camera.