"Beach Blanket Bingo" (1965) d/ William Asher

Five beach movies in, you've gotta chuckle at how male lead Frankie Avalon was still playing teenage parts in this formulaic, gimmicky hit series for American International Pictures, seeing how he was in his mid-twenties, and married with children when this one, his last starring role in the series, was released. Oh, Annette's still around, of course, getting jealous at the drop of a hat and parting with miniscule pecks on the lips like they were Faberge eggs, as usual. The usually abrasive Don Rickles also returns. Also on board for zany pre-fab Caucasian summer fun in the sun in this installment, are Timothy Carey, Harvey Lembeck, Buster Keaton, Linda Evans, John Ashley, and Paul Lynde. Hang ten, cats...


"How can it be too cold to take your top off, that backdrop is rear-projected!"
Beach blanket bingo is the name of the game, at least, until the opening credit sequence is over, anyway, as I can't remember seeing anybody in the fucking movie even suggesting it the rest of the way through. Frankie and Dee Dee (Avalon, Funicello)'s long-running summer celluloid romance hits a snag in the form of a pair of skydivers (John Ashley, Deborah Walley) offering up close and personal lessons for kicks to the surfers, while their annoyingly gag-thick pal Bonehead (Wasn't he Deadhead a while back?) romances a mermaid named Lorelei (Marta Kristen) and an aspiring pop star named Sugar Kane (Linda "Dynasty" Evans), whose pr manager, Bullets (Paul Lynde), keeps her knee deep in headline catching publicity stunts and head shaking sardonic snarkery, enamoring her to Eric Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck), the illiterate jagoff head honcho of the Rats motorcycle gang, local rivals to the carefree surfer crowd, when they aren't not playing pool with South Dakota Slim (Timothy Carey). Silent film legend Buster Keaton shows up as a creepy old dancing lech, and Big Drop (Don Rickles) has apparently dumped drag racing for skydiving.


"I shaved twice since your last shot, boobie!", shrugs a chalky South Dakota Slim (Timothy Carey).
While Frankie seemingly eyes every passing female bikini body, Dee Dee gets momentarily jealous, they kiss and make up. Dee Dee wants to sky dive, Frankie suggests that she stay in the kitchen because boys are different, they kiss and make up. A melancholy Bonehead is forced to say goodbye to his mermaid chicken, and then it's Frankie and Dee Dee both having their own go at fake skydiving and everybody lip syncs saccharine-flavored pop tunes, from the top-billed couple, to Sugar Kane (who also fakes a sky dive of her own), and even the love struck Von Zipper, who later kidnaps the singer and vows to teach her how to play pool, before she's snatched up by the sinister Slim and taken to his "Boobie House", where he ties her to a log saw,  Perils of Pauline-style, does the "I've got fleas" dance, and gets ktfo-ed by Frankie Avalon. More singing, more dancing, and Buster Keaton ogling young go-go chicks, and we can finally clear the beach. There's nothing more to see here...


Skydiving Funicello, belted by gamma rays...
After getting through half of my second teen beach movie, I came to the realization that my tolerance for such things may have run out during the end credits of my first teen beach movie. Sorry, Gidget. I might feel differently if there was the rampant sex, violence, and gore that the target audience had already started to gravitate towards with the biker movies that would saturate drive-in double bills well into the seventies. One surfer bitten in half by a fourteen foot tiger shark, for realism's sake, Boobie? One bloody surfer v biker beach battle... That too much to ask, Dad? Am I really constructively criticizing Beach Blanket Bingo? In any case, Annette's always great to look at, and Timothy Carey steals the show, as usual, and that's worth a standard, very corny deuce on the rating scale, and a look for the curious.


Sugar Kane (Linda Evans) enjoying South Dakota Slim's signature "I've got fleas" dance at his boobie house.

"Bluebeard" (1972) d/ Edward Dmytryk, Luciano Sacripanti

 Sometimes, when an actor has truly "made it", as legendary British star Richard Burton certainly had by 1972, having snagged five Oscar nominations for 'Best Actor', and one for 'Best Supporting Actor' by 1970, he gets the opportunity to perform in as grandiose a chunk of seventies Eurosleaze as tonight's review, while surrounded by no less than eight of the most beautiful women in the world at the time. You've got Marilu Tolo, who'd appeared in Mio caro assassino(1972), Virna Lisi, who'd go on to appear in Lucio Fulci's Zanna bianca (1973), Karin Schubert, who'd turned up in Enzo Castellari's Gli occhi freddi della paura (1971),  Agostina Belli, who also show up in Giorgio Ferroni's La notte dei diavoli (1972),  and topping it all  off (for me, anyway) there's Nathalie Delon, Raquel Welch, Sybill Danning, and Joey Heatherton. For proper perspective,also try to remember that Dicky was going home to Elizabeth Taylor when shooting wrapped. Poor devil...


"This chaise makes my ass sore. Do you mind if I lay on my Belli?", asks Agostina.
Kurt Von Sepper (Richard Burton) is an Austrian WWI pilot, big game hunter, and member of the aristocracy, his bluish beard, well admired by all his nationalist chums, while his overactive appetite for a wide variety of strikingly beautiful women leads to each lovely's respective demise at his judgmentally murderous hands, in Bava-esque, giallo-licious ways.At least until the American pixie, Anna (Joey Heatherton), with true love in her eyes, comes along. She gives her new husband a pass after stumbling upon an old cleaning woman brushing the hair of the corpse of his dead, mummified mother. Stumbling into a secret freezer full of dead wives, on the other hand, she finds much harder to forgive. Von Sepper regretfully informs his enthusiastic spouse that she's joining the gruesome display and going on permanent bye-bye's before the sun rises, but she cunningly buys herself time by hearing extensive confessions to all of her husband's previous crimes first.


I'd say five Hail Marys, two Our Fathers, and an Act of Contrition for a swig o' the wine outta Magdalena's (Raquel Welch) tabernacle.
Through flashbacks, Greta (Karin Schubert) gets "accidentally" shot on a hunt after threatening to reveal the true extent of a war wound he'd received, then Elga (Virna Lisi) gets rubbed out by guillotine over her incessant warbling,  while Erika (Nathalie Delon) is a virginal model whose bedroom inexperience forces Kurt to hire a prostitute (Sybill Danning) to school her in the art of lovemaking. When the girls get too sleepover-y for his proper taste, it's the rhino horn chandelier for both of them. Magdalena (Raquel Welch) is a nymphomaniac-turned-nun whose constant flow of graphic carnal confessions earn her an asphyxiation in a nearby casket. Brigitte (Marilu Tolo) is a gun-shootin', hangbag puntin', bundle of feminism whose mile wide masochistic streak leaves Kurt no choice but to extinguish her. Then there's the brattish Caroline (Agostina Belli) who also doesn't make it to the final reel. A guy who couldn't hit it off with any of this crumpet'd have to be impotent...like Kurt is, surprise, surprise. What ensues, I'll leave you to experience for yourselves.


"I understand the 'milk,milk' paht, dahling, it's when you go 'round the corner that confuses meh."
For the perverted section of Woprophiles out there (hopefully every last one of you!), all of Burton's co-stars put their fleshy wares on full display here, save for Raquel Welch, who looks just as fine in a nun's habit as she does in a bathing suit, any old damned way. The soundtrack, by maestro Ennio Morricone, is top shelf, as always, full of allusion and character. While we're on the subject of moods and maestros, the film's atmosphere is notably thick with the brightly colored influence of  Mario Bava, the artificial bodies lending an air of dark humor about the production, as well. Bluebeard isn't perfect, but there's more than enough beauty in front of the lens, and behind it, as well, to make this a highly enjoyable screening, and a three Wop score sounds reasonably fitting. Equally artsy and exploitative, see it.


"What, no Francoise Pascal or Christina Lindberg?!!?", begs the Baron (Burton). 

"The Exotic Ones" (1968) d/ Ron Ormond

From the creative team of Ron and June Ormond, who also happen to both appear in leading roles here, comes a lost exploitation gem that spans from New Orleans, Louisiana to the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia in spinning a wild drive-in friendly yarn about exotic dancers and a swamp thing that'd have Berni Wrightson breaking all his pencils at a mere glance. H.G. Lewis-esque gore and go-go gals going gaga are just some of the goodies the Ormonds have on tap for you in tonight's review, which is chock full o' Ormonds like a Mormon church full of Osmonds, and all starts with a five minute long narrative monologue about the rich history of beautiful and scenic New Orleans over some stock music and the opening credits...


"If you handed me a church envelope sized box of drugs, I'd call that a shipment.", notes Nemo (Ron Ormond), big-time drug dealer.
Nemo (Ron Ormond) is a mustached goon who runs the classiest boobie bar on Bourbon Street for the syndicate, who rough up toothless associate ne'er-do-well's by slapping them around and pouring spittoons in their faces, when they aren't pushing less than an ounce of drugs at a time and forcing tricks out of the beehived breast-bouncers, or combing the local swamps to capture a murderous eight foot tall swamp thing (rockabilly singer Sleepy La Beef) who's been drowning fishermen and pulling the heads off of cows before gutting them, that'd go just swell in one of the dancer's routines at the club, fer sure, boss! At least, that sort of thing is hinted at from time to time during the first forty-five minutes, which is mostly consumed by footage of a mostly terrible talent audition at Nemo's club, from fat go-go dancers, to young white soul singers, and even a feather-tease from Bunny (June Ormond), the kindly old madam with a Kewpie Doll tic in her face that causes her to suddenly grin sheepishly and flash come hither winks for no reason at all. Put it all back on, Bunny, for fuck's sake.


"Oh, sure...let Ted Nugent milk the cow. It'll be fun, you said..."
There's bad blood between the soul singer, who's Nemo's new favorite, and his old favorite, a bloated chunkster named Titania (Georgette Dante), who's got flaming pasties and a bad attitude, and let's not forget the local straw hat-wearing Inspector (Ronald Drake), whose modus operandi for arresting criminals consists of spending long hours at strip clubs, barking at suspects, and coming on to new dancers with square pick-up lines. Finally, Nemo sends a crack team of adventurers that includes little Timmy (Tim Ormond), whose very father was killed by the beast, into the bog after the uni-browed creature with goofy teeth and a geometrically cut loincloth, who manages to tear a guy's arm off and beat him to death with it (!) before being captured. The hulking throwback is displayed in a rubbery-looking onstage cage, while the singer serenades it with melodies and Titania breaks its primitive cazzies with her flame throwing shtick. It tears a live chicken to pieces before escaping, and ultimately tearing one of Titania's tits off, and squashing Nemo's head like a toupee-wearing zit before making a beeline back to the swamps from whence it came. Some more New Orleans montage? Why the hell not, at this point...


She could dance in my club, if her sense of rhythm ever catches up with her enthusiasm.
Ormond directed such fare as the famously rotten Mesa of Lost Women (1953),  and the cult Christ-sploitative commie takeover classic, If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? (1971). Georgette Dante would later land a role in sex comedy, Up Your Alley (1971), opposite the likes of Haji and Uschi Digart, and blaxploitation miss, Miss Melody Jones (1972). The 6'5" La Beef, son of an Arkansas melon farmer, continues to record rockabilly and country music to this day. Keep up with all his latest right here. As you might have assumed, Exotic Ones, which was later re-released as The Monster and the Stripper, is a guilty pleasure, if anything, and a stone's throw away from anything resembling remotely competent or effective film making, and as such, earns but one Wop on the scale. Approach with caution, or for laughs.


Looks like the makeup artist is even sleepier than La Beef.