As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.
Tonight, for #ScarySocial, I will be hosting 1977’s SISTERS OF DEATH!
In Sisters of Death, Claudia Jennings plays a former sorority sister who has a deadly secret! This is a drive-in classic!
If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start the film at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag! The film is available on Prime, YouTube, and a few other streaming sites. I’ll be there co-hosting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well. It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
Just one more day to go! This Saturday, at 9 pm et, join us for SISTERS OF DEATH (1978)! Claudia Jennings is a sorority sister with a deadly secret! The movie is on Prime! pic.twitter.com/28wAdWc3wV
What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or Netflix? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!
If you were having trouble getting to sleep last night, you could have gone over to YouTube and you could have watched the the 1971 film, Jud.
In fact, looking the film up on YouTube might very well be the only way that you could have watched Jud. Jud is one of those obscure, 70s indie films that has apparently never gotten a proper video release in the United States. The version that’s been uploaded to YouTube was taken from a Chinese VHS tape. It had Chinese subtitles and the image was pretty grainy. There was a point where, for three minutes, the image froze and only the audio could be heard. In other words, it’s not the ideal way to watch any movie but, with Jud, that’s probably the best that anyone could hope for.
As for what Jud is about, it’s about a man named …. well, Jud. Played by an appealing actor named Joseph Kaufmann, Jud has just returned to the United States from serving in Vietnam. His uncle arranges for Jud to live at a rooming house, one that is full of the usual indie film eccentrics. Jud doesn’t want to talk about what he saw in Vietnam and no one seems to want to talk to him about it. But perhaps someone should because Jud is still haunted by flashbacks and nightmares, making this one of the first films to attempt to sympathetically deal with PTSD. Jud just wants to get on with his life but, after everything he’s seen, he feels out of place in the civilian world. A one night stand with a friendly hippy (played by future B-movie queen Claudia Jennings) leads to nowhere. A fight in a diner leads to a police chase. The only person who is interested in Jud’s story is Bill (played, quite well, by Robert Denman), whose status as a closeted gay man in the early 70s has taught him something about alienation.
Jud is an uneven film. There are moments of real insight but there also moments where the film itself gets a bit too heavy-handed for its own good. A lengthy scene where the viewer is subjected to close-ups of Jud’s roommates eating seems to go on forever. (Anti-war films of the 70s always seemed to feature close-ups of old people eating for some reason. I guess it was meant to be a commentary on American gluttony but it always feels more like lazy symbolism.) Especially when compared to other films of the period, Jud deserves credit for portraying Bill sympathetically but it’s still hard not to feel that the character’s ultimate fate is a cliché.
That said, Joseph Kaufmann gives a good performance as Jud and wisely underplays the scenes that would lead a lesser actor to overact. (Sadly, Kaufmann died in a plane crash, just two years after the release of Jud, at the age of 29.) Despite featuring a bit more folk music that I would normally listen to, the film has a great soundtrack and, even more importantly, the songs fit well with the action. (If nothing else, the lyrics help to share what Jud is feeling but can’t quite articulate.) Finally, for a history nerd like me, Jud is interesting because it serves as a time capsule. This low-budget, indie film was shot on the streets of L.A. in the early 70s and it has a bit of documentary feel to it. Until someone invents a time machine and people get the ability to visit the past in person, films like Jud will do.
Released in 1979, Fast Company is a Canadian film about fast cars and the fast-living people who drive them. Lonnie Johnson (William Smith) is a veteran drag racer who is so good at his job that his nickname is “Lucky Man.” He rarely loses a race. He’s never without an adoring fan or two, though he always remains loyal to his girlfriend, Sammy (Claudia Jennings). Lonnie is so lucky that, even when one of his cars explodes, he walks away without even a scratch.
Lonnie and his protégé, Billy (Nicholas Campbell), are being sponsored by Fast Company, an international oil consortium. The money is okay but Lonnie is getting old and he would like to step back and spend some more quality time with Sammy. Unfortunately, the team boss is Phil Adamson (John Saxon) and the viewers knows that Phil is a bad guy because he’s played by John Saxon and, instead of driving to the races, he pilots his own private plane. When Lonnie starts to rebel against Phil’s management, Phil schemes to not only replace him and Billy with rival driver Gary Black (Cedric Smith) but he also plots to repossess Lonnie’s prized car!
Okay, so it’s kind of a silly and predictable film. In fact, there’s really only two reasons why Fast Company is remembered today.
One is because it was the last film to feature B-movie star Claudia Jennings before her death in a traffic accident. Jennings was nicknamed the “Queen of the B movies” and, over the course of her brief career, appeared in a lot of films about fast cars. She gives a likable performance as Sammy, even if the film’s script doesn’t really give her much to do.
Secondly, this film was directed by David Cronenberg. This was Cronenberg’s first time to direct a film that he hadn’t written. This was his first job as a “director for hire” but, interestingly enough, it was while directing this film that Cronenberg first worked with some of his most important future collaborators, including cinematographer Mark Irwin and actor Nicholas Campbell. Cronenberg directed Fast Company in between Rabid and The Brood and Fast Company might as well take place in a different universe from either of those films. To be honest, there’s not much about this film that would lead anyone to suspect that it had been directed by Cronenberg if they hadn’t already seen his name in the credits. Cronenberg’s signature style is really only evident when the camera lingers over the scenes of the mechanics working on the cars. In those scenes, there’s a hint of the Cronenberg that everyone knows, the Cronenberg who is fascinated by both the relationship between man and machine and how things work inside the body of both the driver and the car.
For the most part, Fast Company is a typical 70s racing film, one that was made for drive-in audiences and which makes no apologies for that fact. (Nor should it.) There’s a lot of shots of denim-clad Canadians cheering as their favorite driver crosses the finish line. William Smith brings a world-weary dignity to the role of Lonnie Johnson but, while John Saxon is always fun to watch, Phil Adamson is so evil that he threatens to throw the tone of the film out of whack. The light-hearted scenes of Lonnie, Billy, and head mechanic Elder (Don Francks) don’t always seem to belong in the same movie with scenes of John Saxon scheming to cheat and risk the lives of his drivers.
In the end, though, the important thing is that the cars are fast and so is this quickly paced movie. I’m enough of a country girl that I have to admit that I have a weakness for fast cars that leave a cloud of dust behind them. On that level, I enjoyed the film and really, that’s the only level that matters when it comes to a film like Fast Company.
UNHOLY ROLLERS combines two of my favorite 1970’s obsessions – Roller Derby and Claudia Jennings! Back in the day, the exploits of Roller Derby teams like the San Francisco Bay Bombers and Philadelphia Warriors, and stars like Charlie O’Connell and “Pretty” Judy Arnold, were broadcast Saturdays on the local UHF outlets alongside professional wrestling. We’d travel down to the Providence Civic Center (now known as Dunkin’ Donuts Center) to catch the violent banked track action live and in person, a rowdy good time for the whole family!
Beautiful Minnesota native Claudia Jennings was an exploitation star of the first magnitude. 1970’s PLAYBOY Playmate of the Year made her film debut with a small part in JUD (1971), and later starred in a series of drive-in action flicks: TRUCK STOP WOMEN, GATOR BAIT, MOONSHINE COUNTY EXPRESS, THE GREAT TEXAS DYNAMITE CHASE, DEATHSPORT, and David Cronenberg’s FAST COMPANY. UNHOLY ROLLERS was her…
Sisters of Death, which is included in a countless number of Mill Creek box sets, is not necessarily the greatest film ever made but it is a personal favorite of mine.
This 1977 film opens with a very baroque sorority initiation that ends with one of the sisters being killed in a game of Russian Roulette. A few years later, the surviving sisters are invited to an isolated and lavish estate where it turns out that the dead girl’s father (well-played by Arthur Franz) is looking for revenge. This film is predictable and a lot of the plot depends on people refusing to use any common sense but Sisters of Death is such a fun little melodrama that I can’t complain too much. The film plays out like a surprisingly violent Lifetime movie and it has one of those wonderfully cynical 1970s endings.
Just looking at the poster for the 1972 film The Stepmother, I bet you think it’s a pretty scandalous and sordid film. I mean, there’s a picture of a woman wearing a black bra and there’s a tagline that reads, “She forced her husband’s son to commit the ultimate sin!”
Well, perhaps not surprisingly considering that this is a Crown International film, The Stepmother‘s poster and tagline have very little do with the actual film. Yes, the film does feature a stepmother and, during the final 20 or so minutes of the film, her stepson does finally show up and she does end up sleeping with him. It’s consensual. There’s no forcing involved. And, as far as the ultimate sin part is concerned — well, her husband has been doing a lot worse.
The film itself is actually about the husband. Frank Delgado (Alejandro Rey) is a wealthy architect who is also insanely jealous of his new wife, Margo (Katherine Justice). Whenever he suspects that Margo is cheating on him, he ends up killing someone. And, as a matter of fact, even when he doesn’t think Margo is cheating on him, he ends up killing someone. Frank, of course, has to find a way to cover up all of his various murders. It doesn’t help that Inspector Darnezi (John Anderson) is constantly snooping around. And then, once he discovers that his stepson actually has slept with Margo (as opposed to all the people he killed just because he assumed they had slept with Margo), Frank is forced to decide whether or not to kill his own son.
The Stepmother is available in about a dozen Mill Creek boxsets and it’s fun in a 1972 sort of way. Frank and all of his friends are decadent rich people so you could argue that the film is meant to be a portrait of the immorality of the 1%. (That would actually be a pretty stupid argument but it’s one that you could make if you’re trying to impress someone who hasn’t read this review.) Director Howard Avedis tries to liven up the plot by including a lot of artsy touches that don’t really add up to much but which are still fun to watch. Occasionally, he’ll toss in a freeze frame for no particular reason. As well, Frank has a habit of hallucinating. He continually sees his first victim running across the beach in slow motion. Make a drinking game out of it. Every time it’s obvious that The Stepmother was trying to fool people into thinking it was a European art film, take a drink.
To be honest, the most interesting thing about The Stepmother is that it is the only Crown International film to have received an Oscar nomination! That’s right! The Stepmother was nominated for Best Original Song. The name of the song was Strange Are The Ways Of Love. You can listen to it below if you want. Feel free to dance.
Anyway, that’s The Stepmother for you. It’s not my favorite Crown International film but, as a historical oddity, it’s still worth watching.
Through the Shattered Lens 