Halloween Havoc!: A BUCKET OF BLOOD (AIP 1959)

Posted on October 24, 2016 by gary loggins

We can’t have Halloween without a good Roger Corman movie, and A BUCKET OF BLOOD is one of my favorites. This 1959 black comedy is a precursor to Corman’s THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, and I actually prefer it over that little gem. A BUCKET OF BLOOD skewers the pretentiousness of the art world, the 50’s beatnik scene, and the horror genre itself with its story of nerdy Walter Paisley, a busboy at a hipster coffee house learns making it as a famous artist can be murder!

Walter’s a no-talent nebbish longing to be accepted by the pompous clientele at The Yellow Door, especially beautiful hostess Carla. When he accidentally kills the landlady’s cat, Walter covers it in clay (with the knife still protruding in poor little Frankie!), and brings it in to work. The grotesque sculpture causes a stir among the patrons, and Walter is congratulated for his brilliant work ‘Dead Cat’. Beatnik…

View original post 558 more words

Horror on the Lens: The Terror (dir by Roger Corman, Francis Ford Coppola, Jack Hill, Monte Hellman, Dennis Jakob, and Jack Nicholson)

Posted on October 22, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(As some of you may have noticed, I shared this movie last year as well. However, since the video that I embedded in the previous post was subsequently taken down, I figured I might as well post it again this year. Plus, it’s Boris Karloff, Jack Nicholson, and Dick Miller! Why not post it twice?)

Have you ever woken up and thought to yourself, “I’d love to see a movie where a youngish Jack Nicholson played a French soldier who, while searching for a mysterious woman, comes across a castle that’s inhabited by both Dick Miller and Boris Karloff?”

Of course you have! Who hasn’t?

Well, fortunately, it’s YouTube to the rescue. In Roger Corman’s 1963 film The Terror, Jack Nicholson is the least believable 19th century French soldier ever. However, it’s still interesting to watch him before he became a cinematic icon. (Judging from his performance here and in Cry Baby Killer, Jack was not a natural-born actor.) Boris Karloff is, as usual, great and familiar Corman actor Dick Miller gets a much larger role than usual. Pay attention to the actress playing the mysterious woman. That’s Sandra Knight who, at the time of filming, was married to Jack Nicholson.

Reportedly, The Terror was one of those films that Corman made because he still had the sets from his much more acclaimed film version of The Raven. The script was never finished, the story was made up as filming moved alone, and no less than five directors shot different parts of this 81 minute movie. Among the directors: Roger Corman, Jack Hill, Monte Hellman, Francis Ford Coppola, and even Jack Nicholson himself! Perhaps not surprisingly, the final film is a total mess but it does have some historical value.

(In typical Corman fashion, scenes from The Terror were later used in the 1968 film, Targets.)

Check out The Terror below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PQYol2zVYE

Horror on the Lens: The Terror (dir by Roger Corman)

Posted on October 18, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Of course you have! Who hasn’t?

(In typical Corman fashion, scenes from The Terror were later used in the 1968 film, Targets.)

Check out The Terror below!

Film Review: Big Bad Mama (1974, directed by Steve Carver)

Posted on September 30, 2015 by Jedadiah Leland

Today is Angie Dickinson’s 84th birthday. One of Angie’s best remembered films is Big Bad Mama, an entertaining and fast-paced gangster film that was produced by Roger Corman.

The year is 1932 and the setting is Texas. Wilma McClatchie (Angie Dickinson) is a poor single mother with two teenage daughters (Susan Sennett and Robbie Lee) to support. When Wilma’s bootlegger lover, Barney (Noble Willingham), is killed by the FBI, Wilma takes over his route. Wilma wants her daughters to be rich like “Rockefeller and Capone” and soon, they graduate from bootlegging to bank robbery. During one robbery, they meet and team up with Fred (Tom Skerritt). Wilma and Fred are lovers until Wilma meets alcoholic con man, Baxter (William Shatner). With Fred and Baxter competing for her affections and her youngest daughter pregnant, Wilma plans one final job, the kidnapping of a spoiled heiress (Joan Prather).

Big Bad Mama is one of the many Bonnie and Clyde rip-offs that Roger Corman produced in the 70s. (Corman also gave us Bloody Mama and Crazy Mama.) Big Bad Mama is a typical Corman gangster film, with fast cars, blazing tommy guns, Dick Miller, and plenty of nudity. Angie was in her 40s at the time and, justifiably proud of her body, her full frontal nude scenes created a lot of publicity for the film. William Shatner also strips down for the film and his sex scene with Angie is just as weird to watch as you would expect it to be.

The whole film changes as soon as William Shatner makes his first appearance. He may be speaking with a Southern accent and he may be playing a sniveling coward but he is still William Shatner, with all that implies. Watching Shatner, it is hard not to imagine that Big Bad Mama is actually a lost Star Trek episode where Kirk goes back in the past and meets special guest star Angie Dickinson. Far more effective is Tom Skerritt, who is thoroughly believable as a Dillinger-style bank robber.

In the style of Bonnie and Clyde, Big Bad Mama presents its outlaws as being counter-culture rebels. Every authority figure that Wilma meets — from a preacher played by Royal Dano to a corrupt sheriff to Dick Miller’s incompetent FBI agent — is presented as being hypocritical and arrogant. Angie plays Wilma as a strong-willed and sexually liberated woman who refuses to allow anyone to tell her how to live her life or raise her daughters. In the gang, both Fred and Baxter are subservient to her. Big Bad Mama’s tag line was “Hot lead! Hot legs! Hot damn!” and that is a perfect description of Angie Dickinson’s performance.

Happy birthday, Angie Dickinson!

Film Review: Capone (1975, directed by Steve Carver)

Posted on September 3, 2015 by Jedadiah Leland

Over the course of his legendary career, filmmaker Roger Corman produced two films about the life of Al Capone. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, which starred Jason Robards as the famous Chicago mobster and featured Jack Nicholson in a two-line role, is the one that everyone remembers. The other one was simply titled Capone and starred Ben Gazzara.

Capone opens in 1918, with Al Capone as a cunning young criminal who cons his way into the trust of Chicago racketeers Johnny Torio (Harry Guardino) and Frankie Yale (John Cassavetes, appearing in two scenes and probably using his salary to produce The Killing of a Chinese Bookie). The tough and streetwise Capone works his way up, becoming Torio’s right-hand man before eventually betraying his boss and taking over the Chicago rackets himself. Al rules Chicago with an iron fist and has an affair with a flapper named Iris (Susan Blakely). After killing nearly all of his enemies, Al is taken down on a tax evasion charge and, after contracting syphilis, he ends up a pathetic and lonely man, sitting by his pool and ranting about his enemies.

Despite being one of the few movies to depict Al’s final days, Capone makes little effort to be historically accurate. Instead, it’s a gangster film in the tradition of Little Caesar, The Public Enemy, and both versions of Scarface, complete with nudity, tough talk, and plenty of tommy gun action. (Since this is a Roger Corman film, Capone also features Dick Miller and footage that was lifted directly from St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.) There is nothing surprising about Capone but it’s still entertaining.

Al Capone has been played by everyone from Rod Steiger to Robert De Niro to F. Murray Abraham. Ben Gazzara may not have been the most subtle Capone but he was one of the most watchable. Gazzara played Al Capone like a snarling animal, always ready to bite anyone who gets too close. My favorite Gazzara moments come at the end of the film, when a syphilitic Capone bugs his eyes and starts to rave about Bolsheviks.

Today, Capone is best remembered for featuring Sylvester Stallone in the role of Frank Nitti, Al’s right-hand man and eventual successor. One year later, Rocky would turn Stallone into a superstar and his days of working for Roger Corman would be over.

Shattered Politics #46: Used Cars (dir by Robert Zemeckis)

Posted on January 28, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Do you think we like being associated with the President of the United States? I mean, we run an honest business here!” —

Jeff (Gerrit Graham) in Used Cars (1980)

As a film lover, I’ve sat through so many disappointing commentary tracks that, when I come across one that’s actually fun and informative, it causes me to like the film even more. One of the best commentary tracks that I’ve ever heard was the one that Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale, and Kurt Russell recorded for the DVD release of the 1980 comedy Used Cars.

The film — which was an early credit for both director Zemeckis and screenwriter Gale — tells the story of two rival used car lots. The bad guy car lot is owned by Roy L. Fuchs (Jack Warden). The good guy car lot is owned by Roy’s brother, Luke Fuchs (also played by Jack Warden). The top salesman at the good guy car lot is Rudy Russo (Kurt Russell). The film shows what happens when Luke dies and Rudy tries to prevent Roy from taking over the lot.

The commentary track is distinguished by just how much Zemeckis, Gale, and Russell seem to truly enjoy watching and talking about the film. Kurt Russell, in particular, has an incredibly engaging laugh and his sense of fun is contagious. However, for me, the most interesting part of the commentary track came when Bob Gale explicitly compared Rudy Russo and Luke’s daughter (played by Deborah Harmon) to Bill and Hillary Clinton and then even starts to do a surprisingly good imitation of Bill’s hoarse Arkansas accent.

What made it interesting was that the comparison was absolutely correct.

Politicians are salesmen. Much as politicians will say anything to get your vote, the salesmen in Used Cars will say and do anything to get your money. Politicians sell promises that are too good to be true. Rudy Russo and Roy L. Fuchs do the same thing, claiming that their used cars are just as good and safe as a car that’s never been owned before.

In fact, one of the major plotlines in Used Cars is that Rudy is plotting to make the move from selling cars to buying votes. There’s a vacancy in the state senate and Rudy is planning on running for the seat. All he has to do is come up with the $10,000 necessary to buy the nomination from the local political machine. (I imagine it would be more expensive to buy a nomination today.) Luke agrees to loan Rudy the money but, before he can, Luke goes on a test drive with a former race car driver.

The driver works for Luke’s evil brother, Roy. Roy knows that Luke has a heart condition and he specifically sends over that driver to give Luke a fatal heart attack. Just as Rudy is trying to sell a car to a costumer who is skeptical about whether or not he should pay an extra fifty dollar for something he doesn’t want (“$50.00 never killed anyone!” the customer insists), Luke staggers into the office and dies.

(The shocked customer agrees to pay the extra fifty dollars. Ever the salesman, Luke grabs the fifty before he dies.)

With Luke dead and his estranged daughter nowhere to be seen, Roy is next-in-line to take over Luke’s car lot. So, Rudy hides the body and tells everyone that Luke is down in Florida. Both he and his fellow salesman, the hilariously superstitious Jeff (Gerrit Graham), conspire to make as much money as possible before anyone discovers the truth.

How do they do it? Illegally, of course!

First off, they break into the broadcast of a football game and do an ad. Then, they use strippers to attract customers. And finally, Rudy comes up with his master plan, interrupting a televised address from the President of the United States.

“You can’t fuck with the President!” Jeff says.

“Hey, he fucks with us…” Rudy responds.

Seriously, I love Rudy.

In fact, I really liked Used Cars. It’s a good combination of broad humor and clever satire and both Kurt Russell and Gerrit Graham give such likable performances that you can ignore the fact that they’re both playing total jerks. (In fact, I would argue that one reason that we love Rudy is because he’s so honest about being so crooked.) Not every scene worked perfectly. The scene where Rudy and Jeff interrupt that football game goes on forever and, after a spokesmodel’s dress is ripped off, becomes so uncomfortable to watch that it actually takes the film a while to recover. But then, after that, you get the interruption of the President’s speech. You get Jeff freaking out over whether or not red cars or unlucky. You get some fun driving school humor. And, of course, you get a cute dog that can do tricks and helps to sell cars. The film recovers and, ultimately, Used Cars is a celebration of small businesses everywhere.

And you know what?

I really hope Rudy did make it into the state senate.

We need more Rudy Russos in government.

And we really need more commentary tracks featuring Kurt Russell!

Horror on The Lens: It Conquered The World (dir by Roger Corman)

Posted on October 21, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s horror on the lens, we present a film from the legendary Roger Corman. First released in 1956, It Conquered The World tells the tragic story of what happens when it … well, conquers the world. It, by the way, is one of the most iconic of the 1950 sci-fi monsters. It is kind of a crab-like thing but … well, just watch the film. It’s kind of hard to describe.

The film also features future spaghetti western star Lee Van Cleef as the human scientist who foolishly helps It conquer the world. Van Cleef’s wife is played by one of the greatest B-movie actresses of all time, Beverly Garland. Hoping to thwart It is Peter Graves who spends the majority of the film riding around on a bicycle. Also keep an eye out for Dick Miller and Jonathan Haze, who both play soldiers here and who would later co-star in tomorrow’s horror on the lens.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Oa5mr09Ylg

Horror On The Lens: Amityville: It’s About Time (dir by Tony Randel)

Posted on October 9, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s horror on the lens is a haunted house film from 1992. In Amityville — It’s About Time, Jacob (Stephen Macht) buys a new clock for his home but what he doesn’t realize is that the clock comes from the infamous Amityville House! Soon, everyone in the family is acting strange. Has the clock brought evil spirits with it or–

Well, let’s not even consider the other possibilities. Of course the clock is full of evil spirits!

As I watched this film on YouTube last month, a lot of it seemed very familiar. I quickly realized that this was because Amityville — It’s About Time used to show up on HBO all the time when I was a kid. And while I never sat through the whole film, I did always somehow seem to manage to catch the most gruesome bits and pieces whenever it was on. And yes, it did give me nightmares!

Of course, the movie would not give me nightmares today but still, it’s good for what it is. Some of the scare scenes still work, especially the one involving the dog. Stephen Macht makes for a good psycho and, in the spirit of Halloween, you can even forgive the plot for not making a bit of sense.

Interesting to note: The uber annoying Lenny is played by Jonathan Penner, who would later find some fame as a three-time contestant on Survivor.

(Also, needless to say, this film is rather tame by today’s standards but it’s still NSFW!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVVr4jQBDmM

Back to School #22: Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (dir by Allan Arkush)

Posted on August 27, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Originally, when I started this series of Back to School reviews, I was planning on reviewing Grease. After all, everyone has seen that film. It’s on TV all the time. (Looking in your direction, AMC.) It’s a musical, which is a genre that I love but one which I also rarely seem to review. The movie features a good performance from Stockard Channing. It also has a lot of dancing and you know how much I love that. And speaking of love, a lot of people seem to absolutely love Grease.

But, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that while others may love Grease, I don’t. Oddly enough, I always seem to fool myself into thinking that it’s a fun movie but then I make the mistake of watching it whenever it pops up on AMC and every time, I am surprised to discover just how boring Grease really is. The majority of the cast play their roles as if they’re still on a Broadway stage and projecting to the back of the house. Olivia Newton-John is miscast. John Travolta appears to be acting on auto pilot. Both the songs and even Stockard Channing are never as good as I remembered. Worst of all, the dance numbers are so ineptly staged and filmed that, half-the-time, you can’t even see what anyone’s doing with their feet.

While I certainly don’t have any problem writing a negative review (and check out my thoughts on Avatar if you doubt me), I wanted to end the 70s on a positive note. So, instead of telling you that Grease isn’t good as many people seem to think, I want to recommend another film that, like Grease, features a lot of singing and dancing but which also happens to be a lot of more fun.

That film, of course, is the 1979 cult classic Rock ‘n’ Roll High School.

Things are amiss at Vince Lombardi High School. The students are so obsessed with rock and roll (and the music of the Ramones, in particular) that they have caused several principals to quit. The hallways are a disorganized mess. Student Riff Randall (P.J. Soles) spends all of her time having fantasies about the way that Joey Ramone eats pizza. A strange students named Eaglebauer (Clint Howard) runs a shadowy company known as Eaglebauer Enterprises out of a smoke-filled boy’s restroom. (He’s even got an administrative assistant to schedule meetings for him.) Handsome jock Tom Roberts (Vincent Van Patten) can’t get a date, largely because he’s obsessed with Riff who is obsessed with the Ramones. Little does Tom realize that Riff’s best friend, the sweet and intelligent Kate Rambeau (Dey Young), has a crush on him.

The school board hires a new principal to bring some peace to the high school. Ms. Togar (Mary Woronov) is a strict and mentally unbalanced disciplinarian who, with the help of two apparently subhuman hall monitors, is determined to suppress any sort of fun, rebellion, or free thought. Togar hates loud music, mostly because it causes white mice to spontaneously explode. (When, late in the film, a human-sized white mouse — or he could have just been a very strange man wearing a white mouse costume, the film is ambiguous on this point — attempts to enter a Ramones concert, he’s turned away for his own good. Until, of course, he reveals that he’s brought along headphones for his own protection…)

In the end, it all comes down to this: Togar and her allies want to burn records. Riff and the Ramones want to stop her. And maybe blow up the school. (David from Massacre at Central High would have been a fan of the Ramones.)

Rock ‘n’ Roll High School is an intentionally over-the-top film that both celebrates youthful rebellion while satirizing traditional high school films. The jokes (which are a good combination of the silly and the genuinely clever) come non-stop, the actors all bring a lot of energy to their roles, and the entire film is just a lot of fun. As played by P.J. Soles, Riff Randall really is the ideal best friend and I imagine that a lot of boys in 1979 probably walked out of the theater with a huge crush on both P.J. Soles and Dey Young. And finally, Mary Woronov gives a wonderfully demented performance as Ms. Togar.

Rock ‘n’ Roll High School seems like the perfect film to end the 70s with. Tomorrow, Back to School continues with the 80s! So, if you’ve never seen Rock ‘n’ Roll High School before, watch it below!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKUHFI1dnKo

Horror On The Lens: The Little Shop of Horrors (dir by Roger Corman)

Posted on October 30, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, guess what?

Originally, we were going to feature an Italian film called Dawn of the Mummy today. It’s the world’s only zombie/mummy hybrid and you guys would have loved it! Or maybe not. I have to admit that I don’t really love it. It’s actually a pretty bad movie but, at the same time, how many times do you get to see a movie that features both a mummy and zombies?

However, last night, the YouTube account that was hosting Dawn of the Mummy was deleted.

AGCK!

So, instead of showing you Dawn of the Mummy, we’re going to show you the original Little Shop of Horrors. It’s true that we featured Little Shop last Halloween but, oh well. It’s a fun little movie, especially when you consider that Roger Corman filmed it in 3 days. Jack Nicholson gets all the attention for playing a masochistic dental patient but I think the best performance is given by flower-eating Dick Miller.

From 1960, enjoy the original (non-musical) Little Shop of Horrors!

(However, speaking of the musical, I was in a community theater production of Little Shop of Horrors when I was 19. I so should have been cast as Audrey but instead, I was just a member of the “ensemble.” Bleh! Anyway, our director showed us the original Little Shop of Horrors and I was the only member of the cast to understand that Corman’s film was superior to the musical version. That said, I still tear up whenever I hear “Somewhere that’s green.”)