Last year I looked at Joan Crawford’s final film TROG during “Halloween Havoc” month, where she played an anthropologist. This time around, Joan stars in her first movie for schlockmeister Herman Cohen, BERSERK, in which she’s in a more believable role as a circus owner/ringmaster whose big top is plagued by a series of gruesome murders.
The film starts off with the grisly death of high wire artist Gaspar the Great, whose tightrope breaks, causing him to die from hanging. Frank Hawkins, better known as The Magnificent Hawkins, arrives soon after and replaces Gaspar with his own death-defying act, walking the tightrope while blindfolded over a row of steel spikes. Circus owner Monica Rivers loves the publicity from Gaspar’s demise, which turns off her lover/business partner Durando. Soon Monica takes up with Frank, and Durando winds up with a spike driven through his head!
The circus acts think there’s a madman among them…
View original post 293 more words
After taking off the month of October, I am now back on my Warren Oates kick. The latest Oates film that I watched was Crooks and Coronets, a heist comedy that stars Oates and Telly Savalas as two career criminals plotting a robbery in England.
After arriving in the UK and meeting with Nick’s English counterpart, Frank Finley (Harry H. Corbett), Herbie and Marty infiltrate the Fitzmore estate. Marty pretends to be a security expect while Herbie says that he is a librarian who is interested in cataloguing the Fitzmore library. However, once they meet the kindly and eccentric Lady Sophie, neither one of them can bring themselves to rob her. Instead, Marty helps Sophie fly an old World War I airplane while Herbie turns Fitzmore mansion into a tourist attraction. When Nick and Frank show up and demand to know what the hold up is, Herbie and Marty have to find a way to stop the robbery.
Through the Shattered Lens 