Hercules (1958, directed by Pietro Francisci)

Posted on October 13, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

In ancient Greece, Hercules (Steve Reeves) saves the life of the princess Iole (Sylva Koscina) when she nearly loses control of her chariot. Iole tells Hercules about how her father, Pelias (Ivo Garrani), become the ruler of the kingdom after the murder of the previous king and the exile of the rightful heir to the throne, Jason (Fabrizio Mioni).

Hercules accompanies Iole back to the kingdom, where he proves himself by doing typical Hercules things like defeating both a lion and a bull. When Hercules’s discovers that his best friend, Chiron (Alfo Poli) is the number one suspect in the murder of the previous king, he goes on a quest with Jason to recover the Golden Fleece, which will reveal the truth.

All sorts of Greek myths are crammed together as Hercules and Jason search for the Golden Fleece, fight a dragon, and are briefly held prisoner by Amazon Queen Antea (Gianna Maria Canale). (The dragon’s roar was lifted from a Godzilla film.) Hercules was the first of several Italian film to be made about Hercules. American bodybuilder Steve Reeves had the right physique for Hercules but the wrong voice and, even in the English language dub, it’s obvious that we are not actually hearing Reeves when he speaks.

Hercules has a deserved reputation for being campy but it’s not as bad as you might think if you’ve only seen the washed-out and heavily edited version that was used for Mystery Science Theater 3000. (I say that as someone who loves MST 3K and who dreamed of being one of their writers when I was growing up.) If you can actually see a restored print of the film, ancient Greece actually looks pretty good and the the deep colors go a long way towards establishing the grandeur of a mythological age. It’s easy to laugh at Steve Reeves and his expressionless acting but he had the right look for Hercules. The only thing really required of Hercules in this movie is that he be strong and Reeves was definitely that.

Distributed in America by Joseph E. Levine, Hercules was a worldwide success and there would be 18 sequels, with Reg Park eventually taking over the role. Steve Reeves, having been seriously injured while filming The Last Days of Pompeii in 1959, eventually retired from acting and spent the rest of his life running a ranch in Valley Center, California and promoting drug-free bodybuilding. Arnold Schwarzenegger frequently cited him as an inspiration for his own acting career. Steve Reeves passed away at the age of 74 in 2000.

Black Gunn (1972, directed by Robert Hartford-Davis)

Posted on February 8, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

A war has broken out in Los Angeles.

The Black Action Group (B.A.G.) has robbed a Mafia bookmaking operation. The Mafia, led by used car dealer Russ Capelli (Martin Landau, in his slumming it years), is less concerned with the money as they are with the fact that one of the militants, a Vietnam vet named Scott Gunn (Herbert Jefferson, Jr.), has also stolen a set of ledgers that could reveal every detail of their organization. Capelli sends the psychotic Ray Kriley (Bruce Glover, father of Crispin) on a mission to track down Scott and kill him.

What the Mafia didn’t count on is that Scott’s older brother, Gunn (Jim Brown), is the owner of Los Angeles’s hottest nightclub. When Scott approaches his brother, Gun tells him that he doesn’t care about the B.A.G. or any of their politics. Still, Gunn allows Scott to stash the ledgers at his club and to hide out at his place. When Scott still ends up getting murdered by Kriley, Gunn sets out to get revenge.

For the most part, Black Gunn is a standard blaxploitation movie with all of the usual elements, a cool nightclub, the mob, black militants,an anti-drug scene and a speech about why it’s important to not sell out to the man, and a hero played by an actor who may not have been able to show much emotion but who still radiated coolness. Not surprisingly, Jim Brown is the main attraction here and he delivers everything that his fans have come to expect from him. Blaxploitation regulars Bernie Case and Brenda Sykes also appear in the film. Casey plays the head of B.A.G. while Sykes is wasted in a one-note role as Gunn’s girlfriend. Among the villains, it’s fun to watch the glamorous Luciana Paluzzi plays a gangster’s niece and Bruce Glover is just weird enough to make Kriley interesting. Though Martin Landau would end his career with a deserved reputation for being one of America’s greatest character actors, he spent most of the 70s sleepwalking through roles in low-budget action and horror films and his performance in Black Gunn is no different. Having Capelli be both a car salesman and a gangster is a nice touch but otherwise, he’s just not that interesting of a character and Landau is only present to get a paycheck.

Black Gunn has some slow spots but the final shoot-out between the militants and the gangsters is exciting and so brutal that it will be probably take even the most jaded blaxploitation fan by surprise. Black Gunn is hardly a classic but, like its hero, it gets the job done.

Green Cheese? No, it’s THE GREEN SLIME (MGM 1969)

Posted on March 14, 2017 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

We all love a good cheese-fest every now and then, right? Well, THE GREEN SLIME delivers the limburger by the rocket-load, with its rock bottom special effects, silly looking monsters, overwrought dialog, and a cool heavy-metalish theme song (Who was that singer belting out the tune? More on that later!). This MGM/Toei Studios mashup was made with a Japanese crew and American cast, with an Italian pedigree, no less.

An asteroid codenamed ‘Flora’ is hurtling toward a collision course with Earth, and Comm. Jack Rankin is sent to space station Gamma-3 with orders to blow the thing to smithereens. Gamma-3’s Commander, Vince Elliott, holds a longtime grudge against Rankin, and his fiancé Dr. Lisa Benson just happens to be Rankin’s ex. I smell a love triangle brewing! Rankin, Elliott, and other crew members blast off to the asteroid to plant explosives, but there’s this Blob-like, pulsating ooze around gripping their…

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Back to the Beach: MUSCLE BEACH PARTY (AIP 1964)

Posted on September 1, 2016 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

The “Beach Party ” gang’s back and so’s the familiar formula in MUSCLE BEACH PARTY, second in the American-International series. It’s Easter vacation and Frankie Avalon is still horny, Annette Funicello’s still waiting for marriage, and a beautiful foreign woman is again coming between them. This time it’s Lucianna Paluzzi as Countess Julie, a rich heiress who wants to make Frankie a singing star and her personal property.

Eric Von Zipper and his Rats aren’t around this time, replaced by a bunch of bodybuilders led by trainer Jack Fanny (the inimitable Don Rickles). Julie first sets her sights on “Mr. Galaxy” Flex Martian, but dumps him when she spies Frankie. This leads to war between the surfers and the musclemen, with the inevitable slapstick melee. Flex is played by Rock Stevens, a real-life bodybuilder who muscled his way through a few Italian peplum films before reverting to his real name of Peter Lupus and…

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Embracing the Melodrama #30: The Greek Tycoon (dir by J. Lee Thompson)

Posted on July 6, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Theo and Liz: A Love Story

“The characters in this film are fictitious and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental”. — Completely And Totally False Disclaimer From The Greek Tycoon (1978)

In order to appreciate a film like 1978’s The Greek Tycoon, it helps to be a history nerd like me.

If you are, then you probably know that, 5 years after her husband was assassinated in Dallas, former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy remarried. Her new husband was Aristotle Onassis, a Greek shipping magnate who was 23 years older than her and who had an unsavory reputation. Onassis was one of the world’s richest men and was known for both his extravagant life style and for being a ruthless operator. Depending on which books you read, Onassis is portrayed as either being either one of the world’s greatest villains (and, in fact, there’s a whole school of conspiracy theorists who believed that Onassis was somehow involved in John Kennedy’s assassination) or just a casually amoral rich man who treated his new wife like his latest trophy. Either way, he was not the sort of person who Americans expected to become the second husband of a widowed first lady.

Of course, the Greek Tycoon is not about Aristotle and Jackie Onassis. It’s about another Greek shipping magnate with a ruthless reputation who shocks the world by marrying the widow of a martyred President. And, if you stick with the film all the way through the end credits, you’ll even see a disclaimer to prove it!

Anthony Quinn plays Theo Tomasis. When we first meet him, he’s content to spend his time making crooked business deals and attending parties on a seemingly endless collection of white yachts. He is grooming his son (Edward Albert) to take over the family business. He loves both his wife Simi (Camilla Sparv) and his mistress (Marilu Tolo). In fact, the only problem he has in his life is his business rival, Spyros (Raf Vallone, who played another Greek tycoon in The Other Side of Midnight). Spyros happens to be Theo’s brother. But other than that, Theo is content to spend all of his time dancing and breaking plates because, as the film reminds us every chance that it gets, he’s Greek.

However, things change for Theo when he meets Liz Cassidy (Jacqueline Bisset), the wife of young and charismatic Senator James Cassidy (James Franciscus). Within minutes of meeting her, Theo is hitting on her but Liz loves her husband. However, Sen. Cassidy soon becomes President Cassidy and this, of course, leads to Cassidy being assassinated while he and Liz are strolling down the beach.

Liz is soon married to the freshly divorced Theo and proving herself to be far more strong-willed than anyone realized. Despite the anger and efforts of both Theo’s son and the dead President’s brother (Robin Clarke), Liz and Theo’s love endures and soon, they are such a glamorous and famous couple that its surprising that nobody ever suggests making a movie about them.

The Greek Tycoon is a big mess of a movie but it’s enjoyable if you know what inspired it. (Of course, if you’re not into history and you don’t know anything about Aristotle and Jackie then you’ll probably find The Greek Tycoon to be one of the most boring movies ever made.) To be honest, the story is never important in a film like this. Instead, you watch for the clothes and the sets and they’re all properly glamorous in a 1970s sort of way. Finally, you can watch this movie for Anthony Qunn’s unapologetically over-the-top performance as Theo. I don’t know if you could necessarily say that Quinn gave a good performance here but, watching the film, it certainly does look like he was having fun.

6 More Exploitation Film Trailers That I Love

Posted on July 31, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Back in May, I posted 6 old school exploitation trailers that I love. At the time, I said that even though I only posted 6 of them, I could have easily listed 666. While I don’t have the space to put up quite that many, here’s 6 more exploitation film trailers that I love.

1) A Black Veil For Lisa — There’s several things that I love about this trailer. I love the faux-noir narration. I love the teasing tone. I love the old school femme fatale attitude of lead actress Lucianna Paluzzi. But, to be honest, the main reason I love it is because it’s all about a redhead named Lisa. That and the line “Every man wants a Lisa…”

2) The Italian Stallion — This is the trailer for the re-release of Sylvester Stallone’s porn debut, A Party At Kitty and Stud’s. I’ve never seen the movie nor do I have much desire to see it but this trailer just amused me to no end. Whether its the awesomely phony line readings of Gail Palmer or the catchy and empty theme song, this trailer feels like a genuine time capsule.

3) The House On The Edge of the Park — Speaking of catchy but empty theme songs, Ruggero Deodato’s The House on the Edge of the Park features my personal favorite, Riz Ortolani’s infamous Do It To Me (Once More). It can be heard at the end of this trailer and once it gets stuck in your head, it’ll stay there forever. As for the trailer itself, it’s a perfect example of how a well-edited trailer can actually make a somewhat draggy film seem exciting (that said, this movie is one of my all-time guilty pleasures, as misogynistic and wrong-headed as it ultimately is). A few things I love about this trailer — the blue-tinted views of New York City, David Hess’s iconic psycho performance, the sight of my man Giovanni Lombardo Radice dancing, and the fact that the trailer actually manages to 1) get the movie’s name wrong and that 2) nobody ever bothered to fix it.

(Author’s note: Whoops! Before you watch this, I have to admit that I’d forgotten just how explicit, violent, and exploitive this trailer really is. So, consider this to be definitely NSFW — not that you should be watching any of these trailers at work, to begin with — and seriously, no joke, don’t watch this trailer if you are easily upset or offended. Honestly, if I saw this trailer without having any knowledge of how silly the actual movie really is, I would probably find this trailer to be deeply offensive. Well, no, actually, I probably wouldn’t. For the most part, I’m only offended by things that happen offscreen in the real world. — Lisa Marie Bowman)

4) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre — Yes, I know everyone’s probably seen this trailer a hundred times but it’s still probably one of the best and most effective trailers of all time. Plus, I’m from Texas so you know I had to mention this movie at some point. (I may have mentioned this in the past, but seriously — try to imagine this movie being as effective if it was called The Vermont Chainsaw Massacre.)

5) Mindwarp (a.k.a. Galaxy of Terror) — I’ve been eagerly awaiting the chance to buy this film on DVD ever since seeing this trailer on the latest 42nd Street Forever compilation. Rumor has it that this film was actually directed by James Cameron, back when he was still interesting. Supposedly, this film features a very aggressive tentacle but, to be honest, I mostly just want to see Sid Haig’s arm get cut off. (Seriously, who doesn’t? Take that, Capt. Spaulding!)

6) Stage Fright — This is the wonderfully intense and claustrophobic trailer to the great Michele Soavi’s 1st film, Stage Fright, a movie I’m going to watch as soon as I finish up this post. So, with no further delay…