The Single Girls (1974)

Featuring the sort of lurid plot that later powered episode after episode of Charlie’s Angels, this sleazy drive-in picture tracks a serial killer who stalks visitors at a Caribbean resort where guests overcome sexual hangups by sleeping with each other. Naturally, all the female guests are twentysomething babes and most of the male guests are middle-aged. In one scene, the psychobabble-spewing proprietor of the resort encourages his guests to free themselves by “milling,” which involves turning off the lights so everyone can grope freely. This experiment goes awry when someone either bites or cuts a buxom young woman’s breast. Yeah, it’s that kind of movie. Codirected by the exploitation-flick brain trust of married couple Beverly and Ferd Sebastian, The Single Girls works about 40 percent of the time, delivering cheap thrills and nudie shots by way of coherent storytelling. The rest of the time, the movie ambles from one disassociated vignette to the next. Therefore, one’s tolerance for this sort of thing depends entirely on how much joy one is able to derive from watching ladies scream, screw, shower, and strip. Although the movie has a few proper dramatic scenes, mostly involving the trouble that sexy redhead Allison (Claudia Jennings) has with a possessive ex-boyfriend, those bits come across like filler, no matter how hard the appealing Jennings tries to give a real performance. Incidentally, Jennings also starred in the Sebastians’ next opus, ’Gator Bait, which was released later in 1974.

The Single Girls: LAME

The Hitchhikers (1972)

Another odd exploitation movie from married filmmakers Beverly and Ferd Sebastian, The Hitchhikers mixes the distasteful little-girl-lost subgenre with the equally tawdry criminal-cult subgenre. Oh, and the movie also features an extended scene of a gruesome illegal abortion. On some level, perhaps the Sebastians thought they were engaging with serious social issues, and, indeed, some scenes in The Hitchhikers feel sincere. Yet the movie also contains catfights, topless shots, and vignettes of sexy girls standing on the sides of country roads and flashing their panties to get the attention of male drivers. Only the most sophisticated filmmakers can get away with blending exploitation-flick sensationalism with social-drama heaviosity, and the Sebastians have never been accused of demonstrating sophistication. The movie starts in the usual way, with a pretty young girl leaving home because some boy got her in trouble. Maggie (Misty Rowe) has the requisite ugly encounter with a trucker when a dude plies her with food and transportation before demanding sex and raping her when she refuses. Eventually, Maggie falls in with a group of hippies who reside in a ghost town—deliberate shades of the Manson family—and participates in their scheme of robbing men gullible enough to stop their cars when girls show a little skin. Painfully slow and thematically void, The Hitchhikers nearly holds the viewer’s attention simply because it seems as if the plot threads might eventually converge in an interesting way, but of course they never do.

The Hitchhikers: LAME

On the Air Live with Captain Midnight (1979)

          Married filmmakers Beverly and Ferd Sebastian took a break from cranking out trashy exploitation flicks when they made On the Air Live with Captain Midnight, a lighthearted underdog story about a high-school kid who achieves notoriety by operating a pirate radio station out of his van while driving around Los Angeles and avoiding a dogged pursuer from the FCC. On the Air Live with Captain Midnight is rife with problems ranging from dubious plot elements to underdeveloped characters, and the movie never fully realizes the potential of the fun premise. Nonetheless, the texture of the piece is suitably unvarnished, some of the supporting performances are mildly amusing, and the presence of real FM tunes from the late ’70s—as well as the presence of noteworthy real-life Los Angeles DJ Jim Ladd, playing himself if a supporting role—grant the picture a certain degree of authenticity. Curly-haired everydude Tracy Sebastian (presumably a relative of the filmmakers) plays Ziggy, an adolescent ne’er-do-well who skips school to hang out with his nerdy pal Gargen (Barry Greenberg) and to work on his hobby of radio broadcasting. After Ziggy loses his part-time job at a radio station by screwing up a live transmission, he and Gargen trick out Ziggy’s van so that Ziggy can assume the new on-air identity of “Captain Midnight.”

          Soliciting donations and requests from high-school kids throughout LA, Ziggy broadcasts illegally and becomes a cult hero, occasionally receiving encouragement and warnings from legit DJ Ladd. Meanwhile, uptight FCC Agent Pearson (John Ireland, giving an enjoyably crank performance) prowls the streets of Los Angeles, hoping to catch Captain Midnight in the act. Excepting a few scenes of Ziggy’s home life, which feature Ted Gehring giving an amusing turn as Ziggy’s aphorism-spewing dad, that’s the whole story. Had On the Air Live with Captain Midnight been made by more ambitious people, it might have grown into a satire about censorship or even a Capra-esque fable about a little guy fighting The Man. As is, On the Air Live with Captain Midnight feels like a rough sketch indicating where the concept might lead. Still, there’s a lot of ’70s SoCal flavor on display here, right down to the third act set at the Magic Mountain theme park in Valencia, just north of the San Fernando Valley, and the raunchy Ted Nugent tunes on the soundtrack set the right kids-wanna-party vibe.

On the Air Live with Captain Midnight: FUNKY

Delta Fox (1979)

The distinctive character actor Richard Lynch didn't play many leading roles in his career, largely because the burn scars marking his face and body contributed to his typecasting as a villain. Given his memorably florid performance style in films ranging from the poignant Scarecrow (1973) to the silly The Sword and the Sorcerer (1982) and beyond, it's tempting to wonder what Lynch might have accomplished in parts with more dimensionality. Based on his work in the dreary exploitation flick Delta Fox, it seems fair to say that Lynch’s talents were not squandered in shallow roles. He plays a crook given a chance at both redemption and revenge if he helps the government capture a criminal overlord for tax evasion, so Delta Fox gives Lynch the opportunity to drive fast cars, engage in merciless brawls, hiss tough-guy dialogue, shoot big guns, and woo a sexy young woman. Unfortunately, Lynch is a dud as a leading man, posturing and preening his way through shootouts and verbal confrontations. Plus, with all due respect, it's creepy to watch the hulking actor get romantic with 18-years-younger leading lady Priscilla Barnes. In Lynch's defense, the movie surrounding him is so shoddy that no actor would have thrived in such surroundings. Written, produced, and directed by unapologetic hacks Beverly and Ferd Sebastian, Delta Fox is borderline incoherent, even though the opening scenes are smothered in explanatory onscreen text. Supporting characters drift in and out of the storyline, with bored-looking name actors including John Ireland, Richard Jaeckel, and Stuart Whitman phoning in colorless line readings. As for the basic plot, it’s a juvenile sex fantasy—after David “Delta” Fox (Lynch) escapes a double-cross, he kidnaps a pretty young landscaper named Karen (Barnes) for a hostage in order to avoid a police blockade. The two characters fall in love, even though he endangered her life and forced her to strip at gunpoint. Yet seeing as how the Sebastians try to pass off Los Angeles’ famous Bradbury Building as a New Orleans hotel, it’s not as if credibility was a priority here. Oh, and one more thing: Keener ears than mine would be able to confirm this, but I’m fairly sure the Sebastians stole a music cue from an old Ennio Morricone score for their main musical theme. Stay classy, Bev and Ferd!

Delta Fox: LAME

Flash and the Firecat (1976)

          Enterprising low-budget filmmakers Beverly and Ferd Sebastian cranked out a handful of zesty drive-in pictures during the ’70s, including this vapid lovers-on-the-run romp, which feels very much like myriad Roger Corman productions featuring the same basic storyline—think Moving Violation (1976), Thunder and Lighting (1977), and so on. With their rascally heroes, scantily clad heroines, and tiresome car-chase scenes, these pictures are all basically interchangeable. That said, Flash and the Firecat has some pleasant passages thanks to lively leading actors and the use of dune buggies instead of conventional vehicles, though it won’t meet anyone’s criteria for quality cinema. In fact, it won’t even meet anyone’s criteria for exploitation cinema, since the Sebastians offer such a tame presentation of kidnapping, prostitution, and other crimes that the movie is rated PG. 

          Flash and the Firecat starts out well enough. Leggy blonde Flash (Tricia Sembera) and her crafty boyfriend, Firecat (Roger Davis), spend their time making out and riding dune buggies, since they’re apparently averse to working for a living. Eager to score cash, they contrive a ballsy scheme. Flash uses her looks to coax a 13-year-old boy into her dune buggy while Firecat visits the boy’s father, a bank manager. Claiming that his partner has kidnapped the boy—and using a carefully timed phone call to sell the illusion—Firecat nabs ransom money and flees. Then Flash releases the boy unharmed. Soon, the bank manager tells local top cop Sheriff Thurston (Dub Taylor) what happened, so Thurston puts his incompetent deputies on the case. Next, an operative of the bank’s insurance company, towering Milo Pewitt (Richard Kiel), shows up to help recover the bank’s money. Thereafter, Firecat and Flash zoom around the boonies, hiding at places including a whorehouse, while being chased by bumbling cops and the relentless Milo.

          Leading man Davis has an amiable quality, emulating Paul Newman’s mischievous screen persona, and leading lady Sembera is competent and sexy. Taylor, always a hoot, energizes his scenes with southern-fried lunacy, at one point barking to the very tall Kiel: “You can kiss my ass if you can bend down that far!” Kiel, best known as “Jaws” from the James Bond blockbuster The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), is looser than usual, though he’s saddled with a trite characterization. Even at a scant 84 minutes, Flash and the Firecat eventually wears out its welcome. When Corman’s people made movies like this one, they knew that eventually some sort of emotional hit was required to give all the mayhem meaning. Conversely, the Sebastians’ brisk little movie runs on fumes.

Flash and the Firecat: FUNKY

’Gator Bait (1974)

          A grimy revenge picture set in the swamps of the American south, ’Gator Bait is one of several ’70s B-movies that upended exploitation-cinema tropes by featuring sexualized leading ladies as formidable avengers. Interestingly, the picture was also written, coproduced, and codirected by a woman, Beverly Sebastian, who shared producing and directing chores with her husband, Ferd Sebastian. Claudia Jennings, the sexy redhead B-movie queen who began her career as a Playmate of the Year in Playboy magazine, stars as Desiree Thibodeau, a Cajun wild woman who lives deep in the wilderness. She supports herself and her two younger siblings by poaching animals and selling hides. One day, idiot deputy Billy Boy Thomas (Clyde Ventura) and his redneck pal, Ben (Ben Sebastian), track down Desiree and threaten to arrest her unless she provides sexual favors. Desiree outfoxes her pursuers, eventually tossing a bag of snakes into their boat—at which point Billy Boy accidentally shoots and kills Ben while trying to fend off the snakes. Ashamed of his stupidity, Billy Boy lies to his father, Sheriff Joe Bob Thomas (Bill Thurman), by saying that Desiree killed Ben. When Joe Bob shares this false report with Ben’s father, T.J. (Sam Gilman), T.J. swears vengeance. Accompanied by T.J. and his psychotic older son, Leroy (Douglas Dirkson)—whom Desiree castrated years ago during an attempted rape—the cops head into the swamp to find and kill Desiree. Bloodshed and tragedy ensue.

          ’Gator Bait is as grisly as any other rape-and-revenge picture of the ’70s, featuring at least one stomach-turning scene (the horrific fate of Desiree’s sister), and the way women’s bodies are showcased makes it impossible to forget that ’Gator Bait is a lowbrow endeavor. (Jennings wears a series of barely-there costumes, her legs and midriff on constant display.) Nonetheless, there’s a smattering of local color amid the sleaziness. Nearly every scene was filmed outdoors, so the verdant locations are like characters in the story, and the score features a saucy mix of harmonicas and other rootsy instruments. Jennings also gets to do a bit of acting, which was more than was usually asked of her, and she has a couple of decent moments brandishing a shotgun and spewing tough dialogue in a Cajun accent. ’Gator Bait isn’t quality filmmaking, to be sure, but it’s periodically exciting in a grotesque sort of way. More than 20 years later, the Sebastians returned to the swamp for the straight-to-video sequel ’Gator Bait II: Cajun Justice (1988), but none of the original actors returned.

’Gator Bait: FUNKY