Northeast of Seoul (1972)

          In terms of originality and quality, Northeast of Seoul is a bust. The narrative is muddy, the thrills are trite, and the way Hollywood stars interact with foreign culture is about as authentic as an episode of The Love Boat. There’s also something innately comical about presenting corpulent ’60s star Victor Buono as a man of action. Having said all that, Northeast of Seoul is enjoyable if you’re receptive to its tacky pleasures, such as Buono creeping through a mansion like a ninja or running through forests like he’s James Bond on a secret mission. Nothing about Northeast of Seoul bears the slightest resemblance to human reality, so while the picture isn’t quite camp, it’s thoroughly silly.

          Set in Korea, the movie concerns the search for a priceless ancient sword. Some parties want it for purposes of historical preservation, others want it because of its value on the black market, and still others want it because it’s purported to imbue its possessor with magical powers. Flanaghan (John Ireland) is a down-on-his-luck American working as a tour guide, since he knows Seoul as well as most natives. At the beginning of the picture, he attends a funeral and reconnects with Portman (Buono), an American art dealer based in Seoul, and Katherine (Anita Ekberg), an international woman of mystery. Long ago, they were partners with the man who just died, so when they get a tip that someone has found the long-missing Kuguro Sword, they team up again to find the artifact.

          Borrowing style and themes from The Maltese Falcon (1941) and its myriad imitators, Northeast of Seoul portrays a tenuous alliance among untrustworthy people, with each scene introducing a new betrayal. This results in a storyline that’s always eventful but rarely clear—the filmmakers seem to believe that as long as lots of things are happening and people regularly jab each other with pithy dialogue, explanations are unnecessary. Ireland does a fair job channeling Humphrey Bogart-style cynicism, and Buono, as always, injects his villainous characterization with playful humor. Ekberg contributes the least of the three marquee names, but her presence is amusingly incongruous. Also of interest is extensive location photography throughout Seoul and the surrounding areas, as well as the use of classical Korean instruments on the soundtrack.

Northeast of Seoul: FUNKY

Welcome to Arrow Beach (1974)

          Sometimes fate does cruel things to artists’ legacies, as demonstrated by the fact that a strange horror movie about cannibalism was the last project from Laurence Harvey, who both starred in and directed Welcome to Arrow Beach, but died at the age of 45 while the film was in postproduction. That Harvey seems wildly miscast in the film’s leading role only adds to the overall strangeness of watching Welcome to Arrow Beach. Born in Lithuania, raised in South Africa, and educated in England, Harvey was most definitely not an American. So why does he play a traumatized Korean War vet living on a California beach? And why is the sister of Harvey’s character played by English-Canadian actress Joanna Pettet, who looks nothing like Harvey and employs a convincing American accent that accentuates how foreign Harvey’s speaking style sounds given the nature of his role?

          The story begins with hippie hitchhiker Robbin (Meg Foster) accepting a ride from a hot-rod driver, who crashes soon afterward with Robbin in his car. Cops including Sheriff Bingham (John Ireland) and Deputy Rakes (Stuart Whitman) respond to the accident and discover cocaine that Robbin insists belongs to the driver, who is badly hurt. Weirdly, the cops release Robbin and do nothing while she strolls onto a private beach. Then, while Robbin skinny-dips, Jason Henry (Harvey) ogles her through a telescope from his house above the sand. Later, Jason offers hospitality, which Robbin accepts only when she learns that Jason lives with his sister, Grace (Pettet). Yet Grace isn’t happy to meet Jason’s new houseguest, reminding Jason that he’d promised not to get in trouble with girls anymore. And so it goes from there—Robbin ignores obvious warning signs until a frightening encounter occurs, but once she escapes the chamber of horrors hidden inside Jason’s house, her past encounter with the cops makes them doubt her sensational claims about an upstanding citizen.

          Although the movie takes quite a while to get to the creepy stuff, there’s never any doubt where the story is going, since the first scene includes an epigraph about cannibalism. Therefore the picture lacks real suspense, and the overly mannered quality of Harvey’s acting further impedes the movie’s efficacy as a horror show. In fact, many stretches of Welcome to Arrow Beach edge into camp, as when Harvey cuts repeatedly from closeups of his own eyes to closeups of Foster’s character eating the world’s bloodiest steak. Just as unsubtle is the film’s suggestion of incest: At one point, Harvey and Pettet kiss passionately. Since it’s impossible to take Welcome to Arrow Beach seriously, perhaps  it’s best to regard the picture as drive-in junk with a posh leading actor. After all, the stylistic high point is a scene in which Harvey’s character lures a woman into a photo studio, then switches from holding a camera to holding a meat cleaver.

Welcome to Arrow Beach: FUNKY

Love and the Midnight Auto Supply (1977)

          Entertaining in a brainless sort of way, Love and the Midnight Auto Supply is partially the story of a redneck Robin Hood who contrives a scheme for funneling profits from his various criminal enterprises to a group of oppressed farm workers. Yet it’s also a sex comedy about the main character’s relationship with a madam, a love triangle involving a rich kid torn between a good girl and a hooker, and a political story tracking the adventures of a activist. These parts hang together about as well as the disparate elements of the soundtrack, which toggles between discofied riffs on “The William Tell Overture” and swamp-boogie grooves, some of which were generated by Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Tom Fogerty. The picture bombards viewers with just enough car chases, intrigue, rebellious rhetoric, and sex to keep things interesting, but it’s fair to say writer-director James Polakof hadn’t the faintest idea what sort of movie he was making. Is Love and Midnight Auto Supply a drive-in flick for the southern audience, a with-it counterculture story for the college crowd, or straight shot of exploitation nonsense? The answer to all of these questions is yes, because, with apologies to Donny and Marie, Love and the Midnight Auto Supply is a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll.

          Michael Parks, enjoyably rural and bitchy with his cowboy hat, leather jacket, and snide remarks, stars as Duke, proprietor of Midnight Auto. He and his boys sneak into parking lots, strip cars belonging to rich folks, and re-sell the stolen parts. Midnight Auto adjoins a brothel operated by Duke’s girlfriend, Annie (Linda Cristal). Through convoluted circumstances, Duke gets involved with Peter (George McCallister), son of a local bigwig, and Peter’s revolutionary pal, Justin (Scott Jacoby). Together, these unlikely allies develop the aforementioned Robin Hood scheme. Explaining the details is pointless, since Polakof doesn’t worry much about consistent behavior or narrative logic, opting instead to rush from one colorful scene to the next. The picture is best when Parks occupies center stage, dispensing a darker hue of the good-ole-boy charm one normally associates with Burt Reynolds. Whether he’s barking at his sidekick (“C’mere, Stupid!”) or romancing Annie in a bathtub, Parks epitomizes southern-fried swagger. Those around him mostly flounder in search of roles to play, though everybody gets to do something cartoonish or nefarious or sexy. Long on vibe and short on everything else, Love and the Midnight Auto is a mildly enjoyable mess.

Love and the Midnight Auto Supply: FUNKY

Satan’s Cheerleaders (1977)

Once you’ve come up with a title like Satan’s Cheerleaders, most of your work should be done. I mean, what’s so complicated about mixing devil worship with sexy teenagers? Based on the evidence of this misbegotten attempt at a comedy/horror hybrid, apparently the process is trickier than it seems, because director Greydon Clark and his collaborators botched the job. Beyond simply being amateurish, dumb, and tacky, Satan’s Cheerleaders doesn’t even have enough sex and violence to pass muster as a guilty pleasure. The story follows a quartet of horny cheerleaders and their goody-two-shoes coach, Ms. Johnson (Jacqueline Cole), through a series of adventures. Among other things, the cheerleaders make fun of a simple-minded janitor, Billy (Jack Kruschen). Later, when Ms. Johnson’s car breaks down while she’s driving the girls to a game, Billy comes along in his pickup truck, abducts the ladies, and announces his plans to rape all of them. Then he gets into yet another accident. After escaping from Billy, the ladies make their way to the home of a sheriff (John Ireland), unaware that he’s the leader of a devil-worshipping cult. Oh, and one of the cheerleaders, Patti (Kerry Sherman), discovers that she has magical powers. Not one moment of this flick is believable or suspenseful, because the acting is as atrocious as the writing, with stupidity guiding the behavior of all of the characters. Jokes fall flat in every scene, leering shots of scantily clad babes are distasteful, and supernatural moments are filmed so clumsily as to create narrative confusion. Sleaze-cinema fans should content themselves with enjoying the movie that the title Satan’s Cheerleaders conjures in their reptile brains, because it’s a damn sight better than this one.

Satan’s Cheerleaders: 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

The Swiss Conspiracy (1976)

          Perhaps because he always wears a pissed-off expression on his face, as well as swinging-single outfits noteworthy for plunging necklines that showcase his manly pelt, David Janssen looks like an unhappy tourist in many of his ’70s films. It’s as if he walked from the airport to the location, spat out his lines, and then left with a check in his hands, the ink still wet. One hopes that Janssen at least got to enjoy some sightseeing whenever he wasn’t sleepwalking through his leading role in The Swiss Conspiracy, which makes decent use of beautiful locations throughout Switzerland. The story is a convoluted and forgettable caper about crooks blackmailing account holders of a Swiss bank, with lots of double crosses and “surprise” twists, but so little attention is given to character development that it’s impossible to care what happens to any of the people onscreen. Furthermore, the movie is edited so tightly (The Swiss Conspiracy runs just 89 frantic minutes), that the logical connections between scenes occasionally become obscured. The result is a bit of a hectic blur, though the producers toss lots of eye candy at viewers in the form of attractive women, expert gunplay, high=speed chases, nasty fist fights, and even a few colorful explosions. Adding to the soulless spectacle is the presence of several name-brand actors who do perfunctory work, including John Ireland, Ray Milland, John Saxon, and Elke Sommer.

          Since these performers are directed by Jack Arnold, a capable craftsman whose best work comprised a string of Atomic Age sci-fi classics including The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1955), The Swiss Conspiracy looks and sounds like a real movie even though it’s standard-issue European junk. Janssen plays David Christopher, an American security expert hired to help bank manager Johann Hurtil (Milland) identify and capture the criminals who are extorting Hurtil’s customers. Complicating matters is the presence of Robert Hayes (Saxon), an American gangster who recognizes Christopher as a former police officer and summons Mafia hit men to Switzerland. Predictably, Christopher makes room in his schedule to romance attractive jet-setter Denise Abbott (Senta Berger), one of the blackmail victims. Story-wise, The Swiss Conspiracy is a washout. Escapism-wise, it’s not awful. Powered by a cheesy electro jazz/rock score, the movie zips along from one high-octane scene to another, mixing death and deceit into a Saturday-matinee soufflé—albeit one that never fully rises. No wonder Janssen looks so irritable in every scene.

The Swiss Conspiracy: FUNKY

The House of Seven Corpses (1974)

Oh, those silly Hollywood filmmakers—time and again, at least according to the logic of bad horror movies, Hollywood filmmakers make the idiotic decision to shoot on locations where murders occurred, and then keep shooting even when clues indicate the filmmakers themselves are about to become victims. But, hey, if it weren’t for stupid characters, there wouldn’t be very many horror movies, would there? In The House of Seven Corpses, a film crew led by obnoxious director Eric Hartman (John Ireland) shoots a Gothic shocker in a grand estate where several generations of residents were killed. Aiding the crew is a cadaverous old caretaker, Edgar Price (John Carradine), who does creepy things like critiquing the accuracy of murder reenactments, and, at Hartman’s behest, crawling around the graveyard adjoining the estate’s main house. Is it even worth mentioning that the crew is lodging at the estate in addition to shooting there, or that the film being shot has parallels to the Satan worship that inspired past killings? A low-rent American attempt to fabricate the style of England’s Hammer Films, The House of Seven Corpses overflows with mediocre acting, predictable jolts, and uninteresting characters. In particular, the members of Hartman’s acting troupe represent a barrage of clichés—the dim-witted blonde starlet, the insufferable theater-trained ham, the vain leading lady unwilling to admit she’s passed her expiration date, and so on. Plus, of course, Hartman is a cliché, too, since he berates his co-workers relentlessly. Thankfully, many of these annoying characters die. For cinema buffs, the only novel part of watching The House of Seven Corpses is seeing the camera equipment that’s used by Hartman’s crew. Yet if glimpses of vintage Arriflex 35mm cameras are the best things a horror flick can offer, that says a lot.

The House of Seven Corpses: LAME

The Phantom of Hollywood (1974)

As the title suggests, this enjoyable TV movie relocates the gimmick of Gaston Leroux’s classic 1908 novel The Phantom of the Opera to a decaying Hollywood backlot: A physically and psychologically scarred madman haunts the abandoned dream factory, killing anyone who invades his domain. What makes The Phantom of Hollywood fun to watch is the verisimilitude of the location. The picture was shot in the old Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer backlot just before demolition, so viewers get to witness the last days of showbiz landmark. Seeing once-beautiful facades overrun with rust and weeds is so poignant that it’s easy to empathize with the nutjob who considers the backlot hallowed ground. That said, The Phantom of Hollywood’s narrative, credited to George Schenck and Robert Thorn, is perfunctory at best: When a fictional studio decides to sell its long-unused backlot, the Phantom (who wears in a medieval costume and wields old-school weapons like a bow and arrow) starts whacking interlopers, so the studio has to smoke out the psycho. Feeling trapped, the Phantom kidnaps the studio head’s daughter (Skye Aubrey), causing her boyfriend, PR man Ray Burns (Peter Haskell), to rush to the rescue. Not much in The Phantom of Hollywood will surprise (or really frighten) most viewers, but the picture benefits from brevity, delivering a steady stream of melodrama and thrills over the course of 74 fast-moving minutes. And though the incredible location is the real star of the picture, reliable actors including Broderick Crawford, John Ireland, and Peter Lawford lend authority. As the Phantom (and also in a secondary role), journeyman actor Jack Cassidy has a field day spewing Shakespearean quotes and other overwrought dialogue—in fact, he sounds rather like Claude Rains, who played Leroux’s original Phantom in Universal’s 1943 monster-movie take on the tale. There’s also creepy irony to Cassidy playing a burn victim; the actor, perhaps best known as the real-life father of ’70s teen idols David and Shaun Cassidy, died in an apartment fire two years after The Phantom of Hollywood was broadcast. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

The Phantom of Hollywood: FUNKY

Farewell, My Lovely (1975)

          Highly regarded as one of the most faithful adaptations of a Raymond Chandler novel, Farewell, My Lovely is an oddity among the films that comprised the noir boom of the mid-’70s. Unlike, say, Chinatown (1974), which placed a contemporary cast in a period milieu to achieve a postmodern effect, Farewell, My Lovely stars an actor who appeared in several classics of the original late ’40s noir cycle: Robert Mitchum. And while Mitchum’s advanced age creates some storytelling hiccups, like the idea that his character is sexual catnip for a young beauty, his deep association with the genre and the hangdog quality that made him a good fit for vintage noir are used to great effect; Mitchum lumbers around Farewell, My Lovely like he’s the same poor bastard he played in Out of the Past (1947) after another 30 years of rough road.

          In addition to its well-cast leading man, the picture boasts a smooth script by David Zelag Goodman. The screenplay retains Chandler’s pithiest observations (via Mitchum’s world-weary voiceover) and lets the story spiral off into all the right murky tangents without losing narrative coherence. Describing a Chandler plot in the abstract does nothing to capture the story’s appeal, but the broad strokes are that a muscle-bound crook named Moose Malloy (Jack O’Halloran) hires private dick Philip Marlowe (Mitchum) to track down his long-lost girlfriend. This draws Marlowe into a web of hoodlums, politicians, and whores, so before long Marlowe’s been beaten, shot at, shot up, and generally put through the wringer. Along the way, he commences a torrid romance with a powerful judge’s fag-hag trophy wife, Helen Grayle (Charlotte Rampling). The movie gets seedier as it progresses, with Marlowe serving as the audience’s tour guide through the underworld.

          Director Dick Richards gets preoccupied with aping the visual style of classic noir flicks (lotsa neon and venetian blinds), so the more amateurish actors in the cast don’t get the attention they need, and Richards is pretty inept handling the sequence of Marlowe getting hopped up on dope. Nonetheless, the story is compelling—in Chandler’s universe, bad situations always get worse—and the supporting cast is colorful. John Ireland stands out as Marlowe’s policeman pal, the stalwart Detective Nulty, and Sylvia Miles received an Oscar nomination for her grotesque turn as a boozy ex-showgirl. Harry Dean Stanton, Joe Spinell, and Anthony Zerbe show up at regular intervals, and there’s even a brief appearance by a pre-Rocky Sylvester Stallone. Farewell, My Lovely is uneven, but its virtues are plentiful.

Farewell, My Lovely: GROOVY