Chosen Survivors (1974)

          A gonzo hybrid blending creature-feature elements with the tropes of post-apocalyptic melodrama, Chosen Survivors features a doozy of a plot—several individuals who were unknowingly handpicked by the government to restart the human race get kidnapped, drugged, and stashed inside an underground fallout shelter just before a devastating nuclear attack, only to discover that the shelter is infested with vicious vampire bats. Predictably, the pressure of the horrific situation brings out the best in some people and the worst in others, so Chosen Survivors ends up borrowing narrative DNA from a third major genre, the disaster movie. Given the far-fetched premise, it should come as no surprise to say that Chosen Survivors fails to achieve anything resembling credibility. This thing is outrageous and even a little bit silly from start to finish. Nonetheless, what Chosen Survivors lacks in quality, in makes up for in vibe. The picture is dark, fast, and nasty, so it feels a bit like an early John Carpenter movie, right down to the lean and ominous musical score. Enjoying the movie requires that viewers ignore major lapses in logic, but it’s a fun ride for those willing to follow Chosen Survivors down its bizarre path.

          The movie begins enigmatically, with helicopters landing in a remote site and discharging the principal characters, who are then roughly escorted into an elevator shaft by military personal. The drugged states of the characters are depicted with distorted slow-motion images, jarring edits, and weird music, so the long trip the characters take from the surface to their new subterranean home is fairly trippy. Eventually, the caretaker of the fallout shelter, Major Gordon Ellis (Richard Jaeckel), explains that the “chosen survivors” were doped because there wasn’t time to risk the participants refusing to cooperate. According to Ellis, the surface of America has been obliterated by nuclear bombs, so the “chosen survivors” must live underground and procreate until it’s safe to emerge from the shelter. Among the eclectic gang are scientists Lenore Chrisman (Barbara Babcock), Alana Fitzgerald (Diana Muldaur), Peter Macomber (Bradford Dillman), and Steven Mayes (Alex Cord); wealthy businessman Raymond Couzins (Jackie Cooper); and Olympic athlete Woody Russo (Lincoln Kilpatrick).

          Friction between these people materializes even before the first bat attack, with Cooper’s unhinged character trying to bribe others into releasing him because he doesn’t believe a nuclear attack occurred. Then, once the bats start biting, people go completely off the deep end. Cooper’s character tries to rape one of the female doctors, Dillman’s character retreats into analytical mode by observing the dissipation of the group instead of helping solve problems, and Cord’s character becomes morbidly philosophical. (In one of the movie’s most quintessentially ’70s moments, Cord purrs hippy-dippy musings about the inherent faults of the human race: ‘”The world’s too big. People don’t have time. People don't even have time for people. That's why I got so hyped on this place. It’s not too big.”)

          Interspersed with the quiet scenes are wild action/horror sequences, some of which gain a surreal quality thanks to the use of cheesy and unconvincing special effects. In fact, whenever Chosen Survivors hits a groove of optically inserted bats chomping victims to the accompaniment of jittery electronic music, the picture becomes cartoonishly nihilistic—think Saturday-matinee action viewed through the prism of a nightmare. Further, the movie is stylishly shot, with lots of claustrophobic compositions and dense color filters and oppressive shadows, while the cast of mostly B-level actors contributes appropriately over-the-top acting. Dillman is enjoyably twitchy, and Kilpatrick has a great moment when his character makes a sweaty climb up the elevator shaft while besieged by bats.

Chosen Survivors: GROOVY

The Brain Machine (1977)

An abysmal conspiracy/sci-fi thriller that features a numbing combination of incoherent storytelling and undercooked concepts, The Brain Machine is a deeply confusing movie. The discombobulated narrative begins when a doctor flees a hospital with secret files in his possession. Next, the film depicts a nefarious government experiment that the doctor tries to impede even as secret agents hunt him down. Yet what should be a simple suspense story plays out as a bewildering mess, because the filmmakers fail to provide bedrock elements such as an explanation of what the government experiment is designed to accomplish. Moreover, the picture lacks anything resembling suspense, since it contains endless scenes of characters either reclining on lawn furniture or engaging in nonsensical philosophical debates. Somewhere in the muck, it becomes evident that a number of civilians have been recruited to participate in the experiment because they don't have close family ties, meaning they're expendable (or something like that). Beyond that, it’s anybody’s guess. Among the actors playing the participants are future TV notables James Best (later to appear on The Dukes of Hazard) and Gerald McRaney (later to star in Simon & Simon). Best plays a haunted priest given to enigmatic musings like this one: “If I could hear the music I heard when I was young, I wouldn’t be out of step.” McRaney, virtually unrecognizable without his trademark moustache, mostly makes vituperative declarations stemming from some unexplained brand of righteous indignation. Very little actually happens in The Brain Machine, except for some violence in flashbacks and a vignette of a fellow getting electrocuted. Suffice to say, the organ mentioned in the title of The Brain Machine is not one that the movie engages.

The Brain Machine: SQUARE

Fugitive Girls (1974)

While the girls-in-prison genre has not historically generated an abundance of respectable movies, it would seem like the formula is simple enough—mistaken identity, false imprisonment, harassment by guards, sexual abuse by fellow inmates, brazen escape attempt, blah-blah-blah. Nonetheless, all bets are off whenever Edward D. Wood Jr. is involved. Revered as a titan of bad cinema thanks to Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) and other “classics,” the notorious Ed Wood cowrote this awful movie and also plays a supporting role. Wood’s co-conspirator was cowriter and director Stephen C. Apostolof, working under the name A.C. Stephen. By focusing too heavily on the quasi-pornographic elements of the storyline and by failing to present interesting villains (or, for that matter, distinct heroines), the filmmakers generate pure tedium instead of watchable trash. Things start out in the usual way. Dee (Margie Lanier) sleeps with a man who turns out to be a robber, and he dumps her at the scene of a crime. She’s arrested and sent to a women’s prison, where bullish inmate Kat (Tallie Chochane) rapes Dee the first night Dee is incarcerated. Then, without any explanation of why the women consider their imprisonment so untenable, Kat organizes a jailbreak and brings Dee along for a sexual plaything. After Kat’s quintet of escapees encounters trouble with a group of gypsies, the “fugitive girls” perform a home invasion that results in a scuzz-cinema riff on an iconic scene from A Clockwork Orange (1971)—the bit when criminals rape a woman while a helpless man watches from a wheelchair. The characterization and storyline of Fugitive Girls—also known as Five Loose Women—is abysmal, and the same can be said of the acting. (No surprise, seeing as how some of the actresses were plucked from the world of X-rated porn.) More than anything else, Fugitive Girls is a symphony of topless shots, with endless scenes of voluptuous women dancing, screwing, and stripping. After unleashing this dud onto an unsuspecting world, Apostolof and Wood reteamed for The Beach Bunnies (1976), which was the last of Wood’s projects released during his lifetime.

Fugitive Girls: LAME

The Squeeze (1977)

          Produced in England and featuring the same sort of seedy criminals who pervade such UK crime classics as Get Carter (1971) and The Long Good Friday (1980), this slow burn of a picture boasts a terrific leading performance by Hollywood actor Stacy Keach—so long as you disregard his patchy version of a British accent—and a believably grimy tone. Keach plays Jim, a loser who drank himself out of a job as a police detective and botched his marriage in the process. When we meet him, he’s so far down the spiral that he gets arrested for public inebriation and thrown into a drunk tank, then walks out of jail the next day and heads for the nearest pub.

          Duty calls when gangsters kidnap Jim’s ex-wife, Jill (Carol White), and the young daughter she’s raising with her new husband, Foreman (Edward Fox). Foreman enlists Jim’s aid in tracking down the perpetrators, but in his sodden state, Jim is initially no match for brutal crime boss Vic (Stephen Boyd) and his brilliant but sociopathic underling, Keith (David Hemmings). Jim is captured while attempting to probe Vic’s estate, so Vic humiliates the would-be hero by having him beaten senseless, stripped naked, pumped full of booze, and then deposited back in his own neighborhood without a stitch of clothing. Meanwhile, Keith torments Jill under threat of harming her daughter, forcing her to strip for his goons and provide sexual favors. Bubbling under the whole affair is a blackmail scheme, because Foreman is an executive at an armored-car service, so instead of ransom, Vic demands help arranging a massive heist.

          What makes The Squeeze unique is the twist it provides on the usual crime-movie formula. Whereas most filmmakers would show a character like Jim making subtle moves as he prepares a climactic rescue, the folks behind The Squeeze show that Vic and his goons are fully aware of Jim’s machinations, but don’t consider him a threat because he’s such a wreck. And, for much of the movie’s running time, their assessment proves correct. Jim reacts to hardships by retreating into alcohol, even though he knows that innocent people will pay terrible prices for his choices. All of this dark drama is set to a driving and eerie score by David Hentschel, which pops with synthesizer-laden prog-rock flourishes. Had The Squeeze benefited from a sharper script, the grim concepts marbled through the story could have elevated the piece into rarified terrain. As is, the picture is an interesting near-miss containing several fine performances.

          In particular, Irish actor Boyd—appearing in one of his final films—gives a disquieting turn as an unsophisticated brute, employing his natural accent instead of hiding behind the Americanized speaking style he used during his Hollywood career. (Boyd is a long way from his vapid he-man turns in such widescreen epics as 1959’s Ben-Hur and 1964’s The Fall of the Roman Empire.) Hemmings and Keach deliver exemplary work, though each actor played similar notes in other films; debauched villains were a staple of Hemmings’ filmography dating back to Camelot (1967), and Keach’s definitive drunk-loser performance was in John Huston’s bleak drama Fat City (1972). Yet even if The Squeeze isn’t a defining moment for anyone involved, it’s executed with menace and skill, and it’s among the toughest pieces ever helmed by the prolific English director Michael Apted, who is generally best known for documentaries and sensitive melodramas.

The Squeeze: GROOVY

Bummer (1973)

Hopelessly confused in terms of conception and execution, Bummer eventually finds its groove as a killer-on-the-loose movie, but that occurs far too late to make any difference. Until reaching its final act, the picture is a meandering mixture of generic melodrama and unfunny comedy, set in the lurid world of rock musicians and their groupies. Like so many grade-Z pictures of the same era, Bummer pads its running time with dull sequences of topless dancers grinding away, as well as endless vignettes of interchangeable characters screwing in fields and vans and pretty much anyplace with flat surfaces. At some point, a story emerges about Butts (Dennis Burkley), the unhinged bass player of a rock band called The Group. We know he’s unhinged because of the strange intercut sequence juxtaposing shots of another band member having conventional sex with shots of Butts getting swatted on the rear end until he climaxes. The first hour of the picture is borderline incoherent, as well as being unquestionably déclassé, so it’s a relief once Butts begins his violent rampage. Thereafter, the picture gains a modicum of focus and momentum, even as it degrades into even sleazier terrain than before—think rape, murder, and vengeance. Later still, when Bummer segues into a characteristically downbeat ’70s ending, the picture inches dangerously close to having style and themes. However, reaching that point requires trudging through so much pointless junk that the ending is less a saving grace than a minor respite. So, while the film’s title is a fairly accurate description of its narrative content, the title is also a spot-on description of the experience of watching Bummer. Virtually any other activity would better reward an investment of 90 minutes.

Bummer: LAME

Rattlers (1976)

          A middling entry in the seemingly endless parade of nature-gone-wild movies that followed in the wake of Jaws (1975), this low-budget horror show is serviceable but unimpressive. Oh, and in case you didn't receive the subtle messaging in the title, it's about snakes. Rattlers is fairly tame in terms of gore, and it has more than a few groan-inducing examples of nonsensical character behavior and/or shaky plot twists. Nonetheless, it's far from the worst example of its derivative genre, because some of the snake-attack scenes are genuinely creepy, and the storyline contains such comfortingly familiar elements as a secret military conspiracy. Viewers seeking actual quality should of course look elsewhere, but creature-feature devotees are accustomed to operating with diminished expectations. After the de rigeur opening scene of a mysteriously unprovoked snake attack, reptile specialist Dr. Tom Parkinson (Sam Chew) gets hired by a small-town police department to research the incident. He's teamed with photographer Ann Bradley (Elisabeth Chauvet). Tom analyzes unusual snake behavior even as further attacks occur, eventually determining that a military base is the nexus of the problem. Thanks to a conveniently loose-lipped junior officer, Tom learns that the base's commander ordered the illegal disposal of an experimental nerve-gas agent near a nest of rattlesnakes, hence the abnormally vicious animal behavior.

          The plotting of Rattlers is stiffly mechanical, the dialogue ranges from mediocre to substandard, and the characterizations are inconsistent. For every quasi-credible scene (e.g., Ann explaining that she became a feminist after watching her mother suffer through underpaid factory work), there's something quite silly (e.g., Tom whisking Ann away for a sexy evening in Vegas during the height of the rattler rampage). That said, the movie more or less delivers when the time comes for proper suspense scenes—for example, the bit of a utility worker trapped in the crawlspace beneath a house while rattlers emerge from surrounding pipes is gruesomely exciting. And while the makers of Rattlers go light on the sleaze, considering the usual grimy textures of mid-'70s B-movies, director/cowriter John McCauley indulges himself with a lurid scene of a young woman whose bubble bath gets interrupted by snakes emerging from the faucet of her bathtub. All in all, Rattlers taps into a pervasive phobia, and since average people are more likely to stumble across rattlesnakes in their lifetimes than they are to encounter some of the other predators in Jaws-era creature features (great white sharks, grizzly bears, killer whales, and so on), there's something almost grounded about the picture's premise.

Rattlers: FUNKY

Planet of Dinosaurs (1977)

By any measure, the l0w-budget sci-fi adventure Planet of Dinosaurs is embarrassingly bad. The acting is atrocious, the special effects are cheap, and the story is silly. That said, the movie’s kitsch factor is high, the ladies in the cast give generously of their cleavage, and it’s hard not to smile at some of the ludicrous dialogue (“We can’t risk lives trying to tame dinosaurs!”). In other words, Planet of Dinosaurs is worth a few minutes of hate-watching for diehard fans of bad fantasy cinema, although only the hardiest souls will be able to tolerate all 84 craptastic minutes. With barely any set-up, the movie begins when a spaceship from Earth experiences a malfunction while traveling through a distant galaxy. Several crew members escape in a shuttlecraft and land on a nearby planet, which has an atmosphere and terrain like those found on Earth. Alas, the unfortunate travelers soon discover their new home is overrun with hungry dinosaurs, which director James K. Shea and his collaborators depict through the use of old-fashioned stop-motion animation. (Adding variety to the stop-motion antics, the castaways also encounter a spider the size of a housecat.) The exceedingly weak story features the characters going through the usual Robinson Crusoe routine of building shelters and mastering their environment, all the while evading giant reptiles. Amid various tragedies—a man impaled by a dinosaur’s horn, a woman chomped by an underwater beastie—the people somehow find time for making romance and, in one bizarre scene, making wine. It’s all quite stupid, and the ultra-’70s look (think facial hair, halter tops, and striped unitards) doesn’t help matters any more than the tacky electronic flourishes of the musical score.

Planet of Dinosaurs: LAME

The Arena (1974)

          To get a sense of what The Arena has to offer, think of the Kirk Douglas gladiator classic Spartacus (1960), subtract all the sociopolitical themes, and replace them with bloody catfights and sleazy nude scenes. As directed by pulp-cinema specialist Steve Carver, The Arena is as briskly entertaining as it is shamelessly exploitive, so it makes for a zippy viewing experience. Furthermore, except for a couple of secondary cast members who camp it up by playing avaricious women and/or queeny men, the actors play their roles straight, resulting in the sort of overwrought intensity one normally associates with comic books. Combined with the picture’s most overtly appealing elements—think leading lady Pam Grier and her lissome costars parading around in the altogether at every possible opportunity—the movie’s Saturday-matinee vibe ensures 83 minutes of gleefully tacky escapism.

          Set in the era of the Roman Empire, the picture begins in England, where Roman slavers interrupt a pagan religious ceremony and kidnap statuesque blonde Bodicia (Margaret Markov). Next, slavers bust up an African dancing-and-drums ritual to kidnap voluptuous Mamawi (Grier). Together with other recent abductees, Bodicia and Mamawi are taken to a place called “Burundium” and sold at auction to Priscium (Silvio Laurenzi), a fey Roman who helps operate a gladiatorial academy. The ladies are tasked with menial duties, and they’re also expected to provide gladiators with companionship. (Or, as one incensed woman exclaims, “Oh, Gods, do you mean we have to satisfy their animal heat?”) Eventually, a catfight in the academy’s kitchen gives Prisium and his gluttonous boss, Timarkus (Daniele Vargas), the notion to present female gladiators as a novelty attraction. Audiences love the girl-on-girl action, turning Bodicia and Mamawi, among others, into arena superstars. All the while, the women plot their escape. Betrayal, bloodshed, and bonking ensue.

          Carver gives the material gonzo treatment from start to finish, his whiz-bang style abetted by slick editing from future director Joe Dante. (Dante enjoyed a varied apprenticeship at New World Pictures, the Roger Corman-led company that produced and distributed The Arena.) Only one scene in the movie breaks the spell by attempting full-on comedy, so for the most part The Arena remains true to itself by giving viewers one breathless scene of sex and/or violence after another. Grier and Markov, previously paired in the grungy exploitation saga Black Mama, White Mama (1973), make a physically attractive pair even if it’s a stretch to describe their onscreen interactions as evidence of genuine chemistry, and both women are displayed to flattering effect. Better still, while neither actress seems to have any illusions about what's expected of them, they each notch a credible moment periodically, contributing to the overall zestiness of the movie.

The Arena: FUNKY

Take a Girl Like You (1970)

          Former child star Hayley Mills continued her transition to grown-up roles with this tedious but watchable sex comedy from Great Britain, adapted quite loosely from a novel by Kingsley Amis. Mills plays Jenny, a young schoolteacher who moves from a small town to a larger city and fends off the advances of various lascivious men. Infused with lots of swinging-’60s attitudes, the picture explores the difficulties that Jenny faces as a virgin in a sexually permissive milieu. Jenny’s celibacy causes special frustration for Patrick (Oliver Reed), an experienced Casanova who takes Jenny on a few chaste dates and then becomes obsessed with her after she draws the line at groping and kissing. Meanwhile, Jenny has fun becoming part of Patrick’s social circle, because he’s friendly with cosmopolitan folks including Julian (Noel Harrison), a member of the upper class who throws fabulous parties at his estate even though he’s on the verge of losing the place for tax reasons.

          Although Take a Girl Like You fails to generate much in the way of laughter, perhaps because time has coarsened the idea of a rake browbeating a kind young woman into surrendering her chastity, the debate about principles that Jenny and Patrick have at various intervals throughout the film is relatively interesting. Jenny takes the stance that she needn’t explain herself, and that peer pressure isn’t reason enough to defy the tenets of her upbringing. Patrick argues the opposite perspective, saying that Jenny’s mired in outdated mores and that holding out for love and marriage inhibits the natural course of romantic relationships.

          Had Take a Girl Like You been executed with more nuance, and perhaps even cast differently, it could become a worthwhile exploration of gender differences during a time of sweeping social change. Alas, the script is intelligent but repetitive, and the contrast between wholesome Mills and hulking Reed is distracting. She’s so innocent and sweet that she seems like an angel, and he’s so dark and intense that he seems like a predator. Mills tries mightily to come across like a full-grown woman, and nearly succeeds, but Reed’s energy is overwhelmingly dangerous and masculine. The chirpy theme song by the Foundations and the peppy underscore contribute further tonal dissonance, as if the whole thing is a lark—when it fact it plays out more like a serious character study, complete with a bleak and deeply unsatisfying climax.

Take a Girl Like You: FUNKY

Lady Cocoa (1975)

Despite achieving considerable fame as a Las Vegas entertainer and despite having starred in a couple of European pictures in the ’60s, pretty and talented African-American singer/actress Lola Falana never found a niche in Hollywood. She gave a memorable turn as a seductress in The Liberation of L.B. Jones (1970), and then mostly played small parts in features and TV shows—except for this shoddy excuse for a starring vehicle. Produced on a meager budget and predicated on a threadbare storyline, the blaxploitation-ish Lady Cocoa stars Falana as a criminal’s ex-girlfriend now serving time in prison. As part of a plea-bargain deal, Cocoa (Falana) gets one day of freedom in Las Vegas before testifying against her former lover. However, when Cocoa’s law-enforcement guardians tell her she’s expected to hide out in a hotel room and order room service, she insists on a day full of shopping, shows, and slot machines. Cocoa gets her way by threatening to withhold her testimony, so her security is entrusted to Doug (Gene Washington), a handsome black cop. Naturally, attraction develops between the two. Meanwhile, hit men lay in wait for Cocoa, planning to kill her the minute she appears in public. Plots like this one have been filmed a zillion times, but rarely this incompetently. Nothing much happens for the first hour, and the movie includes innumerable scenes of the hit men watching Cocoa through a window—or spying on her inside a casino—without attempting to kill her. Similarly, the relationship between Cocoa and Doug is so predictable and trite that Falana and Washington can’t make anything of their scenes. They both look good and sound tough, but that’s about it. The film’s production values are weak, and the soundtrack irritatingly features endless variations of “Pop Goes the Weasel,” notably an obnoxiously brassy rendition sung by Falana. (The picture was occasionally marketed as Pop Goes the Weasel, presumably a flip reference to the idea of killing a snitch.) Not that it makes any difference, one of the hit man is played—with zero energy—by NFL icon “Mean” Joe Greene.

Lady Cocoa: LAME

Is There Sex After Death? (1971)

A sad relic of the Oh, Calcutta! era—during which boundary-pushing sex comedies gained a patina of credibility by exploiting the counterculture’s principles of permissiveness and provocation—Is There Sex After Death? feels virtually inert when experienced with modern sensibilities. Originally released with an X rating because of copious nudity and sexual content (which stops just short of penetration), the faux documentary comprises a number of sketches involving sex researchers who use an institute and a “Sexmobile” to explore the carnal habits of everyday people. Every so often, this premise triggers a mildly witty sequence juxtaposing intelligent commentary with ribald imagery. Mostly, however, the picture presents endless scenes of naked people dancing, humping, posing, swimming, and so on. Revealing the movie’s exploitive soul, the longest sequence involves newsreel-type footage of participants in a nudist colony. Does anyone really believe that lengthy shots of sexy female nudists gyrating and sunbathing have educational value vis-à-vis the nudist ideal of shedding societal inhibitions? Although codirectors Alan and Jeanne Abel deserve some credit for being equal-opportunity sensationalists, since both male and female bodies are on display throughout Is There Sex After Death?, the filmmakers fail in their primary endeavor of generating laughs. Still, the handful of scenes featuring famed actor/writer Buck Henry are almost amusing simply because of Henry’s impeccable deadpan timing. (The best bit is a sequence of Henry trying to keep it together while describing the breasts of a voluptuous woman who is undressing next to him.) But is there anything genuinely edifying or even erotic in Is There Sex After Death? Not unless the following dialogue, spoken by Henry, is your idea of adults-only hilarity: “Once in Ireland I examined a woman whose vagina was so large I had to take an aerial photograph.”

Is There Sex After Death?: SQUARE

Shinbone Alley (1971)

          What was it about the ’70s that made filmmakers think audiences wanted to see adult-oriented cartoons about felines? Two years before the release of the X-rated Fritz the Cat, moviegoers were subjected to the strangeness of the PG-rated musical Shinbone Alley. Parts of the movie are too grown-up for the kiddies who normally enjoy animated features, and other parts of the movie are too juvenile for the adults capable of understanding the sexualized subject matter. In fact, it’s hard to imagine what target audience the makers of Shinbone Alley had in mind, seeing as how the narrative includes a human poet who commits suicide and is reincarnated as a cockroach, an unrequited-love story involving creatures from different species, a slutty heroine who contemplates drowning her children because they’re inconvenient, a proposed insect revolution against humanity, and Shakespeare performed as beat poetry.

          Making matters worse, the film’s tunes are croaked and screeched by performers with ghastly singing voices, including Eddie Bracken, John Carradine, and the insufferable Carol Channing. It says a lot about Shinebone Alley that the most entertaining singing comes from Alan Reed, best known as the voice of Fred Flinstone.

          Shinbone Alley has a peculiar pedigree. The main characters, cockroach Archy and alley cat Mehitabel, first appeared in whimsical newspaper columns written by Don Marquis beginning in 1916. Bracken and Channing entered the picture in 1954, performing on a comedy/musical concept album titled archy and mehitabel. The album was then adapted into a 1957 Broadway musical, titled Shinbone Alley, with Bracken and, replacing Channing, Eartha Kitt. Mel Brooks contributed new material when the album was adapted for stage presentation. Bits of all of the versions were merged into this animated feature, which reunited Bracken and Channing.

          The style of the feature is strange, because the raggedy background drawings and sketchy figure renderings are a long way from the sleek textures of Disney ’toons. Yet the edgy graphics and the subversive storytelling don’t mesh with the obnoxious music. On one level, Shinbone Alley is a loud attempt at a crowd-pleaser complete with wannabe show-stopping numbers. On nearly every other level, the piece is just bizarre. Some scenes are dark, while others are trippy. The language and themes exist way over the heads of children (sample dialogue: “Your predilection for tomcats is the scandal of the neighborhood”), and the narrative wanders through episodes that have little connection to each other.

          In Carradine’s big sequence, his character tries to seduce Channing’s character by browbeating her into becoming an actress, resulting in a hideous scene of the two frog-voiced actors brutalizing lines from Romeo and Juliet while scatting them to a jazz beat. And in another dissonant bit, Bracken’s character has a sex dream about Channing’s character that’s illustrated by still photographs with cat heads superimposed over the bodies of human women. Adding to the bewildering nature of the movie, the big takeaway seems to be that that the hero should be content basking in the glow of the heroine, even though she plans to continue her promiscuous ways and has no interest in romance with her most devoted admirer. But at least viewers know that Archy can always attend to his carnal needs with a set of characters described as “Ladybugs of the Evening.”

Shinbone Alley: FREAKY

In Search of Dracula (1975)

          Not to be confused with the Leonard Nimoy-hosted TV series In Search of . . . (which spotlighted Dracula in one episode), this flimsy European documentary explores the real-life roots of vampire mythology while also including dramatic scenes featuring Hammer Films icon Christopher Lee as both the fictional character Dracula and the 15th-century historical figure Vlad Tepes, whose bloody reign in Transylvania helped inspire Irish novelist Bram Stoker to pen his enduring 1897 novel Dracula. Additionally, Lee narrates the piece in his usual stentorian style. In Search of Dracula is an odd hybrid. During many passages, it’s like a bland educational film; scenes of modern-day Transylvanians dancing around a town square are particularly unexciting. Yet whenever Lee appears onscreen as Dracula, he preys upon nubile women who seem to spend most of their time dressing and undressing. That said, while the makers of In Search of Dracula succumbed to the lure of sensational gimmicks, they didn’t have the nerve to present full-on Grand Guignol excess.

          At the time of the picture’s release, some of the information that director/coproducer/cowriter Calvin Floyd presents was relatively fresh, such as the connection between Stoker’s creation and Tepes (better known as “Vlad the Impaler”). The movie also does an adequate job of tracing bloodsucker iconography from ancient Egypt to post-medieval Hungary, where notorious murderess Elizabeth Báthory bathed in the blood of her victims, and beyond. There’s even some cringe-inducing laboratory footage of a real vampire bat in action, as well as interesting sequences explaining how Stoker wrote about a region he’d never visited. Floyd shows restraint in terms of describing Dracula’s prominence in films, although clips from F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922) and other silent films unspool at excessive length, presumably because the public-domain content was available for Floyd’s use free of charge.

          By far the weirdest sequence in the movie is an extended vignette about a modern-day European named “Bill,” who is shown practicing vampirism on himself—he nicks his throat with a razor and drinks the blood that flows from his wound. The “Bill” images, however, feel as fabricated as the shots of Lee playing Tepes while wearing a silly wig and a series of even sillier headdresses. Still, even though subsequent documentaries and TV specials have undoubtedly improved on the scholarship of this low-budget enterprise, the grungy ’70s vibe and Lee’s participation lend In Search of Dracula a measure of kitschy appeal.

In Search of Dracula: FUNKY

Crucible of Terror (1971)

A forgettable UK horror romp about a reclusive artist who sleeps with and then kills his nubile models, Crucible of Terror manages to make Satanism, sex, and murder boring. After a gruesome prologue during which a beautiful woman is killed and then covered with material to become a sculpture—shades of the infinitely superior Vincent Price thriller House of Wax (1954)—the picture relocates to London, where art dealer Jack (James Bolam) sells the sculpture in his gallery. Made by the enigmatic artist Victor Clare (Mike Raven), the sculpture was stolen from Victor’s studio by the artist’s son, Michael (Ronald Lacey), who gave it to Jack in exchange for a cut of the proceeds. (Never mind the logistics, because the movie is as confusing as it is dull.) Eager to acquire more artwork for sale, Jack persuades Michael to take him to Victor’s remote home in Cornwall for an introduction and a negotiation. The men bring their wives. Despite being described as antisocial, Victor welcomes the visitors and sets about trying to seduce the wives, because Victor’s own spouse is a head case who walks around dressed like a child and talking to a doll. (Again, don’t try to figure any of this out, because it’s not worth the effort.) Every so often, the befuddling character interplay gets punctuated with a mildly gory murder scene, and the story concludes with lots of weird revenge/supernatural hooey inside the abandoned mine that’s located near Victor’s home. Although Crucible of Terror is executed more or less competently on technical levels, the storytelling is a disaster and the performances are bland. Leading man Raven is a poor man’s Christopher Lee, and the biggest notable in the cast is Lacey, whose turn as a twitchy drunk isn’t particularly memorable, but who later played one of the main villains in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)—the creepy SS officer whose head melts during the climax.

Crucible of Terror: LAME

Crucible of Horror (1971)

          Made in the UK and originally titled The Corpse, this slow-moving shocker boasts adequate performances and solid production values, as well as imaginative cinematography, but the piece is undercut by a muddled storyline. Ostensibly a Hitchockian thriller about domestic strife leading to patricide and then to unexpected repercussions, the picture features only four major characters. Taking place almost entirely inside the countryside home of a small family, the movie catalogs the indignities that uptight insurance executive Walter Eastwood (Michael Gough) inflicts on his wife, Edith (Yvonne Mitchell), and his teenaged daughter, Jane (Sharon Gurney). Walter physically, psychologically, and verbally torments both women, at one point beating Jane with a switch so badly she’s reduced to tears while red welts decorate most of her body. Standing by, obliviously, is Walter’s adult son, Rupert (Simon Gough), whom Walter has designated to be his professional successor. Eventually, the Eastwood ladies decide enough is enough and kill Walter, but then weird thing start happening. Amid the difficulties of trying to surreptitiously dispose of Walter’s corpse, the women perceive phenomena suggesting Walter’s demise might not be as absolute as they thought

          In principle, this sort of story should work just fine for an atmospheric thriller—witness the 1955 French-cinema classic Diabolique. In practice, however, Crucible of Horror is confusing and tedious. Despite a smattering of shock cuts and theremin solos, very little of consequence occurs in the first half-hour of the picture, and the stiff-upper-lip acting makes everything sterile. Although the filmmakers vainly try to emulate the spooky style of Hammer Films, the storytelling is far too disjointed and off-putting. Thus, when things take a gruesome turn, the wheels come off completely, leading to an ending that makes zero sense. British-horror fans might find some pleasure in the texture of this piece, and Gough (who later found U.S. fame playing Alfred Pennyworth to Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne) is a minor light in the British-horror firmament. Those seeking real thrills, however, should search elsewhere.

Crucible of Horror: FUNKY

That Man Bolt (1973)

          Although he’s most closely associated with blaxploitation flicks, swaggering ex-NFL player Fred Williamson began his acting career in mainstream pictures, and he also tried expanding his blaxploitation-era stardom with movies that weren’t aimed solely at urban audiences. Williamson’s biggest such play was almost certainly That Man Bolt, an international crime/espionage thriller that features the actor as a professional courier who comports himself like James Bond. Excepting a brief appearance by Teresa Graves, Williamson is the only black performer with a major role, so That Man Bolt is about as close to a mass-appeal movie as Williamson got during his cinematic heyday. Seeing as how the film didn’t generate a sequel—or trigger the production of further non-blaxploitation projects starring Williamson—it’s safe to say That Man Bolt didn’t set the world on fire during its original release. Nonetheless, this is one of Williamson’s better vehicles simply because the storyline is passable and the 007-esque milieu allows Williamson to flex his charm as well as his formidable physical abilities.

          When the picture begins, ultra-confident tough guy Jefferson Bolt (Williamson) gets bailed out of a Hong Kong prison by a client seeking his services as a courier. The proposed job involves transporting $1 million in U.S. currency from the Far East to Mexico via Los Angeles. Complications ensue because people start trying to kill Bolt—and because Bolt discovers the money he’s transporting is counterfeit. Eventually, the story returns to Hong Kong for a martial-arts showdown between Bolt and an Asian crime lord.
          Since two directors are credited with helming That Man Bolt (Henry Levin and David Lowell Rich), it’s likely that either separate units handled photography on different continents, or that one director replaced the other partway through production. In any event, the look of the piece is generic but relatively slick, with an abundance of extras and location scenes. Some of the martial-arts flourishes are weaker than others (That Man Bolt is yet another ’70s movie featuring a secret school for karate-chopping assassins), but in general the Far East stuff is colorful. In one scene, acupuncture needles are used as torture instruments, and in another, Bolt has fun with his British employer (Byron Webster) by enlisting a heavyset female masseuse to give the man a thorough going-over. However, the energy level of the picture is never quite high enough, even though composter Charles Bernstein juices his orchestral score with occasional funk flourishes. Despite the erratic execution, Williamson keeps things light with his singularly self-assured screen presence.

That Man Bolt: FUNKY

Desperate Living (1977)

          With his fifth feature, trash auteur John Waters came close to a perfect synthesis of irreverent comedy, rebellious attitude, and vulgar excess. Like most of his early efforts, however, the movie has too much shock-value material for its own good. Everything is pitched so loudly, in terms of disgusting visuals and histrionic acting and vile behavior, that Desperate Living becomes monotonous despite its upbeat tone. And while nothing in Desperate Living surpasses the apex of Waters’ onscreen grotesquerie (that would be the indelible image of enormous drag queen Divine eating real dog feces in Waters’ 1972 opus Pink Flamingos), it’s not as if Desperate Living wants for transgressive signifiers.

          In no particular order, the movie features a babysitter who stuffs her young charge in a refrigerator; a close-up of an insect crawling out of someone’s rear end; a cop who makes women hand over their underwear so he can put the garments on himself; a disgusting matriarch who uses leather-clad dancing boys for sex slaves; an intercut scene that juxtaposes two energetic cunnilingus sessions (one gay, one straight); countless semi-explicit sex scenes featuring grossly overweight performers; and an incident of self-castration performed with scissors. Compared to everything else with which Waters bombards viewers, the big cannibalism scene at the end is tame. The thing about Waters, of course, is that he conveys such a strong sense of delirious joy while presenting outré images that he rarely seems mean-spirited, especially since the story of Desperate Living—as with most of Waters’ depraved narratives—celebrates freaks and skewers conformists. In fact, when it’s viewed as an over-top metaphor representing the beauty of inclusion and the evil of othering, Desperate Living is oddly inspirational.

          To that end, the movie is constructed like a fairy tale. When the adventure begins, neurotic housewife Peggy Gravel (Mike Stole) enlists her maid/nurse, Grizelda Brown (Jean Hill), for help in killing Peggy’s overbearing husband. Then Peggy and Grizelda escape to Mortville, a remote shantytown inhabited by deviants and weirdos. Ruling over Mortville is the domineering Queen Carlotta (Edith Massey). As Peggy jockeys for position in Carlotta’s court, using insidious means to push likely successor Princess Coo-Coo (Mary Vivian Pearce) out of the way, Grizelda joins with the “good” people of Mortville for a rebellion. Meanwhile, lots of screen time is devoted to the exploits of Mole McHenry (Susan Lowe), a bullish lesbian with a face full of sores who pursues a sex-change operation in order to wow her buxom girlfriend, Muffy St. Jacques (Liz Renay). Carnality, crime, and cruelty ensue. Waters, per his norm, exceeds the limits of good taste whenever possible, but he never loses sight of his underdogs-vs.-the-system theme. (It just happens that most of his underdogs are criminally insane.)

          More importantly, Desperate Living has moments of laugh-out-loud absurdity, making it perhaps the most entertaining of Waters’ early films. Consider the moment when Peggy goes ballistic upon receiving a wrong-number call: “How can you ever repay the 30 seconds you have stolen from my life?!! I hate you, your husband, and your relatives!!!” Desperate Living is foul, tacky, and wrong, but that’s why it’s a fitting denouement to the first phase of Waters’ outrageous career—starting with his next picture, the comparatively restrained Polyester (1981), Waters began a steady drift into the mainstream, eventually making a pair of PG-rated studio comedies before inching back into extreme material.

Desperate Living: FREAKY