Talk about a surprise. Released on DVD as The
Burning Curse, this movie proves that sometimes contemporary TV horror movies
can easily hold their own as decent flicks. In another time, in the days back
when TV horror movies always faded into black when the horror hits, or let it
happen off-screen, this movie would have probably never have been aired on TV. Instead, it would probably have hit the screens, without prior publicity, as part of a
double or triple bill at your local grindhouse or struggling mall theatre, and
it would have stood out as the unexpected discovery amidst the grime: a
well-made, low-budget horror movie with dread and scares to spare — but no
nudity — that keeps you enthralled until the obligatory final scare. It's the
type of contemporary TV movie that restores one's faith in low-budget genre
films — the movie proves that such films don't need to pander for cheap laughs
or be bad-on-purpose, as so many contemporary genre films do and are.
Trailer to
The Hollow:
Like many horror movies today, The Burning Curse
opens with a "name" actor, the familiar face whose name you may or
may not know who, for whatever reason (i.e., friendship, rent, new car, lack of
better offers, etc.), shows up long enough to solidly register onscreen before
— well, you know. (It's been a horror movie trope since Psycho [1960 / trailer],
at the latest, and riffed upon with diminishing returns in the Scream franchise
ever since the first one [1996 / trailer]
directed by Wes
Craven.) In The Burning Cross, the familiar face is Deborah Kara Unger, who
was once found in movies like The Hurricane (1999 / trailer),
The Game (1997 / trailer)
and Payback (1999 / trailer)
but now is entering her MILF character actor phase. She plays Aunt Cora, who
lives on the secluded island known as Shelter Island — a misnomer, to say the
least, as the island ends up offering little shelter but a lot of death.
The three main characters of the movie, the
dysfunctional trio of sisters (with varying acting talent) consisting of Sarah
(Stephanie Hunt of April Apocalypse [2013 / trailer]),
Marley (Sarah Dugdale of In
the Shadow of the Moon [2019 / trailer]
and There's Someone inside Your House [2021 / trailer])
and Emma (Alisha Newton of Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters [2013 / trailer]
and Scorched Earth [2018 / trailer]),
are already living a horror story of their own — if an emotional one — when we
are introduced to them. Bickering and seething with emotional instability and
pain, they are on their way to Aunt Cora's, broke and with nowhere else to go
after having spent all the life insurance money paid out after the fiery death
of their parents on the treatment of the troubled youngest, Emma, who survived
the car crash that killed their parents.
Thus, they are oblivious to the
portentous warnings to stay away from the island, which is due to be hit by a
major, once-a-century storm, and catch the last ferry over — only to be met
first by an empty town and, soon thereafter, an unstoppable unnatural entity
out to kill everyone on the island.* It seems that some hundred years ago, the town burnt
three witches at the stake, who promptly placed a curse and massacred most of the
town during a major thunderstorm; now, a century later, on Halloween, the curse
is revived as the next storm of a century rolls in...
*A tried-and-true narrative MacGuffin
found in many a movie in a variety of forms — the first to come to our mind
(though surely not the first to use the idea) is Mario Bava's gothic Black
Sunday (1960 / trailer),
though there the witch returns (as a vampire) to fulfill the curse herself, and
instead of an entire town she has her sights set on a single family (though she
is hardly loath to an occasional non-family member). Bava's other gothic
masterpiece, Kill Baby Kill (1966 / trailer),
is likewise a variant, in this case the curse of but a singular, wronged child
upon an entire town.
The narrative of The Burning Curse a.k.a. The Hollow is
straight and narrow and only pauses to take the time to introduce characters
and their backgrounds. Some plot points seem rather extraneous — Emma's
presaging dreams indicate a supernatural connection that never goes anywhere,
the whole it-happens-on-Halloween aspect is rather opportune but unnecessary, and
the disappearing car is less logical than a convenient excuse for having the
two older sisters deal with the horror of moving a body from another vehicle* —
but in general the movie is an effective and linear run-from-a-supernatural-monster
movie.
*It would seem that, though never
explicitly stated, one of the demon's talents is driving cars, for much like
the car of the three sisters gets driven off, Aunt Cora's RV also shows up
somewhere it logically shouldn't be.
As such, The Hollow manages to offer some pretty
decent shocks and scares as the sisters try to escape or at least survive an
extremely mobile creature that cannot be killed. Okay, the CGI of the creature
is a bit too CGI at times, but the superhuman creature itself is an interesting
mixture of earth and ember, attacking and killing with quickly growing, rooty
vine-like tendrils and/or burning fire. (A combination derived, one might
conjecture, from the wood and fire used to execute the three evil witches a
century previously.)
Director Sheldon Wilson, a capable if still
unsung genre-movie specialist (who has made a lot of movies set on Halloween
night, some with monsters that look suspiciously like the one in this movie), milks
a lot of atmosphere from his island setting, more so within the deserted,
body-strewn small town and the fecund but dreary oppressiveness of the old
forest than within the oddly in-shape tunnels and rooms of the deserted power
plant where the three sisters face their final battle(s). Wilson also stages a
variety of good shock scenes, the most memorable being the totally unexpected
woman being literally blasting out through the front door of a house and the
demise of a likeable (if not too bright) young man (Jonathan Whitesell of The
Unspoken [2015 / trailer]
and Bad Times at the El Royale [2018 / trailer])
who looks too closely at a map. Wilson and his co-scriptwriter, Rick Suvalle —
the latter seems to swing between scripting kiddy films and TV horror like this
move, Roadkill [2011 / trailer],
and Sheldon Wilson's Scarecrow [2013 / trailer]*
— also mine a lot of tension by keeping the demon's appearance irregular and
unexpected, but always threatened. At least, that is, until the final scenes in
the deserted power station, at which point the demon is pretty much fixated on
getting the last three survivors on the island and becomes a bit more
omnipresent.
* Which basically reuses the monster from this
movie, but without the fire-power.
Lastly, The Hollow is also solidly
anchored by the three young sisters around whom the narrative revolves. A
dysfunctional and emotionally damaged trio, they all have clear-cut
personalities and act and react realistically (if perhaps too loudly)
throughout the movie. A bit more time than normal is given to both their
introduction and their family dynamic, and it only helps to make the viewer
feel and root for them in face of a situation with apparently no way out. (In
general, actually, the movie manages to make almost every character that has
more than two lines a relatively well-delineated personality with clear
motivation.)
Still, in regard to the sisters, one really begins to wonder why
they don't frigging get it through their heads to stop screaming and shouting
all the time. Indeed, one of the movie's unintentional funny moments involves a
no-name, half-dead minor character telling two of them to stop shouting because it'll
draw the monster, only for the monster to show up and kill that no-name
character as the sisters run away in panic.
In short, The Hollow might not
really offer up anything truly novel in the narrative department, and it does
have a few WTF moments — the sisters really make too much noise all the time,
and people separate a bit too much — but it is a good example of a
good-looking, atmospheric movie that manages to overcome both its low budget
and its arguably old-chestnut plot to deliver a solidly and effectively crafted
horror story.
"I had a great life and enjoyed every minute of it, I would not change a thing, even if I could do it all over." Dale Berry
As we mentioned in Dead and (Not) Completely Forgotten – Dale Berry, Part I: 1960-62, in the case of Dale Berry (3 Sept 1928 – 20 Oct 2011), he is less forgotten than never known, or at least not by many — for simple comparison, Larry Buchanan (see: The Naked Witch [1961/64]) or even S.F. Browning (see: Don't Look in the Basement [1973]) are both superstars when it comes to name familiarity. But Berry's movies nevertheless deserve attention, if only for fans of the obscurely weird and idiosyncratically individual and overtly "bad". Over at the imdb, Woody Anders offers a dry biography: "Shelby Dale Berry was born [...] in Dallas, Texas. Berry married his childhood sweetheart Dorothy Louise Lewis (25 Jan 1947 – 20 Oct 2011) on January 25, 1947. Dale spent the central part of his life working with his father and uncle in the heavy construction machinery business. In the mid-1960s Berry wrote, directed, and/or produced a handful of low-budget regional exploitation films as well as acted in several movies. Moreover, Dale and his wife Dorothy were not only members of the DAC Country Club, but also were involved in charity organizations that raised funds for many children's charities. Berry died at age 83 on October 20, 2011 in Sunnyvale, Texas. He was survived by three children, five grandchildren, and five great grandchildren."
For more about the man, the myth, the filmmaker, may we suggest the website byNWR?
Also known as Life in the Raw, Naughty Cuties and Mondo Exotica. Supposedly begun in 1958 as A Stripper Is Born, or maybe in 1960 (which is when the Carousal Club opened); it grew into Naughty Dallas by the time it was released in 1964 — on 19 February 1964, to be exact.
Over at byNWR's interview with Beverly "Babushka" Oliver, they more or less write: "In 1964 (Buchanan puts the date as 1958 in the filmography [in] his 1996 autobiography It Came from Hunger! [...,] the only place I've seen with that date) Buchanan made Naughty Dallas, a film centered around [Jack] Ruby's Carousel Club (although due to the Carousel's low ceilings the interiors were shot in Abe Weinstein's Theater Lounge). Buchanan states in his autobiography that [...] the film was to star Candy Barr and tell her story, but he abandoned the idea after 'a series of dark threats' from Candy's various well-connected paramours both in the government and in organized crime."
Dale Berry sings
Varmints in My Garments:
Dale Berry is on hand for an unknown role — probably as an audience member. Over at byNWR, they have a truly well-researched article about Berry titled The Disorderly Magic of Dale Berry, where they reveal that by the early 60s, the former country musician — above is one of his 78s, Varmints in My Garments (1949) — "was drawn towards the seamier side of life, becoming a purveyor of screen pulchritude in Dallas's burgeoning sexploitation scene. Downtown Dallas in the early sixties was a hotbed of erotic entertainment. Berry embraced the nightlife, especially a venue called the Colony Club, from whose glittering stage came many of the female stars of his films. Owned and operated by Abe Weinstein* [...]. Although he booked the usual range of comics, singers and musicians, Weinstein eventually settled on burlesque as the primary entertainment on offer, and by the late 1950s he had one of the busiest nightspots in the city, a regular haunt for horny college boys, out-of-town businessmen looking for wife-free amusement, and off-duty policemen relaxing after a hard day hassling hookers."
* Abe Weinstein (1907 – 3 Jan 2000), BTW, "gave the Colony Club's number one stripper, Candy Barr, her nickname. Barr (real name Juanita Dale Phillips) first hit the headlines in 1956 when she shot her estranged husband in the stomach in self-defense. Her subsequent stage act was a smash hit, featuring Candy waving a pair of six-shooters while clad in a gun belt, holster, and very little else... [byNWR]"
"Two doors down" was the Carousal Club, which belonged to someone named Jack Ruby, whom some people might remember as the guy who shot Lee Harvey Oswald. Contrary to what is commonly said, Larry Buchanan's Naughty Dallas does not focus on the night life (i.e., "striptease and burlesque") as found in Jack Ruby's Carousel Club: the film might show the exterior of the Carousel, but it was shot in and features the Colony Club. The misunderstanding might be due to Buchanan's own penchant to embellishment, an example of which is what he says in Texas Monthly: "'We shot much of it at Jack Ruby's place a year before the assassination, and we met Lee Harvey Oswald there from time to time. A real loner,' Buchanan recalls. 'No one would ever come to talk to us about it, so it wasn't in the investigation. Jack Ruby wanted to be in the picture, but I hated him, so he wasn't. Too bad; that would've made it a valuable little movie.'"*
*Buchanan on Ruby: "He was cheap and a cheat, inarticulate, antisocial, a bully, a trouble-maker, profane and a pathological liar. He was a bisexual who loved to fight, constantly validating his manhood. [byNwr]" But here at a wasted life, we see the reliability of Buchanan's word in general to be open to question — he is, after all, the guy who slipped it to Texas Monthly that Steve McQueen made his feature-film acting debut in his lost first film, Grubstake [1952], which actually features McQueen's first wife, Neile Adams (and an actor named Steve Wyman [8 Feb 1914 – 6 Dec 1991]). Texas Monthly, in any event, wrote: "[Buchanan's] first feature was Grubstake, a western with Jack Klugman and Steve McQueen in his first film role, set in Big Bend but partially shot in Central Park. The McQueen scenes were lost, however, and the unfinished film was never released."
Trailer to
Naughty Dallas:
Buchanan seems to have lost a lot of valuable and interesting film material; in the article about lost films and film material over at Film Threat, they mention Naughty Dallas and even somewhat contradict Buchanan's assertion above: "The Jack Ruby Footage (1963, USA). Exploitation filmmaker Larry Buchanan was able to shoot a film at the Carousel Club in Dallas on the condition that the joint's manager, Jack Ruby, get a role in the film. Buchanan reluctantly agreed, but threw away the footage after it was shoot. This was before Ruby did you-know-what in Dallas."
Once upon a time, at Something Weird, the excellent former painter Lisa Petrucci wrote: "See what happens when Toni Shannon (Marilyn Pope of The Naked Witch [1961]), a restless lass from a small Texas town, moves to the big city in pursuit of her dream of breaking into show business! And she's set her sights on becoming — of all things — an exotic dancer in a glamorous nightclub! The pie-eyed pretty hops on a bus to Dallas where she soon discovers that she has a lot to learn before she'll ever get a chance to perform in front of a paying audience. So Miss Toni signs up for an amateur burlesque contest at the Carousel Club and watches some of the pros dazzle the crowd with their sexy routines. Peggy Steele, 'The I Don't Care Girl,' is followed by the big star of the show, fabulous Jada* (one of our favorite striptease queens!) Dynamic Jada sets the stage on fire with her scandalous act (which culminates with her gyrating on a tiger skin rug!) The lady is red hot! Unnerved by the stunning array of talent and confidence on display, Toni has performance anxiety — and halfway through taking off her clothes, dashes off the stage in tears. Fortunately, veteran stripper Kim Athas (7 Nov 1934 – 29 Oct 2017) [pictured above] is there to console and encourage her to stick it out. An eager student, Toni watches and learns as Kim teaches her how to become a star. And after lots of hard work and determination, Toni is ready for her big debut! [...]"
*Jada (12 Feb 1936 – 9 May 1980), pictured above, died in a motorcycle accident in Albuquerque: "She was living in San Francisco at the time of her death in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on May 9, 1980. She was riding her motorcycle when an empty school bus, driven by Donna Beeman, struck her motorcycle from behind and ran over it. Jada's son, Joseph Conforto, sued Beeman and her employer for negligence but the result is unknown. She was buried under the name 'JADA' at Lake Lawn Park Metarie (sic) Cemetery in New Orleans. [imdb]" Peggy Steele can be seen directly below.
A hyperbolic view of the movie from Poster Crazed: "Naughty Dallas is a 1964 American film that delves into the provocative world of a burlesque nightclub in Dallas, Texas. [...] This film captures the essence of the mid-20th century fascination with risqué entertainment. [...] Naughty Dallas is notable for its candid portrayal of the burlesque scene, characterized by its seductive dancers and the tantalizing allure of the stage performances. The characters are a mix of flamboyant and complex personalities, from the ambitious club owner to the captivating lead dancer, each adding depth and intrigue to the narrative. Buchanan's direction brings a raw and unfiltered view of the burlesque world, avoiding the glossed-over Hollywood representation and instead opting for a more grounded and authentic depiction. The cinematography, while simple, effectively captures the sultry and electrifying mood of the club, making the audience feel as though they are part of the smoky, dimly lit venue. Despite its modest production values, Naughty Dallas manages to leave a lasting impression due to its bold subject matter and unapologetic representation of adult entertainment. It reflects the shifting attitudes of the 1960s, a time when societal norms were being challenged and redefined. While it might not have achieved mainstream acclaim, the film holds a certain cult status, appreciated by those interested in the history of burlesque and the evolution of cinematic portrayals of adult themes. Naughty Dallas stands as a time capsule, offering a glimpse into a bygone era of American nightlife and entertainment. [Poster Crazed]"
Cerrone's Striptease remixed by Bob Sinclair,
video mix by Glenn Rivera:
Passion in the Sun
(1964, writ. & dir. Dale Berry)
"America's First Award Winning Nudist Film"! "This one [...] delivers the kind of sexploitation insanity fans crave. [Mondo Digital]"
Released 27 October 1964; a.k.a. Girl and the Geek. Dale Berry's credited directorial debut! He also co-wrote the script with Enrique Madariaga and produced the movie and appears in it to play policeman Sgt Mike Green. Lots of boobs but no bush in this one. Two years prior to this movie, the unknown Enrique Madariaga co-scripted The Wild and the Naked (1962, poster below), whence aspects of Passion in the Sun were borrowed.
The AFI Catalog has the movie's batshit-crazy plot: "Two Antiguan police officers [Sgt Green (Berry) and Officer Claude Hill (Bill Rhodes)] assigned to investigate the escape of a carnival freak (Mike Butts) are suddenly called away from their duties and instructed to go to the airport and intercept the delivery of some stolen government documents. Foreign agents Raul (Dick Eason) and Ernesto (Gregg Pappas) are to pick up the documents; and when the police move in, the two agents abduct exotic dancer Josette (Josette Valague*) and take her hostage. Raul kills Ernesto in the melee, and Josette, after escaping from Raul, finds herself on the outskirts of the city, clad only in her underwear. She is bathing in a stream when the escaped freak rushes out of the woods and captures her. Raul intervenes and frees Josette but is himself drowned in the stream. Josette flees in an old pickup truck with the freak, who has jumped onto the truck bed, an unwelcome passenger. Turning off the highway, Josette parks at the carnival grounds. The freak finds her hiding in one of the carnival rides and starts up the ride. When the ride is running at full speed, he climbs onto the track and is struck by the speeding car. Police arrive and escort Josette to her nightclub, and there they witness her exotic dancing, backed up by a nude chorus."
*Josette Valague became Josette Pappas when she married Phillip D Pappas in 1967. She appeared in three more Berry-directed films and the possibly lost Carolyn Lima Story a.k.a. Burn Your Baby a.k.a. The Burning Man (1967), which Berry produced, before she disappeared. There appears to presently (31 Aug 2024) be a Josette & Phillip D. Pappas (of the right age) living in Studio City in L.A., so she could still be around. One of the bad guys in Passion in the Sun is credited as "Gregg Pappas" — coincidence?
Josette and the geek are seen on the
SHOCK-O-RAMA VIDEO PARTY
[Official Trailer - AGFA]:
"Well, what can one say about this film that the above synopsis doesn't already tell you? Of course, the plot is simplistic, not all that well thought through, and merely a hanger for as many nude scenes (including quite a few on-stage stripping routines) as possible — and that is exactly what makes this movie pretty charming (in a cheap and sleazy sort of way of course): It's unpretentious, unsubtle, enjoyably and self-consciously silly ... oh, and it has got some pretty naked ladies. Of course, this isn't a masterpiece, not even a piece of great erotica — but it's fun, too! [(re)Search My Trash]"
"Ah, there's nothing quite like the sheer unadulterated joy of watching a truly berserk nudie as it careens out of control across the screen. Made in the days when full frontal nudity and simulated sex were still legally prohibited, The Girl and the Geek instead serves up strippers, gangsters, and, yup, a crazy-looking carnival geek. The results, needless to say, are breathtaking. [Frank Henenlotter @ Something Weird]"
Trailer to our favorite Frank Henenlotter film,
Brain Damage (1988):
"In between all of the 'action,' the film cuts to the Sans Suici strip club (where Josette was supposed to go) so we can see various strippers go through their routines. A few of these girls are fun to watch and at least two of them really know their stuff. Unfortunately, they're the only good part of this movie. Because full frontal was illegal back then, there are numerous hilarious scenes of the ladies holding up purses, towels, bras and other things at crotch-level, and in one case, even walking backwards, to conceal bush. The rest is a long drawn-out chase scene usually shot at long distance that never seems to end. This has some of the worst photography you will ever see and there's canned light jazz music that goes on and on. It's frequently awful enough to be really funny, so it earns its SBIG merit badge. [Bloody Pit of Horror]"
Serendipity? The same year Dale Berry released his movie Passion in the Sun, Gaslight Books — which apparently didn't survive 1964 and tended to have covers by Oscar Liebman (4 Nov 1919 – 7 Jun 2002) — released a sleaze novel with the same title written by the prolific and unknown author Dorine Clark (sometimes Dorine B. Clark). Back cover: "Alan Townsend was a snowbird, a name given by Miamians to those northern seasonal job-seekers who invade Florida in order to escape the rigors of a northern winter." Assuming Dorine Clark was a pseudonym, "her" real name is still unknown, though some of "her" books are copyrighted to an equally pseudonym-sounding Wanda Westerum, who also published a sleaze novel or two. Passion in the Sun was given a lez lit cover when it was republished three year later by Imperial Books as Willing Passion.
Clips from Passion in the Sun
can be found at 7:48 of Reel Wild Cinema 3:
Strange Compulsion
(1964, dir. Irvin Berwick)
"I don't want to touch them... I just want to watch them!"
Released in the US in December 1964. Dale Berry shows up as a landlord (his name is even in small type on some posters) in this movie, which had an international distribution back in its day but became obscure enough that Something Weird had to rediscover it.
At least when screened at Chicago's long-gone Plaza Theatre, Strange Compulsion was retitled Strange Rampage. Abroad, Strange Compulsion was often sold as a "Preston Sturges" movie but, in reality, it was a "Preston Sturges Junior" movie: the lead actor, who was making his feature-film acting debut, is Solomon Sturges, the son of the famous director. Ten years later, Solomon left the biz after his final movie, The Working Girls (1974 / trailer below).
Trailer to
Working Girls:
Director Irvin Berwick (6 Jul 1914 – 29 Jun 1997) actually made a fun film or four, always on the cheap side, such as the hilarious Monster of Piedras Blancas (1959 / trailer) and the grindhouse faves Hitch Hike to Hell (1977 / trailer) and Malibu High (1979 / trailer). Most of the time, however, he paid his rent as a "dialogue coach".
Trailer to
Strange Compulsion:
Strange Compulsion was scripted by character actor Jason Johnson (16 Jan 1977 – 24 Nov 1977), who also shows up in the movie to play the psychiatrist. One of his last feature films is the lower-echelon hagspoitation Hollywood Horror House a.k.a. Strange Intruder (1970 / trailer), and one of his earliest Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957 / trailer).
Over at Something Weird, Lisa Petrucci has the plot: "Earnest young medical student, Fred Martin (Solomon Sturges) has a big problem. Even though he's handsome and educated, Fred is a compulsive voyeur. He just can't control himself from stalking and staring at pretty gals through windows and peepholes. It's downright creepy! Tortured by his neurosis, Fred seeks professional help from psychiatrist and family friend, Dr. Hazzlett (Jason Johnson). Together they'll try to find the reason for Fred's Strange Compulsion. Early on, Fred was severely disciplined by his mother (Annabelle 'Common Law Wife' Weenick*) when she caught him looking at the maid through a keyhole. Fred's father was a doctor, and Fred would later hide in the office closet and watch the female patients undress. But perhaps what really sent him over the edge was when he went on a picnic with his high school sweetheart, Helen, badgered her into taking off her clothes, then rudely pulled out a camera and snapped a photo! The girl was mortified and ran away crying. Fred tells the shrink that he simply had to have a permanent memento of her... uh... loveliness. Fred's voyeurism escalates. He puts in a two-way mirror to spy on the new maid. He follows a cute waitress to her apartment and rents a room across the street (from landlord Dale Berry!) to watch her with binoculars. Not yet satisfied, Fred decides he's just gotta have pictures of her, and lurks right outside the window with a camera. She catches him and he runs away in shame. Back at Dr. Hazzlett's, it has become evident that Fred's gratification can only come from seeing gals who are completely unaware of his presence. When he's around a naked female patient, art model, or even cheap hooker who know he's there, it's a turn-off. He becomes visibly uncomfortable and freaks out. Having a wave of nostalgia, Fred goes to the lake where he picnicked with Helen and happens upon a girl drowning. He rescues her and the two become friends, and even date (until her jealous ex-husband comes around). But Fred gets a reality check when there's a sexual assault case at the hospital and hears his colleague comment that even mild deviates can become sadistic killers if not treated in time! Could that be him? What will it take to get Fred back to a normal? Can he be 'cured'? [...]"
*Closer to our home, she also stars in the grindhouse anti-masterpiece, Don't Look in the Basement(1973).
Over at imdb, ville-5 says the film "is so bad it's good": "Fred feels guilty of his arousal when he sees female flesh — so he goes regularly to a shrink who guides Fred into the all-American chaste way of chaste living and the viewers are really hammered with the antiquated biblical virtues. Of course all this psychological stuff and the storyline is just a facade. While the plot may sound like any of those idiotic teen education films from the period, it is just an excuse to show all the racy parts! The story goes like those reader's letters in the 60s adult magazines: Fred gets to meet several girls in this film, and they have several reasons to release their ample (D-cups sighted!) and juicy chests for us to ogle and most of the time they also like to stretch their arms for full effect (which is nice). The film is riddled with bad acting and idiotic directing. Many times the actors speak their lines but what we're hearing is Fred's inane narration instead. [...]"
At Letterbxd, Muddguts raves: "Someone I know said that this film was "GREAT!" and she told no lies. The movie pulls no punches about its subject matter because nothing is implied. Everything is spelled out in words via psychiatry sessions and in the flesh as it happens. Our clean-cut young boy loves to spy on women getting undressed and he goes to great lengths both to get his rocks off and as a means to conquer his compulsion. There is so much wrong with this story and the characters within and it's an absolute twisted joy to behold. The music is fantastic and some of the visuals are amazing and very film noir looking. Fans of seedier side of film need this in their collections now."
An uncredited Beverly "Babushka" Oliver, who went on to star in Berry's Hot Blooded Woman (1965), "artfully disrobes several times before a two-way mirror. [byNWR]"
As late as 21 November 1966, Strange Compulsion was still on screen in NYC at the Metropolitan in Manhattan and the Shore at Coney Island, where it was paired The Golden Nymphs. The last is an exceedingly odd a.k.a. title for a movie better known as Honeymoon of Horror (1964), a Z-film featuring inserts of Gigi Darlene in later versions, like The Orgy of Golden Nudes.
Trailer to
The Orgy of Golden Nudes:
Equally enticing is the double feature below, screened in March 1966 at the Pussycat in Los Angeles, where it was twinned with William Rose's roughie Rent-A-Girl (1965, with June Roberts* and Gigi Darlene). Plot: "A young girl goes to work for a modeling agency only to discover that it's actually a call-girl ring." *Whatever happened to June Roberts?
The Hot Bed
(1965, writ. & dir. Dale Berry)
Don't be fooled: director "Harry Epstein" is Dale Berry. As co-scriptwriter, Enrique Madariaga once again lent his notable lack of talent — and Josette is back from Passion in the Sun, but this time her character's name is Fanny Bangs. Gregg Pappas isn't there, but there is a Stephan Pappas, and he plays a guy named Eddie Stud. Among the other characters, a woman is named Jo Ann Dyke (De Ann) and there's a cop named Sgt. Joe Cuchinni (George Miden). It would seem that Berry & Madariaga had some fun when thinking up names...
Dunno if they're the same Trio Los Pampas as credited as performing (as "Themselves") in The Hot Bed, but over at YouTube we did find this great bolero by a Trio Los Pampas...
Trio Los Pampas —
Recuerdos de Ypacarai (1955):
The Hot Bed hasn't been written about all that much but, as perhaps to be expected, Something Weird did: "The only thing better than a good ol' Texan barbecue is some good ol' sixties-style Texsploitation, especially when it's served by wild man Dale Berry [...]. The Hot Bed most definitely plays like the best of Berry, and is chock-full of high-haired harlots (who just love dancing on top of things), Texan titties, big-ass butt-shakin', go-go dancing, rock 'n' roll lounge bands, a catfight, killings, and even Dale Berry himself as a homicide cop! 'The luscious and fabulous stripper from south of the border, Fanny Bangs' (Miss Josette [...]) gets a phone call from Eddie Stud (now that's a name) asking her to pick up a 'little package' — containing a million dollars worth of heroin! — and bring it to him at the Thunderbird Motel (which actually has palm trees in the rooms). No problem. After doing her stage act — shaking her booty to bongos and flute — Fanny gets the package, stops by the apartment of Jo Ann Dyke (De Ann) for a quick lesbian fling — with the camera looking everywhere around the room but at them — before having Jo Ann drive her to Eddie's. Inexplicably, somehow or other the word is out that Fanny has the heroin and a Border Patrol cop is hot on her tail. (Berry writes in broad strokes. Details need not apply.) By the time they arrive at Eddie's, he's in the middle of a swingin' dance-and-make out-on-the-couch party so, forgetting all about being drug couriers, Fanny and Jo Ann jump on the coffee table and go, go, go! (God loves brazen hussies.) Meanwhile, outside by the pool, a gal and a guy do the tango. Why? 'Cause they're in a Dale Berry made-in Texas nudie, that's why! Back at the party, Jo Ann gets jealous of Fanny making out with Eddie so the two of 'em wrestle around right there on the floor. Eddie breaks it up and takes Fanny to the bedroom, but she's annoyed and won't give him the dope so he beats her unmercifully with his belt. Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack! 'Had enough?' he finally asks. 'No! More! More! Hurt me, more! Oh, yes, yes!' says Fanny. Love sure is complicated in Texas. Eventually, the Border Patrol cop catches up with them, Fanny ends her affair with Jo Ann in a rather blunt manner, and even Dale Berry joins in the pursuit, running after Eddie through the streets of Dallas and in and out of stores without permits, permission, or common sense...."
Among the rare person who's seen the movie and bothered to write about it is the net's favorite purveyor of porn reviews, lor_ who dropped his opinion at imdb: "[...] Producer Charles Martinez, who liked to tack on the fake credit 'Filmed South of the Border' at the end of these movies, injects another element here — tons of rock & roll as well as Latin music. It fails to tilt the balance from porn country but is diverting for anyone who dug rock circa My Baby Does the Hanky Panky. [...] Plot is pretty much thrown to the winds in exchange for some boring sex scenes, dancing at the drop of a hot, and endless chasing around (cheaper than even in a vintage Fred Williamson movie like Mr. Mean [1977 / full film]). None of the characters make any sense at all, particularly De Ann or Jo Ann Dyke or whatever her name is, who when she isn't making love to Josette is fighting with her, leading to very unconvincing fatal violence in the final reel. Erstwhile director Dale Berry [...] chases the hero Stephen Pappas in and out of many stores just to kill off some running time — it's all pretty embarrassing. [...]"
Of course, Dale Perry's B&W The Hot Bed should not be mistaken for the full-color Hot Bed of Sex, a re-release title of the Silvio Amadio's Eurorash fave Alla ricerca del piacere a.k.a. Amuck (1972), which we looked at in our RIP Career Review of Farley Granger.
Trailer to
Amuck (1972):
Lastly, in Akron in 1967, The Hot Bed hit the hot town of Akron, Ohio, as Hot Bed of Sin, playing second fiddle at the Astor to a long lost Nick Millard (28 May 1941 – 29 Oct 2022) movie, The Evil Pleasure, possibly a.k.a. Pornografi. Millard, should you not know him, has a prodigious oeuvre of poorly made sleaze, grime, horror and documentary films spanning from 1963 to 2016; he continued making movies long after he lost all opportunities to get them released anywhere. Among the big names he's worked with in the past is Babe of Yesteryear Uschi Digard.
Hot Blooded Woman
(1965, writ. & dir. Dale Berry)
Released 1 October 1965. "This is the quintessential white-trash epic from Texas. [Cultpix]" Currently available for viewing at Internet Archives.
Dunno what happened to Enrique Madariaga, but this time Dale Berry "wrote" the "screenplay" with someone credited as "Major Jefferson Davis Beauregard Lee III". The rest of the production cast has some interesting names, too. ("Judas Christian", anyone? Or how about Jack Assenpffeffer? Phineas Psmythe?)
Dale Berry plays the detective... and Josette is there again, playing a minor role (the "Mexican woman" Mr. Pennypacker makes out with). While it lasts: the full movie can be found at Daily Motion.
Trailer to Hot Blooded Woman at 2:24 at
Reel Wild Cinema - Episode 13: Psycho a Go-Go:
Over at Letterboxd, Matthew hated the movie: "Christ this was dull as dishwater. [...] It's essentially 50 minutes of soft sex scenes followed by the dullest 'chase' sequence of all time. I'm really struggling to find anything positive but I suppose the repetitive and funky soundtrack does make for some solid background music as I kept zoning out..."
On the other hand (and as to be expected), at Something Weird Luther Heggs makes it sound like a masterpiece: "[...] If you like 'em dumb and fun, then abandon all hope ye who enter here 'cause Berry's world is so damn off-kilter as to be downright surreal. A blonde sexpot (Beverly "Babushka" Oliver) strolls down some railroad tracks in the middle of Godknowswhere, Texas, and attracts the attentions of some hobos, especially big Bill Thurman ([4 Nov 1920 – 13 April 1995] of Night Fright [1967]), who jumps on top of her. Out of nowhere, a guy in a suit and tie rushes to her aide. 'Why do you do this to me, Myrtle,' the guy in the suit asks. 'I don't know for sure, George,' the blonde answers. 'C'mon home,' the guy replies. Yup, Myrtle and George (Gregg Pappas) are man and wife in a very dysfunctional marriage. So dysfunctional, that George makes his wife — 'This pathetic, loveless, miserably sick Myrtle Pennypacker' — go see a shrink (Bob Brown) and we flashback to what made Myrtle such a mental mess.... On their wedding night, Myrtle wants some lovin' but George just wants to sleep. Miffed, Myrtle takes a carving knife from the kitchen and attempts to stab him to death! This abruptly segues into Myrtle doing a wild go-go atop the bar of a local watering hole as the Tony Harrison Trio sing the title tune [...] before she gets into a catfight with the waitress (Deanna James). Worse, Myrtle soon learns George is cheating on her with both her sister (Shirley Boyd of Scarlet Negligee [1968]) [...] and 'a little Spanish slut (Josette) he's been jacking around with,' leading to a confrontation that has Mr. and Mrs. Pennypacker wrestling on the floor. The flashback over, Myrtle then strips to her brassiere and flashes the shrink who promptly has her committed to the neighborhood loony bin. But you can't keep a Hot Blooded Woman confined, and Myrtle quickly escapes to a nearby auto junkyard. Hunted by her husband and director Berry playing a cop, it all comes to what should be a horribly tragic conclusion if it wasn't so damn funny.... Shot silent, (haphazardly) overdubbed, and scored with wonderfully inappropriate cocktail-lounge music, Hot Blooded Woman is [...] second only to Berry's jaw-dropping The Girl and the Geek as the finest film ever to emerge from the Lone-Star State. That the story never makes a damn bit of sense and plays as if it were made up on the spot is just one of the many pleasures of Sixties-style Texsploitation. [...]"
As mentioned above, Shirley Boyd (wife of Whit Boyd, a name we look at in a moment), who plays Myrtle's sister, is also found in Ron Scott's Texas-shot crime film, Scarlet Negligee [1968]); as seen by the newspaper clipping below, in Raleigh, NC, Hot Blooded Women once played sloppy seconds to that very film at the Center Drive-In. Scarlet Negligee is "not a bad movie; full of boobs and nostalgic eye candy. However, it does get boring once things settle in at the brothel. I imagine audiences at the midnight drive-in theater in '68 had a good time, but not anything particularly memorable. [Video Zeta One]."
One woman who shows a lot of boobage in Scarlet Negligee is bad-haired Rosemarie McKay, who plays bad gal Dee Dee; she did the makeup for the movie, and is credited as the scriptwriter. A woman of many talents.
Over at TV Guide, Paul Gaita was moved to write the following about Hot Blooded Woman: "Crudely made but quite chaste sexploitation quickie takes the standard lowbrow approach to women's sexual needs (i.e., something to rein in and control rather than allow to flourish). Myrtle's husband is quickly forgiven for his infidelity (it occurred before they were married, so it didn't count, natch), but Myrtle is packed off to the loony bin because she simply had nowhere else to turn for affection in her loveless marriage. Her plunge off the deep end is clearly the stuff of '20s-era cautionary melodramas, but there's a grain of honesty regarding the inequalities between men and women amidst all the grindhouse fluff. Texas-based filmmaker Dale Berry's direction is stiff and stale, and is further worsened by the lack of sync sound (exposition is provided by a few bits of poorly looped dialogue or by a droning narrator). [...] Beverly Oliver would gain further exposure around this same time for her questionable role as the 'Babushka Woman' who was seen shooting home movies at the time of the Kennedy assassination. [...]"
"[...] The Carousel Club [was] run — until 1963 — by Jack Ruby, the man who shot Lee Harvey Oswald. Beverly Oliver, the insatiable 'Myrtle Pennypacker' in Berry's Hot-Blooded Woman, was a regular performer at the Colony and got to know Ruby over at the Carousel. Oliver achieved notoriety in 1970 when she claimed to be the mysterious 'Babushka Lady,'* a headscarfed woman photographed at the scene of the Kennedy assassination. In an interview with a leading Kennedy conspiracy theorist, she claimed to have known Ruby 'very well' ('I'd host his after-hour parties, mix drinks, sit around and visit, that kind of thing'). She described The Colony Club as 'A burlesque club, but I was a singer. It was separated by a parking lot from Jack Ruby's Carousel Club, which was also a burlesque club, but it was rather sleazy. The Colony Club was a very high-class club where people brought their wives. It was a very nice club.' [byNWR]"
*As intelligent Americans (not always but sometimes an oxymoron) like Cinderelly know, "[Beverly Oliver] claims she was in Dealey Plaza on Nov 22/63. She wasn't. Maybe she was... but she certainly hasn't been identified as being at the scene and the Babushka Lady... when you can tell it was Phillipine (sic) Rothschild. Beverly doesn't look anything like the Babushka Lady but Phillipine is a twin. DO THE DEEP DIG and find out for YOURSELF! [Internet Archives]" (The duck goes "Quack, quack.") Philippine Rothschild (22 Nov 1933 – 23 Aug 2014), during her brief non-career in movies as Philippine Pascal, can be found in the background of the rather interesting Children of Mata Hari (1970 / credit sequence).
Title track to
Hot Blooded Woman:
The music by the Tony Harrison Trio, vocalist unknown, but Hot Blooded Woman's the producer Whit Boyd wrote the lyrics. Whit seems to have had his own band, The Whit Boyd Combo, which went on to do music for the major motion pictures like 1969's Dracula (The Dirty Old Man) and Ron Scott's lost Party Girls(1969). A Texan exploitation film impresario (and the producer of Hot Blooded Women), Whit went on to direct some truly smelly nookie-flotsam of his own, namely Eat, Drink and Make Merrie (1969) and Spiked Heels and Black Nylons (1967). Somewhere along the line, he fell off the face of the Earth.
As for Tony Harrison, assuming it's the same Tony Harrison, the Tony Harrison Trio was obviously real enough that they released an LP, Around Midnight,
that had no connection to this movie, for which they did the at-times
annoying and at-times fun (and ever-present) music. "Tony Harrison
is/was an organist. He composed [Holiday in Davos], with his trio, put out an LP in the 1970s, called Around Midnight. This was purportedly recorded at the Selby Fork Hotel, just off the A1 at South Milford. A different arrangement is on the Conroy library music LP BMLP70 under the title Tijuana Win the Cup.
Companies House suggests that Anthony Lionel Harrison, was born in June
1935 and lived on St Marys Avenue, Whitley Bay, Tyne & Wear. [YouTube]"
BTW: South Milford, Leeds, should not be confused with exciting Milford,
Planet Texas, which, north or south (is there a difference?), may be
the equivalent of Buttfuck, Nowhere, but has served as the location of
two fun films: Lazer Team (2015 / trailer) and Hurricane Bianca (2016)...
Trailer to
Hurricane Bianca:
Assuming that Tony
Harrison is the Tony
Harrison who did the film music, then it seems that a Brit somehow got involved in a blue-blooded Planet Texas
exploitation flick project long enough to do the music. The mind boggles.
Tony Harrison Trio's
Holiday in Davos*:
*Dallas...
Beverly Oliver... Babushka Lady... Ruby... Kennedy... Davos... Trump...
connect the dots and you have more proof that Oswald didn't act alone!
As the newspaper advertisement ("1-6-67") above for a double feature at Philadelphia's Studio Theatre, Berry's films were not screened just on Planet Texas. Screen 13, which calls Hot Blooded Woman "a nice time-filler", posits that the second movie, "Sin on Motel Strip", could actually be The Velvet Trap (1966) advertised under a different name after the headline-grabbing riot on Sunset Strip a couple of months before [...]."
The Velvet Trap —
the full movie:
Finally, for some last words on the movie's star, Beverly "Babushka" Oliver, let's turn to byNWR's interesting article on her (whence the photo below comes): "Not unlike Rita Alexander in Berry's Hot Thrills and Warm Chills (1967), it is Beverly that revs the engine of this sputtering jalopy of a film. Sporting a blindly blonde 'do and radiating lethal, 'can-do' spunk, Beverly dances on tables, fends off rapists, taunts a psychiatrist while wearing a strangely fetishistic white bra and gets dragged off to the nuthouse where she converses with a matronly type who's convinced the doll she carries is her baby. Foreshadowing the rest of her life, Beverly even stops in the middle of the film to pray. It's an utterly captivating performance. And whatever one has to say about Dale Berry's cinematic talents or lack thereof, Berry was ahead of his time, casting powerful, independent women in his no-budget films."
Unluckily, in that same article cum interview, Beverly claims to remember absolutely nothing about the movie, other than "I remember dancing on the bar, because I sang a song I loved. I wrote the song." Speaking of singing, here is born-again...
Beverly "Babushka" Oliver Massegee & Erick singing
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