They Died in September 2012, Part X: Addendum

Follow this link for They Died in September 2012, Part I

Follow this link for They Died in September 2012, Part II

Follow this link for They Died in September 2012, Part III

Follow this link for They Died in September 2012, Part IV

Follow this link for They Died in September 2012, Part V

Follow this link for They Died in September 2012, Part VI

Follow this link for They Died in September 2012, Part VII: Herbert Lom

Follow this link for They Died in September 2012, Part VIII

Follow this like for They Died in September 2012, Part IX: Turhan Bey

And here, the last-minute additions: people who we missed when we culled our original list or whose death was announced thereafter. But they, too, people both known and unknown, remembered and forgotten, have beaten you to the last date with the worms. (Darn.) Will you leave half as much behind, or have you a wasted life?

In their honor, let us sing a song: The Jim Carroll Band — People Who Died:

Hal David

25 May 1921 — 1 September 2012

Hal David died at the age of 91 following a stroke. An Oscar and Grammy wining lyricist, he wrote dozens of famous songs with and without his regular partner, the composer Burt Bacharach, the more famous name of the duo. Among their hits are Magic Moments, Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head, Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa and many, many, many, many more songs that you know but never knew they (or he) wrote. Some of their (and his) more famous songs were specifically written for the movies, many another classic has been used in a film to underscore a scene. Below, a very arbitrary selection of films that feature songs he wrote — some of which were surely used without his even knowing it...

What's New Pussycat?
(1965, dir. Clive Donner)

David and Bacharach wrote the famous Oscar-nominated title track to this 60s comedy written by Woody Allen (the film was both Woody Allen's film debut as well as his first produced script) starring Peter Sellers, Peter O'Toole and a bevy of 60s babes. Sort of remade by Rod Amateau in 1970 as Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You (1970 / trailer), with mostly a bunch of names you've never heard of. Director Donner went on to make the horror comedy Old Dracula (1975 / trailer), which no one remembers. The website Every Woody Allan Movie says: "The movie is ostensibly about a handsome British playboy (Peter O'Toole) living in France and contemplating romantic commitment to his fiancée, who struggles and fails to prevent him from spending his evenings chasing women. Meanwhile, he sees a deranged psychoanalyst (Peter Sellers) and spends time with his neurotic, unlikely friend (Woody Allen). I say 'ostensibly' because any plot is clearly an afterthought as the movie ambles haphazardly from one set-piece to another — some of which connect to the main arc, some of which are completely stand-alone. The film is intended as a wacky sex comedy, so saying that it feels more like a sketch-comedy than a full-length movie isn't necessarily a criticism."

Opening credits to What's New Pussycat?:

Casino Royal
(1967, multiple directors)

Opening credits:

One of the most expensive films ever made and often called a flop, this scattershot comedy was actually a moneymaker... but a mess it is, though a more than enjoyable mess. At-A-Glance Film Reviews finds that it is a film that grows onto you: "The rights to Fleming's first Bond novel, Casino Royale [...] fell in to the hands of Charles K. Feldman who, not wishing to compete with the box office smash series, made this screen adaptation of Fleming's novel a humorous parody rather than a serious interpretation. It might have been good, if it wasn't directed by a committee — there's an old saying, too many directors spoil the movie. This version of Casino Royale makes virtually no sense at all; things happen on screen that make zero sense and are never explained (not that they ever could), and many scenes drone on forever. Not to say it doesn't have its moments. The dialogue in one of the opening scenes, between 'M' (John Huston), his associates, and James Bond (David Niven) is funny and very well written; most of Woody Allen's material for his role as a Blofeld parody are hysterical, and the score to the film is catchy, silly, and fun. Furthermore, once you've seen it one or two times (if you can bring yourself to do that) and become accustomed to the deplorable storytelling and insidious happenings, it kind of grows on you." Bacharach and Hal David wrote the Oscar-nominated top 40 song The Look of Love (sung by Dusty Springfield) for the film.

 Trailer:

On Her Majesty's Secret Service 
(1969, dir. Peter R. Hunt)

Trailer:

After editing Dr. No (1962), From Russia with Love (1963) and Goldfinger (1964) and acting as second unit director on Thunderball (1965) and You Only Live Twice (1967), Peter Hunt made his directorial debut with On Her Majesty's Secret Service, the sixth film of the series and the only one to star George Lazenby (of Who Saw Her Die? [1972]). Though not the moneymaker its predecessor You Only Live Twice, it was hardly the flop it is reputed to be and, rather, was even one of the top performing films of 1969. The title track sung, which wrote with John Barry, refers to Bond's last line in the film, which he says as he holds his dead wife, Tracy (Diana Rigg), in his arms: "We have all the time in the world." Among Blofeld's Angels of Death is Julie Ege (of The Mutations [1973] and The Legend of Seven Golden Vampires [1974]) as Helen, a Scandinavian girl. Opinions vary about the film, but we here at A Wasted Life consider it to be one of the best — although, oddly enough, the editing (the very thing that got Hunt the job and most others rave about) sometimes bothers us. The synopsis from TCM: "When his usual intelligence sources fail, James Bond (Lazenby) enlists the aid of crime boss Draco (Gabriele Ferzetti) to track down Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Telly Savalas), head of the evil SPECTRE organization. The trail leads to the mountains of Switzerland, where Bond goes undercover in Blofeld's hi-tech headquarters. He encounters a bevy of seductive women, but none more beautiful than Draco's daughter, Tracy (Rigg), who wins 007 over with her fervent independence, caustic wit and love of adventure. Bond pledges his eternal devotion to her, but there are more immediate concerns: Blofeld is poised to unleash horrific germ warfare weaponry that will endanger every living thing on earth. Bond's adventures hurl him through artillery-laden ski pursuits and a dramatic avalanche drive"

 Louis Armstrong — We Have All the Time in the World:

The Swing Thing
(1972, dir. Walt Davis)

During his brief and less than productive career (1970 to 1979), forgotten actor, scriptwriter and director Walt Davis (aka Mike T. Lawn and David Stefans) specialized in cheap, "grisly, gritty and slimy" sexy shockers and comedies: violent and/or shocking and/or "humorous" grindhouse fuck films in which the grime and sleaze did a fine job at making the un-erotic sex scenes even more of a turn-off than all the zits on the asses of the participants. Among his directorial masterpieces are Sex Psycho aka The Demon in Miss Jones (1970), Evil Come Evil Go (1972 / trailer) and Ride a Cock Horse (1973), but he also appeared in Bob Chinn's The Danish Connection (1974 / trailer) and Perry Dell's The Dicktator (1974 / trailer) and also wrote Perry Dell's Deep Jaws (1976 / trailer). The Swing Thing is one of his "lesser" efforts; it is a straightforward, plotless hour-long masturbatory aid starring the mammoth root of the eternally unattractive John C. Holmes, and can now be found as one of the three films on the DVD John Holmes Fuck-O-Rama. (A sleazy NSFW scene from the film, w/a low-load money shot, of a greasy half-hard Holmes doing Brandi Saunders can be found here.) Over at imdb, rduchmann of the United States says: "Very obscure early L.A. hardcore was apparently shot in a small house in the Valley. The only recognizable male is John C Holmes, difficult to miss. Principal femmes [...] have that only-in-the-early-70s, high school hippie look and may even have made this film as a hoot during Senior Skip Day at Ridgemont. Explicit but far from erotic [...]." He fails to mention that Holmes resorts to using a cucumber in one scene... In any event, Isaac Hayes's version of Bacharach and Hal David's song They Long to Be Close to You is supposedly heard in the background somewhere...

Isaac Hayes's They Long to Be Close to You:

 

Track Meet
(1976, dir. Steve Scott)

This gay fuckfest is the acting and feature-length directorial debut of Steve Scott, born Salvatore Grasso, who died of AIDS in 1987 at the age of 50. Scott, who was known to value on the story and technical aspects of his movies, went on to direct many a classic of gay porn, including Inches (1979 / NSFW trailer), with the late great Al Parker (1952-1992), and Gemini (1978 / NSFW trailer), with the late great Jack Wrangler, and A Few Good Men (1983 / NSFW trailer) as well as a rare straight man's hand helper like Trashy Lady (1985 / full NSFW film). Bijou World, whence all images come, explains the plot of Track Meet: "Paralleling the story of The Idol (1979 / NSFW trailer), this Steve Scott feature film [...] presents a young track star's (lean, long-legged, saucer-eyed Gavin Geoffrey) tension in coming out and accepting himself. Romance, forcefulness, affection and lovemaking are explored by Gavin as he discovers himself and the world of gay sex." (Gavin Geoffrey Dillard, by the way, is now a successful poet, writer, playwright, visual and performance artist on the West Coast.) In any event, somewhere in the course of the sucking and fucking, you hear Dionne Warwick singing Bacharach and Hal David's Walk on By.

Dionne Warwick — Walk on By:

Linda and Cheri
(1976, director unknown)

According to Ronnie Cramer's Cult Film Site, Linda and Cheri is "A film that skips the story and gets right on with the action! Two lovely young gals do it with each other and anybody who happens along." Starring Josephine Farmer (active 1976-1978) as Linda, the movie features three perennially active penises of the Golden Age of Porn, though none ever became legendary: the chocolate lollipops of Jonathon Younger (active 1973-1989) and Mick Jones (active 1975-1988), and the reliable 7-incher of John "Joe Schmoe" Seeman (active 1973-1987) who, the same year he made this generic film, also took part in Michael Hugo's bat-shit crazy porn horror flick Hardgore aka Horror Whore (1976 / full NSFW film). Somewhere in there, you should hear Isaac Hayes' monotonous version of Bacharach and Hal David's The Look of Love.

 Isaac Hayes — The Look of Love:

Moonraker
(1979, dir. Lewis Gilbert)

Credit sequence with theme song:

Perhaps the most ridiculous of all James Bond films ever made, the plot of which can be summed up as "Star Wars meets James Bond." We here at A Wasted Life hate the film. Amazon.com says: "This time Bond (once again played by Roger Moore) is up against a criminal industrialist named Drax (Michel Lonsdale) who wants to control the world from his orbiting space station. In keeping with his well-groomed style, Bond thwarts this maniacal Neo-Hitler's scheme with the help of a beautiful, sleek-figured scientist (played by Lois Chiles)." Hal David supplies the lyrics to John Barry's tune, and the great Shirley Bassey sang the song — musical quality uncalled for by the movie.

 Trailer:

Amazon Women on the Moon
(1987, multiple directors)

A multi-segment comedy anthology film that pokes fun at the bad films and commercials of late night TV. John Landis directed the segment using Bacharach and David's They Long to Be Close to You (among other wuss songs) featuring David Alan Grier as Don "No Soul" Simmons. 

 The Don "No Soul" Simmons advertisement:


 

Lord of Illusions
(1995, dir. Clive Barker)

Erasure — Magic Moments:

Caught this film years ago in a falling-apart movie palace in Arequipa, Peru, where they were incapable of getting the projector focused. (That's the Third World for you.) A great horror film with an oddly hunky Scott Bakula and the always sexy Famke Janssen, Lord of Illusions get 9 points out of 10 for gore at kids-in-mind.com. Plot synopsis from Guilty Viewing Pleasures: "Do try to avoid creepy old men in the middle of the Mojave Desert. Former cultist Swann (Kevin J. O'Connor of Flight of the Living Dead [2007] and No Escape [1994]) and kidnapping victim Dorothea (Janssen) take down the evil, immortal Nix (Daniel von Bargen, of Thinner [1996]) in 1982. Thirteen years later, Nix rises from the dead and goes after Swann and Dorothea. Fortunately, Dorothea's new lover, D'Amour (Bakula), has the moxie to take on Nix and send him back to hell for good." Somewhere in the film, you hear Erasure's cover version of that great classic written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Magic Moments.

 Trailer:

In the Cut
(2003, dir. Jane Campion)

 
Trailer:

Crappy film to say the least — we know, we're some of the few who ever bothered to watch it. Has Jane Campion's career recovered yet? For our review of this film, follow the link above. Somewhere, they play the original version of Dusty Springfield singing Bacharach and Hal David's The Look of Love...

 Dusty Springfield — The Look of Love:


 

Dawn of the Dead
(2004, dir. Zack Snyder)

Trailer:

Zack Snyder's remake of the original Dawn of the Dead (1978 / trailer) is one of those remakes that hold up well as an argument for remakes. Dr Gore explains the plot: "Ana (Sarah Polley) and some other people head to the mall. She's having a serious zombie problem. First, they screw up her sex life when her hubby gets the zombie chomp on his neck. This happens at Dawn. A Dawn of the Dead if you will. [Note: If a strange little girl is staring at you from your bedroom door, she's probably a member of the living dead and should be killed as quickly as possible. Keep this important safety tip handy for future reference.] Then the zombies follow her to that bastion of goodness, the local mall. It's here that humanity's last hope must make their stand. Much violence follows as the hyper zombies want blood, brains and Polley. Who can blame them?" The film — like most Snyder films — also has a great soundtrack, and among the many cool songs is Tree Adams' cover version of Burt Bacharach and Hal David's What The World Needs Now Is Love.... we couldn't find it online, so here you have the Jackie DeShannon version instead, which was used for the film Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969).

 Jackie DeShannon — What The World Needs Now Is Love:

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
25 February 1920 — 3 September 2012

To quote the website Life in Legacy: "Rev. Sun Myung Moon (92) religious leader who founded the Unification Church and built it into a multibillion-dollar business empire that included newspapers, schools, a ski resort, and dozens of other ventures in several countries. Moon gained fame in the '70s and '80s for pairing up and marrying off thousands of followers at elaborate mass weddings. He was hospitalized with pneumonia in August and died in Gapyeong, South Korea on September 3, 2012." Somewhere on the other side, he and H. Ron Hubbard are probably having a hearty laugh together...

Inchon
(1981, dir. Terence Young)

Rev. Sun Myung Moon: "special advisor" and executive producer of one of the biggest flops in film history. The always trenchant Steven Puchalski at Shock Cinema, who saw the full length version (180 minutes!), says: "[...] This $48 million production took more than a year to film, and then grossed a whopping $150,000! The producers certainly sucked a lot of talent into this epic-sized turd. Behind the camera was director Terence Young (Dr. No [1962 / trailer]) and scripter/novelist Robin Moore (The French Connection [1971 / trailer]), while its inept scenario is acted out by Jacqueline Bisset, Ben Gazzara, Kurosawa-vet Toshiro Mifune, David Janssen (of Moon of the Wolf [1972]) as a cynical journalist, fruity Rex Reed playing a prissy reporter, plus Shaft (1971 / trailer) himself, Richard Roundtree! And who would be your most misguided choice to play the macho MacArthur? How about short, frail, 73-year-old Sir Laurence Olivier! But first, let's triple-coat his face with pasty make-up, dye his hair jet-black and grease it to a hard sheen, and give him a comb-over that begins an inch above his ear. Back then, Olivier was constantly signing onto dreck like The Betsy (1978) and The Jazz Singer (1980 / trailer), but this is unquestionably his most pathetic paycheck. Following a brief intro to the origins of the Korean War, this invasion begins, with Bisset and Gazzara playing an estranged couple. He's currently hot for a young Korean cutie, whose papa is played by Mifune. Separated by these evil Red Army war mongers, soldiers Gazzara and Roundtree dress up as Korean peasants in order to lead undercover raids, while Bisset (wearing a low-cut summer frock, of course) tries to make it to safety and ends up playing mom to a carload of 'adorable' Korean children. Soon MacArthur is brought in to save the day, and when Olivier struts around with his corncob pipe, oversized General's cap and sunglasses, 'America's greatest soldier' looks more like George Burns playing MacArthur for a Bob Hope special. As he plans his defense, Gazzara and Bisset re-ignite their romantic sparks — just in time for Ben to ditch her again for a pivotal mission that'll insure the Good Guys' success at Inchon and a puke-inducing patriotic epilogue. [...] The B-movie battle scenes are impressive in scale, with lots of tanks, planes and soldiers, but they lack dramatic weight. Of course, the film is as unapologetically anti-North Korean as any old WWII flick was anti-Nazi, as the vile Commies slaughter innocent women and children by the dozen. The actors are surprisingly earnest in the face of such hokum, and most of the cast was paid in cash, since the budget was funneled through Moon's Unification Church (still, few admit to ever knowing that the project was directly connected to this self-confessed 'messiah'). [...] This is a sad and stupid movie, full of cornball good intentions by its Korean backers, but devoid of entertainment value — that is, unless you're turned on by slumming actors and interchangeable battle scenes." The last theatrical film project of David Janssen, his scenes were cut from the shortened general release version.

First ten minutes:

Syed Mustafa Siraj
1930 — 4 September 2012

According to The Hindu, "Bharat has lost its voice. A voice that answered to the name of Syed Mustafa Siraj fell silent as the veteran Bengali writer passed away after a brief illness in Kolkata. Siraj, a Sahitya Akademi winner for his novel, Aleek Manush, in 1994, penned over 300 short stories and 150 novels. Though Siraj wrote for adults as well, and lately for children, he always strived to bring the scent of the soil to his works. His was a realist narrative, quite removed from the mysticism and romanticism that characterized much of contemporary Bengali literature. No self-aggrandisement, he was a master of the unsaid word." The Indian writer passed away at the age of 82, little of his work has reached the Western world, but in 2005 his short story Ranir Ghater Brittanto was filmed by director Anjan Das as the Bengali feature film entitled Faltu (which means "worthless" in Bengali).

Faltu
(2005, dir. Anjan Das)

Over at imdb, Sandeep Bhardwaj of India explains the plot: "The story of Faltu is about a boy Faltu, played by Yash Pandit. [...] The story of the movie is set around a district in West Bengal. Faltu [...] accounts the life of a village and its people, woven around a narrative with myriad moments and a lot of dramatic events. The lives of the villagers take a new turn when a census official questions Faltu's parentage. It was a well-known fact that Faltu is the son of Sureswari Dasi aka Suri Khepi, but no one actually knew who his father was. Neither does Faltu nor he has even bothered with the question. He was happy with what he was doing — driving a bus and ferrying villagers. The entire story deals with whatever the villagers have done and the guilt of having done something wrong. [...]." Lies, secrets, tragedy and death: the drama ends sadly and, possibly worse, offers an option that the cycle might repeat itself anew.

Full film without subtitles:


 

Horacio Vázquez-Rial
20 March 1947 — 6 September 2012

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Horacio Vázquez-Rial moved to Spain in 1968. A translator and writer, he has been referred to as "Spain's greatest forgotten writer"; only one work of his, Triste's History, is available in English. He died of cancer in Madrid at the age of 65 on 6 September 2012.

Frontera Sur
(1998, dir. Gerardo Herrero)

Aka Southern Border. Director Gerardo Herrero is also very active as an international film producer; some of his past projects include Heart of the Warrior (2000 / German trailer), the whimsically sad Uruguayan movie The Last Train (2002 / trailer), The Oxford Murders (2008 / trailer) and Thirteen Chimes (2002 / Spanish trailer). Frontera Sur is one of his less known and less successful projects, a "magical realism" fantasy set down south some hundred years ago. Gonz30 at imdb supplies the plot description used on most online sources: "This historical drama addresses European immigration to the Americas (in this case to Buenos Aires, Argentina) during the last two decades of the 19th century. Among its main characters are a Spanish immigrant, a German one, and an established 'Argentine.' They compete for the affection of a more established female Spanish immigrant, now a successful businesswoman, albeit a prostitute." A ghost is also part of the plot, and one male character has such a big dick that he can't find women who will sleep with him (born to the wrong century, we here at A Wasted Life would guess). Variety did not like the film, saying: "Take an epic tale of love and friendship in turn-of-the-century Buenos Aires, spice it with a sexy cast in period costumes and stir in sumptuous music and neat special effects. The only thing neglected by helmer Gerardo Herrero [...] was the script. There's enough material and characters in Southern Border for a TV series, but at 98 minutes it ends up looking like a poorly edited version of itself. Result is unlikely to cross any borders beyond Spanish-speaking territories."

We couldn't find a trailer to Frontera Sur, so here's the trailer to Álex de la Iglesia's The Last Circus (2010), which Gerardo Herrero co-produced:

 

Frank Godwin
23 June 1917 — 6 September 2012

Producer Frank Godwin was born and died in his hometown of London. The child of a theatrical family, by 1943 Godwin was leading a double life: at night a performer, writer and director at the Unity Theatre, and at day an accountant at Gainsborough Pictures (and, later, at the Rank Organization). By 1952 he began producing movies; one of his first successes was the early J. Lee Thompson film Woman in a Dressing Gown. He never officially retired and maintained an office until the end...

Penny Princess
(1952, dir. Val Guest)

Frank Godwin was associate producer on this comedy written, produced and directed by Val Guest — and starring his wife, Yolande Donlon (of The Devil Bat [1940 / full film]). At Allrovie, Hal Erickson explains the plot: "Actress Yolande Donlon [...] plays Lindy Smith, a Manhattan shopgirl who inherits a mythical European kingdom. Upon learning that the country is flat broke, Lindy applies her Yankee ingenuity towards hyping the country's one and only asset: alcohol-flavored cheese. Soon the tiny country is thriving economically, much to the dismay of a gang of smugglers who'd previously ruled the roost. The romantic angle is provided by Dirk Bogarde as a go-getting cheese salesman who falls for the heroine. [...]"

Postmark for Danger
(1956, dir. Guy Green)

Aka Portrait of Alison. Frank Godwin helped produce this thriller, the second directorial job of cinematographer Guy Green, who also wrote the script. He went on to direct The Snorkel (1958 / trailer), A Patch of Blue (1965 / trailer) and the disaster that is The Magus (1968 / scene). Once again at Allrovi, Hal Erickson explains the plot: "Terry Moore (of Mansion of Blood [2012 / trailer], Double Exposure [1983 / trailer], Al Adamson's Death Dimension [1978 / homemade trailer] and Mighty Joe Young [1949 / trailer]) stars as an American actress who becomes the unwitting dupe in a diamond-smuggling schemes. Ingredients essential to the action are a beautiful strangulation victim (Josephine Griffin), an unusual charm bracelet, a curiously labeled bottle of Chianti, and a hastily sketched drawing on the back of a postcard. The screenplay, by cinematographer Guy Green (who also directed), was adapted from a popular British TV serial." Ozus' World says the film "was tightly scripted and directed, and the acting was crisp without any false notes. It had the luminous look of a film noir, and is an above average detective story."

  Trailer:


 

Woman in a Dressing Gown
(1957, dir. J. Lee Thompson)

The first of two films Frank Godwin produced with director J. Lee Thompson and writer Ted Willis. According to The Big Gay Picture, "Although not as famous as the likes of The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962 / trailer) and Saturday Night And Sunday Morning (1960 / trailer), many credit Woman in A Dressing Gown as the place where the British Kitchen Sink Drama began. It was exceedingly unusual on its 1957 release for taking the small, personal crisis of a normal family living in a block of flats as its main subject, setting a precedent for a lot of the gritty, working class life movies of the 1960s." At Allrovie, Michael Betzold explains the plot of a film set at a time when, as The Big Gay Picture puts it, "the highest aspiration a woman could or should have is to be the devoted servant of a man, and that [the husband's] philandering is somewhat understandable in the face of a wife who doesn't always have the ironing finished and forgets to sew a button on his shirt": "Yvonne Mitchell [of The Queen of Spades (1949 / trailer) and Sapphire (1959)] plays [hausfrau] Amy Preston, who after 25 years of marriage still hasn't mastered the domestic arts necessary to sustain a traditional 1950s-style marriage. Her long-suffering husband Jim (Anthony Quayle of Holocaust 2000 [1977 / trailer]) finally gets fed up with Amy's unpalatable dinners, her slovenly dress, and the messy home. He takes up with Georgie Harlow (Sylvia Sims of Asylum [1972 / trailer] and Amazons of Rome [1961 / trailer]), a young woman at his workplace and realizes that he will soon have to choose between the two women."

Two minutes of Woman in a Dressing Gown:

No Trees in the Street
(1959, dir. J. Lee Thompson)

 

The second of the two films Frank Godwin produced with director J. Lee Thompson and writer Ted Willis — this time starring Herbert Lom, who also died in September 2012. Brit Movie does not like the film: "No Trees in the Street was screenwriter Ted Willis' ludicrously sentimental adaptation of his own play. Released just as British cinema entered its great 'kitchen sink' phase [...], this unconvincing study of life in a London slum and the inhabitants' battle for survival against the environment could never feel anything but stale." At Allrovie, Hal Erickson explains the plot: "In direct contrast to his later lush-budgeted international epics, director J. Lee Thompson turns his lenses towards the London slums in the sincere but saccharine No Trees in the Street. [...] The film is set in the years just before World War II, when England hadn't completely dug itself out of the worldwide depression. Tommy (Melvyn Hayes of The Curse of Frankenstein [1957 / trailer] and The Flesh and the Fiends [1960 / trailer]) is featured as an aimless teenager, who tries to escape his squalid surroundings by entering a life of crime. He falls in with local hoodlum Wilkie (Herbert Lom), who holds the rest of the slum citizens in the grip of fear — including Tommy's own family. No Trees in the Street chronicles Tommy's sordid progress from nickel-and-dime thefts to murder." J. Lee Thompson went on to do better films, such as the turkey Future Hunters (1986 / first 15 minutes), the classic Happy Birthday to Me (1981 / trailer), The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975 / trailer in Farsi) and Eye of the Devil (1966 / trailer).

Why Bother to Knock
(1961, dir. Cyril Frankel)

Aka Don't Bother to Knock. Frank Godwin produced this extremely dated "comedy" in which men will be men and women will be playthings.

Scene with babes:

TCM explains the plot: "Bill Ferguson (Richard Todd of House of the Long Shadows [1983 / trailer] and Dorian Gray [1970 / trailer]), an Edinburgh travel agent, has a quarrel with his fiancée, Stella (June Thorburn), when she refuses to spend the night in his apartment. He leaves on a tour of Europe and has affairs with Lucille (Nicole Maurey of The Day of the Triffids [1962 / trailer]) in Austria, with Ingrid (Elke Sommer of Flashback — Mörderische Ferien [2000] and Hotel der toten Gäste [1965]) in the Alps, and with a married Englishwoman in Italy. As mementos, he gives each of them a key to his Edinburgh apartment. After returning home, he makes up with Stella and finally lures her to his flat; but Lucille, Ingrid, the Englishwoman, and her teenage daughter all arrive at the same time. Stella storms out, Ingrid leaves with her Italian lover Giulio (Rik Battaglia of Nightmare Castle [1965 / full film] and Deported Women of the SS Special Section [1976 / NSFW shaving scene]), and Bill is left with the adoring teenager [Dawn Beret as "Harry"]. Assisted by Maggie Shoemaker (Judith Anderson), an American vacationing in Scotland, Bill manages to get out of his predicament and win Stella's hand." Contrary to the TCM synopsis, OneSheetIndex says that the film ends "In a mile-a-minute climax [in which] it develops that teen-ager 'Harry' is in love with him — and he with her. There's a whirlwind courtship, a madcap chase, and they get married — but only via a special license. For after all, 'Harry' is a minor, albeit a big and beautiful one." Director Cyril Frankel made better films than this one, including The Witches (1966 / trailer) and the Rialto Edgar Wallace film, The Trygon Factor (1966 / German trailer).

 
Scene with Elke Sommer:

 

The Small World of Sammy Lee
(1963, dir. Ken Hughes)

Nice cleavage on the poster — strange that she never made a Hammer film. Frank Godwin produced this film directed by Ken Hughes, who later in his life brought us Sextette (1978 / trailer) and Night School (1981 / trailer); this film here is based on Hughes's own tele-play Sammy (1958), which he also directed some five years earlier in 1958. The Village Voice, in its review of the film on Aug 29, 1963, lambasts: "The Small World of Sammy Lee is about the last scoop of dirt on the coffin of Brittish Realism before the heavy shoveling begins." TCM explains the plot: "Sammy Lee (Anthony Newley of The Garbage Pail Kids Movie [1987 / trailer] and X: The Unknown [1956 / trailer]) is the quick-witted master of ceremonies at the Peepshow Club, a sleazy striptease joint in Soho. In debt to a gangster-bookie, he has just 5 hours to raise £300 or face a brutal beating. Turned down by Lou (Warren Mitchell of The Crawling Eye [1958 / trailer] and Blood Beast from Outer Space [1965 / theme]), his hard-working, delicatessen-owner brother, because Lou's unsympathetic wife, Milly (Miriam Karlin of Mahler [1974]), will not let Lou help, Sammy tries to raise cash through shady deals in American whisky, Swiss watches, and marijuana. A naive North Country girl, Patsy (Julia Foster of Percy [1971 / trailer]), who came to London because Sammy promised her a career in show business, tries to help get money by agreeing to do a striptease for his lecherous employer, Gerry (Robert Stephens of The Asphyx [1973], The Shout [1978 / trailer] and Afraid of the Dark [1991 / trailer). Disgusted, Sammy puts her on a bus and sends her home, hoping to join her later. As time runs out, Sammy's schemes pay off but, because part of the money is in the form of a check, his frantic efforts have been to no avail. It is almost with relief that he turns to face the hoodlums. After the beating, however, he makes the ironic discovery that much of the money has been left in his wallet."

Demons of the Mind
(1972, dir. Peter Sykes)

Frank Godwin not only co-produced this Hammer horror flick, but he also supplied the story for Christopher Wicking's script. When made, it sat on the shelf for over a year before being released as part of a double bill with Horror on Snape Island (1972 / trailer); the original cinema edit of Demons of the Mind is now believed to be lost. Among director Sykes's other films are the forgotten trash horror flick The Legend of Spider Forest (1971), the Old Dark House comedy The House in Nightmare Park (1973 / odd scene) and one of Hammer's last classics, To the Devil a Daughter (1976 / trailer). Fantastic Movie Musings and Ramblings hits the nail on the head when they say "Was this Hammer's last great movie or is it self-indulgent twaddle? This seems to be a question that arises when this movie is discussed; the movie has its ardent supporters as well as its critics." Over at Allrovie, Cavett Binion explains the film: "Hammer Films apply their characteristic Gothic touch to this offbeat psychological thriller about a bombastic 19th-century Baron (Robert Hardy of The Gathering [2003]) who keeps his two adult offspring imprisoned in the family estate, convinced they are afflicted by an evil curse of madness passed down from their late mother. Unfortunately, they're not the only ones to worry about: it seems a spate of recent murders in the surrounding village are being committed by his son (Shane Briant), who is being manipulated by his father's deranged will to leave the castle and act out Dad's twisted, violent fantasies. Superb photography and good use of locations lend a rich atmosphere to this psycho-costume-drama, and Patrick Magee turns in a good performance as the family doctor (somewhat reminiscent of his role in Coppola's Dementia 13 [1963 / full film]). Director Peter Sykes keeps the horror fairly subdued until the bloody 'shock' ending, which seems to spoil the mood a bit."

 Trailer:

Lust for a Vampire
(1971, dir. Jimmy Sangster)

Lust for a Vampire was the second of the rare (six in total) directorial efforts of Jimmy Sangster, whose career review here at A Wasted Life can be reached via the link above. Frank Godwin connection to the film is obscure at best: he is credited as supplying the lyrics to the song Strange Love (music by Harry Robertson and performed by Tracy), which is used in the film (and trailer). 

Tracy — Strange Love:

To simply reuse what we wrote at our Jimmy Sangster RIP entry in 2011: "Sangster jumps in at the last second to take over for Terrence Fischer, directing a script by Tudor Gates, for the second of the three films of Hammer's so-called Karnstein Trilogy. As the 'sequel' to the excellent lezzie vampire classic The Vampire Lovers (1970 / trailer), Lust for a Vampire can be said to be loosely inspired by J. Sheridan Le Fanu's classic (and well worth reading) novella from 1872, Carmilla. The film has a bad rep, but it has aged well. Its male lead, Ralph Bates [of Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971)], once called Lust for a Vampire "one of the worst films ever made"; allegedly, Ingrid Pitt, who starred in the preceding The Vampire Lovers, turned the film down 'cause she found the script so crappy. Plot: In 1830, Mircalla — actually Carmilla Karnstein (Yutte Stensgaard of Zeta One [1969 / trailer]) — arrives as a new student at a finishing school; needless to say, students and local inhabitants suddenly start to drop like flies... boobs, blood, lesbianism, heterosexuality — what more does a good vampire flick need? A well-balanced review of the film can be found here at mondo digital."

 Trailer:


 

Ángel Muñoz Alonso
1955 — 7 September 2012

Ángel Muñoz-Alonso was a Spanish musician and composer that was born and died in Madrid. He got his nickname Reverendo (Reverend) when he worked as an organist in the church of San Antón. In the 70s he was a successful rock musician and played with the bands Desmadre 75 and Paracelso. He retired in 2003. He tended to do the soundtrack to the kind of films we don't watch, a few of which are below.

Sé infiel y no mires con quién
(1985, dir. Fernando Trueba)

Aka Move over Mrs. Markham — the name of the play the film is based on. Ángel Muñoz-Alonso was the composer for the film. Director Trueba recently did the animated critic's favorite, Chico & Rita (2010 / trailer). Allmovie says: "In this conventional comedy of manners, two men in the publishing business run into trouble both in the boardroom and in the bedroom. Their venture is starting to run out of black ink, and one of them is very suspicious of his wife's loyalties. Add in a right-wing author of children's stories, a hooker, a secretary driven to her wits' end (not a long journey), and the stage is set for comedy — if only the script would follow suit." Sounds.... dull.

 Lulú de noche
(1986, dir. Emilio Martínez Lázaro)

Aka Lulu on the Bridge. Ángel Muñoz-Alonso was the composer for the film — and appears in it somewhere as himself as well. Director Emilio Martínez Lázaro wrote León Klimovsky's cult fave The Dracula Saga (1973 / trailer) and Manuel Mur Oti's A Diary of a Murderess (1975 / trailer), and was also assistant director to Jess Franco on the forgotten Dr. M schlägt zu (1972 / full film). At Answer.com, Eleanor Mannikka explains the plot to Lulu on the Bridge: "Film noir and comedy are successfully thrown together in this off-beat story about Germain (Antonio Resines), a stage producer trying to put together the two leads and backing for his next drama. Germain is looking for a man to play a psychotic obsessed with his mother and a woman to play a seductress. For the male lead he finds Rufo (Imanol Arias) who depends on robbery for a living, takes care of his drug-addict mother, and has hallucinatory visions about the Pope. The female lead has three contenders: Germain's ex-girlfriend Nena (Amparo Munoz), his ex-wife Amelia (Assumpta Serna), and Lola (Patricia Adriani) a beguiling vamp he met in a taxi one day. Germain soon finds that casting can be a nightmare when Nena's husband (his potential backer) lusts after Lola, Nena has her amorous sights set on Rufo, and Germain's ex-wife Amelia runs after a soccer player. Add in a murder, and absurdity rules the day."

 Wild Spanish party:

El año de las luces
(1986, dir. Fernando Trueba)

Aka Year of Enlightment. Another film by Fernando Trueba, who eventually produced the Oscar-winning Spanish film Belle Epoque (1992 / trailer) — for which Ángel Muñoz-Alonso didn't do the music. Ángel was, however, the composer for the film. Synopsis from DVD Talk: "Fifteen years old Manolo (Jorge Sanz, "Young Conan" in Conan the Barbarian [1982 / trailer]) and his eight-years-old brother Jesus (Lukas Martin) are sent to a remote sanatorium on the Spanish-Portuguese border where Franco's iron fist is barely felt. Surrounded by beautiful nurses and a mature but curious superintendent (Veronica Forque) Manolo can hardly resist what his body desires. Aside from the local priest and Emilio (Manuel Alexandre), the ageing sweet-talker who once roamed the streets of Paris, the youngster finds himself the only man in town. Incapable of studying alone, Manolo keeps a tiny log where he diligently marks each of his late-night onanistic experiments... until he meets Maria Jesus (Maribel Verdu of Tuno negro [2001 / German trailer], The Mudboy [2007 / trailer] and Pan's Labyrinth [2006 / trailer]), the daughter of the priest (!!). The young boy falls madly in love with Maria only to eventually have his heart broken in a most uncompromising manner. [...]"

Nicole Marie Charlotte Pierrette Jeanne Schneider
29 June 1920 — 7 September 2012

Nicole Russell, Duchess of Bedford, briefly entertained herself as a television producer in France during the 1950s, during which she was an associate producer of the (until 2012) only US American television series of Sherlock Holmes, which ran for 39 episodes from 1954 to 55 and starred Ronald Howard (of The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb [1964 / trailer]) as Holmes. She also produced the 1957 CBS series Dick and the Duchess, starring Patrick O'Neal (of The Stuff [1985 / trailer], Silent Night, Bloody Night [1972 / trailer / full film] and The Mad Magician [1954 / trailer]) and Hazel Court (of The Curse of Frankenstein [1957 / trailer], Doctor Blood's Coffin [1961 / trailer], The Masque of the Red Death [1964 / trailer] and much more), and one movie, 1956's Foreign Intrigue. Nicole Marie Charlotte Pierrette Jeanne Schneider is a figure waiting to be filmed. Born in Paris as the eldest child of Capt. Paul Schneider, a World War I flying Ace, and Marguerite Durand, of the noble Crouzet de Rayssac des Roches family, shortly after turning eighteen years old she was forced by her parents to marry Henri Milinaire, a man 14 years her senior. Four children emerged from the eternally-unhappy marriage before they finally divorced in 1956. In 1960, she married the Duke of Bedford, John Ian Robert Russell, with whom she had no children. Upon her second marriage, she gave up the film and television world to devote herself to her husband and the other exhausting, time-consuming duties a Duchess might have. The Duchess of Bedford died in Monte Carlo at the age of 92 on 7 September 2012.

Foreign Intrigue
(1956, dir. Sheldon Reynolds)

Director Sheldon Reynolds, who worked as a producer with the Duchess on a number of productions, seems to have actually moved in the upper-crust circles in which this oddly dull affair is set. This film, of which the only American actor is an oddly stiff and lifeless Robert Mitchum, was based on Reynold's popular TV series Foreign Intrigue (156 episodes between 1951 and 55) about good guys tracking down hidden Nazis, commies and other bad guys in postwar Europe. For the film version, Robert Mitchum was pulled in as the good guy, the former secretary to the deceased millionaire Victor Danemore (Jean Galland). TV Guide has an on-the-nose review of this film, which used to get shown regularly on late-night or mid-afternoon TV here in Germany: "When Danemore (Galland) dies mysteriously, Dave Bishop (Mitchum), who once worked for him, decides to unravel his mysterious past. He travels to Vienna and learns Danemore was a tycoon blackmailer, but the proof of his nefarious past is shrouded with the death of an informant, whose killer appears to be Dominique (Geneviève Page), Danemore's widow. Jonathan Spring (Frédéric O'Brady), a professional agent hired to look into Danemore's past, bumps into Bishop, and the two agree to help each other. Bishop follows leads to Stockholm, where he meets Brita Lindquist (Ingrid Thulin of Salon Kitty [1976 / trailer]), falling in love with her. Brita's father had been a traitor during WW II, and Danemore had been blackmailing him, finally driving him to suicide. Bishop and Brita return to Vienna where four agents from the US, Sweden, Switzerland, and England reveal more of Danemore's past, explaining that Hitler made deals with traitors in every country he invaded (i.e., Quisling in Norway, Laval in France) and, since their countries were never invaded, they were never exposed, yet Danemore learned their identities and blackmailed them. Later Dominique appears, gun in hand, and tries to get Bishop to blackmail the four traitors, but he disarms her and then meets with the shifty Spring to pick up the traitors. Foreign Intrigue [... is a] murky, aimlessly plotted espionage saga [...], packed with cliches and predictability. [...] The production values and on-location shooting in Europe are good."

 Trailer:

Rollin "Oscar" Sullivan
19 July 1919 — 7 September 2012
 Lonzo and Oscar — Mountain Dew:

Rollin Sullivan, born 93 years ago in Edmonton, Kentucky, was the original one-half of the famous country duo Lonzo and Oscar. First formed in 1945, "Lonzo" changed three times (from Lloyd George to Johnny Sullivan to David Hooten), but Oscar remained the same. (The rights to the name now belong to Billy Henson.) Rollin, one in a family of ten, toured with his brother Johnny Sullivan in the 1930s; they were also in a local group known as the Kentucky Ramblers.

 The Kentucky Ramblers — Ginseng Blues (1930):

In 1942, Rollin joined Paul Howard's Arkansas Cotton Pickers playing an electric mandolin, where he was given the nickname Oscar. In 1945, while touring with Eddy Arnold, Rollin and Lloyd George started opening the shows as an act that would eventually become known as Lonzo and Oscar. As far as we can tell, Lonzo (Johnny Sullivan) and Oscar appeared in three films, while Lonzo (David Hooten) and Oscar hosted one TV show, Pure Country, in 1987...

Country Music Caravan
(1964, director unknown)

Aka Country Music Carnival. Produced by Colorama Roadshows, this "country jukebox" movie was probably made back to back with Tennessee Jamboree, Colorama Roadshows' other country western "documentary" from 1964; the two films often shared a double bill. Lonzo and Oscar are one of the many acts... TCM says: "Seventeen country music performers, some of them veteran entertainers, play 27 different country-and-western hits to the accompaniment of 7 different bands. Various comedy acts and the World's Champion Square Dancers also perform, with most of the entertainment originating from Nashville, Tennessee." Country Music Caravan and Tennessee Jamboree are the last film appearances of country singer Jim Reeves, who died in a plane crash the same year that these films hit Hixsville screens. Who knows, though, maybe he sang the following song in the movie...

Jim Reeves in Oslo, 1964 — Adios Amigo:


 

Tennessee Jamboree
(1964, director unknown)

Produced by Colorama Roadshows, this "country jukebox" movie was probably made back to back with Country Music Caravan, Colorama Roadshows' other country western "documentary" from 1964; the two films often shared a double bill. Lonzo and Oscar are one of the many acts... TCM says: "Performances by country and western singing stars, dancers, and bands are interspersed with rural comedy routines and monologs." Though we were unable to find any playlist for Tennessee Jamboree (or Country Music Caravan), Marty Robbins did appear in this film here, and who knows, maybe he even sang this song...

 Devil Woman — Marty Robbins in 1964:

 

Country Boy
(1966, dir. Joseph Kane)

A film few people have ever seen, aka Here Comes That Nashville Sound. Hixploitation, sorta: an amalgamation of a half-assed drama and a "country jukebox" movie directed by forgotten director Joseph Kane, who began his career doing silents and serials and went on to specialize in westerns, mostly on Poverty Row and later as an independent film-maker; occasionally he made something other than just a western, like the forgotten "Hitler lives" flick The Search for the Evil One (1967). Country Boy was written by Paul Crabtree, who plays the asshole manager Fats Jackson. Imdb explains the highly original plot of the film: "Singer Link Byrd, Jr. (Randy Boone, cousin of Pat Boone, also found in Terminal Island [1973 / trailer], Dr. Minx [1975 / trailer] and The Wild Pair [1987 / trailer]) wants to join the Grand Ole Opry, and hooks up with a slippery-slick agent named 'Fats' Jackson. Jackson makes him a star but ruins his reputation along the way." Another on-line source says that Link Byrd is first discovered by Sheb Wooley before falling into the clutches of the bad manager... Pauletta Leemen was "introduced" in this film, but she seemingly disappeared two years later after playing an "Exotic Lady" in Ron Ormond's hixploitation disasterpiece The Exotic Ones aka The Monster and the Stripper (1968 / dance scene). About the only thing to be found of her today are old 45s on eBay and MP3 downloads on Amazon.com of the song Your [sic] Making A Fool Out Of Me, possibly from this film. Sheb Wooley also sings in the film, but we were unable to find any song of his from the film online either... so here's the only Number One Hit he ever had in the US instead.

Sheb Wooley — Purple People Eater (1958):


 

Ron Taylor
8 March 1934 — 9 September 2012

Ronald Josiah Taylor, marine conservationist and wildlife filmmaker, died of leukemia at the age of 78 in Sydney, Australia. Despite all the terrifying underwater scenes he filmed featuring killer sharks, he himself was a lifelong fan of the creatures and spent much of his time trying to convince a reluctant public that sharks are beautiful creature that generally ignores man. Taylor is survived by his wife, Valerie Taylor, with whom he worked.

Shark Hunters
(1962, dirs. Ben Cropp and Ron Taylor)

At the time he produced this 50-minute TV documentary with Ben Cropp, Taylor was still a bit less respectful of nature: that's him in the diving suit to the left killing a tiger shark with a spear — just for the film, basically. The image to the left is the cover of the book that was made in conjunction with the documentary. The poster above has actually nothing to do with the documentary by Taylor and Cropp — it belongs to a Mexican drama from 1963 also entitled The Shark Hunters directed by Luis Alcoriza, the man who brought us Terror and Black Lace (1985 / full film in Spanish) and Skeleton of Mrs. Morales (1960 / full film in Spanish) and helped write 12 of Luis Buñuel's films, including The Exterminating Angel (1962 / Spanish trailer). We include the poster here only because we find it a lot more groovy — excuse me, I think the word nowadays is "dope" — than the book cover to the left.

Age of Consent
(1969, dir. Michael Powell)

Trailer:

Ron Taylor did the underwater photography for this, Michael Powell's last feature-length film, a film hardly as interesting as his legendary horror film, Peeping Tom (1960 / trailer), despite the fact that the 22-year-old Helen Mirren does get naked a lot. Naked babe or not, the film is still a sleeping tablet. Brit Movie's plot description: "Disillusioned artist Brad Morahan (James Mason) escapes New York for his Australian homeland seeking solitude but instead discovers alcoholic Ma Ryan (Neva Carr-Glynn) and her granddaughter Cora (Helen Mirren), who sits as his model. A visit from old acquaintance Nat Kelly (Jack MacGowran) ends with Kelly stealing $300 from Brad before leaving the island in a stolen boat. Ma discovers Brad has been sketching her granddaughter and in an argument with Cora, the old woman falls from a cliff and is killed. The police investigation finds that the fall was an accident, and Cora offers Brad her money to make up for that stolen by Kelly. Brad refuses, realising that the girl has restored meaning to his work and life. When Kelly is apprehended and the money returned, Brad and Cora are left to themselves at last." Based on the novel of the same name.

Underwater with a naked Helen Mirren:

Helen Mirren / Age of Consent (3) (1969) - MyVideo

Blue Water, White Death
(1971, dirs. Peter Gimbel and James Lipscomb)

Ron Taylor, one of the crew in the film, also did the underwater photography for this documentary that focuses on Great Whites. As a result of their work on this film, Ron and Valerie were hired by Steven Spielberg to help him film Jaws.

Trailer:

Jaws

(1975, dir. Steven Spielberg)

Ron Taylor was the camera operator for the live shark footage for this classic horror film based on Peter Benchley's novel.

Trailer:


 

Orca
(1977, dir. Michael Anderson)

Ron Taylor filmed the shark sequence (in Australia) of this popular piece of flotsam from the director of Logan's Run (1976 / trailer) and the perennial guilty pleasure Millennium (1989 / trailer). One thing for sure: Orca is a lot better than that other killer whale flick, Free Willy (1993 / trailer), a film we would have found a lot better had it really been about a willy flapping freely in the breeze. The eternally friendly fellow over at Ninja Dixon says what you need to know about this fun film: "The genre of killer animals was flying high during the seventies […]. Italian mega-producer Dino De Laurentiis wanted his own share of the audiences' money and put a lot of money and stars in Orca. […] Nolan (Richard Harris) accidentally kills a killer whale and its baby, which shocks both him and biologist Rachel (Charlotte Rampling of Immortal [2004]). Soon he realizes that the mate of the killer whale, Orca, is after him for revenge and stops at nothing — not even Nolan's crew is safe! Nolan understands he needs to meet Orca on its own playground and goes out to sea to do what he has to do, to kill or be killed himself!"

Trailer:


 

Jaws 2
(1978, dir. Jeannot Szwarc)

Ron Taylor is back to do the live shark photography for the first of three sequels, each one worse than the one preceding; director Jeannot Szwarc had made the much better (and cheesier) William Castle production Bug (1975 / trailer) and eventually went on to direct the infamously bad Supergirl (1984 / trailer) — which, actually, isn't all that worse than this flick here. Jaws 2 has more or less the same plot as Jaws, but with a lot more screaming teens — and not enough of them die! As to be expected, it made oodles of money — and leave it to Socialist Poland to come up with a mondo poster that is better than the flick itself, a talent they have seemingly lost since the fall of the former Eastern Bloc.

Trailer:


 

A Dangerous Summer
(1982, dir. Quentin Masters)

Aka Flash Fire and The Burning Man. Ron Taylor was the underwater photographer for the slice of Ozploitation starring Tom Skerrit from the director of that fondly remembered trash classic, The Stud (1978 / trailer). Whatever happened to that Quentin? This is also the second and last Australian film of James Mason, who had gone down under 13 years previously to do Age of Consent, for which Ron Taylor also did the water shoots. According to Wikipedia, "The film was inspired by the Sydney bush fires of the 1979-80 summer. John Seale shot footage of the fire which Brian Trenchard-Smith [the director of Turkey Shoot (1980 / trailer), Night of the Demons 2 (1994 / trailer), Dead-End Drive In (1986 / trailer) and much more fun crap] turned into a 25 minute film, That Dangerous Summer. It was then announced this material would be used by Trenchard-Smith in a feature version of the story, to be called Bushfire. In the end, Trenchard-Smith did not direct, and Quentin Masters did." Very few people have seemingly ever seen this movie. Plot: Outside of Sydney, an American architect (Skerritt) is building a vacation resort with a friend, but little does he know that his business partner is out to make money via insurance fraud. A British insurance detective manages to put two and two together as the bodies pile up.

 Trailer:


 

Fortress
(1985, dir. Arch Nicholson)

Ron Taylor was the underwater photographer for this prime slice of Ozploitation starring the delectable Rachel Ward and directed by the man who brought us one of Quentin Tarantino's favorite Australian trash films, the killer-croc flick Dark Age (1987 / trailer). The film is based on the novel of the same name by Gabrielle Lord, which in turn was inspired by the 1972 Faraday School Kidnapping. A co-production of HBO, it was initially released on TV in the USA and then in cinemas in Australia in 1986. The Terror Trap explains the film: "In rural Australia, schoolteacher Sally (Ward) begins a routine day of class with her students...when several masked gunmen ambush and kidnap the group for ransom. But after the criminals transport the frightened children and their teacher to a secluded mountain range, Sally and the young ones find they must fight their captors for survival...even to the bloody end. Stellar acting from all involved easily carries off this adventure-turned-horror pic; Ward (of Night School [1981 / trailer] and The Final Terror [1983 / trailer]) delivers a particularly spectacular performance."

Trailer:


 

Sky Pirates
(1986, dir. Colin Eggleston)

Aka Sky Bandits and Dakota Harris; the film is considered to be Australia's first time travel movie. Ron Taylor was the photographer for the underwater sequence of this film from the dearly departed Aussie Colin Eggleston, who helmed the dull and relatively softcore Fantasm Comes Again (1977 / NSFW scene) and the original version of the nature gone wild film Long Weekend (1978 / trailer), as well as other less noteworthy examples of Ozploitation like Cassandra (1986 / trailer) and The Wicked / Outback Vampires (1987 / first 10 minutes). The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review says that "this Australian effort was clearly intended as a copy of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981 / trailer) [....] however, Sky Bandits, renamed Sky Pirates in the US, is such a lunatically daft entry it ranks highly as an undiscovered Golden Turkey gem." 10K Bullets, which liked the film, gives the plot as follows: "Australia, August 1945. Lieutenant Dakota Harris (John Hargreaves, who died of AIDS in 1996) is called upon to fly an American plane from a secret airbase to Washington. On board is archeologist Reverend Mitchell (Simon Chilvers) along with one third of an ancient stone tablet. The plane gets caught in a mysterious electrical storm and crash-lands in a sea, filled with long lost ships. Rescued and brought back to Australia, Dakota finds himself court-martialed due to a false testimony by his co-pilot Savage (Max Phipps). Dakota escapes and gets help from Mitchell's daughter Melanie (Meredith Phillips). Together they set out to stop Savage, who is after the 3 pieces of the stone tablet and their enormous power when combined together."

German trailer:

 

Jackie Chan's First Strike
(1996, dir. Stanley Tong)

Aka Police Story 4: First Strike. Ron Taylor was underwater camera operator for this Jackie Chan film. At-A-Glance says: "Once again, Jackie Chan's charisma turns what might have been ridiculously silly into hilarious action-packed entertainment. With its ski scenes, sharks, underwater fights, and hulking henchmen, First Strike is Chan's James Bond film, and even a couple references are made to the British spy hero. As with any Jackie Chan film, the highlights are his blazing fast dance-like fight scenes, where Chan calls upon his martial arts expertise and just about any handy prop (here, it's tables, brooms, and ladders) to combat his opponents. This isn't Chan's best work, however, by any means. More like the too silly Rumble in the Bronx (1995 / trailer) than the down-to-earth Supercop (1992 / trailer), there's a little too much fooling around and not enough acrobatics."

Trailer:

Claudine Mawby Walker
10 August 1922 — 13 September 2012

To quote Life in Legacy: Claudine Mawby Walker (90) [was the] last survivor of the "Mawby Triplets," a set of adorable blonde little English girls who appeared in some of the earliest US talking films in the '20s and '30s. But they weren't actually triplets: Claudette (left above; killed in a 1941 London bombing raid) and Claudine were twins; Angella (right; d. 2000) was 11 months older. Born in England, the photogenic children came to Hollywood with their parents in 1928 and quickly made into the papers and, from there, into films. Supposedly they participated in around 24 films in three years, but no full list can be found anywhere. They returned to England in 1932 when, in the shadow the Lindbergh kidnapping, their parents were faced with threats of kidnapping. In England, the war effectively put an end to their careers. In 1941 Claudine married William Walker, with whom she had seven children, two of which preceded her in death.

The Baby Cyclone
(1928, dir. A. Edward Sutherland)

Claudine appears with the Triplets somewhere in the film based on the play by George M. Cohan, "the only performer honored with a statue on Broadway, located at the intersection of Broadway, 7th Avenue and 46th Street." Director Sutherland, who was not only one of the original Keystone Cops but also married to Louise Brooks (from July 1926 — 20 June 1928), went on to make the early classic horror film Murders in the Zoo (1933 / full film) and the fun screwball comedy The Invisible Woman (1940 / trailer). Over at TCM, they reprint a blurb from the National Board of Review Magazine, Oct 1928: "Lest you think this picture is a mystery thriller you should know that the baby cyclone is a dog — assuming that a Pekingese is really an honest-to-goodness dog. Neither the husband nor the fatal stepper, who wants to be one, would call him a dog and what they would call him isn't fit to be told. Wife and fiancée, on the other hand, think him an angel pet and what with each of them trying to have him for her very own and the two men co-operating in vain to exterminate the pest you have the making of a lively farce."

The Broadway Melody
(1929, dir. Harry Beaumont)

Trailer:

Plot: Two innocent sisters come to the big city and lose their innocence. Claudine appears with the Triplets somewhere in this film aka as The Broadway Melody of 1929. Like The Hollywood Revue of 1929 below, it was one of the first musicals to include a Technicolor sequence — that sequence, however, has since been lost and the film only exists in its B&W version. The Broadway Melody was both the first musical released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Hollywood's first all-talking musical (though a silent version was released concurrently for theaters that could do sound, an odd concept for a musical). The top-grossing film of the year, its star Bessie Love earned an Academy Award nomination (she lost to Mary Pickford for Coquette [full film]). At-A-Glance offers the following intelligent insight to the film: "In its day, The Broadway Melody was the kind of spectacle we now call the special effects film. The special effects were its soundtrack. Synchronized sound had been creeping into feature films since 1927 and would complete their takeover by 1930. It's clear the novelty hadn't yet worn off: the opening scene shows an orchestra tuning their instruments and rehearsing. The camera explores the room, picking up all these different sounds just to glory in them.
But there is artistry in the spectacle. Consider a scene where a woman looks tearfully out a window at a man driving off in a car. The sound effects — of the car door opening and closing, the motor starting, and the car driving off — take care of the mechanics of the narrative, thus freeing up the camera to remain fixed on the emotions in her face, where the heart of the scene is. Despite lovely touches like this, the film is more good than great. The characters feel a little too much like they're playing predefined roles instead of living as genuine individuals. And while it may have had a strong impact at the time, the story of innocent girls lured astray by sinful city lifestyles has lost its power to shock. Nevertheless, I cared about these characters and rooted for them to pull through their various trials. In addition, there are some fine musical moments interspersed throughout."

 The title track:


 

The Hollywood Revue of 1929
(1929, dir. Charles Reisner)

Director Reisner also directed the much better films, such as Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928 / full film) and The Marx Brothers's The Big Store (1941 / trailer). The review supposedly features every major MGM star of the day with the exception of Greta Garbo, Ramon Novarro — he who died by dildo — and Lon Chaney. The Chicago Reader says: "MGM's entry in the cycle of all-star studio revues that came with the advent of sound; it was by far the most popular, though the waning of some of the celebrities featured makes it seem a little creaky today. Jack Benny is the host; appearing in songs and/or sketches (including the debut of Singin' in the Rain) are Marion Davies, Buster Keaton, Norma Shearer, John Gilbert, Laurel and Hardy, Marie Dressler, Bessie Love, Lionel Barrymore, Joan Crawford, William Haines, Conrad Nagel, Cliff Edwards, and Anita Page." Imdb says that this is "One of the films cited as contributing to the collapse of John Gilbert's career after audiences heard his high-pitching speaking voice. Apparently, Gilbert's Romeo and Juliet sequence inspired the 'talkie disaster' sequence in Singin' in the Rain (1952 / trailer)." Claudine, with the Triplets, can be seen for a few seconds at the start of the clip below.

Singin' in the Rain in The Hollywood Review of 1929:

Tom Sims
1950 — 12 September 2012

Life in Legacy says: "Tom Sims (61) skateboarding and snowboarding pioneer and former world champion who helped to bring snowboarding to the masses by pushing ski resorts to embrace the fledgling sport in the '80s. Sims died of a heart attack in Santa Barbara, California on September 12, 2012." Sims is often credited with having built the first modern snowboard when, in his woodshop class of seventh grade in 1963, he built what he called a "skiboard".

Freewheelin'
(1976, dir. Scott Dittrich)

 

A quasi-documentary which narrated by Camille Darrin, Freewheelin' tells of Stacy Perlata and Camille and their passion for skateboarding as they and their friends (including Tom Sims) travel to various places in search of the perfect skateboarding experience. Everyone plays themselves. TV Guide sounds real Old Fart and says: "Paper-thin plot has Peralta as a skateboard enthusiast who lives only to roll down the street on his weird contraption. This desire outweighs anything else another youth might devote himself to — like such inconsequentials as romance or the pursuit of an education."

 Trailer:


 

Skateboard
(1978, dir. George Gage)

Two years later, Sims shows up in this flick briefly as a competition skateboarder. Mondo Digital explains the flick: "[...] The world's first skatesploitation film, Skateboard: The Movie, has lingered as something of a fan favorite since its VHS days [...]. Here [Allen Garfield] plays a middle-aged talent scout named Manny Bloom who decides to put together a big league skateboard team dubbed the LA Wheels... who might be able to get him out of debt if they make the big time. The kids he recruits have problems of their own, and their ability to make it to the big championship game is put into serious doubt when internal and external conflicts begin to pile up. [...] This is really just an excuse to show off lots of flashy skateboard work by talented kids in the early days of a fast-growing sport. The clothes, the cars, the hair... yep, this is pure late '70s cinematic gold." Four years later director George Gage, who usually earns his rent money doing commercials, made Fleshburn (1984 / trailer), one of pre-bloat Sonny Landham's first post-porno mainstream exploitation films.

 Trailer:


 

Take Your Best Shot
(1982, dir. David Greene)

According to imdb, Sims appears somewhere in this flick as a mime. Director David Greene was long past his prime when he made this TV "romantic comedy" — hard to believe that he had ever directed anything like The Shuttered Room (1967 / title sequence). Plot: Actor Jess Marriner's (Robert Urich) career in Hollywood is failing and his marriage to Carol (Meredith Baxter) is on the rocks. Can he turn his life around? B-Movie Detective — which claims "Robert Urich was gorgeous man!" — says: "Fans of Robert Urich and Meredith Baxter should check out Take Your Best Shot, but they need to be prepared to be less-than-enthused by the constant short-changing of the lead characters for largely boring supporting players. If only the entire telefilm had revolved around the relationship between Jess and Carol then it might have been a pleasure. As is, check it out only for Urich and Baxter." We here at A Wasted Life say: In their prime, we might not have said no to a one night stand with either of them, but we would definitely say no to watching this flick.

Trailer:

Tuff Turf
(1985, dir. Fritz Kiersch)

Director Fritz Kiersch followed his 1984 "success" Children of the Corn (trailer) with this teen "action drama", one of James Spader's earliest lead roles (a very young Robert Downey Jr is also to be seen in the movie). Tom Sims appears as one of the gang during the final big warehouse showdown rumble. TCM explains the plot: "Teenager Morgan Hiller (Spader) and his family have become displaced after his father lost some of the wealth to which they had been accustomed. They are then forced to moves to California where Morgan meets Frankie (Kim Richards), the girlfriend of Nick (Paul Mones), a high school tough who does not appreciate Frankie's sudden change of heart. The antagonism between Morgan and Frankie mounts slowly escalating towards a high-noon showdown." Kim Richards (she played the little girl who gets killed at the start of the original — and best — version of Assault on Precinct 13 [1976 / trailer]) gets naked... or at least her body double does. Video Vacuum says: "If you love '80s cheese then Tuff Turf is a heavenly hunk of Gouda."

Trailer:


 

A View to a Kill
(1985, dir. John Glen)

Tom Sims was the main snowboarding stunt double for "007" (Roger Moore) in this 1985 James Bond film, the 14th of the series. A View to a Kill was also: the seventh and last to star Roger Moore as James Bond, the fourth Bond film to have an entirely original screenplay (despite having a "real" Fleming title), the third James Bond film to be directed by John Glen, and the last to feature Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny. Moore is reeeaaalll old, Tanya Roberts is wooden board, Grace Jones is fun like always — and Christopher Walken walks off with the film with his over-the-top portrayal the bad guy Max Zorin. At-A-Glance says "A View to a Kill is more than a little disappointing. It reverts to the type of goofy "humor" that helped ruin Moonraker [1979 / trailer]. The story, very similar to Goldfinger [1964 / trailer] is sufficient enough to carry a Bond film, [but] most of the action scenes are destroyed by silliness and cheap theatrics. The last thirty minutes are comprised of some wonderful, exciting material, but by that point, it's a little too late to redeem the film completely. A View to a Kill isn't horrible — it's watchable enough for the young or non-critical viewer — but it's not 'good' by any means." At imdb, Robert Lynch explains the plot: "When Bond is sent to investigate a security leak at the high-tech Zorin Industries, he discovers a hotbed of murder and deception. The company's mysterious owner, Max Zorin has devised a plan to corner the world microchip market, even if he has to kill millions to do it! But before Bond can stop Zorin, he must confront the madman's beautiful and deadly companion May Day (Jones). With help from the gorgeous Stacey (Roberts), Bond will launch an all-out assault on Zorin's deadly scheme, climaxing in a spine-tingling duel on the upper spans of the Golden Gate Bridge." Leave out the adjective "spin-tingling", and the description fits the film...

 Trailer:


 

Dogtown and Z-Boys
(2001, dir. Stacy Peralta)

Tom Sims, as a "70s Skateboard Champion", is one of the talking heads in this documentary narrated by Sean Penn for which director Peralta won the 2001 Sundance Award for Documentary Directing. Over at imdb, mrchaos33 of Toronto, Ontario (just around the corner from Venice Beach, in other words) says: "A close-up look at the birth of skateboard culture in Southern California, Dogtown and Z-Boys has attitude to burn, just like the sport it documents. Directed by Stacy Peralta, one of the legends of the sport, it captures the punk rock spirit of skateboarding, and perfectly places it into context within the boundaries of time (the 1970s) and location (a neighborhood between Santa Monica and Venice, California). Even if you are not a fan you'll be fascinated by the story, which is told using a combination of narration, stills, great vintage 1970s skateboarding footage and new interviews with all the key players. Sean Penn provides the narration, and adds a flair all of his own. The opposite of stodgy, Penn speaks to the audience not at them, sounding like someone sitting at a bar telling the tale. At one point in mid-sentence he coughs, pauses for a moment and then continues. It's this kind of approach that gives this movie its edge."

Trailer:
 

Bettye Lane
19 September 1930 — 19 September 2012

Born Elizabeth Foti in Boston, MA, Bettye Lane was an American photojournalist who won wide recognition for her photographic documentation of the feminist movement, the civil rights movement, and the gay rights movement within the United States in the '70s and '80s. Lane, who died of cancer on her 82nd birthday in New York City, had work published in The National Observer, Time, Life, and other respected publications, has been exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution, and has works in the permanent collections of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the New York Public Library and the Harvard University and Duke University libraries. Many of her photographs have been used in documentary films — a few of which we present below.

Vito
(2011, dir. Jeffrey Schwarz)

Bettye Lane supplied some of the archive materials used in the HBO documentary directed by Jeffrey Schwarz about Vito Russo. Vito Who? Black Sheep Reviews fills us in: "Russo was an activist at his core. He spearheaded the gay rights liberation movement in New York; he is the founding father of gay film studies as we know it, having literally written the book on the subject (The Celluloid Closet); and he fought ferociously to bring attention to the AIDS epidemic, even though he too was slowly dying from the disease. His strength, bravery and relentless determination, as captured so well in Vito, bring me to tears time and time again when I hear of it." Vito is a  documentary feature for HBO Documentary Films by director Jeffrey Schwarz, who has got multi-dozens of documentary credits to his name, including two documentaries about film figures we here at A Wasted Life hold close to heart, Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story (2007 / trailer) and Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon (2008 / trailer).

Trailer:
Vito by Jeffrey Swartz from FAIRY TALES on Vimeo.

Stonewall Uprising
(2010, dirs. Kate Davis and David Heilbroner)

Bettye Lane also supplied some of the archive materials used in this fascinating documentary from Kate Davis and David Heilbroner based on the book by historian David Carter, Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution. It was broadcast on PBS as part of the documentary series The American Experience. Davis and Heilbroner take an in-depth look at the event that launched the contemporary Gay Rights movement — a raid on the New York bar Stonewall in 1968 during which, suddenly and unexpectedly, the patrons fought back. The talking heads are those who were involved that night, from drag queens and street hustlers to police detectives — including one cop, the one who led the raiding unit, who seems to have grown as a person since then — and journalists and even a former mayor of New York. To quote KPBS: "Hunted and often entrapped by undercover police in their hometowns, gays from around the U.S. began fleeing to New York in search of a sanctuary. Hounded there still by an aggressive police force, they found refuge in a Mafia-run gay bar in Greenwich Village, the Stonewall Inn. When police raided Stonewall on June 28, 1969, gay men and women did something they had not done before: they fought back. As the streets of New York erupted into violent protests and street demonstrations, the collective anger announced that the gay rights movement had arrived." Hats off to all those who finally fought back. Cine Outsider says: "Stonewall Uprising is, in many ways, a very conventional documentary. It tells its story through a collection of interviews, intercut with contemporary footage and the narrative progresses in a totally linear fashion. Following the establishment of the social situation with the riot itself and a short epilogue on the aftermath. By relying so heavily on the tropes of an established genre, the filmmakers can focus entirely on telling the story of Stonewall in an effective and personal way." Great documentary, well worth viewing... which you can do, directly below.

Full film at PBS:

Watch Stonewall Uprising on PBS. See more from American Experience.

 

Tereska Torrès
3 September 1920 — 20 September 2012

Life in Legacy says: "Tereska Torrès (92), convent-educated French writer who by accident wrote America's first lesbian pulp novel [Women's Barracks — which, by the way, was selected in 1952 by the House Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials as an example of how paperback books were promoting moral degeneracy]. Although she wrote more than a dozen novels and several memoirs, Torrès remained best known for Women's Barracks, published in the US in 1950 as a paperback original."

Lo Tafhidenu
(1947, dir. Meyer Levin)

Aka The Illegals. Meyer Levin is better known as an author than film-maker; among the many books he wrote (and the only book of his we've ever read) is Compulsion, based on the infamous Leopold and Loeb case, which went on to become a film in 1959 (trailer). This mostly forgotten film is a sort of early version of the "documdrama" in that the movie combines the documentary eye with fictional characters: the young expectant Jewish couple, Sara (Tereska Torres) and Mika (Yankel Mikalovitch), may be acting and their story fictional, but the situation that they agitate within and many of those refugees around them are real. According to Haaretz: "In July 1947, journalist and author Meyer Levin followed from afar the affair of the Exodus, the ship that illegally ferried Jewish refugees to pre-state Israel. [...] He was glued to the reports about the ship and its 4,500 passengers. These people, after the months-long exhausting journey that followed years of indescribable suffering, were not allowed to enter British Mandatory Palestine and were forcibly returned to Germany. Levin decided to create a film documenting the journeys of displaced Jews. Levin had never directed a film, but that didn't stop him. [...] He raised money and put together a small film crew that spent months traveling throughout Europe. They accompanied hundreds of displaced Jews who had set out on a long and arduous journey; they documented them crossing through countries, stealing across borders, crowding into dusty trucks and forbidding trains, hiding from soldiers and spending many days on an illegal immigrant ship."

Short version of The Illegals:



 

Lee Childress
11 February 1917 — 21 September 2012

Ms. Lee Childress was born Laurel Lee Pearce in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Over at Life in Legacy, they say: "Lee Childress (95), former publicist who in 1969, with her teacher-husband John (d. 2004), co-founded the annual Music and Arts Commendation for Youth (MACY) awards for southern California high school drama students from 30 schools, mostly in Orange County. Lee Childress died of a heart attack in Mission Viejo, California on September 21, 2012."

Terror in the Jungle
(1968, dir. Tom DeSimone)

As far as we could find, Lee Childress's only film appearance — but for that, she made it on the poster, if only on the second line. The directorial debut of Tom DeSimone, who may have cut his teeth doing educational and kiddy flicks but for a number of years put the bacon on the table as "Lancer Brooks" by doing triple-X, all-beef movies with such titles as How to Make a Homo Movie (1970 / review), Confessions of a Male Groupie (1971 / NSFW trailer), the gay horror flick Sons of Satan (1973 / review) as well as classics like The Idol (1979 / NSFW trailer) and the 3-D Jack Wrangler and Al Parker vehicle Heavy Equipment (1977). He also made an occasional straight fuck film, as well as such cult faves as Chatterbox! (1977 / trailer I / trailer II) and the Linda Blair vehicle Hell Night (1981 / trailer). Other fun exploitation titles he did before moving into TV direction are The Concrete Jungle (1982 / cat fight), Reform School Girls (1986 / trailer) and Angel III: The Final Chapter (1988 / trailer), the worst of all the Angel films. As for this film here, Cinema Knife Fight says: "Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959 / full movie), The Creeping Terror (1964 / full movie), EEGAH! (1962 / full movie), and Showgirls (1995 / trailer) are all laugh-filled, so-bad-they're-good films that entertain even as they astound us with their ineptitude.  Allow me to introduce you to Terror in the Jungle, a practically home-made tale of schlocky adventure and horror in which every scene contains multiple mistakes, atrocious acting, inept editing and directing, and the funniest script that a group of hacks ever thrust in front of an unbelieving audience." Fantastic Musings and Ramblings, which says "Quite frankly, this is the most giddily ridiculous jungle movie I've seen since Forbidden Jungle (1950)", explains the plot: "A young boy with a stuffed tiger is the sole survivor of a plane crash in the Amazon jungle.  While his father (who wasn't on the flight) hunts for him, the boy is captured by native tribesmen who worship him as a god... and may want to sacrifice him as well."

 While it lasts, the full film:

 

Neşet Ertaş
1938 — 25 September 2012

Turkish folk musician Neşet Ertaş died of cancer at the age of 74 in in a hospital in Izmir. Ertaş was born in Kırtıllar, Kırşehir, the second of four children of folk poet named Muharrem Ertaş and his second wife, Döne Koç. At the age of 5-6, Ertaş began playing the violin and the Turkish national instrument, the bağlama. Joining his father to play at wedding ceremonies in Central Anatolian, Ertaş never finished school. By the age of 14 he was playing clubs, first in Istanbul and then in Ankara. He gained great popularity by playing folk songs on the state-owned Turkish radio and soon became famous nationally. In 1978 his finger became paralysed and he sank into poverty, so he joined in brother in Germany where they have a good social system. After regaining the use of his fingers, he played at weddings and events in Germany and eventually taught; in Turkey, he was forgotten and even announced dead on the national Turkish radio, which didn't sit well with him at all. Returning to Turkey after 23 years, he enjoyed greater popularity than ever as a "National Living Human Treasure", as he was christened by UNESCO in 2010. His funeral service was attended by the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Minister of Culture Ertuğrul Günay and opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and many other renowned people of Turkey. He was buried at the foot of his father's grave as he had requested in his will.

 Eskiya oglu

(1970, dir. Mümtaz Alpaslan)

Director Mümtaz Alpaslan also wrote the script to this film; Neşet Ertaş did the music for it. Who knows what it's about — you know? We don't know. Does anyone know? But we would guess the plot involves real men with guns and moustaches.

 Neşet Ertaş performing something, somewhere — but not from the film:

We here at A Wasted Life are sure many more deaths have been overlooked, but then we never intended this series to be even half as thorough or long as it ended up. May they all rest in peace... 

As for the rest of us, those of us still waiting for the worms to crawl in and out, here is a Song of Thanks to You-Know-Who sung by someone we don't know. The song, entitled Danke, was written in 1961 by Martin Gotthard Schneider as his submission for a contest for a church song in the style of modern music; the original version by Botho-Lucas-Chor was even on the German pop charts for six weeks...

Danke — sung by somebody:
 

The lyrics, so you can sing along:
1.
Danke für diesen guten Morgen,
danke für jeden neuen Tag.
Danke, dass ich all meine Sorgen auf dich werfen mag.
2.
Danke für alle guten Freunde,
danke, oh Herr, für jedermann.
Danke, wenn auch dem größten Feinde ich verzeihen kann.
3.
Danke für meine Arbeitsstelle,
danke für jedes kleine Glück.
Danke für alles Frohe, Helle und für die Musik.
4.
Danke für manche Traurigkeiten,
danke für jedes gute Wort.
Danke, dass deine Hand mich leiten will an jedem Ort.
5.
Danke, dass ich dein Wort verstehe,
danke, dass deinen Geist du gibst.
Danke, dass in der Fern und Nähe du die Menschen liebst.
6.
Danke, dein Heil kennt keine Schranken,
danke, ich halt mich fest daran.
Danke, ach Herr, ich will dir danken, dass ich danken kann.