R.I.P.: Harry H. Novak, Part VII: 1970

12 January  1928 — 26 March  2014

"When I was a kid, my Daddy told me, 'There's a buyer for everything.' And I lived to find out that he was right."
Harry H. Novak

Harry H. Novak, alongside David F Friedman (24 December 1923 — 14 February 2011) one of the great (s)exploitation kings of the last half of the 20th century, died 26 March 2014 at the age of 86. 

A detailed career review of all the projects Harry H. Novak foisted upon the American public would be Sisyphean task at best and hardly possible, as no full and unequivocal list exists. What follows is a review of the films that we found that, for the most part, probably had Novak's involved somewhere along the way — and some that may not have. It is definitely not a complete list, and definitely not infallible, it is merely culled from sources reliable and unreliable that we found online. We also in no way suggest that the given release dates are the correct ones, they are merely the first ones we found.

If you know any we missed, feel free to send the title...

Go here for Part I

Go here for Part II: 1956-64

Go here for Part III: 1965-66

Go here for Part IV: 1967 

Go here for Part V: 1968

Go here for Part VI: 1969

Judy
(1970, dir. David W. Hanson & George Meadows)

Who knows who George Meadows is, but D.W. Hanson is the director of Night of the Bloody Transplant (1970 / stripper scene); like that film, Judy is an independent regional disaster — unlike that film, Boxoffice International distributed Judy somewhere along the way.

Mondo Digital, which says the movie is "worth a watch for fans of low-grade grindhouse trash", explains the movie: "[...] Judy, which pads out its first eight minutes with a dialogue-free interracial lesbian love scene* before the title even appears. Suddenly we cut to a suburban neighborhood where a young girl named Regina (Lee Sherry) takes a walk out into the woods to go drawing by a creek, only to wind up topless and beaten nearly to death by the water thanks to an unseen assailant. That means it's time for her dad to call in a rough, tough crime-fighting palooka named Mr. Sloan (Dave Haller) [...]. The victim (who still has enough energy to disrobe in front of her mirror) can only describe her attacker as 'mean and ugly,' so it's off to find the perpetrator (after a quick roll in the hay between Sloan and his secretary), who's now escalated to gagging women with pink scarves and strangling them. His main source for information is a combative, fiery-haired stripper named Velvet Harris (Sandy O'Hara), who wants to settle down with Sloan if he can get his act together. However, the killer seems to be one step ahead of him, and it's going to take every weapon in Sloan's arsenal to stop the parade of naked women getting throttled to stock lounge music.

Sandy O'Hara's Fan Dance Routine
(Not from the Film):

If you loved the stilted dialogue scenes in Blood Feast (1963 / trailer / full news), you'll be in sheer nirvana with this [...]. Every scene is both sordid and gaudy, with eye-punishing colors and wood paneling galore framing actors mouthing off one acid-laced but wooden line after another."

Over at imdb, Woodyanders (Woodyanders@aol.com) of the Last New Jersey Drive-In on the Left says that: "While this movie suffers from flat direction by David W. Hanson, a plodding pace, and poor acting from a lame no-name cast, it nonetheless still manages to sustain the viewer's interest thanks to the lurid subject matter, a sleazy narrative that combines a seedy film noir atmosphere with kinky giallo-type elements [...], a generous amount of tasty female nudity, and a few seamy soft-core sex scenes [...]. The clumsily staged violence delivers several unintentional belly laughs. Moreover, the bevy of fine looking ladies keep this movie watchable: Ravishing redhead Sandy O'Hara, slender tanned fox Judith Lowe, busty luscious brunette Lee Sherry, and leggy blonde dish Toula Flambouris. With its wealth of static master shots and frequent use of queasy zoom-ins, John Hargrove's plain cinematography provides an appropriately rough'n'ready visual aesthetic. The groovy score hits the swinging spot."

Trailer to Judy (and The Night Hustlers):

* According to Third Eye Cinema, it ain't no lezzie scene: "A rather pretty ginger-haired 60s swinging stewardess type walks into a lushly red carpeted, walnut paneled hotel room and removes her odd tearaway garter belt and giant underwear. A really disturbing black she-male in a blonde fright wig undresses and starts making out with her in closeup. S/he's got a lot of white powder around his/'hir' lips. Is there some deep symbolic meaning to all this we're not privy to? Was 'hir' thing powdered donuts or something? And why would director David W. Hanson subject us to this genderbender horror show?"

Substitution
(1970, dir. Walt Davis)

Novak produced and distributed this movie here, which could well be the directorial debut of Walt Davis (aka David Stefans aka Mike T. Lawn), who has long fallen off the face of the earth but for the decade of the 70s was involved in a number of noteworthy films and, according to Fred Adelman of Critical Condition, "was way ahead of his time. All of Davis's films should be re-evaluated today. He should have a cult following". Davis is remembered today, if at all, for his odd horror flick Evil Come Evil Go (1972) and his legendary: hardcore porno gore movie Sex Psycho aka Blue Widow (1971). (In Sex Psycho, he even added to the shock value of gore porn by including "an absurdly lengthy gay porn sequence between two extraneous characters" in the straight gore porno flick: he himself tops Charles Lish's bottom.) 

This movie here, however, though it has a lot of nekkid 70s skin, is neither porn not gore but a comedy, which is why TV Guide has a plot synopsis: "Henry Hedon (Chuck Sailor) and Alice Hedon (Patrice Nastasia) are bored with each other sexually. Sailor's buddy suggests he visit the Mahariji, and Sailor skeptically goes. While he waits in bed for his wife the first night after he has returned from his pilgrimage, Sailor has second thoughts; then an extraordinarily attractive woman appears and gives him the night of his life. And this routine continues night after night: his wife goes to the bathroom to get ready and out steps another gorgeous woman. It seems that Sailor has learned to use his imagination to transform his wife into other alluring creatures, while she has learned to do the same thing with him."

While It Lasts — Evil Come Evil Go (the Full Movie):

Evil Come, Evil Go von crazedigitalmovies

Wilbur and the Baby Factory
(1970, dir. Tom McGowan as "Tom Wolfe")

Aka Love Machine and The Pleasure Farm. Harry Novak was an executive producer and distributor of this film directed by Tom McGowan, a name we only became familiar with as he is one of five named directors in Night Train to Terror (USA, 1985), one of our all time favorite cinematic disaterpieces. (His horror film Cataclysm [1980 / full movie] is edited into Night Train to Terror.)

DVD Verdict says that the movie is "More serious than sexy, and as thought-provoking as it is flesh-flaunting, Wilbur and the Baby Factory represents a kind of anomaly in the world of exploitation. [...] Writer/director Tom Wolfe (no, not the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test scribe [...]) takes on the subjects of birth control, genetic engineering, and reproduction manipulation, and delivers a devastating, insightful cinematic screed. This is one angry filmmaker, flummoxed by the concept of violating nature for the sake of responsibility-free nookie. Using his hero, the well-meaning Wilbur (played by Glenn Ford's son Peter, under the pseudonym 'Tom Shea'), as his voice and the rest of the cast as the corrupt system he intends to overthrow, Wolfe wastes no time in separating his motion picture from other softcore sex epics." 

Video Vacuum explains the plot: "Hippie Wilbur Steele is about to get drafted to Nam when he gets signed up for a bizarre experiment in which he has to impregnate 2000 women. At first it seems like a dream come true, but Wilbur slowly grows disenchanted with his rigorous schedule of fucking foxes and begins to become wary of his mysterious benefactor. It turns out that the experiment is bankrolled by a bitter billionaire with a dick the size of a peanut (the great Stuart Lancaster from Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! [1966 / trailer]) who has a secret plan to sterilize the entire population of the United States. This premise sounds like it could've been a lot of fun; however director Tom McGowan is out to make one of those 'message' movies. I don't know exactly what the 'message' is, but there are a lot of mentions of the Vietnam War, the pill, and hippies spouting endlessly about God knows what. McGowan shoots all of the sex scenes about the same, using garish colors to make things look as psychedelic as possible. [...] While all of the boning scenes suffer from a dated flower-powery look to them, at least there are a lot of them and they feature a lot of female flesh. Things would have been a lot easier on the audience if McGowan had set out to make a groovy sex comedy and not a damn statement though. [...] If dated fashions and ideals are the kind of thing you want to see in your late 60s softcore sex movie, then Wilbur and the Baby Factory is for you."

Trailer:

The Golden Box
(1970, dir. Don Davis)

One Sheet Index offers the following somewhat elliptical synopsis of the movie: "A hired gun (Roger Gentry) bungles the murder of a piano player, and steals his music box ... which contains the secret of The Golden Box. In wild cross-country chase, Diane (Marsha Jordan) and Donna (Ann Perry) try to steal the book back from the killer. In a nude Gin Rummy game in a luxurious New York hotel, they decide how to do it: SEX. How else would two luscious blondes plot to steal anything? Plus their affairs with the dead piano player ... and the killer's business in Washington D.C. An unconventional brother-sister act in New Orleans. In an ancient Chicago organ-loft, the girls crack the code. The spectacular cross-country chase ends in the canals of Venice, California ... quite unexpectedly."

Roger Gentry (25 October 1934 — 16 December 2013) can be found in all sorts of fun stuff including The Wizard of Mars (1965 / full movie) Gallery of Horror (1967 / full movie), The Thing with Two Heads (1972 / trailer), Sleazy Rider (1973 / whole movie), Dixie Dynamite (1976 / trailer) and:

The Black Gestapo (1975):

Ann Perry went on to write and direct triple-X porn, including Sweet Savage (1979 / full movie) though she herself only acted in softcore. Sweet Savage, a western, is generally considered a masterpiece of Old West porn. As for the great Don Davis (7 June 1932 — 23 September 1982), a few films and years later, he was "retired".

Trailer to Don Davis' Swamp Girl (1971):

The Dark Side of Tomorrow
(1970, dir. Jack Deerson [as Jacque Beerson] & Barbara Peeters)

Aka Just the Two of Us. The directorial debut of Barbara Peeters, who went on to do the biker flick Bury Me an Angel (1972 / trailer), the comedies Summer School Teachers (1974 / trailer) and Starhops (1978), and the original version of the sleazy "nature gone wild" horror classic Humanoids from the Deep (1980 / trailer below).

Trailer to Humanoids from the Deep (1980):

TV Guide calls The Dark Side of Tomorrow "A sensitive portrayal of loneliness and lesbianism, the story involves two suburban housewives, Denise (Elizabeth Plumb) and Adria (Alisa Courtney). Their husbands are constantly away on aerospace business, leaving the two alone. The women are lunching at a Sunset Strip cafe when they spy a lesbian couple at the next table. The two are fascinated by their behavior. Adria is intrigued but scared, while Denise is upset by her attraction to her friend. Adria initiates the affair and the two behave like two teenage lovers until Adria switches her attention to a young actor, Jim (John Aprea of To the Limit [1995]). Denise is deeply hurt and tries to go gay all the way with a dykie fashion designer who seduces her on a pool table in the middle of a party. The film is often heavy-handed and gets bogged down in long philosophical dissertations." 

As DVD Verdict says, "Clearly, this one was not made for the raincoat crowd": "Although it's a Novak-produced film, Just the Two of Us is neither sleazy nor sick (unless you're offended by women in polyester muumuus sitting around garishly decorated homes — or if that whole infidelity thing bothers you). Compared to the typical Boxoffice International production, this one is positively chaste. There is a notable lack of nudity, and what is there is in service of the story. The acting is pretty good, and both the characters and the themes are treated sensitively."

 

Has Nothing to Do with the Movie — 

Bill Withers Singing Just the Two of Us:

Jet Set Swingers

(1970, dir. Tonino Valerii)

Another foreign film distributed by Box International. Original title, La ragazza di nome Giulio; aka Das Mädchen Julius, Model Love and A Girl Called Jules. Interesting when looking at the posters is the difference in the presentation by Novak in the US and the presentation in Europe. "Jet Set Swingers" was Valerii's fourth directorial project and an official selection to the 1970 Berlin Film Festival; it was also his first non-Spaghetti Western. Among his better-known movies are Day of Anger (1967 / trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXpcW50Fjps), The Price of Power (1969 / Italo trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMNKMiCzdxk), My Dear Killer (1972 / trailer below), A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die! (1972 / trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vSHpb528Ns) and — of course — My Name Is Nobody (1973 / trailer).

Trailer to My Dear Killer (1972):

Over at imdb, cranston mcmillan (cranstonman@O2.co.uk) of Scotland wrote the blurb used most often on-line: "After his Western triumphs, Valerii stepped out of the shadow of Sergio Leone with this distinctly Bergmanesque sexual melodrama. [Silvia] Dionisio is perfect in the title role and this remains her best film, Valerii turns up along the way too. Just when the film hits a period of auto pilot, John Steiner (of Bodycount [1986 / trailer], Cut and Run [1985 / trailer], I Don't Want to be Born [1975 / trailer], Schock (1977 / see below), Caligula [1979 / trailer] and Salon Kitty [1976]) turns up in the final reel for a climax that is quite unforgettable. A bit difficult to trace but well worth the effort." 

Italian Trailer to Schock (1977):

Unhinged Cinema explains the plot: "Shocked by an adolescent homosexual experience, Jules (Silvia Dionisio of Andy Warhol's Dracula [1974 / trailer below]) begins to encounter many problems with her feminine identity, and ultimately men. She falls in love with a highly promiscuous female and this is where her real problems begin! Based upon the 1964 novel written by Milena Milani, one of the earliest pioneering feminist assessments of sexual differences in fascist Italy. The director Tonino Valerri [...] does a superb job of crafting out a film from a difficult novel. Highly obscure and very difficult to find these days, A Girl Called Jules is well worth viewing for fans of Bergman and 60s Italian cult Cinema."

Trailer to Andy Warhol's Dracula (1974):

The German website Zelluliod adds some details: "Julius is a girl. Her mother (Esmeralda Ruspoli) would've rather had a boy, and Julius is raised accordingly. Seduced by the governess in her puberty, her confusion is absolute. On the eve of her wedding with Franco (Gianni Macchia), her own lack of identity causes her to flee. Julius is unable to establish genuine relationships. And thus she inexorably goes headlong into a huge disaster that will destroy her life once and for all. A gripping and shattering social study by director Tonino Valerii."

First 15 Minutes, in German:




The Nude Vampire
(1970, writ. & dir. Jean Rollin [3 Nov 1938 — 15 Dec 2010])

The Deuce points out: "The difference between grindhouse movies and arthouse movies can often be boiled down to how a film was marketed. Take for example Roger Vadim's And God Created Woman (1956 / trailer). To one audience it's an exotic continental melodrama, sophisticated and highbrow by virtue of it hailing from the country that gave us Jean Luc Godard and Coco Chanel. To another audience it's a teenage delinquent potboiler the highlight of which is getting to see Bridget Bardot's bare ass. [...] The Nude Vampire manages to achieve an almost perfect synthesis of art and exploitation and as such should tick boxes in both the arthouse and the grindhouse halves of the film fan brain."

Aka The Naked Vampire, La Vampire Nue is Jean Michel Rollin Roth Le Gentil's second feature-length film and the first one filmed in color. Rogue Cinema says "Jean Rollin is a little-known French horror film director who is an acquired taste, even for hardcore horror fans. While he directed his first feature back in 1968, only a handful of his films ever made it across the Atlantic, and then they were recut, retitled, badly dubbed, and thrown out on the video shelves for curious clientele to discover and mostly dismiss. [...]" In truth, in some cases the recut, retitled and badly dubbed version actually made into US cinemas, if only briefly, as is the case of La Vampire Nue, which Novak released upon an unsuspecting public in 1970.

As Fantastic Movie Musings and Ramblings points out: "The title somewhat redundant. This being a Jean Rollin film, I would actually be surprised if the vampire didn't turn up nude sooner or later. [...] Another aspect about this being a Rollin film is I find myself wanting to go back to three adjectives of Rollin; arty, erotic and gory. However, I'll throw out 'gory' in this case; in comparison to other movies I've seen, this one is relatively bloodless."

Scene from The Nude Vampire:

The Comic Book Bin opinions "Jean Rollin is known for his surreal imagery, poetic beauty, and attempts to insert various levels of pornography into every film, regardless of context. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it feels like a giant vulva floated across screen halfway through The Lion King (1994 / honest trailer). Thankfully, in The Nude Vampire, the dream-like imagery mixes well with the sexuality, creating an effective mood without feeling exploitative."

Unlike us in our R.I.P.: Career Review of Jean Rollin from 2010, Rogue Cinema offers a correct synopsis of the movie. "The story is about a rich man called Radamante and his cronies who have captured a young woman who drinks blood and is immortal. They keep her locked away from sunlight and human contact, only bringing her out to subject her to more cruel experiments and an occasional feeding. An entire suicide cult has grown up around this girl, and rich patrons who contribute towards the experiments meet on a regular basis. One of these patrons is randomly chosen to sacrifice him- or herself to the vampire so that the experiments on just how and why this girl is immortal can continue. Unfortunately for Radamante and the cult, his son, Pierre, accidentally runs into the girl and is smitten with her. Pierre soon discovers that his own father is connected with the girl, so he begins to question his father. As his investigation into the mysterious blood-sucking nymph brings him ever closer to unraveling Radamante's secret and exposing his bizarre experiments, Pierre's father must take drastic measures."

Among Rollin's many movies, to date only two have been reviewed here at A Wasted Life: Le Lac des Morts Vivants / Zombie Lake (1980) and La Rose de Fer / The Iron Rose (1973).

French Trailer to La Vampire Nue: 



The Notorious Cleopatra

(1970, dir. Peter Perry Jr. [as A.P. Stootsberry])

 "Cleopatra or not, you sure are a stacked bitch!"

Caesar (Jay Edwards)

Director Perry and scriptwriter Jim Macher teamed up again after the previous year's The Secret Sex Lives of Romeo and Juliet (see: H.H.N. Part VI) to bring you the inside skinny on Cleopatra. Novak's Boxoffice International distributed it as well as it could.

When it comes to this "trashy period piece", Johnny LaRue's Crane Shot says: "Despite the then-trendy breaking of the fourth wall a la Laugh-In (1967-73), it isn't as funny as Secret Sex Lives and turns uncomfortably serious at the end. Perry and [...] Harry Novak's production is cheap and could have used exterior shooting to allow fresh air to infiltrate the heavy breathing (the battle scenes occur entirely off-camera). However, the sets and costumes are decent for an inexpensive sex film, and Perry doesn't hesitate to move the camera or stage scenes theatrically to pump extra life into the, er, pumping. Loray White, who once was married to Sammy Davis Jr. for ten minutes, stars as Cleopatra using the pseudonym 'Sonora'. [...] Caesar, played by Jay Edwards as a fat, lazy, bored slob, sends his general, Marc Antony (Johnny Rocco), to bring him Cleopatra, the Queen of the Nile, so he can sleep with her. The logic of sending 'the greatest lover in all of Rome' after her seems a tad stupid, especially when Caesar warns Antony to keep his mitts off her. He doesn't, of course. In fact, he falls in love with Cleopatra, who begins scheming to replace Caesar on his throne. The thin story is padded by several extended sex scenes, including a couple of orgies. Or more accurately, Macher wrote a few dialogue scenes to tie the sex scenes together. [...] The acting, for the most part, is more professional than one might expect in sexploitation (the actors worked almost exclusively within the genre). The stacked Sonora/White is cast well and gets to show off her dancing prowess. Rocco's impossibly deep voice bursting through his perpetually clenched teeth is good for campy laughs. Of course, none of the actors bother hiding their 1960s hairstyles and sideburns."

Currently, the whole film seems to be available here at the infamous NSFW website Hamster.com.

The delectable "Sonora" / Loray White, a former dancer once married to Sammy Davis Jr., went on to do Herschell Gordon Lewis's Miss Nymphet's Zap-In (1970) and then disappeared. For the Thai poster of the movie seen below, her skin was whitened and face replaced by a more famous movie star.

Also Directed by Peter Perry Jr. (as Arthur P. Stootsberry) But Not for Novak —

The NSFW Trailer to David F. Friedman's Notorious Daughter of Fanny Hill:

Trailer till The Notorious Daughter of Fanny Hill från rstvideos trailerarkiv.

I Am Curious Tahiti
(1970, Carlos Tobalina)

We took a look at the filmmaker Carlos Tobalina (aka Troy Benny aka Bruce Van Buren aka Jeremiah Schlotter aka Efrain Tobalina) and his activities in R.I.P.: Harry Reems, Part VII (1986-2013), when we looked at the 1987 porno Pulsating Flesh, one of Harry Reems' later and less-interesting projects: "Born in 1925, Tobalina used to own, among others, the fabulous Mayan Theater in downtown LA (which is now a hip club); he died at the age of 63 in March, 1988, but during the seventeen years between 1969 (with the white-coater Infrasexum) and 1987 (Super Sex being his last porn movie) he cranked out a healthy amount of ineptly shot films, not to mention re-titled re-releases of anything that fell into his hands." Tobalina, a mostly forgotten director, is occasionally referred to as the "Ed Wood of Porn", as he usually evidenced little concern for the cinematic quality of the plethora of (mostly porn) films he made.

It seems only natural that a man like him should eventually do business with a man like Harry Novak — and indeed, they did, on this joint project and a number of others. Currently imdb has this movie here as one of their collaborations (and fails to list others), and although we could find no other evidence that this is a joint project, we present it here as possibly the first production collaboration between the two. Like most of their projects, I Am Curious Tahiti was produced by C. Tobalina Productions and distributed by Tobalina's Hollywood International Film Corporation of America (HIFCOA).
Needless to say, the title of I Am Curious Tahiti is an "homage" to the much more famous and culturally significant Swedish movie I Am Curious (Yellow) (1967) and its follow-up I Am Curious (Blue) (1968), which were actually filmed as one long film but released as two. Yellow has nudity and simulated sex and a scene in which the main character (Lena Nymann [23 May 1944 — 4 February 2011]) kisses her lover's flaccid weiner, all of which got the film banned in Massachusetts in 1969 for bring pornographic; it went to court and won.

Getting Naked in I Am Curious (Yellow):

Over at The NY Times, Dan Pavlides says the following about the soft-core movie I Am Curious Tahiti: "This uneven sex comedy finds Maria-Pia as the heroine and narrator of the film. The Russian female spy is sent from Los Angeles with orders to expose some western spies in Tahiti. With a high tech item that enables her to see and hear through walls, she listens in and watches couples in amorous pursuit. A drag queen tries to seduce another young man. A nun and a priest engage in pleasures of the flesh, and a girl and her uncle keep have an incestuous tryst. She comments on the erotic proceedings while the 1812 Overture highlights the orgasmic climaxes. Stock footage of Moscow and Switzerland are thrown in for padding along with a gay pride parade. The color process is not credited in this film plagued by poor audio recording."

Sweet Trash
(1970, writ. & dir. John Hayes)

Director Hayes (1 March 1930 — 21 August 2000) went on to do End of the World (1977 / see below), one of the many films Christopher Lee has gone onto trash as being a project he regrets taking part in. Sweet Trash has no such illustrious name to its cast to disparage the movie. Of special interest regarding the VHS cover to the film above: none of the stars credited actually appear in it, and one or two (like Luke Perry, for example) hadn't even begun their film careers yet when the film was made. 

The NY Times, like everyone (us included), reuses Robert Firsching's synopsis: "The [American Film Institute Catalog] of the 1960s incorrectly describes John Hayes' Sweet Trash as being about a dockworker lured into the loanshark racket. It actually concerns a nasty, homophobic cop named Bob Walsh, who rescues a foxy young girl named Angel from a massage parlor just before a raid. He lets her stay in his crummy apartment, and before too long they're having sex in the shower. But Angel is actually only 17, and it's all a set-up. Angel's pimp (who is first seen wearing clown makeup and has a hilltop mansion full of half-naked maids) is working for a rich, powerful man named Kelljan, who was caught in a vice raid by Bob and his partner (both in drag). He has Angel lure Bob to a hippie commune, where a girl rides naked on horseback and a guy with an eyepatch makes out with two women. As soon as Bob and Angel join the fun, the rest of the hipsters snap incriminating photos and Bob is in big trouble. Kelljan blackmails him, but the worst part for Bob is that he feels betrayed by Angel, whom he thought really loved him. He gets drunk and rapes her on an open window-ledge in retaliation, then sets about turning the tables on the pimp, even though he accidentally kills Angel in the process. She absolves him of any wrongdoing before she dies, telling him that she really loved him after all."

Has nothing to do with Novak, but John Hayes directed it —

End of the World (1977):

Fandango
(1970, writ & dir John Hayes)

Aka Mona's Place and Cowboy Brothel. As with John Hayes' Sweet Trash, we have our doubts that Harry Novak had his sticky fingers in the pie that is Fandango, but imdb, BFI and other sources list Novak as an un-credited producer — but then, the BFI also lists "Bradford Hallsworth" as a pseudonym of Novak's when it was one of David F. Friedman's.

The plot, according to TCM: "Dan Murphy (James Whitworth of The Hills Have Eyes [1977 / trailer] and the fiasco known as The Hills Have Eyes II [1984 / trailer], Planet of the Dinosaurs [1977 / see below] and Terminal Island [1973 / trailer]) leads a group of gold miners into the California mountains where they set up camp. The men are besieged by food shortage, bitter cold, and Muck Mulligan (Tony Vorno) and his gang of outlaws. In addition, the men are anxious for female companionship, so Murphy, along with Billy Busby (Jay Scott) and Sissy Sam (Marland Proctor of Curse of the Headless Horseman [1972 / trailer] and Wheeler aka Psycho from Texas [1975 / see further below]), visits the Fandango Saloon in a nearby town, where Murphy convinces his long-time friend, Mona DeLyse (Shawn Devereaux of The Seven Minutes [1971], seen below), to send some of her prostitutes to Murphy's camp. Meanwhile, Mulligan and his men are creating havoc in the town, and Murphy is injured in a gunfight with the gang. The next day Mona and three other women load their wagons and leave with the miners. During the journey, Sam's lover, Pauline (Donna Stanley), is attacked and raped by Mulligan's men. Upon arriving at the camp, the women satisfy the men's sexual needs and then prepare to return to the Fandango Saloon, but their caravan is again attacked by Mulligan. Murphy's miners come to their defence, and in the ensuing gunfight Billy is killed, and Murphy is injured. The women are captured and tortured by Mulligan, but Mona manages to shoot him. Later, Sam and Pauline are married, and Dan bids farewell to Mona, leaving her to her life of prostitution."

Not from Novak — Trailer to Planet of the Dinosaurs (1977),
with James Whitworth:

Over in NYC, lor thinks "[The] Madam of the local whorehouse is [...] played by ultra-busty Shawn Devereaux. I thought her natural-looking bazooms were worth the price of admission here, lovingly photographed by cinematographer Paul Hipp [...]. Picture suffers from its cheap sets, since OK outdoor footage (action scenes and shootouts) make it seem like a real movie at times. But once we get inside, the cheapo set dressing/decoration does not suggest the intended period atmosphere. Filmmaker John Hayes [...] doesn't seem engaged with this Western entry, which needed a far more interesting script to hold the audience. [...] No, Hayes and company shot low and hit their target — some topless footage of busty gals parading around as if a Western. Considering it was of 1970 vintage, absence of full-frontal nudity, beaver close-ups, etc., marks Fandango as a non-starter."

Not from Novak — Trailer to Psycho from Texas (1975),

 with Marland Proctor:

Love Me, Baby, Love Me!
(1970, dir. Michele Lupo)

Anna Moffo — Il Barbiere di Siviglia — Rossini (1967):

In Vol. 3 of Harry Novak's Boxoffice Bonanza of Sexploitation Trailers, one of three trailer compilations featuring — as the title indicates — trailers of Boxoffice releases, is the trailer to this Italian movie, "Una storia d'amore" (original title), which Novak brought stateside. Director Lupo generally specialized in Westerns, and towards the end of his career foisted a slew of crappy Bud Spensor flicks upon the world. Here, he attempted a serious drama, starring no one less than the Italian-American opera singer and television personality Anna Moffo (27 June 1932 — 9 March 2006) was an Italian-American opera singer, television personality, and award-winning dramatic actress, "one of the leading lyric-coloratura sopranos of her generation", "nicknamed 'La Bellissima'." Her only other film that we see of note (not to imply that we really find this film here noteworthy) is the satiric Edgar Wallace film homage, Weekend Murders (1970), also directed by Lupo.

Double Feature Trailer with Weekend Murders (1970):

Who knows how the movie fared with Novak's target group, but like so many movies Love Me, Baby! Love Me! has pretty much been forgotten over time. Our superficial search of the web only came up with two English-language commentaries on the movie, the first of which, found on Mr. Skin, owes more to Moffo's PG-13 nude scene than anything else: "Although Michele Lupo's Una Storia d’amore (1969) translates as 'A Story of Love,' the film was distributed abroad as Love Me, Baby, Love Me!, which better captures its playfully naughty essence. Anna Moffo plays Evy, a sexy mother of two who has all of her material needs taken care of. The trouble is that her jet-setting husband is rarely at home, leaving Evy to grow impatient about having to wait for her next lovemaking session. Enter Gianni Macchia — the young buck is happy to make himself useful to dear Evy by satisfying her on those long, lonely nights when her man is away. Moffo shows herself to be quite the enthusiastic participant in a trio of trips into lover boy's arms." There seems to be a blackmail plot and second woman involved, but we don't know the details. Eurotrash fans may remember Gianni Macchia from Emanuela around the World (1977 / trailer), Argento's Inferno (1980), and the underappreciated German flick, Blutiger Freitag (1970 / first 6 minutes).

Trailer to Inferno (1980),:

Over in France, someone at French Films saw Una storia d'amore and was less than impressed: "Produced by Maurizio Amati [who also produced Leviathan (1989), Cannibal Apocalypse (1980 / trailer) and Holocaust 2000 (1977 / Arabian trailer)] and distributed by Cinema Epoch. Our overall rating for Una storia d'amore is: very poor, a disaster of a film that is probably less salvageable than the Titanic — a seriously bad film to be avoided like the plague."

 

Booby Trap
(1970, dir. Dwayne Avery)
 
Trailer to Booby Trap:

Harry Novak proudly presented Booby Trap — a.k.a. Young and Wild (not to be confused with the 1961 potboiler Young and Wild aka Naked Youth [full movie]), 10 Seconds to Murder, and (the 1975 X-rated version featuring the edited-in wieners of John Holmes and Marc Valentine [as Marcus Valentino]) Love Explosions. Director Avery wrote the script with Art Hedberg (who plays "Frankie Collins" in the movie); as far as we can tell, Hedberg went on to script the G-rated Never Look Back (1973) and then disappeared.

Strip Scene from Booby Trap:

Digital Retribution says: "Booby Trap has possibly the greatest premise for any film ever. Ex-Marine sergeant Jack Brannan (Carl Monson) [...] really hates teenagers. Really, really hates 'em. Matter of fact, he hates 'em so much he buys 40 claymore anti-personnel mines from an army buddy so that he can sow the ground of a Woodstock-lite festival with 'em and blow those hippies to kingdom come. [...] Turns out ol' Jack had a bit of a checkered past with the military (surprise, surprise), and he's being hotly sought after in his mobile home, as the taunting letters he's been sending his ex-commanding officer have led folks to believe that he's probably up to no good. Send in the astonishingly coiffured army detective Cliff Shepherd to investigate! At the same time, Jack's picked up a hitch-hiking hippie-chick, Gloria, presumably to remind him (and us) as to why he hates those counter-culture Leary-lovin' LSD freaks. Doesn't stop him from doing the hippity-dippity with her, though. Doesn't stop him blowing her up with a claymore after he's done, either. [...] The plot (yes, there is one) takes a bit of a detour here via a burlesque dancin' house, where a few more elements (and quite a few boobs) are introduced, including Jack's ex-wife (now a cocktail waitress), the mob (one of whom is distractingly short), a guitarist, Rudy (Christopher Geoffries of Godchildren [1971 / man tortures woman], The Devil & Leroy Bassett [1973 / full movie] and Teen-Age Jail Bait [1973 / scene]), who's currently knocking boots with Taffy (Angela Carnon of The Boob Tube Strikes Again! [1977 / radio add] and Video Vixens! [1975]), and the predatory homosexual, Frankie the Faggot (Art Hedberg), who wants to pop Rudy's cherry."

Trailer to Video Vixens! (1975):

Trailer till Video Vixens från rstvideos trailerarkiv.

Digital Retribution views Booby Trap as "pure gold in cheese form", but Critical Condition is, well, more critical: "Be prepared to be underwhelmed. This is a slow-moving and rather boring film that tries to perk-up viewer interest by including a sex scene every fifteen minutes or so, but it looks to me that those sex scenes were severely edited to achieve an R-Rating [...]. The screenplay [...] is far too ambitious for the film's meager budget, as the explosions are few and far between (only four total), the acting poor and the dialogue is full of flubbed and stepped-on lines. You can tell this film was made during the early 70s (besides the obvious wardrobe and hairstyles) because the film's sole gay character, Frankie Collins (Pepe Russo), is portrayed as a lying thief who gets the crap beat out of him and called 'faggot' by Scarpo every chance he gets. This film is so cheap that when a car explodes, it does so off-screen. [...] Avoid it at all costs."

Title song sung by forgotten singer Jeri Lynn — one wonders whatever happened to her. Was she the same Jeri Lynn who sang the rockabilly song below?

Not from the Movie — Jeri Lynn sings If:

Sandra, Making of a Woman
(1970, dir. Gary Graver [20 July 1938 — 16 Nov 2006])
 

Although we know that Novak did indeed work with Gary Garver, and though we wouldn't be surprised if they worked together on more films than we know of, we still have our doubts that Harry Novak had his sticky fingers in the pie that is Sandra, Making of a Woman, primarily because the only place that even says that Novak was involved is the an online magazine called Funhouse. But what the fudge, for the benefit of the doubt, let's take a closer look at this slab of sleaze.

Gary Garver himself (aka Robert McCulum, Robert McCallun, Robert Mc Callum, Robert Mccullam, Robert Mccullum and June Moon) we looked at briefly in both in Part V of our R.I.P. Career Review of Harry Reems as well as that of Paul Hunt. Prior to his death from cancer on our birthday in 2006, the man had a long and illustrious career as a cinematographer and director and writer and actor and producer and worked for people ranging from Novak to Roger Corman to Orson Welles to Ron Howard to Al Adamson (he was "director of photography" on the unforgettable Dracula Vs Frankenstein [1971]) to Speilberg. It is estimated that aside from his "respectable" (or semi-respectable) projects, he may have worked on more than 135 adult movies, which naturally explains why he was eventually inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame for his life work. (Critical Condition has a nice profile of the man's work here.)

Over at imdb, weinerm of Boston says that "Basically this movie is an excuse to see Monica Gayle in various stages of undress", but at Steven Puchalski of the great and forever entertaining Shock Cinema Magazine sees a bit more in this "surprisingly-energetic, coming-of-age sexploitation" movie: "Although loaded with the requisite sexcapades, you get the feeling that director/editor/photographer Graver was also striving for a modicum of cut-rate reality, while his high-octane cinematic savvy graces the most generic horseshit with radical energy and imagination. Best of all, this sexplosion has Monica Gayle baring it all in the title role, several years before popping up as 'Patch' in Jack Hill's seminal Switchblade Sisters (1975 / trailer). For this early gig, she [...] plays a 19-year-old rural babe who gets fed-up with her emotional wreck of a Dad who slaps her around and guzzles cheap hooch by the glassful. Tossing her virginity away to some local pinhead (who instantly wants to marry her), she then hitches her way to San Francisco, with the aid of a fetishistic lingerie salesman. On her own for the first time, a biker feels her up in a movie theatre, she's hit on by her lesbian landlord, and she gets a job as a horny psychiatrist's receptionist. Of course, since Sandra craves sex as badly as they do, it all works out fine... It's usually a waste of time to mention acting when it comes to early sex-pics, but in this instance, Gayle is actually good as the down-trodden country gal, who dumps her repressed home town in order to 'find herself' in the Big City. Don't confuse this with some type of feminist tract though, because most of the time Sandra is flat on her back, with some nameless dick inside of her. [...] The script also gets points for not viewing Sandra as a slutty nympho. Instead, she's just an average girl learning to enjoy life and love (while all the local guys queue up around her bed). But its Graver's style-to-burn which makes this film a treat. [...] This is a prime example of a talented filmmaker doing his damnedest to turn a sow's ear into a slightly more artistic sow's ear. Happily, he succeeded."

Monica Gayle in Switchblade Sisters (1975) — Trailer:

Overdose of Degradation 
(1970, dir. Jerry Abrams [as Gerald Grayson])

 

We personally have major doubts that Harry Novak had his sticky fingers in the sphincter that is Overdose of Degradation, particularly since, according to TCM, this is a Distribpix flick — something their website currently does not confirm — but since the unreliable online magazine called Funhouse says it is a Novak production we'll give this misogynist male fantasy the benefit of the doubt and take a closer look at it.

Aka Degradation, it was co-scripted by Zachary Strong (that's a picture of him at the left), a man often credited as one of the early pioneers of anal sex feature films with such backdoor-fixated flicks as his More Ways than One (1975) and Analyst (1975), the latter of which was actually directed by Jerry Abrams, the director and co-scriptwriter of Overdose of Degradation. Abrams and Strong seemed to work often together; Jerry Abrams (that's a picture of him here to the right) later went on, like his bud Zachary Strong, to direct porn films and, occasionally, to even appear in non-sex role — in the classic Resurrection of Eve [1973], for example, in which Strong, on the other hand, was a bit more active.

Credit Sequence to Resurrection of Eve (1973):
Resurrection of Eve 1973 (Purple Skies & Butterflies) from ddaa on Vimeo.

Despite how square Mr. Jerry Abrams may look, in the 1960s in the hippie-Mecca of San Francisco he is an early pioneer of lightshows at concerts and was successful enough to get prominent billing on the posters shared with groups like the Steve Miller Band ["Quicksilver Girl"], The Youngbloods ["Stagger Lee"], Quicksilver Messenger Service ["Gold and Silver"], It's a Beautiful Day ["Hot Summer Day"], Canned Heat ["On the Road Again"], Tim Buckley ["Song to the Siren"], Steppenwolf ["The Pusher"] and the Velvet Underground ["Stephanie Says"]. His light shows were the source of inspiration for his early shorts like Be-In (1967) or Eyetoon (1968).

Jerry Abrams' Short Be-In (1967), with music by Blue Cheer:

Over at imdb, one of the few people have seen the film, XXX-man, dismisses the film as an "overdose of Nonsense", saying "It's all fairly weird and tasteless — and really nothing special, all things considered. But the narration is entertainingly off the wall. At one point, [the main character] Jennifer (Anna Travers) tells us that she still likes to come to the park, despite having been raped there, because (quote from memory) 'girls get raped all over; actually, they get raped in the same place, just in different locations.' I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried."

Over at One Sheet, the exhibitor's teaser was as follows: "Hi ... I'm Jenny... and I've had an Overdose of Degradation... I live to love... everybody — I love my girlfriends, my boyfriends... and anything else I can get my hands on. Did you ever sit quietly in the park and listen to the rocks ball? ... Well I do... my middle name is sex and everything I see and do turns me on ... I'd love to turn you on Mr. Exhibitor — at least share me with your friends and customers ... they'll LOVE you for it. In case you haven't guessed it, I'm the star of Overdose of Degradation, a movie I especially liked to make — because it shows the real me. It's loaded with sex-action, tenderness and violence — and in just the right doses — filmed to create an overdose of ticket sales for you."

Women in Prison Films was impressed by what they saw: "How 'bout this: While at the park, Jenny has a flashback of being molested as a child. She then has a flashback of a man biting her, and has fantasies about a girl and eating the bathroom counter. Then, still at the park, she has a flashback of being raped. This scene seems to go on and on as she helplessly cries and the editor flashes to shots of rocks and streams (did I mention the flashbacks?). A friend finds Jenny unconscious. She takes Jenny home and molests her. Jenny, still unconscious, has flashbacks of flashbacks, while having a flashback. Jenny regains consciousness, beats her friend with a stick, then goes into the kitchen and cooks some eggs. The end."

Jerry Abrams' Short Eyetoon (1968):
SUNDAY SHORTS #22: Eyetoon from MONOLITH MAGAZINE on Vimeo.

Getting into Heaven
(1970, writ. & dir. Edward L. Montoro)

 "Is Heaven a Place or a Woman?"

Dunno to what extent Novak had anything to do with this flick when it came out in 1970, but it was on a two-film "Harry Novak Presents" DVD released by Something Weird (complementing Angels [1976], which is proven to have been Novak production) — and it stars Uschi Digard (as the titular Heaven), so how could we not take a closer look at it?

NSFW Trailer to Getting into Heaven:

As far as we can tell, this is one of only two movies that Edward L. Montoro ever directed (the other being The Loser aka Platinum Pussycat aka The Pink Pussycat [1968 / trailer]). But as a film producer and distributor of eurotrash via his firm Film Ventures International (FVI), he stood in the shadows for many a classic, remembered and forgotten, including: William Girdler's Grizzly (1976 / German trailer) and Day of the Animals (1977 / trailer — with Leslie Nielson), Stridulum (1979 / trailer), Juan Piquer Simón's Pieces (1982 / trailer) and Los nuevos extraterrestres (1983 / theme), Beyond the Door (1974 / trailer), Don't Go in the House (1979 / trailer), Anthropophagus (1980 / trailer), The Dark (1979 / trailer) and more, more, more.

Montoro's luck as a successful distributor and producer began to go sour in 1981 when he picked the Italo Jaws (1975 / trailer) rip-off The Last Jaws (1981 / trailer) and eventually lost a court case against Universal; this was followed by a few less than successful releases like Mortuary (1983 / trailer), The House on Sorority Row (1983 / trailer) and the unjustly ignored Night Shadows / Mutant (1984). Finally, following a messy divorce with his wife Joan and illness and a long stay at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, Edward L. Montoro emptied Film Ventures International's accounts of a couple of million dollars and, much like DB Cooper, was never seen again. (A loss, perhaps for the world of B & C & D films, but surely an improvement of his life.)

Trailer to Night Shadows / Mutant (1984):

But to get to Getting into Heaven, Trash Film Guru gushes:"Ah, Uschi. [...] Admittedly, a good number of the flicks she appeared in were pretty dismal, but she could liven up even the most listless celluloid atrocity by just showing up on screen and taking her clothes off. Okay, her Swedish accent, when left un-doctored, was so thick as to be impenetrable, but who really cares? [...] And let's be honest — it's not like every film she was in was terrible. [...] Case in point: old-hand nudie director Edward L. Montoro’s 1970 steamy low-budgeter Getting Into Heaven. I'm not here to tell you it's some lost classic or anything of the sort, but it is a fun, never-dull slice of skinema that stands apart from other productions of its ilk for, at the very least, being a consistently engaging production that all the principals involved in at least appear to be trying to make as good as it could possibly be. [...] Beyond that there's not a great deal more one needs to know by way of specifics, apart from the fact that every woman in this movie is darn easy on the eyes and more than willing to disrobe at the drop of the hat and stay that way for a good few minutes. [...] The 'humor' is all groaningly obvious and more than a touch misogynistic, but [...] there's nothing blatantly anti-female enough going on to rise to the level where it would genuinely bother your conscience."

Lastly, One Sheet Index has the plot: "Heaven (Uschi Digard), Sin (Jennie Lynn) and Karen (Phyllis Stengel) are three wild Hollywood models who want to break into the movies more than anything. Their only hope is a dirty old man, Mr. Salacity (Miles White), producer of films. Salacity has no interest in using the girls except for his own private pleasure. The trio tries every trick in their bag in attempt after attempt to convince Salacity that they are talented ... at everything! A picnic in a secluded grove gives Heaven and Sin their best chance to 'persuade' Salacity to hire them. But as much as he enjoys himself, their efforts to become starlets are in vain. Along the way, Heaven gets turned on to Sin with sensual, then hilarious results. As Heaven's boyfriend, Bernie (Scott Cameron), has just about convinced her to marry him and forget the movies, she gets one last wild idea that she feels Salacity cannot resist. In a last final attack the three girls attempt to exhaust Salacity, who has been kidnapped and held prisoner in their bedroom, into submission and a job. However, this marathon 'love-in' has just the opposite effect on Salacity and long after all three girls are totally drained he is still ready and willing. Just as Heaven is agreeing to marry Bernie, Salacity has a brainstorm and decides to hire all three girls to star in his new film.

Part of Another NSFW Trailer to Getting into Heaven:

Gettin Into Heaven von bmoviesheroes2

Ann & Eve
(1970, dir. Arne Mattsson)

 
Trailer to Ann & Eve:

A couple of online sources claim that Novak / Boxoffice International was involved with the US release of this movie, including John Harrison, who says "From the vaults of Harry Novak, and filled to the brim with sixties Euro fashions, sports cars, and futuristic architecture [...] Ann and Eve ends up being the cinematic equivalent of all those naughty magazines we all used to keep safely hidden under the mattress as a kid..."

Original title: Ann och Eve - de erotiska — as if the presence of Marie Liljedahl (of Sarno's Inga [1968 / opening credits], Rolf Thiele's Grimm's Fairy Tales for Adults [1969 / full film], Jess Franco's Eugenie [1970 / trailer] and Massimo Dallamano's The Picture of Dorian Gray [1970 / trailer]), seen here below not from the film, wasn't enough, the trailer above sure makes it look like a winner.

Swedish director Arne Mattsson (2 December 1919 — 28 June 1995) began directing films in the 40s. In 1951 he won the Golden Bear in Berlin for the scandal film One Summer of Happiness (1951 / trailer), which was also nominated at Cannes for the Grand Prize, and his equally contentious 1953 movie Bread of Love was likewise successful. Throughout the 50s and 60s he specialized in thrillers ala Hitchcock, for which he is occasionally lauded as a precursor of Italo giallo films, and as of the 70s moved onto less-respected films.

The director and this film here are looked at closely over at Cinezilla, which begins its article with the blunt assertion "Arne Mattsson, in my opinion, [is] one of the finest directors ever to have come out of Sweden" and goes on to later say "if you are into mind-expanding movies with soft bossanova scores, hot chicks and a somewhat confusing plot, then this is definitely something that you have to check out."

Miss Meyer at Lydiaargh Grace, however, was less impressed: "Duped into watching this by believing there was a lot more to it than there actually was, Swedish flick Ann and Eve is less your standard softcore romp and more a boring, somewhat bizarre narrative that includes the odd bit of bonking and a satirical comment on film journalism. Marie Liljedahl is Eve, young and soon to be married. Before she marries her childhood sweetheart, she accompanies Ann (Gio Petre of Mac Ahlberg's Fanny Hill [1968 / Swedish trailer] and I, A Woman Part II [1968]), a bitchy lesbian journalist, on a holiday to Greece where she is encouraged and persuaded to have an affair. And, after much protest, she eventually gives in, bedding a large number of men and women in disappointing off camera scenes or highly stylized out of focus shots (as in literally not seeing anything). Add to that disjointed scenes with a Greek singer (Olivera Katarina of Mark of the Devil [1970 / trailer below]) which feel completely out-of-place, a confusing did she/didn't she murder plot and a weak attempt at a scathing jab at the role of film critics in the filmmaking world and you have one extremely dull movie."

Trailer to Mark of the Devil (1970):

Over at imdb, however, Stefan Nylen's (red@defekt.cinemacabre.se) one-line plot synopsis makes Ann & Eve sound like a must-see: "An erotic drama about a youthful bride-to-be who takes a holiday to Yugoslavia with a cynical and evil lesbian film critic (and murderess) that leads to debauchery, degradation with a dwarf, a dinner with naked entertainers and other highlights..."

Country Cuzzins
(1970, writ & dir Bethel Buckalew)

As far as we can tell, this is the first time that Harry Novak, producer and distributor, worked with Rene Bond, who went on to become one of the legendary and most popular adult film actresses of the early Golden Age of (West Coast) Porn. That's her below, still all natural, from the film.

Over at Mondo Digital, Novak said the following about how he helped her rise the ladder of success: "My production guy probably brought her [Rene Bond] in. She had a boyfriend at the time [Ric Lutze], and she had him perform with her in that picture. [...] She also played in our country pictures, and in the first one she had no boobs. Somewhere along the line she needed them to keep getting work, so my partner and I extended some money for her to get some boobs. She worked it off though and did several shows for us."

But now, a quick note about Bethel Buckalew: no, his name was not a pseudonym used by the productive filmmaker and "pioneer of the sexploitation genre" Peter "Pete" Perry, Jr. Buckalew was a real person and a real multi-tasker of a filmmaker and it does the long-since-vanished man a disservice to continue to wrongly assert that he wasn't really there at all. Peter "Pete" Perry, Jr. went on the record to Temple of Schlock and insisted, [Bethel Buckalew] is a real person. I used to use him in the early years as my production manager, but then he went off on his own and did those other things." A commentator at ToS goes onto say "Public records indicate that he [Bethel] divorced Marlene Buckalew [...] in 1980", by which time he seems to have already left the film business. (As far as we can find out on the web, Marlene Buckalew currently lives in Escondido, CA — she's in the book — while Bethel Buckalew (born 1929), was once in Aberdeen, MD.)

In any event, as the title infers, this flick is pure hixploitation, a genre that Bethel Buckalew specialized in. The plot, from the Last Drive-In on the Left, which calls the flick "a funny sexploitation flick": "Come and join in this Barnyard Blast and see what happens when Country Hicks meet City Chicks. [...] Grandma Peabody (Zena Foster of The Corpse Grinders [1971 / trailer below]) gathers the clan together for a ho-down reunion before she kicks the bucket. This family reunion even includes Cousin Prudence (Ellen Stephens), their rich relative from the city. At first Prudence is too uppity to get down and dirty with the clan, but after a slug of some home-made moonshine, she lets her hair hang down and she joins in the fun. It's not long before Prudence is winning the chicken-chasing contest as the family makes her feel right at home. In a drunk stupor Prudence invites the hillbilly gang for a party at her home in L.A. When Prudence arrives back home she cannot believe that she actually invited them. Along with her snotty friend, they decide to make the most of it and decide to have all of their guests dress up like hillbillies. Soon after the clan arrives. Suddenly everyone is getting naked and joining in the festivities. Her rich snotty friends begin dancing to country music and begin playing 'Look and Touch' like they were raised in a barn."

Trailer to The Corpse Grinders (1971):

Girls Guns and Ghouls calls the movie "a virtually plotless film" but likes it: "Buckalew's fashioned a fun little exercise here, and it's enjoyable to just let it wash over you and not expect much more. As you can probably tell, not a whole lot happens, plot-wise, other than copulation in Country Cuzzins! The sex on show is slightly more explicit than in some of the nudie-cuties and sexploitation covered in these pages from the sixties and early seventies, but not by much. We do get to see full-frontal nudity from both sexes, and the sex between Leroy (John Tull, the future assistant director of The Witch Who Came from the Sea [1976 / trailer] and Drive In Massacre [1976 / trailer]) and his 'virgin' gets quite intense. Rene's scene with 'Buck' Flower is ridiculous, and Flower makes my flesh crawl with his groping and ranting, but you can tell Bond is a sex star in the making — she's into bringing the scene across. Cuzzins has an enjoyable, twangy country score with most of the songs devoted to Billy-Jo (Rene Bond). It's not incredibly well-made or anything, but there is a kind of charm in there [...]. Country Cuzzins is worth a look on a number of fronts. You get to see Rene Bond in action, see some hillbilly silliness done reasonably well, listen to some fine old country music and learn about the wonderful pastimes of chicken-chasing and 'look and touch'. I don't know how to sell the film more than that!"

Trailer to Country Cuzzins:

To be continued... one day.