Short Film: Man (UK, 2012)

We've long thought about presenting a Steve Cutts short as a Short Film of the Month, ever since, many moons ago, we first saw the great music video he did, in the style of a Max Fleischer cartoon, for Moby & The Void Pacific Choir's ditty, Are You Lost in the World Like Me? Way back then, we promptly went online and to his website and saw his other great shorts, including the hilarious Where Are They Now?, which we ended up rejecting simply because we found that we couldn't get past the [possibly incorrect] knowledge imparted by the original movie, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988 / trailer), that the only way to kill an animated character is the Dip of Doom (which was filled with acetone, wasn't it?). And thus we dithered, until other shorts distracted us and no Cutts film was ever presented...

But then, the other week, we finally entered the Lost World of Cutts's Moby video when our classic Motorola "Beam us up, Scotty" Razr finally died and entered the trash pits of Agbogbloshie. We inherited our first smartphone from our significant other's drawer of outdated models, the perfectly sized Iphone 5. And we promptly took our first step towards selling our soul to that evil firm from hell, facebook, by adding WhatsApp. And sitting here in corona-induced lockdown in our huge garden on Mallorca, suffering that jail feeling (NOT!) just like Ellen Degeneres — jail has never been this good, even though our place ain't worth no millions, that's for sure, and we do both our own cooking, cleaning and butt-wiping — we began to get our first Iphone fixes. And the first WhatsApp dose we got was of a video we had seen years ago and thought fab: Man, by Steve Cutts. What better way to begin one's arm-crotch itch for the smartphone? 

The short, created using Flash and After Effects, possibly needs no introduction as it is considered to be his most popular short film. The classical piece it is set to is In the Hall of the Mountain King by Edvard Grieg (composed 1875), a tune many might know from Needful Things (1993 / trailer), or as that whistled by Peter Lorre in Fritz Lang's classic M (1931 / full film), if not from your parents record collection. [For a killer version by Nero & the Gladiators, go here; for a whacked-out by The Who, go here.] A variation of the piece is also found in our Short Film of the Month for Oct 2014, Hell's Bells (1929). 

In any event, please savour a level-headed representation of mankind's innate and indomitable urge to destroy as presented in Man by Steve Cutts, "a London based freelance artist, 'specializing' in animation, illustration and fine art."

"One day, we might receive a signal from a planet [...]. But we should be wary of answering back. Meeting an advanced civilization could be like Native Americans encountering Columbus. That didn't turn out so well."

Steven Hawking (8 Jan 1942 – 14 March 2018)

Faux Trailer: Don-O-Mite (USA, 2014)

We cannot claim to be fans of Mad Men (2007 to 2015), if only because we never caught an episode. We saw a trailer or two, but while they may have looked interesting, and Jon Hamm hunky, prior to the current COVID lockdown we were never really all that much into series — other than for the two hilariously great and likewise dearly departed series, SciFi's Z Nation (2014-18 / trailer) and AMC's Preacher (2016-19 / trailer).

But had this faux trailer we stumbled on recently while working on our upcoming 3-part Babes of Yesteryear focus on Marilyn Joi been for the real thing, we probably would have found the time to at least chest out an episode or two. This thing is great! Hits the groove, has the moves, but with a production level seldom found in the real thing. Hell, despite it all Afro American cast, it was even made by a bunch of lily-white men — how much more like the real thing can you get?

To simply quote director Daniel Frees's own words found at his website: "Mad Men has been part of the new golden age of television and was coming to an end with a 7th and final season. As fans of the show, we knew the storyline was hitting the late 60s early 70s; the same era of films like Shaft (1971 / trailer), Foxy Brown (1974 / trailer), Putney Swope (1969 / one-liners) and of course Dolemite (1975 / trailer). So we re-imagined Mad Men through the lens of the blaxploitation genre and Don-O-Mite was born. We were able to do a lot with a small budget, an amazing cast, and a level of detail for wardrobe and set design worthy of an original AMC show."

Interestingly enough, Don-O-Mite is also a real advertisement, as Slate points out: "The trailer is an ad for an ad agency, Leroy & Clarkson, but that's probably the reason it works so well: The writing is clever and knows its blaxploitation roots, while the performances, costumes, and set designs are impeccable. It's hard not to find the agency a little endearing when they create something as dyn-o-mite as this." (So, just out of curiosity: How many non-white folks work at L&C?)

Taking Lives (USA, 2004)

A dankly stylish thriller that quickly loses all its logic along the way and then descends into total (but always explained!) implausibility by the end, at which point, if you get down to it, FBI agent Ileana (pre-skeletal Angela Jolie) commits much less self-defense than she does long-premeditated (as in six or more months premeditated) murder. As Jolie obviously did not, despite whatever name success gained from Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001 / trailer) and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2005 / trailer), have the power to demand a no-nudity contract, a high point for star-nudity fans is her darkly shot sex scene with Ethan Hawk — conducted amidst grisly crime-scene photos — in which one gets fleeting shots of her original, pre-genetic-tested-and-then-replaced breasts. (But not of Hawke's weenie, of course, for seeing weenie means the world will end.) That sex scene, and Philip Glass's somewhat tonally atypical score (he didn't do the main theme, obviously enough) are perhaps the best things found in this speedily paced string of edgy killer-film clichés populated with the scenes and jump scares expected of this kind of undemanding flick, along with one totally unnecessary scene of a pissed-off hothead cop, Paquette (Olivier Martinez of the what-were-they-thinking western Bullfighter [2000 / full film]), punching Ileana.

Trailer to

Taking Lives:

Based on a novel by Michael Pye, Taking Lives concerns a serial killer who takes over the lives and identities of the people he kills (every other year) and the FBI agent, Ileana, who gets called to Montreal by Inspector Leclair (the always watchable Tcheky Karyo of Gravedancers [2006]) to help catch the killer because, well, Canadian cops are incompetent or something. (Not that Ileana seems all the bright of a lightbulb, either. Sure, she seems bright lying in a grave and making clever deductions, but she only figures out the murderer's OM by accident and from there on in she calls one false card after the other.)

Taking Lives opens promisingly enough with an interesting and unexpected double murder, but once the film forwards to the present day and grand dame Gene Rowland (of The Skeleton Key [2005 / trailer]) shows up claiming to have seen her dead psycho son on the ferry, Taking Lives may stay watchable but logic and proportion fall sloppy dead. It is her sighting of her long-lost son, and possibly his desire to rid himself of his (red-herring) "business colleague" Hart (Kiefer Sutherland of Dark City [1998] and Mirrors [2008]), that theoretically (probably?) set the killer off to execute his big, typically convoluted plan and all the subsequent murders in Montreal.

Among other irrealities, the movie features a wonderfully laughable characterization of a gallerist and what they do that reveals a general ignorance of gallery work — but then, much of what transpires in this movies shows a general lack of interest in reflecting the plausible and the real. Nice cinematography, though, and good editing as well, not to mention that notably tonal-dark Philip Glass soundtrack. But, as way too often, if one wants to enjoy the Taking Lives as suspense thriller, one really shouldn't question the whys or what-the-fucks of the narrative. Definitely NOT a flick that one must see.

Babes of Yesteryear: Uschi Digard, Part IX: 1976

Babes of Yesteryear: a wasted life's irregular and PI feature that takes a look at the filmographies of the underappreciated actresses cum sex bombs of low-culture cinema of the past. Some may still be alive, others not. Our choice of whom we look at is idiosyncratic and entirely our own — but the actors are/were babes, one and all.

As the photo (possibly) and blog-entry title above reveal, we're currently looking at the films of one of the ultimate cult babes ever, a woman who needs no introduction to any and all red-blooded American cis gender, tendentially hetero male whose hormonal memory goes further back than the start of the 80s: the great Uschi Digard.* 

* A.k.a. Astrid | Debbie Bowman | Brigette | Briget | Britt | Marie Brown | Clarissa | Uschi Dansk | Debbie | Ushi Devon | Julia Digaid | Uschi Digaid | Ushi Digant | Ursula Digard | Ushie Digard | Ushi Digard | Alicia Digart | Uschi Digart | Ushi Digart | Ushi Digert | Uschi Digger | Beatrice Dunn | Fiona | Francine Franklin | Gina | Glenda | Sheila Gramer | Ilsa | Jobi | Cynthia Jones | Karin | Astrid Lillimor | Astrid Lillimore | Lola | Marie Marceau | Marni | Sally Martin | Mindy | Olga | Ves Pray | Barbara Que | Ronnie Roundheels | Sherrie | H. Sohl | Heide Sohl | Heidi Sohler | U. Heidi Sohler | Sonja | Susie | Euji Swenson | Pat Tarqui | Joanie Ulrich | Ursula | Uschi | Ushi | Mishka Valkaro | Elke Vann | Elke Von | Jobi Winston | Ingred Young… and probably more.

As The Oak Drive-In puts it: "With her long hair, Amazonian build & beautiful natural looks (usually devoid of make-up), nobody seems to personify that 60's & early 70's sex appeal 'look' better than [Uschi Digard]. She had a presence that truly was bigger than life — a mind-bending combination of hippie Earth Mother looks and a sexual wildcat. […] She always seemed to have a smile on her face and almost seemed to be winking at the camera and saying 'Hey, it's all in fun.' Although she skirted around the edges at times, she never preformed hardcore…"*
* Actually, if you search long and hard and go to the type of websites that install all sorts of nasty bugs onto your computer, there is a grainy, B&W single shot loop-like film around that looks very much like a private home movie that somehow escaped the home closet. Hard, it is; hot, it is not. We found it once, but didn't save it — much like we did with Neola Graef's current whereabouts.

Today, Uschi Digard is still alive, happily married (for over 50 years), and splitting her time Palm Springs and Los Angeles, CA. To learn everything you ever wanted to know about her, we would suggest listening to the great interview she gave The Rialto Report in 2013. You can find Uschi on that evil thing known as facebook.

Please note: we make no guarantee for the validity of the release dates given… or of the info supplied, for that matter.

Herewith we give a nudity warning: naked babes and beefcake are highly likely to be found in our Babes of Yesteryear entries. If such sights offend thee, well, either go to another blog or pluck thy eyes from thee... 

Go here for

Uschi Digard, Part I: 1968-69

Uschi Digard, Part II: 1970, Part I

Uschi Digard, Part III: 1970, Part II

Uschi Digard, Part IV: 1971, Part I

Uschi Digard, Part V: 1971, Part II

Uschi Digard, Part VI: 1972

Uschi Digard, Part VII: 1973-74

Uschi Digard, Part VIII: 1975


Chesty Anderson, USN
(1976, dir. Ed Forsyth)
 

A.k.a. Up the Navy, Anderson's Angels, and Chesty Anderson — US Navy.

Opening credits to

Chesty Anderson, USN:

Way back in September of 2012, in a fit of spite, we tried to take a short glance at the careers of everyone who had ever done something in film that died that month. (We failed, needless to say, though we did cast a wide net.) In Part VI of that Sisyphean undertaking, we turned our eyes to Ira Miller (14 Oct 1940 – 23 Sept 2012), "a former member of The Second City (in the 60s) and occasional bit-part actor in comedies" who also appeared in this movie.

And there we wrote:

"Miller appears briefly as a comedian in this mild exploitation film that has a bigger reputation than it probably should, as its only true quality of note is that it is the second and last film of the great Shari Eubank, who starred in this film and Russ Meyers's fab flick Supervixens (1975 / German trailer) and then left the industry to become a language arts teacher in Illinois. Still, the movie-literate Steven Puchalski of Shock Cinema seems to have sort of enjoyed it: 'This pneumatic comedy from director Ed Forsyth is nearly as tame as his earlier drive-in hit, Superchick (1973 / trailer), and runs on the same half-baked charm. In addition, there's a terrifically odd cast, headed up by Shari Eubank in the aptly-named title role. [...] Chesty is just one of the latest crop of WAVES, who, after a hard day of maneuvers, likes to unbutton their blouses and lounge about their quarters in their undies. But when a crooked senator wants to retrieve an incriminating photo (he's in drag) from Chesty's Navy sis, Cynthia (Connie Hoffman), she ends up tossed into a trash hopper and killed in a shredding machine. Of course, the Navy is no use whatsoever, since they think Cynthia is merely AWOL with some guy, so Chesty and her barracks pals have to bring the murderers to justice on their own. With a plot this dumb, it's no surprise that most of the fun comes from the supporting throwaways, including a midget named Stretch, who runs the local watering hole; Scatman Crothers as a pool hustler; and Ilsa's Dyanne Thorne as a nurse. [...] Despite bar-room brawls, a man-eating plant (huh?), and plenty of cleavage, this nonsense has all the depth of a Three's Company episode, with the artistic style to match. Hell, even the obligatory shower scenes are strictly PG. You have been warned.'"

The advertisement above (from ...the scene of screen 13...) for the Showtime Drive-In is for what could be the movie, despite the fact that the woman pictured is actually the dearly departed eternal GILF Candy Samples (12 April 1940 – 30 Sept 2019); the second movie on the double feature, Delinquent School Girls (1975 / trailer), is perhaps most noteworthy for being the only feature film credit of the pneumatic legendary hippie nude model Roberta Pedon, who actually never met her legendary end as recent research by The Rialto Report has revealed.

The advert below, which is for the Majestic I, which is now a restaurant, shows Chesty on a double bill with the exceptionally bizarre and obscure Sins of Rachel (1972 / trailer further below), a "slice of low budget trash [that] is not a good movie but is worth watching for cult fans interested in the crossroads of queer cinema, exploitation, and melodrama. An older female lounge singer (Ann Noble) is found brutally murdered with her face bludgeoned in. The prime suspect is her son (Bruce Campbell), a tormented gay outcast, for whom she felt incestuous desires and protected from any potential female suitors. [Teenage Frankenstein]" 

Indeed, though an exploiter, Sins of Rachel is a rare for its time in that, as All Movie reveals, once "the painful ordeal of his mother's murder behind him, Jimmy faces his homosexuality with brave determination and rides off into the sunset on Peter's (Chase Cordell) chopper."

Trailer to

Sins of Rachel:

It should perhaps be noted that Chesty's antagonists in Chesty Anderson, USN are the Baron (Frank Campanella [12 March 1919 – 30 Dec 2006]) and his pal Vincent (the great Timothy Agoglia Carey [11 March 1929 – 11 May 1994] of The Killing [1956 / trailer], Shock Treatment [1964 / full film], Head [1968 / trailer], What's the Matter with Helen? [1971 / trailer] and so much more), a fact that must be stated so that it makes sense to point out that Uschi Digard appears in the movie as one of Baron's two girlfriends (the other is played by Pat Parker).

Among the WAVES that assist Chesty: Cocoa, played by one of our favorite Playboy Playmates (September 1978), Rosanne Katon, of Motel Hell (1980). The photo of her below is from Jet.

C.B. Hustlers

(1976, dir. Stu Segall)


"These girls keep the shiny side up and the dirty side down!"

Stu Segall's attempt at vansploitation, though we would tend to think the movie plays more with the then super-popular citizens band radio. For more on director Stu, see Saddle-Tramp Women (1972; see Uschi Part VI). The script was written by two sorely underappreciated Jacks-of-all-trades of the Golden Age of Exploitation, John Alderman (12 June 1934 – 12 Jan 1987) and John F Guff, both of whom also appear in the movie. The three eponymous  "C.B. Hustlers" are played by Uschi Digard, Janus Blythe, and Catherine Barkley. Sadly, however, the movie is pretty lousy — the only truly memorable scene is the Uschi sex scene shot from the viewpoint of the guy beneath her.

Over at Pre-Cert UK, which claims "throughout its 70-minute running time, CB Hustlers never once shifts gear from out of neutral", they also have the movie's plot: "Broadcasting in the coded argot of citizens band radio, Dancer (John Alderman […]) and his girlfriend Scuzz (Valdesta a.k.a. Jacqueline Giroux) set up sexual trysts for randy truck drivers — who get to take their pick from three lovely 'C.B Annies': Silky (Catherine Barkley), Dee Dee (a thick Scandinavian-accented Uschi Digard) and Lemon (Tiffany Jones). Eavesdropping in on the airwave high jinks are 'Boots' Clayborn (John F. Goff) and 'Mountain' Dean (Richard Kennedy), the two proprietors of local broadsheet The Clarion Weekly, who suspect that something untoward is going down and snoop around hoping for the scoop which will propel them into the journalism big league! On the side of the law is 'Smokey' — in the rotund shape of Sheriff Elrod P. Ramsey (Bruce Kimball), who constantly tries to find an excuse to run the hustlers out of the county."

Smokey meets Uschi:

About the only positive statements we could find about the movie were made at Sinful Celluloid: "Now and again you see a movie that makes you wonder, 'Why aren't more people doing that?' It just seems like such a great idea. One great idea that has never happened (on a professional scale) is Mobile Prostitution. WHAT?! Look, I'm just saying that it's enterprising and I am surprised that there isn't a reality show about it yet. What movie had such a great idea as a plot? You know it had to come from the 70s, and the movie is C.B. Hustlers. […] The cast is decent for what they are asked to do. Bruce Kimball as the sheriff is very much a doppelganger for Jackie Gleeson in Smokey and the Bandit (1977 / trailer). Note that Smokey came out a year later. Maybe this film was Jackie's Inspiration, hmmm. […] This is a film about the joy of independent film making. Nothing is too outrageous and everything goes. This flick makes me want a van, pop it in [and] have a six pack of PBR, you could do worse."

Janus Blythe, by the way, began her career is one of the great sexploitation flicks, The Centerfold Girls (1974 / trailer), was in Tobe Hooper's Eaten Alive (1976 / trailer) the same year as this film here, and went on to The Incredible Melting Man (1977 / trailer) and both Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes (1977 / trailer) and his atrocious The Hills Have Eyes Part II (1984 / trailer). She eventually disappeared into Palm Springs — which, if our information is right, is also where Uschi initially vanished to (Uschi can hardly be described as "vanished" now, since you can find her on facebook).

Fantasm

(1976, dir. "Richard Bruce") 

A.k.a. The World of Sexual Fantasy. We all have to start somewhere, and Richard Franklin (15 July 1948 – 11 July 2007) almost started here. This could perhaps be claimed as the Aussie's first semi-American movie,* but his feature film directorial debut was really the Australian sex comedy The True Story of Eskimo Nell a.k.a. Dick Down Under (1975 / trailer) — not to be mistaken with the early Martin Campbell film, Eskimo Nell (1975), which was produced by Stanley A. Long.

Trailer to

Martin Campbell's Eskimo Nell:

For those of you who don't remember who Richard Franklin was, he directed such fine genre offerings as Patrick (1978 / trailer), Road Games (1981 / trailer) and Psycho II (1983 / trailer), as well as idiosyncratic crap like Link (1986 / trailer).

* Half-American, actually: the linking segments were shot down under, but the sex segments in the US. In the end, however, Fantasm is pure Ozploitation. For years, it never even made it to the North American continent.

From

Fanstasm:

Mondo Stumpo has an interesting interview with the gent (from 2002) in which he says, "[After The True Story of Eskimo Nell] I needed to make a film that would make money. So the next film was a deliberate attempt to make a sort of send up of the Scandinavian sex documentaries […]. ['White-coaters.'] They were all essentially softcore, and we decided to make a kind of send-up of one, really. Not because we wanted to do a send-up, but because we didn't think we wanted to do a genuine one. We just wanted to make a fun film about sex! […] I usually don't list it in my filmography, not because I'm ashamed to have done it […] but because it was such a low-budget thing, and done in as I recall ten or eleven days, so it was really just like a series of student films strung together, if that makes sense. So I don't really, even though it runs feature length, I don't sort of think of it as a feature film. […]" (We thinks the gentleman doth protest too much...)

The linking segments feature English actor John Bluthal (Dark City [1998] and way more) as German psychiatrist Professor Jurgen Notafreud. The segments themselves, of diverse "female sexual fantasies" — we here at a wasted life can't help but wonder if Nancy Friday (27 Aug 1933 – 5 Nov 2017) was an uncredited inspiration for the movie — feature a cast that the interviewer rightly calls "a Who's Who of early seventies softcore and hardcore porno", but then the casting was done by William Margold (2 Oct 1943 – 17 Jan 2017), who also appears in a segment. According to Franklin, "They [the actors] didn't cost very much, two hundred dollars a day as I recall. They were all one-day shoots. I think we paid maybe three, four hundred for John Holmes and yeah, that was about it." NO hardcore scenes were filmed.

Girls, Guns and Ghouls has the plots to the individual segments:

"Beauty Parlour: A naked woman (Dee Dee Levitt) who, we are told by the professor, regards herself as ugly, is brought to orgasm by staff (men) in a beauty parlor who make her over, including her nipples, style her hair and shave her pubic hair off.

Card Game: A woman (Maria Arnold of Meatcleaver Massacre [1977 / trailer] and more) is passed around for sex with the men at a poker game, where her husband (Kirby Hall) continually plays bad hands. Eventually all the participants partake in an orgy.

Wearing the Pants: A frumpy housewife (Sarno & Mahon regular Gretchen Rudolph) catches a sneaky transvestite (Con Covert [1935 – 1990] of Scream in the Streets [1973 / trailer]) in her backyard, stealing her undies from her clothes line. She then ties him up and sodomizes him with a dildo in her kitchen.

Nightmare Alley: A woman (Rene Bond) is dragged into a boxing ring and raped by a black man (Al Williams), as she wanders past his gymnasium. Naturally, she enjoys the experience. Don't show your radical feminist friends this one. Come to think of it, probably best to not show them the film at all!

The Girls: Two women in a steaming sauna find each other attractive, and the more buxom woman (Uschi Digard, of course) seduces the younger one (Mara Lutra).

Fruit Salad: A woman (Maria Welton) fantasizes about a mystery lover (John Holmes, looking particularly unfit and ugly) jumping naked out of her pool and smearing her in fruit and whipped cream. They then jump into the pool, and have sex.

Mother's Darling: A mature, huge-breasted woman (Candy Samples) seduces her own son (Gene Allan Poe), a returned soldier, in the bathtub.

Black Velvet: A black woman (Shayne) strips for three men.

After School: A large-breasted woman (Roxanne Brewer, on the DVD cover below) dressed as a cartoonish schoolgirl drives her fuddy-duddy old teacher (Al Ward) to collapse with her ample assets. His glasses fog up many times.

Blood Orgy: A girl (Serena of Dracula Sucks [1978 / full XXX film] and so much more) has forced, ceremonial sex at a black mass [with a Satanic priest played by character actor Clement George Freiherr von und zu Franckenstein of The Landlady [1998 / trailer], The Haunting of Morella (1990 / trailer) and more].

"While there isn't a lot of explicit material here (though a frequently-scissored underwater sequence with John Holmes is just about over the boundary)," writes Digitally Obsessed, "it does have a nice erotic charge to most of the sequences. At the same time, the producers are not entirely serious and the linking narrative is more than a little tongue-in-cheek. There are also numerous funny segments during the vignettes, including a rubber duck making an appearance during incest in the bathtub and a surprisingly bit of humiliation in the cross-dressing segment. The often bumptious music also lends comedy to the proceedings. The humor helps give this a decent amount of replay value and lifts the film above the typical 'sex ed' film that Fantasm is satirizing. It's by no means a classic, but it certainly has an entertainment value, though the rape sequence may be hard to take for sensitive audiences."

A hit down under, it was followed two years later by Fantasm Comes Again (1977). 

Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks

(1976, dir. Don Edmonds)

The first sequel to Ilsa, She Wolf of the S.S. (1975, see Part VIII), with same director and of course the same Ilsa, despite the fact that she dies at the end of the first movie. David F. Friedman, however, took a fly. As the scriptwriter Langston Stafford never scripted a film before or after this one, we assume the name is a pseudonym. The art for the German poster above was done by the great (and totally unknown) George Morf, a.k.a. Georges Morf, a Swiss graphic artist who often did the film posters for the great Euro-sleazemonger Erwin C. Dietrich (4 Oct 1930 – 15 March 2018) and is claimed by some as the "discoverer" of the Ingrid Steeger (Ich – Ein Groupie a.k.a. Higher and Higher [1970 / trailer]); others claim that Steeger and her breast assets were actually discovered by a forgotten, Berlin-based photographer named Frank G. Quade. We here at a wasted life might claim that she was actually discovered by the unknown director of the porn loop Die perverse Herrin und ihre Opfer ("The Perverted Mistress and Her Victims"), which can be easily found online should you care to look for it.

 

Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks is rated "Worthless" by The Worldwide Celluloid Massacre, which also deigns to say "all in all, a much campier and less shocking sequel that is even entertaining in its sleazy way but will only to appeal to... well you know who you are." (Yes, we do.)

Uschi has a bigger role this time, as the kidnapped Scandinavian actress Inga Lindström. (She, obviously enough, is in the middle cage above.) Haji — that's her bloody face directly below — is also there again as well, which is why we took a look at the movie at her R.I.P. Career Review we did in 2013, where we wrote:

Haji, credited as "Haji Cat", plays "Alina Cordova" in this, the first sequel to Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1974 / trailer) — you see her getting tortured in this film's NSFW trailer below and on the Japanese poster above. In the Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks, she is a spying belly dancer who first gets her beautiful love pillows crushed when she is tortured for information about her unknown contractor and is then later killed by an exploding diaphragm... As Dr Gore astutely says: "Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks promises nasty sleaze and does not disappoint. Every other scene had either blood or breasts or both. It's a great exploitation movie. I recommend it."

The NSFW trailer to

Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks:

We here at a wasted life, in turn, actually saw this movie a decade or two ago in a double feature with Ilsa the Tigress of Siberia [1977 / trailer], but to tell the truth we really don't remember anything about either movie...

Over at imdb, MG basically describes the intricacies of the movie's plot: "Finding a new employer, and looking not a day older since the end of World War II, Ilsa (Dyanne Thorne) works for an Arab sheik (Jerry Delony of The Horny Vampire [1971]) who enjoys importing females to use as sex slaves. An American millionaire's daughter (Colleen Brennan), a movie star (Uschi Digard), and an attractive equestrian are among his latest victims."

Ms. Brennan — seen to your right above with Uschi to your left — when asked in an interview at Rock!Shock!Pop! about her appearance in this Ilsa movie and the first one, both films she regrets having been in, disingenuously states, "Okay, here's the rule of thumb I developed too late: Never be in a movie that strives to attract an audience with whom you would not choose to share a theater." Haji is also relatively circumspect about the movie when talking to Shock Cinema, saying: "I will limit myself as far as doing certain things, and some of the stuff they did in that film was a little too funky for me. I liked my part, but I don't think I did a very good job with it."

The infamous and popular Dyanne "Ilsa" Thorne, by the way, is now a minster named Dyanne Maurer who, with her current husband Howard Maurer — the couple appeared in five films together: this Ilsa film here, Ilsa the Tigress (1977 / trailer), Wanda, the Wicked Warden (1977 / trailer), the classic Harry Novak production Wham! Bam! Thank You, Spaceman! (1975 / trailer) and all of two seconds in Franc Roddam's Liebestod segment of Aria (1987 / trailer) — now conducts wedding ceremonies in Vegas.

Up!
(1976, dir. Russ Meyer)


"Prepare to taste the black sperm of my vengeance."

Not the best Russ Meyer movie, the full version can currently be found here on YouTube. Meyer, as "B. Callum", also wrote the script. The "original story" upon which the script is based came from Anthony-James Ryan, a.k.a. "Jim Ryan" (17 June 1921 – 15 April 2006) — who, among other things, long ago played the Handyman in Eve and the Handyman (1961 / scene) — and Roger Ebert, a.k.a. "Reinhold Timme" (18 June 1942 – 4 April 2013) — who, long ago, did the screenplay to Meyer's masterpiece Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970 / trailer). As for Uschi, instead of appearing in this Russ Meyer movie, she acted as an associate producer.

Scene from

Up!

"Look, this is schlock and sexploitation, no doubt about it," Flick Notes plainly admits, "but that doesn't mean it isn't good. Meyer obviously had a unique view of the world and the latent power of sex, perhaps even more than that, sexual tension. His use of actresses with exceptionally sized breasts and putting prosthetic organs on his male actors, to me, is his expression of how important a factor in life the sexual tension usually is and he is satirizing our pretension and denial about the potency of that reality."

That said, Up! is also the only Meyer film we ever walked out of — it simply had one too many rape scenes, and while we did laugh occasionally, for the first time we found the misogyny overwhelmed the parody. But then, we were watching it in Germany in German before we had learned German with a German woman who had a major panic attack because the rape scenes brought up childhood memories. One day, however, we do hope to give the movie another try, but without female company.

Going by what Girl, Guns and Ghouls says, in any event, it does sound like our kind of movie: "Along with Russ Meyer's huge-breasted, uninhibited women, rapid-fire editing, glorious colour and off-the-wall dialogue, the plotline of Up! veers towards the totally insane as the film winds up. Well, this little gem of sex cinema is no less a classic because of it. In addition you've got gore and ultraviolence that would make Tom Savini proud in a couple of scenes, along with some Shakespeare. Honestly, what more could you want in a film?"

TV Guide offers a full synopsis to what they call "Russ Meyer's most preposterous film": (Spoilers!) "A self-designated 'Greek Chorus' (Kitten Natividad) is our guide through events in a Northwestern logging community. Here, Paul (Robert McLane) and Alice (Janet Wood) own and operate a diner. Paul makes extra money organizing S&M scenes for local recluse Adolph Schwartz (Edward Schaaf), who speaks in German and looks an awful like a certain rumored-to-be-deceased Nazi leader. After their latest session is concluded, Schwartz is murdered (via the introduction of a piranha into his bathwater) by a hooded stranger. Horny cop Homer Johnson (Monte Bane) spies lovely Margo Winchester (Raven de la Croix, seen above) jogging in the road. She refuses his offer of a ride, but accepts one from local bad boy Leonard Box, who takes her into the woods and rapes her. Margo accidentally kills him while fighting him off. Homer agrees to concoct a story to cover the incident up, in exchange for Margo's favors. Margo takes a day job at Alice's Cafe, causing such an explosion of business that Alice and Paul decide to expand the cafe into a roadhouse. On opening night, Margo wears an outfit so sexy that it inflames the passions of Rafe, a lumberjack of monstrous size and strength. He rapes Margo on a table, despite the efforts of everyone to quell him. After carrying Margo and Alice off into the woods, Rafe is finally brought down by Homer and a chain saw. Back home in her shower, Margo is attacked by a hooded figure with a knife. It is Alice, the murderer. In an openly satirical sequence, the two women run naked through the woods, tying up the loose ends of the story by discussing various plot complications hitherto unknown to the viewer."

Over at All Movie, Fred Beldin sees a movie of style over substance: "Of Russ Meyer's wild canon, Up! is easily his most frenetic film, a nonstop frenzy of nudity, gore, and bawdy humor that only occasionally makes sense. Never a director to waste much time on character development or motivation, Meyer is even more focused here on sheer action, to the point where viewers can only give up and let the gorgeous scenery and ridiculous proceedings wash over them. As the '70s progressed, Meyer's films became more outrageous in terms of sex and violence, and Up! is no exception, with cartoonishly gory axe fights, a vicious rape scene (with comical 'Boiiing!' sound effects), and endless noisy couplings in police cars, showers, and mountain streams. The convoluted plot concerns some sort of Nazi conspiracy and will require repeated viewings to understand, though each ride through the beautifully photographed woodland pines will provide giddy enjoyment to those who love low-brow excitement. It's hardly the best place for neophytes to begin exploring Meyer's bizarre macho universe, though fans who haven't experienced the film will love the addled rush of images and action, whether it all adds up to a coherent story or not."

DVD Drive-In sees the film as less successful: "Filled with hot-n-heavy sex scenes, fake male appendages measuring at 12 inches long, bountiful women, repulsive violence (including another vicious rape scene), and twists and turns thrown at the audience like hatchets, Up! is half-successful and is such a strong departure from the Meyer we know and love it never really clicks. […] Don't get me wrong, the sex scenes are highly erotic, well-photographed and stunningly edited. But one of the best things about Meyer's films is that he treated sex with a comic flavor, much like John Waters does (or did). None of the sex here is funny, it's included strictly for an adult audience who couldn't get into a hardcore porno theater and settled for the next best thing. The only possibly funny scene is Paul sticking it to Der Fuhrer after all the ladies leave his dungeon! […]"

Up! Featured the first appearance in a Russ Meyer movie of (yes, they're implants) Francesca "Kitten" Natividad, who "apparently taught Russ how to give cunnilingus and have anal sex, practices he had never indulged in before, and was his companion for a good many years, as a friend and/or a lover. When she began appearing in hardcore porno films, both as a softcore participant and an active penetrative sex performer, Meyer was dismayed. Natividad's drug and alcohol abuse reached unbelievable levels, but thankfully she managed to somber up and remained friends with Meyer to his dying day. She is also one of only two or three of his leading ladies who made the effort to take care of his invalid mother when she was in a mental institution. Natividad is also a breast cancer survivor and connects with her fans at autograph shows, conventions and live performances."

Of the rest of the cast, here's some noteworthy trivia:

Edward Schaaf (7 Feb 1922 – 11 May 1998), who plays Adolph "Hitler" Schwarz, made his feature-film debut in 1956 in The Flesh Merchants a.k.a. The Wicked and the Wilds (full movie), one of the many fun exploiters of the sadly forgotten Z-filmmaker W. Merle Connell (7 Jan 1905 – 25 Nov 1963).

The lead actress, Raven de la Croix, who made her feature-film debut in Up! and went on to become "the Burlesque Queen of the 80s", is now on another plane of existence but still on Earth. You can find out more about her at her websites: Raven-Delacroix, Rantings of a Mad Woman and Raven's Cosmic Portal.

Janet Wood, whom TV Guide above reveals to be the mysterious murderer, has roles of varying sizes in other fun culty movies, namely Angels Hard as They Come (1971 / opening credits), The Centerfold Girls (1974 / trailer), Terror at Red Wolf Inn (1972 / trailer) and Ice Cream Man (1995 / trailer).

Robert McLane (4 Aug 1944 – 30 Sept 1992), Wood's good-looking husband "Paul" in the movie — he gets naked a lot — can also be found in A Very Natural Thing (1974 / scene), one of the first pro-gay love stories to get mainstream release in the US. It flopped. McLane died of AIDS-related complications eighteen years later.

Monty Bane, who as Homer "the law" Johnson also gets nude and ends up with an ax in his chest, still does an occasional small movie part today. You can find him in the crappy Sleepwalkers (1992) and the interesting Babysitter Wanted (2008 / trailer).

Bob Schott, as Rafe the ax-wielder, went on to a career of playing heavies, but left the movie biz after his sizable role in Charles Band's Head of the Family (1996) to take up photography.

Larry Dean, who plays Leonard Fox, the first dead rapist of the movie, may or may not now be a country singer….

Larry Dean sings

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