Babes
of Yesteryear: Within the world of exploitation and cult film, there is an
inordinate amount of women who had their 15 seconds in exploitation and, for whatever reason —
no talent, terrible accent, bad luck, the films they took part in — never made the
jump from C, D and Z films to B movies, let alone A movies. We don't mean the
Scream Queens of today, like the talented Tiffany
Shepis (see: Corpses [2004], The Hazing [2004], The Prometheus Project [2010] and so much more); we mean the women of the Golden Age of (Modern) Exploitation,
the 60s and 70s, many of whom quickly
left the business when softcore went hard and the willingness to do nudity was
no longer enough to get you another rent-paying film shoot. Most
simply disappeared: prior to the internet, it was relatively impossible to know
whether they simply retired, died natural or unnatural deaths, or seriously vanished
(as did Lorna Maitland — see: The Rialto Report).*
* Today, of course, it is a bit easier to find out
that, for example, Rene Bond (11 Oct 1950 – 2 June 1996) died of liver
cirrhosis and Bambi Allen (2 May 1938 – 21 Jan 1973) of cancer, Pat
Barrington (16 Oct 1939 – 1 Sept 2014) eventually ended up in Florida and
obscurity and lung cancer, Jeannie Bell married into riches and left the biz,
Tamara Dobson (14 May 1947 – 2 Oct 2006) died of multiple
sclerosis, or that Shari Eubank ended up teaching in Illinois and Monica Gayle ended up married with children and now lives in a section of the Valley that once belonged to Edgar Rice Burroughs.
In Babes
of Yesteryear, our new and irregular and PI feature, a wasted life takes a look at the filmography of the
underappreciated actresses cum sex bombs of low-culture cinema. Our choice of
whom we look at is idiosyncratic and entirely our own — but they are/were
babes, one and all. (Though, being who we are, we might also take a look at some
actor cum beefcake, if we feel like it.) Some may still be alive, others not.
In any event, 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...
In any event, 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...
As the photo below and blog-entry title above reveal, we're starting with one of the ultimate cult babes ever, a woman who needs no introduction to any and all red-blooded, heterosexual American male whose hormonal memory goes further back than the start of the 80s: the great Uschi Digard (aka 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…"
Today, Uschi
Digard is still alive, happily married (for over 50 years), and retired in Palm
Springs, 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.
Over the
next year, we will take an irregular, meandering, year-by-year look at the films she participated in from
1968 to 2008. (OK, she retired long before that, but people still find ways of
working her into their movies.) For the most part, reels and shorts won't be
looked at. As many of her films are given different release dates by different
sites, we in no way claim 100% validity of the dates we supply.
Uschi
Digard, Part One:
1968-69
I Love You, Alice B. Toklas!
(1968, dir. Hy Averback)
"The saga of Harold...from dedicated lawyer to dedicated dropout."
Trailer to
I Love You, Alice B. Toklas!
More than one website, but not the imdb or
the Uschi website, claim that Uschi "began, oddly enough, in mainstream,
with a cameo in I Love You Alice B. Toklas! with Peter Sellers (8 Sept 1925 –
24 July 1980). [Tales from the Kryptonian]"
I Love You Alice B. Toklas! — one of TV director Hy Averback's (21 Oct 1920 – 14 Oct 1997) rare forays into feature film — is one of the many decidedly poorly dated comedies from the sixties that saw mainstream Hollywood trying to be hip and failing miserably. Or at least the movie failed for us, as we remember walking out on the movie when we caught it years ago at a retro house. We much prefer Averback's feature film foray of the previous year, Chambers of Horrors (1966).*
I Love You Alice B. Toklas! — one of TV director Hy Averback's (21 Oct 1920 – 14 Oct 1997) rare forays into feature film — is one of the many decidedly poorly dated comedies from the sixties that saw mainstream Hollywood trying to be hip and failing miserably. Or at least the movie failed for us, as we remember walking out on the movie when we caught it years ago at a retro house. We much prefer Averback's feature film foray of the previous year, Chambers of Horrors (1966).*
* OK, so Chambers was originally filmed as a TV
pilot — but it got released into theaters and never became a series.
Scene from
Chambers of Horrors (1966):
"The film's title is a tribute to Gertrude
Stein's lifelong partner, Alice B. Toklas, who published a cookbook in 1954
that contained the first printed recipe for hash fudge. In one of the movie's
most famous scenes Harold Fine unknowingly serves marijuana-laced brownies
baked by Nancy to his parents and fiancée. [imdb]"
Believe us: if you follow Toklas's recipe as written, you'll love it! We say "it" and not "them" because the original recipe, as given to Toklas by Brion Gyson and referred to in the paragraph above, is for fudge, not brownies. Here's a scan of the original recipe as taken from Riverfront Times:
The Berkeley Library, where one reads books, mentions that "as Frank Thompson, in his article, Movies on Drugs, writes, 'marijuana is an entirely positive force in Toklas; everyone who uses it (even unwittingly Sellers' aging parents) emerges more thoughtful, aware, spontaneous — freer.' I was hard-pressed to find films in any of the other historical periods that portray pot in such a benevolent light. Even Cheech and Chong are shown to be at best dull-witted and slow."
In his three-star review of the movie from 1968, Roger Ebert explains the basic plot: "Sellers […] plays a single man of about 35, a lawyer with a great respect for appearances, who finally agrees out of politeness to marry the girl he's been dating for several years (Joyce Van Patten of Monkey Shines [1988 / trailer]). She's the sort of girl who can't wait to leave her fiancé, once he's popped the question, so she can telephone her mother and tell her the news: Enough said. But Sellers gets rescued from the altar all the same, after his own mother (Jo Van Fleet [29 Dec 1915 – 10 June 1996] of The Tenant [1976 / trailer]) sends him on an expedition to find his brother (David Arkin [24 Dec 1941 – 14 Jan 1991 (suicide)]). The brother has become a hippie and attends the funeral of a family friend wearing the Hopi Indian burial costume. He also brings along a really good-looking chick (Leigh Taylor-Young of Soylent Green [1973]) and Sellers falls for her and, by extension, for the hippie life. […]" Enough said.
Believe us: if you follow Toklas's recipe as written, you'll love it! We say "it" and not "them" because the original recipe, as given to Toklas by Brion Gyson and referred to in the paragraph above, is for fudge, not brownies. Here's a scan of the original recipe as taken from Riverfront Times:
The Berkeley Library, where one reads books, mentions that "as Frank Thompson, in his article, Movies on Drugs, writes, 'marijuana is an entirely positive force in Toklas; everyone who uses it (even unwittingly Sellers' aging parents) emerges more thoughtful, aware, spontaneous — freer.' I was hard-pressed to find films in any of the other historical periods that portray pot in such a benevolent light. Even Cheech and Chong are shown to be at best dull-witted and slow."
In his three-star review of the movie from 1968, Roger Ebert explains the basic plot: "Sellers […] plays a single man of about 35, a lawyer with a great respect for appearances, who finally agrees out of politeness to marry the girl he's been dating for several years (Joyce Van Patten of Monkey Shines [1988 / trailer]). She's the sort of girl who can't wait to leave her fiancé, once he's popped the question, so she can telephone her mother and tell her the news: Enough said. But Sellers gets rescued from the altar all the same, after his own mother (Jo Van Fleet [29 Dec 1915 – 10 June 1996] of The Tenant [1976 / trailer]) sends him on an expedition to find his brother (David Arkin [24 Dec 1941 – 14 Jan 1991 (suicide)]). The brother has become a hippie and attends the funeral of a family friend wearing the Hopi Indian burial costume. He also brings along a really good-looking chick (Leigh Taylor-Young of Soylent Green [1973]) and Sellers falls for her and, by extension, for the hippie life. […]" Enough said.
Well, not really. Ebert at least also
pointed out the obvious: "Unfortunately, the movie's general approach to
hippiedom is what we've come to dread. Hippies wear funny clothes, sleep on the
stove, don't wash, read the Los Angeles Free Press, bake pot brownies, put up
posters everywhere and operate with a sort of mindless, directionless love
ethic. So the movie becomes conventional after all."
Both David Arkin and Leigh Taylor-Young were making their first credited appearance in a feature film. Leigh Taylor Young, seen below, is actually rather good as the ditzy object of Sellers' affections. She has since become a minister for the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness. At her website, Taylor Young says, "Although it was 1967, I felt very removed from the hippie phenomenon. I had been working non-stop for two years as a professional actress with a heavy schedule. My focus had been my career. I had never said 'groovy' in my life, or worn a short skirt, or smoked anything at all. In fact, I was still wearing little white gloves, stockings and long skirts. I loved only classical music, didn't drink or swear, and was still a virgin at 21." (She was 23 while filming.)
Both David Arkin and Leigh Taylor-Young were making their first credited appearance in a feature film. Leigh Taylor Young, seen below, is actually rather good as the ditzy object of Sellers' affections. She has since become a minister for the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness. At her website, Taylor Young says, "Although it was 1967, I felt very removed from the hippie phenomenon. I had been working non-stop for two years as a professional actress with a heavy schedule. My focus had been my career. I had never said 'groovy' in my life, or worn a short skirt, or smoked anything at all. In fact, I was still wearing little white gloves, stockings and long skirts. I loved only classical music, didn't drink or swear, and was still a virgin at 21." (She was 23 while filming.)
In any event, Uschi should be there
somewhere in the background. Should anyone want to bother watching this movie
and keep an eagle eye, let us know where she is if you see her.
Sappho, Darling
The films that Uschi Digard may have
appeared in prior to arriving in the US are, basically, unknown today, but prior
to coming to Hollyweird, Uschi supposedly made some softcore erotic films in
Sweden, of which some might think this is one. Sappho, Darling is, however, decidedly faux-Swedish, complete with
stock footage. Though not currently (1 Nov 2018) listed in her credit list at the imdb, Uschi lists this film on her filmography at her website.
Sappho,
Darling, supposedly produced by some guy named "Hal Senter",
was written by an American, the great Albert Zugsmith (24 Apr 1910 – 26 Oct
1993), the producer of many a memorable movie, including Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (1958 / trailer), Jack
Arnold's The Incredible Shrinking Man
(1957 / trailer), High School Confidential (1958 / trailer), Russ
Meyer's Fanny Hill (1964 / trailer), one of
Vincent Price's odder projects, Confessions of an Opium Eater (1962 / Trailer from Hell), and so
much more. Director Gunnar Steele, assuming the name is real, never made
another movie.
NSFW
Trailer to
Sappho, Darling:
TCM has the
plot: "Because of her strict upbringing, Sappho (Carol Young)
refuses to become sexually intimate with her boyfriend, Sven (Alyn Darnay).
Brigitte (Yvonne
D'Angers), who suffered an unhappy sexual initiation in a gang
rape, becomes Sappho's roommate. His desire frustrated, Sven attempts unsuccessfully
to take Sappho by force; when he leaves, Luana (Sally Sanford) and
her girl friend try, also unsuccessfully, to seduce the two girls. Arriving to
apologize for his behavior, Sven discovers the women together and leaves,
appalled at the thought that his lover is a lesbian. Brigitte visits his
apartment to convince him that he is mistaken, that Sappho truly loves him but
is unable to overcome her fear of sex. Returning home, she surprises her new
boyfriend attempting to rape Sappho. The two lonely girls are drawn together,
and their intimacy culminates in a single homosexual experience. Sappho wants
only to live with Brigitte, but Brigitte is attracted to men, and refuses. When
Sven calls and asks Sappho to meet him at the beach, the two girls make the
trip together, torn by doubts. Sappho at last runs off alone, unable to choose
between her two loves."
At Something Weird, Lisa calls the movie a "tender tale of lesbian loving" and "exploitation that tries to be 'art-house' — and, for that matter, even pretends to be Swedish — Sappho Darling combines male fantasies of rape and lesbianism with ridiculous dialogue, especially when uttered by Miss D'Angers, to make this marvelously schizoid experience. Adding to the fun are bits by exploitation veteran Gary Kent [and] the always welcome Uschi Digart."
Tehran-born Yvonne D'Angers (2 Sept 1944 – 10 June 2009) was a popular topless dancer in America who gained infamy in San Francisco along with other dancers such as Carol Doda (29 Aug 1937 – 9 Nov 2015) during the third quarter of the 20th century. Like Doda, D'Angers was involved in obscenity trials in San Francisco in the '60s. In 1966, she even chained herself to the Golden Gate Bridge as a protest against her ordered deportation to Iran, an order which was overturned in 1968. D'Angers was immortalized by Diane Arbus (14 Mar 1923 – 26 July 1971) in Arbus's famous photo, seen above, entitled Topless dancer in her dressing room, San Francisco, Cal. As for Gary Kent, among the many notable disasterpieces he participated in, special mention must be given to Al Adamson's Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971).
The news advertisement shown above was for a showing at the Floridian Todd Theatre. The movie itself can currently be found online for free at Film Izle.
At Something Weird, Lisa calls the movie a "tender tale of lesbian loving" and "exploitation that tries to be 'art-house' — and, for that matter, even pretends to be Swedish — Sappho Darling combines male fantasies of rape and lesbianism with ridiculous dialogue, especially when uttered by Miss D'Angers, to make this marvelously schizoid experience. Adding to the fun are bits by exploitation veteran Gary Kent [and] the always welcome Uschi Digart."
Tehran-born Yvonne D'Angers (2 Sept 1944 – 10 June 2009) was a popular topless dancer in America who gained infamy in San Francisco along with other dancers such as Carol Doda (29 Aug 1937 – 9 Nov 2015) during the third quarter of the 20th century. Like Doda, D'Angers was involved in obscenity trials in San Francisco in the '60s. In 1966, she even chained herself to the Golden Gate Bridge as a protest against her ordered deportation to Iran, an order which was overturned in 1968. D'Angers was immortalized by Diane Arbus (14 Mar 1923 – 26 July 1971) in Arbus's famous photo, seen above, entitled Topless dancer in her dressing room, San Francisco, Cal. As for Gary Kent, among the many notable disasterpieces he participated in, special mention must be given to Al Adamson's Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971).
The news advertisement shown above was for a showing at the Floridian Todd Theatre. The movie itself can currently be found online for free at Film Izle.
Another Sappho, Darling trailer
(with three other films):
(with three other films):
The Big Snatch
(1968,
dir. "Ronnie Runningboard")
Aka The Big Catch, as one too many newspaper found the intended
implications of the title of this no-budget roughie a tad too racy for publication — something they would surely no longer think, seeing that it is fully presidential to grab women by their pussy. This Big Snatch, in any event, is not based on the even
more-so forgotten 1958 crime novel of the same name, or even the vintage trash
novel by Rod Gray (images below). "Rod Gray", by the way, is generally accepted as a pseudonym of no one less than Gardner Fox (20 May 1911 – 24 Dec 1986), the co-creator of DC Comics heroes the Flash, Hawkman, Doctor Fate, and the original Sandman.
The imdb and other sources list this David F. Friedman production
as a 1971 release, but on her website Uschi
claims it to be a 1968 production. While Uschi could be wrong — the reliability
of her website filmography is often questionable — it is entirely possible that
the more-common 1971 listing is due to the movie being confused with Mark
Hunter's 1971 even more trashy "crime" movie of the same name, The Big Snatch, a sleazy hardcore one-day wonder
so obscure we couldn't locate a poster online, assuming it had one (we could,
however, find the film itself at Classic Porn).
The artwork of the above Lady from L.U.S.T book was supplied by yet another unjustly unknown artist, Issac Paul Rader. Go here for more examples of his cover art women.
The "direction" of this Big Snatch movie here, a David Friedman production, is credited to one "Ronnie Runningboard", a pseudonym usually used by the obscure Dan Martin, whose short (known) career in Z-films included roles in five Byron Mabe (10 April 1932 – 13 May 2001) movies from 1968 and the direction of one other movie, The Mermaid (1973). Byron Mabe is generally considered The Big Snatch's co-director, while numerous online sources lacking documentation claim that Dan Martin was, at the time of his sleaze-film career, a deputy sheriff in Los Angeles, thus his use of a fake name.
The artwork of the above Lady from L.U.S.T book was supplied by yet another unjustly unknown artist, Issac Paul Rader. Go here for more examples of his cover art women.
The "direction" of this Big Snatch movie here, a David Friedman production, is credited to one "Ronnie Runningboard", a pseudonym usually used by the obscure Dan Martin, whose short (known) career in Z-films included roles in five Byron Mabe (10 April 1932 – 13 May 2001) movies from 1968 and the direction of one other movie, The Mermaid (1973). Byron Mabe is generally considered The Big Snatch's co-director, while numerous online sources lacking documentation claim that Dan Martin was, at the time of his sleaze-film career, a deputy sheriff in Los Angeles, thus his use of a fake name.
Trash Film Guru has the
"plot": "The Big Snatch centers
around the hare-brained scheme of two truck-driving yokels (ringleader Bart,
played by a guy calling himself 'Harry Chest,' and dim-witted sidekick Momo,
played by a guy calling himself — well, 'Momo') to kidnap five beautiful young
co-eds and turn them into their own personal low-rent harem. The gals spend a
pretty good chunk of the flick stuck inside a drained-out swimming pool, then
they all get raped in turn […] and then the industrious gals actually do
manage to effect an escape en masse, whereupon they immediately strangle
Momo to death before twisting and crushing Bart's cock with a pliers
and then tossing him down onto a dirty old mattress and 'gang raping' him
for about the final 30 minutes of the film, although I have no idea how his 'junior
member' was even supposed to be functioning by that point."
A
Scene from
The Big Snatch:
If this no-budget film enjoys any fame
at all, it is infamy. As the enjoyable sleazy blog Sleazy Pictures says,
"There are trashy movies and then there are movies so trashy the sleaze
goes right through the roof into the stratosphere. This is one of *those*
movies. It looks extremely cheap (not surprising since the budget was just 11
thousand dollars), has awful acting and photography and much of the time the
'rapes' seem a little too enjoyable for the 'victim,' but this is amusing
enough to pass the time, most of the females look good and there's a
mean-spirited twist at the end that's kind of good. Everyone was so embarrassed
by this they used fake names and the credits are hilarious. The cameraman is
'Otto Focus,' the sound was done by 'Less Noise' and the grip was 'Jim Nasium.'
[…] It's certainly worth a gander if you like this kind of stuff."
Expect a "twist" ending of the type only a man would think of (but then, the whole film is like that). Uschi, by the way, is credited as "Barbara Que"; former & forgotten Z-film nubile Peggy Church, of the fan-favorite The All-American Girl (1973 / spanky-spanky) and Bethel Buckalew's The Pig-Keeper's Daughter (1972 / trailer / full film), is credited as "Rita Book", and Jayne Tsentis as "Nancy Nice". Tracy Handfuss and one-shot Ginnie Kindall may have or may not have used their real names.
Expect a "twist" ending of the type only a man would think of (but then, the whole film is like that). Uschi, by the way, is credited as "Barbara Que"; former & forgotten Z-film nubile Peggy Church, of the fan-favorite The All-American Girl (1973 / spanky-spanky) and Bethel Buckalew's The Pig-Keeper's Daughter (1972 / trailer / full film), is credited as "Rita Book", and Jayne Tsentis as "Nancy Nice". Tracy Handfuss and one-shot Ginnie Kindall may have or may not have used their real names.
Peggy Church, as the movie's virgin,
is the focus of the movie's most infamous scene. As Don the Deviate once asked at
Something Weird on a now-deleted page, "Steamed
clams, anyone?": "Picture a pretty young virgin spread-eagled over
your car's over-heated radiator. The radiator cap is removed, the engine
revved, and boiling hot steam belches out of it creating one percolating pussy!
This is an image to conjure with, folks. And this is the image that'll stay
with you long after viewing The Big Snatch, a mean and nasty ultra-sexy
roughie from the era that made political incorrectness an art form."
And from the era when ugly men also did limp, full frontal nudity… which is found in many a film throughout Uschi's career.
And from the era when ugly men also did limp, full frontal nudity… which is found in many a film throughout Uschi's career.
The Kill
(1968,
dir. Gary Graver)
Aka Blood Hunger and, in a re-cut and shortened (from approx. 60 min to
45 min) version, Reservoir Cats. Written
and directed by the once-omnipresent Gary Graver (20 July 1938 - 16 Nov 2006),
a cinematographer cum scriptwriter cum director cum what-job-you-got? known for
working with only the best: Orson Welles, Fred Olan Ray, Albert Pyun, Tobe Hooper, Jim
Wynorski, Al Adamson, David DeCoteau, Curtis Harrington, Paul Hunt and way
more. As "Robert McCallum", Graver also had a productive career as a
director of hardcore porn.
The
Kill was produced by "the elusive Ed De Priest", and
somewhere in it Uschi shows up (un-credited) as a hitchhiker. The image below,
however, taken from Boopedia, is not
from the actual movie but is of the movie's actual "star", Antoinette
Maynard (aka Bonnie Fisher, Anna Lopez, Ann Toinette & Jane Weinstein [no relation to Harvey]).
Women in Prison Films, which caught Reservoir Cats, says: "This is a strange movie. It appears someone took an old 70s porno, cut it into a tit flick, and added hilarious voiceovers every now and then. If you want an action movie avoid this. If you want to see a tit flick with dialog so ridiculous it's funny then watch this."
Women in Prison Films, which caught Reservoir Cats, says: "This is a strange movie. It appears someone took an old 70s porno, cut it into a tit flick, and added hilarious voiceovers every now and then. If you want an action movie avoid this. If you want to see a tit flick with dialog so ridiculous it's funny then watch this."
A scene
from
The Kill:
Bleeding Skull, which
watched Blood Hunger, would probably
concur with WIP, as they say: "If Buster Keaton made a madcap sexploitation noir
about horny broads and cars that never run out of gas, this might be it.
Charlie Apple's voiceover is ripped straight out of an Ed Wood sleaze novel.
[…] My guess is that Graver didn't like the script and tried to salvage it with
a voiceover. And we're all better for it. Graver clearly had fun while making
this film, and maybe he was a little drunk, too. Blood Hunger makes little sense, but it doesn't matter. It's a solid
piece of entertainment that delivers. But what's most incredible about Blood Hunger is the soundtrack. The
sound effects used in the sex scenes include creaking doors, whirring wind,
bugle calls, extremely loud crickets, ragtime piano, grinding metal gears, and
the dreaded jazz flute. Pretty much every random sound effect is used in this
movie. So while Blood Hunger is fun
to watch, it's even more fun to listen to."
The plot of The Kill, as supplied by TCM: "Antoinette hires down-and-out Private Detective Charlie Apple (Walt Phillips of Erika's Hot Summer [1971 / Erika nude]) to find her brother Mickey after some of Mickey's associates, heroin smugglers, rape her for trying to persuade him to quit the racket. Antoinette gives Charlie a $100 retainer and seduces him. Charlie goes to Mickey's apartment and finds a dead woman there. Mickey arrives, and the two fight until Charlie is knocked out. He regains consciousness in the gangsters' warehouse and, discovering himself tied up, telephones Antoinette for help. She comes to the warehouse and frees Charlie; the gang returns; and they chase Charlie and Antoinette into a gravel pit. Antoinette is carried off while Charlie fights it out with one of the mob. Kruger, the gang leader, telephones Mickey and instructs him to kill Charlie. Mickey arranges to meet Kruger at a deserted beach where there will be a $1 million heroin delivery; he also sends Candy, his new mistress, to search Charlie's office. Charlie walks in while she is rifling his desk. He wins her confidence by making love to her, and she tells him of the beach rendezvous. Charlie goes to the beach, and there a violent showdown occurs."
The plot of The Kill, as supplied by TCM: "Antoinette hires down-and-out Private Detective Charlie Apple (Walt Phillips of Erika's Hot Summer [1971 / Erika nude]) to find her brother Mickey after some of Mickey's associates, heroin smugglers, rape her for trying to persuade him to quit the racket. Antoinette gives Charlie a $100 retainer and seduces him. Charlie goes to Mickey's apartment and finds a dead woman there. Mickey arrives, and the two fight until Charlie is knocked out. He regains consciousness in the gangsters' warehouse and, discovering himself tied up, telephones Antoinette for help. She comes to the warehouse and frees Charlie; the gang returns; and they chase Charlie and Antoinette into a gravel pit. Antoinette is carried off while Charlie fights it out with one of the mob. Kruger, the gang leader, telephones Mickey and instructs him to kill Charlie. Mickey arranges to meet Kruger at a deserted beach where there will be a $1 million heroin delivery; he also sends Candy, his new mistress, to search Charlie's office. Charlie walks in while she is rifling his desk. He wins her confidence by making love to her, and she tells him of the beach rendezvous. Charlie goes to the beach, and there a violent showdown occurs."
Among his many projects, Gary Graver
went on to also work on an occasional horror movie such as The Attic (1980 / trailer), Trick or
Treats (1982 / trailer), and Evil
Spirits (1990 / trailer).
Bedtime Surprise
(1968,
dir. Unknown)
Numerous websites claim the elusive
"Gunnar Steele" of Sappho,
Darling directed this movie; some even claim that Bedtime Surprise is actually an AKA title for Steele's earlier feature-length flick — but DVD Drive-In reveals
everything that is actually known about the stag short: "For anyone
who wants even MORE Uschi […] Uschi
Digart's Bedtime Surprise sees Uschi smothering a lucky bastard with her
bombastic mammaries and giving him a handjob before jumping astride him! It's
pretty graphic softcore stuff, with Uschi really doing a rough ride on the guy,
screaming and flipping her hair around, looking fabulous with her breasts
flopping out of her bustier! It's pretty damn funny, with great classical music
cues!"
Since it's a short, we normally
wouldn't include it in a career review of this ilk, but we figure it's as good of an
excuse as any to present a photo of Uschi modeling questionable fashionwear. Fashionwear
that, obviously enough, would be a perfect gift for your Trump-voting family
member. Righteous!
The Madam
(1969,
dir. Don Brown)
The book cover above and the movie at hand have nothing to do with each other, but we liked the cover art by Robert Bonfis so we thought we would use it, especially since we couldn't locate an "original" poster
to this cheap and pointless softcore one-day wonder. Previously thought lost,
The Madam has been rediscovered and repackaged with two other non-Uschi movies, L'amour de femme (1969 / film) and Take Them As They Are (1970), for
further exploitation. (See image below.) Uschi has relatively meaty if
un-credited role in The Madam as "Sissy".
DVD Drive-In, which says
that The Madam is "nothing
special, but to see yet another obscure Uschi film is still cause for some
celebration", has the "plot": "After her car breaks down,
Sissy hitches a ride with hippie biker John (Garrett Lambert), who takes her to
her mother's home. It turns out to be a very lavish whorehouse, where mom is
the Madam and Sissy oversees the girls. John samples the wares of Sally, a
buck-toothed cutie (Terri Johnson) with a huge bouffant wig, and since he can't
pay for a room for the night, he acts as bartender and auditions a prospective
prostitute in a very noisy and apparently drug-induced scene (!). Finally,
Sissy takes John for a spin in the bedroom and when Mom discovers the two, the
pair ride off into the sunset on his motorcycle. Ah, romance."
The iafd gushes, "Hot,
stacked, and always ready, watch Uschi's perfect tits and ass wiggle their way
through this action-packed feature!" But over at the imdb, lor of New York, that great connoisseur of porn, is less easily satisfied: "It's one
of her least interesting titles. […] The simulated sex is desultory […] Resulting
film is the typical mish-mash of fairly convincing cunnilingus scenes, very
fake fellatio simulation, and the dirty feet on screen to prove they were in a
big hurry to wrap this up. Both men and women display full frontal nudity, the
sign of 'quality' for 1969."
In real life, the hippie biker "John", or Garrett Lambert, now hawks self-help stuff. Retired
from smut by 1971, he resurfaced briefly in 2005 to appear in the truly
terrible direct-to-video cheapie, The
Horror Within.
Roughly
3 minutes of Garrett Lambert
in
a terrible D2V flick:
The Ribald Tales of Robin Hood
(1969,
dir. Richard Kanter & Erwin C. Dietrich)
Aka The Erotic Adventures of Robin Hood. A David F. Friedman production
that the great Erwin C. Dietrich (4 Oct
1930 – 15 March 2018) eventually brought to German-speaking Europe as Robin Hood und seine lüsternen Mädchen.
Watch
the
Full
Movie:
Though not [currently] listed on her list of credits at the imdb, Uschi has this movie in her
filmography at her website. According
to various sites, including Cinemorgue Wiki, she is
indeed there: As Robin's mother, she is "strangled
by one of Lawrence Adams' soldiers in the castle. (Nudity alert: Topless.)" According to the imdb, however, Robin's mom is played by "Barbara Sanders"
— and, indeed, Robin's mom in the film does not look at all like Uschi.
The advertisement below, like so many ads used in this blog series, was found at Cinema Treasures.
In yet another typical case of online sources supplying
conflicting info, emovieposter says
Uschi Digard is billed as "Ingrid Young", whom the imdb claims is Robin's sister. But
again, Robin's sister does not look at all like Uschi, either.The advertisement below, like so many ads used in this blog series, was found at Cinema Treasures.
So, though we don't know where Uschi
is, and in fact doubt that she is even there, we do know that Lynn Cartwright, the switchboard operator of The Wasp Woman (1959),
is there as "Danielle Carver" playing Lady Sallyforth; Bambi Allen
(of H.G. Lewis's Miss
Nymphet's Zap-In [1970] and so much
more) is also on hand as Polly. Noteworthy: as mentioned in
Jerry L. Schneider's book The
True Story of Ray "Crash" Corrigan, Ray "Crash" Corrigan (14 Feb 1902 – 10 Aug 1976, of The Monster Maker [1944]) is there for his first appearance in an "X" movie playing
Robin's Dad, billed as "Ray Benard". (Saying "first
appearance", of course, implies he made more such movies, which we don't think he did — and, really,
this softcore movie is not X-rated as we know it.)
As so often, TCM has the plot: "While King Richard is imprisoned by the Normans, his evil brother John (Lawrence Adams) usurps the throne and wreaks pillage, rape, and oppressive taxation on the populace. John and his men forcibly enter the castle of young Robin's father and kill the Earl (Ray "Benard" Corrigan) when he refuses to pledge allegiance. Young Robin (Scott Sizemore) watches the brutes rape and kill his mother, and he vows revenge against John and his band. Five years later young Robin is known as Robin Hood (Ralph Jenkins), champion of the common people, and he has cleverly resisted John's attempts to capture him. Lady Sallyforth, the sister of John and Richard who has allied herself with John, sends Maid Marion (Dee Lockwood), Robin Hood's childhood sweetheart, into Sherwood Forest to lure Robin Hood out of the forest. Robin Hood's men take Maid Marion to their leader, and the lovers are reunited. Marion relates to Robin Hood the evil king's efforts to capture him; and Robin allows himself to be captured. He confronts John and leads his men in a spirited battle in which John is killed and his allies subdued, thus restoring Richard to the throne. [Film may include scenes of nudity, sexual intercourse, fellatio, and torture.]"
As so often, TCM has the plot: "While King Richard is imprisoned by the Normans, his evil brother John (Lawrence Adams) usurps the throne and wreaks pillage, rape, and oppressive taxation on the populace. John and his men forcibly enter the castle of young Robin's father and kill the Earl (Ray "Benard" Corrigan) when he refuses to pledge allegiance. Young Robin (Scott Sizemore) watches the brutes rape and kill his mother, and he vows revenge against John and his band. Five years later young Robin is known as Robin Hood (Ralph Jenkins), champion of the common people, and he has cleverly resisted John's attempts to capture him. Lady Sallyforth, the sister of John and Richard who has allied herself with John, sends Maid Marion (Dee Lockwood), Robin Hood's childhood sweetheart, into Sherwood Forest to lure Robin Hood out of the forest. Robin Hood's men take Maid Marion to their leader, and the lovers are reunited. Marion relates to Robin Hood the evil king's efforts to capture him; and Robin allows himself to be captured. He confronts John and leads his men in a spirited battle in which John is killed and his allies subdued, thus restoring Richard to the throne. [Film may include scenes of nudity, sexual intercourse, fellatio, and torture.]"
At All Movie, Dan
Pavlides points out that "Sherwood Forest in medieval times is the scene
of the erotic and exotic story of Robin Hood and his merry men and women. The
reason everyone is so merry is they spend the live-long day and night engaging
in their favorite sexual experiences including sadism, lesbianism and
homosexuality. Strictly an exploitation feature with crude jokes and nudity
galore."
The Master Beater
(1969,
writ & dir. Charles Carmello)
Aka Hot Sex Tramp, Masterbeater
and The Dirty Hawk, this is
seemingly Charles Carmello's only directorial effort. He
may or may not have gone on to become a playwright and novelist. This
B&W artsploitation roughie is the feature-film debut of John Savage (of Alien Lockdown / Creature [2004]
and American Strays [1996]), and also features Uschi somewhere (billed either as "Sherry" or "Ursula", we don't know) as a model, we
assume nude.
One Sheet Index, which lists the movie as from 1965, has the plot: "[…]
Known as the Master Beater he was a cold and brutal man. His only
purpose in life was to inflict pain and degradation on his fellow man. The
Master Beater was an expert exploiter of human weaknesses. The Master Beater
could make a man sell his wife for a bag of powdered dreams. The Master Beater could
inflict upon women the most unbelievable pain and they would ask for more. No
woman could resist the overpowering evil of the Master Beater. The Master
Beater would allow no woman to sleep with a man not even her husband unless her
price was high and he received half. To the Master Beater life had no meaning
without the joy of violence and the pleasure of pain mixed with beauty of pure
depravity. To those the Master Beater loved he would take into his private
world of love and pain. And to those the Master Beater hates he kills and kills
and kills."
The newspaper advertisement above features Gerard Damiano's mostly forgotten early sex film Teenie Tulip (1970 / film), which, like The Master Beater, was produced distributed by Cinex Film Industries and distributed by Cinex International Film Distributors. It is relatively easy to assume that the unknown second feature in the advertisement, The Master, might well be The Master Beater.
The newspaper advertisement above features Gerard Damiano's mostly forgotten early sex film Teenie Tulip (1970 / film), which, like The Master Beater, was produced distributed by Cinex Film Industries and distributed by Cinex International Film Distributors. It is relatively easy to assume that the unknown second feature in the advertisement, The Master, might well be The Master Beater.
The Game Is Sex
(1969,
dir. Harry Wuest)
Aka The Game Is Set, The Game of
Sex, and (in Germany) Im Bett der
nackten Schwestern (i.e., "In the Bed of the Naked Sisters"). Released
by William Mishkin Motion Pictures, which, along with some of the other names
involved, would indicate that this seems to be a NYC exploiter. That makes
Uschi's appearance somewhere in the movie somewhat odd, but she does have it
listed on her website. She's
billed as "H. Sohl".
In any event, the movie is not based
on the sixties sleaze book of the same name, which we present below only
because it has great cover art — and because one of the depicted guys looks just like
William Shatner, whom some of you out there might know from the great Roger Corman message movie, The Intruder (1962).
Director Harry Wuest may not exactly have
a common name, but we doubt that this Wuest is the same Wuest as the now
deceased musician Harry Wuest. But, as
they say, who knows.
To loosely translate what is written
at the German website Kino, "Im Bett der nackten Schwestern ["In
the Bed of the Naked Sisters"] is a (s)exploitation film about two different
sisters who are destroyed by their respective relationships with the same man.
Andre (Michael J. Canavan) writes for TV and seems
to be an extremely imaginative guy. After a huge fight with his lover Irene
('Irene Rosetti'), who accuses him of not allowing her to have a life of her
own, she splits for spontaneous vacation alone. Andre's secretary Nancy (Susana March), who is also Irene's sister, is more than
willing to take Irene's place in Andre's bed in the meantime. Over the course
of time, Andre continues to pursue a double relationship — until one of the
sisters commits suicide." (A rather tame plot description in comparison to
the one found at TCM.)
Rob Craig mentions
in his book Gutter Auteur: The Films of
Andy Milligan, "Director Harry Wuest went on to make the fabulously
deranged She Mob (1968 / poker scene),
considered one of the most outré low-budget sexploitation films ever
lensed." (Poster below.)
The actress "Irene Rosetti" is actually one Irene DeBari, a former Joseph W. Sarno film regular — she's found in Scarf of Mist Thigh of Satin (1967), The Sex Cycle (1967), Anything for Money (1967), Come Ride the Wild Pink Horse (1967), Bed of Violence (1967), Deep Inside (1968), The Wall of Flesh (1968), and Passion in Hot Hollows (1969 / scene / full film) — who's still active today as a character and stage actress.
The actress "Irene Rosetti" is actually one Irene DeBari, a former Joseph W. Sarno film regular — she's found in Scarf of Mist Thigh of Satin (1967), The Sex Cycle (1967), Anything for Money (1967), Come Ride the Wild Pink Horse (1967), Bed of Violence (1967), Deep Inside (1968), The Wall of Flesh (1968), and Passion in Hot Hollows (1969 / scene / full film) — who's still active today as a character and stage actress.
The Scavengers
Aka Ambush, The Grabbers &
Rebel Vixens — and a few other names.
Written by Bob Cresse (19 June 1936 – 6 April 1998). A mid-career disasterpiece of sleaze from two
exploitation greats, Lee Frost (14 Aug 1935 - 25 May 2007) and Bob Cresse, who went on to regurgitate some truly
influential movies, the most infamous of which is surely the woman-in-prison
film, Love Camp 7 (1969 / trailer).
Two years after the initial release of The Scavengers, it was re-edited and,
with new hardcore sex scenes added, re-released as The Grabbers. In 1970, however, still as The Scavangers, it played second fiddle to Van Guylder's The Bang-Bang Gang (1970 / film) at the Michigan Theatre. And who can forget the Hues Corporation?
Rock
the Boat:
TCM, as always, has the most comprehensive plot description: "Confederate Capt. Steven Harris (John Bliss) and 10 survivors from the Army of Tennessee who are assigned to rob a Union gold shipment being delivered to the Army of the Potomac and scheduled to pass through the town of Tazewell, proceed with their plans, unaware that the Civil War has ended. The men invade Tazewell, take over a saloon, shoot the bartender, and lock up the prostitutes. Harris tortures Union Lieutenant Nelson (Warren James) and learns that no gold will be shipped, the truce having been signed. Harris tries unsuccessfully to rape Faith (Maria Lease), Nelson's fiancée, and he gives Faith's Negro maid, Nancy (Roda Spain), to his men for their own sport. Nancy kills one of the men with a knitting needle and flees to nearby Everett, a Negro tent city founded by freed slaves. The liberated slaves attack the rebels with a vengeance…"
10K Bullets may lament that although "The brothel scene is one of the highlights, then the busty bar girls, including Uschi Digart, vanish away upstairs for the rest of the film", they nevertheless offer praise for the movie: "Despite prior output by the team of director Lee Frost and writer Bob Cresse, this is not sexploitation. The nudity is mostly obscured and the rape scenes are not meant to be titillating. Shootouts are well-staged, and though the fistfights obviously pull punches, the action is fast and furious (and therefore screen time is brief). The script is actually quite good and not only contains some delirious exchanges of dialog, but the conclusion is both memorable and thought-provoking."
Has nothing to do with the film —
The Scavengers play
But if You're Happy:
But if You're Happy:
The actress playing Faith, Maria Lease, also found in Al Adamson's fun trash classic
Dracula Vs. Frankenstein (1971), went on to a short career
directing mostly porno films, but in 1991 she did toss out one non-porn horror
flick, Dolly Dearest (trailer).
Trailer to
The Scavengers:
The Scavengers:
The Cut-Throats
(1969,
writ. & dir. John Hayes)
Aka Cut-Throat KommandoSS. New York-born John Hayes (1 March 1930 - 21
Aug 2000), who wrote and directed The
Cut-Throats, had a long and varied exploitation career (writer, director,
editor, producer, and occasional actor). Long six feet under, he has yet to see
his intriguing oeuvre be reappraised. One of his early projects, the short film
The Kiss (1958, see further below),
was even nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film (it
lost out to Walt Disney's The Grand
Canyon [full film]).
Full short —
The Kiss (1958):
The Kiss (1958):
In this, The Cut-Throats, one of his mid-career grindhouse projects, he
turned to the ever-popular genre Nazisploitation and made a low-rate, five-guy
version of The Dirty Dozen (1967 /
trailer). Uschi,
in an un-credited role, pops up to play the "German General's
Secretary". (That's her below, proving that typing is not a necessity when
it comes to being a good secretary.)
Fuckshit! — The Home Video Review says,
"[…] It's time to talk about the Third Eye Cinema muses, "Are there really films with no purpose to exist? No plot, no characterization, nothing but a few naked and willing girls and a few uniforms from the prop department? Apparently so, as Hayes delivers a plotless, pointless, nearly dialogue-free waste of good celluloid […]. Nobody even tries to act, which is unsurprising given that there may be about a double-spaced page worth of lines in the film […]. Interestingly, Hayes makes the American soldiers ten times more unsympathetic than their Nazi opponents!"
Despite this, or maybe specifically
because of it, Rock! Shock! Pop! still
thinks that "[…] the movie remains an enjoyable slice of trashy drive-in
style cinematic sex and violence. It's filled to the brim with potholes,
historical inaccuracies and wonderful breasts. As such, it's worth seeing. Oh
and if that weren't enough, Sandy Carey pops up here too."
"Pops up" is what she does
indeed, as "Blonde selling a Painting", in what could be her
feature-film debut. Carey (aka Sandee Carey, Alva Harris, Lois Klinger, Geri
Sheraton, Sylvia Duval, Sandra Carey, Sandi Carey, Daisy Lay) had a roughly
10-year-long career in exploitation and sex films, and seems to have left the
biz after a non-sex scene in Debbie Duz
Dishes III (1987 / full NSFW film). Among
her films of note are some oddities like the first fembot movie ever made, Too Much Loving aka Robot Love Slaves (1971 / full NSFW film), Eric Jeffrey Haims' softcore porn horror The Jekyll and Hyde Portfolio (1971
/ full film), the
porn horror The Psychiatrist (1978),
Perry Dell's comedy Deep Jaws (1976
/ scene), William
A. Levey's Wham! Bam! Thank You Spaceman! (1975
/ trailer), Al
Adamson's The Naughty Stewardesses (1974
/ trailer), Stewart Malleon's inept The Curse of the Alpha Stone (1972), Gary Graver's And When She Was Bad... (1973 / scene), The Amorous Adventures of Don Quixote and
Sancho Panza (1976, with Haji), Stu Segall's anti-classic Drive-In Massacre (1976 / trailer), Time Walker (1982 / trailer), and
more.
6.10 Minutes of
The Cut-Throat KommandoSS:
The Marauders
Not to be
confused with MGM's 1955 western of the same name — poster above — featuring everyone's favorite
bad guy Dan Duryea (23 Jan 1907 - 7 June 1968, of The Burglar [1957]). Nor should it be confused with the even earlier Hopalong Cassidy movie (1947) of the same name, aka King of the Range, poster and film below.
Hopalong Cassidy in
The Marauders:
The plot given everywhere is as follows: "Four Californian girls on holidays decide to travel south of the border. Mexican marauders capture them in a secluded hut, and the holiday develops in an unpleasant manner for the girls."
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