Dementia — is it art or is
it exploitation? Or proof that a film can be both in one?At little less
than an hour in length, this short movie is perhaps the longest "short
film" we've ever presented — but Dementia
/ Daughter of Horror is one our favorite films here at a wasted life, and
we think it's time to finally give it the honor.
Prior to [Re]Search's seminal book Incredibly Strange Films (1986), this
movie, an obvious labor of love by the unknown filmmaker John J. Parker, Jr., was
pretty much forgotten by the world. Now, over 30 years later, thanks to the
Internet and the plethora of obscure-film lovers with time on their hands, this
oft-maligned surreal mini-masterpiece is hardly forgotten and rather well-documented
— its reputation is no longer merely that of the film everyone's laughing at
when the blob attacks the movie theatre audience in the original version of The Blob
(1958).
Wikipedia has the core details: "Dementia
is a 1955 American black-and-white experimental horror film produced, written,
and directed by John Parker, and starring Adrienne Barrett and Bruno Ve Sota (25
Mar 1922 — 24 Sept 1976, of Attack
of the Giant Leeches [1959], The
Wasp Woman [1959], A
Bucket of Blood [1959] and so much more). The film, which contains no
dialogue, follows a young woman's nightmarish experiences during a single night
in Los Angeles's skid row. Stylistically, it incorporates elements of horror,
film noir, and expressionist film. Dementia
was conceived as a short film by writer-director Parker and was based on a
dream relayed to him by his secretary, Barrett. He cast Barrett in the film,
along with Ve Sota, and ultimately decided to expand it into a longer feature.
The film received a troubled release, being banned in 1953 by the New York
State Film Board before finally being released in December 1955. It was later
acquired by Jack H. Harris (28 Nov
1918 – 14 March 2017) [the producer of The Blob
and other fun stuff], who edited it and incorporated voice-over narration by
Ed McMahon before re-releasing it in 1957 under the title Daughter of Horror."
Personally, we
always found the B&W cinematography of Dementia
particularly noteworthy — and a far cry from what one might expect, seeing who held
the camera: cinematographer William
C. Thompson (30 Mar 1889 – 22 Oct 1963), photo above from Tar & Feather's, a man best remembered — if
remembered at all nowadays — as the cinematographer of the Ed Wood Jr
disasterpieces Plan 9 (1957 / trailer), Glen or Glenda (1953 / full masterpiece), Bride of the Monster (1955 / trailer), Jail
Bait (1954), The Sinister Urge
(1960 / trailer) and Night of the Ghouls (1959 / full movie), as well as
his short Final
Curtain (1957 — our Short Film of
the Month for March 2019). Other films of note include Dwain Esper's breathtaking roadshow "horror" film (and imperative viewing) Maniac
(1934) and other fun precode independent trash product like Esper's Marihuana (1936 / trailer), Crane Wilbur's
Tomorrow's Children (1934 / full film) and High School Girl (1934), and W. Merle
Connell's The Devil's Sleep (1949 / trailer). Allegedly either
colorblind or missing an eye (the legend varies, or is completely missing,
depending on which website you read), Thompson exploitation roots were set with
his first film job, the "drama" Absinthe
(1914).
For Dementia, for a change
Thompson seems to have pulled out the creative stops and gone arty. Much like the
music, which was arty from the start, as it is by the influential American
avant-garde composer George Antheil (8 July 1900 – 12 Feb 1959), with vocal
gymnastics by the great Marni Nixon (22 Feb 1930 – 24 July 2016), whom some
might know as the singing voice of Deborah Kerr in The King and I (1956
/ trailer), Natalie
"Doesn't Float" Wood in West Side Story (1961 / trailer), and Audrey
Hepburn in the shitty film that is My Fair Lady (1964 / trailer).
Dementia is a great film,
and a mysterious one. Ignoring the questions of interpretation that the surreal
narrative opens, the project itself raises many questions. Why did director John
J. Parker, Jr., decide to suddenly make a film, this film? And why, after such a unique
blast of creativity, did he never again get involved in another film project? Who
exactly was John J. Parker, Jr., and whatever happened to him? Ditto with his secretary Adrienne
Barrett, for that matter…
Adrienne
Barrett will probably remain a mystery, but at least some
questions have been answered over the years about John J. Parker, Jr., if sketchily… for example, what the AFI Catalog
writes opens as many questions as it answers: "Producer-writer-director John
Parker, whose only onscreen credit is 'A John Parker Production,' was the son
of prominent film exhibitors, and Dementiawas his only
feature-length production. Parker made a short film, based on a nightmare
experienced by his secretary, Adrienne Barrett, and used it to obtain funding
to produce Dementia. Barrett starred in the feature film, which
was co-produced by fellow actors Bruno Ve Sota and Ben Roseman. Although Dementia,
which was shot partially on location in Venice, CA, was produced in 1953, it
encountered serious censorship difficulties and was not released until 1955."
In regard to the
censorship problems, DVD Savant
explains: "[Parker] did submit the movie over ten times to the
New York censors between 1953 and 1955, only to be refused a license for
exhibition due to its horror content. Their gripe sheet includes just about
every forbidden item in the Code: Although only a fairly grim dismemberment is
depicted, the implications of the film cover prostitution, pimping, police
corruption, adultery, incest (maybe) and heroin addiction. The censors demanded
the deletion of practically every event in the film. Commercially, Dementia
went exactly nowhere."
And what did
the NY Censors think? Well, according to Thrilling Days of
Yesterday — which thinks 'Dementia is not a particularly
good movie. […] But it's a movie well worth checking out at
least once for the simple reason that no movie title better describes its
contents than this one.' — one of the board wrote: "This six-reeler is a cinematographic attempt at the pictorial
translation of some notions engendered by a sick brain. The attempt
has produced a film which overflows with horror, hopelessness, strong sadism,
violent acts of terror, and outbursts of panic. Its characters, who
all move about like the vagrant phantasms of dreams, do not speak. The
sound track is nevertheless alive with a line of musical commentary ranging
from sour lyricism to noisy pathos…"
Thrilling Days of
Yesterdayalso mentions
that "Dementia sprung from
the ambitious mind of John J. Parker, the son of a family who owned a chain of
theatres. Parker had a bit more motivation beyond just distributing
other people's movies — he wanted to make them on his own, and one of his first
projects was a thirteen-minute short entitled Citizen Clute (1951), devised to be a TV pilot starring
legendary character veteran Chester Clute. […]
When you have money, you'd be surprised at how much pull you can exert in any
industry — and such was the case with John J.; he was able to secure an office
inside Samuel Goldwyn Studios in Hollywood and start what would become his
production company (J.J. Parker Productions, Inc.) and his only directorial
effort (Dementia)." Citizen Clute (1951), in any
event, was screened in Portland by the "pioneer Oregon theatreman"
John J. Parker, Jr., in 1951 [Archive.org]
and is now, presumably, a lost film.
It seems somehow fitting that one of the few known screenings of Dementia, on a double bill with a documentary on Pablo Picasso, was at New York's legendary 55th Street Playhouse. Among the many films of note that cinema screened before becoming history is nothing less than the legendary (and lost) gay porn film...
It is easy to
see why the sequel to 2013's The Purge enjoys greater popularity
than its predecessor. It's not because it's a better film — it's not, if you're
looking for a movie with a message — but it is definitely a more traditional
action cum horror movie of the hunt-the-human genre begun with, dunno, the
first version of The Most Dangerous Game
(1932 / complete film).
Whereas the first Purge movie, one
much more in the tradition of the home-invasion flick, still spent energy on
the somewhat didactic exploration of the philosophical question of complacency
and compliancy, The Purge: Anarchy,
having the advantage of a pre-built context and world, might still offer a few
superficial head-nods to one or the other unpunctuated semi-questions regarding
guilt and morality, but is really far more interested in simply being a
well-made survive-the-night action movie that follows a checklist of scenes.
This time around, however, the narrative moves through the lower echelons of a
society that is, perhaps, but a few goosesteps away from what America could
easily become and, to an extent, already is.
Trailer to The
Purge: Anarchy
In Purge: Anarchy, instead of a well-to-do
neoliberal family confronted by a system they make money from, we are given a
variety of salt-of-the-earth individuals with just enough generic background story to allow us to
find points of identification in them. We have the hardworking, single-mom Eva
(Carmen Ejogo of It Comes at Night
[2017 / trailer]) and
her daughter Cali (Kielo Sanchez), the mom doomed to the minimum wage, ends-never-meet
life familiar to so many in the US. First the two are confronted by the an unexpected
Purge-related personal tragedy, and then by macho sexual entitlement, before the
real reason (i.e., the governmental conspiracy to cull the lower classes)
forces them onto the streets on Purge Night. Then we meet Shane (Zach Gilford of
The Last Stand [2013 / trailer] and The Last Winter [2006 / trailer]) and Liz (Kiele
Sanchez of A Perfect Getaway [2009 /
trailer]), a young married couple
on the brink of separation who, for some odd reason, are still underway two
hours before lockdown and get stuck downtown when their sabotaged car breaks
down. And finally, we meet Sergeant (Frank Grillo of Hell on the Border [2019 / trailer] and the Wes
Craven car wreck known as My Soul to
Take [2010 / trailer]),
a former cop and man of some means who functions as movie's unbelievable dues-ex-machina
character: he gets distracted from his personal mission of revenge, the killing
of the drunk driver who killed his son, and ends up the unwilling leader of the
motley group as they make their way through the murderous masses and insanities
of the after hours. And as the five do plod onwards, people drop left and right around them, but the quintet proves harder
to kill than you or we would probably be.
Good set pieces,
horrifically fun costumes, (predictably) unpredictable twists and a lot of
shooting propels the movie forward, keeping the viewer tensed and on the edge
of the seat despite the occasional unsatisfying turn (like not seeing what
happens to the Grand Dame [Judith McConnell of The Doll Squad (1973 / trailer), The Thirsty Dead (1973 / full movie) and The Brotherhood of Satan (1971 / trailer)] that Sergeant
lets run). The end result: a tense film, a fun film, a mostly intellectually
empty film that jettisons much of the first's message and offers well-made and
well-timed entertainment following a familiar pattern… and a groaner of an
ending meant to underscore the Sarge's own personal redemption.
If there is a
message to the movie, it might be that aside from the upper echelons feeding
from the lower, all echelons are capable of being infected by such a moral and
social rot that, in the end, the average person has little if any humanity left
within them. After all, it is our right to be fuckwads, as per the
Constitution. In Purge: Anarchy, it
is not just the rich that are out to destroy the lower classes, the poor are cannibalizing
themselves as well, with those that simply want to survive, to live, are at
victim of both. The America shown in the movie, an America that is oddly
familiar in so many ways, is a society and a nation that is too sick to ever be
great [again], in part because it's a society and a nation that prefers to
ignore its own illness.
Some
years ago, director Marcel
Sarmiento directed the disturbingly odd and transgressive, blackly humorous
horror flick, Deadgirl (2008 / trailer), which, due to its decidedly exploitation-film
elements, arguably upset too many people to ever find a mainstream audience or
general popularity. Totem, his first
feature-length directorial project since then, is far more standard in its
supernatural horror narrative than the zombie sexual horror of Deadgirl, but nevertheless also manages,
at the end, to suddenly slip in a quick dash of disturbing sexuality that succeeds
in putting the viewer uncomfortably on edge — far more than most of the movie's
extremely traditional horror elements that precede the unexpected resolution. Despite
being far more accessible on the whole than Deadgirl, Totem pretty
much tanked when released and quickly slid into oblivion.
Totem opens with a shock and a splash, though
the event shown should probably have been more clearly marked as occurring
prior to the rest of the movie. But soon enough the viewer realizes that the opening
violent death is that of the mother — and thus a tale unfolds that is hardly
new: a few years later, just when daddy James (James Tupper of Beneath Us [2019 / trailer]) decides that the time has come for his artist
girlfriend Robin (Ahna O'Reilly of Sleepwalker
[2017 / trailer]) to move in and join the family, his
decidedly non-chill oldest daughter Kellie (Kerris Dorsey), who has pretty much
taken over the maternal role within the family, is suddenly confronted by a
seemingly evil presence out to harm the family. Thus family drama meets supernatural
horror as Kellie tries to discover the what and the why of the dangers her
family now faces.
Whether the inter-familial drama and difficulties
resulting from daddy moving on or Kellie's realization and exploration of the
sudden appearance of the supernatural threat, the elements of the plot are
indeed nothing new. What saves the movie is the convincing acting and surprisingly tightly drawn characters — the latter is particularly
noteworthy, for none are really fleshed out enough for them to be as convincing
and "real" as they are. True, Kellie's high-school sports background
is given some focus, but what dad does other than being daddy (e.g., how he
puts bacon on the table, for example) is never broached, and while Robin is
said to be an artist and even moves her sculptures into the house, she never
seems to be actively creative. They, like the youngest daughter Abby (Lia
McHugh of The Lodge [2019 / trailer]), all simply agitate within the setting, coming forward as
needed, but are also far more present as people than the sketchiness of their
respective part should allow. Ditto with, Kellie's boyfriend Todd (Braeden Lemasters of The Stepfather [2009 / trailer]), who is
never anything more than an unnaturally understanding and perfect boyfriend,
even if he does now and then assist in advancing the plot (e.g., he is the
source that explains exactly what a totem is, and how it could be the source of
the supernatural threat). Nevertheless, he like every other stock character of
the tale is acted with such conviction that he achieves a presence that makes
his final fate all the more tragic — although the movie's twist also makes him
obvious fodder in retrospect.
It is arguable whether Totem deserves its ignominiously quick fate of total obscurity, for
despite its by-the-numbers plot development, Totem manages to be as surprisingly involving as it is well-acted,
far more so than many a far more popular horror movie. Likewise, while most of
the shocks and special effects do lean towards the cheap and cheesy, the final
money shot(s) don't lack in punch and effective realism, not to mention some
cringe-inducing ick-factor moments of
icky sexuality. Totem is an entirely watchable movie.
In the end, however, the mainstream mediocrity of the
first two-thirds of Totem
overshadows the final shocks and the sucker-punch of the unexpected socially
transgressive twist so important to the movie's resolution. This, in turn,
substantially mitigates the movie's overall effectiveness — especially since
that once the twist is revealed, certain prior events (like the fate of the cat)
no longer make any sense. Totem may
never bore, but despite its ability to hold the viewer's interest and the violence
and ick-factor arising in its final
moments, on the whole Totem feels
more like a surprisingly good pay-TV movie than a feature film.
Let's hear it
for Marilyn Joi. Between 1972 and 1989, this Babe of Yesteryear made indelible as well as blink-and-you-miss-her
appearances in a variety of fondly remembered, unjustly forgotten, or gladly overlooked
grindhouse products. But fame (and non-fame) is a fickle thing, especially in the nether
regions of exploitation movies, and although Ms. Joi always exuded a memorable presence
and has some notable films in her resume, she never became a "name" —
hell's bells, more people know the name Jean Bell than they do Marilyn Joi,* although Joi arguably displayed far greater
thespian talent, far more variety of facial expression, and definitely appeared
in a larger number of noteworthy movies. Indeed, "Joi brought variety and
a measure of depth to her big and small screen performances. She never walked
through a role and she knew the meaning of nuance. She could be a bad girl, a
traditional action film heroine, or a light comedienne of considerable charm.
[Bob McCann in Encyclopedia of African
American Actresses in Film and Television]"
To that, we might add that
she had a killer figure and she was sexy, and she had fabulous eyes.
*Perhaps due in part to
Ms. Bell's status of being one of the first Afro-American women to get nekkid
in Playboy, while Ms. Joi only did
cheesecake for race-specific publications like Players, "the Black Playboy". (Although, according to
Ms. Joi, "I did do some [nude] pictures, but they were never published. I'm
sure they're floating around somewhere."**) The original photo of the above altered image— found at Pulp International — is actually a
cover photo from Players. Players
deemed Marilyn "America's Favorite Black Poster Girl" in 1980 and,
two years later, voted her one of "America's Ten Sexiest Black Women"
— and she was.
**Quote taken from an
informative interview published in Shock Cinema #16 in 2000, which can be found at the Internet Archives. We make extensive
use of that interview in the following blog entry. For those of you who don't
know Shock Cinema, it is one of the best magazines around,
particularly for people who waste their lives reading sites like this one. Check it out, buy an
issue — you'll love it!
A beautiful and bubbly Marilyn Joi interviewed:
"Marilyn
Joi" was born 22 May 1945 in New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana, USA.
Her full real name is not general knowledge, though her real first name seems
to be "Mary"; on screen, she was at times also credited as Tracy
King, Tracy Ann King, T.A. King and even Anita King. She is alive and well and (unlike
us) on twitter. A true Babe of
Yesteryear, her film career was much too short and she is unjustly unknown
— which is why we here at a wasted life have decided to take one
of our typically meandering and unfocused looks at her filmography. If it's
even more meandering and unfocused than usual, well, in this was researched and written while on coronavirus
lockdown and we had more time on our hands.
As always, we
make no guarantee that anything we write is 100% correct (feel free to tell us
where we're wrong — preferably in a non-trolly tone of voice). And if we missed
a film, let us know…
Hammer
(1972, dir. Bruce D. Clark)
"Women are like buses. Miss one, catch
another."
Hammer (Fred Williamsom)
Marilyn Joi,
credited as "Tracy King", made her film debut in a minuscule but
noticeable role in this lesser classic from the early years of the Golden Age
of Blaxploitation, a movie that is perhaps most notable now for having truly
launched the film career of Fred "The Hammer" Williamson, seen below
playing with a pussy (not from the movie).
Joi, seen below
from the movie, was working as a dancer when, as she explains it, "[Hammer] just sort of fell on me,
really. I was dancing, and someone came into the club and asked me, 'Do you
want to be in a movie?' I was like, Yeah, right, sure!' (Laughs) That was Al
Adamson, and he wanted me to do a dance [in the movie] with Vonetta McGee. [Shock
Cinema #16]" As one might infer by the screenshot below, Joi does
an S&M-themed strip show.
With Hammer, Al Adamson (25 July 1929 – 2
Aug 1995) acted only as a producer for a change, which might explain why the
film displays somewhat greater directorial skill than most of his productions
tend to: the New Zealand-born, now long-inactive director Bruce D. Clark — see:
the trash anti-classic Galaxy of Terror
(1981 / trailer) and
the snoozer The Ski Bum (1971, with Zalman
King /
trailer) — may not have exactly been directorially talented, but his style
definitely displayed greater mundane workmanship than Adamson's ever did. The
screenplay is the first credited screenplay of Charles Eric Johnson, who went
on to do a variety a blaxploitation films, the most famous being Slaughter's Big Rip-off (1973 / trailer), as well as the
psychotronically fun Eddie Romero flick, Beyond
Atlantis (1973 / trailer).
Trailer to
Hammer:
The plot to this
"pretty decent slice of gritty 70's cinema [but] not something I would
classify as an essential piece of blaxploitation cinema": "B.J.
Hammer (Williamson) is a past-his-prime former boxer working the warehouse
district of L.A. when he is fired after wiping the floor with a racist
co-worker. Word of his fighting skills reach the ears of mafia-connected boxing
promoter Big Sid (Charles Lampkin [17 Mar 1913 – 17 Apr 1989] of Five [1951 / trailer] and The Black Godfather [1974 / trailer]), who brings
Hammer into his corner under the watchful eye of legit trainer the Professor
(Mel Stewart [19 Sept 1929 – 24 Feb 2002] of The Bride of Re-Animator [1990 / trailer] and the film
version of Iceberg Slim's
Trick Baby [1972 / trailer]). Things look
great for the boxer as he works his way through a series of victorious fights
and he begins a relationship with Sid's secretary Lois (Vonetta McGee [14 Jan
1945 – 9 July 2010] of The Big Silence [1968]), but he
begins to get some blow back from the neighborhood, who accuse the fighter of
selling out to the Man. Furthermore, local cop Davis (Bernie Hamilton) is after
Sid, who is dabbling in the drug trade. While Hammer initially refuses to
believe his new employer is corrupt, his attitude changes when Sid demands he
take a dive during the next big fight. Crushed by the request, Hammer
refuses to take the dive but Sid's right-hand man Brenner, played by 70s baddie
William Smith, threatens to kill Lois. [McBastard's Mausoleum]"
The fab
soundtrack — is there even a blaxploitation film out there that has a bad
soundtrack? — is from Solomon
Burke (21 March 1936 or 1940 – 10 Oct 2010).
Solomon Burke's Hammer:
"There isn't
much to Hammer than what you would find in your average
blaxploitation. If anything, the film pretty much goes through the motions
without too much fuss. There's the obligatory slayings, the soft-focus sex
scenes, the kitschy '70s-esque jive-talking, and the good-hearted (sometimes
bull-headed) lead. Just about every cliché regarding pimps, street kids,
hookers and hitmen is thrown into a cauldron that never really reaches a
boiling point. What the film does do successfully is present one of
blaxploitation's more charismatic figures. Williamson has charm to spare, and
his good-natured humour and easy smiles make it very clear that he wasn't
taking himself all too seriously while making this film. [Pop Matters]"
Some people,
however, think the film is pure shit. For example, KO Picture [a site since labelled "Deceptive" by Google], which seethes: "There was a real recklessness
about the entire production: Continuity errors (within the first 5 minutes!),
unintelligible dialogue, editing-via-hatchet or other blunt objects within
reach, obvious non-actors in pivotal roles, plot points dropped and never
picked up again, Fred Williamson's visible panty lines (those were some snug
slacks!). And the most bizarre part is that there was a definite inkling of 'sequel'
at the end of it all, like they felt this Hammer
would be an enduring character. One could almost argue that this was all a
set-up in order to GET to a sequel. That all the dropped plot points and the
absolute refusal to reveal who 'THE MAN' was and why he does what he does was,
in fact, intended.* But that would
be almost unimaginable. I refuse to give the filmmakers that much credit."
* This statement, needless
to say, reveals the writer as a total honky that transcends simple skin color. How the hell can anyone not know
who the Man is?
Hit Man
(1972, writ. & dir. George Armitage)
Another
blaxploitation film written and directed by a white man, although Armitage has
gone on record as having wanted Bernie Casey (8 June 1939 – 19 Sept 2017, of Cleopatra Jones [1973] and Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde [1976 / trailer]), the film's
star,* to direct and only remained
on the job when it looked like the producer, Gene Corman, would pull the plug
on the project before giving it to a first-time [Afro-American] director. Like
many blaxpoitation films of the time, Hit
Man is a retooled version of a former lily-white hit film, in this case the
British movie Get Carter (1971 / trailer)** — so both flicks, basically, are
based on the Ted Lewis crime novel, Jack's
Return Home. Marilyn Joi, now credited as "Tracy Ann-King", is
there to play Rita Biggs According to Joi, "When I auditioned for Corman,
I showed up in a mink coat with just a bikini under it! (Laughs) When I dropped
the mink coat, that was it!"
*Another former football player who, if you like 'em big, was a
total hunk in his prime.
**Remade in 2000 as a Sylvester
Stallone movie (trailer).
"Actually,
Corman's trend-setting with black-oriented films goes back over ten years. At
that time he produced a motion picture called The Intruder, which dealt with
racial intolerance and injustice in the South. 'It exposed the doctrine of hate
and prejudice,' Corman says, 'but it turned out that the film was far ahead of
its time.' The then-explosive nature of the film kept The Intruder from receiving the exposure it rightfully deserved. With
the excellent response to his Cool
Breeze* this year, Corman felt encouraged to produce another film in the
now totally accepted field of black action dramas of today. Hit
Man he feels comes into the marketplace at just exactly the
right time for all audiences. [Press Release @ One-Sheet Index]"
*Cool Breeze (1972/ trailer), like Hit Man, is
a blaxploitation version of an older lily-white classic; in the case of Cool Breeze, Gene Corman retooled the
1950 classic Asphalt Jungle (trailer) into something arguably less interesting.
The plot of Hit Man, as
found at Blaxploitation.com: "Petty
crook Tyrone Tackett (Bernie Casey) attends his brother's funeral in LA to
discover that the death was suspicious. Rather than returning to his native
Oakland he starts to make his own investigations into the murder. Tackett
discovers that his niece (Candy All) had been making adult movies and begins to
follow the trail through LA's porn underworld from motel to campus to Watts
Towers and back. He encounters starlet Gozelda (Pam Grier), porn star Julius
and others before arriving at crime lord Zito (Don Diamond [4 June 1921 – 19
June 2011] of the original version of The
Toolbox Murders [1978 / trailer]) and henchman
Shag (Bob Harris of The Student Teachers
[1973, see further below]). Always alert and ready for action, he's apparently
as merciless and uncaring as those he meets. Only his lover Laural (Lisa Moore
[12 Sept 1940 – 10 Apr 1989] of Rape
Squad [1974 / trailer])
sees the real Tackett..."
Trailer
to Hit Man:
"Hit Man is George (Miami Blues [1990 / trailer]*) Armitage's blaxploitation remake of
Mike Hodges' Get Carter. While it
lacks the punch of the original, […] it's a solidly entertaining revenge
picture. It also happens to be a great vehicle for the late Bernie Casey. […]It contains more than its fair share
of sex, violence, and exploitation goodness. It takes its time unfurling its
premise, maybe a bit too much. Once it gets going, it's a rather satisfying
thriller. Casey is front and center in nearly every scene. Even though the
pacing gets a little pokey in places, his performance is so strong that you are
with him every step of the way. The supporting performances are uniformly fine.
[…] Pam Grier and Marilyn Joi [below, from the film] are around as the eye candy, although you'll wish
they had more to do. Still… if you ever wanted to see Pam Grier get eaten by a
lion… [Video Vacuum]"
*Speaking of the
excellent but totally overlooked and forgotten film Miami Blues, over at Pink Smoke, John Cribs ponders things we here at a
wasted life have, too: "There's nothing mysterious about George
Armitage, but his complete lack of prestige has always perplexed me. I spent a
better part of the 90s wondering how the hell Miami Blues didn't open to the same kind of enthusiastic reception
or at least develop the same reverential reputation as, say, Pulp Fiction. When his follow-up film Grosse Pointe Blank (1997 / trailer) was released
seven years later, it drew mixed reactions from critics and fell into the
iniquitous late 90s pit of 'Tarantino imitations' just because it featured
comedic hit men and a soundtrack made up of popular songs. And after 2004's
depressing flop The Big Bounce (2004
/ trailer), […] I
couldn't quite figure out why Armitage's track record had faltered so abruptly […]."
Armitage is a much better filmmaker, in other words, than his obscurity and
lack of film credits would indicate.
In any event:
"Bernie Casey strides purposefully through Hit Man, his flamboyant hat tilted at a rakish angle over a graying
Afro, his ex-professional-football player frame squeezed into a series of tight
trousers. If he emerges as Hit Man's
hero, it's only because his brutally efficient enforcer qualifies as marginally
less evil than the human parasites around him. […] [George Armitage] strands
Casey's grittily charismatic protagonist in some of the seamiest corners of a
Los Angeles rotting from the inside out, then watches in admiration as Casey
leaves behind a trail of bullet-riddled corpses and sexually satisfied women. […]
Armitage's thriller inhabits a shadowy realm of porn theaters and brothels, mob
palaces and dogfights. It's a hard-boiled world devoid of sentimentality or
good intentions, where everyone is motivated by the ugliest and least
egalitarian instincts. In this poisonous context, Casey's hunger for revenge
almost qualifies as noble, though his means of accomplishing his goals are
anything but. Casey gives his character a powerful internal calm and casual
authority. He's a bad man in a wicked world, but at least he has style, and in
the funky world of blaxploitation, that counts for an awful lot. […] Armitage's
tight, minimalist, thoroughly badass fusion of blaxploitation and film noir
proves that greed, lust, and the quest for revenge remain depressingly universal.
[AV Club]"
Over at Expelled Grey Matter, they grapple
with the philosophical question of whether a single but probably real scene can
keep a movie from being "one of those forgotten films that needs to be
reconsidered": "This is largely a decent action film once you get
past the beginning, which involves […] a trip to a dog fighting ring — in
which, it appears, we get to see a real dog fight, including one [dog] getting
killed and its final death throes. This movie, I take it, is not famous enough
to have sparked real outrage about that scene — or, maybe (hopefully) it was
not real. Very few times am I sickened by violence in movies, since I know it
is pretend. […] Whatever fun may be had watching a bunch of red paint splash around the screen
later on is almost completely ruined by that one scene. This is a shame
because, without it, I would be praising this movie up and down as one of those
forgotten films that needs to be reconsidered […]."
"Bernie Casey exercises his right to bear a chrome plated
Colt Super .38 automatic in this cool promo photo made for his 1972
blaxploitation flick Hit Man. We love Casey. He died [...] pretty much
unheralded [19 Sept 2017], but he appeared in a lot of fun movies [...]. He
also had the good fortune to get naked with both Pam Grier and Claudia
Jennings. The Jennings scene is flat amazing, but the Grier scene, which is
actually from Hit Man, is hilarious. As Grier climbs atop him and presses her
naked body full length onto his the expression on his face reads something
like: 'Oh. My. Freaking. God.' That's probably the only time in his life he
wasn't 100% cool. [Pulp
International]"
Wonder Women
(1973, dir.
Robert Vincent O'Neil)
A.k.a. The Deadly and the Beautiful.
"There
have been several great baseball movies and a handful of memorable football
films over the years. Even track and field has inspired pictures like Personal Best and Chariots of Fire. But one sport above all is indisputably made for the big screen: Jai alai. Just imagine the
thrill of plunking down $8.50 to watch two guys play catch with raisin scoops,
and you can understand the excitement with which we viewed The Deadly and the Beautiful. Alas, the jai alai match that opens
this film is a classic piece of bait-and-switch, and before long we find
ourselves knee-deep in a Ross Hagen movie. [Scott Clevenger & Sheri
Zollinger in Better Living through Bad
Movies]"
Trailer to
Wonder
Women:
Aside from the
fact that we here at a wasted life have never understood
what everyone has against Ross Hagen movies — who doesn't enjoy disasterpieces
like The Mini-Skirt Mob (1968 / trailer) or Merchants of Death (1989 / full movie) or all his
Fred Olan Ray flicks? — or how anyone can even like sports films, Clevenger
& Zollinger can't see the forest for the trees: "Wonder Women is a rollicking B-movie and a perfect
example of 1970s grindhouse cinema. [Criminal Element]" Indeed, the
movie is some fabulous trash and finely aged kitsch, truly of the memorable
kind that simply don't get made anymore. (Instead, nowadays we're stuck with
Michael Bay movies — a sad culturally state, to say the least, fitting to the
sad state of the so-called American democracy.)
Director Robert Vincent O'Neil adapted the script to this fun
slice of Philippine-shot grindhouse trash from a screenplay written by Lou
Whitehill, probably the very Whitehill script that was used more or less at the
same time for the oddly better-known (?) slice of Philippine-shot grindhouse
trash, The Thirsty Dead (1974 / full movie), which
replaces jai-alai players with women. O'Neil, who (sadly) has remained inactive
for decades now, had a brief productive flurry of about 15 years during which
he wrote and/or directed some fun trash, most famously The Psycho Lover (1970 / trailer),
Blood Mania (1970 / trailer), Angel (1984) & Angel 2 (1985) — the latter two
both with Susan
Tyrrell — and Don
Sharp's What Waits Below (1984).
(Oh, where did you go, Joe?)
Though an
American production, most of Wonder
Women was shot in the Philippines — but not the scenes of the uncredited
Marilyn Joi [seen above from the movie], who revealed "My scenes were shot in an Asian restaurant here
in L.A. Those were just some pick-ups they had to do — I don't know if they
forgot to do them in the Philippines or what, but they asked me to do them and
I said, 'OK!' It was just a tiny thing."
Tiny thing is right: basically,
they dressed Joi in similar outfits to the only Afro American of the film's
gang of "wonder women", Maggie (Shirley Washington of Dead
End Dolls [1972] and Darktown
Strutters [1975 / see Dick Miller, Part IV]), seen above from the movie, and then
dropped Joi into the movie. (You see both Marilyn and Shirley in the trailer,
by the way — but more of Marilyn.)
"[...] Wonder Women is essentially a sixties
Eurospy movie transplanted to another continent and another decade, the 1970s.
It has all the usual sixties Eurospy hallmarks: evil Oriental villain with an
island full of beautiful, deadly, scantily-clad babes (why is it always a babe
army?), weird science (unusual organ transplants), cool chases in exotic but
low-budget locations, an 'escape from the island as the base blows up' finale
and, most importantly, a supremely obnoxious hero. [Double O Section]"
The
"loopy" plot, as found at criminal element: "Fourteen
prized athletes from around the world suddenly disappear over a short span of
time. […] It turns out the guys have been put into comatose states and shipped
to an island retreat in the Philippines […] run by a Dr. Tsu: a disgraced lady
physician turned mad scientist ('100 years ahead of her time'), played by
exotic beauty Nancy Kwan (of The
Wrecking Crew [1968 / trailer],
The McMasters [1970 / credit sequence] and Walking the Edge [1985 / trailer]). What Tsu's up
to at her freaky complex is — with the help of a bevy of go-go boots-wearing,
machine gun-toting honeys — managing an organ transplant clinic. […] Sometimes
she executes these operations just as experimental play, to see what will
happen if you, say, swap brains between two people. But mostly she's after
money. She lures in rich clients who will pay to trade vital parts with more
fit persons; thus, the need for super-bodied athletes. So, for instance,
there's one wealthy old geezer who's going to pay Tsu mad bucks to have his
brain inserted into the body of a jai alai player Tsu and her girls have
captured. Lloyd's of London, who has a financial interest in the jai alai star,
starts to get some clues about where he's been taken. They hire the services of
virile, square-jawed former CIA agent Mike Harber (played by Ross Hagen [21 May
1938 – 7 May 2011]), who happens to be in Manila […]. It doesn't take Harber
long to zero in on Tsu's institute, and likewise the mad lady doctor and her
henchwomen are fully aware of Harber and his investigations into their sinister
doings. […]" The film ends in a manner that indicates a planned sequel
never happened.
Regarding this
slice of "Filipino exploitation trash, boasting some nice 70s T&A and
some crazy stuntwork", Alex in-Wonderland raves: "It's
delightfully tacky, and quite harmless by today's standards. The women are
moderately attractive and it's fun seeing them in such strong and physically
demanding roles. Nancy Kwan is gorgeous, and plays her role as a megalomaniacal
Bond villain to sweet perfection. Her refined manners and delicate poise belie
her cold and wicked nature, and she's more than a match for the brutish Harber.
While it's full of amusing bits, the funniest moment has to be when Harber is
being chased through a cemetery and he pulls a double-barreled sawed-off
shotgun out of his shirt. Where the hell did that come from?!? Talk about a
master of concealment! The film's big set piece is a foot chase through a
crowded marketplace, followed by a dangerous Jeepney chase. The most chilling
and astonishing scene is when a speeding car accidentally hits a security guard
— for real. It's a fantastic shot, but very unsettling. There's also some local
flavor thrown in with an extended cock-fight sequence that's difficult to
watch. Overall, it's a fun little female action romp for anyone who enjoys
watching women in power roles. The only disappointment is when the action
shifts to Harber, and the once powerful female assassins become meek and
helpless in his presence."
Over at Letterboxed, Evan might add: "Kinda like a Ted V. Mikels
(29 Apr 1929 – 16 Oct 2016) movie where things actually happen, this takes an
already irresistible premise and keeps piling on the PG-rated sleaze for the
entire duration of its 80-minute runtime. A decidedly capitalist take on Sumuru [see Maria Rohm Part I & PartII]
quickly zigs and zags through cosmically soundtracked slow-motion cockfights,
elektro brain sex, erotic chess games, and an entire room of fifth-reel Dr.
Moreau freaks with the crazed abandon of Franco at his most feverishly pulp.
Reading that this was shot on short ends and with a cast of Americans already
in the Philippines doesn't surprise me in the least. Outlaw filmmaking at its
most impulsive and fun […]".
The Student Teachers
(1973, dir. Jonathan Kaplan)
Marilyn Joi,
credited as Tracy Ann King, has a tiny role in this film doing her specialty at
the time: topless dancing. As The Student Teachersalso features the dearly departed cult character actor Dick Miller
playing Coach Harris, we took a look at the film in R.I.P.: Dick Miller, Part III (1968-74),
where we never made mention of Joi. We wrote:
A.k.a. College
Coeds and Self-Service Schoolgirls (the poster below might be to the
movie; neither name on it seem to be real — or at least neither "star" ever made another movie).*
*Since we wrote the
original entry in May 2019, we've come to believe that Self-Service Schoolgirls might actually be another title for Erwin
C. Dietrich's German exploiter Mädchen,
die sich selbst bedienen (1975), a.k.a. Self-Service Girls. Of course, there's no saying that the two different movies
might simply share a same a.k.a. title.
Kaplan's second
directorial project, once again a Corman production — a Julie Corman production,
that is. It would seem that after nurse T&A, the time seemed right for
teacher T&A. Dick Miller has a relatively major/important part as "the penultimate dumb" and chauvinist Coach Harris. (Major
spoiler: He turns out to be the rapist!)
As Kaplan explains
in Chris Nashawaty's Crab Monsters, Teenage Cavemen, and Candy Stripe
Nurses: Roger Corman: King of the B Movies "After Night Call Nurses
was done, I didn't talk to him [Corman] again for a while. Then Julie
[Corman] called me and said, 'We're a big hit in Tallahassee! Roger wants you
to come out and make the same movie, but with teachers instead of nurses.'
That's how I got The Student Teachers."
As an
exploitation franchise, teacherploitation didn't last all that long: the Corman
Mafia only made one unofficial "sequel", Summer School Teachers
(1974 / trailer), and
aside from the later cheapie The Teacher (1974 / trailer) and the far
cheaper and more violent exploiter Trip with the Teacher (1975 / trailer, with Zalman King)
— the latter a semi-remake of the even cheaper and sleazier Harry
Novak production, Convicts Women a.k.a. Bust Out (1970, with Candy Samples)
that was later semi-remade as Delinquent School Girls (1975 / trailer, with Roberta Pedon) — and the Italo sex farces Substitute Teacher aka La
supplente (1975, poster below) and School Days
a.k.a. La professoressa di scienze naturali (1976 / full
movie in Italian), we
can't really remember that many female teacher-centric sexploiters out there.
The screenplay
was by Danny Opatoshu, one of the less prolific screenwriters of the Corman
factory of the 70s. Plot and opinion from B&S
About Movie: "Rachel (Susan Damante of Blood Sabbath [1972,
with an uncredited Uschi
Digard] and The Photographer [1974 / trailer]) who wants to
teach the good parts of sex education after school (that is, birth control and
that sex isn't this alien, frightening thing); Tracey (Brooke Mills of The
Big Doll House [1971 / trailer])
dates an art teacher who cheats on her [and gets involved in nude photography];
and Jody (Brenda Sutton of the WTF biker flick J.C. [1972 / WTF?]) works with an
inner-city education effort but also gets involved in selling drugs. [...] To
say this movie is dated is an understatement. That said, it's packed with the
earnestness of the end of the 1970s and the feeling that young people would
change the world. They all ended up repeating the same cycle as their parents
by the early 80s. But for now, they would be the student teachers."
"An early
film [...] from the days when New World Pictures was Hollywood's hottest
training ground for new talent (1973). The plot, a rape mystery, is an ugly,
exploitative downer, but Kaplan puts some infectious high spirits into the
incidental action. Everyone is having so much fun that it seems a shame when
the film is forced to stop every 10 or 15 minutes so the three lead actresses
can take off their shirts. [The
Chicago Reader]"
Chuck Norris has
no lines in his first [short] appearance in a US movie in The Student
Teachers as a karate instructor. And as one sees by the advert below, at
least at the Grand Island
Drive-in Theatre, The Student Teachers was once on a double bill
with the WIP/nursesploitation Corman production, The Hot Box (1972).
Trailer to
The
Hot Box:
In any event, the shot of Marilyn Joi
below — found obviously enough at Mr. Skin — is of her stripping in the background of The Student Teachers.
Truth be told,
you can't call yourself a true fan of blaxploitation — no, of exploitation film
in general — if you have not yet gotten around to screening this fabulous trash
masterpiece. Hit the title above to go to our extremely verbose and long-winded
"review" (Spoilers!) of Jack Hill's classic, which we wrote way back
in 2008.
In our review of
Coffy we mention Marilyn Joi not
even once — though she is found in an image we used for the blog entry (the three-gal stable photo seen
further below) and does indeed stand out amidst the rather generic white babes in
her brief, un-credited appearance*
— we just could never take our eyes off the Queen of Blaxploitation, Pam Grier,
in her first starring role, who just walks away with this perfectly tailored
slice of grindhouse fabulousness, a film that fails in being 100% perfect only
due to its final scenes, which reduces the righteous, revenge-driven,
ass-kicking Amazon to a pissed-off cuckqueen. *And also loses her top
in the catfight, revealing a typically 70s distaste for wearing a bra.
But to return to Marilyn Joi [above]: Pulp
International writes, "[…] Here she is again, chilled out,
sporting an afro, and looking like she has something naughty on her mind. The
shot was made in 1973 as a promo for the blaxploitation flick Coffy.
The fact that the photo exists is a bit is unusual due to the fact her role in
the film was so brief she never got screen credit. She was one of the prosties
in the pimp King George's stable, competition for an infiltrating Pam Grier,
who was on a revenge mission. Joi probably got fifteen seconds of screen time,
which may be why this photo is often misattributed. It's Joi, though." As
proof of her presence, below you find a photo of King George's stable, she
being the only non-honky of the bunch.
Oh, yeah — the plot of Coffy, in short, as
found in Clive Davies' Spinegrinder: The Movies Most Critics Won't Write About:
"[Pam Grier] is Coffy, a nurse who takes the law into her own hands when
her younger sister becomes hooked on drugs. The opening scene when she seduces
a pimp/pusher before offing him is a perfect example of how films should begin.
Sig Haig (14 July 1939 – 21 Sept 2019) works as a henchman for a crime kingpin
(Allan Arbus* [15 Feb 1918 – 19 Apr 2013]) who likes to humiliate women. The
outrageously dressed pimp King George (Robert Do Qui [20Apr 1934 – 9 Feb 2008])
has the best death scene. With Bob Minor and Marilyn Joi." *The first (and only) husband of
everyone's favorite photographer, Diane Arbus. (Fur,
anyone?)
Detroit
9000
(1973, dir. Arthur Marks)
"In the
underrated style of so many so-called grindhouse and exploitation films, Detroit 9000 has a lot more on its mind than most
mainstream film. Even today, I think you'd have a hard time finding a
big-budget, studio production that would be willing to take as honest a view of
race relations as Detroit
9000 does. Beneath all of the exploitation trapping, there lies
a film that was actually saying something about the way life was being lived in
1973 and which still has a lot to say about how life is being lived today in
2015. [Lisa
Marie Bowman @ Through A Shattered Lens]"
Marilyn Joi,
once again un-credited, shakes her booty as a "dancing hooker in
whorehouse", assumedly the house-that-isn't-a-home in which Vonetta
McGee's character, Roby Harris, works. Shot on location, Detroit 9000 has gained some attention in recent years as one of
the Tarantino's favorite films and can even be seen briefly on a TV running on
the background in Jackie Brown (1997
/ trailer), a film
from the days when the director didn't pointlessly rewrite history in his
movies. The title comes, supposedly, from a since phased-out Detroit police
radio code, "9000", for "officer down".
Trailer to
Detroit
9000:
In her book If You Like Quentin Tarantino…,
Katherine Rife takes a look at this flick, yet another of the many exploitation
flicks of yore that the Great T helped rediscover (he re-released it on VHS/DVD
via Rolling
ThunderPictures,
his short-lived film distribution company) and writes: "Detroit 9000 […] is a scrappy cop movie
full of naïve charm and funky blaxploitation attitude, and baby, there ain't
nothing wrong with that. […] It's the spirit of the thing that counts, and the
spirit of Detroit 9000 is the kind
of thing that makes you happy to be alive. The crème de la crème of Detroit's
black elite has come to fete congressman Aubrey Hale Clayton (Rudy Challenger
of Sheba, Baby [1975 / trailer]), but before
the ink on the checks can dry, the party is interrupted by stick-up men in
black ski masks. […] As you might expect, the wealthy and influential people
are quite upset about the incident, so the cops put two detectives on the case:
world-weary white detective Danny Bassett (Alex Roco [29 Feb 1936 – 18 July
2015], who later costarred in The
Godfather [1972 / trailer,
not to mention Return to Horror High (1987)]) and
suave, intelligent black cop*
Sergeant Jesse Williams (Hari Rhodes [10 Apr 1932 – 15 Jan 1992]). They're
polar opposites: Danny has been ground down into a cynical, hunched-over little
man by years of watching his peers get promoted while he's busting skulls on
the streets, and Jesse is not only a perfect physical specimen ("whoever
doesn't believe black is beautiful never saw my big hunk's man meat," as
his girlfriend puts it), he's well educated, charismatic, honorable and clean
cut — he was an all-American jock in high school, for Christ's sake. It's kinda
like Lethal Weapon (1987 / trailer) with more
loaded racial rhetoric, and the racial element is loaded with rocket fuel in
this movie. Detroit 9000 goes there,
over and over again, from throwaway lines such as "No wonder the honkies
think we're oversexed" to vicious, bigoted rant from a feeble old lady in
a wheelchair, but it saves special vitriol for its portrayal of the deeply hypocritical
nature of institutional racism. […]"
*"Intelligent",
like, needs to be pointed out 'cause you just can't assume a suave black cop
also has brains, can you?Like, because the world-weary Danny Bassett isn't described as "intelligent", we automatically assume/know the white guy is an idiot, right?
From Luchi De Jesus's soundtrack to
Detroit 9000 — Newness in Rhythm [Throw A Punch At Me]:
Director Arthur
Marks (2 Aug 1927 – 13 Nov 2019) is a man that needs some long overdue
appreciation, if you ask us. True, he is remembered by some as yet another
white man who made some (superior but underappreciated) blaxploitation flicks —
aside from this one he did Bucktown
(1975 / trailer), Friday Foster (1975 / trailer), J.D.'s Revenge (1976 / trailer) and The Monkey Hustle (1976 / trailer) — but he also
made fun trash like The Roommates
(1973, with the Great
Uschi) and Bonnie's Kids (1972 /
trailer). Cutting his
teeth doing un-credited reshoots for the masterpiece that is Orson Welles's Lady from Shanghai (1947 / trailer), Marks went on
to supply the story to one of the nastiest exploitation films out there, The Centerfold Girls (1974 / trailer, starring Andrew
"Horse" Prine, seen below not from the movie), producing or
distributing fun trash as Linda Lovelace
for President (1975 / trailer),
William Girdler's The Zebra Killer (1974 / trailer), and even acted in
an Italo soft-core porn musical version of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Eros
Perversion (1979 / some
music) — and more! The guy was talented!
Of course,
Orville H. Hampton (21 May 1917 – 8 Aug, 1997), the guy who supplied the
screenplay for Detroit 9000, was
also no slouch. He received an Academy Award nomination with co-writer Raphael
Hayes (2 Mar 1915 – 14 Aug 2010) for his story and screenplay to One Potato, Two Potato (1964 / final scene), based on
the true story leading up to the Loving vs. Virginia
case, but prior and after he lent his writing talents to such fondly remembered
fodder as The Alligator People (1959
/ trailer), The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (1959
/ trailer), Riot on Sunset Strip (1967 / trailer) and The Snake Woman (1961 / trailer).
Trash Film Guru also thinks that
Arthur Marks and the film, which he calls "the real deal", needs more
respect: "Recently I more or less politely begged for a long-overdue
reappraisal of [Marks's] fine Pam Grier flick Friday Foster, and today I'm here to spread the good word about
what is undoubtedly his absolute masterwork (a term regular readers of this
site will know I don't toss around loosely), 1973's Detroit 9000. […] What sets Detroit 9000 apart from much of the other blaxploitation fare of
the time (a category which this flick may or may not actually fall into — it's
certainly debatable) is the intelligence and extra level of humanity and
characterization that Marks, his fine cast, and screenwriter Orville H. Hampton
inject into the proceedings. […] Both leads are deeply flawed, all-too-human
individuals, and Rocco and Rhodes turn in superb performances that bring out
all the nuances in the script. This is an intelligent story delivered by
intelligent performers with a firm grasp on the surprising subtlety inherent in
the material. […] Marks, absolute master of pacing that he is, keeps things
moving along at a very nice clip here, and there's never a dull moment — the
action scenes are explosive and fraught with drama and tension, but even the
quieter moments aren't so quiet as every word in every off-handed exchange does
at least something to propel the main narrative forward. This is a very
economical film (both metaphorically and, I'm sure, literally), and the always-resourceful
Arthur doesn't waste a frame. […] Buckle up, folks — the road starts out bumpy
and it only gets bumpier. All of which is fun, of course, but it means you've
gotta keep your wits about you, as well — and trust me, when the shit hits the
fan at the end, you'll be glad you did. […] This flick is a terrific piece of
crime drama from start to finish, but it demands — and takes — its pound
of flesh along the way. Get your ass off my blog and watch it right now."
After all the
praise above, a word to the contrary from Every 70s Movie: "Rhodes […]
was a man of letters off-screen and, accordingly, brought eloquence and poise
to his acting. Therefore, it's a shame that Detroit 9000 give Rhodes one of his only leading roles, since he's
got nothing to do here but strive to retain his dignity while running through
gutted urban locations and/or spewing bland dialogue. Rocco, a versatile
character actor […], provides a totally different flavor of authenticity, although
he, too, is handicapped by an underwritten characterization. Among the
supporting cast, Scatman Crothers does some energetic speechifying as a
preacher; Vonetta McGee classes up a trite hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold role;
and Herbert Jefferson Jr., later a regular on the original Battlestar Galactica (1978-79 / movie trailer) series,
shows up in full pimp regalia. The problem is that everyone involved in Detroit 9000, including second-rate
blaxploitation director Arthur Marks, did better work elsewhere — so why this
mediocre flick lingered in Tarantino's memory is a mystery."
More addendum stuff: [Spoilers.] Prior to Tarantino 's re-release
of the flick, oddly enough Detroit 9000
was also released by that cheap purveyor of public domain movies and stuff no
one else would ever dream
of releasing, EastwestDVD. Their website is currently offline, so perhaps
they were a bit lax on the definition of public domain. Vonetta's character
gets shot in the back by the bad guys and dies, as do most
hookers with hearts of gold. Somewhere along the way, probably in Great
Britain, Detroit 9000 got released on a double bill with the second-rate
French film Popsy Pop (1971), also
known as The 21 Carat Snatch, a
movie noted primarily for having been scripted by Henri "Papillon" Charrière,
which is why the movie is also aka The
Butterfly Affair. It's a movie that "will probably only appeal to a
small audience of movie lovers […] who enjoy unusual caper films shot in exotic
locations with great soundtracks. If you’re looking for a solid well acted film
with a coherent script, you should probably look elsewhere since Popsy Pop
has very little to hold it together besides Claudia Cardinale's fabulous
wardrobe and wacky wigs. [Cinebeats]"
As might
possibly be expected with a blog focusing on the kind of films we do, the name
of Don Edmonds pops up again and again and again — for example, in our Babes of Yesteryear look at Uschi Part V-Pt. II, Part VI and Part XVIII, our Haji and Charles
Napier RIP career reviews, Part II of our Dick Miller tribute,
and Part
IX of our look at Harry Novak's career… and, who knows, maybe elsewhere as
well. In Uschi, Part V-Pt. II, we mentioned the
following about him when writing of his sex flick, Wild
Honey: "Wild Honey is the
directorial début of Don Edmonds (1 Sept 1937 – 30 May 2009), former and occasional
actor (for example: Beach Ball [1965
/ trailer] and Wild Wild Winter [1966]) who, after
this film, still did an occasional acting job (Home Sweet Home [1981 / trailer], for example)
but concentrated mostly on writing, producing and directing — including some
true sleaze classics: Ilsa: She Wolf of
the SS (1975 / trailer)
& Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil
Sheiks (1976 / trailer).
Other films we find of note that he touched: Skeeter (1993 / trailer, with Charles
Napier), True Romance (1993 / trailer), Beyond Evil (1980 / trailer), Saddle Tramp Women (1972), […] the Charles
Napier vehicle, The Night Stalker
(1987)."
Although Tender Loving Care is not generally
lumped together with Roger Corman's other nurse movies — The Student Nurses (1970 / trailer), Private Duty Nurses (1971, see Dick
Miller Part III), Night Call
Nurses (1973, see Dick
Miller, Part III), TheYoung Nurses (1973, see Dick
Miller, Part III) and Candy
Stripe Nurses (1974, see Dick
Miller, Part IV) — it was coproduced by Corman (though he probably got
the credit only 'cause he took over the movie's distribution). But instead of
the normal Corman-factory format of four females (including one minority
female), Edmonds concentrates his films on a female triad (including one
minority female). Here, in what is Marilyn Joi's first major role outside of an
Al Adamson flick, she fills the role of the mandatory minority female character.
As one of the three main babes, she even makes onto the poster, credited as
"Anita King". That's her, of course, in the photo below at the right.
The American Film Institute has an extremely detailed synopsis
about a film in which "nurses dole out more care than called for in their
job descriptions [Kristie Hassen@ All Movie]", of which we
present only the first couple of lines: "Nurse Karen Jordan (Donna Young)
arrives at an airport in Los Angeles, CA, to take her new job at West Ridge
Hospital. Meanwhile, African American boxer Jackie Carter (John Daniels of Flesh-Eating Mothers [1988]) goes
into cardiac arrest after being punched in the chest, and is rushed into West
Ridge's emergency room. Dr. Ben Traynor (Michael Asher), assisted by intern Dr.
David Aaron (Tony Mumolo) and African American nurse Lynn Pierce (Joi), revive
him. Afterward, Lynn meets Karen and agrees to let her move into the apartment
she shares with Tracy Dean (Lauren Simon), another nurse. Later, at the
instigation of her boyfriend David, Tracy steals a bottle containing a
stimulant at the nurses' station pharmacy. An orderly, William Simpson (George
'Buck' Flower), sees the theft, but says nothing. […]" What then follows
is a T&A tale of sex and drugs and pimps and gangsters and motocross racing
and romance and dune buggies and group sex and blackmail and murder and both
happy and tragic endings — more or less everything one expects and wants in an
exploitation movie.
Over at Cult Collectables, they ask Don
Edmunds about the movie, and he says: "[…] That was back in the day when
there weren't a lot of Blacks in pictures, and you didn't refer to them as
Blacks. And if you saw Tender Loving
Care, there's no reference to him being Black. $25,000 in eight days, we made
that picture for. We didn't have nothing. We didn't have any permits
on that film. We would just steal anything. When you're making a picture
in eight days, you don't have time to breathe. You don't have time to sit down
at dinner. You don't have to sleep. You just make a picture. You drive down
sleeping in cars, you're driving to the next set. I don't care who you talk to,
if they can tell you they had this leisurely time making an eight-day picture,
I'm telling you, they're liars. They don't. I couldn't take time to take a
piss. Corman picked up Tender Loving
Care, and he was making other movies in the nurse genre. Again, I was out
of work, standing around writing scripts, and it was one I had in my trunk. I'd
written the picture, and nobody was making it. So I ran into this woman named
Chako van Leeuwen, who went on to do Piranha(1978),
and I got a call one day from her and she says she'll meet me at this drive-in
restaurant, not even an office, and I said, 'Yeah, right.' I had been eating
Top Ramen, so I thought, at least I'll get a chicken sandwich out of this
thing. So I went down to this restaurant, and I met this lady, and she said
that she wanted to make a movie. I pulled out a bunch of scripts that I had
written that nobody had ever made, and I said 'Here, read these.' She picked
out Tender Loving Care, and she
said, 'I've got thirty-five thousand dollars.' I said that's not quite enough,
but took it. I'm just a kid around Hollywood, and I haven't got gas for the car
and I thought hey, it's another movie, let's go make that. That's the way my
whole career's been. I've never had that luxury of going oh, I'll only make
this or I'll only make that. I look back on it and maybe wish I had, but it's a
waste of time. I made what I made, and there it is."
The dude at Toxic Fletch is currently the only
person who's seen the flick and thought it worth writing about: "[…] Tender Loving Care is a short movie at
72 minutes,* and despite that it
does have an occasional drag, but not too many and the skin content is much
better than the more successful nurses drive-in movies of the 70s that Julie
Corman produced. Of what I have seen of the Corman-produced nurses movies, Tender Loving Care has a stronger story
that moves along with few glitches. What glitches there are is in the
department of acting capability and silliness in some characters. Of the three
primary actresses, of course that would be the nurses, Donna Young's
performance, even though she is the top billed of this movie (as Donna
Desmond), is the weakest. […] Marilyn Joi […] gives an expected good
performance that is above the means of this film. Lauren Simon also turns in a
good performance as the put-upon girlfriend of a drug-addicted doctor […]. And
of course George Buck Flower delivers a good performance as a lecherous
hospital orderly, as does John Daniels as a troubled young man facing the end
of his boxing career."
*Depending on which source you look at, it would mean the movie has
been cut of about 6 minutes.
