"I've made a mistake... This isn't my
house or my wife."
It's only taken us twelve years to finally get around
to presenting a short by one of the greatest film comedians of all time, Buster [Joseph
Frank] Keaton (4 Oct 1895 – 1 Feb 1966). Astute film fans, however, may
have noticed that this blog has long featured a GIF from his film Steamboat
Bill Jr (1928 / film)
in the upper right of our page.
The Great Stone Face, as he is also known, made
numerous comic masterpieces in his life that can now easily be found online. His
films from the '20s are generally considered his best, and indeed they remain
visual and comic treats to this day (although one does have to occasionally look
past some questionable racial and/or political attitudes). The Frozen North is
one of his less-remembered projects, and is generally not considered one of his
best. But then, it is perhaps also one of his meanest – his character, who in
the course of the film cold-bloodedly commits murder and simply walks away, is even
simply known as "The Bad Man".
The movie is a bit of cinematic trolling:
angered by statements made by cowboy star William S. Hart
(6 Dec 1864 – 23 Jun 1946) against Roscoe
"Fatty" Arbuckle (24 Mar 1887 – 29 Jun 1933) regarding the then-current
Virginia Rappe
(7 Jul 1895 – 9 Sept 1921) scandal, Keaton made this Western spoof as an insult
to the reputed wife-beating Western star. (Later, after he saw the film
himself, Hart refused to speak to Keaton for years.)
Arbuckle, it seems, was one
of Keaton's best friends, indeed, Buster's career, which began in 1917, was
greatly assisted by Arbuckle: "A chance meeting with Roscoe
"Fatty" Arbuckle changed his life forever. Arbuckle had been making
movie shorts with Mack Sennett and was just starting at Joseph Schenck's
studio. He asked Buster to do a scene with him in The Butcher Boy (1917 / film). Buster agreed and
a lifelong friendship began. Buster worked with Arbuckle until 1919, when in
September of that year he began making his own films. [Find a Grave]"
Keaton was one of the few Hollywood stars that publically came to Arbuckle's defense
both during and after the comedian's arrest, court cases and final acquittal.
"The
Frozen North is [...] co-directed by frequent Keaton collaborator Edward.
F. Cline (4 Nov 1891 – 22 May 1961). It is another of Keaton's venture into
informal surrealism. Unfortunately, it is not an entirely successful effort,
which may be due, in part, to its missing three minutes of footage. [...] The humor in Frozen North is
atypical, with Keaton at his blackest, bleakest, and strangest. [366
Weird Movies]" And we here at a wasted life love it.
The music, of
course, is not original, but at least it works...
(Spoilers.) A gore-heavy zombie flick that treads some of the same grounds as Zombie Strippers(2008 / trailer) but with less "star power", less kitsch and far less panache. But for that, this Canadian indi production definitely embraces its exploitation roots and nature with greater gusto and doesn't shy away from wallowing in extremes and at times almost transgressive tastelessness to get a juggler-vein-aimed laugh. The birth scene late in the movie, with its amalgamation of gore, poignancy and ridiculousness, is perhaps the apex of the movie's transgressively funny scenes, but the credit sequence is likewise noteworthy in its total embracement of the exploitative: seldom have we seen credits proffered in a sequence that celebrates the unadulterated, uncovered beauty of hugely bulbous and immobile countertits as in the credit sequence of Peelers. (True silicone fans might be disappointed to learn, however, that the kardashian basketballs never show up anywhere in the flick itself; those in the movie appear all to be 100% natural.... Possible exception: augmented pokies?)
Trailer to
Peelers:
Despite what one
might think, Peelers takes its name not from any horror-porn style
peeling of skin, but from the basic idea of gals peeling off outfits
while on stage. The film includes a few scenes of such, one of which
cannot help but bring the video to Miley Cyrus's song BB Talk to mind
until it turns all water sports, another that will definitely appeal to
pokies fans, and one that appears inspired by the legendary Honeysuckle Divine (or, possibly, a specific scene in Erotic Nights of the Living
Dead [1980]). None of the three performers, Baby Elaine (Nikki Wallin of
Android Night Punch [2014 / full movie] and Camp Death III in 2D [2018 /
trailer]) or the other ones whose name we could not figure out, ride
off into the sunset — indeed, as at least one tagline used for the movie
puts it, "You May Not Get The Happy Ending You Were Looking For."
Miley Cyrus's
BB Talk (2015):
Peelers
plays out over the closing night of Tittyballs, a small-town strip club
run — and just sold — by the tough but responsible Blue Jean (played
very well by the highly attractive Wren Walker of The Curse of Willow
Song [2020 / trailer]), a strong but emotionally damaged woman obviously
respected by her staff, if not even unrequitedly loved by her
studmuffin doorman-with-a-heart Remy (Caz Odin Darko, a low-brow actor
attractive and studly enough that it makes total sense that he has acted
in a couple of David DeCoteau film, namely Evil Exhumed [2016 /
trailer] and Killer Bash [2014 / trailer]). A group of local coal miners
show up to celebrate the discovery of oil — as if it would make them
rich instead of just their boss — but there is more to the black gold
than the Mexican quintet know. Before they can eat a salad or drink a
second tequila, they start spewing black guck and turn into infectious,
unstoppable killer zombies.
In other words, the basic plotline of an
untold number of zombie movies, just this time it is bubbling crude (oil
that is, black gold, Texas tea) that carries the easy-to-transfer
contagion.
Written by Lisa DeVita, who shows up to play a cop whose
head goes splat, and director Sevé Schelenz, Peelers is a relatively
well-made sophomore directorial project — Skew (2011 / trailer) being
his first feature-length project — with some interesting visual
flourishes and a definite love of gore and fluids. Nevertheless, the
movie ends up seeming a lot longer than its 1:35 min running time. The
first third of the flick, which includes way too much character
development, could have easily been condensed or trimmed and, in turn,
the opening hospital scene seems oddly tagged on and out of place, as it
doesn't seem to truly relate to the rest of the strip-club set movie. A
shorter running time would have probably been an improvement, although
one must also give credit that the film doesn't really show its
low-budget origins at its seams.
Once Peelers moves to the strip
club, Schelenz suddenly whets the viewers' expectations by incorporating
a relatively long (and probably technically difficult) moving camera
shot in which he introduces a variety of key, secondary and tertiary
characters. There is probably no other shot in the movie as seductive as
this one, though he does manage some nice framing and edits and
disgusting projectile puking and gruesome deaths later on. Unluckily, at
least in the version we watched, many scenes are excessively dark,
which makes sense seeing that they play out in a dimly lit club that
later loses its electricity, but as a result the events are bit
difficult to follow as they happen. And, really, who came up with the
idiotic concept of having characters move and hide dead bodies for no
real logical reason — other than to have an added way to have the
infection spread.
The spewing fluids and gore, when seen, are
impressive, while the acting spans from good (Wren Walker and the
strippers) to passable (Caz Odin Darko and Cameron Dent, who plays the
bartender) to fun (Jason Asuncion, of Killers in the Forrest [2012 /
trailer], seen as the choleric kitchen cook) to downright unprofessional
(Madison J. Loos, of The Tooth Fairy [2006 / trailer], as Logan, the
poorly cast tertiary lead hero).
The one plot flaw that annoyed us
is also the film's signature element: the spewing black fluids. While
fun to watch and totally gross and a nice change to spewing red, the
fluids projectile in such abundance that basically no one in the movie
should be able to avoid simple skin contact with it, but such contact
also guarantees infection. Thus, to enjoy the movie one has to accept
that yes, some future fodder simply don't get promptly infected so that
Peelers can have some prospective (and eventual) bodycount.
On the
whole, Peelers is entertaining enough for what it is, particularly since
it does have the occasional flash of brilliance (i.e., the opening
credits, the birthing scene, the puking, the closing scene). In the end,
however, it is above all little more than a solid (if slow-starting)
zombie splatter flick with a flawed script that never really transcends
its genre. As such, it is worth watching but, unless you're a fan of the
genre, not really worth searching out. (If you're a fan, go for it.)
"Because he's at best an animal, and some day I shall have to destroy him."
Dr. Lorenz (Bela Lugosi)
"My poor son!... Why was he ever born?"
Fagah
In retrospect, by 1942, eleven years after his career-defining role in Tod Browning's rather static Dracula (1931 / trailer), it had long become pretty clear that Bela Lugosi (20 Oct 1882 – 16 Aug 1956) would never be an A-lining star. True, in 1939, eight years after Dracula (and seven after White Zombie [1932 / trailer] and Island of Lost Souls [1932]), he was billed fourth in what was perhaps his most "respectable" English-language project, the Greta Garbo vehicle Ninotchka (1939 / trailer), but by three years later he was once again neck deep in his normal, rent-paying fare: B-films and second-feature filler like this movie here.
Trailer to
The Corpse Vanishes:
The Corpse Vanishes, the second movie Lugosi was to make with everyone's favorite vertically-challenged genre film character actor Angelo Rossitto (see Scared to Death [1947]), is the third — possibly fourth, as sources vary — in a series of nine films Lugosi made for Poverty Row's Monogram Pictures, produced by the legendary Sam Katzman (7 July 1901 – 4 Aug 1973; producer of The Giant Claw [1957], amongst many films), that have become infamous as the "Monogram Nine".*
*"Between
1941 and 1944, Bela Lugosi starred in a series of low-budget films
released by Monogram Pictures. To many viewers at the time and during
the decades that followed, the 'Monogram Nine' were overacted and
underproduced, illogical and incoherent. But their increasing age has
recast such condemnations into appropriate praise: in the 21st century,
they seem so different not only from modern cinema, but also from
Classical Hollywood, enough so as to make the aforementioned deficits
into advantages. The entries in the Monogram Nine are bizarre and
strange, populated by crazy, larger-than-life characters who exist in
wacky, alternative worlds. In nine films, the improbable chases the
impossible. [Rhodes & Guffey]"
The Corpse Vanishes is perhaps the pinnacle of everything that makes the Monogram Nine so infamous. Cheaply made, poorly directed and illogically scripted, it literally screams "No Budget Production" and shines as an explanation for why its Oklahoma-born director, Wallace Fox (9 Mar 1895 – 30 June 1958), who directed 84 films between 1927 and 1953, has been so utterly forgotten: the man had absolutely no noticeable directorial talent. (It might sound like a joke, but one of his best films is probably the sixth and last Inner Sanctum Mystery, terrifyingly entitled The Pillow of Death [1945 / trailer].)
But to simply dismiss The Corpse Vanishes as a threadbare Lugosi vehicle that pulls out a cheap version of every cliché ever found in any other Lugosi film and barely manages to string them together to make a less-than-coherent and extremely ridiculous plot actually does the movie great disfavor. For one, no matter how bad a Lugosi film might be — see, for example, Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla (1952) — the basic fact is that age has made all of his films enjoyable in one way or another, if not simply as a notable and generally enjoyable bad-movie experience. (Admittedly, with some films, sometimes the memory of the viewing becomes fonder with age. Re.: Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla.) And for another, well, The Corpse Vanishes is truly a surreal experience, a film not even as bad as it is simply and thoroughly ridiculously incoherent and non-sequiturial in narrative, reasoning and dialogue. As scripted by Hawaii-born Harvey Gates (19 Jan 1889 – 4 Nov 1948), from an idea/story definitely not thought through by an apparently drug-addled Sam Robins (21 Oct 1910 – 2 Sept 1995) & Garald Schnitzer (27 Mar 1917 – 2016), there is nothing about The Corpse Vanishes that indicates anybody possibly took the project seriously as a horror film, Poverty Row or not.
"I've been up all night with dead people."
Patricia Hunter (Luana Walters)
Let's start with the basic plot: Lugosi plays the typically mad Dr. George Lorenz, who uses a specially bred orchid to induce a comatose, death-like state on brides, the "bodies" of which he then steals so as to remove glandular fluids from the young virgins — after all, all brides are still virgins, as we all know — that he subsequently injects in his 80-odd-year old wife, Countess Lorenz (Elizabeth Russell [2 Aug 1919 – 4 May 2002] of, among others, Cat People [1942 / trailer], Hitler's Madman [1943 / trailer], The Curse of the Cat People [1944 / trailer], The Uninvited [1944 / trailer], Weird Woman [1944 / trailer] and more), so as to restore her youthful beauty. Spunky journalist Patricia Hunter (Luana Walters [22 Jul 1912-19 May 1963], cheesecake photo below not from the film, of the reefer-mad flick Assassin of Youth [1938 / trailer / full film] and the syphilis-warning that is No Greater Sin [1941 / full film]**), who actually seems happy when she witnesses the "death" of the first bride (What a career-making opportunity!), follows the clues to the Lorenz house. There, she meets the small town doctor Dr Foster (Tris Coffin [13 Aug 1909 – 26 Mar 1990] of Man with Two Lives [1942 / full movie], The Brute Man [1946 / fan trailer], Creature with the Atom Brain [1955 / trailer], Ma Barker's Killer Brood [1960 / full film], The Crawling Hand [1963 / trailer], Night Call Nurses [1972, see Dick Miller Part III] and more) experiences all sorts of "scary" things — including the murder of one of Lorenz's henchmen, Angel (Frank Moran [18 Marc 1887 – 14 Dec 1967] of Lady of Burlesque [1943 / Take It Off the E String] and Return of the Ape Man [1944 / full film]) and the discovery of a secret lab with all the "dead" brides. Needless to say, she skedaddles the next morning. With the help of her boss Keenan (Kenneth Harlan [26 July 1895-6 Mar 1967] of The Walking Dead [1936 / trailer] and The Penalty [1920 / full film], who in real life married a grand total of nine times), Patricia and her now-beau Dr Foster set up a fake marriage to trap Lorenz...
**"By 1942, Luana Walters's career had all but dissipated and the abrupt death of her actor/husband Max Hoffman Jr. in 1945 at age 42 proved too much for her. She subsequently turned to drink and despair. [...] Other than a few obscure parts here and there in the 50s [her last roles were background filler in the anti-classics The She-Creature (1956 / trailer) and Girls in Prison (1956 / trailer)], she was little seen although she remained in the Los Angeles area for the remainder of her life. On May 19, 1963, at the age of 50, she became another tragic, barely-reported Hollywood statistic when she died from the effects of her alcoholism. [imdb]" Trivia: Walters was the first actress to portray Superman's biological mother, Lara, on screen, in Superman Comes to Earth, the first chapter of the 1948 Superman movie serial starring Kirk Alyn (8 Oct 1910 – 14 Mar 1999) as Superman. Of greater interest, perhaps, is her starring role as Elinor Gordon in the unfortunately lost 1934 exploiter The Third Sex, aka Children of Loneliness and The Un-natural Sin, a film of historical importance in LGBTQ film studies once advertised as "The 'Queerest' Picture Ever Made". Plot: "Elinor Gordon, who was frightened sexually by a man while an infant, confides in her psychoanalyst (Wayne Lamont) that she is contemplating yielding to the advances of her overly attentive and affectionate female roommate, Bobby Allen (Jean Carmen). The psychoanalyst advises the woman to dispossess her roommate, who works in the same law office as she, and to marry a football player. After the young woman rebuffs her roommate, she accompanies her lawyer employer, Dave Warren (Allan Jarvis), to the country home of the firm's senior partner, John Grant (John Elliott). While Elinor falls in love with Dave, the senior partner's socialite daughter, Judy (Sheila Loren), yearns for Paul (Morgan Wallace), an artist, who, unknown to her, is a homosexual. [Letterboxd]" Supposedly (but doubtfully) based on Radclyffe Hall's 1928 novel The Well of Loneliness, "one of the first serious works of fiction on the subject of homosexuality".
The plot description makes the movie sound far more logical than it is, assuming that the concept of a mad doctor conducting extremely high-profile crimes ("killing" and kidnapping the bodies of brides at their weddings) for his secret nefarious actions seems logical to you. And, of course, as no mad doctor is complete without his loyal henchmen, he has three: Fagah (the often uncredited but always active character actress Minerva Urecal [22 Sept 1894 – 26 Feb 1966]) and her two sons, Toby (Angelo Rossitto) and the unlucky Angel — all of whom Lorenz treats like shit (as in whips and even kills or leaves to die). And after it's seen, who can possibly ever forget the scene in which Angel follows Patricia around a gloomy dungeon while eating a huge turkey drumstick? And lest we forget, as Mad Scientists and their wives are apt to do, both Dr. and Countess Lorenz like to sleep in matching coffins.
"Why don't you try to go back to sleep? No one's going to harm you. I'm sure it was just a nightmare."
Dr. Foster (Tris Coffin)
"I think this whole place is a nightmare. Professor Lorenz and his wife were actually sleeping in coffins, I saw them!"
Patricia Hunter
"We often find it difficult to explain the peculiarities of some people."
Dr. Foster
"I guess so."
Patricia Hunter
As enjoyable as the nonsensical narrative and disjointedly connected scenes are, the dialogue is truly the icing on the cake. The level of irony and humor is too high for anyone to ever think that it was even meant to be taken seriously, and often one can only wonder how everyone involved was capable of saying their lines without laughing. Indeed, the dialogue tends to make the film's comic-relief character, the photographer Sandy (Vince Barnett [4 July 1902 – 10] of Scarface [1932 / trailer], The 9th Guest [1934 / full film], Captive Wild Woman [1943 / Trailer from Hell], The Killers [1946], Crazy Mama [1975, see Dick Miller Part IV], Summer School Teachers [1975, see Dick Miller Part IV] and so much more), totally superfluous.
"Aww, now wait a minute. Are you trying to tell me that this Professor Lorenz is a hypnotist as well as a horticulturist?"
Keenan (Kenneth Harlan)
The Corpse Vanishes is one of those films so out there, so beyond everything that can be considered "wrong" when it comes to moviemaking, that it becomes almost a template of dream logic, which elevates the movie into a realm of otherworldliness that makes the movie truly enjoyable. Here at a wasted life, we give the movie a hearty recommendation.
Way back in March 2013,
when the studly and hirsute Golden Age porn star Harry Reems
(27 Aug 1947 – 19 Mar 2013) died, we began our long, fat look at his tool
career and films: a full 8 lengthy blog entries! (Links to each are found
bellow.) And while length is almost as much fun as girth, by the time we got to
Part VII (1986-2013) we were really ready to roll over and go to sleep.
Which is why we never got around to finishing the already-started Addendums Parts I – 4, which looked at
the films that we somehow missed or skipped in our extended and heavy Parts I through VII. And then we went and lost
the stick we had our Harry Reems file on (a lesson learnt in backing documents
up, that was). But back in January 2021, while
trying to distract ourselves from the Covid-related death of our paternal
parent, we cleaned house in corners we had never cleaned before — and low and
behold! The stick was found, probably where the cat kicked it.
And so, seven years later
to the month, Addendum Part I appeared, much like delayed
ejaculation: better late than never. Then came the relatively short but meaty Addendum Part II, the somewhat longer
and fatter Addendum
Part III, and the equally turgid Addendum Part IV. That thick entry should've been the last one, because way back when, we seriously lost interest in the undertaking
as of the films around 1985 and after, which is why this Career Review sort of limply peters out at this point. But damn, as if we didn't find a thing or two while updating the addendums — and this definitely final entry is on them.
We dedicate all these
rediscovered Addendum(s) to our
departed paternal parent, who inadvertently introduced us to Harry Reems when we,
as a teen, stumbled upon his VHS copy of Deep Throat (1972, see Harry Reems Part II) hidden in the
VHS box for Key Largo (1948 / trailer).*
*He also had The Resurrection of Eve (1973 / Purple Skies and Butterflies) hidden in his To Have and Have Not (1944 / trailer) box, but that
1973 film wasn't funny enough to keep us watching until the end.
In any event, here are some later discoveries, big
maybes (as in, is Harry in or is he not?) and definitely-nots that are
obscurely linked to the hirsute stud of yesteryear. There are surely more out
there, but we'll let someone else uncover and cover them.
A mystery film about which we could find nadda. Anyone know anything about this
one? Is an a.k.a. title of some other known film? A one-day wonder? An early
Spielberg film? Enquiring minds want to know. But really, with such illustrious
names as Mary Muffet and Lily Bo Peep, you would think you could find something about the movie. In any event,
the poster once hung in (and the film was shown at) the "famous Apple Theater in
Seattle, Wa., that was torn down in 1999 after many years of controversy and
lawsuits between Seattle and the theater for illegal operating coin-op
porn-loop machines with no license. [Worthpoint]"
Back Seat Cabbie
(1969, dir. C. Walsh)
A lost film (probably) and a typical
one-day wonder, even Distribpix, which once upon a time distributed the film, knows
absolutely nothing about it. For that, the imdb
claims the movie to be a directorial project of the unknown "C. Walsh",
the mastermind behind Doggie Bag
(1969), Sweet Taste of Joy (1970)
and Turned on Girl (1970) — all of which,
like Back Seat Cabbie, were produced
by Leonard Kirtman and Robert Mansfield and feature the female charms of Janet
Topaz and Margaret Leigh. If we are to believe the imdb, both women, at least under those names, appear only in those
shared films and in no other.
As for Harry Reems, well: look at that
poster — does not the guy nibbling on the breast at your lower right sort of look like an un-mustachioed
Harry Reems? Could very much be… look at that nose.
Over at Savage Thrills, they reveal little of the plot (but more than anyone
else does) with their "summarization": "Sex in a car can be
accurately summed in six words: great in theory, shit in practice. Is there is
anything less erotic than rolling over onto your partner only to find yourself
cramped in a corner with a gearstick up your arse? Still, these logistical
complexities do nothing to deter Gloria, the beautiful protagonist of 1969
film Back Seat Cabbie […]"
(We assume Gloria to be played by either Janet or Margaret, but definitely not
Harry.)
Dazed Digital has the same text as above, but adds: "The premise
of the film is pretty self-explanatory. Gloria craves a well-paid job which
allows her some fresh air, so she decides to combine her two passions — taxi
driving and endless sex. It might seem weird, but the film is strangely
progressive in its explorations of pansexuality […]: Better still, the film
humanises a sex worker and dispels the harmful myth that all sex workers are
either trafficked or forced into the profession. Gloria breaks this stereotype —
not only is she getting fucked frequently on her own terms, the friendly lady
cabby is even being tipped for her pleasure."
When screened at the Georgian Broad Ave Cinema, above, Back
Seat Cabbie was teamed with Jesse Franco's Wanda, the Wicked Warden (1977). Starring Dyanne Thorne (14 Oct
1936 — 28 Jan 2020), the movie is pretty much considered the unofficial third Ilsa film (of four), and can also be
found under the title Ilsa, the Wicked
Warden. (See R.I.P.: Lina Romay, Part I).
Trailer to
Ilsa the Wicked Warden:
School of
Hard Knocks
(1970, dir. Unknown)
The imdb claims that the infamous Leonard Kirtman produced this probably lost
movie, which was surely a one-day wonder and, like so many of them, is so
obscure that even Distribpix, which once upon a time distributed the film, know
absolutely nothing about it. Is Harry Reems in it it? Dunno, but the guy in the
upper window to your left sort of
looks like an un-mustachioed Harry Reems.
The imdb
likewise lists one actress to be found in the movie, Laura Cannon (6 Apr 1947 —
17 June 2010), born Janet Lynn Channin, a capable actress and "the first
hardcore porno star to appear in Playboy
magazine" — photo below. She is also found on the poster, in fact she's in
the same window as the guy that sort of
looks like Reems.
To learn more about her, check out the Rialto
Report's typically
intriguing article, Fleshpot
on 42nd St: Who Was Laura Cannon?where, among other things, they quote Harry Reems from his 1975
autobiography, Here Comes Harry Reems:
"[Laura] was magnificent, impossible, and ridiculous. And I fell in love
with her that week in Connecticut. [When they filmed Dark Dreams (1971); see Part II.] How to describe Laura? Laura was actually a princess
— a Jewish American Princess, commonly abbreviated as JAP. She had a glorious
Greek-goddess body and a nose job she thought was the most perfect piece of
surgery in the world. She only fell in love with men who told her she had an
exquisite nose, possibly the most exquisite nose in the world."
But to return to this film. If anyone has
ever bothered to write about it, they didn't put it on the web. Going by the
two film stills we found online, however, we would hazard to guess the movie is
a bit on the let's-degrade-women side of things.
School of Hard Knocks did get
screened in Pittsburgh in 1970, at the New Casino Theatre, which the Allegheny City Society claims was once the Novelty Theatre: "The New Casino
Theatre was located — Just Across the 6th Street Bridge — and opened on October
18, 1966, ushering in adult films to the North Side. In January 1967 it became
Pittsburgh's new (and final) 'Home of Burlesque' with its mix of action on both
the stage and screen. Opening in 1918 as the Novelty Theatre and located at 217—219
Federal Street, it was one of three theatres that sat on Federal, south of what
is today Allegheny Center."
Lady Zazu's Daughter
(1971, writ. & dir. Eduardo Cemano)
A.k.a.
Millie's Homecoming, this movie
is not found on any Reems filmography online — but take a look at the poster,
at the star directly to your right of the biggest star (the one with Tina
Russell, who isn't even listed on the poster). That is unquestionably an
un-mustachioed Harry Reems. So, although none of the names on the poster are
known pseudonyms of his, and assuming that the people pictured on the poster
are in the film, Reems would be in there somewhere. But, actually, he isn't…
how do we know? Because we watched the film, like you can, here.
But since he is on the poster, so let's
look at the movie anyways. The plot, according to some other illegal download
website out there: "[The] life of Lord and Lady Zazu (Dolly
Sharp) as they await the
return of their daughter Millie (Arlana Blue, above from the film) from college. Lady Zazu is
stressed out as per usual and appeals to her maid Hazel (Tina Russell) to
soothe her jangled nerves. Upon Millie's return home, her besotted father, Lord
Zazu (Fred J.
Lincoln) staggers into
Millie's bedroom, where — mistaking Millie's raised buttocks for his wife's —
[he] accidentally slips it to his own daughter. Once recovered from the initial
shock of their incestuous encounter, Lord and daughter realize that they
actually enjoyed the experience and run off to tell the rest of the
family!"
Some of the cast here (Dolly Sharp & "Peter
Zotts" [Fred J. Lincoln]) also appeared in another 1971 film written and
directed by "Eduardo Cemano" that featured Harry Reems, The Weirdos and the Oddballs, which,
like this movie, was supposedly co-produced by an uncredited Doris Wishman. We
looked at W&O back in 2013, in Part II, where we mentioned: "Director Cemano (a pseudonym for Ed Seeman) was an associate of John Cassavettes who, according
to Robert Cetti (in his book Eduardo
Cemano & Birth of the NYC One-Day Wonder), had 'a cultural background
in Borscht Belt comedy [and] developed a reputation as a pornographer's answer
to Woody Allen.' […] Wider Screenings says: "Cemano was fascinated by the
possibilities of including explicit sexual imagery into a narrative feature —
or, more specifically, introducing plot and character into an explicit sex film
— and when approached [...] to make some original one-day wonders in New York
to compete with the material sent over from California, Cemano eagerly directed
two of the first porno feature films to emerge from New York: Millie's Homecoming aka Lady Zazu's Daughter (1971) and The Weirdos and the Oddballs aka Zora Knows Best. [...]"
Wider Screenings is now a
Polish website and their article gone, but another site we quoted, SexGoreMutants, is still there and they mention: "'Both films [Zazu and Zora] benefit from candid camera-style voyeurism that at times
achieves levels of minor delirium. The acting equals this, ranging from the
comical to the manic. While never contrived, there's no mistaking that all of
this is very stylized. Cemano had a distinctive vision, pushing for something more
than run-of-the-mill. The sex scenes are not too well shot in terms of explicit
detail, but they do evoke humor and warmth — two things you won't find in your
typical Vivid production. This is human sex — all the sucking and fucking is
enjoyed by real people (not plastic), totally into each other (not themselves),
while Cemano's camera simply observes the intricacies with clumsy verve.' Aside
from his porno work, Ed Seeman (Cemano), self-portrait above, who now lives in Florida with his wife
Amy, was a successful painter, experimental film-maker, animator and glamour
photographer — a regular Renaissance Man, in other words. [...]"
The illustrations above, taken from Seeman's Wikipedia entry, are examples of "security adverts from
c.1953, from the 4th Infantry Division's Ivy Leaves newspaper, by Corporal Ed
Seeman".
Vild på sex
/ Bibi
(1974, writ & dir. Joe Sarno)
Released on DVD as Girl Meets Girl. Produced by Chris D. Nebe, before he turned to documentaries.So, is Harry in the movie starring Maria
Forsa as the titular "16 year old" Bibi? If so, then pretty much to the same extent as he is
in Klute (1971, see Addendum
I): he might be in a disco scene, doing dance floor moves. As CD Man
says at rame.net & the rock!pop!shock! forum, "Look for a guy who sure as shit looks like
Harry Reems (look at the guy on the right hand side of that screenshot!) during
the disco scene. If that isn't Harry, he's got a doppelganger somewhere in
Germany... a doppelganger with killer dance moves!"
Sarno had by now already worked with Reems in A Touch of Genie (1974, see Part
III) and the fiasco that is Deep
Throat II (1974, see Part
III) prior to jetting off to Europe to do a series of sex films, of
which Bibi is one. (The "best"
of Sarno Euro films of this period is probably his lez horror film that
preceded Bibi and also featured
Maria Forsa, The Devil's Plaything /
Vampire Ecstasy / The Curse of the Black Sisters [1974 / trailer below].)
And Harry also flew to Europe to work with Sarno in the director's follow-up
film with Forsa, Butterflies (1975,
see Part
IV), not to mention to make two more films with Forsa for the director
Mac Ahlberg, Justine and Juliette (1975, see Part
IV) and Bel Ami (1976, see Part
IV). So it is
in the realm of possibilities that Mr Reems was around town and a dancing extra
was needed… so he did an uncredited boogie as foreplay to his part as the
nightclub owner Frank, of Butterflies.
Trailer to
Vampire Ecstasy:
The plot of Bibi, also supplied by CD Man [again
at rock!pop!shock! forum], to a film he claims "could almost be a remake
of Sarno's earlier Swedish coming of age story, Inga (1968 / trailer,
starring Marie
Liljedahl)": "[T]he
film follows a lovely young lady named Bibi (Maria Forsa) who leaves her home in
the quaint countryside to hit the big city and hang out with her Aunt Tony (Nadia Henkowa) for a little while. Once she arrives at her
destination, Bibi has no qualms whatsoever about letting her wild side cut
loose as she devours any man or woman lucky enough to get in her way. Bibi, it
seems, has taken a page out of Aunt Tony's book and indulges herself with
partners of both sexes, which leads to an encounter or two that makes the
alternate titling of the film a little more appropriate than it would be
otherwise. Eventually, however, after Bibi has had her way with anyone and
everyone she can, the Sarno soap operatics kick in and she has to own up to
what she's done. You can't go sleeping around with as many people as Bibi does
in this film and not get on someone's bad side or wreak havoc with someone's
emotions…"
"Bibi is a welcome return to form for Sarno. Voyeurism, sexual
coming of age, masturbation, sapphic delights, outdoor sex, and incest are
themes and elements which Sarno had utilized before and they're presented here
shot in dazzling color with a cast of German lovelies. Where the film fails is
the writing. While Sarno's camera is an ever-probing participant in the sex
scenes and the flesh on display is all of top quality (additionally, the sex is
with most certainty hardcore even if penetration isn't graphically shown), the
dialogue scenes between characters suffer from the stagnant delivery by the
foreign actors. […] Sarno also creates some beautiful scenes of forbidden love
and whispered dialogue in the shadows of the night, with sparse lighting and
great tension. And you have to love the great German rock score, which
thankfully doesn't intrude on the well-done sex scenes (another Sarno
trademark: all the sex is "scored" with sounds of orgasms, heavy
breathing, and other all-natural sounds of lovemaking). [DVD Drive-In]"
