Creature (USA, 1985)

 

(Spoilers.) Not to be mistaken with 2004's Creature, also known as Alien Lockdown and Predatorman, this Creature is from the fabulous '80s, as is more than obvious by the fabulously horrible '80s hair worn by some of the babes; oddly enough, the men, above all manly TV actor Stan Ivar* as the heroic Captain Mike Davison and Robert Jaffe as Jon Fennel,* sport haircuts that look even more retro, say, late '70s. 

* Stan Ivar really hasn't done diddly-squat that interests us, but Robert Jaffe is of a different cut. Of his few acting credits, you find small parts in Fuzz (1972 / trailer, see: Uschi, Part VI) and the unloved Magnificent Seven Ride! (1972 / trailer), but what make him interesting to a wasted life is his writing and production credits. He worked on the screenplay to the contentious Demon Seed (1977 / trailer), the forgotten trash horror Scarab (1980 / trailer), the equally forgotten original film version of Nightflyers (1987 / trailer), which was revamped in 2018 as a series (trailer) on Netfux, and — the film for which he has our appreciation — he helped script and produce that fun and eminently watchable slab of comedic horror, Motel Hell (1980). 

Trailer to

Creature:

Creature could easily be mistaken as a Roger Corman production, but it isn't: it is, by all accounts, an independent production brought to reality above all by the gumption and drive of the film's writer and director William Malone, who at the time had an unabating desire to become a director. And that he did become: Creature, which was preceded by the much lower budgeted Scared to Death (1980 / trailer), has led to a career as a director on TV horror genre series as well as a steady stream of feature-film horrors, namely the critically maligned but financially successful House on Haunted Hill remake (1999 / trailer), the unpopular Fear dot Com (2002 / trailer), and the virtually unknown Parasomnia (2008 / trailer). Whatever his next project might be, it has been a long time in waiting.

 

"We found... a child's butterfly collection... but some of these butterflies... were not too friendly..." 

Hans Rudy Hofner (Klaus Kinski)

 

A.k.a. as The Titan Find, the original version of Creature seems to be in the public domain, and it is the PD version that we saw, pan and scanned but apparently uncut from the original release, packaged as it was on a double feature DVD with the mega-flop Slipstream (1989). In 2013, William Malone re-released the film, on DVD, under its original title, the less grindhouse-appropriate The Titan Find, in a widescreen version featuring his original and longer director's cut. While, had we had the choice, we would have preferred watching that version, as widescreen is always great and uncut grindhouse generally means more blood and breasts, we must say that the version of Creature we saw, rated PG-13, had a pleasant amount of both B&B and wasn't all that bad. The Titan Find, in any event, is now also available in novelized form, written by Christian Francis, a man whose specialty is novelizations of horror films.

Creature is hardly a bastion of originality and creativity, but as a science fiction body counter it manages to combine its purloined and/or genre-generic aspects and stock characters into a relatively unoriginal but thoroughly amusing space horror. There are dry spots and an occasional snort-inducing event, but the movie does keep one entertained until the end. It opens with two space-suited men (John Stinson [of The Hand (1981 / trailer)] & Jim McKeny [of Alice (2022 / trailer)] and The Gravedancers [2006]), geologists for the American multinational NTI, finding some ancient eggs on the largest moon of Saturn, Titan. The discovery goes wrong, as one can imagine, but the real story starts some two months later, after the surviving astronaut, looking burnt and dead, crashes their spaceship into Concorde, a space station orbiting Earth's moon. NTI promptly sends a new ship to Titan, the Shenandoah, captained by Mike Davison but run by the NTI representative David Perkins (Lyman Ward*). Its crew includes the only other man, Jon Fennel, three girlies with brains — final girl Beth Sladen (Wendy Schaal of Munchies [1987 / trailer]), sexy Dr. Wendy H. Oliver (Annette McCarthy [12 Apr 1958 – 6 Jan 2023]), and obvious fodder Susan Delambre (Marie Laurin), who later supplies the movie's naked-breast quotient — and Melanie Bryce (Diane Salinger of Batman Returns [1992 / trailer], Rest Stop [2006 / trailer] and Rest Stop: Don't Look Back [2008 / trailer] and more), a security officer who looks like she stepped straight out of a John Willie (i.e., John Alexander Scott Coutts [9 Dec 1902 – 5 Aug 1962]) comic or Eugene Bilbrew (29 Jun 1923 – May 1974) paperback cover, from her wonderfully over-the-top hairstyle to her black frilly panties we see in the scene where Dr Hans Rudy Hofner (Klaus Kinski**) "introduces" himself. 

* Lyman Ward made his walk-on and walk-off feature-film debut in the Pam Grier classic Coffy (1973) and has been in many "bad" film in parts of varying importance, including The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood (1980 / trailer, see: Dick Miller Part V), A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985) Sleepwalkers (1992), Mikey (1992 / trailer), and more, more, more. 

** Other films featuring the one and only child-molesting Klaus Kinski (18 Oct 1926 – 23 Nov 1991) that have been reviewed at a wasted life include: The Avenger (1960), The Devil's Daffodil (1961), Dead Eyes of London (1961), The Inn on the River (1962), The Indian Scarf (1963), The Black Abbot (1963), The Great Silence (1968), Black Killer (1971) and...

Creature mines Alien (1979 / trailer) and pays direct homage to the original Thing from Another World (1951 / trailer) to throw together a serviceable body counter in science-fiction clothing. The body count by the end is a lowly six, providing one counts the first two astronauts and ignores all the seen and unseen bodies of the crew of the German spaceship whence Dr. Hofner comes and the narrative ultimately resolves itself. A key aspect of the film is that the creature does more than simply decapitate or eat the humans: occasionally it implants a parasite in the dead body, creating a kind of zombie that does its bidding and shares all knowledge, thus it grows more intelligent as the movie progresses. (The parasites and their link to their master is reminiscent of other, better films like the classic pro-drug meta movie The Faculty [1998 / trailer] and James Gunn's hilarious Slither [2006 / trailer]; one might also think of Cronenberg's Shivers [1975 / trailer], but those parasites, while similar, don't share a mental link.) The order in which the various characters go is relatively easy to figure out, but the movie nevertheless manages to mine some tension from the expectation.

 

"I saw a movie once, where a group of people were trapped in an ice station by a carrot from another planet..."

Beth Sladen (Wendy Schaal)

 

The characterizations of the diverse figures of Creature are sketchy or rote at best, but some manage to inhabit their parts better than others. As already mentioned, the pert-breasted Susan Delambre supplies the requisite blood-smeared nude scenes (as well as the most atrocious example of '80s hair styling), but she is more than wooden until she dies and is parasitically revived — her nudity and frown do wonders for the impression she subsequently makes. It is, however, her smitten deep-space penis Jon Fennel (Robert Jaffe) that the alien uses to its best advantage by turning him into a regular Benedict Arnold. Dr. Wendy is basically there to die, while final girl Beth, despite all her braininess and perseverance, screams a lot by contemporary standards and stands firmly at the tail end of that genre trope, the pretty girl that has to be saved — again and again and again. 

As Dr. Hofner, Klaus Kinski is surprisingly restrained but nevertheless typically goofy, but his presence is relatively short and he appears to have been played by a stand-in once he gets a parasite in his brain. (He could well have been played by anyone, but, hey! Kinski is a name.) Diane Salinger's Security Officer Bryce is actually the most interesting character of the movie, but though she is a key figure in the movie's resolution, she is under-utilized in the overall events of the narrative. It is arguably that as the NTI representative David Perkins, Lyman Ward has the meatiest part of Creature: a company asshole at the start of the movie and responsible for a terrible decision that basically puts the whole crew in its deadly situation, he grows into a manly, self-sacrificing man who puts his 100% into working with manly Captain Davison to kill the monster and get off the planet.

As mentioned earlier, Creature is not the most original movies, but the narrative is not too porous and once the team finally gets to Titan, relatively suspenseful. And for being a low budget, independently financed film, it looks pretty good: the interiors of the ship never scream "No Money!" and the exteriors on Titan are perfectly serviceable. The start of the movie is a bit low on gore — the exploding head within a space helmet is not really worth writing home about — but there are some good old-fashioned practical effects towards the end. It might not truly meet one's expectations for '80s cheese and trashy films in regard to how the blood and sleaze is dolloped, but fans of the grindhouse genre(s) will probably find Creature more than a passable way to spend an evening. Here at a wasted life, we give Creature two thumbs up.

Boogeyman 3 (USA, 2008)

(Spoilers.) The vagaries of eBay. You buy a €1 DVD of some film, say The Boogeyman (1980 / trailer), and get the DVD, keeping it sooooo long in your "to-watch pile" that by the time you pull the DVD case out the pasted label has fallen off of the disc inside and you see it's actually a bootleg ripped onto a normal CD. So you pop it into your player anyways, thinking it's finally time to watch one of the rare Ulli Lommel films that supposedly doesn't suck, and what do you know, you've actually bought a double DVD, with Thai subtitles, of Donkey Punch (2008 / trailer) and something called Boogeyman 3 (2008). There was a franchise? How did we miss that?

Whatever. Boogeyman 3 may not have been the film we wanted — but, hey! Better than nothing. And so it came to our watching the third and final installment of the now-moribund non-Lommel franchise, which lived and died quickly within a span of four years, with The Boogeyman (2005 / trailer), The Boogeyman 2 (2007 / trailer) and this baby here, Boogeyman 3...

Trailer to

Boogeyman 3:

And while most blind dates we have ever had were truly a disaster, this one was surprisingly amusing. Sure, not all that intelligent and possibly a bit affected and at times almost irrational, but not bad-looking at all, not to mention relatively entertaining and quick and easy — we like them easy — and with some nice if not oversized breasts, both braless under tight t-shirts and, at one point, delightfully exposed. Yep, we might not date this one again, but the date gave us everything we wanted that night, if a bit clumsily and without much emotion, almost by rote. (But, actually, if your thing is hematolagnia, this film offers of rivers of hemoglobin, so bring some tissues when you watch it.) 

It must be said that director Gary Jones, who long ago made his directorial debut with the wonderfully cheesy Mosquito (1994 / trailer), does like that moving camera, those creeping shots that infer danger encroaching upon the unsuspecting. It works, sometimes, but like most candy it can also get tiresome if in overkill and at the wrong time. That said, he does manage to film the movie in a mostly convincing manner, one that is never visually boring, and he has a good eye for the staging of the creative deaths of body-count flicks like this one. And as you surely know, Boogeyman 3 is very much a body-counter along the line of hundreds of others, if more in the direction of the supernatural unstoppable killer (e.g., Nightmare on Elm Street [1984 / trailer], et al.) than the physically real (e.g., The Town that Dreaded Sundown [1976 / trailer], et al.). 

Since we were watching a fully unintentionally bought but obviously illegally sold version of the film, which means that we have no way of knowing for sure whether cuts were original, we probably should not complain about the two absolutely atrocious cases of bad editing, but we will. In both cases, they occur during conversations: the first time Sarah tells her friends about the Boogeyman, and then when she's talking to her squeeze, David (Chuck Hittinger of Stalked at 17 [2012 / trailer] and Sharknado [2013 / trailer]), in his dorm room in the presence of his roommate [whose later death is the least creative of the film]. Both scenes that conceivably would have been dreadfully boring and long had they not called in an obviously drunken mohel with dull teeth to edit the sequence. Impressively jarring. 

Boogeyman 3 opens with the sad and unglamorous Audrey (Nikki Sanderson [among other things, a glamour model in real life]) returning home, Daddy (Tobin Bell) dead,* and before you can say "Don't be stupid!" she reads his journals and suddenly there's something in the dark. It kills her nice doggy, and then she gets pulled under her bed by a shadowy and mysterious force to what one thinks is her demise — but no, once we are introduced to the true heroine of the tale, the delectable college psychology student Sarah (Erin Cahill of Creature Unknown [2004 / trailer], The Watcher [2016 / trailer] and Cut to the Chase [2016 / trailer]), Audrey suddenly pops up again in Sarah's dorm room, apparently off her rocker, to sob to her best friend that she is being hunted by the Boogeyman and is going to die. Audrey, of course, comes across very much an unhinged, minor-league Cassandra, finally solidifying her position by claiming something along the lines of "You don't believe me, but you will." 

* We don't really know how or when, but it happened in Boogeyman 2 (2007 / trailer), so the Boogeyman surely did it.

Needless to say, Audrey who-should-already-be-dead-but-isn't doesn't last long — perhaps one too many foreshadowing scene (i.e., false scare), but not that long temporally — and Sarah actually sees the Boogeyman, so before long she too is playing Cassandra to her party-hearty dorm friends and calm & serious school mentor, the nicely DILFy Kane (Matt Rippy of Day of the Dead [2008] and Crystal Skulls [2014 / trailer]). Unluckily, due to the suicide of her mommy and subsequent (but since overcome) breakdown, she has a "past" of seeing things, so no one believes her, especially since, going by the look of things, she is progressively spiraling downwards into typical paranoiac and obsessive behavior. Sarah comes to realize, through some pretty nifty hallucinations (though none, despite the blood — and this film has a lot of blood — ever reach the unnerving scariness of some of the dreams in the first and original Nightmare on Elm Street), that the Boogeyman is actually out to slaughter not just her friends, but the entire dorm. Can she stop him?

As she goes mega-Cassandra, she completely fails to see something that is very obvious to the viewer: if the Boogeyman (supposedly) can't hurt you if you don't believe in him, then you shouldn't be in danger if you don't know about him. So by telling everyone about him, she is actually facilitating his ability to do harm. (Sort of like with the contemporary US press and all those GOP crackpots that hog the headlines.) The light in her head does go on eventually, but by the time she realizes that the Boogeyman is playing her like a Stradivari, it could be too late...

Needless to say, Sarah is hot. She fills her tight beaters in a way that made us wish we were a woman, too. As a character, she is surprisingly likeable and intelligent, so the ease with which she gets played by the Boogeyman almost comes across as simple expediency on the part of the scriptwriter Brian Sieve (The Possession of Hannah Grace [2018 / trailer]). On the other hand, if you see the apparently cis-gender Boogeyman as representational of the alpha male, then her blindness is more a reflection of the inability to see the obvious that so many otherwise intelligent women who continually "run into the door" suffer. (Then again, Boogeyman 3 could just be a mindless supernatural body-counter in which nothing should be read at all.)

Boogeyman 3 has some nice kills — which is why one watches flicks like this, anyways — even if all are obvious long before they happen. The fate of the film's annoyingly token Black guy, the mega-stoner Lukas (WB "B-Dawg" Alexander),* hit particularly close to our home, while the death of the Jeremy (George Maguire of Spiderhole [2010 / trailer] and Violent City [2015 / trailer]) gives new meaning to stretching and flexibility. The best death, however, is undoubtedly reserved for Lindsey (Mimi Michaels of Backwoods [2008 / trailer], Chromeskull: Laid to Rest 2 [2011 / trailer] and Relentless Justice [2015 / trailer]), who gets to enjoy a total blood-flood overkill (it makes its inspiration, The Shining [1980 / trailer], look a bit wimpy) as foreplay to suffering a nasty fate that one or two of us probably came close to experiencing in real life as little children (we sure did).
* Really, couldn't the scriptwriter made him the one with a girlfriend, maybe even also another minority, so that the total whiteness (and obvious case of tokenism) of this film wasn't so frigging glaring? One can literally count the "minorities" in this film on one hand and still have fingers left over.

So, cool kills — but, nevertheless, there are structural flaws that you really have to be willing to overlook to "enjoy" the proceedings. The sudden reappearance of Audrey is not as idiotic as one might think, despite how the Boogeyman tends to quickly (if painfully) kill everyone but her and Sarah: that he toys with those two young women makes sense, once the plot point arises that to be able to do what he does (Kill! Kill! Kill!), one has to believe in him — thus, Audrey is left alive to make Sarah believe, and Sarah is left alive to make everyone else believe.

The problem is, though the film claims that is the power behind his deadliness and makes this fact the MacGuffin driving Sarah's actions — and cements the truthiness of the fact with the death scene of Sarah's mentor Kane, just after she utters the immortal line, to paraphrase: "Oh my God, you do believe me!" — most of the deaths in the film don't require "belief" to occur. Okay, maybe Audrey had a tinge of belief while reading her dad's journal, but, really: How the heck can a dog believe in the Boogeyman? And while both Lukas and Jeremy do mention the name "Boogeyman" once or twice, neither specifically believes in him at the time of their deaths: the supernatural being simply starts haunting them and then kills them. Ditto with David's roommate Ben (Eley Gabel, also seen somewhere in World War Z [2013 / trailer]), who really doesn't believe in anything but breasts, something he is in pursuit of when the Boogeyman comes for him. (In the case of Lindsey, on the other hand, she explicitly and doubtfully says something like "What if he's real?" just before she has her transcendental experience.)*
* A question that popped into our mind by the end, regarding the Boogeyman, is "Is he gay?" We couldn't help but notice that while his kills were gender-variable, the only victims he took home with him — that is: transported out of our reality and into his own — were all male. Something oddly Dahmer-like in that, which ultimately adds a sort of repressed-sexuality aspect to his killings...

But while it would have been nice had the plot truly held water (see: the original Nightmare on Elm Street), holding water is not something that the slasher cum body-count genre is known for; when it shows up in a movie of this sort, it is generally an unexpected and pleasant surprise.

So, disregarding that major but common flaw (as is normally expected), Boogeyman 3 has fun deaths, tons of blood, passable acting, looks relatively good for its Bulgarian-shot budget, and really doesn't overstay its welcome, so in the end the movie definitely delivers the basic goods of its genre. That alone makes it more watchable then thousands of flicks out there.

Despite leaving no survivors, Boogeyman 3 nevertheless leaves the possibility of a sequel — it could easily be set in a police station — but seeing how long it's been since this film's release (15 years!), a fourth installment seems highly unlikely.

Parents (USA, 1989)

Here's a uniquely odd, disquieting and blackly funny horror comedy from the end of the '80s that remains unjustly unknown, despite being a mild financial and critical success when released. The feature-length directorial debut of Bob Balaban — a non-name who is more active as an instantly recognizable character actor in films as diverse as his feature-film acting debut Midnight Cowboy (1969 / trailer) to Ken Russell's Altered States (1980 / trailer) to Natural Selection (1999) to I Am the Pretty Thing that Lives in the House (2016) to, most recently, Asteroid City (2023 / trailer) — Parents stands out for its immaculate and colorful 1950s period setting and disconcerting narrative. The latter comes from the viewpoint of an imaginative young boy who could well be an unreliable narrator. (After all, how many reliable narrators get attacked by sentient salami while hiding in the kitchen pantry closet?) 

Trailer to

Parents:

Parents kicks off to the sounds of some period perfect mambo music, naturally by Perez Prado,* as the trio that is Laemle family moves into their dream suburban American home in a new small town, where daddy Nick Laemle (a pitch-perfect Randy Quaid, of Bug Buster [1998], Hard Rain [1998], Freaked [1993] and more, all before the Hollywood Star Whackers stole his brain and talent) has a new job at Toxico (where he subsequently invents something along the lines of Agent Orange).** As Daddy Laemle's perfect housewife Lily (Mary Beth Hurt) keeps house and cooks perfect and meat-heavy meals, their young son Michael (Bryan Madorsky), whom much to the displeasure of his father appears to be a vegetarian, has to deal with the tribulations of his new school and his mounting suspicion that his parents are cannibals. Michael's growing anxiety at home is reflected in the drawings he does at school, so the chain-smoking and somewhat dizzy school psychologist Millie Dew (Sandy Dennis [27 Apr 1937- 2 Mar 1992], of Steven Spielberg's 2nd TV movie Something Evil [1972 / trailer], the grindhouse classic God Told Me To [1976 / trailer, with Richard Lynch], Nasty Habits [1977 / trailer] and 976-Evil [1988 / trailer]) soon calls his mother in for a talk...

* Don't know Prado's music? Check out Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White or Patricia, among many cool songs, including his most famous, Mambo #5. As you can hear, one-hit wonder Lou Bega's Mambo #5 owes less to Bega than Prado.

** For a further look at the jobs of the male parental figure in the days of Wally and Beaver, dare we suggest our Short Film of the Month for January 2017, Billy's Dad Is a Fudge-Packer (2004)?

Visually, Parents is a pleasure to the eyes: the clothes, cars, houses and all the trappings of '50s suburbia is recreated with almost parodist perfection — and, as a result, Parents comes across far less anachronistic or dated than most of the horror films of the '80s set in the '80s. 

 

Director Balaban is also not exactly against the use of some pretty nifty framing and cinematography, which also helps put the film a visual step above so many other films of the day. True, young Bryan Madorsky is annoyingly blank-faced as the troubled Michael, but for that Quaid excels at exuding an undercurrent of menace and disdain towards his young son, even when simply doing the stuff any loving father might do. 

And as to be expected of an actress whose career is heavy in nice-girl and nice-wife parts, Mary Beth Hurt isn't too shabby as the stereotypical '50s housewife and loving mom who works hard to keep her husband happy and house perfect. Only Sandy Dennis is a bit off key, coming across as a tick too contemporary for the period setting.

For a horror film of the '80s, Parents is not the bloodiest movie nor is the body count exceptionally high, and it isn't exactly the scariest, either. For that, however, it is truly noteworthy for maintaining, between the black humor laughs, an uncomfortable, sinister and discombobulating undercurrent that leaves the viewer far more subliminally unsettled than most gore films. For any and all the laughs a given scene or this extremely dry black comedy might instigate, one never stops feeling oddly perturbed. This is particularly true of almost any scene involving Michael's only school friend, Sheila (London Juno of Prom Night III: The Last Kiss [1990 / trailer]), the daughter of his Nick's boss, who often comes across as overly knowing and unconsciously sexual for a girl of her age — an uncomfortable aspect of the narrative that would probably be exorcised were the film a product of today.

Parents is anything but a traditional horror film, and it swerves deeply into the realm of the weird; fans of films that are "different" will probably find this well-made, blackly humorous slice of '50s-set suburban dread highly satisfying. Heartily recommended by your fine folks here a wasted life.

Balaban's follow-up four years later was the teen comedy horror My Boyfriend's Back (1993 / trailer), which is fun enough but hardly as uncomfortable or disturbing, while his last feature film directorial project, the factually challenged and mildly humorous drama Bernard and Doris (2006 / trailer), starring an excellent Susan Sarandon, went straight to HBO.

B.o.Y.: The Women of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Part XVI – Edy Williams, Pt. I (1963-67)

"Using unknowns you avoid highly exaggerated salaries and prima donnas."

Russ Meyer

To repeat ourselves: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Russ Meyer's baroque 1967 masterpiece, one of only two movies he ever made for a major Hollywood studio (in this case, Fox), is without a doubt one of the Babest movies ever made. While we have yet to review it here at a wasted life (if we did, we would foam at the mouth in raging rave), we have looked at it before: back in 2011, in our R.I.P. Career Review of Charles Napier (12 Apr 1936 – 5 Oct 2011), and again in 2013 in our R.I.P. Career Review for the Great Haji (24 Jan 1946 – 10 Aug 2013) — both appear in the film.

"This is not a sequel. There has never been anything like it!"
Advertisement tagline

 

In Haji's entry, we wrote, among other things, the following: "Originally intended as a sequel to the 1967 movie version of Jacqueline Susann's novel Valley of the Dolls (trailer), Meyer and co-screenwriter Roger Ebert instead made a Pop Art exploitation satire of the conventions of the modern Hollywood melodrama, written in sarcasm but played straight, complete with a 'moralistic' ending that owes its inspiration to the Manson-inspired murder of Sharon Tate and her guests on 9 August 1969. Aside from the movie's absolutely insane plot, the cinematography is also noteworthy — as are the figures of the pneumatic babes that populate the entire movie. For legal reasons, the film starts with the following disclaimer: 'The film you are about to see in not a sequel to Valley of the Dolls. It is wholly original and bears no relationship to real persons, living or dead. It does, like Valley of the Dolls, deal with the oft-times nightmare world of show business but in a different time and context.' [...]"

"Any movie that Jacqueline Susann thinks would damage her reputation as a writer cannot be all bad."

Vincent Canby

Trailer to

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls:

 

Russ Meyer films are always populated by amazing breasts sights, but Beyond the Valley of the Dolls literally overflows its cups in an excess of pulchritude that (even if somewhat more demurely covered than in most of his films) lights the fires of any person attracted to women of the curvaceous kind that preceded today's sculptured plasticity. The film is simply Babe Galore.

And so we continue our look at the flesh film careers of the breasts women of the Babest Film of All Times, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. The size of the women's breasts roles is of lesser importance than the simple fact that they are known to be in the given film(s) somewhere, and so far we have looked at the cleavage known unknowns and mildly knowns in the background and the headlining semi-knowns in the front for exactly fourteen mostly monthly blog entries — with more breasts babes to come. Our entries focus on their nipples careers in film, if in a meandering manner, and we have slightly more than another half-year to go before we're finished drooling with the project.*

* One set of love pillows Babe we don't look is she who is an American National Treasure: the Great Pam Grier. Though she had her film debut in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls unseen somewhere in the background of the opening party scene, and therefore should be included, we feel that a Wonderment of her caliber deserves an entry all of her own — a Sisyphean task we might one day undertake. That's her below on the set of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, standing next to Cissy Colpotts (see Pt. XI & XII). 

 

So far, we have looked at the T&A careers of the following: 

Part I: The Non-babe of Note — Princess Livingston 

Part II: Background Babe of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls — Jacqulin Cole 

Part III: Background Babe of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls — Bebe Louie 

Part IV: Background Babe of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls — Trina Parks 

Part V: Background Babe of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls — Lavelle Roby, Pt. I (1968-76) 

Part VI: Background Babe of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls — Lavelle Roby. Pt. II (1979-2021) 

Part VII: Killer Babe of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls — Samantha Scott 

Part VIII: Background Babe of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls — Karen Smith 

Part IX: Background Babes of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls — The Five Mysterians 

Part X: Background Babe of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls — Gina Dair 

Part XI: Background Babe of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls — Cissi Colpitts, Pt. I (1970-80) 

Part XII: Background Babe of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls — Cissi Colpitts, Pt. II (1981-88) 

Part XIII: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls — Phyllis Davis, Pt. I (1966-73) 

Part XIV: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls — Phyllis Davis, Pt. II (1975-2013) 

Part XV: Background Babe of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls — Veronica Ericson

 

And now, we take a look at Edy Williams, the only woman in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls that can claim to have been married to the movie's director (from 27 June 1970 – 7 Nov 1975). Edwina Beth Williams was born 9 July 1942 in Salt Lake City, Utah, but grew up in Oregon and Southern California. A model and beauty contest winner, she eventually signed a multi-year contract with 20th Century Fox and began appearing regularly in movies and television, if mostly as background filler. Her first true role of note is probably her breathy interpretation of Hatrack in The Naked Kiss (1964). Breathy sexiness became the id that became and remained her trademark, which is perhaps why she remains best known (outside of cult film circles) as the eternal starlet forever displaying her talents at the Cannes Film Festival. During the sixties, her career trajectory slowly worked its way upwards, achieving its highpoint with her double whammy of Meyer's hit Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) and his subsequent flop The Seven Minutes (1971). Thereafter, her parts got smaller or more obscure or cult-oriented. Since 1990, she has pretty much disappeared from the limelight if not from public. Today, one could well ask "Whatever happened to Edy Williams?"  

 

 

For Love or Money

(1963, dir. Michael Gordon)

Director Michael Gordon (6 Sep 1909 – 29 Apr 1993) started out as B-film director and specialist of noirs and crime, but by the time he got blacklisted at the start of the '50s he had moved up to A-list projects. 

Unlike many, Gordon was able to later rekindle his career after he got pulled in to do a little film known as Pillow Talk (1959 / trailer). But for his subsequent film, Portrait in Black (1960 / trailer), he subsequently specialized in comedies... like this one, For Love or Money.

Edy Williams makes her uncredited feature-film debut in For Love or Money as one of Gig Young's playthings, remaining almost unnoticeable amidst the attractiveness of Mitzi Gaynor, Julie Newmar and Leslie Parrish (of The Giant Spider Invasion [1975 / trailer] & The Astral Factor [1978 / full movie]), who played the three comely daughters in need of matrimony. Mitzi Gaynor retired from movies after this Hollywood comedy — she just didn't think she was cut out for a Hollywood career.

Frank De Vol's main theme to

Love or Money:

The plot, from My Reviewer: "For Love or Money, [Kirk Douglas] was cast well against type as a Cary Grant-esque character in his only romantic comedy role. Douglas plays DK 'Deke' Gentry, a lawyer who is taken on by rich widow Chloe Brasher (Thelma Ritter) to play matchmaker to her three daughters, with the incentive of $100,000 if they all marry her choices. The three women are all very different and offer unique challenges to Deke, with Bonnie (Newmar) as a ditzy health addict, Jan (Parrish) a bohemian artist and Kate (Gayner) a headstrong socialite. Each is paired with a dull and/or badly matched man, from a tax inspector (William Windom) to a prison rehabilitation expert (Dick Sargent) and a wealthy playboy (Young). Deke uses all his skill and wiles to try and see that Chloe's plans come to fruition but is thwarted by the unpredictable sisters falling for him instead."

Opening credits:

"The story is too lightweight for a feature film and although it starts out okay ends up becoming quite stretched and tedious during the second half. The scenarios are more silly and inane than actually funny and the only time it is ever amusing is when Ritter and William Bendix are in front of the camera and otherwise it falls flat. The contrived 'happy ending' merely emphasizes how predictable and formulaic the whole thing is. [Scopophilia]"

William Bendix was in many a better film, including numerous classics... including this masterpiece:

Trailer to

Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944):

 

Man's Favorite Sport?

(1964, dir. Howard Hawks)

Filming for Man's Favorite Sport? began late in 1962, and Edy Williams' presence is even more negligible than in For Love or Money: here, she simply plays an uncredited girl in some scene somewhere.

Written with Cray Grant in mind, Hawks turned to Rock "I'm not gay" Hudson (17 Nov 1925 – 2 Oct 1985)* when Grant decided to do Charade (1963 / trailer) instead. Smart move on Grant's part. 

* That's Rock above, on vacation in Pueto Vallarta, Mexico, with his then boyfriend Lee Garlington in 1963.

Trailer to

Man's Favorite Sport?:

The plot to Howard Hawks' late-career attempt to recapture the spirit of the screwball comedy, as found at TV Guide: "[...] Roger Willoughby (Rock Hudson of Pretty Maids All in a Row [1971 / trailer]) is the star fishing-supplies salesman of a large sporting goods store, but he knows nothing about fishing. Publicity agent Abigail Page (Paula Prentiss of I Am the Pretty Thing that Lives in the House [2016]) convinces Hudson's boss, William Cadwalader (John McGiver of Arnold [1973 / trailer]), that Willoughby should enter a fishing contest. With a little luck and assistance from a bear, Willoughby wins. Acknowledging that his win is a fluke, he forfeits the prize and subsequently gets fired. In the end, Willoughby gets his job back and lands Abigail as well. Hawks delivers his usual heavy-handed direction, but the film's premise is too flimsy to spread over two hours. [...]"

Henry Mancini's title track to

 Man's Favorite Sport?:

"Based on a magazine story called The Girl That Almost Got Away, written by Pat Frank with a screenplay by John Fenton Murray and Steve McNeil, along with uncredited assistance from Hawks favorite Leigh Brackett. Man's Favorite Sport? is an enjoyable, if unspectacular, comedy thanks mostly to the under-used, and sadly neglected, long-legged Texas beauty Paula Prentiss, who is a pure delight as the brash, outspoken Abigail, the kind of woman Hawks had been known for in most of his films. Abigail comes across as a direct decedent of Susan Vance, Katharine Hepburn's whimsical heiress in Bringing Up Baby (1938 / trailer). [24 Frames]"

Ann-Margret's version of the title track,

Man's Favorite Sport?:

 

The Brass Bottle

(1964, dir. Harry Keller)

Bernard Green's main theme to

The Brass Bottle:

Harry Keller's (22 Feb 1913 – 19 Jan 1987) greatest claim to fame is probably that he was called in to do reshoots for Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (1958 / trailer). In The Brass Bottle, Edy Williams is one of the uncredited slave girls, the quartet of which can be seen directly below.

The lead female, Sylvia Kenton, is played by Barbara Eden: this film is considered the inspiration behind her later series, I Dream of Jeanie (1965-70 / theme). The movie is actually based on a novel from 1900 of the same name written by "F. Anstey" (otherwise known as Thomas Anstey Guthrie) — which had already been filmed twice in the silent era: in Great Britain in 1914 and the USA in 1923. Both those films are considered lost.

Trailers from Hell on

The Brass Bottle:

Plot: "In this goofy comedy, an architect (Tony Randall) discovers that a recently purchased antique bottle is the home of a jovial but vexing genie (Burl Ives) who is more than willing to destroy anyone who would oppose or annoy his new master. This creates problems for the architect as he is more interested in impressing his in-laws-to-be than having his wishes granted. [All Movie]"

An uncredited Peter Lupus, in his first feature-film appearance, and Reg Lewis [of Maciste contro I mostri (1962 / full film)] also show up to play slaves. We mention this as an excuse to show some naked Lupus, circa 1974, (above) and muscular Lewis, circa late '50s (below).

An obscure singer and dancer, Lulu Porter (a.k.a. Marianne Wolford), also appears in the movie as a belly dancer (you see her in the trailer, where she is even credited as an "Internationally Famous Dancing Sensation"). She sang a great song inspired by the film, which oddly enough doesn't seem to be used in the movie itself.

Lulu Porter sings

Brass Bottle:

"The Brass Bottle is the definition of light sixties entertainment. It's fun, but not laugh-out-loud funny, sexy but not so tawdry that families can't appreciate it together. [...] The fact that The Brass Bottle so frequently feels like a classic sitcom is likely not a coincidence, with this particular brand of magical farce resonating throughout the culture of the time. [...] The film is a genuine delight and is the kind of movie that the term 'eye candy' was made for. Fans of a genie called Jeannie, mid-sixties kitsch, and retro culture won't want to miss this one. [Cereal at Midnight]"

 

 

The Naked Kiss

(1964, writ. & dir. Sam Fuller)

"We call it a naked kiss; the sign of a pervert!"

Kelly (Constance Towers)

 

The second of two infamous but successful B&W films Samuel Michael Fuller (12 Aug 1912 – 30 Oct 1997) made for Allied Artists, both of which, even today, still divide critics and public. Preceded by Shock Corridor (1963 / trailer), which was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 1996 for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", The Naked Kiss is listed among "The 100 Most Amusingly Bad Movies Ever Made" list put together by the writers of The Official Razzie Movie Guide. A credited Edy Williams appears as Hatrack (photo and scene below).

Edy Williams as Hatrack:

The plot: "Prostitute Kelly (Constance Towers) is trying to turn herself around and start a new life in the small town of Grantville. Immediately, her profession is recognized by the crooked police chief Griff (Anthony Eisley) who threatens to run Kelly out of town. However, Kelly has other dreams and sets herself up at a local charity hospital where she catches the eye of the town benefactor J.L. Grant (Michael Dante). As Kelly finds herself caught up in a whirlwind romance, could her past come back to haunt her or is there a darker danger in Grantville that could threaten her life... [Basement Rejects]"

Trailer to

The Naked Kiss:

"The Naked Kiss finds Sam Fuller's tabloid sensibilities boiling to the surface, as it dwells on the uncomfortable and taboo subjects of deviancy, prostitution, and small-town sanctimony. In typical Fuller style, it's a hard look at a nightmarish world, lurid and absorbing enough to demand that the viewer watch. It's part melodrama, part sensationalism, and part surreal, but above all it's absolutely, positively 100% Sam Fuller, with all the nuance and subtlety of a swift kick in the butt. [Film Vault]"

"The plot is also something of a slow-burn, but its intricacies are many. There are a lot of stories with the 'small town isn't what it seems to be on the surface' story, but this is easily one of the best. [...] Fuller has great films in every era of his career [...] but The Naked Kiss might just be his best film, all things considered. It feels like a master fully in control of his craft. The film is both straightforward and abstract, blending reality and fantasy, hopes and dreams, desires and deceits [...]. [Silver Emulsion]

 

"The film's ensemble cast is amazing as it features some noteworthy performances from Patsy Kelly as the head nurse, Karen Conrad as the young nurse Dusty, and Marie Devereux as the young woman Buff who is struggling to find work. Virginia Grey ([22 Mar 1917 – 31 Jul 2004] of Target Earth [1954 / trailer], Black Zoo [1963 / trailer, with Michael Gough] and House of Horrors [1946 / trailer]) is superb as the devious Candy who tries to make money by exploiting woman while doing whatever she can to bring down Kelly. Michael Dante (of Thirty Dangerous Seconds [1973 / full film] and Beyond Evil [1980 / trailer]) is wonderful as the charming Grant who falls for Kelly and wants to give her a good life only to be revealed as someone who isn't what he seems to be. Anthony Eisley (of The Wasp Woman [1959] and Dracula vs. Frankenstein [1971]) is terrific as the no-nonsense Sheriff Griff who deals with Kelly's presence in town as he wonders if she's really being honorable as he's forced to face some truths about himself and the town. Finally, there's Constance Towers in a radiant performance as Kelly where she's a woman seeking to get a fresh start in life while dealing with her dark past. Towers also brings an intensity to her role where she would prove to be a very tough woman who doesn't take shit from anyone. It's truly Towers at her finest as she definitely creates a performance for the ages. [Surrender to the Void]" 

It should be noted that while The Naked Kiss is Edy Williams' first credited film role, it is the last credited (or uncredited) film appearance of the former English nude model Marie Devereux (27 Nov 1940 – 30 Dec 2019), a beautiful brunette of Russ Meyer proportions. (That's her below from her modeling days.) She is fondly remembered less for her lengthy appearances in The Naked Kiss and Shock Corridor than for her appearances in some lesser Hammer movies: The Stranglers of Bombay (1959 / trailer), the flawed Brides of Dracula (1960 / trailer — with Kate O'Mara), and The Pirates of Blood River (1962 / trailer). She left the film biz for a fate worse than death: housewifedom and kids in Meridian, Ohio. 

 

Other trivia of interest: Patsy Kelly (12 Jan 1910 – 24 Sep 1981), possibly to the detriment of her film career, was one of Hollywood's earliest open lesbians. She had fun with Wilma Cox (8 May 1911 – 2 Feb 1988) and Tallulah Bankhead (31 Jan 1902 – 12 Dec 1968)... one assumes, amongst others.

Opening scene of

The Naked Kiss:

 

 

A House Is Not a Home

(1964, dir. Russell Rouse)

Edy Williams is on the credits! As is Raquel Welch, in her first feature-film appearance, playing the same thing that Edy Williams plays: a house prostitute. Both are on the publicity image found below.

The movie, of course, is a loose and sanitized adaptation of the book A House Is Not a Home, the 1953 autobiography of Pearl "Polly" Adler (16 Apr 1900 – 9 Jun 1962) that sold roughly two million copies during its print run. The movie, like the book and even Polly Adler, is mostly forgotten today, the fame of all three eclipsed by the movie's eponymous theme song written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, which has long become a standard. 

Brook Benton sings

A House Is Not A Home:

"A House is Not a Home, and in this case it isn't much of a movie either. Supposed to be frank and shocking this is mostly tired and trite, unless you are deeply shocked by someone shouting the word 'whore' on screen, or by the fact men pay for sex, there is nothing much in this that wouldn't be perfectly at home with the board of censors. [...] No attempt is made to use period costume or clothes, and the sets are few and far between. It might as well be 1964 in most scenes, and this television instead of a movie. [Mystery File]" 

The plot: "As a young girl Polly Adler (Shelley Winters [18 Aug 1920 – 14 Jan 2006] of Cleopatra Jones [1973]) is seduced and raped by the foreman of the sweatshop where she works. Her uncle, with whom she lives, refuses to believe that it wasn't her fault and throws her out of the house. She moves into an apartment owned by racketeer Frank Costigan (Frank Taylor [5 Aug 1911 – 8 Jun 1969] of The Night Walker [1964 / trailer]), who gets Adler started on her career when he pays her to bring some of her girl friends to a party for some of his gangster chums. She sees that the money is good and starts to work up her own clientele. As she gets more business, she moves to more fashionable locations. Her house becomes a meeting place for corrupt politicians, racketeers, and businessmen. Adler enters into a love affair with young songwriter Casey Booth (Ralph Taeger), whose career she helps boost. She keeps her career a secret and finally breaks up with him to keep him from being ruined by her reputation. [TV Guide]"

While it lasts —

the full film:

 

Harlow

(1965, dir. Gordon Douglas)

Trailer to

Harlow:

Starlet Edy Williams has an uncredited walk-on part as the girl in the mail room — don't blink! 

 

Former child actor Gordon Douglas (15 Dec 1907 – 29 Sep 1993) made many a better film than this one, including one of our favorite regularly rotated bad films from the Golden Age of local Creature Feature shows, Them! (1954 / trailer) and the classic Guilty Pleasure, Zombies on Broadway (1945). 

Full movie —

Zombies on Broadway (1945):

1965 saw two Harlow biopics get released, first Alex Segal's Harlow (trailer), starring Carol Lynley (13 Feb 1942 – 3 Sep 2019) in the title role, and then this one with a slightly overage Carroll Baker playing the bleached-blonde icon. (In real life, screen "Mama" Angela Lansbury was only six years older than screen daughter Jean [Carroll Baker].) This Harlow flopped, though it did launch a hit song, the "last great male chauvinistic song written in the '60s"...

Julie London covering

Girl Talk:

The plot, as found at Wikipedia: "The film opens with Harlow (Baker) as a struggling extra and bit actress supporting a greedy stepfather Marino (Raf Vallone) and a loving but oblivious mother 'Mama Jean' (Angela Lansbury). With the help of agent Arthur Landau (Red Buttons), she secures a contract at the studio of the Howard Hughes-inspired Richard Manley (Leslie Nielsen). The reception to her first film is disappointing, and at Manley's studio her career is stalled. When Manley attempts to add her to his list of seduced starlets, Harlow fights him off and tells him what she thinks of him. This scene turns out to be a ruse devised by her agent so that the now-furious Manley terminates her contract. Landau successfully pitches Harlow to Majestic Studios, and her career blossoms. Despite studio encouragement to marry another contract star, Harlow marries the apparently gentle and cultured Paul Bern (Peter Lawford), who is revealed to be impotent. Soon after, Bern commits suicide. His death, combined with the stress of her career, leads Harlow on an odyssey of failed relationships and alcoholism, culminating in her death of kidney failure at the age of 26." 

Opening sequence with credits:

Strangely enough, although a biopic, all Harlow's film projects in the movie are fictitious, as are many of the names of the people involved. As Combustible Celluloid points out, "Back in the old days, they used to make 'quickie biopics,' that thrived on both star power and on lurid details, not Oscar buzz. Facts were not in the least important. [...] The only thing this movie gets right are Jean's name and the name of her second husband, Paul Bern. Even there, the movie cheats a little. Jean claims that 'Jean Harlow' is her real name, which it was not, and the movie claims that Bern was Harlow's first husband; he was her second of three. [...] In the movie Harlow dies, unloved, of pneumonia, but her real-life affliction was quite a bit more horrible. [...] Either way, the lack of details in Harlow — and the reliance on old showbiz clichés — eventually brings down the movie." 

The theme of the movie —

Bobby Vinton's Lonely Girl:

"In lieu of accuracy, director Gordon Douglas and screenwriter John Michael Hayes want to focus on Jean Harlow's quest for sex! It's a tired trope established in the various Monroe biopics: Actress couldn't find sexual satisfaction, which she equates to love, and thus her life is doomed from the start. The problem is, by the end of the story Jean is so sex-obsessed she openly propositions her stepfather! Keep in mind, prior to this she accused him of wanting to molest her [...]. [Ticklish Business]" 

News of yesteryear about

the actress pictured directly above: 

 

The Oscar

(1966, dir. Russell Rouse)

An uncredited Edy Williams walks by in a bikini. Fellow BVD Babe of Yesteryear Phyllis Davis also appears uncredited in this movie — which is why we looked at The Oscar before: 

Plot: "A snotty Hollywood actor (Stephen Boyd [4 Jul 1931 – 2 Jun 1977]) becomes even more full of himself after he's nominated for Best Actor at the Academy Awards. [Mubi]"

For further reading, may we suggest chapter 19 of Michael Sauter's The Worst Movies of All Time (1995)? 

Opening sequence of

The Oscar:

The Oscar, like The White Buffalo (1977), is based on the novel by the "American screenwriter, pulp writer, and film director" Richard Sale (17 Dec 1911 – 4 Mar 1993). 

Scene from

The Oscar:

The movie was brought to the screen by director Russell Rouse (20 Nov 1913 – 2 Oct 1987), the scriptwriter of that classic noir, D.O.A. (1949 / full film); co-scripter Harlan Ellison (27 May 1934 – 28 Jun 2018) helped write the screenplay. So, whose fault is it that The Oscar is such a turkey? 

Scene from

The Oscar:

Deep within Poseidon's Underworld, it is said: "The type of movie (think Showgirls [1995 / trailer] or Battlefield Earth [2000 / trailer]) that was a camp classic practically upon release and which becomes more and more so with each year that separates it from the time in which it first appeared, it is manna from heaven to those who enjoy that period in the mid-60s when studio films still clung to that clean, sharp, sleek visual style while the subject matter was beginning to turn more sordid than in previous decades. Then, of course, there is the female hair of that period, when it was de rigueur to tease it as high and full as possible and, often, to augment it with skyscraping appendages, anything to achieve that Nouveau-Grecian look." 

Stephen Boyd (above), however, was as manly looking as ever. Yum, yum, yum... Speaking of eating, one of his later appearances is as Count Dracula in the wonderfully terrible German movie, Lady Dracula (1977), featuring Evelyn Kraft ([22 Sept 1951 – 13 Jan 2009] of The Mighty Peking Man [1977]) and hunkadelic Brad Harris ([16 Jul 1933 – 7 Nov 2017] of The Mutations [1973]). 

Trailer to

Lady Dracula:

 

Paradise, Hawaiian Style

(1966, dir. Michael D. Moore)

"Last one out of the water is a papaya picker!" 

Rick Richards (Elvis Presley)

 

Edy Williams appears somewhere, uncredited, as a dancer. That's her to the right in the publicity photo below.

The directorial debut of former child actor turned perennial second-unit director Michael D. Moore (14 Oct 1914 – 4 Mar 2013), Paradise, Hawaiian Style was both the last Hawaii-set Presley film and one of three Presley films released in 1966, the other two being Frankie & Johnnie (trailer) and Spinout (trailer / see Phyllis Davis). Paradise, Hawaiian Style didn't make a lot of money (it cost $2,000,000 to make and took in only $2,500,000 in the US) and its formulaic narrative was pretty much met by a critical yawn, but the combined power of all three movies made the King one of the biggest box office draws that year. 

Trailer to

Paradise, Hawaiian Style:

Moore's very limited list of solo directorial projects includes better movies, like the forgotten western An Eye for an Eye (1966 / full film), the cheesily fun Kill A Dragon (1967 / trailer), and the psychotronically terrible Blaxploitation disaster that is Mr Deathman (1977 / full film below), the VHS cover of which promises more than the film delivers. (Pam Grier, anyone?) 

Mr Deathman:

But to return to Paradise, Hawaiian Style. The plot? Well: "Having been sacked as a pilot from the major airlines for his women-chasing antics, Rick Richards (Elvis Presley) returns to Hawaii and hooks up with his old friend Danny Kohana (James Shigeta [17 Jun 1929 – 28 Jul 2014]), a helicopter pilot who charters flights across the islands. Having talked Danny into allowing him to join the business, Rick sets about flying around each of the resorts hooking up with old girlfriends whilst trying to drum up business. But after nearly crashing a helicopter whilst transporting dogs and then becoming stranded on a beach with Danny's daughter Jan (Donna Butterworth) it seems that Rick's career as a charter pilot will be short lived."

But, of course: Rick saves his career and gets the main girl, Judy (Suzanna Leigh [26 Jul 1974 – 11 Dec 2017]). Suzanne Leigh made more-interesting films, like The Deadly Bees (1966 / trailer), Deadlier than Male (1967 / trailer), Jimmy Sangster's Lust for a Vampire (1971 / trailer), and the ridiculous WTF known as Son of Dracula (1973 / full film), while James Shigeta can be found in the cheesy but fun Space Marines (1996). 

"With a minimal plot and second-rate songs, director Michael D Moore's 1965 musical is one of the King's all-time worst efforts. The lust for life of his earlier features is simply no longer there, and this dull and inconsequential trifle is best avoided except by die-hard Presley fans. [Derek Winnert]" 

Bare-booby trivia: seen in the movie but uncredited and never naked, Playboy's first centerfold of Asian descent China Lee (Aug 1964 issue). That's her below; her real name is Margaret, but according to Playboy her "name" should be pronounced "Chee-na" (like Tina). Lee Also uncredited and never naked in the movie is Ann Morrell, who shows boobage and dies in the great disasterpiece, Dracula vs Frankenstein (1971).

Oh, yes — lest we forget: the music. "The soundtrack LP only ran 22 minutes in total and [...] no soundtrack song was considered worthy of being a single [...]. Elvis' faithful fans still bought this (dog of an) album getting the Paradise, Hawaiian Style soundtrack LP to #15. [...] At the time Elvis said that he was ill and did not turn up for the planned soundtrack sessions. [...] Since Elvis doesn't make the recording session, time is saved by getting Elvis to record vocal overdubs later. This means that there can be no band interaction nor any interesting musical development on the outtakes since Elvis just sang over prerecorded backing tapes. [Elvis Information Network]"

From the film —

Queenis Wahine's Papaya:

 

The Last of the Secret Agents?

(1966, dir. Norman Abbott)

Edy Williams appears in this comedy playing "Edy". Phyllis Davis also appears in the movie somewhere as uncredited background filler, credited at the imdb as "Beautiful Girl", which is why looked at it a few months ago. You see both Edy and Phyllis in the "Gad-Zooks" panel of the lobby card below. You also see them both, if but for a few seconds each, in the trailer below. (Of the two, Edy has more trailer time, as she is seen twice, but Phyllis shows more skin.)

Trailers from Hell on

The Last of the Secret Agents?:

Back when we looked at it because of Phyllis, we more or less wrote: The Last of the Secret Agents?, the only feature film ever directed by TV comedy "specialist" Norman Abbott (11 Jul 1922 – 9 Jul 2016), was meant to bang-start the film career of its two lead actors, Marty Allen (23 Mar 1922 – 12 Feb 2018) and Steve Rossi ([25 May 1932 – 22 Jun 2014] of The Man from O.R.G.Y. [1970 / full film at a NSFW website]).

And who were Allen & Rossi? Well: "Allen & Rossi were a popular comedy team in their nightclub and television appearances, notably on The Ed Sullivan Show. Paramount Pictures had highly successful comedy teams of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in the 1940s and Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in the 1950s and no doubt wished to recreate their success with the duo's screen debut in the film. (This proved not to be the case, and no sequels were produced for the film, although the duo did appear in the 1974 film Allen and Rossi Meet Dracula and Frankenstein.*) [Wikipedia @ 20.07.23]" 

* The vagaries of internet "facts": while the movie was discussed as a project, Allen and Rossi Meet Dracula and Frankenstein was never made, never released — and never existed.

The trailer looks stupid enough to make the film seem watchable, as does the presence of a then small-fry daughter of a famous singer, Nancy Sinatra. She had not yet had her career-making classic hit song, These Boots Are Made for Walking — it hit the airwaves while the film was in post-production. Lee Hazlewood (9 Jul 1929 – 4 Aug 2007) wrote a not-too-shabby James Bond-like song for The Last of the Secret Agents?, which ended up being reused in 1997 for the Bill Murray vehicle, The Man Who Knew Too Little (trailer). 

Nancy sings

The Man Who Knew Too Little:

"The plot involves Marty Allen and Steve Rossi as two American ex-pats looking for work in Europe. They soon discover that they've been unwillingly used as couriers for art thieves who are part of an evil organization known as THEM. They get recruited by the GGI (Good Guys Inc.) and help concoct a plan to put an end to the criminal activities of THEM. Naturally lots of chase scenes and fights take place in the process. Like any good spy film there are plenty of beautiful women that help and hinder the two stars. Last of the Secret Agents? also contains a musical number performed by Steve Rossi and it ends with an appearance of Allen & Rossi on The Ed Sullivan Show. [Cinebeats]" 

The NY Times doesn't notice Nancy in their review, which claims "The film's only bright note is the burlesque performance by Theo Marcuse as the head of the gang. He owns the arms of the Venus de Milo and, in a climactic caper, aims to obtain the rest of her. Neither the script, the director nor Mr. Allen and Mr. Rossi display the kind of mad comic invention, which can sometimes run smoothly. Not even the kids will get a ride out of this one. [NY Times]"

"The movie is stolen by Harvey Korman, who, in one scene, displays the focus and timing that the rest of the movie lacks. Outside of his scene, the best moments involve a film being shown to the two new agents showing their probable fate if they don't join the agency (good use of stock footage here), and a scene in a topless dance club where, through the magic of careful camera placement, you manage to avoid seeing anything. [Fantastic Movie Musings and Ramblings]"  

 

 

Nevada Smith

(1966, dir. Henry Hathaway)

The poster above to the German release of the movie is by the great German poster by Lutz Peltzer (1925-2003), who made well over 800 film posters during his life.

Steve McQueen (24 Mar 1930 – 7 Nov 1980), above not from the film, the star of The Blob (1958), 36 years old in real life in 1966, plays a character that should, technically speaking, be about 16 years old. (Gene Evens, the guy [briefly] playing his father in the film, was only eight years older than Steve.) McQueen's character is also supposed to be half-Indian — his obviously much-too-young-to-be-his-mother Native American mommy is played by an uncredited Isabel Boniface (below from the film). Well, at least he didn't do brown face.

 

Speaking of brown, that's a brown-haired Loni Anderson in an uncredited one-line part as a dance hall girl, which is one line more than Edy Williams had, who appears uncredited somewhere in the background of some saloon scene and says nothing. 

Trailer to

Nevada Smith:

Nevada Smith is a prequel to the 1964 movie The Carpetbaggers (trailer below), which was based on the Harold Robbins novel of the same name; other than two characters from the original film, Nevada Smith (Alan Ladd in 1964, Steve McQueen in 1966) and Jonas Cord (George Peppard in 1964, Brian Keith in 1966), the films had little to do with each other.

Nevada and Jonas surfaced again in 1975, now played by Cliff Potts and Lorne Greene, respectively, in a TV movie likewise entitled Nevada Smith. One of the last directorial projects of Gordon Douglas (15 Dec 1907 – 29 Sept 1993), it was meant to kick off a TV series that never kicked off. 

Trailer to

The Carpetbaggers:

The plot to Nevada Smith, from the AFI Catalog: "Max Sand (McQueen) is a young halfbreed living in the mountain and desert West of the 1890s. One day three gunslingers torture and kill his parents. Swearing an oath of vengeance, Max makes a funeral pyre out of the family shack and sets out to track down the killers. He is befriended by Jonas Cord (Brian Keith), a traveling gunsmith and ammunition maker, who tries to dissuade him from his mission but, failing that, teaches him how to defend himself with a gun. Searching town after town, Max eventually finds one of his parents' murderers, Jesse Coe (Martin Landau), and kills him in a brutal knife fight. After his own wounds have been cared for by Neesa (Janet Margolin), a Kiowa girl, Max heads for Louisiana, where a second killer is serving a prison sentence. Max stages a fake holdup, is thrown into jail, feigns friendship with the man, Bill Bowdre (Arthur Kennedy [17 Feb 1914 – 5 Jan 1990] of Let Sleeping Corpses Lie a.k.a. The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue [1974 / trailer], The Antichrist [1974 / trailer], Umberto Lenzi's The Tough Ones [1976 / trailer] & more), and joins him in an escape. Aided by an amorous Cajun girl (Suzanne Pleshette), the two men make their way through the swamps. As they reach freedom, Max reveals his true identity and guns down Bowdre; the girl also dies from a snakebite. Five years have passed since Max began his vendetta, and he has changed from a naive cowhand into a hardened criminal. Finally, Max finds the last man, Tom Fitch (Karl Malden [22 Mar 192 – 1 Jul 2009] of Phantom of the Rue Morgue [1954 / trailer] and Ken Russell's Billion Dollar Brain [1967 / trailer]. In the showdown, Max shoots his opponent in both legs but is unable to kill him. He throws away his guns and rides off to ask Jonas Cord for a job; calling himself Nevada Smith, he hopes to make a new life for himself."

 

The Pad (and How to Use It)

(1966, dir. Brian G. Hutton)

We already took a quick look at this movie back in 2012, in R.I.P. James Farentino, where scribbled: 

"[...] James Farentino is one of the three headlining [then] unknowns in this (for the most part) comedy based on the one-act play of the same name by Peter Shaffer (15 May 1926 – 6 June 2016). A young and totally hot Edy Williams also has a small part [as "Latavia"] in this film, the second of director Brian G. Hutton, who went on to do a variety of way more interesting films, including the classics Where Eagles Dare (1968 / trailer) and Kelly's Heroes (1970 / trailer), and the less well known X, Y and Zee (1972 / trailer).

Farentino is Ted, the Casanova of two guys who share a walk-up. His roommate, Bob (Brian Bedford), a lonely and socially inept classical music fan who meets the girl of his dreams, Doreen (Julie Sommars) at a classical concert. The two have less in common than he would like to believe, and Ted woos her away because, basically, he can." 

Farentino & Edy Williams at the Whiskey in

The Pad (and How to Use It):

To the above, we might add the following trivia: "Peter Shaffer's one-act play The Private Ear, on which The Pad is based, opened onstage with The Public Eye, another one-act play by Shaffer, which was served as the basis for the 1972 film The Public Eye / Follow Me (trailer). [AFI]"

The title track to The Pad (and How to Use It) was supplied by The Knickerbockers, a forgotten "'60s garage rock group from Bergenfield, New Jersey, that formed in 1962. The original line-up was: vocalist/sax player Bobby Randell, drummer Jimmy Walker, guitarist/vocalist Beau Charles and bassist/vocalist John Charles [...]. They scored their only smash hit with the punchy and exciting Lies, which peaked at #20 on the Billboard pop charts in early 1966. [...] They popped up as themselves in the silly teen spy spoof beach comedy romp Out of Sight (1966 / trailer). [...] Unfortunately, the band suffered from inept handling by their label and underwent several personnel changes before breaking up in 1970. [imdb]" 

The Knickerbockers —

The Pad (and How to Use It):

Derek Winnert, btw, says: "The performances [in The Pad (and How to Use It)] are game but the farcical tone is quite wrong for a study of loneliness, and the LA setting and additional scenes to drag it out from a short playlet to movie length are drawbacks."  

 

Good Times 

(1967, dir. William Friedkin)

We watched Good Times way back in 2008, and we were not impressed: "This is a stinker from the past, but starring Sonny and Cher, what else could be expected? The first film of William Friedkin, Good Times makes it hard to believe that he went on to direct The Boys from the Band (1970 / trailer) or The Exorcist (1973 / trailer). The film features one of George Sanders' last performances, and though he manages to shine as an actor in this piece of celluloid dubiousity, the film must be an embarrassment to everyone who took part in it. 

Sonny & Cher sing in

Good Times:

Although some people nowadays seem to think that Good Times manages to cross over into the realm of 'Guilt Pleasures', I for one find this untrue. Good Times is little more than a feature-length presentation of everything horrible that Sonny & Cher were in their later television variety show and lacks any and all of the self-referential insight that might have raised the film to a higher level. Thus, even the occasional creative idea or rare visual surprise gets suffocated by the pervading middleclass attitude. All in all, Good Times remains agonizingly embarrassing from beginning to end. (Rather unlike another pop music film of that time, the Monkees' fab film Head (1968 / trailer below), which is less a 'Guilty Pleasure' than an actual pop masterpiece.) 

Trailer to

Head:

Sonny and Cher play themselves as two successful middleclass hippie musicians who spend their time happily shopping, singing and dancing when they aren't busy looking deeply into each other's eyes or exchanging unfunny bon mots. The young Cher, pre-plastic surgery and without tattoos, does wear some absolutely fantastic outfits, but Sonny looks likes a chubby fool no matter what he wears. The negligible plot involves the sleazily well-played bigwig producer Mr. Mordicus (Sanders) talking Sonny into signing on to make a film, a would-be turkey about hillbilly singers in love with their shack. After a few daydreams revolving around Sonny's own ideas on what the film could instead be about, Sonny slowly but surely realizes that he's too inept to make a film and, despite Mr. Mordicus's threats to destroy the singing duo with lawsuits, Sonny bows out. Upon which, of course, Mr. Mordicus, a man who forecloses loans on kingdoms and likes to watch people get the shit beaten out of them, decides to do nothing and Sonny and Cher go dancing off into the sunset to live happily ever after. Gag me. 

Sonny & Cher sing in

Good Times:

It's a shame that Sonny hadn't also realized in real life that he shouldn't make a film.

 

Sonny's daydreams — featuring take-offs of High Noon (1952 / trailer), Tarzan films* and detective films — are used as starting points for the two singers to break into a variety of really bad songs, as are the various scenes of the two singers day-to-day life. In fact, everything is used as an excuse for them to start singing. It is this lack of any real story and the haphazard manner in which everything is pasted together that continually makes one feel [as if] one is watching a rerun of their variety show from the 1970s instead of a real film. Though the sets, often rather good examples of 1960s Pop, might be a bit better than those of the television show, the jokes are staler and the acting just bad. 

* But not this one: Joe D'Amato's Tarzan X (1995 / x-rated scene), starring Rocco Siffredi's tool as Tarzan and his tool and his wife, Rosa Caracciolo as the tool-loving Jane.

Good Times is a film best left forgotten. It does feature a three-second appearance of Russ Meyer's ex-wife Edy Williams [as Mordicus's sexpot], but, regrettably, she keeps her clothing on." 

While it lasts —

the whole film:

 

The Money Jungle

(1967, dir. Francis D. Lyon)

Not a comedy, supposedly, and unbelievably enough made as a feature film (it feels very much like bad TV) — not the only directorial project from Francis D. Lyon about which that can be said. 

While it lasts —

the full movie:

The plot, from the AFI Catalog: "Five major U. S. oil companies have joined forces to bid on offshore fields offered for lease by the state of California. Five days before the date for submitting bids, four of the companies' head geologists meet 'accidental' deaths. Harvey Sheppard (Charles Drake), president of Far West Oil, calls in troubleshooter Blake Heller (John Ericson [25 Sept 1926 – 3 May 2020], Playgirl centerfold for January 1974 [below], of The House of the Dead [1978 / trailer] and Hustler Squad [1975/ trailer]) to investigate.

"Heller destroys a bomb planted at his beach house, and he meets and becomes romantically involved with his new neighbor, young widow Treva Saint (Leslie Parrish, below, from L'il Abner [1959 / trailer]).

"With the help of police lieutenant Dow Reeves (Nehemiah Persoff of Psychic Killer [1975 / trailer]) and stock market expert Harry Darkwater (Don Rickles), Heller learns that stocks from two of the oil companies have recently changed hands: one of the owners is Treva; the other is Peggy Lido (Lola Albright of The Monolith Monsters [1957 / trailer]), a nightclub singer. Despite attempts on his life and the murder of a geologist from the fifth oil company, Heller continues his assignment and eventually discovers that the person behind the killings is Peggy Lido, revealed to be the ex-wife of the oil company president who sold Treva her stock. Peggy, with the help of her fiancé, Paul Kimmel (Kent Smith of Cat People [1942 / trailer] and The Curse of the Cat People [1944 / trailer]), is determined to prevent both her ex-husband and Treva, the woman Peggy thinks he loves, from enjoying their new-found wealth. Realizing what has occurred, Heller races to Treva's home in time to save her from being killed by Peggy."

Lola Albright was a pretty good singer and does a few numbers in the movie, including a cover version of Help a Good Girl Go Bad. We couldn't find her version online, but here's an earlier version from the great Ruth Brown.

Ruth Brown sings

Help a Good Girl Go Bad:

Edy Williams shows up in a small speaking part as Sabra McKinley. As previously inferred — and as you can see for yourself if you watch the movie embedded further above — The Money Jungle is not a particularly good film. Director Francis D. Lyon (2 Jul 1905 – 8 Oct 1996) made better, funnier bad films — for example: Destination Inner Space (1966 / full film), Castle of Evil (1966 / trailer) and that bad-film fave Cult of the Cobra (1955 / trailer)

 

 

Now go here:

Edy Williams, Part II (1968-82)