The Wig / Gabal (Korea, 2005)

 

The cover of our German release DVD has a Circe-call like the best that any exploitation distributor could hope to achieve: the back of a hairless, bloodied scalp, two halves sewn together, with a bloodied hand forcing its way out and, branded into one half of the head, "CAUTION SICK SHIT". Yep, Harry Novak, David Freidman or Jerry Gross couldn't have done better: the presentation is 100% grindhouse and as inviting to people like us as a beautiful, dreamy-eyed, big-breasted babe who purrs "I swallow."

But like so many advertising campaigns of those former masters of exploitation, the way the The Wig is sold has little to do with the film itself. "SICK SHIT" might do well to describe such entertaining, over-the-top Japanese excesses as Tokyo Gore Police  (2008), Meatball Machine (2005), Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl (2009) or the truly repulsive Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead (2011 / trailer), but in the case of this Korean movie here, which is unarguably closer in tone to the visually attractive Korean horror flick A Tale of Two Sisters (2003) or  Thai flick Shutter (2004) than any of the Japanese Pop Gore films just named, the description is way off base. The Wig is hardly "sick shit" — other than one scene, maybe, the one in which the cancer-suffering girls begins pulling pills out of her skull — it is a slow-moving but involving horror film that strolls casually but disturbingly to a truly depressing ending.

This is one you can watch with the girls, which isn't meant as an insult — The Haunting (1963 / trailer), one of our all time favorite films, is also one you can watch with the girls — it just means that there is a lot more art and artistic intention than exploitive drive, a lot more mood than shock, and a lot more emotion than adrenaline or blood — although enough shock and blood are indeed present. And it has a pretty good classical music soundtrack, too. The Wig is simply a fine example of a horror movie in which the filmmakers are obviously attempting to deliver more than just shocks: they realize they are working with a camera, and a camera can be used to make visuals, visuals that in turn serve to propel the story (and, on occasion, simply thrill for being original).

And let's not forget the concept of building and sustaining mood, something this depressing little flick does well, too. The human relationships and interaction in The Wig have as much of a sustained sense of desperation and unavoidable fate as the certain death of the fatally ill young woman who ends up with the titular wig. The characters move within the same circles on the same screen, they love or hate each other, they care or hurt each other, but as close as they are they are separated by walls of secrets and lies and desperation and unavoidable fate — a mixture into which comes The Wig, a cursed hairpiece of beautiful, long real human hair bought by sister Ji-hyeon (Yoo Sun) for her younger sister Soo-hyeon (Chae Min-seo), who is dying of leukemia and bald from chemo and medications. (Ji-hyeon is separated from her surrounding even more by the fact that she cannot speak, having lost her vocal cords in a terrible but disconcertingly aesthetic car accident, a handicap that simply echoes the sense of loss — loss of family, loss of love, loss of life — that threads through the entire movie.)

Like most Asian films, important plot points are inserted so quickly that if you're reaching for your beer you might miss them, but luckily, despite the occasional revelatory flashback, The Wig is relatively straightforward in its narrative: sick girl gets wig, wig makes her healthy and horny for sister's ex and suffer from an occasional nasty hallucination, without the wig — which kills a couple of people along the way — she withers away and has one foot deeper in the grave. What is a loving sister to do? Doubt and guilt hang heavy on the sister's shoulders — and, for some inexplicable reason, on the shoulder's her ex, though for most of the movie we know not why.

The scares of The Wig, a beautifully made movie dank with unavoidable doom, might not always make sense but they do tend to shock or scare, and are presented in a manner that, while often verging on being almost too beautiful or cinematic, nevertheless aggregate to support the movie's overriding, bleak sense of unavoidable fate. A bit slow at times, The Wig is nevertheless never boring, and keeps you mesmerized all the way to its extremely logical last scene, a truly depressing punch in the gut. Much more effective, in any event, than most Asian, hair-obsessed ghost flicks — One Missed Call (2003 / trailer), anybody?

Not that we have no complaints about The Wig. It attempts to be a bit too clever sometimes, as evidenced in its temporally non-consecutive narrative that the viewer never realizes is non-consecutive until almost the end of the movie. (In other words, the reason the opening scene of the almost-car accident makes no real sense it because it is not the actually start of the movie but a scene of a later point in time.) An unneeded complication to the narrative. Likewise, why the young female student is killed on the bus — we hear about in the news, Soo-hyeon hallucinates it at one point, and the young girl herself sees scary strands of hair when taking a photo — makes no real sense: she had nothing to do with any of the characters other than she took a photo for them, so why did the wig kill her? And, lastly, like so many movies — 28 Weeks Later (2007), anyone? — The Wig relies too dearly upon the fortuitous coincidence typical of Hollywood plotting to drive its story: Seoul, where the movie is set, is a city of almost 10 million inhabitants, and thus must have well over, dunno, a couple of tens of thousand wig shops at least and, naturally, even more wigs. But somehow, of all the wigs in the entire city, sister Ji-hyeon not only buys a wig cursed with an angry killer entity, but a wig — and the corresponding angry spirit — that is also directly linked, we learn along the way, to her immediate circle, namely her estranged x-boyfriend Ki-Seok.*

But: Hey! It's the movies, things like that happen. And in real life, some people actually buy winning lottery tickets, which are surely rarer than possessed wigs.  In any event: The Wig — a downer of a film, but two thumbs up from A Wasted Life.

*We won't go deeper into the wig/ex connection, 'cause it does involve one of the more original and surprising twists of the flick.

The Brides of Dracula (Great Britain, 1960)

(Spoilers.) We are not impressed. The second of the three Dracula movies made by Terence Fisher for Hammer, The Brides of Dracula is also the second of a grand total of eight Hammer productions featuring the famed Count — and also the only one not to feature Christopher Lee in the title role (but then, Dracula himself never even shows up in this movie, and is only referred to twice in passing). Wherever it sits in the cannon of Hammer vampire films, it is without a doubt one of the most overrated of all the "classic" Hammer horror films. Indeed, rather than the stellar reputation it seems to have, The Brides of Dracula should better be qualified as one of Hammer's great turkeys.

As normal with all Hammer films neither the costumes nor sets nor babes can be faulted. Likewise — but for the titular bloodsucker — the movie also features fairly decent casting and some good acting. The story itself, however, is an illogical mess overpopulated with tertiary characters. The script is little more than a variety of unbelievable elements strung together so badly that it could easily and believably be attributed to Ed Wood Jr. rather than the 3 or 4 names listed in the credits (one name of which is Jimmy Sangster).

The Brides of Dracula starts with a voiceover informing us that though Count Dracula is dead, the world is still populated by his evil disciples — though in this case, the "world" seems to be Transylvania sometime in the late 19th century. Marianne Danielle (Yvonne Monlaur of Circus of Horrors [1960 / trailer]) is on her way by stagecoach from Paris to teach at the all-girl Lang Academy, but along the way her stagecoach driver deserts her at an obscure roadside Gasthaus. Of course the landlord warns her to leave the area before nightfall, but Marianne obviously lacks the brains needed to be frightened. Baroness Meinster (Martita Hunt) shows up, and before Marianne can say "I am young and stupid and want to die," she accepts an invitation to spend the night at the Baroness' big, eerie castle. At first, the only other person in the castle seems to be the decidedly unfriendly and strange servant Greta (Freda Jackson of The Valley of Gwangi [1969]), but then Marianne discovers that the Baroness has her supposedly dead (and oddly fey) son Baron Meinster (David Peel) chained to a wall in another room. He reveals not that he is a vampire and that the Baroness brings him young and naive girls to feed upon, but rather that the Baroness has told everyone that he is dead and keeps him chained up so as to keep control of his rightful inheritance. In no time short, Marianne steals the key to the shackles and sets the man free. Perversely enough — and perhaps the only disturbing idea in the movie — he promptly takes advantage of his new freedom to sink his fangs into his mother's neck.

Marianne, frightened by the body of the dead Baroness and the crazed, cackling servant runs out into the night where she is eventually found unconscious but unharmed by Dr. Van Helsing (some actor named Peter Cushing), who in due course drops her off at the Lang Academy. Between a lot of interplay between forgettable characters, Van Helsing kills the now undead Baroness and Baron Meinster sucks on the neck of a few maidens and proposes marriage to Marianne, who promptly accepts. (She obviously is not only of inferior intelligence, but is also highly forgetful and half blind.) But luckily Dr. Van Helsing is there to come to the rescue and, by the end of the film, not only is Marianne still alive but everyone evil is dead.

Though the sight of a blonde, dandy-looking and decidedly un-charismatic vampire is a bit jarring at first, it is hardly the biggest of the numerous flaws in The Brides of Dracula. Marianne is slightly better cast, but while she indeed good looking and hardly someone you would kick out of bed, she is such an idiot that one begins to wish that she would get what she deserves and die. Likewise, unlike in the other Dracula films, this time around Van Helsing comes across as a bit of an incompetent klutz with little vampire-hunting experience. But worse than these mistakes in characterization (and an overpopulation of characters which serve no real purpose to the plot) is the laughable lack of logic inherent to the disjointed script. Baron Meinster can change into a bat and magically unlock windows, but is incapable of escaping from a shackle around the leg? (Oh, yeah: the chain was silver — so why didn't his leg burst into flame and/or rot?) When Van Helsing gets bitten by Meinster, why is he the only one to wake up early and not undead? And since when does burning the bite with a hot iron and pouring a little holy water disinfect the wound and prevent the final conversion? Would any woman — other than the most money-hungry gold digger — really say "Yes" to a marriage proposal under the circumstances Marianne does?* (Aside from all the sinister events that occur in the Baron's shadow, they only meet twice and never even actually kiss!) And, really! Who the hell thought up the retarded idea of having the not-so-big and not-so-bad vampire being killed by the cross-shaped shadow of a windmill? (Can shadows only kill when cast advertently?) With flaws like this, it becomes easy to overlook some of the most fake-looking plastic fangs to ever grace the silver screen — but, regrettably, it never becomes easy not to laugh whenever vampy gets all beady-eyed in blood lust. And lets not mention the bat.

The Brides of Dracula is a film for completionists and people born without brains. If you are neither, then don't bother with this lousy piece of flyshit, the only truly redeeming quality of which (aside from the Gothic trappings, color, sets & costumes) is the typically top notch Hammer cleavage quotient.

*OK, maybe the times were different then — marriage was more financial security than anything else.

Short Film: King Star King (USA 2013)

Naw, no one's paid us to make this oddity our Short Film of the Month — we doubt enough people watch our choices that it would be worth it for anyone to do so — but this time around we're presenting a pilot episode aired last November on Adult Swim that has since been greenlit and, sometime this year, should get another half-dozen episodes. God only knows where the fuck the show is gonna go, but we do like the pilot: idiotic, tasteless, sexist, immature, badly drawn, ultraviolent, big-boob fixated, drug and alcohol heavy — a perfect mirror of sorts for today's male youth. As Bubble Blabber says: "Basically: King Star King is [...] like one of Hunter S. Thompson's wet dreams."

King Star King was created by some dude named JJ Villard, yet-another graduate of Cal Arts, "and developed by Tommy Blacha." JJ Villard previously directed the shorts Son of Satan (2003), based on a Bukowski story, and Chestnuts Icelolly (2004). He also does some groovy artwork, an example of which — inspired by Goya — is presented below.

The plot, as explained by Toonami, who for some reason calls the muscle-bound, testosterone-laden anti-hero "punk" when we see him more as heavy metal: "King Star King features a punk rock, modern day he-man who falls from the realm of the gods to land as a fry cook in a slummy waffle joint. King Star King must regain his memory to defeat the evil (and adorable) Spring Bunny and rescue his love, the megababe Princess Snow White. Only then will King Star King regain his rightful place in the heavens."

Enjoy King Star King:

R.I.P.: Harry H. Novak, Part II – 1956 to 1964

12 January  1928 — 26 March  2014

"When I was a kid, my Daddy told me, 'There's a buyer for everything.' And I lived to find out that he was right."
Harry H. Novak

Harry H. Novak, alongside David F Friedman (24 December 1923 — 14 February 2011) one of the great (s)exploitation kings of the last half of the 20th century, died 26 March 2014 at the age of 86.

A detailed career review of all the projects Harry H. Novak — as Boxoffice International, Valiant International Pictures, Harry N Novak Productions and one assumes other still undocumented firm names — foisted upon the American public would be Sisyphean task at best and hardly possible, as no full and unequivocal list exists. What follows is a review of the films that we found that, for the most part, probably had Novak involved somewhere along the way — and some that may not have. It is definitely not a complete list, and definitely not infallible, it is merely culled from sources reliable and unreliable that we found online. We also in no way suggest that the given release dates are the correct ones, they are merely the first ones we found.

If you know any we missed, feel free to send the title...

Girls Without Rooms
(1956, dir. Arne Ragneborn)

Aka Flamman. The earliest reference we could find of Harry Novak being involved with a specific film was on Wikipedia, which states "After dubbing and distributing a 1956 Swedish melodrama about a 'bad girl' in a reformatory under the name Girls Without Rooms to limited but respectable grosses, Novak's earliest film productions fell into the 'nudie cutie' category." At imdb, nL (ni_la2000@hotmail.com) explains with fine foreign English: "Fransiska (Catrin Westerlund) is visited by a social worker when she's in the custody. She tells him her lives story, about her mother who was an alcoholic, her father a night watchman and how she and her five year old little sister was left. Her boyfriend was unemployed and needed money and to help him she stole money."

 Swedish Trailer to
Flamman:

 

Geisha Playmates
(1960, dir. Tetsuo Takata)

 

A big maybe at best when it comes to Novak's participation, but the movie does have a nice poster. The now-deleted Something Weird VHS of the Novak project The Notorious Concubines (1969) included, as an extra, a variety of trailers to other state-side releases of Japanese films, including the Harry Novak distributed Boneless (1968), Naked Pursuit (1968) and The Slave Widow (1967). Could it not possibly be that the sticky fingers of Harry Novak also touched the other two Nippon films presented, Geisha Playmates (1960) and The Weird Lovemakers (1960)? For the benefit of doubt, let's look at Geisha Playmates — not that there is anything definite to find online about this movie.

We believe that this "documentary" film was directed by Tetsuo Takata and may have originally been titled "Tokyo odori". Emovieposter says: "Geisha Playmates, the 1960 Japanese showgirl sexploitation movie ('The story of a beautiful model from the FLESH-POTS of TOKYO') featuring '300 Gorgeous Show Girls'. We were unable to find any information about this movie. If anyone knows more about this, please e-mail us and we will post it here."

Among the performances presented was the Shochiku Kagekidan Girls Revue — seen above from the Marlon Brando movie Sayonarra (1957 / trailer) — which specialized in transgender performances long before the concept of transgender entered mass comprehension.

The Weird Lovemakers
(1960, dir. Koreyoshi Kurahara)

The now-deleted Something Weird VHS of The Notorious Concubines included, as an extra, a variety of trailers to other stateside releases of Japanese films, including the Harry Novak distributed Boneless (1968), Naked Pursuit (1968) and The Slave Widow (1967). Could it not possibly be that the sticky fingers of Harry Novak also touched the other two Nippon films presented, Geisha Playmates (1960) and The Weird Lovemakers (1960)? For the benefit of a super-tiny doubt — hell, the poster below even lists Radley H Metzger (see: The Cat & the Canary [1979]) as presenting the movie — let's look at The Weird Lovemakers — originally entitled Kyonetsu no kisetsu and aka The Warped Ones, Season of Heat and Wild Love-Makers.

Although this movie is basically a JD movie, it is hardly the traditional and low-aiming sexploitation movie it was sold as to the American masses; indeed, its director, Koreyoshi Kurahara, was an extremely successful and respected filmmaker in Japan. Mondo Digital explains the plot of "The Warped Ones, originally released [...] as The Weird Lovemakers (a title it retained during its brief VHS tenure from Something Weird Video). Tamio Kawaji (Youth of the Beast [1963 / trailer]) pulls out all the stops here as Akira, a ferocious teenager hellbent on kicks and picking pockets with the accompaniment of his friend Masaru (Go) and a maniacal young hooker, Fumiko (Matsumoto). Together they set out for revenge against the reporter who landed Akira in a reformatory, even molesting and kidnapping his girlfriend on the beach. Things continue to spiral out of control, reaching a fevered pitch at an abortion clinic where the whole world seems to come crashing down. Frenetic, outrageous, and fueled by an aggressive jazz score Toshir Mayuzumi, this film grabs you by the throat in the opening seconds and never lets go; there would certainly be later j.d. films, of course, including more than a couple in Britain starring Malcolm McDowell, but none are quite like this one."

 Trailer:

 

The Touchables
(1961, dir. Monte Mann & Jay Sheridan)

Not to be mistaken with 20th Century Fox's The Touchables, from 1968. In the case of this movie here, from 1961, the title and poster, at least, are an obvious spoof of the then still aired and popular TV series, The Untouchables (1959–1963). At imdb, way back in 2003, Andrew Leavold (trash@trashvideo.com.au) of Brisbane, Australia, said: "Early nudie-cutie set on a fat farm instead of a nature camp, crammed with sped-up sight gags and cornball vaudeville routines, and one of the earliest in Box Office International's garden of earthy pleasures. First up we're treated to a swimming costume parade around a swank poolside as a singer croons, 'You're so...Touchable'. Our narrator, self-proclaimed schnook Fred Barf (Billy Holms), takes us back thirty years, when affable low-rent gangsters Monk [John Dennis] and Louie [Brad Logan] (alias Smith and Jones) threaten schnook accountant Fred to cook their books. This inflames his moral sensibilities, sending the uncooked books (and their $65,000 tax bill!) to the IRS. Now on the run from Monk and Louie, the schnook is sneaked unknowingly into the 'Fat Chance' Rejuvenation Center, and does all manner of bug-eyed double takes from the bushes and behind exercise machines, as he ogles a pornucopia of showgirls and society dames in various states of undress. 'Fat Chance' worker Jessie (Claire Brennen, later in David F. Friedman's She Freak [1967 / trailer]) takes pity on the schnook cowering in a panty hamper and helps him escape from Monk and Louie, now disguised as the two ugliest broads at the clinic, and an army of showgirls who have discovered what's under Fred's towel. The film rests squarely on TV comic (???) Billy Holms' spindly frame, which serves as the main target of the cheapshots — a masseuse, thinking he's a she, looks down at his chickenbone ribcage and says 'You poor thing! No wonder you didn't want to take off your towel'."

Also from 1961 —
Dickie Goodmann, The Touchables in Brooklyn:

According to an article about Novak written by Gene Ross in an early issue of AVN — Adult Video News (reprinted in Masque), one of the rumors spread by Novak to publicize the film was that Woody Allen was the true author of the script.

Trailer:

The Touchables 1961-trailer von pogox
 

The Ruined Bruin
(1961, writ & dir John K. McCarthy)

Though filmed the same year as Russ Meyer's much more well-known Eve and the Handyman (1961 / 3 minutes), Novak "presented" this nudie-cutie some years later after the success of Kiss Me Quick. According to an article on Novak by Gene Ross (in issue 2?), AVN — Adult Video News (reprinted in Masque), Novak, in need of more product to follow KMQ, struck a deal with Rossmore Films (headed by Maryt Ross and Ted Paramore, the latter aka "adult movie" director Harold Lime, a man with a penchant for S&M porn) to distribute their productions; The Ruined Bruin was one such production.

 

We were unable to find out much about the plot, but in his book Profoundly Erotic: Sexy Movies that Changed History, Joe Bob Briggs blithely says it tells a tale "in which twenty-one girls are pawed by a bear". Of the movie's "stars", as far as we can tell only two seemed to have done further films: Myron Griffin (as "Buddy") went on to be seen in the background of films like Superchick (1973 / trailer), while Maureen Janzen (as "The Nurse") was a She-Demon in Richard E. Cunha's She Demons (1958 / trailer), starring Irish McCalla (visit her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 1722 Vine Street). 

Speaking of buxom babes like McCalla, Ted Paramore aka Harold Lime was once married to Betty Blue (14 August 1931 — 23 August 2000), Playmate of the Month in the November, 1956, issue of Playboy. That's her smoking below.

  The Wild and the Naked
(1962, dir. Stan Roberts)

 

The credits say "Filmed in Latin America," but both Frank Henenlotter and imdb say it was filmed in Texas. On an (out-of-date) list of Something Weird releases found here, this movie is listed as having been produced by Harry Novak; we have out doubts, but what the heck, who are we to disagree?

Cult Movie Reviews says: "The Wild and the Naked is a strange little slice of US sexploitation dating from 1962. [...] Paulette ('Tina French') is a French nude model living in the US. We see her driving off to a modeling session, then taking a break and having a nap. She falls asleep and has a strange dream, and that's pretty much what the movie consists of. She has all manner of odd adventures in her dream, and somehow she just always seems to end up naked. She encounters the usual hazards that you expect to come across while wandering through an American forest — gorillas, naked jungle girls, cute men, sex-crazed hermits. [...] To be honest it starts to drag after a while, at least until the arrival of the go-go dancing nude jungle girls. That adds the kind of surreal touch the movie needs. [...] There's a bondage scene where the ex-crazed hermit ties up poor Paulette, but it's done in such a bizarre manner that it's hard to find it offensive — it's just much too silly, and it is after all only a dream. [...]."

Scriptwriter Enrique Madariaga went on to work with Dale Berry, who has nothing to do with this film, on Passion in the Sun (1964) and The Hot Bed (1965), a fact we mention only as an excuse to include the following excerpt from Dale Berry's 1967 sleazefest, Hip Hot and 21. 

Scene from
Dale Berry's Hip Hot and 21:

 

 Knockers Up
(1963, dir Peter Perry Jr. [as A.J. Gaylord]) 

Another movie on the list due to benefit of doubt. In Gutter Auteur: The Films of Andy Milligan, author Rob Craig offers the following tidbit: "Harry Novak, another prolific sexploitation distributor whose remarkable career eventually contained over 200 exploitation films, started his career with two nudie-cuties: Knockers Up (1963), featuring risqué nightclub comedienne and recording star Rusty Warren, and Kiss Me Quick (1964), considered by many the quintessential nudie-cutie, which successfully merged comedy, sex and horror elements into a most amazing grindhouse anomaly."

Whether or not Rusty Warren is indeed found in Knockers Up we have been unable to confirm, but if she is, it seems odd that she is not referred to on the poster, seeing what a drawing card her name would have been at the time. Still, it cannot be doubted that the filmmakers swiped the title of their film from the entertainer's second LP, likewise entitled Knockers Up. According to WFMU, "Knockers Up [the LP] spent a year in the top ten, one hundred and eighty-one consecutive weeks on the charts and, by the end of 1962, 1.5 million copies sold."

Rusty Warren —
Knockers Up:

And who is Rusty Warren? Well: "Against insurmountable odds, she [Rusty, née Ilene Goldman] went from tiny midwestern cocktail lounges to well-known Vegas showrooms and ascended to the heights of stardom without the help of radio, television or film. During a time when many women were content to embrace the role of submissive homemaker, Rusty was in nightclubs making fun of male hang-ups and advocating that women shed their shackles and embrace an appetite for sex. Warren has often been described as the 'Mother of the Sexual Revolution.' Some scholars have gone so far as to suggest that her song Bounce Your Boobies was what eventually convinced women to burn their brassieres en masse."

Rusty Warren —
Bounce Your Boobies:

As for the movie, the only plot description we could find was (once again) on TCM, which says: "Mr. Winkler (Sidney Saks), a voyeur, takes a Hindu potion that makes him invisible, and he has an office romance with his co-worker, Millie (Sandra Montez)."

The memorable Althea Currier (38 25 36), seen below, was also in Knockers Up as the "busty woman". Althea, a glamour model of the 60s who retired much too early to "settle down and raise a family", was seen in a variety of nudie-cuties and early sexploiters, including three (possibly four) Russ Meyer flicks: Erotica (1961), Heavenly Bodies! (1963), Lorna (1964 / scene) and (maybe) The Immoral Mr. Teas (1959).

 
Another Movie with Althea Currier,
Loel Minardi's Sinderella and the Golden Bra (1964):

 

Sexy Proibitissimo
(1963, dir Osvaldo Civirani & Marcello Martinelli)

 

Assuming that a Something Weird double feature of Harry Novak films would, in turn, present trailers to more Novak films, we look at the "Bra-Busting Sexploitation Trailers" presented in Harry Novak presents Street of a Thousand Pleasures / Way Out Topless: Street of a Thousand Pleasures, Forbidden Beauties, International Smorgasbroad, Paris Topless, Sexy Proibitissimo, Substitution and The Wonderful World of Girls. Of them, three (Street of a Thousand Pleasures [1972], Substitution [1970] and The Wonderful World of Girls [1965]) are known to have been pies in which Novak had his fingers, the rest we see as open to question — but, for the benefit of the doubt, we'll count them as having been fondled by Harry Novak. So, let's take a look at Sexy Proibitissimo, aka Prohibited Sex, Verbotene Frauen — Verbotene Nächte, The Most Prohibited Sex and many more names.

 

Of its two directors, it seems to be Marcello Martinelli's only known film, but Osvaldo Civirani went on to do other fun stuff like Voodoo Sexy (1975 / 1st NSFW 44 minutes), Kindar the Invulnerable (1965 / full movie), and The Devil Has 7 Faces (1971).

 Italian Trailer to
Osvaldo Civirani's The Devil Has 7 Faces (1971):

An extremely obscure film, Sexy Proibitissimo is yet another "documentary" of sorts that everyone released (or re-released) on the heels of the success of GualtieroJacopetti (and Franco E. Prosperi and Paolo Cavara)'s Mondo Cane (1962 / trailer), but not extreme enough to be a true "shockumentary". In Sexy Proibitissimo, the filmmakers mix fiction with "reality", going by what Classic Horror says: "A nude musical that features Count Dracula, the Frankenstein monster, Martians, cavemen and an astronaut in some cabaret sequences."

 

At imdb, Paul Petroskey (weirdpaulp@yahoo.com), of Pittsburgh, Pa, raves: "This Italian 'documentary' is the best stripping movie I have ever seen. It stages stripteases through the ages: a cavewoman, during the French Revolution, biblical times, ancient Egypt, etc., etc., all the way up to the future (a striptease for aliens on another planet). The narration is witty, the girls are beautiful. There could be little more you'd want in such a film."

The usually jaded lor of New York City seems to agree, saying "Sexy Proibitissimo puts to shame the many American striptease features of the '50s and '60s, playing at adult cinemas. [...] Format is simple: one vignette after another showing how the fairer sex used striptease to attract and/or subjugate the male of our species, dating from caveman times to a futuristic (in 1963) scene on the moon featuring a stripping cosmonaut ogled by tentacled (and presumably horny) aliens. [...] What makes this a superior example of the genre is the casting of beautiful women who all dance — each striptease is a real routine, not just shedding of clothes. The costumes, sets and lighting are all pro, not the canned proscenium arch shooting style of so many tedious American burlesque movies. This being 1963 the girls only go topless, with the best-built beauty playing a spider lady oddly enough the only one who retains pasties at the end of her act. [...] Jazzy musical score is a plus, including an excellent imitation of Dave Brubeck's classic Take Five [...].

Dave Brubeck's classic
Take Five:

 

Queens Wild
(1963, dir. Unknown)

We could find little online about this 67-minute nudie-cutie, one of the various older films that Novak took on from Rossmore Films after the success of Kiss Me Quick, not even a poster. But we were able to find out that it was featured in the summer 65 issue of Modern Man Quarterly (pictured above) and that the film itself featured the famous, 100% natural topless model and "actress" Virginia "Ding Dong" Bell (1932 — 1 July 2010); aside from countless pneumatic but not-pornographic loops, she also appeared the movies Fräulein Doktor (1969 / title track) and Bell, Bare and Beautiful (1963), the last of which was the product of Herschell Gordon Lewis and David Friedman.

Virginia Bell and Her Ding Dongs
in Two Bells for Virginia:

 


Forbidden Beauties
(1964, dir. Mino Loy)

Another Italo mondo documentary, original Italian title: Veneri proibite. Assuming that a Something Weird double feature of Harry Novak films would, in turn, present trailers to more Novak films, we look at the "Bra-Busting Sexploitation Trailers" presented in Harry Novak presents Street of a Thousand Pleasures / Way Out Topless: Street of a Thousand Pleasures, Forbidden Beauties, International Smorgasbroad, Paris Topless, Sexy Proibitissimo, Substitution and The Wonderful World of Girls. Of them, three (Street of a Thousand Pleasures [1972], Substitution [1972] and The Wonderful World of Girls [1965]) are known to have been pies in which Novak had his fingers, the rest we see as open to question — but, for the benefit of the doubt, we'll count them as have been fondled by Harry Novak. So, let's take a look at Forbidden Beauties.
It seems to be a movie that no one has seen, or if they have they haven't found it worth writing about online. The sadly under-appreciated Mino Loy made a lot of entertaining if third-rate shockumentaries, including this typically misogynistic one. (Yes, women are man-eating monsters.) Aside from directing mondo films, Loy was also active as a producer of fine Italo trash, including, among others, Umberto Lenzi's Cannibal Ferox (1981 / trailer) and Eaten Alive (1980 / trailer), Sergio Martino's All the Colors of the Dark (1972 / Italian trailer), Lamberto Bava's Devil Fish (1984 / trailer) and A Blade in the Dark (1983 / trailer).

 Trailer to
Forbidden Beauties:

Kiss Me Quick!
(1964, dir. Peter Perry Jr. [as Seymour Tuchus])

Trailer:

Originally filmed under the title Dr. Breedlove, or How I Stopped Worrying and Love — a blatant reference to Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1967 / trailer) — Novak later changed the the title to the less litigious Kiss Me Quick! Over at My Reviewer, they describe the movie as "a very weird sci-fi spoof where an alien (wearing what looks like a kitchen implement on his head) is dispatched to earth to research that mystery of all mysteries — women! After all, his boss thinks they would probably make ideal servants." Dave Sindelar is of the opinion that "If more nudies were this amusing, they might actually be worth watching."

 Sweater Girl Scene:

Kiss Me Quick Sweater Girl from MoviesAboutGirls on TnaFlix.

Lesbian SexSex Videos

The Beautiful, the Bloody, and the Bare
(1964, writ & dir Sande N. Johnsen)

Aka Bloody, Bare, and Beautiful and The Beautiful and the Bloody. Video Vacuum says "The Beautiful, the Bloody, and the Bare lives up to its title, but that's about it. At least ONE of the half dozen or so chicks is a beauty (the redhead... YOWZERS), the killer ends up all bloody in the end, and all the girls in the cast take their clothes off. So that's the good news. The bad news is that the movie is boring as hell because it's more or less 50 minutes of nude modeling (in a chair, on a couch, in a bubble bath, etc.) and 15 minutes of murdering. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Naked chicks and psycho killers; so what's not to like? Well, if that's the ONLY reason you're picking this up, you might enjoy it. [...]"

All Movie says the movie is a "standard nudie-horror film about a mad artist. Jack Lowe plays Peter, a photographer who comes to work at a friend's Greenwich Village studio. Lengthy scenes of demure nude models are followed by Peter being driven into a killing frenzy by the color red and strangling the women. By the end of the film, Peter is a raving, knife-wielding maniac, finally brought down after attacking his friend's wife." Actor Jack Lowe later appeared in Sande N. Johnsen 1966 movie, The Twisted Sex.

Trailer to
The Twisted Sex (1966):

Artist Studio Secrets
(1964, dir. J.M. Kimbrough)

As far as we can tell, this is the only movie Kimbrough ever made, but in 1987, J.M. Kimbrough appeared as one of the talking heads in Diane Keaton's bizarre directorial debut, Heaven.

Diane Keaton's
Heaven (1987):

Movies Unlimited has the plot: "Poor Percy Green (J.M. Kimbrough). He's an artist who only gets turned on when his female models are clothed, so his wife makes sure the lovelies parading before his palette all show up undressed in this masterpiece of campy Sixties softcore." The Psychotronic Guide notes that "one of the two models is cross-eyed", while lor of New York City calls the movie an "entertaining, extremely minor silent nudie", explaining "adult movie audiences were seriously starved for shots of skin in the early '60s. Artist Studio Secrets provides more than enough T&A to qualify as a diversion, and it has nostalgia value today. [The] film has some silly narration, but is mainly a repository of models doffing and putting back on their clothing for over an hour, mixed in with some pleasant historical shots of Greenwich Village. The director/star portraying the 'artist' hams it up for the duration, but his presence is not all that distracting from the pulchritude. [...] Film is more suggestive than its nudist-camp style ancestors in the genre, as evidenced by the two lead models exchanging massages — most of the nudies of this era were 'hands off' mode to avoid censorship. One of the most popular of the NY stable, Gigi Darlene, makes an uncredited appearance and steals the show with a very sexy dance."

Gigi Darlene, by the way, played the lead lass in Doris Wishman's great film, Bad Girls Go to Hell (1965):

Trailer to Doris Wishman's
Bad Girls Go to Hell:

Bad Girls Go to Hell | Doris Wishman | George LaRocque | Gigi Darlene | Movie Trailer | Review
 

Raw Weekend
(1964 Sidney Niehoff)

Thanks to www.emovieposter.com for above poster. The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures (Vol. 1, Pt. 1) explains the plot: "A small movie crew shooting a love scene in a wooded valley with Tammy and Pete, is surprised by the appearance of Dolores, a semi-nude woman who wanders through the background. The crew follows her, in hopes of photographing her for the motion picture. They find Dolores and her friend, Lee, sunbathing amidst the rocks and waterfalls, and the women invite the crew to picnic beside their cabin. After lunch Dolores and Lee row and swim in the lake while Tammy stays inside the cabin studying her script. Tammy grows restless, takes off her nightgown, and joins Dolores and Lee outside."
At MSN, Sandra Brennan of Rovi is of the opinion that Raw Weekend is "an example of the rather tame nudie films (featuring lots of bare bosoms but no sex) that predated their hard-core cousins."

My Tale Is Hot
(1964, dir. Peter Perry Jr. [as Seymour Tokus])

Full movie:

My Tale Is Hot von crazedigitalmovies 

Aka Always on Monday. Personally, we here at A Wasted Life have our doubts that Harry H. Novak had anything to do with this movie, as there is only one source, an online magazine called Funhouse, that claims he distributed it and all other sources tend to credit the film to the forgotten sleazemonger Dan Sonney (who once owned the mummified body of Elmer McCurdy). But My Tale is Hot is so comparable to the typical Harry H Novak product of the time, and it does share the same director as Kiss Me Quick! — Peter Perry Jr. [as Seymour Tokus] — so we'll give the benefit of doubt and present it here.

Harem Scene:

The plot, as given by some illegal download site: "Lucifer (Max Gardens, aka Manny Goodtimes, also of Kiss Me Quick!) is unhappy: too few new souls in Hell. So, he bets his wife Saturna ('Ima Ghoul') that he can get the world's most faithful husband, according to 'Ladies' House Companion' magazine, to forsake that faithfulness. Lucifer visits the husband, Ben-Her Ova (Jack Little), and his doting wife, Miassis ('Bea Reddy'). At first, none of Lucifer's ploys work: a backyard swimming pool with one bathing beauty, the same pool with two bathing beauties, a peek at the new maid. Then, Lucifer escorts Ben on a night on the town: will liquor, barmaids, a burlesque show, a hotel room, a Turkish bath, and a special commercial during Ben's favorite TV show (Walt Disney) finally turn Ben's head? What's the secret of his will power?"

 

My Tale is Hot incorporates a four-minute clip from the mid-50s of an "exotic dance" from the great Candy Barr (born Juanita Dale Slusher, 6 July 1935 — 30 December 2005) who, at the age of 16, starred in the infamous and extremely popular stag film Smart Alec (1951 / 10 NSFW silent minutes of the movie), thus earning herself the moniker of "the first porn star".

The Candy Barr Number Used in
My Tale Is Hot (NSFW) Set to Great Music:

Nudes Inc.
(1964, dir. Barry Mahon)

Possibly aka Broadway Pin-up Honeys, Pin-Up Camera and The Pin-up Factory. Yet again, we here at A Wasted Life have our doubts about to what extent Harry H. Novak had anything to do with this movie, but not only does the on-line magazine Funhouse believe Novak had his fingers in the pie, Rotten Tomatoes goes so far as the call this film "A Harry Novak sexploitation classic".
The plot, according to The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures (Vol. 1, Pt. 1): "Barbara Jo travels from her small southern hometown to New York and finds it difficult to find employment. Eventually she becomes desperate enough to call Nudes, Inc., the largest studio in the world producing pinup photographs. Barbara Jo is at first reluctant to pose in the nude, but Mr. Lewis, the managing director, gives her a tour of the studio and convinces her of the studio's legitimacy. Mr. Lewis points out that the models are also employed elsewhere as school teachers, airline stewardesses, housewives and professional models. Barbara is reassured, and after lunch she begins work."

Nudes Inc. was directed by Barry Mahon (and written by his wife Clelle Mahon); Mahon (5 February 1921 — 4 December 1999), one of the original prisoners at Stalag Luft III whose stories served for the film The Great Escape (1963 / trailer) — Mahon allegedly loosely inspired the character played by Steve McQueen — had a long career in fringe filmmaking made everything from nudie-cuties like this to roughies to documentaries like Musical Mutiny (1970 / trailer) to decidedly odd kiddy films like The Wonderful Land of Oz (1969).

Trailers to Barry Mahon's
The Wonderful Land of Oz (1969):

Wonderful LAND OF OZ! Trailer von NilbogLAND

Go here for Part III: 1965-66