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THE HELLBENDERS
Italy - Spain (1967)
Anchor
Bay Home Entertainment
Not Rated |
Color |
92 Min. |
R1 - NTSC
DVD Released: March 13, 2007
.........
Reputedly a favorite of Quentin Tarantino
(who screened it during the 1996 QT Film Fest in Austin, Texas),
The Hellbenders promises more than
it delivers for spaghetti western fans. It's directed by one of
the godfathers of the genre, Sergio Corbucci (Django,
The Great Silence),
came relatively early in the cycle, and stars a veteran American
actor. With these elements it should be a better, or at least
more interesting, film than it turns out to be. The story's pretty
thin. Shortly after the end of the Civil War, fanatical Confederate
officer Col. Jonas (Joseph Cotton) and his three sons ambush a
U.S. Army convoy hauling a million dollars in cash. After massacring
the escorting cavalry they seal the money inside a coffin, pretending
to be grieving family members transporting a loved one, killed
in battle, back to their homestead for burial. Jonas wants to
use the dough to bankroll a Rebel insurgency, to jumpstart a new
Confederate movement. Some of his offspring have more selfish
ideas. But they'll need a female to play the role of bereaved
widow, so saloon cardshark Claire (Planet
Of The Vampires' Norma Bengell) is shanghaied into the operation.
The only one of the clan that has a conscience, brother Ben (Juliαn
Mateos), ends up falling for the strong-willed woman, straining
his relationship with the others. (Jonas will in all likelihood
order her shot when the mission's complete.) In
the meantime they've got a long way to go before they're home-free,
with every posse and cavalry patrol in the territory on the hunt
for the stolen cash... After the
violent opening
32 men are killed in the first 10 minutes
the film is merely a series of episodic encounters that try to
ratchet up the tension in rather standard, formulaic style. (Will
they get caught? Will the colonel and his boys turn on one another?
Are we likely to care?) Given the other Corbucci westerns I've
seen I was frankly surprised at just how routine and generic this
movie looks and plays. The sparse action scenes are well done
and there's a nice, if not entirely unexpected, twist at the end
nothing more than that. And casting Cotton
in the lead role adds absolutely nothing to the picture. He can't
summon the gleam of a ruthless zealot to his eye; nor is he ever
really convincing as a murderous thug cloaking his actions in
a mantle of pious devotion to "The Cause". Like in Baron
Blood, Cotton was just too grandfatherly and benign a screen
presence by
this late date in his career to project
that kind of evil. On the positive side, the elegiacally somber
score of composer Ennio Morricone (billed as "Leo Nichols")
is a big plus.
Anchor Bay hasn't done much
of anything in the spaghetti western arena since the early days
of the format
AB titles such as Compaρeros
and Keoma
went OOP recently, to be reissued by Blue Underground
so their March '07 release of The
Hellbenders came as something out of left field. The 1.85
anamorphic widescreen transfer isn't exactly pristine and looks
a bit overheated in spots but is otherwise quite acceptable; the
dubbed English mono audio track (Cotton did his own looping) is
similarly unexceptional but more than adequate. A step-through
text bio of director Corbucci and the
U.S. theatrical trailer are included
as extras.
- B. Lindsey
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Film:
5 |
DVD: 5 |
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TAYLOR WANE'S EROTIC GAMES
U.S.A. (2007)
Secret
Key Motion Pictures
Not Rated |
Color |
59 Min. |
R0 - NTSC
DVD Released: February 13, 2007
.........
A hardcore porn star/director
(Assturbators, Giant
Jugs) and one-time Penthouse
Pet of the Month (June '94), British-born
Taylor Wane 'hosts' this DTV sexploitationer, which has no plot
per se
the hour-long video is merely a succession of softcore lesbian
grope sessions interspersed with Wane's brief comments and faked
interviews with the actresses. (Among
them A.J. Khan of Shock-O-Rama
and Suburban Secrets,
who reveals that she doesn't like sex toys.) The ladies get naked,
fondling and rubbing up against each other as they strike various
poses to generic rock music. Each vignette is set
up as an erotic version of a commonplace game such as Pin the
Tail on the Donkey, Blind Man's Bluff, etc., concluding with that
universally popular pastime, Bobbing for Dildos. (Actually, the
game theme is completely dispensed with almost immediately in
every segment. Why waste any time before the gals go at it?) Wane
then does her basic solo strip club act in front of a wall of
mirrors and the thing finally ends. Just not my cup of tea, y'all.
You see, I'm one of those old fuddy duddies that needs a little
bit of story, an artful presentation, or perhaps some especially
appealing babe to make viewing softcore sex flicks enjoyable.
Taylor Wane's Erotic Games has none
of those things going for it. And quite frankly, Ms. Wane with
her mammoth implants and über-beesting lips can actually
be a tad scary!
This is one of the first DVDs issued by
Secret Key Motion Pictures, a new
subsidiary label of
POP Cinema (formerly E.I./Independent)
specializing in budget-priced sleaze. The main program, presented
in anamorphic 1:85 widescreen, looks and sounds fine for what
it is. Padding out the disc is a
42-minute bonus feature, California "Naked" Bikini
Contest. Judging from all the big hair on display it looks
to have been made in the early '90s. It's a shot-on-camcorder
affair, in which a bevy of cute albeit thoroughly unexceptional
lasses dance around in thong bikinis in a bar trying to win
a thousand bucks... Yes, it's the video record of some cheesy
nightclub's cheesy "Bikini Night" contest.
Apparently the contestants were strutting
their stuff to copyrighted songs the producers didn't want to
pay the rights for, because really crappy stock music is substituted
instead. The girls stay in their
swimsuits during the competition so we're shown 'personal' interview
segments (like we care!) in which some of them, but not all, flash
a bit o' skin. (I was wondering where the "naked" part
was supposed to come in.) It's a complete waste of time unless
you just want to laugh at it as a kind of goofy
time capsule. Topping off the disc is a promo for Taylor
Wane's Erotic Games and six trailers for forthcoming Secret
Key releases, such as The Breastford Wives
and The House On Hooter Hill.
- B. Lindsey
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Film:
2 |
DVD: 5 |
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IMMORAL WOMEN
France (1979)
Severin
Films
Not Rated |
Color |
115 Min. |
R0 - NTSC
DVD Released: January 30, 2007
.........
Director Walerian Borowczyk (La
Bκte, Private
Collections) explores the pent-up sexual desires of three
oppressed women in this anthology of sex and retribution. In the
first story, luscious Marina Pierro plays a model who uses the
kinky desires of two artists as a mode of empowerment; the second
stars Gaelle Legrand as a teen with an unnaturally... um, close
relationship with her pet rabbit; and the third features Pascale
Christophe as a housewife who gets revenge on the abusive and/or
neglectful men in her life. Viewers looking for lots of softcore
romping are no doubt in for a disappointment
Immoral Women is neither as graphic
as some of Borowczyk's other pictures, nor does it function as
a light and playful celebration of female sexuality. The tone
is bizarre and emotionally detached as it follows its three protagonists
on their respective journeys
the outcomes aren't necessarily bright and
cheerful, either. As usual for the director, the mise-en-scene
is a fetishistic landscape of objects and peculiar details. Due
to the short, if not skeletal, length of the individual episodes,
none of the characters are developed as well as one might like.
Even so, the director's keen visual sense gives the film ample
style and personality. The emphasis on the kinkier side of sexuality,
however, ensures that the film doesn't degenerate into an ordinary
slice of sexploitation. If anything, it remains curiously remote
and detached as its characters wallow in their peculiar hang-ups.
Severin's
release of Immoral Women is a good
one. The 1.66/16x9 transfer is in excellent condition, with good
color and sharp detail. The print is fully uncut, preserving the
various shots of male and female frontal nudity, as well as some
implied bestiality. English and French soundtracks have been included
while the latter is preferable, the English dub is by no means
disgraceful. Removable English subtitles are also included. Extras
are limited to a theatrical trailer and a Borowczyk on-screen
bio written by Richard Harland Smith.
- T. Howarth
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Film:
6 |
DVD: 6 |
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WOODCHIPPER MASSACRE
U.S.A. (1989)
Camp
Motion Pictures
Not Rated |
Color |
81 Min. |
R0 - NTSC
DVD Released: January 16, 2007
.........
It's pretty amazing to think that a young guy in suburban Connecticut,
with only $400 and a camcorder, made a movie that found its way
onto the rental shelves of video shops all over the country. But
that's what Jon McBride did. This was actually his second zero-budget
film to receive distribution; the first was Cannibal
Campout, a squalid shot-on-video splatter flick which was
even released on VHS in a number of foreign countries. It was
the late 1980s and the major video rental chains like Blockbuster
and Hollywood didn't yet exist. All those Mom 'n' Pop stores needed
a variety of movies to rent, and they needed them desperately
really, really desperately. Woodchipper
Massacre is
probably the worst film I've ever seen.
(Yes, even worse than Lust
For Frankenstein and Let
Me Die A Woman.) It's about a trio of teen siblings (including
writer/director McBride as the oldest) who use the titular machinery
to dispose of a body after an accidental killing, then as a method
of murder. These aren't evil kids at all; the victims are so cartoonishly
hateful that they deserve to die. It was McBride's goal to make
a black comedy with '70s sitcom-style characters put in macabre
situations, but the humor doesn't work
at all
and the acting is just dreadful. At first
mildly amusing in their ineptitude, the performances very
quickly become shrill and nails-on-chalkboard
annoying. Plot points are telegraphed with the subtlety of a sledgehammer
wielded by the Incredible Hulk. Despite the title there is virtually
no gore. (Not much of a massacre, either, with only two deaths.)
There is nothing here, not even the tiniest crumb, to reward
anybody for enduring this thing. And, of course, it looks and
sounds just like a film that was shot on Super VHS for $400
which is to say, awful. The obvious fun these enthusiastic
amateurs had making Woodchipper Massacre
does not transfer itself to the viewing experience in any way,
shape or form. While I have to respectfully tip my hat to McBride
for "gettin' 'er done" with practically nothing but
a can-do attitude, I do not
simply cannot
like a single, solitary thing about his movie. Ugh!
There's
nothing the DVD medium can do to improve the audio/visual quality
of a nearly 20-year old SOV cheapie. It is what is, and in that
vein is at least watchable. There's no trouble understanding the
dialog, even with the poor sound recording, since most of the
actors (especially the kids) carry on as if playing to the farthest
back rows of a community center auditorium. To compensate for
the film's shortcomings the disc offers a decent array of extras.
An audio commentary with Jon McBride is actually conducted by
speakerphone (!) but works regardless (they had a good, clear
connection); he waxes enthusiastic about the movie, recalling
the good times he and the others had making it. A short 'looking
back' featurette interviews McBride and various cast members,
who all have similarly fond memories. (Tom Casiello, who appeared
in Woodchipper as a 13-year old,
is now an Emmy-winning writer for daytime TV.) A second featurette
is a goofy 2002 interview of McBride by "Video Bob"
of the now-defunct cable access show Stupid Movie of the Week.
A still gallery and selection of trailers for Camp Motion Pictures
releases are also included.
- B. Lindsey
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Film:
1 |
DVD: 5 |
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UBALDA, ALL NAKED AND WARM
Italy (1972)
NoShame
Films
Not Rated |
Color |
90 Min. |
R0 - NTSC
DVD Released: November 14, 2006
.........
Ultra-sexy eurobabe Edwige Fenech wasn't just the "Queen
of the Giallo" she also starred in a number of popular
Italian sex comedies in the 1970s and '80s.
This is one of them. Set
during medieval times,
Ubalda, All Naked And Warm concerns
two cuckolded husbands and the ridiculous lengths they go to in
order to bed each other's hot young wives. Meanwhile, the ladies
whose fidelity their hubbies believe to be safely locked behind
iron chastity belts are getting it on with virtually every swingin'
dick in town. Edwige portrays the title character, wife of the
town miller (Umberto D'Orsi), an insanely jealous older man. The
other wife, randy spouse to an oafish knight (Pippo Franco), is
played by skin flick veteran Karin Shubert (Christina),
who's much younger and tighter here than when she got into full-bore
porn. Personally, I've always found juvenile slapstick a bad mix
with sexuality and nudity. They're like oil and water to me. In
Ubalda's case it's like watching
a kiddie film only with naked women and severed penis jokes. I
didn't laugh once; only a couple of editing gags made me smile.
Mostly I was just groaning and rolling my eyes at how dreadfully
unfunny the supposedly comedic set-pieces were, especially the
antics of Franco's bumbling dolt of a knight. Your average episode
of Gilligan's Island plays like Noel Coward compared to
this junk! (I guess you just have to be Italian.) I did
drool over the Exquisite One, it must be said... Edwige's frequent
nude scenes (including a topless, slow-motion gambol through a
field of wildflowers) should satisfy her worshippers in spite
of all the fast-forwarding they'll have to do. Although she doesn't
even appear in the film until the 24-minute mark, Ms. Fenech is
naked by 24:10. The producers knew exactly what they were hiring
her for. NoShame's
DVD gives the film a handsome-looking anamorphic transfer, in
the proper 2.35
AR, from a nearly pristine print
damage/debris is quite minimal and colors
only seem the teeniest bit faded in a couple of scenes. The flat,
if serviceable, mono audio track is the original Italian, complimented
by excellent English subtitles that can be toggled on or off.
Extras, happily, focus squarely on the one reason this movie deserves
to exist. In a recently-shot interview featurette, the still-stunning
Edwige Fenech (who's now almost 60!) lightly skims over her career,
spending the balance of the 8-minute running time discussing her
memories of legendary director Federico Fellini. (She failed to
get a part in 1973's Amacord,
but was nonetheless able to hang out with the
maestro
during the period it was being filmed.)
Edwige Fenech's Sexy Comedy Trailer Collection is a reel
of promos for The Sexy Schoolteacher
(1975) and its two sequels, The
Sexy Schoolteacher At College
(1978) and The
Sexy Schoolteacher Comes Home
(1979). All of these flicks are in the same ultra-lowbrow
style as Ubalda,
albeit set in the modern day, and appear to be somewhat funnier.
(Fart jokes cross all language barriers.) Edwige's Groovy Sexadelic
Reel is a music video of sorts, comprised of nude scenes from
Ubalda jazzed up with cheesy video
effects. Finally, there's Ubalda's
theatrical trailer and a nicely illustrated booklet of liner notes
by "Chris D." All told, at its current price the NoShame
disc is a nice enough presentation but probably only merits a
DVD Rating of "6". However, if you're a Fenech fan like
me, you can add an extra point for, well... all that Edwige.
Θ cosμ bella!
- B. Lindsey
Update
This DVD went OOP in 2008, with the demise of NoShame's North
American operations.
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Film:
3 |
DVD: 7 |
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MOONLIGHTING
WIVES
U.S.A. (1966)
POP
Cinema/Retro-Seduction
Not Rated |
Color |
83 Min. |
R0 - NTSC
DVD Released: November 14, 2006
.........
A sexploitation pic without any nudity to speak of... and it still
manages to titillate! Moonlighting Wives
was erotica auteur Joe Sarno's first color
film in 35mm. It isn't nearly as risqué as many of its
contemporaries but Sarno's ability to coax sincere (if sometimes
awkward) performances out of rank amateurs certainly lends a quality
atypical for such fare. The story concerns a bored suburban housewife,
tired of her well-meaning but dull blue-collar hubby, who transforms
a floundering stenography service into an efficient, high class
call girl ring. Her girls are all desperate housewives, too, looking
for kicks and easy "pin money". ("I'd do anything
for forty dollars!") Our makeshift madam doesn't just
arrange the "dates" and balance the books; she occasionally
turns tricks herself, for the thrills as much as the dough. Eventually
the operation gets too big and successful consequences must
be faced when the cops finally move in and shut it down... With
its pseudo-documentary
feel, Moonlighting
Wives plays like a soap opera crossed with an episode of
Dragnet, albeit a
very sleazy one. Writer/director
Sarno (Abigail Leslie
Is Back In Town) again explores his favorite themes, that
of the domestic duplicity and sexual shenanigans going on behind
the Leave It To Beaver facade of middle-class America.
Its setting in the era when most married women stayed home to
raise the kids full-time makes it more effective in this regard
than his later, more sexually explicit films set in the post-Vietnam
'70s.
As usual, Sarno puts the women
front and center, with female actions and desires driving the
story; the men are strictly secondary characters. Sexy Gretchen
Rudolph (billed as "Jan Nash") has a memorable turn
as a lonely, abused young wife whose naive affair with the country
club gigolo
a recruiter for the ring, sleeping with
the boss
leads to her descent into prostitution.
The
snappy cocktail lounge score is a kitschy treat.
Interesting as a cinematic time capsule
if nothing else. POP
Cinema apparently went the extra mile bringing this movie to DVD.
Working from heavily damaged source materials (the only footage
known
to exist), the print was restored to a state of 'watchability'
a short featurette on the restoration process shows just
how arduous a task this was. The final print used for the disc's
full-frame transfer still looks pretty rough, of course, but is
a thousand-fold improvement nonetheless, especially the color.
Audio quality is as good as one could possibly hope for given
the circumstances. Beyond the aforementioned restoration piece,
extras include a 12-minute interview with octogenarian Sarno,
who talks about his screenplay for Moonlighting
Wives (based on a real-life Long Island, NY case), filming
in his native Amityville, and the traditional morals-enforcing
ending imposed on him by the producer.
("She had to pay the price the law demanded.") You also
get the nudity-filled trailers to four other Sarno films and a
booklet of liner notes by sexploitation authority Michael J. Bowen.
Some great retro-paperback art from the '60s
is used for the cover.
- B. Lindsey
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Film:
5 |
DVD: 6 |
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CHRISTINA
Spain - U.S.A. (1984)
Private
Screening Collection
Not Rated|
Color |
91 Min. |
R0 - NTSC
DVD Released: November 14, 2006
.........
I actually watched this at least twice on Cinemax nearly twenty
years ago, but was rather inebriated both times and thus couldn't
remember anything except the ending. (At a public disco, the titular
heroine slips out of her fur coat
she's stark naked otherwise
and starts boogying.) I must've been
really toasted, it seems, because otherwise I'd have recalled
just how awful this made-in-Europe softcore skin flick is. Christina
von Belle (American B-movie bimbo Jewel Shepard) is a filthy rich
heiress with a thirst for hedonistic adventures. After orgying
at a seaside villa with her boyfriend (Ian Serra, the guy from
Pieces) and another couple, she's
kidnapped and held for ransom by a gang of lesbian terrorists
called, for no explained reason, the 10th of November Group. The
leader of the terrorists is played by 'mature' porn star Karin
Schubert (Black
Venus), whose dubbed accent sounds like Zsa Zsa Gabor channeling
Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS; Josephine Jacqueline Jones, also in
Black Venus, has a small role as
one of the amorous amazons. Thus we're treated to a super-lame
catfight, a bit of girl-on-girl petting and Christina's erotic
dream-fantasies, in which she lolls naked in a cloud of dry ice
vapor as black-gloved hands push toy cars and tanks across her
body. (???) Christina eventually escapes from the island
of sapphic militants only to fall into the clutches of a handsome
Mediterranean smuggler, whom she naturally shags even though he,
too, is holding her for ransom. Yet another escape is engineered
with the help of a lovestruck teenage lad.
(She boinks him, too.) Mr. Smuggler's
goons take off after her, so the flick is climaxed by a dopey
slapstick chase sequence in which a stunt driver on a motorcycle
is almost killed. I suppose fans of Shepard (Return
Of The Living Dead, Hollywood Hot Tubs)
will want to see this, but can't imagine anyone else getting much
out of it. I certainly didn't. Christina
is strangely dull and restrained despite the ample nudity and
potentially exploitable situations. Shepard, while nice enough
to look at, has zero screen presence in the title role. (She does
get naked every ten minutes or so, at least.) The script is ludicrous
not, for the most part, in a good way. An annoying techno-disco
score that positively screams "mid-'80s!"
just makes things worse. Still, I'm feeling generous at the moment,
so I'll give it an extra rating point for Shepard's lovely derrière
and the scattered unintentional laughs amid the dialog.
Private Screening Collection's
DVD is woefully substandard for the high retail price. The full-frame
transfer is decidedly murky and prone to serious interlacing during
PC playback. It looks no better than a mediocre VHS copy. The
mono audio track fares better but is certainly no consolation.
(I mentioned the annoying music, right?) Not one single extra
is included, not even a trailer. For $27
or thereabouts (new)
this is simply unacceptable. I don't know
how much the rights cost (the folks at Private Screening may have
been ripped off for all I know), but this overpriced DVD truly
belongs in the under-ten-bucks bargain bin.
- B. Lindsey
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Film:
3 |
DVD: 1 |
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LOVE
CIRCLES France
(1985)
Private
Screening Collection
Not Rated | Color |
93 Min. | R0 - NTSC
DVD Released: November
14, 2006
.........
A pack of cigarettes travels from Paris to across the globe and
back again in this episodic softcore sexploitationer, which chronicles
the amorous adventures of the various characters who briefly have
it their possession. Fortunately for the filmmakers none of these
characters are chain-smokers. (Or are French
cigarettes just that bad?) Unfortunately for the audience, none
of them is particularly likable or interesting, either. A Parisian
prostitute, an American tourist, a nymphomaniac, a dissolute aristocrat,
a golddigger, an aspiring actress, a photographer... They
flit through the picture in little vignettes, hooking up, knocking
boots and then passing the cigs along to the next set of characters.
And so on, to no real purpose. Alas, there was little in the way
of drama or humor
unintentional or otherwise
to keep me awake in between the sex scenes, which consist of your
perfunctory softcore petting and moaning and are decidedly more
dull than erotic. (Someone's translation skills were noticeably
off, as a scribbled note in English amusingly reads "MEET
ME TO THE TOILET.") We do get some fine-lookin' ladies cavorting
in the buff, however, among them Marie-France
(Spermula), Sophie
Berger (Emmanuelle IV), Jill Allison
(a bodacious American or Canadian gal with no other credits) and
the nearly-ubiquitous Josephine Jacqueline Jones. (So far, three
of the four Private Screenings releases to date have featured
the Jamaican 'Triple-J'.)
I hope the cast and crew had a good time traveling to such locations
as Paris, Monaco, Hong Kong, L.A. and New York, because they didn't
get a very good movie out of the experience.
Another overpriced DVD from
Private Screening Collection. Love Circles'
fullframe transfer isn't as dingy-looking as PSC's Christina
disc (see above) but for 27 bucks it's severely disappointing,
appearing to come from a faded tape source. Audio is adequate
but no more than that. With such a low-quality presentation for
this kind of money, there should be at least four or five other
sexploitation titles bundled with it in a bargain-bin "T&A"
pack. There are no extras
nada.
- B. Lindsey
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Film:
2 |
DVD: 2 |
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