Dollar Dealicious: Sisters of Death (1977)

Heya folks, it's the Bug back again to bring you another fine flick that  wont make your pocketbook get sick. That's right it's Dollar Deals time again. This month, as you all know because you would never miss a day at the Lair, I'm covering films from the value priced Horrorlicious box set, and with only two more weeks to go I can heartily say that I've really enjoyed this set. Tonight's film only strengthens that feeling as we unravel a tale, not of the Brothers of Dismay, The Uncles of Woe, or The Cousins Twice Removed of Pain, but of the....

Sisters of Death (1977) starring Claudia Jennings, Cheri Howell, Sherry Boucher, Paul Carr, Joe E. Tata, Sherri Alberoni. Roxxanne Albee, and Arthur Franz. Directed by Joseph Mazzuca. 

Judy (Jennings) and her friend Liz Clyborn are being inducted into a group called "The Sisters", and the final step of the initiation calls for them to have a gun pointed to their head and the trigger pulled. The gun is loaded with a dummy bullet, and it's not supposed to fire. Everything goes fine as Judy takes her turn, but when the gun is turned on Liz, it goes off killing her instantly. 

Seven years later, and the sisters have long since parted ways. Judy is living the good life and had designs on the handsome son of the Governor, but when she receives a mysterious invitation to a reunion of "The Sisters", she heads out warily, haunted by their deadly past. The other four girls, speed demon Francie (Alberoni); hippy chick Penny (Albee); the hitch hiking Diana (Howell); and bitchy Sylvia (Boucher), all arrive at an inn. There they meet up with Mark and Joey (Carr and Tata), two men sent to pick up the girls and take them to "their final destination." After an hour's drive, they arrive at a large house out in the country where the men drop them off. 

The women find the house supplied with rooms for each of them, fine drink, and food, and they begin to start partying. Mark and Joey spy on the girls from a distance, and finally decide to crash the festivities. The guys hop and fence and sneak their way up to the house. After a cool reception from Sylvia, the other girls show up and the party really gets going. The next morning the girls awaken and each of them finds a picture of poor dead Liz in their rooms. 

They soon find themselves prisoner in the house, and even the fence around the property has become electrified. When their host unexpectedly reveals himself, it is in the guise of none other than Liz's father (Franz). He believes his daughter was murdered, and he calmly announces that he plans to avenge her death and uncover the truth. As he makes good on his promise, the group bands together to find a means of escape. Yet secrets run deep in "The Sisters". A traitor walks among them, and the truth must come out. 

Film Facts

--Joe E. Tata would later come to another kind of cult fame as Peach Pit's very own Nat on Beverly Hills 90210 and even now is reprising that role in the 2008 spin off/remake, the more briefly named, 90210.

--Sherri Albertini joined the cast of  The Mickey Mouse Club at age nine, and would go on to appear in many TV shows as she grew up. She has a reoccurring role on the series Family Affair for many years, and would go on to be the voice of Wendy on The Super Friends and Alexandra Cabot on Josie and the Pussycats. 

--Claudia Jennings was the Playmate of the Year in 1970. She also appeared in many genre films such as Unholy Rollers (1972) and Gator Bait (1974), and she was also considered for Kate Jackson's role on Charlie's Angels. Tragically she died in an auto accident in 1979.

--Sisters of Death was filmed in 1972, but didn't get a release for 5 more years. 

The Bug Speaks

You may well have already guessed that I enjoyed this film, and you would be correct. It had a ton of great things going for it, and for me, this was one of those films where the things that detract from it, only serve to enhance. At the core of this film is the story, and while simple and a tad overdone, it is played out quite well. There are tons of movies with the "Ten Little Indians" premise, but coming though the filter of a film that seems like the bastard child of the grindhouse and the Movie of the Week, something original manages to fall out despite itself. 

The acting, well, let's just say it varies. Roxanne Albee's flaky Penny and Cheri Howell as Diana are probably the two worst performances turned in, but thankfully neither of them holds the screen very long. Claudia Jennings' Judy is well played, and the actress put enough in the role to be able to pull off a few deft twists in her story arc. I really liked the performances of Paul Carr and Joe E. Tata as the accidental henchmen/heroes. Carr came off a bit like a cut rate David Soul (of The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) , but when his hero guy potential gets going, he was really fun to watch. Tata on the other hand was more of the comic relief, and his suave '70's guy swagger made his turn as Joey come alive. 

The strongest actor in the film was by far Arthur Franz. As the vengeful father with his wild hair and manic looking eyes, he chewed up the scenery every time he stepped into a frame. Just watching him in his attic as he fashioned his own bullets becomes a study in how to make a minor character the lead role. It should be no surprise if you happen to see this film and recognize his face. He worked steadily as a character actor for over 30 years starting in movies like Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man and The Caine Mutiny(1954). He had over 135 credits to his name by the time he made Sisters of Death, and this was a man who knew how to make the small role big. He would have a few more roles until retiring in 1982, and he would later pass away in 2006 at the ripe old age of 86.

Now that I've gushed about the acting and the story let's get to the portion of the film that really brought it all together for me. It was made pretty dang poorly. The cinematographer, Grady Martin, only shot this one picture, and this was the only theatrical release film for director Mazzuca (who went on to be a production manager in the animation world working on She-ra, Muppet Babies, and Dexter's Laboratory.) The visual style of the film is quite a mess, but somewhere between the wildly sweeping shots, the boom being in the frame, and some rather rough edits, there is a charm in it's 16mm muddiness. It's not a film you're going to put on if you want to sit back and absorb the wonders of cinema. It's one you're going to watch and it'll make you wonder what is going on with it, but in a good way. 

This is a film that will not please lots of folks. From the production to the product itself, it lacks a couple key elements that usually add to the appeal of a movie of this ilk. There is precious little in the way of blood spilled with only the shooting at the beginning and one other murder yielding the red stuff, and there is only the promise of nudity that goes unfulfilled. For what it lacks, it still delivers you a maniac with a Gatling gun, a tarantula full of Cool Whip, a veritable parade of questionable '70's style, and an ending that twists literally up until the last frame. So check it out folks, and let me know what you think of what these twisted sisters (sorry, it was too easy to pass up) have in store for you. 

Bug Rating

No trailer I'm afraid, but here's the opening three minutes of the film.

Dollar Dealicious: House on the Edge of the Park (1980)

Tonight's feature is a triple threat. First off it's from a low priced package of DVD's. Secondly, it marks the second appearance by both Ruggero Deodato and David Hess this month. The Ladies of the Lair of course covered Last House on the Left with Mr. Hess a couple of days back. And who can forget two weeks ago when we faced the Jungle Holocaust with old Ruggero as our guide? Those were good times..ahem, relatively. For tonight these two powerhouses of exploitation cinema collide in a little flick I like to call..

The House on the Edge of the Park (1980) starring David Hess, Giovanni Radice, Annie Bell, and Christian Borromeo. Directed by Ruggero Deodato. 

Dollar Dealicious: Terror Creatures From the Grave (1965)

Hello folks, and welcome back to the second week of Dollar Dealicious. This week and for the next few I'll be covering films from the bargain set Horrorlicious. It's a nice little set and a real steal for what you get. 

Speaking of steal, or Steele rather. Barbara Steele stars in tonight's feature. The scream queen, who came to fame in Mario Bava's masterwork Black Sunday, is back at it again with another piece of gothic Italian goodness. This is a film which claims to be based on the works of Edgar Allen Poe, and Ms. Steele is no stranger to loose adaptation of the author's work having starred in 1961's The Pit and the Pendulum and the faux-Poe tale Castle of Blood (1964). However tonight's tale stretched the limits of the based on Poe craze because I feel fairly certain he never wrote a story called...

Terror Creatures from the Grave (5 tombe per un medium) starring Barbara Steele, Walter Brandi, Mirella Maravidi, and Riccardo Garrone. Directed by Massimo Pupillo.

At the behest of Dr. Hauff, Albert Kovac (Brandi) travels to the doctor's country manor. He, or rather his partner Joseph Morgan, has been asked to attend to making out the Doctor's last will and testament, but when he arrives the Doctor's wife Cleo (Steele) informs him that the Doctor has been dead nearly a year. Suitably confused, Albert accepts Cleo's hospitality and stays for the night, perhaps because he has eyes for the Doctor's daughter, Corrine (Maravidi).

Corrine however has issues of her own. She tells Albert of the Doctor's true vocation as a spiritualist. It seems the manor is built over the ruins of a plague hospital, and the grounds are littered with the unconsecrated graves of plague spreaders, persons who were accused of spreading the disease on purpose. The Doctor had spent many hours in communion with those lost souls, and now Corrine believes that her father's spirit now wanders the mansion. 

Albert, her mother, and the town physician, Dr. Nemek, all scoff at her dark fantasy. However when the people who signed the Doctor's death certificate begin to die off, they begin to wonder if the girl might be right. As bodies begin to drop, and a rash of the plague begins to break out, Albert must learn if the diabolical Doctor has returned or if some supernatural evil awakened to bring terror to the night.

Film Facts

--Massimo Pupillo had his name removed from the finished film and replaced with that of the producer Ralph Zucker. For many years people thought that Zucker was a pseudonym for Pupillo. 

--The film's original title is 5 tombe per un medium. It has also been known as Cemetery of the Living Dead, Coffin of Terror, and Five Graves for a Medium. 

--Barbara Steele still works in genre film. She had a bit part in 2008's Her Morbid Desires.

The Bug Speaks

This film shows all too well the difference between a film maker like Mario Bava and a working director like Pipillo. Bava had released his film The Girl Who Knew Too Much in 1963, and the stylish thriller was enhanced by his play with shadow and skillful camera work. Sadly none of this can be said of Pipillo. Pipillo manages to take a clever idea and bog it down with static cameras and plodding pacing. Worse yet, promises of horrors that never pay off, but more on that later. 

Ms. Steele is lovely to see as always, and the Mortica-esque costuming she wears is quite fetching. She seems to know that she's not working with a great director here, and her performance is not up to it's usual standards. The rest of the cast is enjoyable enough, but no one really stands out. I will have to say that the reaction on Walter Brandi's face, when he finds that his car is broke down because of an owl in the engine, is perfect. I expect I would look as confused and bewildered by that prospect as he was. 

While the cast is nothing special, they are not the real problem with the picture. To discuss what is wrong with the movie, I will have to divulge some small spoilers, but nothing that would really detract from the film. I was very happy to find the film going down a supernatural route and not doing the bait and switch like I saw last week with The Night She Returned from the Tomb. The problem is that zombies rise from the grave, but we never get to see them. All we get is a plague ridden hand in a few shots. Now in my book if you're calling your flick Terror Creatures.... then there better be some Terrible Creatures on display. While we do see the aftermath of a few deaths and the makeup is pretty nicely done, we see very little of the unseen creatures dispatching of their victims. In a nutshell, little on screen death + lack of actual creatures = one unhappy Bug. 

This film had real potential. I found the story line interesting enough that it got me through the first half hour which has a very slow pace, but with lack of stylish camera work, death, creatures, and no great performances, the film comes up quite lacking in most regards. It also comes up really, really short in the Poe department. If I had to take a guess, I'd say the film was inspired by The Masque of the Red Death, but by "inspired by" I mean the screen writers had read the story sometime in the long past. 

For folks who really like Italian cinema, but are running out of films to watch, this is a decent one to see. For fans of Barbara Steele, I say throw this one on a Netflix queue or pick it up on the cheap. But for anyone looking for a genuinely scary film or with the stylized flair of Italian cinema, there are better places to look. 

Bug Rating

Just a reminder that if you want to pick up a copy of Horrorlicious, I have it linked over in my Amazon store in the sidebar. It is available used for about $4 and it's well worth that. I'll be back next week with a review of the gem of the set, House on the Edge of the Park. So stay tuned, Moonies.  

The Dollar Deals Christmas Special

Heya folks. The Bug back again to share with you some ideas for great stocking stuffers that aren't candy and won't cost you a fortune. I'm talking Dollar Deals here, and not just any deals... Christmas Deals. While there are a ton of quality movies out there for for a buck to please the genre lover in your life, how about giving the gift of holiday cheer to go along with it.

So for starters you might find The Christmas Carol (1949) The first televised telling of the Christmas Carol, and I've read that it's one of the earliest broadcasts to be released to DVD. While the trunkated version of the story doesn't do the tale justice (see George C. Scott's version for that) Taylor Holmes does an admirable enough job as Scrooge. This came only a year after Holmes had starred in the Ingrid Bergman version of Joan of Arc. As to why a genre fan might love this disk, it also came a year after Vincent Price had his breakthrough role as Cardinal Richelieu in The Three Musketeers. Price serves as your narrator for the film, and the shots of Vincent relaxing at "home" and reading from The Christmas Carol are, well, priceless.

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Secondly we have The Abbott and Costello Christmas Special. This comes from 1952 and their Palmolive Soap sponsored show. It features some very funny bits that turn the tables on the usual with Abbott being the butt of most of the jokes and slapstick. Perhaps this was his Christmas present to Lou. There is one bit about a scalp massage treatment being mixed up with a turkey stuffing recipe that is extremely funny. The show also includes some nice musical numbers, acrobats Tom and Jerry, and a very nice tap routine from the Nicholas Brothers who Sammy Davis Jr. once studied with. The show is capped off by Lou Costello singing White Christmas and conducting the show's orchestra. Costello's bumbling conducting soon leads all the musicians into a slapstick free for all that was genuinely hilarious. The disk also includes a non-holiday episode of the show as well as a few other Christmas shorts. The shows are also uncut and I loved watching the commercials for Palmolive Shave Cream and Soap as well as Colgate Toothpaste and Fab detergent. 

The disk is all around worth more than a dollar, and to anyone that loves comedy classic and modern there is much to love. I personally feel that Bud and Lou are criminally underrated performers and well ahead of their time in some respects. There is much in Lou Costello's bad little boy routine that can still be seen today in comic Patton Oswalt's work.

This clip is not from the show, but is a interesting Christmas commercial for Christmas Seals. Which features Abbott and Costello and Charles Laughton.

The third disk I want to talk about is actually entitled The Beverly Hillbillies Christmas. While the disk does contain that show as well as episodes of Ozzie and Harriet and Love That Bob, the show that really stands out is The Jack Benny Show- The Christmas Shopping Show. While it relies on the typical running joke about Jack being a cheapskate, when coupled with the nightmare of Holiday shopping it hits just the right mix. Add in some very funny bits with Mel Blanc as the put upon counterman assisting Jack, and what you've got is comedy gold. Also the chemistry between Jack and Rochester always makes for more than a few laughs. 

I'm not going to give ratings on these as they don't really qualify as movies, but suffice it to say that each one is well worth what you will spend. For anyone out there that loves old movies and genre film, a Dollar Deal is the perfect thing to fill their stocking with. So enjoy the clips and if you want to see the rest of The Christmas Carol  or The Jack Benny Show they are both available via youtube. See all you Moonies tomorrow with a bit of Christmas terror courtesy of The Grab Bag.

Dollar Deals: D.O.A. (1950)

Sorry to disappoint folks, but there will be no extreme beach volleyball involved in this film at all. I do assure you that within a few years you'll probably be able to find that movie in the dollar bins, but tonight I bring to you a bit of film noir that was well worth the buck I put down for it. There is some bit of controversy as to if this film fits a classical standards of film noir, but does it get any more bleak when a man becomes obsessed with finding his own murderer? Especially when that man only has hours to live because he woke up...

D.O.A (1950) starring Edmond O'Brian, Pamela Britton, Luther Adler, Neville Brand. Directed by Rudolph Mate. 

Frank Bigelow (O'Brian) is living the quiet life in Banning, California. He runs a small notary and accounting office along with his secretary and girlfriend Paula (Britton). Feeling the pressures of his job, and perhaps Paula's intent to see a wedding ring on her finger, Frank takes off for a week in San Francisco. He meets up with a pack of traveling salesmen and parties the night away in a Jazz club, but in the morning he wakes with an acute pain in his stomach.

At first he thinks it will subside, just an ill aftereffect of too much drink, but when the pain persists he seeks out a doctor. They break the news to him as gently as they can, but Frank can't bear to hear it. Only after getting a second opinion does he accept that he has been fatally poisoned. With only a day or two to live, Frank begins to track down any lead that might uncover his murderer. With the Jazz club closed and the traveling salesmen already moved along, his only clue is the frantic calls from a man he had never met. He calls Paula back at the office to see what the man had wanted, but the man,Eugene Phillips, is dead.

Frank rushes to Los Angles, where Phillips has died, looking for any kind of answers. Soon the rumpled suit accountant is up to his neck in double crosses, red herrings, and dangerous dames. His time is running out, so with a fevered determination Frank must use every second he has left if he wants to uncover the mystery. 

Film Facts

--The Jazz Band Frank sees in the Fisherman club is played by Von Streeter and members of his band The Wig Poppers, but the music was provided by Maxwell Davis, a saxophonist and record producer who worked on early R&B and Blues tracks from Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown and T-Bone Walker. 

--The Bradbury Building which was used in this film has seen lots of screen time in films like Bladerunner, Double Indemnity, and Chinatown. 

--The scene where Frank runs down the street after learning his was poisoned was a"stolen shot". None of the people on the street knew what was going on or that a movie was being filmed. 

The Bug Speaks

Perhaps the hardest thing about talking about this film is the nature of the film itself. With so many ups and downs and ins and outs, it is impossible to truly give a synopsis without giving much of the movie away. Part of the real fun of this film is the sheer volume of false leads and red herrings that stand in the way of Frank learning the truth. When it does come out it seems both sublimely simple and ultimately unpredictable in a way that modern Hollywood should take a long hard look at. 

This film is virtually unformulaic. From the first scene where Frank stumbles into a police station to report a murder, "Who was murdered?" "I was.", you know this is going to be a ride unlike any other film out there. It does take a moment to get started and drags ever so slightly though Frank's night of debauchery, but once the accountant is on the case, the film takes on the same feverish pace that Frank does. This is after all a man with little time on his hands, and the second and third acts fly along at a breakneck pace that I can think of very little to compare it to except perhaps the underwhelming Jason Statham film Crank.

The acting is spot on from all parties involved. Edward O'Brian (The Wild Bunch, The Killers )makes Frank such an easily identifiable pencil pushing stooge, but more astounding is how the transition from number cruncher to face puncher is so seamless that the performance feels both genuine and inspired. Pamela Britton ("My Favorite Martian")is also very good in her limited time on the screen. She and O'Brian make for a very real feeling couple. There are also a couple of great performances from a couple of the film's many heavies. Luther Adler is wonderfully aloof and menacing in the most gentlemanly way as criminal mastermind Majack. 

Speaking of Majack, perhaps the most memorable performance of the film comes from Neville Brand as the vicious thug Chester. This was Brand's first featured performance and he would go on to perform in the cannibal film Eaten Alive as well as hundreds of other movies and TV shows. His frenzied performance added the appropriate amount of menace that capped out the already dark story of Frank Bigelow. 

The film is well helmed by former cinematographer Rudolph Mate taking the big chair for only the fourth time. Mate would go on to direct many more film including The 300 Spartans which detailed the same battle of Thermopylae which was detailed in the blockbuster 300. Mate shot the film taking full advantage of night locations, dark corners, and shadowed faces. In fact there is one shootout in a warehouse against an unseen assailant which looked textbook as to how a scene like that should be handled. Sharing the credit for the film's look is cinematographer Ernest Laszlo who would go on to win an Oscar for his work on Ship of Fools and be nominated for Logan's Run. 

Mate makes very few errors with the film and practically the only one is the use of a slide whistle near the beginning of the film whenever Frank sees an attractive lady. This comical and completely inappropriate device is cast off quite quickly, but the presence of it is even more bothersome once you've seen what lays ahead in the film. Whatever possessed him to use such a sound effect I will never be able to fathom.  

All around the film is a pulse pounding thrill ride which hasn't at all been marred by the passage of time. In fact I wish there were more films that could mix thrills, action, and mystery in such a dynamic format. Perhaps it was not as masterful a film as Touch of Evil or The Maltese Falcon, but the feeling of panic and desperation that pervades the  film and permeates the viewer is untouched in my book. This is one that will end up costing me well more than a buck as I try and track down a high quality version of the film, but if you haven't seen it then drop a dollar on it or stream it from below for free. 

Bug Rating

Dollar Deals: The Bodyguard (1976) starring Sonny Chiba

For a buck sometimes you get what you pay for. Bad transfers, bad movies, and sometimes even odder things. Tonight's film falls under two of those categories, but I'm not going to say which just yet. I will say it stars one of my favorite actors from the grind house era of Martial Arts the legendary Sonny Chiba. He plays a character oddly enough named Chiba, but some might know him as...

The Bodyguard (1973/1976) starring Sonny Chiba, Judy Lee, Etsuko Shiomi, Tsunehiko Watase, Ryohei Uchida, Yayoi Watanabe, Aaron Banks,  and Bill Louie. Directed by Tatsuichi Takamori, Simon Nuchtern (1976 footage). 

The path of the righteous man and defender is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who in the name of charity and goodwill shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper, and the father of lost children.

And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious anger, who poison and destroy my brothers; and they shall know that I am CHIBA the BODYGUARD when I lay my vengeance upon them.

And so begins the tale of Chiba the Bodyguard. After a Japanese mafia Don is gunned down in New York, Chiba who seems to be an international kung fu movie star, is on his way back to Japan to put a stop to the drug trade. The mafia knows this will be bad, and they send a gang of thugs to hijack the plane that Chiba is traveling on. This of course ends up with Chiba kicking their ass right in the aisles of the plane. When they land, he holds a press conference detailing his plan to take down the drug trade which includes offering his services as a bodyguard to anyone with information about the heads of the trade. To prove how serious he is he karate chops a Coke bottle in half and vows to do the same to the drug kingpins.

Later that evening Chiba gets a visit at home from Reiko, a beautiful young woman who is looking for him to make good on his offer. He considers it, but says he needs further proof. Reiko says she has proof in her car, and Chiba sends his sister Maki to get it. Maki however gets more than she bargained for when she gets jumped by a gang of Japanese Cosa Nostra who are laying in wait for Reiko. When Chiba finds his sister naked on the pavement below and hears her story, it's all the proof he needs. 

Chiba moves into Reiko's apartment with her and defends her from all manner of mafia, triads, sofa ninjas, and general thugs who are out to kill her. Soon he learns that she was the girlfriend of the slain Mafia Don and only she knows how and where the drugs come in the country. Conflicted by his promise to protect Reiko and his vow to bring down the drug trade, Chiba tries to find a way to do both as he navigates the seedy underbelly of Japanese crime. 

Film Facts

--The first ten minutes of the 1976 American version of the film contains footage of martial arts champions Aaron Banks and Bill Louie debating the merits of Sonny Chiba's style vs. that of Bruce Lee. It was filmed in the legendary New York Karate School that one was in Times Square. Also in that scene in the background you can see a poster for the grindhouse classic The Tongfather.

--Over the credits there is footage of Mas Oyama leading students in Karate training in the woods. Oyama was Sonny Chiba's first teacher.

--Simon Nuchtern is said to be one of the uncredited directors who worked on the infamous 1976 film Snuff. 

The Bug Speaks

First off let me take a moment to say that Sonny Chiba is a verifiable badass, and for making the Street Fighter films as well as personal favorite of mine Samurai Resurrection,  he very nearly gets a free pass. However this film has some pretty major flaws in both its structure and it's level of entertainment. 

To take it from the top, it was a shock to see the Ezekiel 25:17 lines come up on the screen as the movie began. As anyone who reads my stuff regular knows, I'm a nut for finding those little things that Tarantino lifted out to use in his films. So that was pretty cool unto itself, and it adds a special layer of enjoyment to the film as a whole. The tacked on Karate School scenes at the beginning don't really add anything to the film so much, but I do always like to see footage of NYC in the '70's when it was still the dirty dangerous city of my dreams. 

The plot of the film is where it really suffers. I was surprised as anyone that there was such a thing as the Japanese Mafia, and not only that but that they would go for terrorism to keep a film star from coming to stop the drug trade. Also holding a press conference to announce that you are out to kill drug traffickers seems a bold move, but I suppose Chiba is just that confident. Either that or he had just had an overwhelming need to Karate chop a Coke bottle. 

I must admit this was one of my favorite things in the film, and even though it was an obvious set up I ran the DVD back a couple of times so I could see it again. It is the over the top moments like this, the Ezekiel lines, the chants of "Viva Chiba" over the opening credits,the assassins who appear by cutting themselves free of Reiko's sofa, and  the footage of a criminal chopping apart a monkey head to eat it which will stick with me in the long run. Sadly of those moments three of them happen within the first 10 minutes of the film. While Sonny gets to kick some ass later on most of it is filmed so poorly that it was more confusing to watch than enjoyable. Although there is an eye gouging scene at the end which is almost worth the wait. 

Sonny himself does an admirable job with what he has to work with. As always he is extremely charismatic on film, and I loved the pimpin' suits he wears throughout. After all, he's playing Sonny Chiba so he has to look nice. The real difference between this and other films that I've seen him in is that it doesn't rely so heavily on Chiba's martial arts prowess. Instead the film attempts to be a crime thriller in the vein of some of Bronson's work from the same era. The problem comes with the disjointed storytelling that no amount of acting on Chiba's part can save. 

Judy Lee is serviceable as the titular body to guard. However I wish greater care had been taken to give a little more personality to the bad guys. I never really caught the name of a single one of them, and I don't think I'm alone. IMDB doesn't even have a list of characters that I could guess from. Some of the baddies, especially the monkey eating thug with the samurai meets greaser haircut, I would have liked to seen a bit more fleshed out, but that's probably too much to be asking of a movie like this.

My last gripe is actually out of the film's control. The DVD transfer was just horrible with a very dark and muddy picture. To add insult to injury, there was some nudity in the film, but it had been digitally blurred. So they had the money to ruin boobies, but not the cash to drop on making the dark scenes watchable at all. Needless to say this pissed me off, but then again I dropped all of a buck on it (actually 50 cents, it was on sale) so how mad could I really be.

Even trying not to hold the look of the film against it (which is why I didn't touch on the direction since it was too dark most of the time to really say how it was), the film still misses the mark on most levels. If you are a big fan of Sonny Chiba, I do understand that this film is available with a better (if only slightly) transfer on several box sets. I've looked at these sets and they all seem to have enough stuff I haven't seen to make me want them personally. If the film was cleaned up it might be a better watch, but I still wouldn't expect too much. 

Bug Rating

A Special Note From the Bug

I just learned a bit ago that Forrest J Ackerman passed away December 4th.

The 92 year old kid was still as big a fan of genre films as he was when he first 

started Famous Monsters of Filmland.

He was an inspiration to me just as he inspired legions

of genre fans with his magazines long before blogs and fansites

were just a twinkle in some scientist's eye.

He will forever be missed in the genre film community 

and I for one will miss knowing he's out there. 

R.I.P. Uncle Forry and may they have films that you've only 

dreamed of where you are now.

Dollar Deals: King of the Zombies (1941)

Sometimes a movie in and of itself is not very good, but the characters or actors in it elevate the material. The skill of some actors to work beyond the lines they are given is often key to a film. This is the way I have often heard people speak of actors like Brando or Pacino. However I believe that lesser known character actors are usually the ones who really breathe life into the little unrewarding and often demeaning roles they are given. This film surely has a great example of one of those actors, and his performance alone is worth well more than the dollar I spent on this DVD, but I don't want to get to into that just yet because first I must tell you about the...

King of the Zombies (1941) starring Dick Purcell, Henry Victor, Mantan Moreland, Joan Woodbury, and John Arthur. Directed by Jean Yarbrough.



Bill Summers (Arthur) Jack McCarthy (Purcell), and Jack's valet Jeff (Moreland) are on a mission to locate a missing Navy Admiral when their plane crashes on a mysterious island. With no way to escape they seek refuge in the home of Austrian doctor Miklos Sangre (Victor). Jeff keeps having strange occurrences around the house including a run in with zombie slaves, but his employer dismisses Jeff as being hopelessly paranoid.



Deep in the night, after a spectral visitor convinces them that Jeff is telling the truth, the two men explore the house and Bill gets attacked by a zombie. The next day they go back to the wreckage of the plane to salvage the radio, but find it has been stolen in the night. With no way off the island, they are at the mercy of the doctor who seems to be using voodoo and hypnosis to aid an enemy of the United States.

Film Facts

--The role of Miklos Sangre was first offered to Bela Lugosi. When he proved to be unavailable, their second choice was Peter Lorre. After that fell through it was eventually given to Henry Victor who had portrayed the strongman in Tod Browning's Freaks.

--Produced before the start of WW II, it never the less hinted to the foreign power that the mad doctor was working for to be Germany.

The Bug Speaks

This movie in and of itself is a fairly average affair. In fact the same year it was produced gave birth to classics like Citizen Kane and The Wolf Man. So King of the Zombies was in no danger of winning any accolades (that is except the music which was Oscar nominated.) The plot is thin but fun, and it's always nice to kick back with a good old fashioned voodoo zombie flick. It was kind of funny when the evil doctor admonished the men that "Zombies do not eat meat." Ahh, how times have changed.

How times have changed indeed. That is what I really want to talk about tonight. While the performances in the movie are very textbook the actor that truly rises above the pedestrian material is Mantan Moreland. While his role is seeped in stereotype and shades of the old Stepin Fetchit type routine, he manages to make his character both the only person with any sense and the only relatable character.

Mantan had been performing in films for years by the time he made this one. He starred in many of the Charlie Chan movies (themselves a bastion on stereotypes) as Chan's chauffeur. He would go on to appear in movie and TV work until 1973 and for genre audiences he might be most recognizable from his bit part in 1958's Spider Baby. He was a comic genius who's prime era of work was marred by the institutionalized racism that was inherent in his parts. (For anyone with doubts about his comic prowess let me say that none other than Moe Howard considered him for inclusion in the Stooges after the departure of Shemp.)

In King of the Zombies, Mantan truly becomes the main character whether that was

intended to be the case of not. He delivers his lines with great aplomb and timing. My favorite include when Mantan hears far off voodoo drums one one of his companions asks "What is that?" to which Mantan replies "I dunno, but it wasn't Gene Krupa." and "If there's one thing I don't want to be twice, zombies is both of them." Naturally to a politically correct modern ear, these lines seem callus when delivered in the exaggerated tone popularized by actors like Moreland and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson.

While we look down upon these roles now, they were roles that actors like Moreland pioneered before black audiences and portrayed in films featuring all black casts, and they don't seem so far removed from performances like Chis Tucker in Rush Hour or Richard Pryor in movies like The Toy.

Mantan was an actor taking the parts he could get and making the most of them, and in this film he really achieved that. The era it came from was full of injustices and shameful acts, but here was a performer who did not stoop to get a role. Instead he got the role and brought the whole film up to his level. So while I'm not going to rate this movie unbelievably high because it's really not that good a film (though pretty entertaining and at 67 minutes a perfect running time), I do recommend it to anyone who wants to see an unsung genius work the screen. This film is well worth a buck if you can find it, and if not it is available on the Internet Archive here for free download.

The Bug Rating

No trailer, but here's a clip featuring Mantan Morland and his first encounter with zombies.