THE URANIUM CAFE

RAFAEL GALLUR/COMIC BOOK MAGAZINE COVERS

the.uranium.cafe@gmail.com (Bill D. Courtney) — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 04:18:53 PDT

(NOTE: There is a bit of essentially "orphaned" blogging here as some of the post refers back to a post about another Mexican illustrator, Oscar Bazaldua, that was removed as some of the images were a bit too much for the site after reflection. This post was written after that and so there will be references to to a non-existent post. That post will be edited and placed back up here shortly.) Like Oscar Bazaldua whose work was featured here a while back Rafael Gallur is know mostly for his work in the area of Mexican Ghetto Librettos, or Sensacionales, comics. The emphasis in these comics is on sex and violence and the drawing are typically over the top and graphic. Unlike Bazaldua however Gallur demonstrates a degree of restraint in his drawings in the areas of explicit violence and sexual posings of the subjects. The drawings are still pretty erotic but not as unnervingly so as in the works of Bazaldua and other pulp style Mexican illustrators. The drawings here are simply a bit more heroic in context than the drawings I presented before.

There is still the politically incorrect -as if there were a bad thing- chauvinistic atmosphere that may offend some people with larger than life macho cowboys and luchadores/wrestlers looming over scantily clad females who are often presented in some compromising position or another. The women themselves appear tough and dangerous but they are still frail compared to the male characters who all seem fairly lethal. Almost all of the drawings here are western themes and are finely detailed and rendered. I am not sure if he is working alone here or with somebody else helping with coloring chores and if anybody has more info I will pass that on in a future post. The drawings seem to show more of an influence from American pinup and magazine cover art than some of the other Ghetto Librettos drawings I have seen but the liberal use of vivid primary colors and lurid subject matter is something that you just don’t see that much of north of the border. I have not seen the inside of one of these magazines and if anybody has scans of the interior work I would love to see them. I used to live in San Antonio Texas but to be honest I never saw anything like this there, and now I am in China and it is simply impossible to find western comic books of any sort here. Hell, Spiderman is considered subversive enough here.

BRANDED TO KILL/ANIMATED GIF FILES

the.uranium.cafe@gmail.com (Bill D. Courtney) — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 05:45:48 PDT

JUNGLA/FUMETTI COMIC BOOK

the.uranium.cafe@gmail.com (Bill D. Courtney) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 08:25:45 PDT

I can't find much information on this spicy looking comic book in English other than it started off as an Italian Fumetti style comic and then was translated in a few other languages, including Turkish. Most of these covers are from the Turkish translation and I gained information on them from my Uranium Cafe Group at Facebook from a comment left by a member of the group. His site and related post is here and is in Turkish but I have long found that Turkish bloggers are into some tasty trash culture. Some of from the decadent west and some from Turkey itself. I am "researching" the Kilink films (based on a Fumetti as well) now and you can expect something on them in the future. Weird stuff. So even if you cannot read the text it is great to see the passion going into these posts and the wealth of obscure images that accompany them. I even stumbled across some actual interior artwork at a site and will share a few panels for that. There are too many panels to post in their entirety and that link is here at BDTrash if you want to check all of them out. Seems the books may have been made in some movies as well and I may see if those are available at Cinemageddon, where I get the material for a lot of these posts. (I just checked and there was nothing available.) In fact the term Jungla may not even be the girl's name but a term for Jungle itself, as I have seen it before in movie posters and comic book covers. I am not sure what the girl's name is even. Maybe it is Jungla. Who knows.

Again the stuff is Fumetti style which I am not a huge fan of really. I cleared out all my old Fumetti posts from the site here for a couple reasons a while back. 1) Some were just more graphic than I was comfortable with for this blog and felt there they were over the top really, 2) I got pissed off that those sicko covers -though well drawn and sort of fun to look over- and poorly near non-written posts became my most popular in no time 3) and I discontinued my Rapidhaare account after RS started sucking more than I could deal with and the links I had to those posts -with collections of Fumetti comic books- were lost. I will be restarting some Fumetti posts but with a different approach. They are a strange and non-American little sector of the comic book genre. The covers are often well done and lurid but the interior artwork always paled in comparison. But the drawings for Jungla are a notch above most I have seen. I have no idea who the artists are and if anybody knows more about this series please let me know. All I can say in conclusion is I am a huge fan of jungle films (my Jungle Jim article -and part one of a series- having now become my number one most visited post) and I love "white girls in the jungle movies" and comics. My problem here is I have too much material to draw from and I am not a steady blogger, or I could just about run a blog just on jungle stuff alone. For settle for my Kings and Queens of the Jungle category and lets hope it grows.

Some interior drawings from a Jungla comic book:

THE URANIUM CAFE MATINEE/HORRORS OF SPIDER ISLAND/1962

the.uranium.cafe@gmail.com (Bill D. Courtney) — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 23:00:00 PDT

The MONSTER is terror-crazed by his deathly fear of fire!

Blood-Curdling! Hair-Raising! Spine-Chilling!

One bite from a giant spider turned him into THE WORLD'S MOST HIDEOUS MONSTER with a diabolical lust to KILL!

He strangles his victims with his mammoth claws!

SO TERRIFYING AND SHOCKING you will be frightened out of your wits!

Shock upon shock! Terror upon terror!

Craving the Blood of Beautiful Women!

SEE HORRORS OF SPIDER ISLAND, WITH TRAILER, RIGHT HERE >>

HORRORS OF SPIDER ISLAND TRAILER

HORRORS OF SPIDER ISLAND

FULL LENGTH FILM

PROJECT TERROR/HORRORS OF SPIDER ISLAND/1962

the.uranium.cafe@gmail.com (Bill D. Courtney) — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 10:27:57 PDT

From Wikipedia: Horrors of Spider Island (German: Ein Toter hing im Netz) is a 1960 West German horror film directed by Fritz Böttger. The film stars Alexander D'Arcy as Gary the talent agent who invites several girls to a club in Singapore. Their plane ride ends abruptly when they crash-land into the ocean. D'Arcy and the girls make their way to an island where they find a larger spider-web-and. A giant spider sinks its teeth in D'Arcy which turns him into a werewolf.The film was released in the United States in 1962. It has been released with various English titles including It's Hot in Paradise, Hot in Paradise, Girls of Spider Island and Spider's Web. The film was featured on the television series Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 1999.

.
Plot: Gary, a nightclub manager, flies a group of women from New York City to dance in his club in Singapore. While flying over the Pacific Ocean, their plane catches fire, splits in half, and plummets into the ocean; oddly enough, no-one in Gary's group is killed, while no one (pilot, stewardess, etc.) who was not in Gary's group survives. We next see the group days later, suffering from dehydration on a life raft, when they finally spot a small island and spend the night on the beach.The next morning, they discover fresh water and decide to go exploring. They are quickly amazed and excited to find a cabin, but delight turns to horror when they open the door to discover a dead man hanging from a gigantic spider web. According to his journal, the man was a professor mining for Uranium, but he feared something terrible was about to happen to him. There's no indication how long the professor planned to be on the island, but the women estimate there is enough food to last them about a month. That night, Gary proceeds alone out onto the island where he is bitten by a giant spider and turns into some type of spider-man beast. He flees into the woods, leaving the women to wonder what has happened to him. The next day, seemingly possessed by uncontrollable violent urges, Gary kills one of the girls. The remaining women, still unaware of what has happened to him, have no idea that he is the one who has done this.A month passes, and the women are running low on food when they spot a ship on the horizon. They are unable to signal it before it leaves, but two men arrive in a rowboat with supplies for the professor. They soon find the women, who tell them the professor is dead. As they all wait for the ship to return, they celebrate their last night on the island with a wild party. One of the men sneaks off to rendez-vous with a woman, but both end up being killed by Gary. Finally aware of Gary's fate, the remainder of the group hunts him down with torches until he flees into quicksand and dies.
.

BEHIND THE SCENES WORK HERE AT THE UCAFE/MAYBE BACK TO POSTING SOON

the.uranium.cafe@gmail.com (Bill D. Courtney) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 22:18:08 PDT

I have had a long hiatus here at the UCafe and at Necrotic Cinema and there are no particular reasons for that that I can think of off hand. Not any sort of anti-blogging attitude or that sort of thing that sometimes drives bloggers away from updating. Just had other things going on that took up a lot of time and energy and to some degree got a little burned out. But will be doing some stuff here in the way of "cleaning up" some old posts here at the Uranium Cafe, in particular posts that had links to my now cancelled Rapidshare account. No sense getting into an editorial about all that. But it is also something I have long debated anyway, in terms of what I want the content of the blog to be about primarily. So the whole music side will vanish and those posts, for the most part, will be deleted along with the non-working Rapidshare links. Same with the comic book links and Rapidshare links. There were lots of downloads of those files to be honest. But the Rapidshare deal is not an option anymore and it was too much anyway. I think the music and comic book categories were taking me off the the path I really wanted to follow and that is, basically, old obscure movies. And not to say those categories are dead and defunct, but will be handled in some different way in the future.

Also looking at getting back to podcasting shortly. I have a new Behringer condenser microphone and it all sounds really good. Had some compliments on my old podcasts recently and that was enough to get me motivated.

The short story is that for several months I have been trying to learn some new music software and hardware. That with my real world work and life just left me with no time or energy for this site. But I sat back a week ago and went through old posts and realized how much I actually loved the blog and it was not time to just surrender completely, though I never felt that that was what was going on anyway. Sometimes it can be good and healthy to get away from blogs or things that consume our lives daily for a bit and get a new perspective on them. But after a re-watch with a mate of Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! I am reminded of what my calling in life is. Some organizing then some psots in the works.

Bill

THE URANIUM CAFE MATINEE/NIGHTMARE CASTLE/1965/BARBARA STEELE

the.uranium.cafe@gmail.com (Bill D. Courtney) — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 07:33:01 PDT

So weird! ...So shocking! Do YOU dare see it!

SEE NIGHTMARE CASTLE RIGHT HERE >>

NIGHTMARE CASTLE

DJANGO UNCHAINED and INGLORIOUS BASTERDS/QUENTIN TARANTIO/2013

the.uranium.cafe@gmail.com (Bill D. Courtney) — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 18:46:21 PST

I did a review of the Quentin Tarantino film Inglorious Basterds quite a while back but after switching to the new URL here I never reposted it for a couple reasons. Nothing special, just had yet to put it back up. I will be reposting that piece along with my take on the new Tarantino movie Django (or Django Unchained). The films here at The Uranium Café are typically obscure films of the midnight movie or creature feature variety. Most of my reviews are impartial and typically I would not pan a movie here too harshly and save that sort of review for my sister blog Necrotic Cinema, where my opinions of newer horror films are a bit more ruthless than my views on stuff from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. So why include Django or Inglorious Basterds as reviews here when I tend to shy away from reviewing newer films? Because Tarantino uses as fodder for all his films those very same old, forgotten low budget b-movies of the 60’s and 70’s, and in particular those of the exploitation variety. He mimics the camera work of the period (with sudden fade ins and outs and loss of focus at times, for example), pays homage to the title sequences of the time and soundtracks of the time and creates characters with names that are drawn from old films. Even the character Django, as most everybody reading this sort of blog would have known even before seeing or even hearing of Tarantino’s new film, is taken from a 1966 Western film with Franco Nero. All of what I am saying now is really nothing new and several films back it was established that this is what Tarantino is all about. And for someone like me wouldn’t that be a good thing? Wouldn’t I salivate in geek-abandon at trying to be able to catch all the little in jokes and references? Actually, I stopped liking Tarantino’s films after Jackie Brown and I was hoping I would find some sort of redemption in his work in Django after the boring mess that was Inglorioius Basterds, but it is not to be so. I just don’t like the guy’s work anymore and Django has only distanced me more from appreciating what I personally enjoyed about his earlier films (although I never liked the talky Reservoir Dogs all that much).

So what is wrong with the film from my perspective? There are more than enough raves online about how great it is and that it is his best work to date (I read the same thing about Inglorious Basterds, so to some folks he just seems to topping himself now, surpassing his last opus with something even grander). There are negative reviews as well, but the majority are all more than favorable. My issue is not so much with the race/slavery issue as it is presented in the film, with hammer over the head references to civil rights struggles in the 60’s and 70’s (get it, things haven't really changed at that much yet and we need rich white guy Quentin to remind us of that). I don’t really want to explore those issues here, like most online reviews do, either pro or con, though it may hard to avoid the issues since the film is built around throwing it all in your face over and over. I don’t know if America needs somebody like Tarantino to serve as the voice to breathe life into the slavery/America’s tainted past dialog, but there it is. He is suddenly the new voice of abolition and the plight of the racially downtrodden. I, as a movie watcher and not a social reformist, am more concerned with less ethical and topical issues. Like for example, the simple fact that movies taking place in the 1850’s on plantations in Mississippi are not really “westerns”. Even Civil War films are not really westerns, though they can be categorized under that label for the sake of being able to place a film somewhere on a DVD shelf in a store and make money off its sale or rental. The name of the film is Django and it is an obvious reference to the Sergio Corbuccii film featuring Franco Nero’s darkly iconic coffin dragging gun fighting drifter character. Okay, so what does that mean in the big picture of things? Does that really mean that Tarantino has to make a virtual remake of the Corbuccii film? Of course not. I wouldn’t expect it. But I am, to be honest, expecting some sort of homage to Italian Westerns of the 60’s and early 70’s, or Spaghetti Westerns as they have come to be labeled. Oh, okay there are those clever (and getting less clever film by film) Tarantino gags and references, and even the use of cool Spaghetti Western film scores (some by Ennio Morricone himself) over some scenes, and then having the core senselessly morph into some sort of rap or 70’s pop music. I don’t know what was going on with the music here. Was Tarantino just trying to think ahead to boosting sales of the inevitable soundtrack by peppering it up with things for the kids?

Yes, bottom line is once the film was to placed in the pre-Civil War south and not in some tumbleweed littered town of dried up adobe house with sandal wearing Mexicans and cigarette rolling white guys (some played by Italians maybe!) I just lost 80% of my drive for the film. For God’s sake it is called Django! Its like making a film called Mandingo then filming it all in Monument Valley and not featuring one big black buck in the film. And I like Jamie Foxx for the most part -not a big fan- but I just did not buy him in the role at all. I had to watch this for almost three hours too. The team of the freed slave and his German bounty hunter mentor King Schultz (the Nazi Christoph Waltz from Inglorious Basterds) traveling the south and getting to kill 1) white men (Foxx) and 2) Americans (Waltz) and making stale race jokes that seem like they belong in a movie from the 70’s (and some things should have stayed in the 70’s) is just not convincing. Tarantino must have hit his editing strides in Kill Bill! and Pulp Fiction and now people have to sit through long, drawn out drivel like the retelling of the German folk story of Siegfried and Broomhilda over a campfire. Or a scene where Django is to shoot down a wanted man plowing in his field and when having doubts King Schultz has him lay down his rifle and then extols on and on why shooting this bad man is not only okay but rather profitable. I just found myself getting bored over and over, the way I did in Inglorious Basterds where the “clever” Tarantino dialogs were all done in friggin’ German! Another scene where Schultz kills a wanted man who has been elected as a town sheriff is drug out to excruciating lengths. Leone could have had his Man With No Name come into town and end the whole affair using less than six words of dialog and move on and have killed four or five other guys in the same amount of time and had it all seem more interesting. And I did not like Watlz in this. Did he and Tarantino become pals in Inglorious Basterds and Tarantino just feel like he owed the guy the part? And so what if he won an Oscar? So damned what! Do I run blogs that look like the Oscars mean anything to me? I didn’t like his performance here or his character. Okay, on one level I get it, I guess. To see the truly vile nature of American society we have to see it through the eyes of a refined European gentleman, like the cold blooded bounty hunter King Shultz who has no qualms about gunning down men in front of their children. Or we have to see how evil Americans can be through the eyes of freed slave Django, who at one point allows a frightened fellow negro slave to be torn to pieces by dogs rather than have Schultz pay $500 to free him (he had to stay in character you see). I didn’t like the two heroes in any sense. They had no mystique the way a good western hero should have, being sort of cowboy "ronins" really, despite Tarantino’s rants to the opposite about having created a new black hero figure for black men in American to look up to (excluding Spike Lee it seems who had his malarkey detector turned on) in Django.

Leonardo DiCaprio is rather good fun as the bad guy Calvin Candie (evil plantation owner of course) as is Samual L. Jackson as “house n****r” (I ain’t saying it) Stephen. The gun fights are bloody -very, very bloody and even horses get shot in the head here- but really not believable or entertaining, trying to mix up humor alongside over the top violence in a way that the 1st Kill Bill! did successfully, but that falls flat here and reeks of simple bad taste. Sure, I rewound them and checked out the spatter effects being a fan of that sick stuff but I was also just happy to have something finally happen after an hour of bland banter. The ending is so utterly absurd as to make me wonder what the hell was Tarantino thinking. Did he say to himself “what ending could I come up with that would be stupider than the one I tacked on at the end of Inglorious Basterds?” To be honest Django’s ending is not that stupid or bad, but it is close. Basically he winds up dressing like Will Smith in The Wild, Wild West on a horse doing cute little horsy tricks for Broomhilda and riding off into…what? He and Broomhilda ride off into the Mississippi night –where blacks cannot even ride horses- and then on to what? Stop in at a plush hotel in town in the morning and she shows the clerk her little paper of emancipation and all is cool?The ending is full of holes and lacks basic consistencies.

Bottom line for me: I don’t like, and never have liked “southern westerns”. Don't like civil war movies, especially where the south is is always portrayed as the "good side" for some reason. I don’t need to have Quentin Tarantino preach to me about what is evil about America’s past in a film that is a three hour send up of exploitation films and where he throws around the word “n****r” (I ain’t saying it, no way) as though he were a bonafide homeboy himself. Remember the scene in Pulp Fiction where he thinks his character (ergo he himself) is so cool he can say “dead n****r storage” over and over to Samual L. Jackson. What bullshit. Are black people comfortable with this? I guess I am uptight or something. Which leads me to wonder who the audiences for his films are now? At one time I could imagine true geeks and nerds who knew all these old films and got the gags. But now I am not sure. How many people in Tarantino’s current audience would recognize Franco Nero in his cameo performance or get the joke traded between him and Django at the bar? This is a poor homage to Italian Westerns and Blaxploitation films. It is too fucking long and boring. The dialog is formula and forced and the lead characters are unbelievable and unlikable. If you read reviews talking about the film’s humor, blow them off. I can actually imagine a theater of new wave Tarantino aficionados laughing it up at the sequence where the lynch mob stop and complain about how they can’t see out of the holes in their masks. It was simply not funny and was as bland as the attempts at similar humor in Death Proof. And it just went on and one and on. Like the whole movie did. On and on and on and…

My original and unedited draft/review for Inglorious Basterds:

INGLOURIOUS
BASTERDS

I have to admit that I really did not enjoy this Quentin Tarantino film but I really, really wanted to. In fact I still want to be able to write something about it and sound like I am one of the people (one of the many people) who got the film and consider it to be Taratino"s best work to date, I read that the film got an eight minute standing ovation at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival. And while I am at it I will have to say I was let down by his Grindhouse Death Proof feature as well. The last thing I liked by the guy was Jackie Brown and just feel he has lost his mojo since that film. I will be direct. Inglourious Basterds had too much banter and not enough gutsy action in it for me. Sure Tarantino could once create riveting dialog about Quarter Pounders I France but the dialogs in Basterds, a script he reportedly worked on for nearly a decade, simply drug on and on and lacked any of the wit and humor one watches his earlier films over and over for.

I really had my hopes for this film and so I probably am all the more miserable for having them dashed. I had been reading about Tarantino doing a WW II combat film loosely based on The Dirty Dozen for a couple years now and could hardly wait. I imagined all the cool dialog and character conflicts and humor that such a story could allow but I also pictured actual combat. Guns shooting people. Of course that does happen here and there for tortuously brief moments but the actual combat and battles seems to be done with sly innuendos and witty jabs over the dinner table than in a battle field or shell blasted side-street somewhere. At nearly three hours long I kept losing interest in the characters. Brad Pitt as Tennessee born Sgt. Aldo Raine is the leader of the Basterds which is a group of specially trained commandos that have been raising hell behind enemy lines with the Nazis since the early days of the war. I am not sure how I feel about the idea that the group is made up solely of Jews, except for Raine, bent on revenge and terror. I do not see it as remotely necessary to make the group all Jewish and if there is some message here I missed it. I also do not like the way the Basterds simply come into existence with little explanation of who they are as individuals. In fact the Basterds all but vanish from the middle part of the story while a series of painfully long and drawn scenes occur one after the other in restaurants and coffee shops between various Nazis and French citizens. And to add to the agony the dialog occurs in German and French with all sorts of subtitles. That is okay for the most part but well over half of the dialog in the film is in French or German and the puns and clever Tarantino phrases that make the scenes in Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill quotable and priceless are all lost here. There is, for an example, a scene of a group of spies in a tavern who have as their guest an uninvited SS officer who causes stress levels among the group to jump of the chart. Thee problem is not that the dialog here is in another language than English but that it goes on for too damned long and when things finally erupted in gunfire I was in a state where I just did not care.

Some people have said the film was too violent but I am saying it was not violent enough. There is not enough action and mayhem to make up for the long attempts at Tarantinoesque banter in German or French. While actor Christoph Walsh is simply great as the Jew Hunting Nazi Col. Landa I just was not excited by any of the other character"s or the actors performances. In particular I was utterly bored by Brad Pitt"s weary performance. He is one of my favorite actors and I was picturing some sort of Lee Marvin type character here and it was maybe the worst performance of this fine actor"s career. And like the joke from Annie Hall about the bad food at some restaurant in the Catskills (paraphrased): A: the food here is so bad. B: Yes. And such small portions. I did not like his performance and he was simply on the screen enough. I though the film was about him and his elite squad of killer Jews but they the people one sees the least. Eli Roth as the baseball bat welding "Jew Bear is goofy at best. Definitely not imposing or larger than life. Tarantino has said that this was actually a Spaghetti Western with a WW II backdrop. Well crap man, just make a spaghetti western then. Or maybe not. Why muck that classic genre up as well. What the hell happened here? I wanted to see Nazis being blasted with a Tommy Gun and Panzer tanks terrorizing tough talking G.I.s from Brooklyn, instead I get to see Nazis put out cigarettes in cheese cake and wax philosophically about rats and squirrels. Hey, lots of people like this one. I would, and have, watch any previous Tarantino effort more than once. Including Death Proof. Hell I love that scene where that gal"s leg sours through the night sky. But, and say this with regret, this is one Tarantino film that I will not watch again. But there are a couple other war dramas I have seen more than a couple times and will probably see again. These films may have inspired Tarantino"s war drama but his story falls way short of at least two of these great war epics, The Dirty Dozen and Iron Cross. The third film is not a great film but is notable in that it was the inspiration for the title Tarantino"s dreary adventure. That"s film is called (with proper spelling) The Inglorious Bastards. Lets take a brief look at those films before leaving this subject behind. (These shorts reviews are excluded here. Bill)

THE URANIUM CAFE PINUP GIRL/JUNE PALMER

the.uranium.cafe@gmail.com (Bill D. Courtney) — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 23:51:10 PST

ERASERHEAD IMAGE/DAVID LYNCH AND JACK NANCE

the.uranium.cafe@gmail.com (Bill D. Courtney) — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 08:51:06 PST

Here is an interesting study of a very young looking David Lynch talking with and/or giving direction to Jack Nance on the set of Eraserhead. I recently tried to re-watch Eraserhead and found I was not in the mood for it at the time, but I have seen the film a half dozen or so times so that may have had something to do it. Still one of the creepiest and weirdest movies of all time and I can relate to Henry's hair problems.

PROJECT TERROR/BRANDED TO KILL/1967

the.uranium.cafe@gmail.com (Bill D. Courtney) — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 02:59:06 PDT

My side blog called Project Terror basically flopped. I did not maintain it very well and so traffic is now zero with only two followers, but I liked the idea of purely image based posts, without personal commentary from myself. I have a few posts over there and decided to maintain the blog, but also to transfer posts over to here as well and share them, as my traffic here is somewhat better.You can click on the banner to see the original post over there and if you want follow that site. Hard to want to maintain it when I only get three hits a day but I think the idea of sharing the posts here is motivational and I will continue the sites regardless of traffic or number of followers.And so here is Branded to Kill, a surrealistic hit-man movie that actually cost director Seijun Suzuki his job with Nikattsu studios for making movies that "make no sense and no money". A little harsh I think. The film is now considered a true cult classic. But, to be honest, it makes no sense.

MORE BRANDED TO KILL IMAGES AND TRAILER HERE

BRANDED TO KILL TRAILER

THE URANIUM CAFE MATINEE/THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE/1974

the.uranium.cafe@gmail.com (Bill D. Courtney) — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 04:06:04 PST

We are going to kill one passenger a minute until New York City pays us 1 million dollars.

Everyone read it. Now you can live it.

No other hijack was ever like this!

WATCH THE THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE RIGHT HERE >>

THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE

THE BEAST WITH A MILLION EYES/1955/ROGER CORMAN

the.uranium.cafe@gmail.com (Bill D. Courtney) — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 06:53:10 PDT

THE BEAST WITH A MILLION EYES

1955/Director: David Kramarsky/Writer: Tom Filer

Cast: Paul Birch, Lorna Thayer, Dona Cole, Dick Sargent, Leonard Tarver

While not a great movie in any the sense of the word (hence its inclusion into the Uranium Café's much coveted b-movie oeuvre) The Beast With A Million Eyes has some definite historic value, in terms of cult trivia anyway. But be forewarned if you want to check it out (a matinee feature of the full film will follow this post) that the film drags at such a pace that it mere running time of about 75 minutes seems to go on forever. Bad movie buffs, such as myself, may not mind that but many more mentally and emotionally balanced people may find the strange effect the film has on them a bit disorienting at best. The film is structured almost purely around the cheezy dialog of the undeveloped characters who describe action or events that are happening off screen (in other words, action that isn’t happening). Producer and uncredited co-director Roger Corman saved oodles of money and worked with a near nonexistent budget –something Corman would come to have no issue with as time went by, though these were his early days and he was prone to fits of visible stress and pressure on the set- by presenting the audience with an invisible monster, a Cormanesque euphemism for NO monster- and so a monster that in no way whatsoever resembles the misleading artwork on the film’s classic poster. And okay, there is a monster, albeit one that makes a super brief appearance at the film’s end, and that is where some of the more pertinent historic value of the films comes in. First off the film is, while not the actual the first, but almost the first film Corman did with then fledgling producers James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff for their company American Releasing Company (it would later be released under the company’s new name of American International Pictures) after he piqued their interest by turning a big profit on the $12,000 budget film The Monster from the Ocean Floor, which was released by another company as Corman and Nicholson-Arkoff did not see eye to eye on the original business terms. The pair were willing to compromise after Corman’s ability at managing and turning a low film budget into a decent money maker was demonstrated. Beast was third of a three part film deal with ARC,and it came in last after The Fast and the Furious and Five Guns West (a color western that ate up a $30,000 budget).

After Five Guns West things were to operate on the most meager of budgets. The film was shot way outside of LA in the deserts of Indio to get around using union workers as much as possible. Corman’s role as director, in whatever capacity that may have been, went uncredited and much of the direction was supposedly done by Lou Place, though final credit went to David Kramansky. In the end it does not matter I guess as the final product is a bit on the odd side anyway. And so it went with other duties and jobs behind the camera as well. In those days it was a common practice to present potential distributors with only a finished poster, or something similar in terms of artwork, of a film and get them to insure venues for the film's showing. Once some type of distribution was guaranteed a film could get underway. Many distributors approached to back Beast, including the biggie Joseph E. Levine, did not buy Corman’s arguments defending an invisible monster, and that the actual “million eyes” were the eyes of the people and animals it controlled. They were treated with a titillating poster (I am not sure if the poster we see here is the same they saw but I will assume it was similar) of a pretty cool looking monster menacing a screaming woman in her underwear. Yea, it never happens. And the potential distributors weren’t so bothered by that as they were the fact there was no monster at all. There had to be a monster! And so comes another great piece of b-movie history in the form of a desperate Corman seeking help from pal Forrest J. Ackerman. Ackerman was shocked at what Corman was offering as payment for a special effects artist, but after some thinking he recommended the young Paul Blaisdell, who was looking to move from magazine work to doing movie special effects. He was paid about $200 for his first ARC/AIP creation, and his relationship with AIP and Corman would produce some of the zaniest and coolest low budget monsters in the history of sci-fi/horror films. And lets be honest, this was one weird little, puppet monster that we only see fidgeting around for a few seconds at the film’s end. But it is the first Blaisdell monster ever to appear on film, and well, that means something I guess. It does to me anyway.

Well that is enough of the historic aspect of the film. Maybe a little more later, who knows. But for now, what is the film about? Is it really so bad as to deserve a warning from your schlock jaded editor here? Yea it is bad, but like all films here I recommend it. It is only like 75 or so minutes long. Come on. Is that really too much to endure to see the first ever Paul Blaisdell monster? I think not.

The film begins, as many films of the time do, with voice over narrations. First from a bitter alien creature who announces how he lives on hate and will conquer earth by controlling the minds of animals and simpletons. He claims he will do this first, and I guess with later move up to Nobel Prize winners. And like many movies where an alien lands on earth and begins his conquest of the human race he lands not in Washington D.C. or Moscow, but in the middle of the desert (or sometimes taking refuge in a cave. Other movies, off the top of my head, that use this theme would be It Conquers the World, The Brain from the Planet Arous, Killers from Outer Space, and Robot Monster). Of course any alien with real power would land in downtown New York City, but deserts and caves, like beaches and woods, are cost effective for no budget movies, while Times Square hardly is. The voice-overs and flash forwards of the alien intro give way to the morose musings of Alan Kelly (Paul Birch) about how basically his life sucks out on his money losing date (as in big raisins) ranch in the middle of the godforsaken desert. His wife Carol (Lorna Thayer) is pretty much at her limited wits end as well and little things like making sure her cornbread doesn’t collapse or that her antique china collection is not all shattered to pieces doesn’t really work out for her. Not only that but she doesn’t hesitate to remind Alan what a loser he is at every chance and how he has ruined her life, and if that is not enough she blurts out as loud as she can how she hates her daughter Sandra’s (Dona Cole) perky little life and attitude. To cool off Dona goes off to some oasis or grove of date trees and swims in a pool while the “harmless” dimwitted handyman Carl (“Him” as Carol calls him disdainfully and played by Leonard Tarver) watches lasciviously from a date tree he has climbed after stalking her. Dona catches him and scolds him in a sisterly fashion and Alan is always defending him, calling him harmless and laughing off Carol’s concerns, but this is guy is a sexual assault charge just waiting to happen. To unwind he goes back to his perv shed and leers at girly books on his bed, with pinups all plastered to the wall. Yea, this guy is harmless folks. Also running around the farm is Sandra’s German Sheppard Duke who can bark with his mouth shut. A harmless mutt that we see at the film’s flash forward intro foaming at the mouth, so we know he gets possessed here pretty soon. Rounding off the main cast of characters is good ol’ Deputy Larry Brewster, played by Dick Sargent (the 2nd Darren of Bewitched fame) in his first credited role. And there is some old guy down the road named Chester but who the hell cares about him. A milk cow winds up killing this geezer anyway.

If you recall I said the monster would begin his conquest of the earth by first controlling the minds of animals and then morons. So, hmmm, there is Duke and Carl the perv. Wonder where the plot is going now. Well, yea Duke turns nasty and while Carl was already pretty nasty he gets worse. Not only that, crows and chickens start going loco too. Sometimes even animals we never see, we just hear the characters talk about them and look at them off screen. Somehow the family figures out to beat the beast they just have to stick together. By being united the creature can’t control their thoughts. Seems like this is a major flaw in the alien’s plan if you ask me. How was he going to control the minds of millions and billions of humans if he can’t control three simply because they decide to stick together. There is lots of dialog and ruminating and it gets a little thick at times, but if love cheesy dialog and b-movie philosophical quests into the soul the way I do you will appreciate a lot of it. There is a confrontation at the end of the film with the beast and his two eyes that is not much of anything. The thing lived inside what seems to be a coffee percolator and it just wiggles and dies for some inexplicable reason, but not before Carl dies after having a moment of human decency. Oh yea, and earlier in the film Duke dies too after mom shoots him. Lot of tragedy, but in the end there is a group hug and a few more deep musings. For fans of Corman’s films and AIP type films mostly. I kinda' liked it.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN FROM THE URANIUM CAFE!

the.uranium.cafe@gmail.com (Bill D. Courtney) — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 07:48:54 PDT

TIGRESS OF SHAOLIN (Ma Fung Gwai Kuen)/1979/SHAW BROTHERS

the.uranium.cafe@gmail.com (Bill D. Courtney) — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 04:02:36 PDT

TIGRESS OF SHAOLIN (Ma Fung Gwai Kuen)

1979/Director: Chi Lo/Writer: Chi Lo

Cast: Kara Hui, Chia Yung Liu, Jui-yi Liu

I enjoy most anything by the Shaw Brothers from the late 60’s to the late 70’s. In particular I love the set designs and rich colors of the films. But the films were also noted for fairly decent story lines and good acting as well as top notch kung fu action sequences. 1979’s Tigress of Shaolin really does not possess enough of these qualities to make it even a mediocre Shaw Brothers movie, and in fact I might say it is the worst Shaw Brothers film I have ever seen, but that does not make it a movie not worth a single viewing however. The main issue with the film is the very weak story line and absence of a real plot. It may be safe to assume that the film was being put together as it went along, a practice common with many kung films of the time but not a common practice with Shaw Brothers’ productions. Before going in to the film a bit more I will say that for me the rewarding part of watching this film was watching here in Kunming China with my Tibetan monk friend and Buddhist teacher who I will simply call Shifu (a term for a teacher). He is a really cool monk and is still staying with us here in Kunming at the time I write this. He came down to Kunming from his home in northwest Yunnan province near the border of Tibet for serious dental work, which can be hard to get in those remote areas. We has watched a couple run of the mill Asian ghost movies (The Ring, The Eye) at his request and the other night I tried a Shaw Brothers flick. I had not seen this one and was going to show one of the Journey West films (The Monkey King) but could not locate the one I wanted to see in this mess of burned DVD discs, and so tried out Tigress of Shaolin. My wife was have having none of this one and she went on to bed early and he and I stayed up and watched it to its end and had a good time doing it. He does not speak English and can speak some Mandarin. I can only speak really low level mandarin and can read a few characters, but it all worked out to a fun experience. I probably would not have enjoyed the film had I watched it alone, and most likely would not have finished it. I am posting a rare personal picture of me with Shifu and my dog Woody while we hiked to a local Buddhist temple in Kunming. Okay, enough of my personal experience with the film –something I like sharing in my little reviews if readers have not noticed yet- and on to the film itself.

Some people online have said that is a film by a one time director named Chi Lo (or Lo Chi, as Asian names as typically reversed for American reviews), but he has over a dozen films listed on IMDB to his credit, though this the only film be wrote and directed for Shaw Brothers studio. It is also the only film for Shaw Brothers that charismatic lead man Jui Yi Liu (or Liu Jui-Yi, or Liu Chia-Yung) did as well. The actor certainly had a good screen appearance and good martial arts moves. Seemed like he could have been a big kung fu star but he only acted in a mere thirteen films total, the last being made in 1994. Tigress of Shaolin was, however, was the acting debut film for Kara Hui who went on to have a very successful acting career that has continued up to the present. I suspect the film’s title may have been altered later to capitalize on Hui’s success, since in this film she really has a supporting role with little time on screen. Unless the tigress in the films title refers to the old leper woman in the film, and that may well be the case as well.

Woody, me and Shifu resting on a hike.

Ah San, or Tieh, (Liu) is a young man who only wants to improve his kung fu skills. After his father gives him a letter before he dies, which he takes to a nearby town and secures a menial job in a medicine clinic. He draws the ire of local Tibetan charlatans who run a medicine show. The guys do not look anything like Tibetans, and look rather like the Guangzhou/Hong Kong type characters that color most Shaw Brothers’ productions. One guy in particular –called Blind Man, though he is not portrayed as actually blind in the film- looks more like a hippie from about 1968 with his round sunglasses and Haight-Ashbury attire than a Chinese person, much less a Tibetan. Ah San is soon the target of the Tibetans who have no scruples. He runs into the character of Drunken Shrimp and is soon entangled with him, his leprous wife –who has mastered the super secret technique of “leper fist” kung fu- and their lovely goddaughter Tsai (Hui). He later befriends Little Rat after a misunderstanding and then dispute in a restaurant about throwing dished away into a pond. The pair are soon going up against the evil “Tibetans” and the leaders of the evil kung fu temple.

The film soon runs the standard kung fu movie course with the good kung fu student going up against the bad school. There is the typical acts of persistence on the part of the good student to learn kung fu secrets (in this case the secret of leper fist) and the resistance of the teachers to share them, but eventually they give in of course. There is no romantic connection between Ah San and Tsai and in truth Hui, as I have already said, spends little time at all on the screen. The film looks like a standard Shaw Brother’s kung fu film (sometimes in China know as wu xia pian, a type traveling hero/warrior film, like the Samurai films of Japan or maybe even the gunfighter films from the US) but there a few problems with it that knock it down a few notches. I did not like the film score. Some of it sounded like those Moog synthesizer albums from the late 60’s. The Moog and all those instruments are standard soundtrack tools and I am not saying they can’t be used, but here some of the sounds just do not match up to the film. The characters too are just not worked out very well, and the film has the feel of being improvised at times. I mean the scenes and dialog and everything. That may work when John Cassavetes is directing the movie but it does not work here at all. Many lower budget HK kung fu movies were written as they went along and typically what set most of the Shaw Brother’s movies apart was the extra time spent on the stories and energy that went into their lush set designs.

The film also seems to confused as to whether it wants to be a comedy or a violent action drama. There are scenes of bloody death and violence that seem to be out of step with the more lighthearted scenes they are sandwiched in between. The kung fu fight sequences are not very good either. The fight scene in the restaurant between Ah San and Little Rat is about the best one and it relies on the use of comedy to move it along. The ending was more than a little whacky but I have to admit I had a decent time watching it for the most part. Watching with a Tibetan lama maybe added to the experience for me and probably most people won’t be able to go that route. If you like only the best from Shaw Brothers then maybe pass on this one unless you’re a completest type. A not so great Shaw Brother’s film but still better than a lot of kung films of the time.

THE HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK/1962/RICCARDO FREDA/BARBARA STEELE

the.uranium.cafe@gmail.com (Bill D. Courtney) — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 18:13:30 PDT

THE HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK (L'orribile Segreto del Dr. Hichcock)

1962/Director: Riccardo Freda/Writer: Ernesto Gastaldi

Cast: Barbara Steele, Robert Flemyng, Silvano Tranquilli, Maria Teresa Vianello, Harriet Medin

Recently watched a few Italian Gothic style horror films from the 60’s. While I have struggled to get into most of the so called giallo films and the police dramas (known by the genre titles poliziotteschi or poliziottesco) I have never struggled too hard with appreciating the Italian horror films of the late 50’s and mid 60’s. And though I have only reviewed one actual Mario Bava film here so far (Hercules in the Haunted World) there is no question Bava’s films are among my favorite films of all time. Italian horror arrived late on the scene really as the genre was, as I understand, banned in Italy until the early 50’s. The first real Italian horror film is considered to be I Vampiri, directed by Riccardo Freda (as Robert Hampton) and noticeably co-directed by Mario Bava. I have I Vampiri but have not seen it yet. Freda was not exclusively a horror director by any stretch and it is pretty fascinating that he would make a film as intense and, for the time, controversial, as The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (aka L'orribile segreto del Dr. Hichcock and The Frightening Secret of Dr. Hichcock), again under the pseudonym Robert Hampton, at a time when Italy was just beginning to allow horror films to even be made. Of course Italian horror went on to become some of the most graphic and exploitive ever made, and sadly in time also some of the most derivative and boring. But in 1962 the film finds itself sandwiched in between the two b/w Gothic masterpieces 1960’s Black Sunday by Bava and 1965’s Nightmare Castle by Mario Caniano. Both of those films are visually stunning, much more so than Freda’s Dr. Hichcock, but the three films all have one thing in common, the presence of wild eyed and captivating Barbara Steele.

I can’t imagine anybody who follows films, even marginally, not knowing who Barbara Steel is, by face if not by name. Some of the stills of the British actress’ face from her work in Gothic Italian horror films have become iconic actually. A reluctant scream queen with a highly nervous disposition and, as legend has it, paranoid rantings, she preferred painting to acting and later in life retired from the screen and took the palette and had a fairly successful career as a fine artist. By the time Nightmare Castle came out in 1965 –that film and Freda’s The Ghost are in the draft folder- Steele had begun to play the same character over and over but so what. She did it well. Her characters often found themselves suddenly in a huge Gothic mansion and fighting off ghosts and madness in some form. She was by means the frail visit either, as she was often the evil perpetrator of evil as well. In some films like Black Sunday and Nightmare Castle she played dual roles of the victim or good girl and the evil antagonist as well. But in Freda’s The Horrible Dr. Hichcock –the “T” being left out deliberately to avoid possible problems with director Alfred Hitchcock-she plays the victim from beginning to end and turns in a fine performance. The film itself is nicely made really and, unlike the other films mentioned here earlier, is shot is rich color. Actually The Ghost, a “sequel” to Dr. Hichcock also starring Steele in a less than sweet role, was shot in color but it looked bad really –maybe it was the print of the file I have is all- and we will be exploring that film eventually anyway, so let’s move on to the film at hand. And before going into the movie in my superficial style I will say that, unlike many films I review here, there is a wealth of information and speculation on The Horrible Dr. Hichcock on the net. I tend to veer towards articles and posts that supply anecdotes and trivia over ones that delve into psychological analysis’ of films, but when you’re dealing with topics like necrophilia it is pretty hard not to want to tap into what might be laying beneath the surface a bit and have a little fun with it. Don’t expect that here, but there is plenty of that on the net if you like that sort of thing. I prefer reading that sort of thing more than doing it.

Dr. Bernard Hichcock (veteran British actor Robert Flemyng) is a successful surgeon who has recently developed a new anesthesia. When not working at the local clinic and inventing wonder drugs he is prying open the coffins of recently deceased young lovelies and fondling them in the foggy moonlight of the local cemetery. Yes Dr. Hichcock has a thing for dead girls. Is he really a necrophile is a question I read online, on Tim Lucas’ Video Watchdog site to be exact. Does he really have sex with dead girls or is his only sexually stimulated by them, and then rushes home and after peering secretively into his own window – the way a person weighted down from hiding his dirty secrets may actually do - and hurries down to his “necrosanctum” (to use Lucas’ catchy phrase) where he injects his lovely wife Margherita (Maria Teresa Vianello) with some sort of powerful tranquilizer I guess and she goes comatose and Dr. Hichcock then does what he does when one body is watching. I am not sure I agree with the authoritative –especially in regards Italian horror films- Tim Lucas and I think the guy is a real necrophiliac and has done the dirty with dead gals. Of course it would be a tad too much to show this in films of the period, and this movie is already pushing the boundaries I feel. Dr. Hichcock displays real lecherous and disquieting lust in one scene as he caresses’ a carcass in the morgue of the clinic. There is no doubt what is in his mind and he is halted only when he is interrupted by Dr. Kurt Lowe (Silvano Tranquilli). Of course we never really see him having sex with a corpse and so there is ample room for debate I guess, but I am of the opinion that Hichcock is a real necrophile and his sessions with his drugged up wife are but poor substitutes for the real thing, which at some point I will wager the good doctor has experienced.

After the doctor recovers from his corpus interruptus he rushes home in an agitated state and hurries downstairs with poor, compliant Margherita for their last freaky tryst together. The doctor is not of a clear mind and grabs a bottle of poison that he keeps stored in the medicine cabinet next to the tranquilizer -in an identical bottle of course- and his wife succumbs. Or appears to succumb. IN fact she wakes up in her coffin later in a scene reminiscent of some of the Gothic horror AIP films of the early and mid-sixties. In fact much of the film has the feel of some of the better Roger Corman AIP Gothic horror and in particular the Poe adaptations. The story skips forward in time ten or so years and we meet Hichcock's new wife Cynthia, played by Barbara Steele.

Not much detail is given about how Dr. Hichcock and Cynthia meet and eventually wed. She is soon at the brooding Hichcock manor where she finds herself the object of more than just Hichcock’s necrophiliac urges but his twisted delusions as well, as he seeks to reanimate the rotted corpse of Margherita with Cynthia’s blood. Here is where Barbara Steele does her best work I suppose. Trapped in a dark manor with people or spirits out to do her harm of one sort of another and not sure of the nature of the plots and conspiracies to the point she questions her own sanity. Young Dr. Kurt Lowe is suspicious of Hichcock and plays the gallant male hero, while Hichcock’s conniving house keeper Martha (who also plays the house keeper in the so called sequel to this film, The Ghost) lurks about stroking her cat. Really nice shots in the last part of the film and the scene of Steele trapped in a coffin and screaming through the glass window in it is classic. Flemyng is excellent too in the last scenes as he basically unravels and becomes dangerously evil, rather than just sexually twisted as he was in the first half of the film. In fact in the first part of the film you see him as a bit sick and perverted but not really anything dangerous. There is ample speculation on how the film was written and directed in this area. While hardly pandering necrophilia it is not really, at the same time, making a strong statement against Bernard Hichcock either. Well I’ll leave all that to the horror bloggers who took a few abnormal psychology classes in college. The movie can certainly be explored on that level however. I am not dismissing any of that.

Good direction, good writing, nicer photography and score and over all excellent acting for a genre film. But in the end most people will probably shy away from the film. Not because of its controversial topic –which to be honest is presented in a few scenes in most unsettling manners, though hardly graphically- but because the film is old school slow and tedious at times. I myself do not mind that. I enjoy old movie dialogs and scenes that lasted more than five seconds. I enjoy the way Italian filmmakers but their films anywhere –I believe the action here is supposed to take place in Scotland but not sure 100 - while all the time the scenes and characters look like they are nowhere else in the world but Italy. The crypt scenes are a good example of this. I felt the photography was interesting and there was some experimental stuff going on that did not detract from the film or make it look “mod”. I recently watched a 144 minute version of Nightmare Castle and found that a little too much to watch in one setting. While beautiful it was just too much. The version of Dr. Hichcock I have here is not too long to finish in a single viewing and has some nice English dubbing. It is the one found on Cinemageddon, the notorious BT site. I understand that that is one of the better versions of the film to be found at the moment, so if your into BTs you might want to give that one a go. I will be honest, I saw the film months ago and when I finally sat down to write this I did not want to rewatch the whole film and refreshed my memory by doing the video captures here (something I often do). While not painfully slow I just did not want to rewatch all of it again. Definitely worth a viewing however, and I may check it out again after more time has gone by.

SIGNED PICTURES OF YVONNE CRAIG AND ADAM WEST

the.uranium.cafe@gmail.com (Bill D. Courtney) — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 16:13:07 PDT

Have been waiting almost two months or more for a package from my brother back in Texas. Live in China and the mail can be really slow. Things were slowed down more when at the international post office I discovered the office girl at my school had given me the wrong slip with the tracking number. She gave me one for a Chinese teacher and it was dated way back in November of 2011. It was a little confusing but I knew enough Chinese to explain it is all a mistake and the guy was nice enough to go search for the parcel even with having the number, just using my English name, which is rare believe me. Got some goodies (including a real pair of 501 Levi jeans! You ought to see what passes for 501's here) and a couple signed pictures my brother Donny picked up at a convention in the Dallas area. To have gotten the Adam West picture alone would have been more than I had dared hope for, but also included was an autographed picture, signed to me, of Batgirl herself, Yvonne Craig. I had no idea he was sending me these and I am so glad the box finally surfaced. Thanks bro'.

PSYCHOTRONIC PERSONAS/THE KING OF THE WILD GUITAR, ARCH HALL JR.

the.uranium.cafe@gmail.com (Bill D. Courtney) — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 05:21:14 PDT

I am really happy to have the star of cult classics like Eagah!, Wild Guitar and The Sadist share a few thoughts with the readers of The Uranium Cafe. I don't think I am a good interviewer type and there are much better blog interviews than this one out there on the net, but it was really kind of Arch to take time out of his busy and full life to answer these few questions. I had many more of course but I know people like Arch are beset upon by bloggers with loads of questions and so I felt a bit guilty. But he is a gentleman and was kind enough to share some memories with us. While I asked some of the standard Arch Hall Jr. Qs I also took a chance and asked him about some adventures related to his flying career and got one of the best ever Arch Hall Jr. stories. More reviews of Arch's film in the works. On to the actual questions now:

Hi Arch, thanks for taking a couple minutes to look these questions over. I know you have a full life with lots of demands on your time, but some of the followers of the Uranium Café are big fans of you and your films and music work and of course I am a geeky fan of your old films. But now I also have a heck of a lot of respect for your achievements after you decided to say goodbye to Fairway International Films and your acting career there. Truly amazing life since you said bye to acting.

How did your dad, the legendary Arch Hall Sr. react to that at first, he must have been a bit disappointed in the beginning, and how did it eventually work out with him?

BILL, THERE ARE SEVERAL COMPLEX FACTORS YOU MUST TAKE INTO ACCOUNT BEFORE FULLY UNDERSTANDING MY DECISION TO STRIKE OUT IN ANOTHER DIRECTION. FIRST, FAIRWAY WAS BURIED IN DEBT FROM BEING DEPENDENT ON A VAST NETWORK OF BAD DISTRIBUTORS ACROSS THE NATION. SOME VERY POORLY WRITTEN AND IMPOSSIBLE TO ENFORCE CONTRACTS, WHILE OTHERS WERE OUT AND OUT CROOKS RIGHT TO YOUR FACE! ON THE OTHER SIDE WAS THE BANK & THE LABS WHICH OPERATED ON A CASH BASIS. MOST CITIES LIKE CLEVELAND OHIO FOR EXAMPLE WOULD WANT TO OPEN IN MAYBE 5 MULTI SCREEN DRIVE-INS AND 8-10 WALK IN THEATERS ON THE SAME NIGHT! 35mm PRINTS WERE I RECALL ABOUT $2100 for BLACK & WHITE AND $2700 EACH + SHIPPING IN TWO HEAVY MULTI REEL METAL SHIPPING CANS. THE LAB WOULD SHIP THE PRINTS AND WOULD DEMAND TO RECOUP FIRST MONIES “OFF THE TOP” TO RECOVER THE PRINT COST, OK (STAY WITH ME NOW) MANY TIME THE PRINTS WOULD BE SEVERELY DAMAGED EITHER BY POORLY MAINTAINED PROJECTORS AND/OR IMPROPER HANDLING BY IDIOT PROJECTIONISTS. EITHER WAY IF THE PRINT COULD NOT BE REPAIRED IN THE FIELD? A REPLACEMENT PRINT WAS SHIPPED OR THEY WERE SHORT.

SO FINANCIALLY FAIRWAY WAS MORE THAN HURTING. IT WAS AS MORTALLY WOUNDED AS THE INCOME FROM SAY A MAJOR CITY MULTI-SCREEN DRIVE-IN WOULD BE AN AVERAGE OF $15 FOR AN ENTIRE WEEK END! SOME WERE AS LOW AS $9.00. SOMETIMES THEY WOULD REMIT NOTHING AT ALL! EXCEPT TO SAY THEY HAD RAIN. THIS IS WHY I WOULD HEAR MY MOTHER SOBBING IN THE MORNING WHEN OPENING THE MAIL. STARTING TO GET A PICTURE YET? I WOULD PLAY IN BEER BARS AT NIGHT FOR $25-40 A NIGHT NOT WITH MY BAND BUT WITH MOSTLY TRIOS IN BEER BARS TO MAKE ENDS MEET.

ARCH SR’S HEALTH WAS FAILING HIM. FOR A ONCE TOUGH BRONC BUSTING COWBOY AND STRAPPING 6’ 2” MAN WITH A 28” WAIST IN HIS MID TWENTIES… HE NOW SUFFERED FROM CHRONIC BRONCHITIS & EMPHYSEMA (COPD) HIS HEART WASN’T GOOD EITHER. HE WAS HOSPITALIZED IN ITALY WITH A MILD HEART ATTACK WHILE NEGOTIATING TO PRODUCE FOR AN ITALIAN COMPANY BACKED BY THE VATICAN. IT WAS A VERY BIG OFFER. IT WAS ALL LOST AS THE COMPANY FELT HIS HEALTH WOULD NOT PERMIT IT. BACK IN BURBANK, WARNER BROS SENT A LETTER REQUESTING INTEREST IN HAVING HIM AS A STAFF PRODUCER AS THEY SAID MOVIES LIKE THE SADIST & DEADWOOD 76 WERE DONE ON IMPOSSIBLE BUDGETS IN THEIR ESTIMATION AND ASKED HIM IF HE WAS INTERESTED IN A CONTRACT WITH THEM ON A STREAM OF UPCOMING PROJECTS? MY MOTHER OPENED THE LETTER FIRST AND HANDED IT TO ME AS IF IT WAS A GIFT FROM GOD. I WALKED IT PROUDLY INTO MY DAD’S OFFICE AND SAID SOMEBODY AT WARNER’S WANTS YOU POP, YOU’RE TO CALL HIM RIGHT NOW! HE DID AND I WENT TO RUN SOME FILM TO A WAREHOUSE IN COMPTON. WHEN I RETURNED MY MOTHER HAD BEEN CRYING. BEFORE I ASKED ABOUT THE WARNER BROS OFFER, SHE SAID HE TURNED THEM DOWN. AT THE TIME I DIDN’T UNDERSTAND BUT YEARS LATER NOW I DO. HE WANTED TO BE IN CHARGE NOT BE AN EMPLOYEE, SECOND HE WAS CONCEALING HOW FINANCIALLY BURIED FAIRWAY HAD GOTTEN. A YOUNG MAN NAMED JERRY KURTZ (FORMER B-52 PILOT) HELPED BUNDLE THE FILMS FOR TV SALE IN A PACKAGE HE DUBBED VANGUARD. IT HELPED BRING MORE MONEY IN BUT IT WENT DIRECTLY TO THE LABS AND THE BANK. HIS BANKER WAS AN OLD B-17 PILOT AND LIKE MY DAD BUT HAD REACHED THE END OF HIS CREDIT LINE. LASTLY HE CONCEALED FROM EVERYONE HOW SERIOUS HIS HEALTH SITUATION HAD GOTTEN. ONLY GREG VON BERBLINGER KNEW. (Greg Von Berblinger was a camera man and electrician that worked on films like Psycho A Go Go, The Incredibly Strange Creatures That Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies and Love Beat the Hell Out of Me – Bill)

MORE FROM ARCH HALL JR. >>

I have to ask you some things about The Sadist, still your favorite film of mine. Seen it several times. Lots of stuff online about that film, more than your other film projects, but I couldn’t find too much on one particular topic, and that is information on the late Helen Hovey. She was your cousin I believe. She did a wonderful job as Doris the teacher. How did it come about that she, a non-professional actress, came to land the part? And what did she venture into after the role? She seemed like a truly dear person.

HELEN WAS AN ACCOMPLISHED ACTRESS IN COLLEGE PLAYS AND SUCH AND RAISED THE BAR VERY HIGH FOR THE REST OF US. SHE ONLY MADE THE ONE FILM BUT TO NOT CALL HER A N0N-PROFESSIONAL WOULD SOME HOW BE WRONG DON’T YOU AGREE? (I would totally agree and humbly apologize for the way that sounded. It is so hard to find information on her online so I had no idea she was so into acting and that maybe it did not work out for her. Certainly her attitude and performance was professional. – Bill) HER LIFE TOOK ON BAGGAGE LIKE ALL OF US WITH MARRIAGE AND CHILDREN AND HER HUSBAND WAS I THINK DEEPLY AGAINST HER ACTING ANY MORE. MY FATHER KNEW OF HER SERIOUS DESIRE TO BE AN ACTRESS IN PLAYS BUT NEVER FILM AND KNEW SHE WOULD NAIL DORIS EVEN BEFORE SHE READ FOR THE DIRECTOR JAMES LANDIS.

I enjoyed the chemistry between you and Richard Alden. I read an interview with him recently and he had a good time making the film it seemed. In particular I liked the scene where he charges you and you’re loading the hand gun as quickly as you can with a stunned look. Can you recall a special moment between you and him during the filming?

RICHARD WAS AN ACTOR FROM CANADA THAT JAMES LANDIS HAD WORKED WITH ON A TV SHOW, MAYBE A WESTERN OR COMBAT? ALDEN WAS INTENSELY COMMITTED TO GIVE JIM A GOOD PERFORMANCE AS ED THE PE TEACHER. RICHARD WOULD PUMP BAR BELLS JUST BEFORE A TAKE TO LOOK LIKE A BUFF GYM TEACHER AND HE HAD COMPLETE TRUST AND CONFIDENCE IN MY SHOOTING SKILLS AS WE USED LIVE AMMO IN MANY SCENES.

Director James Landis showed talent but seemed to be a real outsider in regards to his relationship to the movie industry as a whole. Didn’t do much after The Sadist, unfortunately. His work with photographer Vilmos (William) Zsigmond really raise the film a few notches above most drive-in fare of the time. What was it like working with those guys at the time for you?

VILMOS WAS A HARDCORE WORKAHOLIC AND SO WAS JIM LANDIS. LANDIS / ZSIGMOND TEAM WERE LOCKED IN SYNC. VILMOS WOULD ASK FOR CERTAIN THINGS AND COMPLAIN IF HE SAW A FLAW OR MISTAKE THAT OTHERS HAD MISSED. LANDIS HAD HOWEVER A HOT TEMPER THAT COULD EXPLODE AT ANY MOMENT. HE WAS A PERFECTIONIST AND WAS DISTRAUGHT IF ALL WAS NOT EXACTLY AS HE FELT IT SHOULD BE.

Finding out you have had a long musical career. Love all your guitar shots on Facebook. I just saw Wild Guitar and expect3ed the songs to be cheesy from what I have read about the film, but they are really nice 60’s pop-rock ballads. Did you write all those songs and what it is it about making music that gets your blood going?

I DEEPLY ENJOY PLAYING MUSIC, PRIMARILY ELECTRIC BLUES AND ROCK AND SOME COUNTRY AND SOME BOSSA NOVA. WRITING SONGS IS A SPECIAL GIFT. I COLLABORATED WITH ALAN O’DAY, MY DAD, DEKE RICHARDS ON MAY AND A FEW I WROTE BY MYSELF.

One last question. The big passion in your life is flying I will assume. You have had a very successful career in that field. It is something to be truly proud of. I know that many of your flight and stay overs brought you to Southeast Asia, and it seems Thailand and Cambodia in particular. Do you have a memorable hair-raising adventures yarn, the type found in your novel Apsara Jet, to share?

I HAVE MANY WHICH MIGHT QUALIFY BUT TWO IN PARTICULAR STAND OUT TONIGHT. THE FIRST WAS WHEN A KHMER ROUGE 107MM ROCKET EXPLODED NEAR ME WHILE I WAS CHECKING FOR DAMAGE TO OUR LANDING GEAR ON A STRETCH DC-8 IN PHNOM PENH’S POCHENTONG AIRPORT ONE DAY. THE SHOCK WAVE KNOCKED ME DOWN AND THE LETHAL CONE OF SHRAPNEL MISSED. THE ONLY INJURY WAS WHEN I PICKED UP THE ROCKET’S TAIL PIECE I BURNED MY HAND AS IT WAS STILL VERY HOT. OH I TORE THE KNEE IN MY UNIFORM TROUSERS TOO.

THE SECOND WAS IN THE EARLY EIGHTIES WHEN I DEPARTED BRUSSELS WITH “FARM MACHINERY” (EUPHEMISM FOR WEAPONS & AMMO) BOUND FOR N’DJAMENA, CHAD. THE EMBASSY GEEK GAVE ME A PIECE OF BLANK PAPER WITH A HAND DRAWN RUNWAY ON IT. AT VARIOUS POINT THERE WERE NOTATIONs AS TO THE LOCATION OF HOLES & CRATERS SO DEEP AND SO FAR FROM THE EDGE OR THE CENTER LINE AND SO ON. I ASKED WHAT KIND OF HOLE? THE EMBASSY GUY SAID MOSTLY BOMB HOLES. AT THE BOTTOM WERE SEVERAL UNDERLINED NOTATIONS; NO FUEL AVAILABLE – NO INSTRUMENT APPROACH – NO LIGHTING -NO RUNWAY LIGHTS - HIGH RISK OPERATION –NIGHT OPERATIONS PROHIBITED! THE LETTER WAS UNSIGNED. I CALCULATED WE COULD EXPECT TO LAND WELL AFTER DARK AS THE LOADING WAS DELAYED ALREADY BY FOUR HOURS. THE EMBASSY GUY DIDN’T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT MY THOUGHTS ON THE MATTER AS WHEN I TURNED AROUND TO SPEAK WITH HIM THE FLIGHT ENGINEER SAID THAT DUDE LEFT A LONG TIME AGO!

THE FLIGHT DEPARTED BRUSSELS NORMALLY WITH THE EXCEPTION THAT THEY DID NOT SPEAK OF THE DESTINATION AIRPORT ON THE RADIO. THE CONTROLLER THOUGHT It WAS RATHER STRANGE BUT COMPLIED WITH THE CLEARANCE THAT “TIGER XXX WAS CLEARED TO YOUR DESTINATION VIA BLAH BLAH BLAH. AFTER THAT WE CROSSED INTO NORTH AFRICA AND WERE HANDED OFF TO BRAZZAVILLE (CONGO), AND THAT WAS INTERESTING AS BRAZZAVILLE CONTROL HAD NO WORKING RADIO THAT NIGHT AND OF COURSE NO RADAR. WE BEGAN TALKING TO OTHER AIRCRAFT AND COORDINATION DEVIATIONS AROUND THUNDERSTORMS MOSTLY WITH THE HELP OF MY FRENCH SPEAKING ONBOARD CHARTER REP (FRENCHY) WHO WAS AN EX FRENCH LEGIONNAIRE. AS WE GOT ABOUT AN HOUR OUT I TURNED ON THE THUNDERSTORM LIGHTS (BRIGHT COCKPIT LIGHTS) AND TOOK OUT AN OUTDATED JEPPESEN AIRPORT DIAGRAM. I SAW THE TOWN ON THE RIVER AND THE SINGLE RUNWAY. I PLOTTED SOME LATITUDE & LONGITUDE THE BEST I COULD IN THE TURBULENCE AND THEN BRIEFED THE CREW ON THE PLAN. MY PLAN WAS TO POSITION THE AIRCRAFT 15 MILES ON AN EXTENDED FINAL APPROACH COURSE TO THE RUNWAY. THERE WAS A PARTIAL MOON AND WE WOULD DIM THE COCKPIT INTERIOR LIGHTING DOWN LOW. SECOND WE WOULD EXTEND THE LANDING LIGHTS TO CONFIRM BOMB CRATER LOCATION AND THAT THERE WERE NO VEHICLES OR WRECKED AIRCRAFT ON THE RUNWAY. I HAD MY FLIGHT ENGINEER STAND OVER THE CENTER PEDESTAL AS HIGH AS POSSIBLE AS WE FLEW DOWN THE RUNWAY GIVING ME A RUNNING NARRATIVE OF WHAT HE OBSERVED. FRENCHY WOULD DO THE SAME ON THE LEFT SIDE BEHIND MY SEAT. THE FLIGHT MECHANIC TOOK THE RIGHT SIDE WINDOW AFT OF MY FIRST OFFICER. AS I TURNED ON TO THE MAGNETIC HEADING OF THE RUNWAYS FROM THE IP AT 2000’ AGL. MY CO-PILOT GAVE ME DRIFT ANGLE READINGS FROM HIS INS, WE TURNED THE LANDING LIGHT ON AND SUDDENLY MULTIPLE STREAMS OF RED TRACERS ARCED UP AT US FROM OUR LEFT SIDE. ALL OF OUR HANDS WERE CLAWING AT THE SWITCHES TO TURN OFF ALL EXTERIOR LIGHTING, NAV LIGHTS, STROBE LIGHTS, AND OF COURSE THE LANDING LIGHTS. I BRIEFED THAT IT WAS TOO RISKY TO CHANCE CIRCLING THE AIRPORT AS ENEMY FORCES MAY HAVE ON THE AAA UNITS ON TRUCKS, SO UNLESS THE RUNWAY IS BLOCKED WE ARE GOING TO LAND IF WE GET SIGHT OF THE RUNWAY. WE TURNED THE LIGHT ON AT 2 MILES OUT AND SAW THE RIVER, THEN SOME BUILDINGS THEN THE RUNWAY I LANDED AND JINKED LEFT AND RIGHT TO MISS HOLES AS THEY YELLED OUT WHAT THEY SAW.

AFTER DOING A 180 AT THE END WE TAXIED BACK AND WERE LED IN TO A PARKING RAMP BY TWO "TECHNICALS" (PICKUPS WITH SOVIET 12.7mm HEAVY MACHINE GUNS MOUNTED IN THE BEDS). ALL TALKING WAS IN FRENCH. BEFORE SHUTTING DOWN OUR LAST ENGINE, I CALLED FLYING TIGER GLOBAL OPERATIONS IN LOS ANGELES ON OUR HF SIDEBAND RADIO AND REPORTED THIS IS HALL WE ARE ON DECK FOXTROT-TANGO-TANGO JULIET – EVERYBODY IS OK, AIRCRAFT IS OK, PLAN TO DEPART IN DAYLIGHT HOURS FOR FUEL IN MAIDUGURI, NIGERIA, SHUTTING DOWN NOW – HALL OUT! WE PROCEEDED TO GO TO A BOMBED OUT HOTEL WHERE ONLY US AND A FEW MEMBERS OF DELTA FORCE WERE STAYING. BELIEVE IT OR NOT THEY HAD A DISCO WITH NON MUSLIM LOCAL GIRLS DANCING ON THE BAR ALL LIT BY LANTERNS AND FLASHLIGHTS AND THE CITY HAD NO POWER. WE SAT AROUND TOASTING EACH OTHER WHILE FRENCHY TAUGHT US A FOREIGN LEGION SONG. NO RUNNING WATER, NO SHOWERS BUT MUCHO COGNAC. (Now that is a story! Damn! - Bill)

Well thanks for the great films, music and book (more books coming? I will be ordering Apsara jet via Amazon eventually, but the shipping rate into China is murder) and your career as a pilot, flying 747s even. If you’re ever in Kunming China my wife and have nothing better to do and I will show you the Flying Tigers restaurant and museum. Thanks!

I’VE GOT A COUPLE OF BOOKS IN THE MAKING BUT I’VE STOPPED WORK ON THEM. MAYBE SOMEDAY. WE’LL SEE. I’LL TRY TO GET YOU A COPY.

THANK YOU BILL, IT’S BEEN FUN TALKING ABOUT OLD TIMES. TAKE CARE!

Thank you Arch. Been a real treat for me to read this stuff. I am in such a good mood now I think I will get this up and kick back and watch a couple of old Fairway films. Take care and best wishes.

ARCH HALL JR. SINGING
VICKI FROM EEAGH!

THE URANIUM CAFE PIN UP GIRL/JET NOIR

the.uranium.cafe@gmail.com (Bill D. Courtney) — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 02:57:33 PDT

Most of the wonderful females that make it to the Pin Up Girl category here at the Uranium Cafe or at the Necro Girl category over at my other blog Necrotic Cinema are often actresses and models way past their prime, if not, sadly, already passed away. I am trying to keep their memories alive and miss the way women used to look I guess. Strange maybe. Recently I decided that women still alive and in full bloom deserve some recognition as well, and my post on model Katja Cintja a while back was my first such post. For this post I want to introduce not only a very beautiful and exotic lady from Britain, but a genuinely talented and hard working one as well. At a mere 24 years of age the exotic Jet Noir is in the midst of launching her music career with her special style of dance beats and lush techo. She has a haunting and powerful voice and she is an instrumentalist as well, having learned guitar, violin and piano as a child. She is involved with film soundtracks as well now and works with the coolly named Acrahnoid Records in the UK. I know some people don't like dance beats and techno stuff. They don't even like Merle Haggard. I am a rock-n-roller at heart myself, but I like this stuff really and lay around with some stuff here. I am too old and have lost my coolness so I can't really get into the culture around it, but I think a lot of the music is great and is of a soundtrack nature. She is branching out into modeling and has done some acting in videos and an independent film shot in the US. She is a post contributor to the Domain of Horror as well.

She has a classic Goth look with a hint of the old horror hostess vibe. And she is pretty darn nice as I had a small chat with her on Facebook earlier. Typically when I try to chat with somebody who is a bit famous they send me a link to their website and never chat back. She is cool though and got back and chatted a bit, like the legendary Arch Hall Jr. did. Ted V. Mikels just sent a link, but I still worship the guy. Like I am the only person trying to squeeze a chat out of that man. I am embedding a player featuring tracks from her EP at Bandcamp called Sensory Overload. She has other styles as well –some being rather ethereal in sound- and you can find her promoting her work with vigor on various sites on the net right now. I only found about this person a couple days ago and I hope this post brings her and her work into the lives of the readers of the UCafe and Necrotic Cinema. I think she is so talented and cool (and still young and alive!) that I am posting this pierce on both blogs. A first I think.

Here is her Facebook Page for further information:

JET NOIR AT FACEBOOK

And of course, this post is loaded with titillating pictures of Ms. Noir. But don't let her pretty face and healthy body keep you transfixed on the surface charms. She is bright and dedicated and super talented. Hope to see her in some professionally produced videos or film roles soon.

MORE JET NOIR HERE

NOTE: Samples from Jet's EP had to be removed because the Widget stopped working. Sorry.

THE DEADLY TOWER/1975/KURT RUSSELL

the.uranium.cafe@gmail.com (Bill D. Courtney) — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 07:31:35 PDT

THE DEADLY TOWER

1975/Director: Jerry Jameson/Writers: William Douglas Lansford , Antonio Calderón

Cast: Kurt Russell, Richard Yniguez, Ned Beatty, Clifton James, Pernell Roberts, John Forsythe

In my post on the comic story I might make this sniper month here at the Uranium Café and who knows, I just might. I have the film Two Minute Warning, Targets and the older b/w 1952 film The Sniper all around here somewhere; it is just a matter of locating them. I rewatched the 1976 film The Deadly Tower last night and decided I would do a post on that one, and maybe the other ones if I can find them. My family moved to San Antonio Texas, just south of Austin, a year or so after the shooting. I was bit too young to really know about stuff like then but as time went on I gathered up bit of information on the event and its impact on the local psyche. In fact in 1979 San Antonio had its own sniper, the Battle of Flowers sniper, and the whole Charles Whitman story was briefly revived. I saw the made for TV MGM film when it was first aired on NBC back in 1975. I was of course, like any young lad at time, shocked by the performance of the then All-American Disney leading man Kurt Russell in the role of psychotic sniper and murderer Charles Whitman. I remember a pre-John Carpenter’s Elvis: the Movie (1979) Kurt Russell. While Russell was no doubt trying to break out of that sweet guy type casting –and of course he eventually did- it was not to be because of this film. Seems it would be the Carpenter Elvis film and then his other films with the director, including Escape from New York and, of course, The Thing, that would finally sever Russell form his old Disney and TV guest star roles. But for me The Deadly Tower was the film that did it for me.

There are factual discrepancies in the film that really annoy a lot of viewers and after reading up the actual events I guess there are a few issues I have as well with the way the facts were adjusted here or there, or even fabricated to make the story more dramatic –as if the events needed that- but at the end of the day the film gives a fairly good retelling of the nightmare that took place on the University of Austin campus on August 1 1966. We can explore some of those idiosyncrasies later, though I don’t think they really destroy the film as a whole. It was, after all, a made for TV film. The story had to fit into a tight time slot, and you can even tell when the parts end and begin to allow for a commercial break.

The background of the film, for people who may not know anything about it, is the sniper rampage carried out by Charles Whitman from the observation deck of the tower located 307 feet above the University of Austin campus. He had earlier in the morning killed his mother and then his wife, leaving behind notes that offered no real insight into his motives for what would shortly happen. He bought a small arsenal of fire arms and ammunition and lugged them up to the top of the tower where, after killing a receptionist (one of the film’s discrepancies, as in the film he lets the lady live, while in real life he butt stroked her to death with a rifle- and some tower visitors returning form the top. Once on the observation deck he began indiscriminately killing students, teachers, women, children and anything that he could get his sights on. In total he killed 16 people and wounded 32 others. Police and civilians fired at Whitman, but he to be killed by a small group of policemen who made it to the top of the tower. While the film credits his killing to a police officer named Ramiro Martinez –who was involved in the siege of the tower- in reality the fatal shots were fired by officer Houston McCoy. The twist of facts here were done to help the story center on Martinez as the film’s lead character, but some of the liberties taken with Martinez’s life would have the film makers successfully sued later by the real life Ramiro Martinez.

So, how well does the film tell the story and, most importantly I think for this article, how well did Kurt Russell do as a psychotic ex-Marine who has snapped from the pressures of life and perhaps from the effects of a malignant brain tumor. The looks enough even though it was actually shot in Baton Rouge Louisiana. The University of Texas at Austin was not going to have the film shot there, but the tower in the film looks almost identical. Much of the story actually seems to focus on Officer Martinez and his job issues, some dealing with possible racism, and marital problems his moody and pregnant wife, who is Hispanic. In fact in real life Martinez had no major job conflicts at the time, his wife was not pregnant and she was a white woman, not Hispanic. These were issues used in the law suit later. I don’t guess Martinez complained about being the actual bad guy killing hero of the film though. The film goes off a bit too much into this peripheral issues, and sometimes we are treated to too much bleeding heart liberal whining by characters like Elwood Forbes (John Forsythe) as he preaches about gun control. The racism issues seem way out of place really, but I can see that they simply trying to develop the character of Ramiro Martinez into a human being we can all relate to.

But does not seem to happen, sadly, is that the character of Charles Whitman –who was in no condition later to sue anybody- is not explored in any real depth. Russell does a fine job with what he is given, but he barely has any lines in the film. One would think there may be a few flash backs of something, but nothing ever happens like this. It may have been a conscious decision of the filmmakers to dehumanize Whitman and make Martinez the character we come away having a connection with. But at the same time a lot of opportunities are missed here. When we could have been seeing flashbacks of Whitman’s relationship to his father and mother –who were breaking up at the tie of his collapse, or his problems in the Marines or his issues with wife beating and declining mental stability, but the film never really goes in that direction and in a sense robs Kurt Russell of really becoming the focus of the film. Ned Beatty plays civilian hero Alan Crum who went up the tower with the Austin Police to stop the carnage. He of course plays a sweaty, fearful but resolved overweight southern guy with no problem.

Director Jerry Jameson -known for his TV work- does a fine job of trying to keep things moving along. When there is suspense and tension he shows he knows what to do with the camera. Pernell Roberts (Adam Cartwright of Bonanza) plays Lt. Lee and typecast forever as a redneck cop Clifton James plays grumpy –and racist and holding down Martinez?- Capt. Fred Ambrose. Ramiro Martinez is played finely by Richard Yniquez. Really the acting and direction are pretty above average for a made for TV flick. The story takes liberties with some facts and details –though there is a disclaimer at the film beginning about this- but that is to be expected with a story like this. A good movie I think if you like sniper docudramas. You can see the new and emerging Kurt Russell as a sometimes unlikable type in the film’s very beginning when he is peeling some sort of fruit in the kitchen and feeding slice to his puppy. You just expect him to carve the mutt up next. Wish he had had more lines and more time on screen doing something other than shooting people, but his performance is still strong and chilling.

TARZAN/BALLANTINE BLACK EDITION/NEAL ADAMS

the.uranium.cafe@gmail.com (Bill D. Courtney) — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 05:33:15 PDT

And while I am in a Neal Adams mood (see my last post on Thrill Kill) I thought I might share these fines scans of his Tarzan covers for Ballantine Books. The series was published between 1976 and 1978 and 24 books covers were split between Neal Adams and Boris Vallejo as the Black Edition books. I was never a huge fan of the work of Boris but was excited to see the covers by Adams gracing the book jackets. I was not enough of a Tarzan book fan to buy any and read them however. I do love Tarzan movies and comic books, but have never read a single Tarzan book in my life, though I own them all now in some sort of epub format. I may read one here on the iPad2 someday. Who knows. In any case these drawings are simply marvelous. He looks to be working in pen and ink and some sort of colored ink or even water color over the inks. These really show what Adams could do when set he set his mind to it. I have included here some black and white preliminary sketches as well as an interview with Adams from tarzan.cc. I only took the section of the interview that relates to the Tarzan series for Ballantine and I think it is interesting to see how some of the conflicts between the artist and the publishers are resolved, or maybe not resolved. These are almost as monumental as the Frazetta covers for Lancer and Ace books in the late 60’s. Almost I said. Tarzan is seen striking several classic Adams poses, even one where Tarzan’s face is not even shown, only his ready to pounce calf muscles. Quintessential Neal Adams there. I would like to have seen a Neal Adams Jane actually. Can’t have all our desires fulfilled in a single lifetime of course. These are wonderful to behold even without Ms. Porter.

AN INTERVIEW WITH NEIL ADAMS ABOUT THE BALLANTINE BLACK EDITION COVERS FROM tarzan.cc

TCC: Now that brings us to the reason that Tarzan.CC is so pleased to be able to speak with you, and that is your artwork for Ballantine Books that was used for 12 of the Tarzan novel covers in the late 70's, with the other 12 handled by Boris Vallejo.

NA: Right.

TCC: Some refer to that series as the "black" edition, and it became the longest running and last complete set of the 24 Tarzan novels in paperback to date, available until the early 90's. How did that commission come about for you?

NA: Well, there was a fan up at Ballantine who wanted me to take a shot at these Tarzan books. For some reason, he was smart enough to figure it out. (Laughs) I'm always amazed when that happens, you know, where somebody goes to somebody that isn't known for doing something and says, "Can you do that?" And of course, my answer was "Yes." And we settled on a price and in-between all the other stuff I did, I started to do that series of book covers.

He got a little cranky after a while, because I wasn't either turning them out fast enough, or I don't know what it was with him, but we sort of parted ways. He didn't turn out to be a very nice fella.

TCC: That's unfortunate.

NA: Yeah, it is, isn't it? Because I would've finished the series. I was quite happy doing it, but he was cranky, you know, and I'm not the kind of person that takes being insulted real easy. I've got a pretty long fuse, but after a while, ya know, (Laughing) you just kind go, "Alright, that's it for me."

TCC: Oh! So originally, you were set to do more than just the 12?

NA: Yeah, I was going to do the whole series.

TCC: Now, that's interesting... Boris had told me the same thing, but mentioned that it never came about -- I guess Ballantine made similar proposals to each of you at some point before they decided who to use. But when everything fell into place, you created yours first, right?

NA: Actually, I did mine, and when I dropped out they called Boris. You know, I like Boris' work and all that. I don't really think that what we do is the same thing. I think they are very different.

TCC: Boris' portraits were obviously oil paintings, but I've read that yours were "tinted line art", rather than full oils.

NA: Yeah... No, I wasn't an oil painter. I'm not much of a fine artist at all, really. I really don't have a tremendous amount of respect for art, I hate to say. (Laughing) To me, it's the idea... it's the story your telling. And I don't mind delving into technique and stuff, like in that one with the two Tarzans facing one another and the jewels in the sand. The rock behind them was made with one of the various water colors over a guache. I laid this guache down with a palette knife, and then I laid this wash over it so it kind of dribbled down the guache and kind of made it look like rocks. So, that rock back there has a real sense of "rockness".

TCC: I have a friend ("Korak the Foot-Long Sandwich Killer") who has described those covers as sort of a "cross between Frank Frazetta and Russ Manning -- the best of both worlds". Have you heard this comparison before?

NA: I have not. I find it odd for them to be compared to Frazetta, because Frazetta is a classical painter, and certainly I find it odd to be compared to Manning, who is kind of a clean, slick kind of painter -- I don't know if you'd call him a painter so much as an artist. I think probably what I do is different than either one of them. But I'm pleased that somebody thinks that, so, good! But I don't think that way.

TCC: They are epic in scale and detail, but using colors that were a little brighter and also coming from an artist with a background in the comics... I think he was viewing them only from the perspective of Tarzan art among other Tarzan artists.

NA: I guess he was, exactly! That's what it sounds like. What I did with those paintings -- and you can check them out for this -- there are a couple of things: First of all, I picked a scene that was actually in the book. (Laughing) I'm a little taken with people that'll do that. And second, what I did was I tried to tell a story with the picture. So there was an instant something happens, you know, like Tarzan leaped for his life and a lion is going after his feet, and he gets pulled up into the trees by other apes. That's, to me, a very dramatic moment, so I picked that moment. But within that moment, what I did was I gave myself a compositional problem, and the idea was to solve that compositional problem, so that each painting is different from the other in that each painting solves a different compositional problem.

For example, there's "Tarzan and the Leopard Men". And the idea of that was to create a swirl of movement that was like looking at a washing machine -- that it would just go around, and if you tried to follow it with your eye, then your eye would spin around. So that was a compositional challenge to do that -- to make the leopard men, and Tarzan, and the tree, and everything else added make your eye swirl around.

Then I did "Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar", and he goes toward this sacrificial alter, and he's coming out of this colonnade in the foreground, and it's black on the right-hand side and black on the left hand side. The idea was to break the cover into these three sections -- one very dark on the right, one very dark on the left, and lighter in the middle, and to have Tarzan kind of exit out of that as a compositional challenge, so that it was a limited, chopped picture with one person, one figure entering the picture. So that was the challenge behind that.

Each one of them in their own way was intended to be, first, realistic, so that you believed what was going on, sort of. The other was to solve a compositional problem, and finally to really tell a Tarzan story, or Tarzan moment, which I really feel strongly about.

TCC: Very cool! Of all your covers, do you particularly favor any one?

NA: Nah, I love 'em all.

TCC: How did you choose which scene you interpreted?

NA: Well, first of all I read the books when I was 10, but then I got to re-read 'em while I was doing this, and I would just sit and read it, and I would find my scene. That would take care of that problem. I didn't read the books to find the scene; I read the books to enjoy the books. But somewhere along the line, something would jump out at me, and I'd go, "Hmm... That's a really interesting moment. Maybe not the best for this kind of a picture or that kind of picture, but I really like that moment." And that's what I did.

TCC: You always managed to capture the pure fearlessness and ferocity of the jungle lord in whichever scene from the novel you chose to illustrate. Were you a Tarzan fan before -- either of the books or the movies -- and if so, how did they influence your interpretation of the character?

NA: Yeah, I've always been a Tarzan fan. But let me just share something with you, ok? You're a Tarzan fan. But someplace in your head, you are Tarzan.

TCC: (To the Readers: On hearing those words, my eyes narrowed with a knowing glint, and one side of my mouth turned upward into a grim half-smile... ) Yeah.... haha! I STILL AM!!!

NA: (Laughs) Someplace in your head there's a secret place where you go, "There's something about me that's like Tarzan", or, "I want it to be like Tarzan"... "There's something about me that I relate to what Tarzan is." There are certain things, for example, his quietness. He's quiet, and I can consciously make myself quiet. And that steely gaze -- sometimes, you sit there and you bring your eyebrows down... Maybe that's not what you do, but the idea is to bring your eyebrows down as you look out under your brows and you think, "Boy... I can imagine being Tarzan". Being in a room and have everyone kinda look at me under the corner of their eye, and just look into the grey of my eye, or whatever the hell color it is...

TCC: HAHA!!!

NA: ... and to see that and for them to recognize it. That's what goes through people's mind when they read Tarzan. You know damn well it does! There's something about you -- it doesn't have to be true -- but you relate to it, in that if I were like somebody, boy, ya know, I'd like to be like Lord Greystoke. I'd just like to be that civilized / uncivilized creature that is totally unafraid, will face anything, live or die, and deals with it. That's what we do. People that like Tarzan are like that. Not like that all the time... you know, it comes and goes. But when you read Tarzan, that's what you do.

So for me, when I was a kid and I read Tarzan, I felt like Tarzan. I felt that I was Tarzan. Of course, I wasn't Tarzan! I'm simply saying that when I read the books, I read them because of that, 'cause I could feel that thing. And you know, other people can pretend, and I'd just think that if they pretend, that it's not true -- it's just bulls***. 'Cause otherwise, there's no reason to read Tarzan, if you don't have those feelings.

So for me, how hard was it for me to find to do that when I was doing those illustrations, if that's the way I think? Now, this is not to criticize Boris, or anybody else. But I think a lot of people do Tarzan out of drawing a handsome man, or a handsome jungle man, or you know, doing the stuff that Tarzan does. I do it out my feelings for the character. What you see in those drawings is how I feel about Tarzan... feel. I can draw him -- I have a facility to draw -- but if I draw Superman or Batman I don't draw them the same way I draw Tarzan. Tarzan's different.

TCC: Wow! So he's a kind of a unique character to draw for you?

NA: In my opinion, yeah.

TCC: Obviously, I'm a huge Tarzan fan. I started reading the books when I was a young teen, and my first mental image of ERB's literary ape-man came from your cover for "Tarzan of the Apes" (Neal titled the piece "Primitive" **). It's just a fantastic cover, but your son Jason mentioned to me that your original art for this had been stolen?

NA: Gone with the wind...

TCC: What a loss! How did this happen, and do you hope to recover it in the future?

NA: (Sighs) I don't know. I can't think about it. It's not something I deal with...... Nah...... I don't think I'll ever find it.

TCC: That's a shame.

NA: 'Cause what happens with time is that as time goes by a certain artist's work rises in value. And it's sort of like, how do you get a Frazetta piece back? Well, you give somebody, you know, half-a-million dollars. That's how you do it. It's not easy after a while. So I don't know, if somebody had it, what they would hold out for money-wise. But I think it'd be a big chunk of money. Why do I have to care about it? I have other things to do. I can always do it over, you know! (Laughing)

TCC: Technically, you refer to your Tarzan artwork as your "Savage" ** illustrations, right?

NA: Yes. I'm not sure if "technically" is the right word, but sure.

TCC: These illustrations don't refer to just your interpretations of Tarzan, but also to Conan and possibly some others?

NA: Well, you don't want to call them "Conan". You know, 'cause then you have to pay a royalty. But who knows what Conan looked like? So, (Chuckles) my Conan looks a little like Frank's Conan. Frank's Conan looks a little like mine, but he did it first, so mine looks like his. I think that my Conan looks more like Conan than anybody else. I think Frank's Conan is a little short...

TCC: Hahahaha!

NA: ... and mine's taller, and perhaps a little bulkier. But Frank's is meaner, more slobbering, so I think Frank likes it for that reason. You know, the thing is, if I didn't like the way I did this stuff, I probably would do it a different way. So I kinda like the stuff. I hate to admit it, you know. The artist doesn't want to have to admit that he likes his own stuff. But, the reason I did it that way I did it was because I kinda like it.

TCC: You sell a few of the "Savage" ** portfolios containing some of these prints on your website, and I notice some are sold out. Have they been pretty popular, and do you plan on producing more?

NA: Well, you know, it's one of those things in publishing where if something sells out, you imply that it did well. But I don't know if that's the case. I mean, what I'd rather do now is print better quality prints. We've got a couple of them on PODGallery, sold as prints. So you can have them printed on canvas, you can have them printed on water-color paper. And they're pretty nifty that way, compared to the old prints that we did. So they're selling sort of regular, but you know, you can sort of decide the quality yourself. A few extra bucks in your pocket, you can get it on canvas. Personally, I like water-color paper.

TCC: That's very nice! Now, I did see that you have something -- and I'm probably going to mispronounce it -- it looks like "Gicklee"?

NA: Oh (Chuckles). Giclee (pronounced, "zhee-klay"). It's a French word, it means bulls***.

TCC: HAHA! Does it really?

NA: (Chuckles) It's really basically a print on good paper, that they make with... they're like the printers that you use with your computer? Only they're bigger, and more expensive, and they take like 2 hours to make a print. And a good one will adhere to the material very well, so they get good paper. But it's like saying that there's something highly sophisticated and cool, but unfortunately in this day and age, we have such good machines, that turns out to be bulls***.

The thing you have to worry about is, is the print a good print? Is it what I want it to be -- on really nice paper, and does it look really great? And once you find that out, and if somebody says they're selling giclees on the Internet, you kind of go someplace where they do prints and say, "Oh, that's a giclee. Hmm... I like the water-color paper." And then you order it based on what you were able to see. Water-color paper works pretty good with my stuff. If I were going to buy 'em, I would buy 'em on water-color paper. I'd buy 'em kind of big if I wanted to see the brush-strokes. (Laughing) But that's me!

TCC: I actually have #18 out of 200 of your print "Going Ape" ** hanging front-and-center on the wall behind my desk at the office...

NA: (Laughs)

TCC: My office is a virtual Tarzan museum, with almost no wall-space left to hang anything else. And I see that Jason is working on a sculpture version of "Going Ape" **, that he hopes to make available in both kit and bronze forms.

NA: Yep!

TCC: I just have two questions... How much is it, and can I buy the first one?

NA: (Laughing) Well, I think you have to ask Jason! He did a pretty good job, I have to admit. He did a really, really nice job.

TCC: It's beautiful! Hey, Neal, thanks again for your time! Is there anything you'd like to say to the fans in parting?

NA: There's so many nice folks out there, I wouldn't know what to say! I'm going to be around for a long time, trying to do stuff that challenges your brain, and pick up my science book even if you're not interested in science, because it'll make you smarter, and it'll make you think. And sometimes, even comic book fans have to think!

THRILL KILL/NEAL ADAMS

the.uranium.cafe@gmail.com (Bill D. Courtney) — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 05:32:25 PDT

The graphic sniper story Thrill Kill appeared in the Nov. 1975 issue of Creepy magazine. It was written by Jim Stenstrum and drawn by Neal Adams. Adams’ real to life drawing style brings the story to life in a sometimes disturbing fashion. Few artists of the time could let a story unfold the way Adams did and this is a fine example of the artist in his stride. There are a lot of scans of this one on line and there was one with better example of the wash work and one only in crisp black and white. I selected the version I have here though it might not be the best example of Adams’ use of wash and tones, but the other version I found showed the yellowness of the aged pages. Not that that bothers me and it was tough call as to which scans to share here. Some of the images remind me of the sniper Scorpio (played by Andy Robinson) in the first –and really only good- Dirty Harry film. The following year would see the release of an all but forgotten sniper film called two Minute Warning, starring Charlton Heston and John Cassavetes. I have a copy of that somewhere and maybe should give it a review here one day soon. Seems snipers were suddenly en vogue after a long silence following the 1966 killing spree in Austin Tx by Charles Whitman. That infamous incident also inspired a docudrama flick called The Deadly Tower starring a young Kurt Russell -starring as killer Whitman- trying to do something to distance himself from his earlier TV and Disney roles. That film came out in '75, the same year as Thrill Kill. I have that here too and maybe will do a review of that too, along with the 1968 Peter Bogdanovich film Targets, and sort make this month Sniper Month here at The Uranium Café. So whilst I polish up the ol’ deer rifle here enjoy this little master piece from one of the great comic book artists of all time, Neal Adams.

THE URANIUM CAFE PIN UP GIRL/ROSANNA SCHIAFFINO

the.uranium.cafe@gmail.com (Bill D. Courtney) — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 05:51:06 PDT

ROSANNA SCHIAFINNO ROLLS AROUND IN A BIKINI RIGHT HERE >>

ROSANNA SCHIAFINNO ROLLS AROUND IN A BIKINI

THE BEACH GIRLS AND THE MONSTER/1965

the.uranium.cafe@gmail.com (Bill D. Courtney) — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 07:09:17 PDT

THE BEACH GIRLS AND THE MONSTER

1965/Director: Jon Hall/Writers: Robert Silliphant, Joan Gardner

Cast: Jon Hall, Sue Casey, Walker Edmiston, Arnold Lessing

The Beach Girls and the Monster has all the right ingredients for a monster camp classic from the mid-sixties. First off it is an AIP-TV production, amongst whose numerous cheezy releases include the Larry Buchanan remakes of AIP films like It Conquered the World (Zontar, the Thing from Venus) and Invasion of the Saucer Men (The Eye Creatures. Other AIP-TV classically bad offerings (that I have seen at least and that may wind up as reviews here if I can get my motivation to write back) include Mars Needs Women with John Ashley of the Frankie and Annette beach films, and Curse of the Swamp Creature. I am giving examples more of their original material and not of the mass of dubbed foreign films from Japan or Italy they released to American TV. The film has a pretty darn film score with genuine sounding surf music performed mostly by a band called The Illusions. Not just sappy beach party music, but actual reverb drenched surf music of a near Link Wray style. There are a couple swingin’ songs written by Frank Sinatra Jr. as well and some obligatory sappy beach party music as well. There is the appearance of an aging ex-leading man actor in the person of Jon Hall, with The Beach Girls being his swan song film in which he acts, does the cinematography and even directs. And there is a totally unbelievable monster right out of the Paul Blaisdale school of monster suit making. This is one unforgettable monster. The movie clocks in a mere sixty six minutes in this it theatrical release (a longer edited for TV exists somewhere with almost ten extra minutes of footage) and since it subscribes to the b-movie method of “action costs but talk is cheap” filmmaking it can drag on in places, but I have to admit I enjoyed it. The only draw back might be that it was shot in black and white. I like black and white but find it does work with beach movies like this one or the more well known The Horror of Party Beach. The plump sixty’s bikini dancing girls (The Watusi Dancing Girls from the Whiskey A Go Go bar) would look a bit better in color I think, but then the film’s budget may have them resort to some low quality color film stack that would have looked worse than the black and white in the end, so who knows.

The film opens up –after the pretty groovy opening credits exploiting the Watusi Girl’s gyrating dancing skills, and actually showing the monster before the film begins- with some pretty old looking teenage guys coming from doing some surfing. After playing a practical joke on her boyfriend one of the beach girls, Bunny, runs off giggling in an annoying manner down the beach with lover boy in tow. In a scene that briefly is a bit randy for the time Bunny and lover boy roll around in the surf for a bit until he get fed up with her idiocy and walks back to the group and their reel to reel tape player of wild surf music. She finds her way into a cave for some reason and is soon set upon by the film’s seaweed covered monster. The cops soon arrive and manage to make plaster casts of the foot prints which they feel they need to take to local oceanographer Dr. Otto Lindsay (Jon Hall). Dr. Lindsay’s immediate impression is that the prints are from the South American fantigua fish (don’t look it up, there is no such thing). However this particular fish, which can live outside water and walk on land, would seem to be a mutated variety and must weigh over a hundred pounds. The film now shifts from a mutant monster murder mystery to a family soap opera drama. Seems Otto’s boy Richard (Arnold Lessing) wants to live up life and a cool surfer daddy’o and has lost interest in following in his dad’s footsteps and becoming a dedicated scientist. The kid looks like he is about 27 but I think we are supposed to image off about seven years or so. Seems Rick woke up to life after a car accident involving his father and a family friend named Mark (played by famous voice over and character actor Walker Edmiston). Mark was turned into a bitter gimp and now lives upstairs in the Lindsay’s luxurious house making weird, topless mermaid sculptures of Rick’s beach girl friends like Bunny. Mark and rick decide it would be nice to give his most recent semi-nude sculpture of Bunny to her family,m as a kind gesture. When he is not doing weird artist things like that he is making a disturbing looking bust of Otto’s “Mrs. Robinson” trophy wife Vicky. He is also losing control at her cruel flirtations and trying to put the move on her, with her reminding him she would never make love to a cripple as she laughs her way back down to their swanky bar in the living room. Once there she starts hitting on Rick, who all but looks like he wants punch her in the face.

Most of the film centers around all of this domestic turmoil and very little of the monster or of twisting beach girls takes place. But of course there is some more such action, and more murders that usually involve the monster choking its victim and then scratching their faces. Everybody dies off pretty easy and I guess getting your face superficially clawed by this thing is enough to kill you instantly. As a couple sites have noted the ending turns into a “Scooby-Doo” style ending and by doing the utterly fakey monster costume is redeemed. The acting by Jon Hall is okay and there are stories that he leveraged his photographic equipment (including underwater equipment that seems to have never been used) in exchange for being able to direct the film. Don’t know if this is true but it seems plausible enough. This and his uncredited work on Navy and the Night Monsters were Hall’s only directorial jobs and he stopped making films until his sad death from bladder cancer and eventually suicide in 1979. He was quite the striking leading man in his early films and I am trying to get a couple of those (like Arabian Nights and The Hurricane) but his roles decreased as his looks waned. Did not seem to lose sleep over it and his views on acting are summed up in the following quote; “I never liked acting. I don't like to be told what to do and what to say and how to say it. I'm grateful to it as it provided me with the money to do other things such as I'm into now, but as a profession, it's a bore.” Edmiston went onto to do guest spots on many old TV shows on CBS, as well as doing voices for cartoons and hosting a children’s television show in LA. Sue Casey went onto to a fairly successful TV career that continued up to 2002 at least. She did a pretty job here as the unlikable gold-digger. The rest of the cast returned to the nether world of obscurity from whence they came, including the vivacious little Watusi Dancing Girls.

By no stretch is this a good movie (and would it be here at The Café if it were?), but it is a good-bad movie and for fans of bad dialog and phony looking monster for sure. The Watsui Girls are pretty cute in that bouncy sixties way and, as I have said, the music is more what I consider to be surf guitar music, rather than the typical beach-surf Jan and Dean style music, which is okay too. But I like twangy-reverb guitar. The music is not always suitable for the scenes but so what. The Farnk Sintra Jr. tunes are okay but seem to be there more for the sake that his name would be on the movie poster. While doing my “research” for this one I was surprised that there were far more AIP-TV shows than I imagined there were. It all falls under my AIP category/label but there are a lot of films there I have actually seen or own and have yet to see that I did not know they were from them. You like beach movies? You like goofy monsters? You like Watusi Girls? Check it out.

THE URANIUM CAFE MATINEE/THE BEACH GIRLS AND THE MONSTER

the.uranium.cafe@gmail.com (Bill D. Courtney) — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 05:51:05 PDT

Go! Go! Go! The Coolest Monster Shindig of

Chicks and Chills!

Surfer Chicks and Slimey Chills!

SEE THE BEACH GIRLS AND THE MONSTER RIGHT HERE >>

THE BEACH GIRLS AND THE MONSTER