For a while now I have been working at getting a decent collection of old TV series . When I say old I mean pretty old, from the mid to late 60’s to the mid 70’s. Pre-cable shows that I grew up on essentially I can sometimes find these in boxed sets here in China. For example I have both the complete original Star Trek and Hogan’s Heroes and one day am going to get the Addams Family at the DVD stores I drop into once in a while. Of course these are all pirated and cheap as hell but of excellent quality so far. Other shows are a bit harder to locate and I am using a Rapidshare based site now to piece together The Munsters series little by little. Those RS sites have lots of series but I am really lazy about copying and pasting the files one by one so I tend to put them together over a long period of time. The shows can also sometimes be found the shows on sites like Isohunt or Pirate Bay which is great. I got the complete run of Kung Fu with David Carradine from Isohunt as well as all of the Gilligan’s Islands episodes. I also have a membership at a ratio based TV show site connected to Cinemageddon but it can hard to maintain a good ratio at those type of sites –which can result in getting banned- and so I cannot get the things I want when I want them. So I have a membership but am afraid to download anything I like. Right now working on getting in season one of Hawaii 5-0 from that CG ratio based TV show site and may see if I can get somewhere else since I cannot seem to seed of any of it back. Well at the wonderful The Horror Charnel –another ration based site- I just got in the complete one season run of one of the best TV series of all time, Kolchak: The Night Stalker. I burned the 20 episodes and began watching them last night.

You can argue that if it was such a good series why did it last only one season? Who knows. We live in a world where Beyonce’s music and videos are in your face all day and night but not person I know owns a King Crimson or Andy Summers album. The show just did not fare well against its Friday night competition on NBC it seems. The series aired in 1974 on ABC and was based on the character Carl Kolchak –played to perfection by the Darren McGavin- created for the made for TV movies The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler. The shows follow the adventures of the shabbily dressed Carl Kolchak who works at the under-staffed and under-budgeted INS news bureau in Chicago where he employs his journalistic talents either covered mob hits or filling in for the “Dear Emily” writer when she is ill. We hardly ever see any of Chicago’s horrid winter weather as Carl drives around in near constant sunshine in his convertible Ford Mustang talking into his cassette recorder. Of course the shows hook is that he is constantly getting pulled into supernatural situation or another as his investigation of a recent murder unfolds. He encounters anything and everything from incarnations of Jack the Ripper to Werewolves and Vampires. Kolchak is the absolute quintessential non-hero. He packs no gun or knife and more often than not winds up screaming like a little girl and jumping out a window in the presence of the evil force he is facing. And to be honest Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson would have probably done the same thing in real life if confronted with a werewolf or vampire in their closet.

On top of supernatural terrors Kolchak must deal with one cynical police chief after another who ignores his questions at press conferences. But the greatest adversary he must contend with each week is his old school news paper chief Tony Vincenzo –played by perennial tough guy Simon Oakland- who spends each episode trying to pull Carl off each case and assigning him to some mundane story. Invariably Vincenzo winds up backing Kolchak and having his faith in his ‘star’ reporter restored… only to lose it again again next episode. The relationship between Vincenzo and Kolchak is classic and adds comic relief to the show’s themes of horror and mayhem. Also refreshing is that McGavin and I have only seen The Ripper episode and half of The Zombie so far but am about to hit the sofa –I am supposed to be studying Chinese- and watch a few more episodes this afternoon. This is classic TV. Before the idea of drama of comedy became a bunch of selfish over sexed yuppies insulting each other for an hour. It was a time when shows had a simple but effective formula they stuck to each week and milked it for all it was worth. Just look what was done with shows like Gilligan’s Island or Hogan’s Heroes. The same cast and same props every week but I never got tired of it. The same with Kolchak. The same clutterd office and grumpy boss each week but with a different monster and resourceful method of whacking the creature during the shows last five minutes. I guess I am just old school but this is a lot cooler than Lost or Prison Break in my book.

I came to learn a little about Metal music a bit late in life. I Have always felt there is no need to close doors to music simply becasue we get older. I think the first real Metal I bought (not counting stuff like Metallica or Megadeth) was an album by Naplam Death and I recall not liking it at all but thught the cover looked cool. As many years have gone I have developed a curious interest in the Metal genre and its different movements though I am by no means a true fan or follower. If I had to select a style I prefer the most it would be the Black Metal music of Norway over, lets say, the Death Metal style of the bands out of Florida like Cannibal Corpse. I do like some of the Morbid Angel material but they sound more European than American in their approach (in my opinion anyway) and I like some of the stuff by British band Carcass who is supposed to be a Grindcore band. I have read rabid forums posts about which bands are Thrash and which are Death Metal and which are Grindcore and so on. But I certainly have some fascination with bands with wild names like Carpathian Forest, Emperor, Mayhem Darkthrone and Satryicon. The songs are often epic in their scale and delivery and the sound is tastefully augmented with synthesizers, something not found on the hard core death metal albums. The lyrics typically focus on Norse mythology and similar grand themes.

About seven years ago I read the book Lords of Chaos by by Michael Moynihan and Didrik Søderlind. It has been too long to remember the book in any detail but over all it did not paint a very favorable image of the Black Metal scene that was developing in Norway at the time. The off stage lifestyles of the band members were probably tamer in many ways than the lives led by jaded L.A. rockers but nonetheless the bands and members seem to have been uniformly portrayed as Satanic devotees of Aleister Crowley or Anton LaVey. The Black Metal musicians where Nowegian and probably had little interest in the occult views of an Englishman or an American. And who knows, maybe a lot of this was true and maybe a lot was media hype and even public hysteria generated by the church burnings in Norway and Sweden at the time. Of the personalities discussed in the book the open I have followed and whose music I have accpeted the most is Varg Vikernes. Under the pseudonym of Count Grishnackh  he was the force behind the oen man project Burzum. Vikernes did not much like performing live and preferred to explore his own style of music which drew it sources from Norse Mythology and the writings of J.R.R Tolkien. While Vikernes was an active member whatever Black Metal scene there was in Oslo at the time –even playing uncredited bass on the powerful Mayhem album De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas- he preferred going to techno style music clubs and avoided the whole sex and drug scene that attracted most of the Black Metal musicans –if not most rock and roll musicians in general- at the time. And in case you do not know the full story Vikernes would wind up spending 16 years of a 21 year sentence –he was released in 2009- in Norwegian prison for the brutal stabbing murder of Øystein Aarseth (Euronymous) of Mayhem as well being conencted with some church burnings. I have opted not to go into details on this aspect of Vikernes’ life. I have also decided to side step any comment son his political views, or his views on race and religion. I am in no way condoning the murder of Euronymous but prefer to not delve into that subject here simply because there is all sorts of information on the net about that and I am really not clear on how accurate all the versions of the story are, including Varg’s own account found here. Varg, in this review, dimisses the Lords of Chaos book as propoganda utter rubbish.

Certainly being convicted of an infamous murder and having allegations of Satanism and Nazism surround you can only adds to a character’s notoriety and legend whether those claims are completely true or false. But what about the guy’s music? What I like about his music is that his early albums are exceptional Black Metal albums and all the ore so because he played all the instruments himself. He was not keen on having impressive instruments and equipment like Marshall amps and used what ever he had available to create his music, even borrowing drum kits. His early works were Black Metal to be sure but they had a hypnotic almost trance inducing effect not found in most music of the same style. The musical themes were usually minimalistic and repetitive and some songs went on for as long as 14 minutes and in one case of a song from the album Filosofem a song goes for 25 minutes with little variation. After his incarceration he had limited access to musical equipment. All he could only use was a synthesizer and tape recording machine and yet he created, while in prison, two very interesting albums, Dauði Baldrs and Hliðskjálf. Some areas sound more like something you would hear from Brian Eno than from a Black metal musician. And I think Vikernes would not mind hearing something like this.

He released the album Belus not long after his release from prison and it shows a return to fuller musical productions and a little more aggressive music but it still has the strange magic quality found in most Burzum albums. I have not had a chance to listen to the new album in depth but I did put one track from it below t o be sampled. Vikernes has retired to a small farm with his family since his release and plans to continue writing and making Burzum style music. I cannot agree with all of his positions on issues and why would I. I think it is not too wise to follow the ideas of musicians and movie stars anymore than politicians. But I cannot disagree with all of them either. But regardless of all that I enjoy most of his music and find him to an interesting personality. In my opinion he is older and has 16 years to sit in a prison cell and think about what he has done. I would like to think he has changed for the better in some ways. I I am 51 now and I can certainly look back and see how foolish much of my younger life was. Of course I never stabbed anyone in the head but I made my share of terrible errors I regret.  In any case I will look forward to new music projects from Varg Vikernes and Burzum.

SAMPLES FROM THE MUSIC OF BURZUM

From Aske: Feeble Screams From Forests Unknown

Download audio file (FeebleScreamsFromForestsUnknown.mp3)

From Dauoi Baldrs: Dauoi Baldrs

Download audio file (DauoiBaldrs.mp3)

From Dauoi Baldrs: Hermoor A Helfero

Download audio file (HermoorAHelfero.mp3)

From Hvsi Lyset Tar Oss: Hvsi Lyset Tar Oss

Download audio file (HvisLysetTarOss.mp3)

Those that do not sleep in those stalker friendly bungalows sleep in barracks with bunk beds. There is often dispute as who gets to sleep on top and sometimes the girls sit in there see through black panties on the bed and engage in inane dialog about the ‘monster’ outside. Sometimes they boost each other up to the top bunk by shoving each other’s butt or when they hear a sound the girl on top jumps down to the bottom bunk and they both hide under the cover. This happens quite a lot actually. What else that happens a lot is shameless out of shape 60′s nude people walking about doing nothing. Just doing nothing. When they walk away from the camera they are completely nude but the ones coming towards the camera have their naughty bits strategically covered by a towel or shorts. Sometimes maybe two girls jump up and down and try to get a towel off a wall, or a group plays volleyball to run in an endless queue –showing their backsides one after the other- and jump into the pool.  Some people are not nude however. Luckily some fat, hairy guys wear some sort of shorts. There are even some black girls at this nudist camp showing that Mahon was an equal opportunity pervert and visionary.

The dialog is hopelessly ridiculous at best and I have to be honest and confess I was hitting the fast forward at the last part of the film even though it only runs about 60 minutes. I know my dad and his buddies probably thought this was hot stuff but I have become far too jaded to be able to just sit and watch a line of butts prance off to the swimming pool without at lack the minimum of believable dialog or grade z acting to hold things together. Naked women alone just can’t do it for me anymore. The ape suit is one of the worst I have ever seen but I am a sucker for a guy in a monkey suit film so the fakier the suit the happier I am. I sort of wish there had been more of the hairy little guy and some sort of attempt to explain where he came from and why the nudists piss him off so much. The color on this little film. Very bright and vibrant. You just don’t see this kind of color anymore and I think that is a shame. While basically a total cheese festand it is a little fun at times. It is fun to watch the nudity down played all the time.The only time nudity is even mentioned is when our hospital bed ridden hero Byron (played, I think, by Mahon) tells the interviewing detective how his wife Delores got him into being a nudist –a bit like Adam blaming Eve here I think- and how the whole deal started because she needed to go to the camp to get an even tan. Why is Byron in the hospital? What tragedy befell him? I think you’ll have to see that –all along with all those brazen nekked 60’s ladies- with your own eyes to believe it.

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THE BEAST THAT KILLED WOMEN THUMBNAIL GALLERY

BLACK TIGHT KILLERS

1966/Director: Yasuharu Hasebe/Writers: Ryuzo Nakanishi, Michio Tsuzuki

Cast: Akira Kobayashi, Akemi Kita, Mieko Nishio, Bokuzen Hidari, Eiji Go, Toshizô Kudô, Chieko Matsubara, Hiroshi Nihon’yanagi, Kaku Takashina

AKA: Don’t Touch Me I’m Dangerous, Ore Ni Sawaru To Abunaize

Recently got in two films by Japanese director Yasuharu Hasebe. I watched Black Tight Killers first and later skimmed over Assault! Jack the Ripper! to just check the quality -if it is bad then I have to find another rip somewhere- and was fairly stunned at how different the two films were. Not only in style but content matter as well. Surely Black Tight Killers falls more into the category of films I prefer more and that is not to say the more graphic content matter of Assault! offended me in some way. It did not. But I am talking here of film style and presentation. A review of Assault! Jack the Ripper! will be made after I have watched all of the film but just from the few moments I watched I can tell it is more in the syle of the Pinky Violence films of the seventies -which along with the softcore Roman Porno films is what Nikkatsu wound up making almsot exclusively by the end of the 70′s- while Black Tight Killers is a stylized Nikkatsu Studios Yakuza type film which is paying homage in many scenes to the James Bond films of the time. Some of the scenes are similar to what Seijun Suzuki –for whom Hasebe worked as assistant director for eight years- was doing at the time though Suzuki seemed to prefer luscious  b/w for his noir/gangster films. I do have some earlier Seijun Suzuki films that are in color but, to be honest, have not got around to watching them though what I have seen of them look marvelous. Anyway for Black Tight Killer Yasharu Hasebe chose not only to work in color but in a bright and lurid style of color that is reminiscent of some of Mario Bava’s work during the 60’s. Black Tight Killers has been compared to Bava’s 1968 Danger Diabolik and not without good reason though Black Tight Killer’s predates Danger Diabolik by a couple years so it could hardly have been influenced by Bava’s film. Both films have a comic book feel to the look and feel. Both films are lit rather garishly to say the least and both seem to be inspired by the Sean Connery James Bond films as far as the use of life saving secrets gadgets go. Of course Danger Diabolik was actually based a comic book character. I have actually read a couple reviews that said the lighting and photography of Black Tight Killers is horrible and I am at a complete lose as to what the hell these folks are talking about. And before moving on another element of the film that reminds me of Bava’s superb work of the 60’s is Hasebe’s use of how to stage and frame a shot. The technical word is mise-en-scène and there is some dispute over what the term actually refers to. I tend to keep things simple and define at as the total visual aspects of a scene. This includes the lighting and all props and placements of the objects in the scene. Bava –as an art director and cinematographer himself- understood this in his early films. I have only seen one complete Hasebe film –but have other lined up for downloading soon- and am not qualified to comment on those films at the moment but I can say I love the visual style of Black Tight Killers.

Before going into the film and bombarding my readers with spoilers out the wazhoo I want to mention it stars leading man Akira Kobayashi whose charisma, acting ability and dashing good looks holds the film’s story together during some pretty weak moments. As I mentioned a couple posts back when I posted a video of the groovy title sequence Kobayashi sang the theme song as well. I want to find some of the Wandering Guitarist and Rambler series of films where he plays, I guess, a wandering/rambling guy with a guitar and gets into all sorts of adventures. In fact the title song for Black Tight Killers translates as Don’t Cry Drifter and must be some reference to these earlier films since his gainfully employed photo-journalist character Daisuke Hondo in Black Tight Killers hardly seems like a rambling drifter to me. But Kobayashi adds a James Bond type of flair to the character that he plays straight and serious to good effect for the most part. Now the film does have a few problems in the story department but much of it is done tongue in cheek –I hope- and so it never really falls apart the way films that take themselves too seriously do when things begin to get confusing or absurd.

The story follows photographer Hondo on his return to Tokyo from Vietnam where he worked as a war photographer. On the plane he falls for stewardess Yoriko (Chieko Matsubara – who had previously played along Kobayashi in three Seijun Suzuki films making them somewhta of a team by this time) and pursues her in the why men always pursued women in films from the 60’s which amounts to nothing short of felony stalking these days. He refuses to take no for an answer as far as dinner goes –and women in these older flicks love it when a guy makes all their decisions for them and never hear the word no- and later they are in a ritzy night club. Hondo is soon dancing with Yoriko and compliments on her on how well she holds her liquor. Men in these old movies like women who have drinking problems it seems. The evening takes a turn for the sinister when Yoriko runs from the restaurant in fear that she is being followed. Hiondo chases her outside and soon finds himself in the midst of a violent confrontation between black leather clad females and what appears to gangsters. They appear to be gangsters because they dress well but look ugly and make scowling facial expressions all the time. The girls kill the man by stabbing him in the back and then setting up Hondo for the crime after they have thrown some hi-tech spy weaponry his way. And that would be bubble gum in his eyes. The plot suddenly gets rather convoluted and best to just go along for the ride rather than try to figure it all out. His American friend Lopez –who is totally white and not Hispanic- helps to bail him out of the frame-up using his perfect Japanese. In fact there are lots of big Americans in the film and they all seem to be in league with the Yakuza or up to no good. I have read that Hasebe seems to take an unkind look at the American occupiers of Japan in many of his films and the negative effects they had on Japanese culture. Hey but they should have thought of that before they began WWII right! And the sexily clad Black Tight Killers are in the middle of it all. They are a group of go-go dancers from Okinawa who have come looking for the same thing the Yakuza are looking for; information leading to a fortune in gold that Yoriko’s uncles knows the location of. But he was killed in the war and left a clue somewhere to be found and figured out. It becomes a race between the Black Tight Killers and the Yakuza to get their hands on Yorika and find the location of the gold that she has no clue about. In the middle of all this Hondo is trying to pursue a relationship with Yoriko who constantly being kidnapped and re-kidnapped. While, he is serious about Yoriko –telling a friend that she is special and that she may be the one- this does not stop him from doing the dirty with one of the Black Tight Killers… and hell, who can blame him. Although the seduction is actually a trap set by one of the girls so she wrap her thighs around him and lock him into place while pinching s pressure point on his neck to get information out of him. But it still looks fun.

And now some word about the Black tight Killers themselves. Some reference is made by someone where in the film that they must be ninja trained. And that may well be though we never find out for sure. Not only can they adroitly use the traditional ninja weapon of bubble gum to blind an adversary but they are equally skilled in slinging vinyl records as shurikens and ordinary tape measures become a lethal tool in their capable hands. They are also able to hit exploding golf balls that do not explode when struck byt golf clubs when when they impact with office doors. But one big problem with the lovely gals is that after they ruthlessly stab one guy in the back with a switchblade they suddenly start dying off with relative ease at the hands of the Yakuza. One by one they die off and for the most part in the arms of Hondo where they exchange some sweet words before the heroine succumbs. After a couple die Hondo mutters how she was a “nice girl”. What? Nice girls? They just stabbed a Yakuza in the back earlier over gold. The death scenes are a trifle corny to say the least in particular one scene where a girl is shot in the back and falls over a stair railing several floors high. She lands with a splat but manages enough life to not only say some sweet words to Hondo but to appropriately cover her nipples with cupped hands before she dies. Now that is Japanese modesty at it best. another problem I had with the Black Tight Killers is that I got confused as to which girl was which most of the time. In fact this might not sound PC but I bet I am not the only one out there who has this problem at times. In most Asian pictures I have a hard time telling one character from another. Unless the character stands out like Akiro Kobayashi does I start getting bewildered as to who is now talking to who and especially with female character who all dress the same and have the same hairstyle. And I want to tell you something, I live in China and I know for a fact that Chinese people have the same problems! They often cannot tell one female character from the other themselves especially when it comes to the newer, mainstream films where all the ‘good’ females have the same sort of overly innocent, doe-eyed look anymore. Women do not have to look like a manga cartoon character okay. But I degress and this post is not really about newer Asian cinema which I rarely enjoy the way I do the stuff from the 50′s to the 70′s. And one more issue; the subs for this film do not make solving these problems -like who the hell is who- any easier. While readable in most areas they are white and, as I understand it, burned into the original print.  Meaning they can never be edited. So when the background is white you simply cannot read the subs. But I tend to not worry too much about these trifles in a film like this and some consternation is part of the package.

The film, as I said, seems to be paying homage to the James Bond films of the time and one scene in particular seems lifted right out of 1964’s Goldfinger. In the memorable scene from the opening of Goldfinger Jill Masterton (played by Shirley Eaton) is spray painted gold and dies from suffocation as her skin pores are all closed up. Does seem like this is a bit of a scientific error and people would die of suffocation so long as they could still breathe through their nose and mouth but they could die of  excessive heat exhaustion from not being able to sweat any longer, though it would take a couple days perhaps for this to happen. In any case it is a neat idea for a spy film and it is recreated in Black Tight Killers when the Yakuza begin to spray paint Yoriko unless she gives them the information they seek. The deal is she still has on her bikini top and bottom so she would hardly be covered head to toe in spray paint. But the scene and the following conflict with what’s left of the Black Tight girls and the Yakuza mobsters is another vehicle for Hasebe to go a little crazy with the lights, colors and camera work. In one part a ganster is in front of cans of paint that spew forth bright primary colors of blue and red when bullets hit them. Yoriko’s body is covered in paint but she is placed in front of a wall of multi-colored hues that was used for testing spray paint. The fight sequence is exceptional, as are most in the film, and the image of Hondo walking around with a spray gun as flame thrower is as powerful as any image of a  gunfighter in a Sergio Leone film.

The film ends up with all the Black Tight Killers dead as far as I can tell and the white guys being the real bad guys. If we can learn any lesson from the film –as Hondo certainly did- it is do not close your eyes for a girl when she asks to, especially when you just confessed to having slept with a slinky ninja femme fatale. Of course be sure to tell it was only one time. That way she only knocks out a few of your teeth. The film has me more than a little interested in  seeing more of Nikkatsu’s Yakuza Eiga (gangster films) from this time period, but I doubrt most will be as light hearted and fun as this one. It is a delight to watch scene to scene and it is not crucial to try and follow all the action and plot twists. I guess next I will be checking out Assualt! Jack the Ripper! but somehow I feel I will comparing it to this one, the way I compared Bava’s 70’s films like Shock to his 60’s masterpieces like Planet of the Vampires and Black Sabbath. I always get the feeling when I see these latter type films that it is a sign of a visionary losing creative control and power to the studio that needs to turn a profit. Hey, you gotta make a buck to survive, right? But I haven’t seen the film yet and will get back, eventually, after I do. For now I will savor the good taste left in my mouth by Black Tight Killers.

]]> http://uraniumcafe-the.com/2010/07/10/yasuharu-hasebes-1966-stylized-spy-thriller-black-tight-killers/feed/ 0 http://uraniumcafe-the.com/2010/07/10/yasuharu-hasebes-1966-stylized-spy-thriller-black-tight-killers/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/uraniumcafe-the/jQDo/~3/u37INRsT6bw/ http://uraniumcafe-the.com/2010/07/04/jim-sterankos-horror-covers-for-marvel-comics/#comments Sun, 04 Jul 2010 12:04:31 +0000 uranium.cafe@yahoo.com (Uranium Willy) http://uraniumcafe-the.com/?p=10265

While I am working on my post for Black Tight Killers thought I would share these incredible Jim Steranko covers he did for some of Marvel’s horror themed comics. He actually redid his own covers here*. The pen and ink covers at the bottom came first for Supernatural Thrillers. Later when Marvel released a line of b/w titles under Curtis Publishing he reworked the covers in a more painterly fashion for the short lived Masters of Terror. Thought it would be nice to lay the covers out side by side and let you compare them. The design and layout stays basically the same with some slight changes from the pen and ink works to the painted covers. I really miss this style of rendering. I am not knocking the comic books artists of today who have fantastic technical prowess. The contemporary stuff I see can be as awesome in many cases and yet it lacks some  simple magic that a man like Steranko possessed. Great works from one of the true legends of comic book history.

*IMPORTANT UPDATE: Tony from thedrawingsofsteranko.com cleared up the fact that the two magazines covers at the top were not in fact painted by Steranko but most likely by either Gray Marrow or Dan Adkins. I made the assumption they were drawn by Jim Steranko and I was wrong. Thanks Tony. They are still great covers as are the original comic books at the bottom that inspired them.

BLACK TIGHT KILLERS THEME SONG AND TITLES

Can any help me and tell me who the singer is on the great theme song here for Yasuharu Hasebe’s stylish spy thriller Black Tight Killers. I am working on a review of the film right now and expect it to be my next post. The music is by Naozumi Yamamoto but I am curious as to who the guy singing the song is. It is simply great to say the least. I loe the filma dn will save my comments and critiques for the post but the opening title sequence is so cool that I made a clip of it and uploaded to my Viddler account. It is certainly paying homeage to (or simply ripping off) the James Bond opening theme songs but who cares because this is so nice to look at. Japanese girls in 60′s style hairdos, go-go boots and mini-skirts look so darn cute even when brandishing a swithblade. Unlike the James Bond theme song sequences that are elaborate but end when the film begins the luridly stunning visual techniques of The Balck Tight Killer’s theme song continue throughout the movie. I hope to have that review up in a day or two. Damn, in fact I still have twenty minutes of the film to finish and I had better get on that first. Enjoy this sample for now of some nice Nikkatsu style go-go dancing action.

UPDATE: The singer on the song is actor Akira Kobayashi himself. The song’s title is Don’t Cry Drifter. Lyrics by Hiroko Sekino and music by Jun Kitahara. Got this from the hardcodes subs over opening credits of all places though was not easy as the subtitles are white they are all but impossible to read in some places as they blend in with the white background. I had to guess at a few letters but think I got it right.

My homemade video clip for the Joseph Losey film The Servant now has half a million hits at my Youtube site. Maybe you didn’t know I have a Youtube site but now you do. Please check it out. I have over 200 uploads there but I do not really do much in the way of posting bulletins or responding to comments. Sorry.  Lot of effort to maintain it via proxies from China where Youtube is blocked. But I was happy to get a little notice from the gents at Youtube along with some weird offer to make money off of the clip with Google Adsense. I am not interested in that at all and am saddened to see some sites I love now plastered with Google ads and Amazon.com stuff. No doubt I would slap a big ad on my site if it paid off in big bucks but I don’t think that will happen so I will not litter it with Adsense or Amazon stuff. Anyway, instead of making some offer to be a ‘partner’ with Adsense I would prefer if Youtube stopped blocking videos and sending me nerve-racking warnings because a nipple pops out of a fat girl’s blouse in a 60’s  exploitation trailer or because Bettie Page gets spanked, tied up, gagged  and thrown in a car trunk. Regardless I am happy this video is so popular but I disagree with some of the comments that slam Sara Miles. I love her.  She’s hot in that real snobby way. Like I would need some sort of freaky shoe fetish to get anything going with her at all. That will never happen but let an old man dream okay. My link to the original post is here and it is a great film I have seen several times and will maybe re-watch again here shortly. I am of course including the award winning video here. The quality is pretty poor I see now and I could probably do it better these days since I am monkeying with the more advanced Sony Vegas 8. This meager experiment was done using ULead 10 and Windows Movie Maker and I remember having lots of problems as it was my first experiment in making clips from videos.  For nostalgia’s sake watch at the very end and there is a little advertisement clip promoting my website way back when the URL was different.  History in the making my dear readers.

SARA MILES AND JAMES FOX GET DOWN AS ONLY

THE REPRESSIVE 60′s BRITISH MIDDLE CLASS CAN

IN JOSEPH LOSEY’S THE SERVANT

TORTURE GARDEN

1967/Director: Freddie Francis/Writer: Robert Bloch

Cast: Jack Palance, Burgess Meredith, Beverly Adams, Peter Cushing, Maurice Denham, Barbara Ewing, Robert Hutton, Michael Ripper

I remember the first Amicus film I ever saw was Tales from the Crypt on late night TV. I had always been intrigued by the film’s poster art which I saw on one of the issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland. That film and Vault of Horror typify the Amicus approach to many of their pictures as they were patterned after the EC comics of the same name. There are usually four or maybe five stories linked together in some fashion and sometimes featuring a host. In the case of Torture Garden the host is the sinister sideshow carny Dr. Diablo played to the hilt by Burgess Meredith. This sort of story telling –called portmanteau- was certainly not invented by Amicus and probably goes back to the 1945 film Dead of Night. Of course there is the classic Black Sabbath from 1963 by Mario Bava, one of my all-time favorite films, with three supernatural yarns woven together by host Boris Karloff. But the format would become practically synonymous with Amicus though they did produce feature length films as well. Some of their excellent feature films included the atmospheric City of the Dead, The Beast Must Die and At the Earth’s Core. It can be easy to think that you’re watching a Hammer film when watching an Amicus production. The style is often visually similar –though the Amicus stories and settings are less Gothic than Hammer’s– and often the cast and crew included many Hammer notables. Like Hammer Amicus was a British production company though it was founded and ran by two Americans, producer Milton Subotsky and screenwriter Max Rosenberg. Torture Garden lacked Christopher Lee –a decision made by the American producers who felt he did not have box-office power and replaced him with Jack Palance– but was capably directed by Oscarwinning cinematographer and Hammer director Freddie Francis. Francis also directed the first Amicus portmanteau Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors as well as Taled from the Crypt. Hammer institution Michael Ripper has a small but vital role and the film’s final and best story features Peter Cushing. And if you read the credits –like I do looking for some familiar name  in the music or make-up department- you will see that the film’s score was composed by James Bernard who did some of the best Hammer soundtracks. In fact during the 60’s it is hard to find a good Hammer film that Bernard did not score.

But for me the thing that seemed to make the Amicus portmanteau style films famous is also the thing that sort of annoyed me a little, even as a kid. One problem I have with the way the stories are told is that the stories have no real connection to one another. Each is a totally separate story that does not really tie into the other tales in any way. When the film is over there is nothing that rings all the short episodes together into some sort of climax. They are all literally done in a multiple story comic book style. The only thing that supplies some sort of continuity to the tales as a whole is the people featured in the stories are the same actors whose characters are brought together in the narrative section. I guess that is a small quibble and I just wanted to get it out or my system. Torture Garden is penned by Robert (Psycho) Bloch and they could certainly have gotten a weaker screenwriter.  The dialog is okay and Burgess Meredith seems to get the best lines and eschews them with diabolical glee. On most of the posters Jack Palance gets top billing but during the narrative sections he does nothing but fill his pipe with tobacco and grin. Of course a Jack Palance grin is loaded with more meaning than any soliloquy by Hamlet. But Palance’s performance is a treat in this one and he has not done more talking and emoting in a film since 1955’s The Big Knife (my review here). But I will get to that in a moment. Let’s take a look at exactly what is going on in The Torture Garden. The story takes place at a carnival where some patrons to Dr. Diablolo’s -oh and in case some of you don’t know, Diabolo is Spanish for the Devil. Duh! Right? I think the film makers were actually banking on the fact some viewers would not know this and therefore not have the ending telegraphed in the first five minutes- are invited to an after show viewing of the good Dr.’s private collection of horror items. Though skeptical of the five pound admission fee the group go into the back and there find the figure Atropos, the Greek goddess of destiny who wove men’s fortunes from her skein of life in one hand and her silver shears in her other. And thanks to Wikipedia you too can become an expert in Greek mythology. Atropos actually did not spins men’s destinies on her own. She was one of the three Moirae, the sisters of fate. Her sister Clotho spun the fabrics which Atropos wove from and Lachesis measured and cut the threads. It might have been better to have all three of the Fates in Dr. Diabolo’s private chamber but we are stuck with only Atropos who does all the work. She si supposed to be a wax figure but you can see the actress breathing on several occasions.  Different members of the small group are to stare into the shiny shears and see a ‘memory of the future’ and view a story that involves the actor but as a different character. The stories seem to revolve, loosely, around a theme of greed in one form or another.

There are four stories in Torture Garden. They do not tie at the end of the film in any way –as far as I can tell- and exist as separate short stories that different people experience while hypnotized by Atropos’s shears. Two stories are pretty good, one is average and one is filler at best. The first story is a retelling of a Robert Bloch short story called Enoch in which a brain tumor, possibly, controls the lead character’s actions. In the film the tumor is replaced by a black cat. Michael Bryant play the greedy and calculating Colin Willaims who is out to get his hands on his Uncle’s secret treasure. He will let nothing stop him including a little murder. The treasure however is guarded over by a scraggly black cat who calls himself Balthazar (warning!) and in exchange for allowing Michael to pilfer the treasure all he asks for in return is that Michael kill some people once in a while so kitty can have some human brains for a snack. I my opinion this is the average story. Not special or surprising but it looks nice in the director hands of Freddie Francis who coaxes all he can from the story.

The next story is a little better and features Robert Hutton (The Slime People, Trog, Invisible Invaders –click links for my reviews-) and Beverly Adams. Adams plays Carla Hayes who wants nothing other than to be a success in Hollywood. She finds her opportunity when she meets the ‘ageless’ and perennially popular actor Bruce Benton (Hutton). Benton is part of a secret society of Hollywood types who have been behind the scenes for longer than seems possible and she wants in. Benton is against it but in the end we have to be careful of what we wish for as we just might get it.

The next story is the weak link in the chain and could have been left out as far as I am concerned and the other stories could have been made a little longer or another tale all together put in. Pretty Barbara Ewing plays reporter Dorothy Endicott who interviews reclusive classical pianist  Leo Winston (John Standing). Endicott falls in love with Winston but has to contend with the jealous Euterpe (the Greek Muse of music). The weird thing is that Euterpe is Winston’s piano and no matter how you try, even with Freddie Francis directing, a piano chasing a kill around a room is simply not scary. Not sure how the greed theme –which I may be projecting into the movie myself- works in with this story.

The best is wisely saved for last. Jack Palance plays Edgar Allan Poe collector Ronald Wyatt who becomes fixated with the collection of one Lancelot Canning (finely played by Peter Cushing). Seems some of the unpublished collection of Poe manuscripts  is written on paper with a watermark of 1966. Is it a hoax? Or has the master of the macabre cheated death and is alive and still writing in Canning’s basement? I think you can guess the answer if the story is too be interesting and supernatural. Both Palance and Cushing give the best performances of the movie of course and the segment is wisely placed at the end.

Maybe not the best from Amicus but certainly not the worst either. Eventually will get to their other films like Dr. Terror’s House of Horror, The House that Dripped Blood, Aslyum, The Crypt of Terror and Vault of Horror. But I think Torture garden is as a fine an introduction into the Amicus world as any of these other films.

Click on the album cover above to get to the original post featuring the complete seventeen track version of Goblin’s Zombi (Dawn of the Dead) original sountrack. Tracks are joined to make three longer -but easier for me to deal with- files. A couple  tracks had some technical issues and had were uloaded separately. I probably could have solved the problem but just wanted to get this stuff up. Still have to update my Jimmy Page Death Wish II OST and the Sream for Help OST by John Paul Jones then I am pretty much caught up with all my old audio files that went belly up when my last ‘free’ hosting service deactivated them for no reason. The fielsa re hosted now through my site and as long as I make my payments once a year they will be available to the needy public.

Note from Uranium Willy:

QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE

1958/Director: Edward Bernds/Writers: Charles Beaumont, Ben Hecht

Cast: Zsa Zsa Gabor, Eric Fleming, Dave Willock, Laurie Mitchell, Lisa Davis, Paul Birch, Patrick Waltz

Producer of many cheesy sci-fi yarns Walter Wanger had just finished serving a four month prison sentence for shooting his wife’s (Joan Bennet) suspected lover in the leg and crotch – only four months since he successfully pleaded temporary insanity -when he began to put together this project based on a story by Ben Hecht. Hecht’s original story was more of a farce but Wanger wanted it the story to be more serious and turned the production over to Ben Schwalb. Schwalb had worked for Sam Katzman on some Bowry Boy episodes and director Edward Bernds  had done some of those Bowry Boy films and some Three Stooges as well. I guess that is way Queen of Outer Space is sort of an odd little story at best. Many of the props and costumes seem to be left-overs from other sci-fi films – Forbidden Planet, World Without End, Flight to Mars – and the actors are playing it pretty straight but it is a cheese fest from the get go.

The film follows a story line that had already become familiar in previous sci-fi films of  the early 50′s – Cat Women of the Moon, Missile to the Moon (see my reviews at the link), Abbot and Costello Go to Mars, Fire Maidens from Outer Spce and others I will get around to here one day – and that is an adventure built around a group of male astronauts stranded on a planet of beautiful Amazon type women. The women are usually sexually frustrated and really seem to like Earthmen from the USA the best. Crew includes Eric Fleming and Paul Birch and the queen is Laurie Mitchell and her rival is prima donna Zsa Zsa Gabor. Story has it that Gabor was so difficult to work with that Ben Schwalb wound up in the hospital from stress and ulcers. The story’s action takes place on Venus -often the number choice for space amazon adventures – and there is a great spider in the cave sequence that usually accompanies these space maiden films. The color is nice and while the story drags for the most part it is worth the moments when the dialog gets really strange and to see the maidens drooling over the earth guys. The scene at the end where a flock of vivacious and nubile Venusian girls are pawing all over an ecstatic Paul Birch – as egg-head Professor Konrad – sums it all up. Fans of cheesy sci-fi, like myself, will love it. Others may be a bit confused by it all.

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