In the last week of September 1973 I saw at The Toho La Brea something called The Sword of Vengeance – Part 4, Baby Cart in Peril on a Japanese language double-bill (all prompted by a promising LA Times review by Kevin Thomas). The hero of this blood-soaked popular Japanese series, stoic, semi-mad father Ogami Ittō aka ‘Lone Wolf’ (Tomisaburô Wakayama), practically had my movie-going companion diving under the seats, as Ogami Ittō’s samurai sword turned hundreds into limbless, throbbing,…
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Ms .45 1981
Ms.45, despite an ad campaign that suggests a distaff Death Wish, is actually a reasonably competent, but hopelessly nihilistic, urban nightmare about a young woman driven bonkers after enduring two separate rapes in one day.
Mute Manhattan garment district worker Thana (Zoë Tamerlis, giving the best lead performance in an exploitation film of that year), who works for seemingly-gay but probably bi-lecherous Albert Sinkys, is yanked into an alley on her way home from the grocer, and is bent over…
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Targets 1968
One of the coolest aspects of Roger Corman’s legendary legacy, is the unique, capitalist in nature, investments/experiments, he’d assign to his young protégés. Corman felt if he was flying to a location to make one of his movies that offered unique visual opportunities (as opposed to most of his other movies that he just shot all around Los Angeles or Bronson Canyon), the most expensive part of the expenditure, was the airplane tickets to get the cast and the crew…
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I Escaped from Devil's Island 1973
Part of the legend of Martin Scorsese is the story of him screening his Roger Corman produced movie Boxcar Bertha (his first commercially produced theatrical feature) for his mentor John Cassavetes. However, despite the fact he acted in many of them (Devil’s Angels, Machine Gun McCain, The Incubus), Cassavetes had contempt for exploitation pictures. After seeing the film, John said to Scorsese, as nice as he could, “Kid you just spent a year of your life making a piece of…
