Beginning this on June 26th and hope it can be completed by the 29th and was I successful? EDIT: Yes I was and did this in one day which had to be a record for me! This is a slightly different post than usual for this could be the first post ever without any reviews for a Japanese or Korean drama and movie nor feature any actress or Idols(!) but there will be three countries featured today. There's also a pair of insane films I'll discuss very briefly, now and again have to have a wild period and do more of them than you would think but rarely mention what those out-of-this-world movies are. This is also just the second time I've ever led off a post with a non-Japanese or Korean woman, the other time was last October. That was for a special Halloween post and the honoree was Emily Perkins who is a Canadian actress and reviewed two of her "Ginger Snaps" horror flicks. While a few readers may have heard of her how many know about today's woman who is featured at the top and she's from the United Kingdom.
Very little changes in this series which ran for twenty seasons from 1955-75 and it's the longest running Western of all time. There was one major change for this season as Dennis Weaver left the show after the ninth season and for a while he was my favorite in the show. He portrayed Marshal Dillon's sidekick Chester Goode who at times could be a goofball but did save the Dillon's life a few times and he was a very likable character. So isn't Quint Asper who was played by Burt Reynolds, he left the show after this tenth season but was never quite a major character to me. A newbie added in during the ninth season was Festus Haggen who would remain until the show's end, he too is a likable guy but can be a bit irritating at times. What really makes the show stand out are the guest actors and this series used to attract many known stars, many had already been popular before their guest spots. There's never been a reason to recap the episodes, one reason is there's too many of them. Another is that most episodes follow a certain theme which is usually of Marshal Dillon being the hero but he's never been one to gloat, he was hit almost fifty times by a bullet in this series but survived them all!
Above is the box set I have of the series and is it the largest one of all time for a TV show? There's 143 discs that have 635 episodes, that adds up to be a little over 440 hours and at $185 it was still a deal considering how much entertainment there is! Of course I recommend this series to no end and do know the price is high but even so it could take you a year to finish it up, besides the 440 hours of the episodes there's also some special features. Next up is season eleven and that was the final one to air in Black and White, by that time I'll have viewed over 410 episodes! So that will be such a shock to my system when I view an episode in color and have no idea how that will turn out, won't know until September(?). This season only had a ranking of 27th as far ratings go but three seasons later had a resurgence and was in the top ten for another five seasons, it easily could have lasted longer than twenty seasons. After the pics is a scene from the season that features Festus and Doc Adams who was the only one besides the Marshall to appear in all twenty seasons. The saloon's name is the Long Branch and that was a real bar in Dodge City at the end of the 1800's.... beer was only a nickel back then!!!!
Each time I look at a "Gunsmoke" season also add in a few extra photos of Amanda Blake who played Miss Kitty in the series. She was there for nineteen seasons but took off #20, if the show wasn't cancelled she would have made a return for season 21. I include Amanda photos as she was such a beauty and an underrated one at that, you never hear her name mentioned talking about sexy women of the 1950's/60's but to me Amanda gets a grade of an A+++++++!!!! Above in that second photo the man is Peter Graves who was a very popular actor, he's most known for the 1966-73 series "Mission Impossible". Not many may now it but he was the brother of James Arness who played Marshal Dillon in "Gunsmoke", Arness is very close to the actual family name. After these fabulous photos is another video from the series and of course this one features Amanda aka Miss Kitty.
Won't be spending too much time talking about the first two films but this genre is one you'll be seeing again in future posts and these kinds of movies are my guilty pleasures! The golden age of bizarre, softcore, roughies, no holds barred, noir(!),slasher and ultra sleazy movies were from 1965 to 1972 and the films had all of those things! They may not be suitable for the family but these kinds of movies are so darn fascinating and interesting, there's rarely a dull moment! Michael and Roberta Findlay were a married couple who were the King and Queen of these kinds of films, they did get divorced in 1974 but continued working as a team up until Michael's death in 1977 which was from a helicopter crash in midtown Manhattan! Michael would often be the star of these films and always played some sort of deranged man, he also was the director and writer. Roberta also was a co-writer and also the camera operator along with doing narration. I've seen about a dozen of their films and even if if that bizarre and sleazy genre isn't your cup of tea some these are worth checking out and there were many other hundreds if not thousands of films similar to this pair but none could top the Findlay's! This was the first of the 'Flesh' trilogy, Michael played the main character of Richard Jennings who was a salesman of small weapons. He lived in NYC with his very seductive wife Claudia who hated his guts so why did an extremely alluring woman marry such a man? Michael had a business trip to Boston and would be traveling there by bus but when he got to the station realized he had forgotten some key items so dashed back to his apartment to grab them but what a surprise was waiting for Richard who was slightly normal at the beginning of the film. EDIT: Once again I almost forgot to give the movie's title which is "The Touch of her Flesh" and was released in the Spring of 1967.
Within five minutes of Richard leaving arriving at the apartment was Claudia's lover Stephen and of course within no time the pair were rolling around in ecstasy! Shortly after Richard made his return and to his shock what he witnessed was his once frigid wife having the time of her life and that sent him into such a frenzy! Which was unnoticed by Claudia and Stephen, Richard flew out of the apartment and ran like a madman down the streets of NYC. Soon he was hit by a car and the next time we saw him was three months later at a seedy hospital(?) where he gave the doctor a fake name. The accident made Richard blind in the right eye and wearing a patch did make him look look much more sinister. He was also in a wheelchair but should be back to walking normal in two months, his wife Claudia never knew what happened to her husband and presumed he was dead but Richard will get his revenge against the cheating woman. So wouldn't many other females for because of the accident and seeing his wife in bed with another man warped Richard's brain so badly, now he was out to kill as many impure woman as possible! Which wasn't easy for him as Richard was stuck in a wheelchair but the killings we saw him do were quite unique, two are below. The first was the killing of a Go-Go dancer, Richard sent her roses and one pricked her skin but unknown to her it was a slow reacting poison, while on stage it kicked in and she died in front of the audience. The second was at a strip club and from his wheelchair Richard shot a poison dart during her performance so she too died on stage.
Don't want to go on too long with this review, this and the next film were an opportunity to do something different. The film was just 78 minutes and most of these softcore, slasher, noir, roughie and bizarre films were which to me is a perfect length. By the end of the film Richard had found his wife Claudia hiding out with her best friend at a small town north of NYC. By then she knew Richard was alive and he trapped her in the woods, dragged her to a run down studio and used a table saw to dismember her! But Richard forgot about Claudia's best friend Sally who was able to grab his crossbow and after a chase through this studio/warehouse shot Richard in the chest with an arrow. That's in the bottom screenshot and he did fall to his death but did this Jason Voorhees like madman truly die? Well, that will be answered in the next review and while these kinds of films aren't for everyone they have a certain charm(?) about them and are always interesting though hard to use the word enjoyable. After these screenshots is a trailer which isn't too sleazy and worth checking out, after that is another shortish review which is for the second movie of the trilogy.
That woman in the pic right above is Linda Boyce and she may have been my favorite actress in these kinds of films. She was so darn attractive and did have some classiness about her, she quit acting in 1972 and opened up an agency for adult video actresses but after that that not sure what happened with her. Will make this a shortish review too and the only continuations from the first movie are Michael Findlay as the ultimate deranged plus the movie was beyond bizarre which usually means no dull moments. But there were a few in this movie and of all things it was because strippers that were on stage for an audience took too long with their act! That first 'Flesh' film from 1967 was very successful and there was a huge audience for these kinds of films up until 1972. So two sequels were made and those two did a brisk job at the box office, there were no more Richard Jennings movies after the trilogy but Michael Findlay did continue to play such bizarre characters and he was so darn good in these films.
Richard appeared to have died from a crossbow at the end of the above movie but when it became such a success of course he had to be revived! Which happened the following year(1968) when this film was released, Richard will always wear an eyepatch and that does make him look somewhat sinister and disturbed. Richard is still hell bent on cleaning society of women who are so cheating and dirty to his eyes, the killing continued on in this 75 minute movie "The Curse of her Flesh". Richard is back in NYC and owned a beatnik club for orators, when they weren't performing on stage were strippers such as Linda above who was truly such a looker. Also in this film was another of my fave actresses from the time Uta Erickson who moved to America from Norway at a young age. She retired from acting in 1972 and no one knows what became of her, she often starred with Linda in these Findlay movies and think they were very close friends. With Michael's wife Claudia dead his next act of revenge will be to eliminate her lover Stephen, the man in the mustache below. But along the way Michael did stay in killing shape(!) by dicing and slicing a few other women but the action seemed to be much slower than the first and third films, some of the scenes at the beatnik club could have been shortened.
Stephen is about to be married and his soon-to-be-wife Paula claimed to be a virgin which is why he wants to marry her! But was Paula telling the truth(?) as Richard had sent the couple a home recording he claimed he made of Paula doing some very provocative around her house alone and also with others.... it made me wonder how could Richard have made such a recording???? Stephen didn't think that way and in a rage killed Paula, a few moments after that appearing was a crazed Richard to slay the man his wife had been sleeping with. Stephen tore it out of his NYC apartment with Richard hot on his tail and this ending was the best scene of the film. The pair ended up grappling on the back of a truck and those are the bottom screenshots, it appeared Stephen had the upper hand but Richard pulled out a machete and the stabbing of Stephen ended this very off the wall film, all movies by the Findlay's are truly bizarre. But they're also quite intriguing and though the first and last of the trilogy were better movies this was still worth a watch, have watched these films at least 3-4 times. After the screenshots is a short video from the film and was the only one I could find on YT.
Now back to normalcy, every now and again a person needs to do something outrageous but those above films are honestly worth checking out if you have an open mind. My top movies are the ones from the 1950's/60's that are in Black and White, none from Japan for today and in July will devote at least one post that will just feature older Japanese films. Horror and thriller movies are my faves, also from that era that I love viewing are sci-fi flicks and this one is a combination of all three. "Monstrosity" aka The Atomic Brain is an American movie that was released in 1963, hard to believe I had never seen this before and I knew none of the cast going in. Most films I view are in the 70-85 minute range, that way can view two in one sitting. This movie was just 64 minutes and that too is a length that I think is perfect as it leaves no time for filler and in the case of this movie it worked for at eighty minutes things would have dragged. The story was a very simple one yet complex for a scientist named Frank who is right above, all he had to do was create a way to transplant a brain of one human into another! Frank had never tried it on a human but he was successful with moving a dog's brain to a human, in this movie Frank twice used a cat for his transplants!
Hettie March was a wealthy woman who was in her seventies, she's always been a bitter person as she's felt the only reason others have wanted to be her friend is because of her riches. That included her current beau Victor who was in his fifties and did seem like a decent guy though probably just wanted her money! In the basement of Hettie's mansion is the lab of Otto Frank and what his future mission will be is to transplant Hettie's brain into the body of a young woman 25-30 in age. Sure there's been other films with the same story and Hettie never considered herself to be attractive so she wanted to be in a body where men would pay attention to her body figure instead of the figures in her bank account! Victor's assignment was to get Hettie such a woman, he's brought over three from Europe to America and one should be suitable. All won't be missed at home so their disappearances shouldn't be noticed for a while, you can see the trio below who all arrived at the airport together. In the middle screenshot below Nina is wearing a black hat, she was from Austria. Joining her was the tall and sizzling blonde Bea from England and rounding out the trio was Anita from Spain. The trio were whisked away to the mansion by Victor and over the next few days were under constant observation by Hettie who had to make sure her new body would be perfect! Anita was eliminated for she had a birthmark on her back but the scientist Frank used her body for an experiment and moved a cat's brain into Anita's! Who began to act like a cat and would pounce around on all fours, she fell off a roof to her death but before than had mauled out one of Bea's eyes and that didn't make Hettie happy as Bea was her choice for a body
Which meant that only Nina was left standing and she too was a very attractive woman, one that had been highly suspicious of Hettie and Victor. She had tried escaping twice but was caught by the mansion's Igor like creature Boris who is in the top screenshot. Don't know why Hettie wanted the operation done so quickly as she didn't have a terminal disease but the transplant happened shortly after Bea's eye was damaged, the film being 64 minutes long was another reason for the rushed ending. Hettie didn't know when to keep her mouth shut, before the procedure she began to badmouth the scientist Frank and in return he put Hettie's brain into his cat Xerxes! He released Nina who fled the mansion and Frank also blew his lab up so no one would ever know what kind of experiments he had been doing. Victor also met his death in the explosion but he had done something very important earlier that day as he transferred all of Hettie's riches to an account in the name of Nina. For Hettie thought she would be living in her body which of course didn't happen so in a slightly happy ending Nina has become filthy rich! But that cat Xerxes wasn't killed in the explosion and followed Nina to her home, it'll be impossible but now Hettie's goal will be to transplant her brain into a human's!!!! Watching the movie thought it was only so-so but when I write up a review, look at the screenshots and the trailer often my opinion changes and it did so for this film which wasn't a must watch but there's many worse ways to kill 64 minutes. A favorite B-Movie of mine is "Beast of Yucca Flats" that came came out six months prior to this film. This movie used much of the music from the Yucca film and that is one I highly recommend, bet I've viewed it fifty times!
Here's today's fourth film and there will be one more after this. The above movie at times had a cat become a bit important to the storyline, in this 1961 British film "The Shadow of the Cat" a feline is very key to the story and right above is the cat which was named Tabitha. This was the Barbara Shelley film mentioned in the intro and in 1957 she had the leading role of a another eerie film where a cat was a key character. That I will be reviewing soon and also her 1967 movie "Quatermass and the Pit" which for some odd reason I've never viewed but just got it a few days ago. Have done some theme posts for this 'My Current Watches' series but mainly for countries, horror films or Halloween. Have never done any for an actress so a Barbara Shelley tribute post would be one worth thinking about, I'd also possibly do one each for Reiko Ike and Junko Natsu who were two of my favorite Japan actresses from the 1970's. A goal for today was not to go longer than three paragraphs for the drama and five films for today, did so for the first four and I better for these last two! Barbara played the main role of Beth Venable but she didn't make her first appearance until the twenty minute mark, the film ran for 79 minutes. Following the screenshots is so helpful for the ones below are subbed and they go in order of the action. The older woman at the top is Beth's aunt Ella Venable and it was her only scene, she had been reading in her private study that was at the top of her old mansion.
Ella had her glasses off so couldn't tell who had entered her study, she thought it was her husband of thirty years Walter but instead it was the mansion's butler Andrew. Who quickly subdued Ella and strangled her to death, the only witness was Ella's beloved cat Tabitha! Andrew had been following the orders of Walter, also in on the crime was the cook/maid Clara. It seemed like a perfect crime for after Ella's death the trio buried her deep into the woods and who would ever find her body there? No one was what Walter was banking on and he even reported Ella's disappearance to the police inspector Rowles along with the reporter Michael who was an old flame of Beth's. But just before the pair arrived at the mansion to begin the investigation Andrew had told Walter and Clara about how the cat Tabitha had witnessed him killing Ella, should they be worried? Of course the answer should be NO but the trio became so paranoid which was noticed by the police and reporter, why should a cat frighten the three so badly? Coming up with an answer was Ella's favorite niece Beth who arrived at the mansion a few days after her aunt's death. Later on Beth told everyone that the reason Walter, Andrew and Clara were so frightened of the cat is because of how it reminded them of the crime they had committed and that feeling would be with them for the rest of their lives! That observation was made by Beth before the actual truth came out and she would have made for a fine detective, the trio felt the only way to end their madness was by killing Tabitha but that proved to be impossible. Walter even called in his brother and nephew to help out with killing the feline and that too proved to be unsuccessful.
One by one the trio died but of course the cat had nothing physical to do with the deaths, For instance Andrew fell into quicksand trying to throw Tabitha into a pond, Walter died from fright when seeing the cat but he did have a bad heart, Clara the cook was the third victim but actually fourth when you count Ella. Towards the end we finally learned why Walter ordered Andrew to kill his wife of thirty years and it was because of her will. Ella had changed it some months back and had left the mansion along with her money to Beth, Walter and the two servants would receive ZERO! Walter was able to create a fake will which wouldn't be contested as long as Ella was never found but the will was discovered at the very end. For Ella had hidden the will in her study and that proved Beth was the sole heir of her aunt's mansion and fortune but as the bottom screenshot shows Beth wants nothing to do with the place! In such an oddity Ella's body was found in the woods as the cat Tabitha led the police there so all in all it was a somewhat happy ending and the culprits got what they deserved! I probably didn't do this film justice with the review as I had to leave some details out but I though this was an excellent film, not a true horror movie but one that had a solid story along with much eeriness. A somewhat unknown group of films are British horror ones from 1955-70 and don't think I've ever seen a bad one, not that many are classics but most are with viewing. After the screenshots is a trailer for the movie, the quality of it is just so-so but it the trailer is quite good.
Now it's time for the finale and with five movie reviews this was one of the longer posts of this series but least no segment was over three paragraphs. No one knows why the posters said this film was banned in England for it wasn't, the movie was quite creepy and disturbing but there was so little violence yet the eeriness made up for that. A few posts ago reviewed the first ever Swedish movie I had ever watched, that was from 1965 and was titled "Nightmare". That was such a terrific and suspenseful movie so wanted to check out another in that thriller genre, "The Doll" from 1962 was my choice. The title has Doll but it was actually a life sized Mannequin and wonder if there's been any other horror or suspense films featuring one? Both movies were directed by Arne Mattson and he was a very respected director who did so many movies with a horror, suspense, thriller, bizarre, etc. theme though not many are easy to find in America. The lead role of Lundgren was played by Per Oscarsson who I had never heard of but what a superb job he did in this film. His character gave off such creepy and uncomfortable vibes so it couldn't have been an easy role to play. He was an actor for over sixty years and died in 2011 at the age of 83 in a house fire, he was in about 160 films! In this one Ocarsson played the character of Lundgren who worked for the Stockholm police as a night watchman. There were many others with the same position and it appears that back then the police were the security for Swedish stores and let's get to the mini review which will just be two paragraphs. But the screenshots are subbed so that should help make following the story easier.
Lundgren is no hero but did carry this 94 minute movie and was in almost every scene. Stockholm at the time had over 800,000 residents as he says in the first screenshot, Lundgren seemed like a decent man on the outside but what a mess he was inside. With loneliness being his biggest problem as he has no friends and bet he's never dated a woman though he is one of the city's best night watchmen. On one nightly round Lundgren noticed some mannequins on the floor and all of a sudden a sick thought popped into his mind, what if he brought one home? His plan did work as he called his office saying he saw some kids run off with a mannequin but couldn't nab them, with that he covered his tracks when it was reported missing. There's plenty of screenshots below of the mannequin, until the fifty minute mark it was a regular one that didn't talk or walk but that should have been a given! But slowly Lundgren began to imagine that the mannequin was truly alive and also in love with him, that's when the movie began to get ultra creepy and as mentioned it couldn't have been easy playing such an uncomfortable role. Lundgren lived in a boarding house and I thought he had a cool looking room, there were two other single people there along with a pair of small families. The landlady is in two screenshots below and her name was Mrs. Karlberg but lived alone, she's the woman with some burn marks on the right side of her face. She was attractive besides that and seemed to take a liking towards Lundgren who was too naive to notice her advances. When this mannequin came to 'Life' is when things went way south for Lundgren as he began to have conversations with his girl and the other tenants began to wonder what was up with this lonely man?
Lundgren did tell them he finally had a woman In his life and this led to an interesting short scene. One where a man asked Lundgren what his girl's name was, he replied that he didn't know for he had never asked her! The creepiness began to get even more bizarre and eventually Lundgren's secret was exposed due to him not turning his coffeepot off and a tenant needed to rush into his room! Needless to say the tenants were so dumbfounded that the quiet and meek Lundgren had fallen in love with a mannequin and he told his male neighbor he had never been happier! Later Lundgren even shot this man with his police pistol but only wounded the man who was such a lowlife but had tried talking some sense into Lundgren. At the end Lundgren did go off the deep end and smashed the mannequin to pieces, he sat there crying for he had killed the love of his life! Right after that Lundgren put the pieces into a sack and threw them in a nearby river but guess who was waiting for him when he returned home? Of course it was the Mannequin and that's her in the final screenshot but only Lundgren saw her and none of the other tenants did so his mind was so far gone at the end. When the mannequin did come to life think what it said was what Lundgren would have wanted someone to ask him if he truly did have a girlfriend and though uncomfortable bet incidents like that have taken place in real life. I would have loved to see what happened with Lundgren a few months later but a good movie always leaves you wondering, this was one movie that was so compelling and will be viewing it again. Also hope to find more Swedish films in this vein, below are plenty of screenshots from the film and also a video of the opening minute as there was no trailer on YT. Oooops, can't embed the video so here's the link to it and wonder why there was no official trailer as it is a known movie: The Doll opening scene
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