EDIT:
Adding this in last and sorry for the lack of posts this week, everything below had been written up before this paragraph. Had let you know in prior posts that I was feeling so horrible and my condition somehow became worse, it was such a struggle to even do this one post. But wanted to let you faithful readers know that I will try to do a post tomorrow, after that probably wouldn't have the next until Wednesday. Do have a lengthy examination on Tuesday and hope they can figure out my problem as I don't want a repeat of what happened in the Summer of 2023 when I had to spend four days in the hospital. Even if the posts are far and few between in the next week there's 9,100 other posts to check out but then again the leadoff woman should keep your attention for a while....
Still feeling a bit under the weather, actually much more than a bit but have been able to posts at the same rate as usual. However my energy level is so low and because of that posts are taking longer to do, started this on June 9th and it may take until the weekend to finish! One other reason for that is because I still have some things to watch, there's so many dramas and movies I need to view so it takes so long to make a decision. So as of June 9th wrapped up the second season of an American sci-fi show from the 1990's and have been making some headway into finishing up some other series. Then viewed a movie from Sweden and it's my first time ever seeing a film from that nation and it won't be my last one as it could be the top thing for this post! That got me thinking into having this be an 'International' post and will have something from at least five countries! Well, did say that Swedish movie could be the best thing for this post but then again is it possible to top the woman featured for today?!?!
EDIT #2: This is the final thing I'm writing up for this post(nope, added in the short intro) and didn't know what it would consist of besides the first TV show. This was an International Post as the TV series was from America, then have four films which are from Sweden, Italy, Mexico and Japan. The first three are horror/thriller movies with the Swedish film being the best of the trio and ended off with an action packed Japanese movie from 1974. Ended with that film mainly because the first three were B&W films and was starting to post too many of them so perhaps the next post should just feature color films but all will still be golden oldies.
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The mission for this space station is universal peace, the Earth Federation is in charge of the station though five other huge planets have a say in what happens. In year one there were a couple of smallish flareups but no wars started, can't say that continued on in the second season and because Babylon 5 was unable to prevent a massive war it's future could be in jeopardy. The being with some wildish hair above and below is Ambassador Mollari, he represents the evil Centauri planet. For thousands of years Centauri has been at war with too many other planets to count and often have come out on top. They are not a race who can be trusted and have never honored a treaty, with five episodes to go in this season they attacked the planet Narn for the second time in their history and overran those beings rather handily. The being on the left in the third photo above is that planet's ambassador G'Kar who has been one of my favorite characters and you had to feel sorry for him when his planet lost the war so quickly. The Centauri beings are not easy to work with and while Mollari had been an exception to the rule he's been showing his evil side and this war will continue on into season three. The new captain of Babylon 5 John Sheridan is siding with the Narn planet though that's not too popular with his superiors back on Earth and this new captain really made this second season so much better. Besides this war many other things have been going on but can't get to most of them, it is a long five year story so what took place in episode five of this season may be important again in season four.
What made this season better than the first were a few things such as the change in who led the Babylon 5 station. The stories have all been better too and this is a series you do need to start with the first episode or you may be lost. The biggest plus to me was the the alien character's roles became larger and more important, there was also a bit more action in outer space. In that third photo above the female in the middle is Ambassador Delenn from the planet of Nimbar. She transformed her body slightly so she could communicate better with humans and I really like her character. So doesn't Captain Sheridan and from what I gather the two may be on the path to having a relationship! So while there isn't enough space to explain things in more detail this series has become a favorite of mine, though there's a lot of action the main emphasis is on the stories and of so many alien races living together. Have been watching many other American shows so it may be two months before I view season three and as of now would recommend this series and as I said you do need to start from the very beginning. After the pics is a short video which is a blooper reel for the second season. I have the above boxset and while there were some interesting special features this blooper video wasn't included.
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A huge PLUS to this ongoing series is that I've gotten out of a negative rut which was of watching the same films over and over which at times is okay but needed to expand my horizons. Which I've been doing and glad I've taken some chances with foreign movies that I had never heard of such as this one. "Nightmare" or Nattmara is a 1965 Swedish horror/thriller movie and I enjoyed this so much just obtained another in the same vein from 1962 but it's often not so easy to find movies from smaller countries. The lead role belonged to the Swedish actress Ulla Jacobsson who was also an Austrian citizen via marriage. She was 36 in age when the film was released in 1965 and died at an early age of 53 in 1982 because of bone cancer. I had never heard of her before this movie nor of any of the other cast members who I thought all did a decent job. This was a 101 minute film and I can't believe how much took place in that amount of time! So much can't get to everything though as I've said often this series is for having brief looks at dramas and films, not to give a play by play account of all that took place.
For the Noir genre Black and White films works the best which is why I watch so many movies in that format, B&W really upped the creepiness in this film. Which opened up with a woman driving alone down a secluded road to Stockholm when she came upon a man lying face down and was he dead? NO for when the woman tried rolling him over the man grabbed the young woman by the neck and strangled her to death, then he proceeded to drag her limp body away. He soon checked at his notebook and to his fury the license plate was different from the car he was supposed to have stopped! The make of the car was a green Citoren, shortly after the botched murder driving by the scene was his intended target May(Maj) Berg, she too drove the same type of car but because of the license plate we viewers knew May was the intended victim. The killer's name was Max which we never knew until the final minute, that's him in the last screenshot. Somehow May got a flat tire while waiting for the road to be cleared as the police were quick to respond to the crime, she was able to change it and in the process noticed the black notebook of Max lying there. When he escaped the scene Max dropped the book, in it was May's license plate number and this was the first of many mysteries for her. May did make it back to Stockholm and she lived with her doting husband Peter, least at first he did seem devoted. The pair live below May's aunt Anna, the trio own a elite designer boutique which was started by May's mother decades ago and when May was about ten in age, she's now 35, her mother had killed herself. Business seems to be going well and the company seems to just cater to the extreme wealthy, May and Peter live in a ritzy apartment with aunt Anna living above them and the small company is in May's apartment.
Peter isn't too devoted as he is having an affair with one of the designers named Pia, early on I became so leery about this man and for a change my suspicions were correct! I'm over halfway through with the mini recap yet at this point only about twenty minutes of the film had elapsed so will just give some key details and highlights. This film did remind me a bit of the 1959 classic "The Tingler" and bet many other movies have had this plot. In that other movie a man named Ollie tried driving his wife to the brink of insanity so that she would kill herself and it worked! After that bungled attempt by Max to murder May her life began to become so creepy and eerie, it was during this time we discovered May's undevoted husband Peter was behind this scheme, GREED was his motive and that's such a common theme in movies. First he stole that notebook May found at the murder scene that opened the film, he had Max rough up May at her aunt Anna's apartment and there were a few other minor incidents which began to drive May a bit batty! No one believed her crazed tale and one reason was because she loved to imbibe in the spirits, was this story because of her over imbibing? NO and one person did believe in May whose name was Storm and was an investigator for the Stockholm police. He too was quite leery of her husband Peter, if May and her aunt Anna were to perish he would become the sole owner of this lucrative fashion company. Storm had planted a bogus story in the newspapers that May had seen the actual killer but that didn't work for May told Peter about the ruse never thinking he was behind this devious plot. Storm is in four screenshots below, he has the blondish(light) hair and even when this ruse bombed he still believed May's story and how could he prove that Peter was the mastermind behind the plan to murder his wife, Storm didn't know of Max until the very end.
Final segment and Peter's patience was wearing thin, he wanted to see May dead along with her aunt Anna so he could inherit the fashion company. His plan was to then quickly sell it and skip town with Pia which came so close to being successful. In the final scene Peter had slipped a few pills into May's drinks which made her quite incoherent, while that was going on upstairs Max had cornered aunt Anna and killed her, the timing had to be precise. For Anna needed to be killed first so May would own 100% of the fashion company, then when she was killed Peter would be the lone owner. With Anna out of the way Peter brought May to the bathtub and in her state didn't realize her husband had slit her wrists! It would be a quick death but during this time the investigator Storm had tried contacting May, with no success him and his troops raided May's apartment and if that had happened five minutes later there would have been no one to save as May did survive with so few seconds to spare! Peter was arrested and Storm had seen through the killer's plan of making the two deaths appear to be a murder-suicide, the identity of Max was finally revealed to the police and he's now a wanted man, that's how this compelling movie ended! All four movies I viewed for today were terrific but this will be the top one by far! Know I didn't do the film enough justice in 3 1/2 paragraphs but you now know the main details and plot of this film which I highly recommend if you're into thrillers with a creepy and intelligent atmosphere, this is easy enough to find. After these screenshots is a trailer for the film and what a rare video it is as some of the scenes weren't in the movie and wish they were as they do make the movie seem creepier than it was.
That bottom photo features this movie's female star who was Barbara Lass and I never knew of her until this film. She was so attractive and was 20/21 in age when the movie was filmed, like so many actresses in the West died at an early age which was 54 in 1995 and it was due to a brain hemorrhage. Continuing on with the 'International' theme this was an Italian movie that was released in November 1961 though it did feature a cast from Italy, England, Germany and Poland which was where Barbara hailed from though moved away at the age of eighteen. There were two 81 minute versions but the one I viewed was the 85 minute cut which everyone felt was the best though it certainly was no award winner. The next post for today is also a 'horror' flick though none of the three could be considered to be frightening. All three were a mix of horror, suspense, mystery and detective stories. I need to view more Italian movies and after America and Japan that country may have released more movies than any other place in the 1960's/70's. So many have a horror theme while Westerns and Spy movies were also popular so expect more Italian flicks in the future. Almost forgot to give the title of the film which is "Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory" though it's on an above poster.
The setting was probably England and 98% of the film happened at a girl's school. Not an elite one as it was a reformatory for older teens and at times wish it had been a 'skin flick'! New on campus was a professor/doctor named Julian Olcott, a very smart man yet had a dark background as he had been involved with a shady occult death but was cleared by the police. Olcott had been doing research on Werewolves(!) and a female had died but it was ruled an accident. The headmaster at this girl's school was named Swift, he had an interest in werewolves which is why he brought Olcott onboard but we didn't know about Swift's condition until the end. There had seemingly never been a werewolf attack at this school but there was shortly after Olcott's hire, a girl named Mary had been killed by a half human, half wolf! We viewers saw the killing but the police are trying to deny a monster had anything to with the gruesome attack. Prior to her death Mary had been meeting with a benefactor of the school named Alfred Whiteman and the two were having an affair, he was in his late forties while Mary was seventeen! But she was getting compensated for the trysts and Whiteman was so worried for he had written some love letters to Mary, if they were to be discovered he would be ruined but was hoping her death would mean those letters would remain unknown. But not for long as Mary's best friend had been Priscilla(Barbara Lass), the pair were even good friends before reform school. After the killing Priscilla found out about the letters and tried to show them to the director Swift but they were stolen before that, not too much horror in this film but a lot of eeriness.
Will try to wrap this up quickish as there's two more of these I need to write up and am so far behind my schedule. Another killing soon happened which was of Whiteman's wife Sheena who had met up with Priscilla and did reveal Mary may have been killed by her husband due to the affair he had been having. Shortly after that meeting Sheena was slain though we never did see the killer's face which had been a human and how she died was by being injected with a vial of poison. At this point there were three suspects, the man Whiteman because of him needing to keep the affair with Mary under wraps. Then there was suspicion thrown towards the new professor Olcott as there had been no killings until he arrived. The third man was the school's maintenance man Walter who kind of resembled Peter Lorre and for a while did think he may have been the fiend! But not so as it was too obvious someone like Walter would be the killer though he did help Whiteman out trying to find the love letters he had sent Mary. Walter's name was wiped off the suspect list as he had been caught stealing those letters, instead of confessing to the crime and revealing who he was stealing them for Walter jumped off a roof to his death! Whiteman was such a creepy and dirty old man who did have a motive for the killings but he was older and in no shape to murder people. I also didn't think the new professor Olcott was capable of the murders or becoming a werewolf, his shady past was because of trying to discover if those creatures were real! When Mary was killed we briefly saw the werewolf and her death was because of the attack but Sheena's murder was by a human and at this point with twenty minutes to go the list of suspects had dropped from three to zero.
Final segment and of course there had to be at least one involved in the killings and also the potential for more of them. A character who we hadn't seen much of until now was the dormitory supervisor Lenore but she did give off a creepy vibe. That's her in the bottom screenshots and while not the werewolf she was the creature's reason for living. For in a big surprise the werewolf was none other than the school's director Swift who Elenore was madly in love with, he too with her. The major reason Swift had hired Olcott was because of his studies on humans turning into werewolves, Swift was hoping Olcott could find a cure for his transforming into a wolf but Olcott never knew his superior had been such a creature until the very end! There was a savage dog in Lenore's lab and legend is that dogs hate werewolves to no end so when Swift transformed into a wolf the dog attacked Lenore and mauled her to death! Swift had been tied up in chains so he couldn't kill anyone else but seeing his love Lenore killed sent him into a rage and after breaking the chains escaped the lab. Immediately after he saw Priscilla and it appeared he was going to devour her or are wolves like vampires where with a bite they can make a human become a vampire also? It didn't come to that as appearing out of nowhere was Olcott and shot Swift in the chest with I presume a silver bullet, end of the werewolf Swift and also the end of this movie. Which was no classic and won't give it a high recommendation but one that I enjoyed which is the case for almost every movie I review. For if I don't like a drama or movie don't give them reviews as I hate being too negative with my opinions and the movie was definitely worth watching for the beauty of Barbara Lass, there's two more quickie reviews after this.
You wouldn't know by reading this post and it's of me being so under the weather, even writing for more than twenty minutes is a chore. Even though these posts can be a bit longish because they feature so many dramas and movies can usually wrap them up in two days, this is already my fourth day of writing this up and still have one more movie after this one! Two posts ago reviewed a pair of Santo movies and those were so much fun, had known of this long movie series for years but never saw any of them until a few weeks ago. Santo was a superstar in Mexico for over thirty years, he was a champion wrestler for so long and because of that starred in this movie series that went from 1961 to 1982 for a total of 51 films! Santo's real name was Rodolfo Guzman(Huerta) who was in all the movies, he was such a mega star in Mexico and died at the age of 66 in 1984. A week before his death Rodolfo finally revealed his true identity as he had always worn a mask in the ring or in the Santo movies. This character was like a few other Superheroes as she stood for Justice and saved the country of Mexico many times over from Aliens, Vampires, Gangsters, etc. "Santo vs. The Vampire Women" was the seventh in the series and was released in late 1962, it's the third film I've reviewed and will be looking at a few more in the future.
This was another entertaining film in the Santo franchise but in an oddity he was only on screen for about 35 minutes and ten of that was from a pair of wrestling matches, it was an 89 minute movie. Even if this wasn't a Santo movie it was still one that's worth viewing, as you can see by the screenshots it was a horror/vampire flick. Two hundred years ago a coven of vampires were self entombed after their failure to perform a ritual which would have ensured unequaled beauty plus immortality, that failure was due to a screw-up by a witch named Tundra. The ritual needed a certain woman but when she died the rite was called off for two hundred years. First arising was Tundra, soon after her coven also arose and she was able to concoct a mixture to make them beautiful and they certainly were! Their leader was the last to be resurrected, her name is Queen Zorina and she's given Tundra an ultimatum, get this ritual correct or it'll be the last thing this vampire will ever do!!!! The reason for the coven arising at this time was because of a woman named Diana who was about to celebrate her 21st birthday. It was her great-great-great grandmother who was supposed to be used in the first ritual but her death prevented it's completion. Diana was the first female born in the family for 200 years and the plan is to kidnap Diana for the ritual.
A sacrifice needs to be 21 in age and Diana will be in two days, she's also engaged to a man named Jorge. Diana's father is a respected professor named Orloff and he was aware of the doom that is about to happen to his only daughter but who would believe his crazy story? The police didn't but there was one person Orloff knew well and was the hero of the movie, Santo the champion wrestler! The two met up and Orloff pleaded with his friend to protect Diana but that wasn't needed as there's no way Santo would have let anything happen to her. But on the night of Diana's 21st birthday party Santo had an important match, he'll be at the party but needs to take care of his opponent first! The coven of witches were aware of Santo and his unbeatable skills, they had an idea to make sure he would never arrive at the party! Because impersonating his opponent was a male vampire and he was quite the match for Santo who knew something amiss was up. He surmised the other wrestler was a monster and below you can see that Santo tore the mask off the vampire which sent the crowd fleeing for safety. With the match out of the way Santo headed to the professor's house for Diana's party, was he too late to save her? No but Santo didn't have any time to spare as Diana was being dragged away by the coven of vampires, the police were there and hadn't believed the professor until now.
Final bit and have to leave a few things out but you can view the screenshots to see what took place. Santo had beaten back the other male vampires at Orloff's house but Diana had been kidnapped and brought to a tomb beneath an abandoned mansion. Santo has a cool sportscar and don't know what make it is, he zoomed to the mansion and have no clue how he knew about it! Santo was easily captured and that seems to happen in all the films where he's tied down but with his strength can break the chains holding him captive. Which Santo did once again and the best scene of the movie was when Santo grabbed a torch and burned the vampires after they had retreated to their coffins for the Sun was just coming up! That was quite an exciting ending and all three of the Santo films I've viewed were so much fun. If you are a fan of cheesiness(!), wrestling, superheroes and horror would recommend these films, are there any other Mexican superheroes from the past I'm not aware of? There was no regular trailer on YT but there was one for when it aired on American TV and that video is after the screenshots.
It wasn't her biggest role but the female lead in this third and last Streetfighter trilogy belonged to Reiko Ike, that's her in the four pics above and also in many screenshots below. As far as the 1970's go Meiko Kaji was my #1 actress, in second place was Reiko and bet I've seen her in at least fifteen films, perhaps even twenty! She was such a sex symbol back then and in every movie she would reveal her sizzling figure but besides being such a beauty she was also a superb actress. Reiko was just eighteen in age when she began her movie career in 1971 but did look a few years older, think she was in 34 movies and a few TV shows up until 1979. After that Reiko just appeared in three TV shows and after 1982 no one seems to know what became of her? She was such a known woman so it's hard to believe a person could disappear without a trace and here we are 44 years later, whatever became of her? Soon will be reviewing two Reiko other films so let me do a bit more detective work on her and have a special section for her, she was 21 in age when this 1974 movie "The Streetfighter's Last Revenge" was released but did look older than that, her character's name was Aya Owada. In the previous post of this 'My Current Watches' series reviewed the first two films of this trilogy so for today have the third and will squeeze all of the action into two paragraphs as this has been a long post.
The star of the trilogy was Sonny(Shinichi) Chiba who for forty years was such a known actor in Japan and around the world! In this series his character was named Takuma Tsuguri who was such a ruthless fighter and also loved the money that went along with killing or kidnapping someone. However Tsuguri did have some morals and each film in the series had less violence than the previous movie which I think worked as this was the best of the three. At first Tsuguri was hired to spring a gangster named Go Owada at the police station, during the incident Tsuguri wore a mask making him look five years younger and he did so again later in the film. But when it came time to collect his ten million yen fee he was stiffed on that and that began a battle with the Owada family who were also trying to blackmail some politicians. During that brief melee with the Owada gang Tsuguri had snatched a valuable cassette tape that could implicate the gang and some high ranking politicians, that tape was the most important part of this story. Reiko's character of Aya was of being the Owada leader's youngest sister and the highlight of most of Reiko's films is when she rolls around in the hay, she did so with Tsuguri but it had been to set up an ambush for him. Aya also slept with a man named Takera Kunigami who was a prosecutor but when he found out about that cassette tape he too was hell bent on obtaining it, then reselling it back to the Owada family.
That Kunigami was such a master at martial arts, as terrific as Tsuguri is when it comes to fighting even he couldn't top Kunigami in a one on one fight. To me the pair should have joined forces to take down the Owada family, there's no way that team could lose! At the end the Owada family paid a billion yen to get back the tape so by teaming up the pair could have collected 500 million each, why didn't they do so? Also at the end Kunigami was killed via a shooting and so weren't the others from the Owada gang which just left Aya and she was about to flee Japan with that billion yen! But there was one other person left who of course was Tsuguri, he had planted a bomb in the Owada gang's car so they couldn't escape but that was unknown to Aya. In the bottom screenshot you can see how the film ended with Aya being blown to smithereens, so wasn't the billion yen which rained down onto a frustrated Tsuguri and he had to laugh at that. That was one of my more quicker reviews but have been feeling so down lately and wanted to wrap this up so as not to go another day without a post. This whole series was so action packed and I'll be viewing it many more times, any film with Sonny Chiba is a must watch to me and you'll be hearing more about him in the future. Below are plenty of screenshots from the film and Etsuko Shihomi also had a smallish role in the movie. She later was the star of the Sister Streetfighter films which I thought were better than this trilogy and at the bottom is a trailer for this movie.
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