From GRASP OF THE LORELEI.Here's what's happening in May and June.
STINGRAY
MAY 5, MIDNIGHT, $1, DIR. RICHARD TAYLOR, 1978, 35MM, 100 MIN, PG
This regional car chase movie from the St. Louis area doesn't skimp on automotive action, humor or surprising violence. Chris Mitchum and Les Lannom play a pair of boring pals who save up their money to buy a red '64 Corvette, only to find that some hoods have stashed heroin and cash under the seat. They're also wrongly accused of being cop-killers so not only are the crooks after them, but the police too. Fortunately, as dull as the heroes are, the bad guys are great. Their leader, sexy foul-mouthed Abigail Bratowski (Sherry Jackson) is a machine-gun wielding psychopath who makes her entrance dressed in a nun's habit. Abigail's main enforcer is big William Watson, who looks like a sinister cartoon cheetah and seems to ad lib every single line he speaks. One of the best things about this movie is its crazy split personality - one minute you're watching a wacky car chase scored to tinkling piano music, the next minute cops are getting riddled with bullet holes. The other great thing about this movie is its truly superior car action provided by such top professionals as the King of stunt drivers Carey Loftin and Austin's own Bobby Sargent, who will be in attendance to give you some background about STINGRAY. Be there! (Lars)
MOONLIGHTING WIVES
MAY 12, MIDNIGHT, $1, DIR. JOSEPH SARNO, 1966, 35MM, 86 MIN, NR
There are a number of important sexploitation auteurs, brave souls who carved out something special and wholly individual in the world of adult films. The best known of these are Russ Meyer, Radley Metzger, Doris Wishman and our dear friend Joe Sarno. Sarno's specialty is erotic psychodrama. Even when his budgets are limited to the point of absurdity, he manages to create situations that are complicated, kinky, exciting, vaguely absurd and often pretty hot. In many sexploitation movies the plot is a utility, a desultory device for moving the action from one set-piece to another. With Sarno, the plot serves to place each situation in a deeper stratum of intensity, until the final, usually taboo-shattering encounter provides the climax of the film. Such is the case with MOONLIGHTING WIVES, the story of a suburban prostitution ring that masquerades as a late-night secretary service. If you like Sarno, don't miss this rare screening. And if you don't know his work yet, it's time to start your education. (Lars)
THE LONG GOODBYE
MAY 19, MIDNIGHT, $1, DIR. ROBERT ALTMAN, 1973, 35MM, 112 MIN, R
Any 1973 theatergoer who bought a ticket for THE LONG GOODBYE expecting a leisurely rehash of private-eye movie cliches was certainly disappointed and, I expect, outraged. This is not so much an adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel (itself a challenge to the commercially expected norm); it's also a gloss and critique on the whole myth of the sardonic but not quite cynical investigator who makes reluctant swoops from his perch on the margin of society into the corrupt milieu of the criminal classes high and low. The great director Robert Altman is assisted by screenwriter Leigh Brackett, who had written the definitive Raymond Chandler adaptation 27 years earlier: THE BIG SLEEP. This would be among her last screen credits and it's a classic. In choosing his leading man, Altman made a characteristically perverse selection: Elliott Gould, who as a Jewish New Yorker could not help but seem an outsider in the classically constrained world of Chandler's LA. The period was also shifted to the contemporary '70s, though some anachronisms remain, not least Marlowe himself. Together, Altman, Brackett and Gould deconstruct, distend, disentangle and re-entangle all the archetypal constructs of America's favorite detective. Like the very best adaptations, it dispenses with many of the events of the book but manages to retain the spirit. It's a savagely funny movie with support from Sterling Hayden, Henry Gibson, scandal figure Nina Van Pallandt and baseball player Jim Bouton. Years later THE BIG LEBOSWKI mined much of the same territory, and the two films are of a piece. Hugely, gigantically, unreservedly recommended. (Lars)
SWEET SUGAR
MAY 26, MIDNIGHT, $1, DIR. MICHEL LEVESQUE, 1972, 35MM, 90 MIN, R
From the maker of WEREWOLVES ON WHEELS comes a Women In Prison movie like no other. This one takes place in the sugar cane fields of the Caribbean. The expected cargo of beautiful women arrives and is mistreated in the accepted way until a rebellion erupts more or less on schedule, as these things go. In these particulars, it is pretty much just another WIP movie. Where it goes off the rails is in the character of the island doctor. Dr. John, as he's known, conducts a bewildering assortment of experiments on the prisoners. In one he throws dozens of housecats, supposedly injected with an aggression serum, at them. The cat hurling scene is hilarious, as the unfortunate actresses try desperately to mimic terror and the even more unfortunate cats try to get away from the insane filmmakers. Star Phyllis Davis is much too beautiful and talented for this kind of movie but that's life in Hollywood, and I'm too amused to complain. Recent Alamo guest Stephanie Rothman was one of the writers of this film and her sense of humor shines right through. (Lars)
CONFESSIONS OF A POLICE CAPTAIN
JUNE 2, MIDNIGHT, $1, DIR. DAMIANO DAMIANI, 1971, 35MM, 101 MIN, R
Italian crime films of the '70s are an acquired taste, and happily many more people seem to be acquiring it. This is one of the genre's classics, written and directed by the great Damiano Damiani whose other films A BULLET FOR THE GENERAL and HOW TO KILL A JUDGE are similarly political in nature. Here Martin Balsam plays a police captain nearing retirement who has been unable to bring the worst criminals in his jurisdiction to justice by legal means. He teams up with young district attorney Franco Nero in an attempt to wade through the morass of official corruption and institutional putrescence, but all the while Balsam has his own means of working and his own dark secrets. The system is so rigged and so broken that even the most honest men end up crushed in its wheels. A gripping, violent, brilliantly enacted film that will rip your fucking heart out and eat it. Incredible. (Lars)
THE HITCHHIKERS
JUNE 9, MIDNIGHT, $1, DIR. FERD & BEVERLY SEBASTIAN, 1972, 35MM, 92 MIN, R
The delectable Misty Rowe, known fondly to some of us as one of the stars of the '70s hillbilly variety show HEE HAW, stars as a ripe young thing who gets tangled up with a Manson-family style band of bait-and-switch highway robbers. Unlucky drivers are enticed to stop by an abundant roadside display of feminine pulchritude, then relieved of their belongings and sent packing. Seems risky but then so is the stock market. There are lots of hippie songs about freedom and even a token biker named Rebel. Thankfully, Arkansas exploitation legends Ferd and Beverly Sebastian (GATOR BAIT, ROCKTOBER BLOOD) are at the helm and their easygoing, character-rich style is printed on every frame of film. I wish we could take the roof off the theater and watch this one under the stars like the drive-in audiences of the day, but I asked and we can't do that. (Lars)
GRASP OF THE LORELEI aka WHEN THE SCREAMING STOPS
JUNE 16, MIDNIGHT, $1, DIR. AMANDO DE OSSORIO, 1974, 35MM, 85 MIN, R
These European sexy horror movies of the '70s were sort of like a gift from God: an endless supply of beautiful actresses, healthy portions of surrealism and kitsch, all sewn up with an audacious sense of style and color. Logic went out the window (good riddance) and kinky cinephilia was the order of the day. THE LORELEI'S GRASP takes place in one of those ubiquitous "hot chicks only" boarding schools that seemed to pepper Europe in the '70s. Naked schoolgirls are being killed off at an alarming rate by a hideous beast with claws and green scales. The headmistress hires a greasy, polyester-clad macho man named Sigurd to track and kill the beast. Only the tiniest children and people with head injuries won't be able to figure out the identity of the monster. Could it be sexy Helga Line who wears a shiny green bikini and lives in an underground cave with her army of immortal bathing beauties? Yes. This movie has cheap gore, gratuitous nudity, great music, bad dubbing, and even a "fear flasher" to warn unusually sensitive audience members of impending unpleasantness. In other words: this movie is better than a crack milkshake. Don't miss! (Lars)
THE WILD ANGELS
JUNE 23, MIDNIGHT, $1, DIR. ROGER CORMAN, 1966, 35MM, 93 MIN, R
Inspired by a photo in LIFE magazine of a garish Hell’s Angels funeral, Roger Corman set about revolutionizing American International Pictures with THE WILD ANGELS, which would go on to spawn the prolific biker genre of the 60’s & 70’s. Peter Fonda stars as brooding Angels chieftain Heavenly Blues. When his pal Loser (Bruce Dern) is shot by police, Blues attempts to bury him in a small town, but the locals resist, and a brawl ensues. Audiences and critics were alternately appalled and thrilled by the extensive drug use and violence, but beneath ANGELS’ leathery hide beats the heart of a Western, especially in its ruminations on personal freedom. The film helped boost the careers of co-writer Peter Bogdanovich, editor Monte Hellman, and gave Fonda the counterculture clout to later make EASY RIDER. Co-starring Nancy Sinatra (yes, that is an odd choice), the film is punctuated by the amazing fuzz-laden music of Davie Allan & The Arrows. (Lars & Kier-la Janisse)
PREACHERMAN
JUNE 30, MIDNIGHT, $1, DIR. ALBERT T. VIOLA, 1971, 35MM, 87 MIN, R
One of the biggest regional drive-in hits ever, a movie that played the Carolinas and Georgia summer after summer for the better part of a decade. It’s a hicksploitation classic that deserves to be better known outside the stock-car circuit. Writer/Director Albert Viola plays Amos Huxley, a traveling preacher whose hankering for womenfolk, moonshine, and gambling (hereafter referred to as “the finer things in life”) keeps him on the move from one tiny dogwater hamlet to another, usually at the point of a double-barreled shotgun. This is pretty old-school stuff – Viola knows his Boccaccio, his Chaucer and especially his Moliere – but it works. It’s a very funny, very well made film, loaded with sex, sacrilege and good-natured depravity. (Lars)
