cult film freak: July 2019

Written by James M. Tate / 7/29/2019 / No comments / actress , christopher lee , cult , england , horror , occult , patricia jessel , sixties , thriller , venetia stevenson

VENETIA STEVENSON INVESTIGATES 'THE CITY OF THE DEAD'

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Venetia Stevenson studies THE CITY OF THE DEAD Year: 1960</u></td></tr>
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Style over substance, THE CITY OF THE DEAD involves a terrific old Massachusetts locale in modern times (with a burned-witch intro) resembling the village from James Whale's FRANKENSTEIN classics: fitting since the Brits' own Monster, Christopher Lee, plays a professor who recommends his hottest student in blonde beauty Venetia Stevenson literally study-up on the town's use of witchcraft...<br>
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But her character Nan Barlow is more ambitious than smart, lacking common sense to return home after a frightened gas station attendant warns her to... return home. From there she picks up a mysterious hitchhiker that, once arriving in town, vanishes before her eyes. But she's got a paper to do, and her forty-minute screen-time is liken to Janet Leigh in that very year's PSYCHO, which opened a week earlier...<br>

actress, christopher lee, cult, england, horror, occult, patricia jessel, sixties, thriller, venetia stevenson

VENETIA STEVENSON INVESTIGATES 'THE CITY OF THE DEAD'

Venetia Stevenson studies THE CITY OF THE DEAD Year: 1960 Style over substance, THE CITY OF THE DEAD involves a terrific old Massachuset...

REVIEW CRUISING THROUGH 'ONCE UPON A TIME... IN HOLLYWOOD'

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Cruising off the Lancer set in Tarantino's HOLLYWOOD Year: 2019</u></td></tr>
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Make an important note while <i>experiencing</i> Quentin Tarantino's entirely different kind of revisionist-history revenge picture: It not only centers around real life counter-culture figures Sharon Tate; Charles Manson and Family (including main slayer Tex Watson and skanky moll Squeaky Fromme); a love-lorn Steve McQueen; a rich, contented Roman Polanski; and pixie hairstylist Jay Sebring... <br>
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There's also the last of the victims, Donald "Shorty" Shea, a would-be stuntman who thought the hippie horde was taking advantage of his friend/employer George Spahn at the formerly-active Spahn Movie Ranch: the infamous location where Manson and his followers made their very own drug-fueled, Beatles-blaring, conspiracy-plotting, paranoiac playground, ultimately setting stage for the "Helter Skelter Murders" that infamously included an eight-month pregnant Tate...<br>

2019, al pacino, brad pitt, bruce dern, counter-culture, dark comedy, exploitation, hollywood satire, leonardo dicaprio, madisen beaty, margot robie, new, quentin tarantino, thriller

REVIEW CRUISING THROUGH 'ONCE UPON A TIME... IN HOLLYWOOD'

Cruising off the Lancer set in Tarantino's HOLLYWOOD Year: 2019 Make an important note while experiencing Quentin Tarantino's e...

ECLECTIC CULT TRIPLE-FEATURE FEATURES CHRISTOPHER ROBINSON

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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XkCvu6B8iOk/XTZwIzpczzI/AAAAAAABFNc/AjFTwBRPp1A71AYWDwyZeHRSXBbcniFrgCLcBGAs/s1600/diary-of-a-high-school-bride-lobby-card-19598.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="387" data-original-width="484" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XkCvu6B8iOk/XTZwIzpczzI/AAAAAAABFNc/AjFTwBRPp1A71AYWDwyZeHRSXBbcniFrgCLcBGAs/s1600/diary-of-a-high-school-bride-lobby-card-19598.jpeg"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Dull nice guy Ron Foster and scene-stealing villain Christopher Robinson YEAR: 1959</u></td></tr>
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<u>THE DIARY OF A HIGH SCHOOL BRIDE</u>: What's set up in the opening warning-scroll on the dated terrors of teenage marriage winds up a basic thriller about a high school girl recently wed to a twenty-something law student being stalked and tormented by the popular high school jerk she once rejected...<br>
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In the latter role is a young Christopher Robinson, who steals the show alongside Anita Sands, a less glamorous version of Sherry Jackson. The film's moral lesson of a stuffed animal carrying girl too young to be married (seeking daddy's money over a husband who can't yet provide) results in a heated crime-genre standoff on a real movie set in this American International programmer directed by Burt Topper, who'd later helm one of the most creative biker flicks of the counter-culture era... but that's a different story for another time... <br>

alex rocco, american international, anita sands, burt topper, christopher robinson, exploitation, fifties, horror, jazz score, seventies, sixties, snake, william grefé

ECLECTIC CULT TRIPLE-FEATURE FEATURES CHRISTOPHER ROBINSON

Dull nice guy Ron Foster and scene-stealing villain Christopher Robinson YEAR: 1959 THE DIARY OF A HIGH SCHOOL BRIDE : What's set up...

HARVEY KEITEL 'THAT'S THE WAY OF THE WORLD' CYNTHIA BOSTICK

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Harvey Keitel and Cynthia Bostick driving fine YEAR: 1975 </u></td></tr>
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A music group's outright propaganda vehicle, promoting the soulful funk band Earth, Wind & Fire. And with Harvey Keitel as a sane version of record-producing phenom Phil Spector, this should've been a goldmine... or at least silver...<br>
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But THAT'S THE WAY OF THE WORLD spends too much time on an uninteresting romance between Keitel's Coleman Buckmaster and the lead singer of a white milquetoast singing trio, who have as little talent as Earth, Wind & Fire's fictional band The Group has soul and motivation. Sadly, we only see the latter jamming twice: the best during an opening credit sequence liken to, say, a car racing flick with a line of rod rods revving at the starting gate as The Group warms up each instrument with funky delight in the studio. Then when Keitel's given the task to instead record a single for the other outfit, called The Pages, the ingenue alone is the best thing going: But mostly for her looks — think exploitation starlet Angel Tompkins had she joined The Partridge Family morphed with a disco-era Bridget Fonda...  <br>

cynthia bostick, ed nelson, harvey keitel, melodrama, michael dante, music, romance, seventies

HARVEY KEITEL 'THAT'S THE WAY OF THE WORLD' CYNTHIA BOSTICK

Harvey Keitel and Cynthia Bostick driving fine YEAR: 1975 A music group's outright propaganda vehicle, promoting the soulful funk ba...

ROCK HUDSON 'BACK TO GOD'S COUNTRY' W/ MARCIA HENDERSON

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Dog attacks Steve with a whipped Rock at bay YEAR: 1953</u></td></tr>
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BACK TO GOD'S COUNTRY, based loosely on two silent films, leans on the strength of b-starlet Marcia Henderson, who's been covered already in <a href="http://www.cultfilmfreaks.com/2016/07/anders1-HYP-EYE.html">THE HYPNOTIC EYE</a> and <a href="http://www.cultfilmfreaks.com/2019/04/canyon-river.html">CANYON RIVER</a>...<br>
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She saves both the picture and her ship captain husband, played by newly-famous heartthrob Rock Hudson, almost solely beaten-up by main menace Steve Cochran before unfairly teamed by Cochran and his more ambiguous partner-in-crime, a randomly crooning Hugh O'Brien, in this rather strange little adventure featuring a faithful killer dog and a confusing heist-plot involving a load of coveted cargo on Hudson's boat: one that <i>must</i> set sail before being frozen into dock, and much of the initial time's spent making up for the sheer loss of it: Rock and chubby partner Chubby Johnson go after two arrant sailors, who turn out being a red-herring distraction all along... <br>

action, adventure, fifties, hugh o'brien, joseph pevney, marcia henderson, remake, rock hudson, steve cochran

ROCK HUDSON 'BACK TO GOD'S COUNTRY' W/ MARCIA HENDERSON

Dog attacks Steve with a whipped Rock at bay YEAR: 1953 BACK TO GOD'S COUNTRY, based loosely on two silent films, leans on the stren...

NETFLIX 'CONVERSATIONS WITH A KILLER: THE TED BUNDY TAPES'

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>This is the guy the media SO wants to be gorgeous! YEAR: 2019</u></td></tr>
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<i>"Ted was never as handsome, brilliant, or charismatic as crime folklore has deemed him." Ann Rule</i><br>
<br>
Dude with no lips, a unibrow, a scruffy pubic perm, a ski-slope nose and a 
misshapen head has been described as a handsome guy throughout the years. Maybe because he's better looking than most serial killers, or 
what people think they would/should look like, or those depicted in movies 
like, you know, Leatherface, Ted Levine, Joe Spinell... But Ted Bundy is no <a href="http://www.cultfilmfreaks.com/2017/12/bundy.html">Mark Harmon</a> or Zac Efron...<br>
<br>
This documentary, where the 
"in his own words" device is basically Ted denying he had anything to do with 
any of the murders... conducted five years before he'd strategically confess to possibly extend his death date... all while the 
interviewer tells us that Ted is lying to us, and him... Well let's just 
say it would have been a much more complete and relevant documentary had they added some of these latter, more honest recordings and yet, on the outside, Netlix's TED BUNDY TAPES is a pretty decent four-part timeline about the murders with the CONVERSATIONS added to grab the viewer, and ultimately mislead them...<br>

2019, biopic, documentary, exploitation, netflix, serial killer

NETFLIX 'CONVERSATIONS WITH A KILLER: THE TED BUNDY TAPES'

This is the guy the media SO wants to be gorgeous! YEAR: 2019 "Ted was never as handsome, brilliant, or charismatic as crime folklo...

ROBERT REDFORD DELIBERATELY CHILLY IN 'DOWNHILL RACER'

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Year of Release: 1969 Director: Michael Ritchie</u></td></tr>
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A movie has to be about <i>something</i> or <i>someone</i>, and reading any synopsis for DOWNHILL RACER, you'd think the main character, played by Robert Redford, was the biggest jerk on the planet. And while he<i> is</i> difficult and stubborn, childish and bitter, aren't all great athletes? At least the ones who have <i>only winning</i> on the brain...<br>
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Which is what RACER is about: not only striving to win but the formidable urge to <i>never lose</i>. And the U.S.A. Men's Ski Coach, Gene Hackman, along with his assistant Dabney Coleman and team captain Jim McMullan, knows right off that Redford's golden-haired upstart isn't a team player. But what seems to matter one minute is forgotten the next since there's hardly a plot in this underrated, avant garde curio, directed by future comedy icon Michael Ritchie, maneuvering the camera like we're on the snow with the athletes, including strategic P.O.V. shots of Redford's rushing and crushing Dave Chappellet...<br>

camilla sparv, carole carle, dabney coleman, drama, gene hackman, jim mcmullan, kathleen crowley, michael ritchie, robert redford, sixties, sport

ROBERT REDFORD DELIBERATELY CHILLY IN 'DOWNHILL RACER'

Year of Release: 1969 Director: Michael Ritchie A movie has to be about something or someone , and reading any synopsis for DOWNHILL RA...

DANA ANDREWS STARS IN 'SMOKE SIGNAL' WITH WILLIAM TALMAN

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Dana Andrews with William Talman YEAR: 1955</u></td></tr>
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Dana Andrews was both right and 
wrong for SMOKE SIGNAL, an Western Adventure where the good 
guys must survive against advancing and surrounding Indians while 
battling a formidable water-splashing menace called a Wild River...<br>
<br>
Originally,
 Charlton Heston was intended to play the part of Brett Halliday, a 
Calvary deserter who'd previously sided with some good Indians, which 
these particular antagonists are not...<br>
<br>
Actually, they're the same tribe whose minds have been changed, and it's blood they're after in a 
group of Calvary men led by an extremely determined and stubborn William
 Talman, who does have some reason for bitterness and resentment: 
because of Halliday's help with the Redskins, his brother had been 
killed...<br>

action, adventure, dana andrews, fifties, milburn stone, piper laurie, rex reason, robert wilke, western, william talman