Tarzan and the Great River (1967)

Tarzan and the Great River is a 1967 Tarzan movie.

In 1958 producer Sy Weintraub took over and totally revitalised the Tarzan franchise. He brought it more in line with the original creation of Edgar Rice Burroughs. 

Weintraub believed (correctly) that the version of Tarzan presented in movies was at that point entirely played out. Weintraub wanted a Tarzan who was as much at home in the modern world as in the jungle, a Tarzan who spoke perfect English and was comfortable with modern technology. A man of two worlds.

He also felt that for the kinds of movies he had in mind Jane would have to go. This would be a globe-trotting Tarzan, a restless wanderer.

Weintraub also believed it to be essential to shoot the movies in colour with high production values, and to get Tarzan away from African settings and put him in lots of different exotic locations. Everything was to be done to make the Tarzan series seem fresh and exciting again, and it worked.

This time Tarzan is in South America, on his way up the Amazon. A dangerous bloodthirsty cult led by the charismatic and ruthless Barcuna (Rafer Johnson) is spreading slaughter and destruction among the jungle tribes.

Tarzan teams up with probably not overly honest river-boat captain Sam Bishop (Jan Murray) who has adopted an orphan kid named Pepe from a local tribe. Captain Bishop is there to provide some very uninspired comic relief while the kid is there to give the movie its cuteness factor.

Tarzan encounters dedicated doctor Ann Philips (Diana Millay). The village where she has been operating her clinic has just been razed to the ground by Barcuna. She is determined to reach another village where an epidemic has broken out. Tarzan warns her that this would be incredibly dangerous but she insists. Tarzan accepts her decision - he understands that she has to do her duty as she sees it.

Along the way Tarzan and his companions encounter all the animals you’d expect to find in the Amazon rainforest - hippos, lions, ostriches. There was supposedly some location shooting done in Brazil but I get the impression that a lot of stock footage was used without the slightest attempt at authenticity.

This is a fairly ruthless Tarzan. When the riverboat is menaced by hostile tribesmen in canoes Tarzan realises he cannot take on eight men single-handedly. He solves the problem by overturning their canoes and letting the gators take care of them. Tarzan thinks it’s a great idea and so do the gators. Tarzan deals with similar threats just as ruthlessly. Killing bad guys doesn’t bother him one little bit.

Gordon Scott played Tarzan in the first two Weintraub-produced movies, with Jock Mahoney taking over the next two. In the last three movies ex-football star Mike Henry took over. I have no problem with any of the three actors. Mike Henry certainly had the physique to look very convincing in the role. He’s perfectly OK in this movie.

The other cast members are quite adequate. It’s not exactly a movie that requires advanced acting skills.

The previous entry in the cycle, Tarzan and the Valley of Gold, had been an attempt to give the movie a bit of a James Bond feel. That didn’t please everybody although personally I thought it worked quite well. Tarzan and the Great River feels like an attempt to go back to basics which may be why I was a bit disappointed by it. It’s too much of a stock-standard Tarzan movie. For me the appeal of the earlier Weintraub Tarzan movies is that they try to avoid being too formulaic.

The action scenes in Tarzan and the Great River are not quite as impressive as those in the earlier films.

Tarzan and the Great River is not a great Tarzan movie but it’s enjoyable. Recommended.

It’s included in a Warner Archive Tarzan DVD boxed set. The transfer is reasonably good.

I’ve reviewed the original 1914 Edgar Rice Burroughs novel Tarzan of the Apes. I’ve also reviewed several of the earlier Sy Weintraub-produced movies in this franchise - Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure (1959), Tarzan's Three Challenges (1963), Tarzan Goes to India (1962) and Tarzan and the Valley of Gold (1966). They’re all very much worth seeing. And of course if you’re a Tarzan then you absolutely have to see Tarzan and His Mate (1934) which I’ve also reviewed.

The Last Seduction (1994)

The Last Seduction is a 1994 erotic thriller/neo-noir directed by John Dahl. I’m developing an obsession with 90s erotic thrillers.

Clay Gregory (Bill Pullman) and his wife Bridget (Linda Fiorentino). Are not nice people. Bridget is some kind of sales manager. She’s a hard-driving über-bitch. Clay is creep and maybe a bit of a loser although he’s the kind of loser who thinks he’s a winner. He’s just pulled off a huge coke deal. Now Clay and Bridget can live the lifestyle they think they deserve. And Clay can pay off that loan shark (like I said he’s a bit of a loser).

Only Bridget decides she wants the whole seven hundred grand for herself and she takes off with it.

She’s heading for Chicago. She ends up stopping off in some podunk cow town named Benton where everybody listens to country music. Bridget is a New York City girl. She hates this place, but after talking to her lawyer she realises that it might be a good idea to stay for a while. Clay will expect her to go to Chicago. In Chicago he’ll find her.

Bridget is not a complete fool. Counting on Clay being as dumb as she thinks he is mighty be risky. Clay isn’t likely to be dangerous but if he finds her he could make things difficult regarding that money. Perhaps it also crosses her mind that after what she did to him he might be in a nasty mood.

Bridget will have to find something to keep herself entertained. Having sex entertains her. She picks up an innocent small town boy in a bar and has sex with him. His name is Mike (Peter Berg). But then the dumb schmuck gets all starry-eyed and romantic. He wants a relationship. Bridget doesn’t want any relationship that lasts longer than the time required to have sex.

Bridget is happy to keep having sex with Mike but she certainly doesn’t want love or companionship or friendship or respect or a meeting of minds. She just wants what he has in his pants. She can’t figure out why he gets all mopey. Can’t he just be satisfied with uncomplicated albeit sleazy and dirty sex?

Bridget has no interest in Mike (apart from sex) until she discovers he has a way of finding out interesting things about people. She suggests a way they could put that skill to amusing and profitable use. Mike is shocked.

Mike is about to be drawn into a game by Bridget, but he doesn’t know it yet.

What Bridget likes most about Mike is that he’s dumb. Not totally stupid, but pretty dumb. Certainly dumb enough that she would have no problem getting him to do anything she wanted. At the moment she can’t think of a use for him but you never know when a girl is going to need a dumb easily manipulated man.

Peter Berg is quite good. He certainly manages to convince us that Mike is not a smart guy. If there’s a minor weakness to this movie it’s the fact that Mike is so slow on the uptake and so innocent that we despise him. We still feel almost sorry for him, but it’s tinged with pity.

Bill Pullman is fine.

But this is Linda Fiorentino’s movie. She’s a femme fatale on steroids. She’s a vicious selfish bitch. She’s perpetually horny. She’s sexy and her sexual appetite is equalled only by her lust for money. She uses everyone with whom she comes in contact. She’s a bad bad girl. She’s wonderful. All the world loves a bad girl.

What makes this movie work is that Bridget is so uncompromising in her rejection of all of the accepted moral and social codes. She has no pity for others but she also has no self-pity. I also love the fact that we are offered no explanations for her personality. There are no cringe-inducing scenes in therapists’ offices. No tedious flashbacks to childhood trauma. Bridget is just a bitch. I can respect that.

Bridget reminds me just a little of Parker, in Donald E. Westlake’s Parker novels. She might be one of the greatest villainesses of all time but there’s a bit of the anti-heroine in her. We admire her audacity and her ruthlessness so much that we want her to get away with it. She’s bad but she takes life by the throat and doesn’t let go.

This is certainly an erotic thriller but it’s also very much a neo-noir. It’s a neo-noir in the Body Heat mould. It’s much more neo-noir than erotic thriller. It ticks most of the noir boxes.

It’s surprising that screenwriter Steve Barancik only had a tiny handful of film credits. His screenplay is fine, with some nice little twists at the end. Also surprising is the fact that director John Dahl has so few feature film credits.

The Last Seduction is a top-class neo-noir with a stunning performance by Linda Fiorentino. Very highly recommended.

Blood and Roses (1960)

Roger Vadim’s Blood and Roses (Et mourir de plaisir) is an adaptation of one of the greatest (if not the greatest) of all vampire stories, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 novella Carmilla. It was I think the first Carmilla adaptation. Vadim co-wrote the screenplay. Carmilla would inspire countless 1970s movies about lady vampires.

Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla is often claimed to be the first lesbian vampire tale. While there are such hints in the novella I personally feel that this is a slight over-simplification of a complex story about awakening female sexuality.

Roger Vadim is the most unfairly maligned and misunderstood of all major French film directors. He has also been subjected to a disturbing amount of personal venom. Much of this was undoubtedly inspired by jealousy. He was either married to or lived with a succession of the most beautiful actresses in the world. Vadim really was not just a major director but an extraordinarily interesting one, far more interesting than the New Wave directors on whom critics doted.

Vadim has made major changes to both the plot and the setting. The movie has a contemporary setting.

In the novella Carmilla von Karnstein is an odd young woman who serves as a kind of governess/companion to a young girl named Laura. Laura lives on an isolated estate in Austria with her father.

In the movie Carmilla von Karnstein lives on an estate in Italy with her cousin Leopoldo von Karnstein (Mel Ferrer). They are both von Karnsteins, a family reputed to have a history of vampirism. But that was a long time ago. The vampires in the von Karnstein family were destroyed in the 18th century.

Leopoldo is engaged to marry the charming Georgia Monteverdi (Elsa Martinelli).

Carmilla is just a little obsessed by the von Karnstein family history of vampirism. She seems a bit unwell. The sun bothers her. She seems moody and preoccupied.

There’s a suggestion that when she was a little girl she had a bit of a crush on her cousin Leopoldo.

Carmilla may perhaps be jealous of Georgia.

Then a young housemaid is found dead. An apparent accident. The marks on her neck have no significance. And the gardener sees a strange figure moving through the woods.

Are all the von Karnstein vampires really safely in the past?

A party at the von Karnstein manor climaxes with fireworks, and some additional unexpected explosions. It turns out to be leftover ammunition from the war, which had been hidden in the ruins by the cemetery. Just to be on the safe side the army decides to blow up those ruins. That’s where the von Karnstein vampires were interred.

Le Fanu’s novella has a number of levels of ambiguity. This film has its own levels of ambiguity, which are not necessarily the same as those of the novella. The Carmilla of the film is troubled. She may be troubled by sexual feelings or by her emotions or by her obsession with the past.

Of course she might in fact be a vampire. There does seem to be a vampire active in the present day. You’ll have to watch the movie to find out if the ambiguity of Carmilla’s nature is resolved.

Elsa Martinelli is a fine actress and she’s very good here. Mel Ferrer is excellent as Leopoldo. But this movie belongs to Annette Vadim who plays Carmilla. Cynics might suggest that she landed the role because she was married to Vadim. In fact she’s perfectly cast and she’s superb. The role needed an actress who could look equally convincing and stunning dressed in the mode of the 18th century or in the style of 1960. Carmilla is a woman of the 18th century, an age of elegance, but she is also a child of 1960 - a world of rock’n’roll and sports cars.

Carmilla is also a woman of mystery. We have to believe that she might be an ordinary young woman or a dangerous seductive vampire. Annette Vadim manages all of this with style.

There’s a nice atmosphere of suppressed eroticism, Annette Vadim is magnificent and this is an excellent movie superbly directed by Roger Vadim. This is subtle erotic horror and it’s very highly recommended.

For many years Blood and Roses was only available in English-friendly versions in a savagely cut version. Many of the online reviews you may across appear to be written by people who have only seen the cut version. The cut version of course makes very little sense. That’s what happens when censors butcher a movie. The version I have is the German DVD which is uncut and in the correct aspect ratio and it’s 16:9 enhanced. And it looks terrific. It includes the French-language track with English subtitles.

Incidentally the screencaps used here are not from the German DVD which has much much better image quality.

I’ve reviewed Sheridan le Fanu’s novella Carmilla. Hammer’s excellent 1970 The Vampire Lovers is a more faithful adaptation and it’s fascinating to see two such wildly different approaches to the same material.

Black Cobra (1976)

Although Black Cobra (AKA Black Cobra Woman AKA Eva Negra) is a Joe d’Amato movie starring Laura Gemser and although it has been marketed in the US as Emmanuelle and the Deadly Black Cobra this is not a Black Emanuelle movie. This is more of an erotic thriller.

Laura Gemser plays Eva and she’s introduced in a memorable fashion. She’s a night-club dancer. She does an erotic dance with a snake. Then we see her in a restaurant with a woman. There’s some heavy flirtation going on, although in fact it goes a bit further than that. Eva then goes home and has a sexual fantasy about the woman, intercut with a sexual fantasy about dancing with the snake. It’s a nice opening. We don’t know very much about Eva at this stage but there are enough hints to be intriguing.

She may be a lesbian, or bisexual, or a straight woman with a rich sexual fantasy life. Whichever category she falls into her sexuality has overtones of perversity, of a fascination with danger and death.

We are also introduced to Judas Carmichael (Jack Palance) and here also we learn just enough to get us interested. He is a very rich man with an obsession with snakes. He has a large collection of the reptiles. He is interested in the subject of fear. He manages to persuade Eva to visit him at home. She becomes frightened, for no obvious reason. Eva prides herself on knowing no fear. So we have two people who are interested in fear and courage. Judas in fact behaves like a perfect gentleman. He does not even attempt to kiss Eva. He does seem just a little odd - as if he is not quite comfortable with women. They are after all much more dangerous than snakes.

He makes Eva an offer. It amounts to buying her. Not for an hour or an evening, but buying her outright. She accepts, although we have already found out that she is already owned by a rich Chinese man. Judas apparently has made her a better offer. It’s an interestingly ambiguous offer. We never find out if they ever sleep together. Perhaps Judas has simply added her to his collection of beautiful deadly pets.

Judas’s brother Jules (Gabriele Tinti) is slightly disturbing in other more subtle ways. His feelings towards Judas seem to be tainted with resentment. We’re not quite sure how Jules feels about Eva but he is clearly not indifferent to her physical charms. Both Judas and Jules make us just a little uneasy.

And Eva gets herself a girlfriend. She begins an intense affair with Gerri (Michele Starck). She does admit that she loves Judas, in her own way. And she probably does, in her own way.

There’s plenty of potential here for betrayals and jealousies and sexual and emotional dramas.

There is of course the snake symbolism. We guess that one of these people will turn out to be a deadly serpent. Of course there are many venomous human serpents, so it could get more complicated.

I’ve never been a great admirer of Jack Palance as an actor but no-one could ever accuse him of being boring. In eurotrash movies he tended to be lots of fun and he could always be relied on to add a touch of menace, danger or craziness. In this movie he’s surprisingly good and surprisingly subtle. We have absolutely no idea if he’s going to be the hero, the victim or the villain and Palance keeps us in doubt.

Now let’s be honest. Laura Gemser was not cast in movies like this for her acting ability, which was somewhat limited. She was cast because what was wanted was firstly an exotic beauty who was totally uninhibited about taking her clothes off. Secondly, she had to be able to ooze steamy sexuality. And thirdly, since she was usually the heroine she had to be likeable. Miss Gemser qualified on all counts. As a bonus she is also a very elegant woman. This is a role that falls within her acting range and she’s fine.

D’Amato never forgets that he’s making an exploitation movie. An essential ingredient here is copious quantities of naked female flesh and that’s what he gives us. There’s a lot of female frontal nudity. If you’re going to have lots of nude scenes you might as well shoot them with a certain amount of style and that’s what D’Amato does. D’Amato started his career as a very respected cinematographer and he handles that role here as well as directing. It’s a good-looking movie. The exotic locations (and Hong Kong was definitely considered exotic at the time) were one of the film’s major selling points.

D’Amato obviously figured that if he was going to do an erotic thriller he might as well try to make it a well-crafted interesting one and he succeeds. This is a true erotic thriller, with the thriller plot driven entirely by erotic desires and obsessions. D’Amato wrote the screenplay and it’s effectively twisted with nicely ambiguous character motivations.

Some people hate the ending. I think it’s crazy but I like it. This is a European movie so don’t expect a Hollywood ending.

Black Cobra achieves everything it sets out to achieve. Exotic locations, kinky eroticism, murder driven by lust and jealousy. Jack Palance and Laura Gemser are fun to watch. Enjoyable movie, highly recommended.

The Spanish Blu-Ray offers an excellent transfer.

Australia After Dark (1976)

Australia After Dark is a 1976 ozploitation/sexploitation feature which belongs to the weird and wonderful mondo film genre.

The mondo film, which began in Italy in 1962 with Mondo Cane, was very much an artifact of the 1960s. A mondo film is a pseudo-documentary focusing on brief looks at weird and sensational things, with some genuine footage and some faked footage. It’s a genre that hasn’t aged well. The mondo sex film is a curious sub-genre of a curious genre and Australia After Dark is such a film.

Being a mondo film means that there’s no plot at all. And since each segment only runs a couple of minutes there’s absolutely zero narrative anywhere. The connections between the segments are tenuous at best but mostly non-existent. There are no thematic connections. But that’s how mondo films are. Insofar as they have an appeal it lies in the fact that you have absolutely no idea what to expect next.

It was the nudity that was going to sell the movie (and in fact did sell it) and there’s an immense amount of frontal nudity. On the other hand a mondo film is supposed to cover a huge range of sensational or weird subjects so the sexy segments are interspersed with odd sensational stuff.

Director John D. Lamond always had an eye on international markets so there’s lots of Australiana (especially stuff dealing with the Outback) which would have bored Australian viewers to tears but would have seemed exotic to overseas audiences.

And you know that the boring segments will be over in a minute or two and we’ll be back to nude women. Lamond really did understand what sells.

The challenge of course is to find dozens of different ways to get attractive young women out of their clothes. Lamond is up to the challenge. Girls trying on bikinis. Nude bathing on the Barrier Reef. Clothing fetishism. Food fetishism. Nude scuba diving. A gentleman’s club that offer lovely handmaidens for stressed businessmen. Painters using nude women as their canvases.

No movie such as this would be complete without a witchcraft in the modern world segment. Here we get two - white magic and black magic. Fortunately both kinds of magic require beautiful young ladies to get naked. If you can’t attract an audience with nude witches you’re just not cut out to be a filmmaker.

There are also UFO cultists and they’re always fun. These ones are so crazy it takes one’s breath away. There are hippies. And there’s an insane entertainer who is insane in ways you never imagined were possible. You might be wondering if the Chariots of the Gods craze gets a mention. It does. Yes, ancient astronauts.

People today believe just as many crazy things as people in the 70s (people in every generation believe different crazy things) but the crazy things people believed in then were totally different, and more fun.

This movie’s appeal at the time was obviously the copious quantities of nudity. Today it’s a fascinating time capsule. It’s so very very 1970s. Guys with long hair. Women with hair, well you know where women had hair back then. 70s fashions. 70s cultural attitudes guaranteed to make twenty-somethings of today burst into tears. 1970s Sydney street scenes. Sydney’s notorious red-light district, King’s Cross, in all its seedy sleazy 70s glory. Surfer’s Paradise in the 70s. And that attitude to sex - that it was naughty but lots of fun.

No mondo film was ever meant to be taken seriously and this one is no exception. There’s some obviously genuine footage and plenty of obviously staged footage.

Lamond went on to make the best of all Emmanuelle clones, Felicity, in 1978.

I’d love to be able to report that there’s a fully restored special edition Blu-Ray but sadly that hasn’t happened. Your best bet is the old Umbrella Entertainment DVD double feature which also includes Lamond’s 1978 follow-up, The ABC of Love and Sex Australian Style (this DVD is still available). The transfer is letterboxed and not fantastic but this is the kind of movie that is more fun to watch if the print looks a bit scuzzy.

That time capsule element is certainly the reason to see this film. It’s just like being back in the 70s! If that appeals to you you’ll enjoy Australia After Dark.

The idea of a mondo film focused on sex was not exactly original back in 1976. British filmmakers Arnold L. Miller and Stanley A. Long made several in the 60s, beginning with West End Jungle (1961) and continuing with London in the Raw (1965), Primitive London (1965). Their sexy mondo films are actually quite entertaining.

Hitch-Hike (1977)

Hitch-Hike is an odd movie in the filmography of Pasquale Festa Campanile, an Italian director who deserves to be a whole lot better known.

Although set in America this is an Italian movie, shot in Italy. You could describe it as an erotic thriller with perhaps a dash of neo-noir. Perhaps quite a bit of neo-noir. Since it’s Italian the temptation would be to describe it as a giallo but it isn’t. There is however plenty of psycho-sexual weirdness.

The basic setup has been used in various other movies but here it’s given some very disturbing and original twists. The standard version of this setup is that a normal married couple pick up a hitch-hiker who turns out to be a psycho killer bank robber on the run and the cross-country drive becomes a nightmare of terror.

The first twist here is that Italian reporter Walter Mancini (Franco Nero) and his wife Eve (Corinne Cléry) are not a normal married couple. They have a relationship based entirely on sex and it’s not healthy wholesome sex. They don’t make love. They engage in wild, dirty, sleazy, crazed animal couplings. Their ideas on pre-sex love talk are a bit unusual. She calls him a disgusting bastard. He calls her a bitch and a cheap whore. That gets them both excited and they have great sex. There are hints of sadomasochism to their relationship but to see it that way would be an over-simplification. Their marriage is perverse in lots of ways. It’s a successful marriage. They understand each other. They both get what they want from the relationship.

The hitch-hiker they pick up is Adam Konitz (David Hess). He’s a psychopath. He’s killed on many occasions. He will kill again. He’s used to the idea that he can get what he wants through violence and terror. But he hasn’t met people like Walter and Eve Mancini before. He’s crazy, but so are they. He’s dangerous, but so is Walter. And Eve is unpredictable.

There’s also something about the Mancinis’ marriage that Adam doesn’t know.

At first the movie follows the accepted pattern. Adam taunts Walter. He fondles Eve’s breasts. He feels her up. He promises that later he’ll give her the best lay she’s ever had. Eve is terrified. Walter is not terrified. He’s not a fool. Adam has a gun. Walter isn’t going to take crazy risks. And, as I said earlier, Eve is unpredictable. She’s not your regular dutiful suburban wife.

After a few killings along the way Adam decides he’s going to hire Walter. He wants Walter to write a book about him. Adam is very crazy.

Then the first wild plot twist kicks in. It’s followed quickly by another equally unexpected. And a third.

Of course sooner or later we know that Adam is going to want to have his way with Eve, especially after she taunts him by suggesting that maybe for him killing is a compensation for sexual inadequacy.

David Hess as Adam is your standard out-of-control psycho.

Franco Nero as Walter is suppressed rage mixed with contempt for Adam. It’s a crazy very edgy performance and it works.

Corinne Cléry as Eve is excellent - she makes sure that we can never be certain what Eve might do next. She captures her terror very well, and early on she really captures Eve’s wild sexual perversity.

There’s plenty of frontal nudity. Corinne Cléry never seemed to have too many inhibitions about taking her clothes off for a movie. And she looks gorgeous clothed or unclothed.

The shock effect of the violence stems mostly from its sudden eruptions, and the ruthlessness and insanity driving it.

Hitch-Hike takes a familiar setup but makes it really nasty and twisted and surprising and gives it a hard noir edge and a very satisfying multiple-shock ending. Highly recommended.

The old Blue Underground DVD (which is the edition I own) looks fine. More recently there have been several Blu-Ray releases.

While this movie is superficially very different from Pasquale Festa Campanile’s charming feelgood sophisticated sex comedy The Libertine (1968) and his brilliant surreal sadomasochistic melodrama The Slave (AKA Check to the Queen, 1969) there are some similarities - all three films deal with sexual perversity and all three are original and inventive.

Scissors (1991)

In 1992 Sharon Stone became, overnight, the hottest property in Hollywood thanks to Basic Instinct. She seemed set for a glittering career, which didn’t happen to the extent one would have expected. She made some interesting movies in the 90s but apart from Basic Instinct they were not loved by the critics. Scissors, made a year before Basic Instinct, is one those critically unloved movies. Some of these movies were in fact very very good but once the critics turn against you there’s not much you can do.

Perhaps the problem is that some of her most notable 90s movies were about sex. They were to varying extent erotic thrillers. That always makes mainstream critics nervous, and often brings out their natural snarkiness. They do not entirely approve of erotic thrillers.

Scissors starts off very promisingly, creating unease on several different levels. Angie Anderson (Sharon Stone) almost gets raped in the elevator of her apartment building. That’s obviously unsettling to the viewer but there are other things vey early on that unsettle us. When we first see Angie she is dressed a bit oddly. She is dressed shabbily but we find out that she is not poor. She looks a bit like a refugee from the Summer of Love.

She collects dolls. There’s nothing inherently abnormal about a grown woman collecting dolls. It’s a not uncommon feminine hobby. But Angie seems to be obsessive about it. The dolls sleep on her bed. She sleeps on the couch. We see her looking at her naked breasts in the mirror and she does so in such a way to suggest that she’s a woman not quite comfortable in her own skin, and perhaps not quite comfortable with her sexuality.

She is rescued from the attempted rape by another tenant, Alex Morgan (Steve Railsback). He’s an actor. He shares an apartment with his wheelchair-bound brother Cole. They both seem a bit too tightly wrapped. Not overtly creepy, but just a tiny bit unsettling.

Then we find out that Angie is a virgin. Not by choice but through fear.

Cole Morgan is a painter. One look at his paintings is enough to convince us that he has a few issues with women. Then he shows Angie one particularly painting. She’s disturbed, and so are we.

So we have all sorts of disturbing provocative elements and what’s nice is that we know they’re important but we can’t yet see exactly how they’re going to fit together.

There are other characters who are also perhaps a little ambiguous. There’s Alex’s bitter ex-girlfriend Nancy Leahy (Vicki Frederick). There’s her psychiatrist, Dr Carter (Ronny Cox). Angie might have a slight emotional fixation on him. There’s Dr Carter’s ambitious politician wife.

And then there’s Billy (who might be someone from her childhood), and Richard Bailey (her new employer). There’s mystery surrounding both of them.

Angie sees her attacker again. Or she thinks she does.

This is a subjective movie. We see things from Angie’s point of view, and maybe her judgments are not always reliable. And her sexual hangups can cause her judgments about men to be dubious.

Then things get really strange. Now Angie is in real trouble.

This is not a Hitchcock-style suspense movie. Hitchcock always maintained that suspense is achieved by giving the audience information that the protagonist doesn’t have. In Scissors by contrast we only know what Angie knows. It’s more of a mystery thriller.

The production design is superb.

Steve Railsback handles his dual role rather well. I loved Sharon Stone in what was a very demanding role. She has to keep us guessing about this woman. The other performers are fine but this is a movie that is going to stand or fall depending entirely on Sharon Stone’s performance and she delivers the goods.

This is an erotic thriller in the sense that sex does to a large extent drive the plot and provider the character motivations but there are no sex scenes and only one brief topless scene. The violence (and there’s not much of it) is similarly mostly implied. There are no geysers of blood in this movie.

What it does have is a very disturbing atmosphere and most all a nice sense of uncertainty about whether we’re seeing reality or Angie’s distorted view of reality, or possibly there are things that exist only in her mind. Those questions are left unresolved up to the end. And the ending is very neat. I like this ending a lot. This is a very underrated movie and it’s highly recommended. And it looks great on Blu-Ray.

I’ve also reviewed Sharon Stone’s other much-maligned and very underrated 1993 erotic thriller Sliver.

The Phantom (1996)

The Phantom was released in 1996. It was an Australian-U.S. co-production.

The movies of the 90s pretty much passed me by at the time. To some extent that was true of the 80s as well. For me movie history began just before the First World War and ended at the close of the 1970s. Recently I’m been filling in these gaps in my movie-watching experience and I’ve been particularly surprised by just how many good (and fun) movies were made in the 90s.

I love comics but for me that means mostly European comics, with the only exceptions being Modesty Blaise and Vampirella. In general I have zero interest in American superhero comics and consequently zero interest in modern Hollywood superhero comic-book heroes. I do however have very dim memories of reading a few Phantom comics as a kid and the Ghost Who Walks does have some appeal to me as a character.

The 1996 Phantom movie failed to kick off a franchise. It’s possible that the timing was not quite right.

The backstory is disposed of very quickly right at the start with a voiceover narration. That means we can get on with the story. It is of course set in the jungle, possibly a jungle island. The Phantom’s home is the mythical island of Bengalla so I assume that’s the setting.

The Phantom, the mysterious Ghost Who Walks (played by Billy Zane), has made a serious error. He has allowed a magical skull to fall into the hands of the dreaded Seng Brotherhood. If these arch-fiends get their hands on all three skulls they will have access to unlimited destructive power. The Phantom has to retrieve that skull.

Meanwhile in America a crusading newspaper publisher, Dave Palmer, is set to to lift the lid on the nefarious activities of businessman-gangster Xander Drax (Treat Williams). Of course we figure right away that he is the sort of villain who might well have an interest in those magical skulls.

Palmer’s daughter Diana (Kristy Swanson) sets off on a Pan Am Clipper flying boat to further Palmer’s investigation. Diana is of course a Feisty Heroine and as such she is quite capable of punching out muscle-bound guys who outweigh her by a hundred pounds or more, because girlpower! Yes, sadly, there is a certain amount of tedious Girlpower kickass action heroine stuff in this movie.

Diana is kidnapped on the way by sexy lady pirates. Now this is more like it. I very much approve of sexy lady pirates. Their leader Sala (Catherine Zeta Jones) is not just a sexy bad girl, she has a cruel sadistic streak as well. At this point I’m really liking this movie.

There are several different groups of bad guys after those skulls. Which leads to plenty of action.

My biggest issue with this movie is with one of the character arcs which develops disappointingly and unconvincingly.

A minor problem is that the Phantom comic books were aimed at kids and the Phantom is a goody-goody hero who never kills people (or at least very rarely kills). This makes him a less interesting hero since he is never faced with awkward moral dilemmas. The movie also has very much the feel of being aimed at kids. But that’s OK. This is intended as a lighthearted fun movie.

Billy Zane is OK, but his Phantom is just a bit too sensitive 90s guy. The part needed a bit more gravitas and definitely needed more of a hint of the ruthless crusader.

Diana is slightly irritating but at least she’s cute.

Performance-wise the film’s saving grace is Catherine Zeta Jones as Sala - she oozes wickedness. I like that in a girl. And Treat Williams makes a pretty decent super-villain.

I like the way Diana and Sala instantly hate each other. Sala assumes that no man can resist her charms, but apparently the Phantom can. That naturally pisses her off. Sala and Diana both think the Phantom is rather hot so they’re not likely to become best friends.

Despite my minor reservations about a few aspects of the film there is a great deal to like here.

I love the visuals. This movie aims to look gorgeous and it succeeds. It’s bright and colourful and it captures the right comic-book feel. I do like the 1930s setting. The fact that considerable parts of the movie take place in New York is utilised effectively - this was a time when men dressed with style and women wore slinky glamorous dresses. And the contrasts between New York and the jungle work well.

The production and costume designs are excellent, the cinematography is top-notch. The effects work and the stunts are very well executed. This movie is very very stylish.

This movie was directed by Australian director Simon Wincer, also responsible for a couple of bona fide ozploitation classics - Snapshot and Harlequin. The pacing is brisk Wincer resists the temptation to make an overlong movie. There’s always something happening.

The fact that it failed to ignite the box office is one of those depressing difficult-to-explain things. Maybe it just didn’t take itself seriously enough. The emphasis is on fun. It’s an old-fashioned feelgood adventure movie and I have no problems with that.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. Highly recommended.

The Blu-Ray looks terrific.

Jade (1995)

Jade is a 1995 erotic thriller with a dash of neo-noir. It was written by Joe Eszterhas and directed by William Friedkin.

In 1992 in the wake of the smash hit success of Basic Instinct Eszterhas was the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood. After this his career crashed, he had three box-office failures in a row and the critics moved in for the kill. In fact those box-office failures were extremely good and extremely interesting movies, the movies bombed largely due to extreme critical hostility and the perception that Eszterhas suddenly lost his touch is entirely wrong. But then critics usually are wrong.

Back to Jade. This is very much a San Francisco movie. It opens with the brutal murder of a very rich powerful man, Kyle Medford. Assistant DA David Corelli (David Caruso) is in charge of the investigation. Corelli has his own problems. He was in love with Trina (Linda Fiorentino), now a leading psychiatrist, but she married hot-shot lawyer Matt Gavin (Chazz Palminteri). Corelli is still carrying a torch for her, and still hoping that her marriage to Matt Gavin will break up and he’ll finally get to marry her. On the subject of Trina Corelli is perhaps not entirely rational. The situation is complicated by the fact that Corelli and Matt are friends.

The murder case takes a disturbing turn when it is discovered that Medford owned a beach house. The beach house was used by other rich powerful men for sex romps with very high-class hookers.

There are some interesting clues found in Medford’s houses. Medford was a collector. His collection included a large number of beautiful silver jewellery boxes. Inside each box is a lock of female pubic hair. There’s also a box with the word “jade” engraved on it. Not to mention some excellent photos of the Governor of California having sex with a hooker.

And there’s a video tape which had been thrown into the fire. Perhaps the scientific boys can salvage it. They can. It’s no surprise that it shows a rich important man having sex with a hooker but there’s something else about the tape that throws David Corelli for a loop.

There are also a couple of witnesses whose evidence is unsettling. One of them saw quite a few women entering that beach house. He saw them clearly.

It’s fairly evident that Jade is a woman, but finding her will be a challenge.

There are more killings and attempted killings and someone seems to have taken a murderous dislike to David Corelli.

There are thematic similarities to Basic Instinct which Eszterhas also wrote and the two films have a slightly similar vibe. There are some differences, party of course due to the fact that Basic Instinct and Jade had different directors. With Basic Instinct Paul Verhoeven was clearly homaging Hitchcock and to some extent film noir. It can be considered a neo-noir. In Jade Friedkin is going for a grittier scuzzier feel. Both movies deal with sex and power and with sex as a game in which the price the loser pays is death. Basic Instinct is more concerned with power within relationships while Jade is concerned with power in a broader sense. It also adds money to the mix. And corruption.

The world of Jade is entirely corrupt. Every person in any kind of authority is either corrupt or too scared to confront the corruption. Everyone is morally compromised. David Corelli is keenly aware that he too is in danger of being morally compromised.

There’s a spectacular and extremely clever and imaginative car chase which is of course what you would expect from William Friedkin.

Is this neo-noir? I think it just about qualifies. Corelli is a noir protagonist of sorts. He’s basically a decent guy but he’s already partially morally compromised (you don’t get to be Assistant DA without making a few sleazy moral compromises). He’s accustomed to a world of corruption in which it’s taken for granted that if a line of investigation seems to be leading to someone as powerful as the Governor then the normal procedure is to abandon that line of investigation immediately. Such people are above the law. He understands that the rich and powerful never get convicted. He’s not crooked but he has learnt to turn a blind eye to corruption.

Now he finds himself sliding further into this murky world. He’s also watching his own emotional life self-destructing. He also has people trying to kill him.

There’s a femme fatale of sorts. There’s a sense of events spiralling out of control and Corelli is certainly losing control.

David Caruso makes a pretty good lead but the standout performer is Linda Fiorentino. She’s sexy but disturbing - it’s not at all clear what makes this woman tick.

There’s a nice atmosphere of sleaze and plenty of suggestions of kinkiness.

I have mixed feelings about William Friedkin but he does a fine job here.

If you like movies that wrap things up neatly at the end, tied up with a pretty bow, you might not be entirely satisfied with the ending although I think it’s fine and it works. I don’t care what critics thought about this movie, I liked it a lot. Very highly recommended.

I bought the Spanish Blu-Ray which is (unlike some of the other releases of this film) in the correct aspect ratio and it’s a very nice transfer.

The Dirty Dolls (1973)

The Dirty Dolls is a very obscure 1976 softcore sexploitation crime thriller film which has been released by the American Genre Film Archive (paired with Things To Come) in their Smut Without Smut series on Blu-Ray.

Smut Without Smut may be the silliest idea in the history of home video. The idea was to take X-Rated movies and chop out all the naughty bits. Perhaps their next project will be Thrillers Without Thrills, or Comedies Without Comedy.

At least they had the decency and just enough intelligence to include the uncut versions on the Blu-Ray as well. I watched the uncut version so that’s the version I’m reviewing.

Johnny leads a gang of desperate armed robbers. There’s Johnny, and five hot babes including his sister Dee Dee.

And one of the babes, Sherry, is played by sexploitation legend Sharon Kelly! Sharon Kelly started out as a go-go dancer, made a major splash in softcore and later moved into hardcore.

They’re not the world’s smartest or most efficient criminals. They kill someone in a bar heist. Then they move on to something much more ambitious, stealing uncut diamonds from a diamond exchange. They find themselves having to take two hostages and then they don’t know what to do with them. And maybe they can’t unload those diamonds. Johnny is out of his depth. He’s small-time and definitely not cut out for the big time.

The bar heist is fun. The girls are masquerading as missionaries collecting money for their church. Only they collect the money at gunpoint. They’ve found that this stimulates people to give more generously.

The problem they face in the diamond heist is that the diamonds are in an attache case chained to the wrist of a security guy. They have to take him along with them. And they run into a witness in the lift. They have to take her along as well.

There are already tensions in the gang. Johnny is sleeping with all of his girls. Except for Dee Dee, although he and Dee Dee are very close. Dee Dee is worried that things are getting out of hand.

The female hostage is rich and stuck-up and treats Johnny with contempt. Two of the girls decide to have some fun with her. They’ll subject her to some sapphic loving, and since they’ve handcuffed her she doesn’t have any choice in the matter. She is naturally outraged but the girls are persuasive and Sherry is impressed. For a beginner this lady can give a girl a surprising amount of pleasure.

Sherry also persuades the captive security guy to pleasure her. He’s tied up but the parts of him that are of interest to Sherry are easily accessible. Sherry has a very nice time, and she thinks he has such nice eyes.

The relationship between Johnny and his sister will also develop in an interesting way. This is the real heart of the movie and it works better in the uncut version because it needs to have a real impact. It needs to be a gut punch. I’ve watched the butchered version and it doesn’t quite have the impact and the shock value required. It works better in the uncut version because you get a sense of erotic desperation and lust out of control. The uncut version adds a slightly more disturbing touch as well, with the suggestion that Johnny’s suspicions about Dee Dee’s feelings might not be entirely wrong.

Chopping out all the sex scenes in this movie really is an insane thing to do. The butchered version runs for a mere 49 minutes. This is a sex movie. That’s what it’s all about. Yes, there’s a rudimentary crime plot but it’s lust that drives the plot and it’s the sleaziness and depravity and out-of-control unhealthy sexual desperation that provides all of the character motivations. The sex scenes are softcore but very raunchy and steamy and sweaty. Take out the sex and you have a ridiculously short second-rate ultra-cheap boring crime movie. With the sex it’s a wild crazy roller-coaster ride of sex and crime. It’s dirty and sleazy because it needs to be dirty and sleazy.

And this is a Sharon Kelly movie. She is quite a good actress and she’s cute and charming and amusing but people watch a Sharon Kelly movie to see her take her clothes off and get down to some bedroom action. That’s because once she’s naked she’s even cuter and more charming and more amusing and she sends the eroticism levels through the ceiling.

The sex is strictly softcore.

This movie is not in great condition. There’s a lot of print damage. That’s a feature rather than a bug. It makes the movie feel grimy and dirty, which is as it should be.

Don’t bother with the hacked-to-pieces cleaned-up let’s-not-offend-anybody version. In its uncut form The Dirty Dolls is a delightfully nasty, violent and scuzzy exploitation movie and it’s highly recommended.