Has it really been three years since all this started? Happy Birthday to Balladeer’s Blog! One of the highlights of the past twelve months was this nice November shoutout from Casey James (left) and SaRenna Lee, two incredibly beautiful and creative ladies who have impeccable taste in blogs. Since this shoutout Casey has been making appearances here as Balladeer’s Blog’s Official Movie Hostess, too! For more of Casey and SaRenna read on:

And here’s hoping the next year is at least as much fun for all of us as the one just past!

CASEY AND SARENNA FANS: http://glitternight.com/2013/05/13/bad-movies-sex-symbol-casey-james-and-a-quick-look-at-some-of-the-most-notorious/ 

© Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.   

Special thanks once again to Balladeer’s Blog’s Official Movie Hostess, the beautiful and dangerous Casey James! Not only is Casey the perfect woman but she also enjoys the absurdity of those over-the- top Juvenile Delinquent films of the 1950’s and 1960’s. This world-famous sex symbol is uniquely qualified to be the hostess for this article.

HIGH SCHOOL CAESAR (1960) – John Ashley, who was about as menacing as Ned Flanders, plays a bitter rich teenage punk who runs illegal operations at his high school like a junior version of organized crime. The title is a reference to Little Caesar, the gangster movie with Edward G Robinson. Ashley’s JD character peddles the answers to exams, rigs school elections and bilks money from his classmates. All of this is played so seriously you will die laughing. There’s also the obligatory Drag Race and OF COURSE someone dies while drag racing. My Bad Movie page has a full-length review of this one if you’re interested.

SHAKE, RATTLE AND ROCK! (1956) – In this hilarious movie Rock and Roll music is blamed for the Juvenile Delinquency epidemic of the 1950’s. Not only does one particularly irrational city ban rock music completely but it puts the local rock DJ on trial! They hold him accountable for the vandalism and other JD activities that hit the town because, by their logic, the “wild” music he played CAUSED the teenagers to commit their crimes. This is hilariously bad and stars Mike “Touch” Connors as the scapegoated Disc Jockey.

HOT ROD GANG (1958) – The ever-bland John Ashley strikes again! Teenage slang runs amok in this achingly funny film that also features some of the lamest rear-projection work imaginable during some of the drag racing scenes. Ashley tries to sing like Elvis, races hot rods, gets in fights with some of the local hoods and romances Jody Fair in his spare time. To save the local teen hangout Ashley’s character plans to win the prize money in a car race. To raise the entry fee he disguises himself as a rock singer and, under the alias “Jackson Dalrymple”, becomes a sensation. 

HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL (1958) – Jerry Lee Lewis sings the opening song in this campy classic! Russ Tamblyn plays Tony Baker, a sneering high school punk looking to get ahead in the drug-pushing game. Mamie Van Doren plays his seductive “Aunt”, Jody Fair plays a jonesing teenager, Jackie Coogan plays a drug lord, Ray Anthony a gunsel and Michael Landon portrays a hot-rod racing football player. John Drew Barrymore, the son of silent film star John Barrymore and the father of actress Drew Barrymore, plays a teen marijuana dealer who delivers an all-slang rendition of Columbus’ discovery of America. It’s very educational! 

UNTAMED YOUTH (1957) – A predatory cotton farmer manipulates a lonely female judge into sentencing teenage delinquents to work in his cotton fields. Once the evil farmer has the JD’s in his power he treats them as slave labor and even extorts sexual favors from some of the more attractive females. This baby combines the exploitation thrills of women in prison movies with the usual JD potboiler nonsense. Mamie Van Doren, rock singer Eddie Cochran, Lori Nelson and Lawman’s John Russell star in this non-stop orgy of unintentional laughs. Mamie’s singing is as lame as ever in this anti-classic.

DIARY OF A HIGH SCHOOL BRIDE (1959) – A young girl who used to run with “a bad crowd” seems to be turning her life around when she marries a Bland White Guy while she’s still in high school. The wild crowd of JD’s that she used to run with try to draw her back into their lifestyle of criminal “kicks”. So campy it’s virtually a spoken-language opera! Tony Casanova himself sings the title song, which features wonderful lyrics like “The days she was lo-o-nelyyy/ The ni-i-ights that she criiiiiiied/ The diary of a high school briiiiiiiide!” They don’t write them like that anymore!

GIRLS TOWN (1959) – Mamie Van Doren joins Paul Anka – who made his acting debut in this flick – for the title song! The title institution is a reform school for female JD’s and is run by two-fisted nuns. Mamie’s character, named “Silver” like the Lone Ranger’s horse, winds up sentenced to Girls Town when she is mistakenly implicated in the death of her boyfriend Chip (Harold Lloyd, Jr). Her sister, who is NOT named after Trigger or any other horse, is played by Elinor Donahue and was the one really involved in Chip’s death. Mel Torme as a pudgy JD joins Charley Chaplin Jr, Ray Anthony, Dick Contino, Gloria Talbot, James Mitchum and Jody Fair in an unforgettable ride.   

THE PARTY CRASHERS (1958) – Connie Stevens, Bobby Driscoll, Matt Damon, Frances Farmer and Denver Pyle star in this unintentionally hilarious movie about a group of JD’s whose M.O. is to crash parties at upper-class homes, help themselves to food, drink and women and then vandalize the place. Connie is torn between her bland boyfriend and the sleazy leader of the Party Crashers. All the teenagers are spoiled and unlikeable and all the adults are alcoholics or bloated rich pigs. This movie is one long laugh festival!

THE CRY BABY KILLER (1958) – Jack Nicholson made his acting debut in this Roger Corman production. Jack plays a JD who mistakenly thinks he has shot two rival gang members to death and, believing he has nothing to lose, grabs hostages and holes up in a standoff with the police. A media circus results as news crews come in to cover the incident and talking heads ponder the juvenile delinquency phenomenon. In better hands this could have provided riveting social commentary, but because it’s a Corman quickie it’s good just for laughs and a silly title song. Brett Halsey, Carolyn Mitchell, Bruno Ve Sota and Corman himself make appearances in this cult classic.  

FOR MORE MOVIES WITH CASEY CLICK HERE: http://glitternight.com/2013/06/16/supermodel-casey-james-presents-the-strangest-biker-movies-of-all-time/

FOR CASEY’S OTHER ANTICS CLICK HERE: http://clips4sale.com/66673/8546337 

© Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Special thanks to the soul-shatteringly beautiful Casey James who is as versatile as she is lovely! Not only is she Balladeer’s Blog’s Official Movie Hostess but for the Halloween Season she’s branching out to welcome readers to my look at forgotten Gothic horror stories of the 1800’s. Everybody remembers the big names like Dracula and Frankenstein but Casey and I want to introduce readers to some neglected gems of Gothic horror.

THE HORRORS OF OAKENDALE ABBEY (1797) – The author of this unjustly forgotten work is known only as “Mrs Carver” but is often speculated to be a man with the leading candidate being Sir Anthony Carlisle. The tale centers around the beautiful (of course) and strong-willed (ditto) Laura, a refugee from the Reign of Terror following the French Revolution.   

When Laura is reluctant to accomodate the less-than-selfless motives of her British patron Lord Oakendale he has her and a devoted maid banished to the long-abandoned Oakendale Abbey. The Abbey is believed to be haunted, a reputation enhanced by the repeated disappearances of people who venture into its sinister interior. Shortly after arriving in the mysterious decaying building Laura discovers a skeleton in a trunk – a skeleton which may be the remains of a male admirer done away with by the jealous Lord Oakendale.

The courageous Laura continues her investigation into the Abbey’s secrets despite the pleas of her terror-stricken maid and the other household staff who report to the place on a daily basis. An order of secretive monks is using Oakendale Abbey to conduct their odd and very gruesome experiments on human corpses. But to what end? The story doesn’t hide from grotesque details that Stephen King would be proud of.

VARNEY THE VAMPIRE (1845-1847) – Subtitled The Feast of Blood, this work was published in serialized form from 1845-1847 and then finally in book form in 1847. The story ran to 220 (!) chapters and bears a resemblance to much later pulp fiction especially in the way in which the longer the story ran the more the current chapters often contradicted or outrightly ignored the earlier installments. Entire characters disappear during the course of the narrative and the many hints about Varney’s true identity are never resolved.  

Despite all that, Varney the Vampire is an irresistable read. Its influence on Bram Stoker and Sheridan Le Fanu is obvious and there’s a thematic strength to the work despite its meandering plot which is really more a piling-on of events and not an organized arc. Perfect for readers from this television age! Varney moves about in daylight just fine and is immune to crucifixes and garlic, a side-effect of his multiple deaths and resurrections. Some of those resurrections are based on the pseudo-science of mad scientists rather than pure vampire lore.

Sir Francis Varney is a vampire who despises his horrific condition and his unholy appetites. He wages war on the Bannerworth family and may really be their ancestor Marmaduke Bannerworth aka Sir Runnagate Bannerworth. Later the tormented fiend feuds with another family, the Croftons, and spreads his vampiric curse to Clara Crofton as an act of spite. Summing up the plot of this tale would be like offering up a brief summary of a long-running series like Lost or The X-Files, but the lengthy story is worth a read. Try to look past the silly-sounding title Varney the Vampire. What’s next? Wagner the Werewolf?

WAGNER THE WEREWOLF (1847) Yep. Wagner the Wehr-Wolf to give the novel its original spelling. Written by George W.M. Reynolds this is the tale of a man cursed with lycanthropy in 1500’s Germany.

The title character is Fernand Wagner, a man who gains youth and wealth in a bargain with Herr Doktor Faust, but the price is a curse that transforms him into a werewolf on the final night of each month. Wagner passes himself off as his own descendant to avoid probing questions about his new youthful appearance.The novel deals with Wagner returning home just in time to interact at a crucial moment with his own family and an aristocratic family whose sagas have forever intertwined.

Amid the soap-opera antics that Gothic horror often bogs down in we also get treated to evil nuns who torture their convent novices, Rosicrucians, angels from Heaven, demented clerics of the Inquisition and much more. There is a memorable sequence where Wagner is transforming into a werewolf while being pursued by a pack of dogs. The tale takes place over the course of a year and a half so a lot of space is wasted on side stories and clashes between the Christians and Muslims in eastern Europe. Wagner’s adventures are not as much fun as Varney’s and this novel often gets lost in the stories of the supporting characters. Still, the crossover with Faust lends the story a certain Monster Rally charm and it’s worth reading if you skip over entire chapters that deal with irrelevancies.

FOR MORE HALLOWEEN ITEMS CLICK HERE: http://glitternight.com/category/halloween-season/         

© Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. 

Thank you once again to Balladeer’s Blog’s Official Movie Hostess, Casey James! It’s no secret that Casey is one of the most desired women on the planet but she was kind enough to take a break from stealing the hearts of her countless admirers to help present another look at bad and weird movies.  

THE SECRET OF DORIAN GRAY (1970) – A terrific idea was blown in this hilariously flawed attempt to adapt Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray to swinging 60’s London. Helmut Berger, who was sort of a Nordic Michael York back when this movie was made stars as our title hero whose portrait begins to reflect all the physical and spiritual wear and tear of Dorian’s hedonistic lifestyle, thus preserving his young, beautiful physical form.

It also prevents Dorian’s body from aging, which has always made me think this adaptation might have worked better as a musical comedy in the 1980’s with Dorian a Mick Jagger-type rocker starting out in the 60’s but retaining his appeal two decades later. The contrast between the 60’s and 80’s cultural mindset would have provided plenty of comic and not-so-comic material.

Every girl’s crazy about a sharp-dressed man! Dorian shows off some of his “chick magnet” wardrobe

But that’s nothing but “what might have been” I’m afraid. The movie we’re stuck with tries to be serious but plays like Jesus Franco is directing an unfocused hybrid of Austin Powers (but without the charm), Absolutely Fabulous (but without the laughs) and the Emmanuelle movies (but with very clumsy attempts at eroticism). A nice 60’s touch is the way in which the portrait painter, played by Richard Todd, is an Andy Warhol pastiche and his rendition of Dorian looks like Warhol’s paintings of pop artists of the time. 

Given the time period in which it was made this movie has more freedom to deal with bisexuality than the 1940’s version so if you’ve ever wanted to see Herbert Lom sneak up on a showering Helmut Berger in the proverbial “don’t bend down to pick up the soap” situation this is the movie of your dreams!

As I noted above the premise had promise but when you consider the creative team behind this mess – Samuel Z Arkoff and Harry Alan Towers (as Peter Welbeck) – bad movie lovers can understand why this baby gets funnier and funnier the more serious it tries to be. The supposedly avant-garde clothing worn by the characters in the movie will have you rolling in the aisles all by itself! The Secret of Dorian Gray is a neglected camp classic just waiting for its cult! If you have any gay friends share it with them. They’ll love it even more than you do!  

BOARDINGHOUSE (1982) – Though this is listed as both comedy and horror at the IMDb this was released as a genuine attempt at a horror film. Some of the trailers can be found on youtube and this was being sold as a straight fright film, even though it’s so badly done it leaves you laughing even harder than most intentional comedies do. Boardinghouse was the first mainstream film attempted by former porn producers and far too many scenes have that soap opera/shot on video look.

Hoffman House is the title establishment and has been reopened years after the horrific deaths of most of the wealthy family who lived there. A hot young stud is running the place as a boardinghouse and he caters to shapely female boarders, all of whom are played by the type of women who starred in porno films at the time, so their acting leaves A LOT to be desired.

The last member of the Hoffman family escapes from the mental institution where they’ve been kept since wiping out their relatives and that prodigal Hoffman uses their Carrie-like powers to turn the mansion-turned- boardinghouse into a blood-soaked nightmare. (That’s not technically a spoiler since you wouldn’t be able to understand what was happening in the movie if I didn’t tell you that – yes, this movie is THAT ineptly put-together)

That description makes the movie sound MUCH better than it actually is, unfortunately. Like Black Devil Doll From Hell, The Girl and the Geek, Hellroller and other horror films that devote a huge amount of their running time to titillating padding this flick wastes far too much time on the hunky star and his male friends swimming, hot-tubbing and otherwise partying with the lustful nymphettes who rent rooms at Hoffman House.

A bizarre magic act during the film’s climactic party scene is so pointless you’ll wish the filmmakers would go back to flashing beefcake and cheesecake as padding. That magic act makes Boardinghouse one of the Big Four horror turkeys to feature pointless magic acts as filler, with the others being The Body Shop, Terror Train and Funhouse. The movie also throws in a rock band during the Carrie-esque finale, with one of the starlets belting out a tune in that inimitable 1980’s MTV way that will provoke a lot of laughter all by itself.

REVENGE OF BILLY THE KID (1992) – It ain’t a western, that’s for sure. Old McDonald had a farm … And on that farm he and his inbred, semi-mutant family of hicks lived in mud, squalor and even more mud. After McDonald has sex with a particularly attractive female goat (yes, I just typed the words “After McDonald has sex with a particularly attractive female goat”) that goat gets pregnant and goes on to spawn Billy, the man/goat hybrid who is the “kid” of the title.  

Billy faces the kind of problems that all hideous mutants face in horror films and one day just snaps and goes on a killing spree, featuring some of the most over-the- top bloodletting seen outside of films like Dead Alive or Category 3 Hong Kong horror films. This movie is more weird than bad and flaunts a deliriously demented sense of humor along with a certain perverse vision, the former of which can be gleaned by one of the lead characters having a movie poster for the original Evil Dead hanging in his room.

THE TERRORNAUTS (1967) – Simon Oates of Doomwatch fame stars as yet another maverick scientist in this effort from earlier in his career. Oates is running a British version of the SETI project and is forever trying to intercept signals from space … signals that might indicate intelligent life forms. Conveniently, just when their funding is about to be cut Oates and his team at last receive a broadcast from actual alien life forms. And not just any alien life forms but the exact race that use a cave in France excavated by Oates’ father as a teleportation point from their orbiting space station.

Wild coincidences like that are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of this ridiculous movie’s plot holes, inconsistencies and lack of logic. At any rate when Oates and company broadcast a reply of their own the extraterrestrials fly to England and snatch the entire building that the scientists’ project is housed in. The Earthlings, including a cockney female janitor along for excruciatingly bad comic relief, find themselves at the mercy of the space station’s Doctor Who (original series) level special effects renditions of androids, monsters and interstellar cooking devices.

Eventually our pal Simon and his cohorts learn that they’ve been recruited to crew the large space station and use its weaponry to defeat the invasion fleet of a race of evil aliens. With ridiculous wired beanies strapped to their heads the ragtag band of Brits are telepathically tied-in with the space station’s systems and save the Earth from the oncoming armada of enemy spaceships and manage to teleport off the space station mere moments before it explodes from damages sustained in the battle. Our heroes pop up at the French cave, which sports what look like Evil Clown versions of the Easter Island heads. A gendarme catches the Brits and demands to see their passports in the very, very, wry, dry and British ending.  

FOR MORE MOVIES WITH CASEY JAMES –http://glitternight.com/2013/05/13/bad-movies-sex-symbol-casey-james-and-a-quick-look-at-some-of-the-most-notorious/ 

FOR THE WILDEST MOVIE REVIEWS WITH CASEY AT HER SEXIEST – http://glitternight.com/2013/07/21/push-the-envelope-please-sex-symbol-casey-james-and-horror-film-directors-who-pushed-the-envelope/

FOR MORE BAD MOVIES: http://glitternight.com/bad-movies/ 

© Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Renaissance woman and supermodel Casey James once again demonstrates her versatility! Not only is she Balladeer’s Blog’s Official Movie Hostess, but she’s also my Official Gothic Horror Presenter and now is trying on the role of Mail Woman for Balladeer’s Blog.

The tough and seductive Casey will be generously presiding over my periodic posts like this where I will answer frequently-asked questions – including very hostile ones – from the emails that are sent to me.

EMAIL:  What r u – some kind of Satanist or something?    

EDDIE : No. I consider Satanism to be as silly, irrational and self-deluding as other religions are.  

EMAIL: I’ve noticed you always say things like “American” Liberals when you bash them. What country are you from?    

EDDIE : I’m an American, but I don’t do that whole “groveling American” routine that Liberals do, so I always like to make it clear that I’m NOT one of them. Too many people mistakenly think America is populated strictly by people who are EITHER Liberals OR Conservatives rather than being fully- developed adults. I also refer to “American Conservatives” all the time, too, to make it clear that, though I despise Little Barry Obama I do NOT go in for the wackadoodle conspiracy theories that he’s “a Muslim sleeper agent” or that he’s “intentionally destroying the economy.”

EMAIL: How come you’re always supporting gay marriage? You a fag or something?    

EDDIE : I’m not gay but I’ve never understood why people get so nasty about homosexuality. In fact, one of the many reasons I feel such contempt for Barack Obama is because plenty of us were outspokenly supporting gay marriage YEARS before Little Barry decided it had become politically safe enough for him to switch from opposing it to supporting it.

EMAIL: You’re always slamming Liberals and Conservatives. Are you a Libertarian?    

EDDIE : No, because Libertarians are just as callously willing to eliminate programs like Social Security as Conservatives are. Hell, these days even Liberals are more than happy to concede to cutting Social Security just because they’re so busy fighting for anything and everything that illegal immigrants demand. The days when Liberals represented the American poor are long over.

EMAIL: I’m a proud liberal and I wanted to know why you piss on us so much. You’re clearly no conservative so what’s the problem?

EDDIE: American Liberals are hilariously pretentious asses, cowardly hypocrites and pompous, insecure snobs. They also have no trace of individuality but are simply many mouths with a single mind. American Liberals have no identity outside of their political opinions and those opinions that those ridiculous poseurs think are so innovative and daring are nothing more than the outdated conventional wisdom from five decades ago.    

FOR SIMILAR ARTICLES AND MORE OF THE TOP LISTS FROM BALLADEER’S BLOG CLICK HERE: http://glitternight.com/top-lists/

© Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Casey James, the Official Movie Hostess of Balladeer’s Blog

Special thanks once again to Balladeer’s Blog’s Official Movie Hostess, the incomparable Casey James! Casey has a well-earned reputation as one of the most beautiful women in the world. She was kind enough to take some time away from her busy day to host another look at some very strange movies from the cinematic hinterlands. 

THE MAN WITHOUT A BODY (1957) – Unbelievably bad movie which will have you smacking your head against the wall with its hopelessly flawed logic and truck-sized plotholes. A dying tycoon has a brain tumor so he wants a healthy brain to replace it. For absolutely no reason he thinks this new brain will carry on his consciousness. Making even less sense is the fact that he wants the brain of the long-dead Nostrodamus to be the replacement organ! Making the least sense of all is the fact that his graverobbers find Nostrodamus’ brain INTACT after hundreds of years! All this plus a mad scientist who has disembodied monkey heads and a huge eyeball on his laboratory wall.  FOR MY FULL-LENGTH REVIEW CLICK HERE: http://glitternight.com/2010/11/13/the-man-without-a-body-1957/

THE CONFESSIONAL (1976) – This is 1970’s exploitation filmmaking at its most joyously tasteless! A deranged priest takes to murdering his parishioners for the sins they admit to in the confessional booth. His murder techniques include poisoned communion wafers, strangling people with Rosary beads and stabbing them with crucifixes! (Ouch!) In his spare time he torments his wheelchair- bound mother Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? style. FOR MY FULL-LENGTH REVIEW CLICK HERE: http://glitternight.com/2010/08/22/bad-movie-the-confessional-1976/ 

INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS (1973) – William “Big Bill” Smith from biker films and the old western series Laredo stars as a government agent investigating the mysterious deaths of scientists working on Top Secret projects. Turns out a female mad scientist is creating a race of human/queen bee hybrids out of female subjects. These Bee Girls then go forth and slay their male targets by literally “loving” them to death. This baby must be seen to be believed. FOR MY FULL-LENGTH REVIEW CLICK HERE: http://glitternight.com/2012/09/28/bad-movie-page-invasion-of-the-bee-girls-1973/

BLOOD BEACH (1980) – John Saxon and Burt Young head a cast of nobodies in a laughably bizarre excuse for a horror film. A creature living beneath the sand at a California beach feeds at will on beachgoers by sucking them down through the sand and devouring them. The half-chewed remains of some of the monster’s victims are pretty gory but otherwise the killings look almost as silly as the deaths in the 1950’s anti-classic The Creeping Terror. FOR MY FULL-LENGTH REVIEW CLICK HERE: http://glitternight.com/2013/09/22/blood-beach-1980-on-the-texas-27-film-vault-february-22nd-1986/

FOR SIMILAR ARTICLES AND MORE OF THE TOP LISTS FROM BALLADEER’S BLOG CLICK HERE: http://glitternight.com/top-lists/

© Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Balladeer’s Blog’s Official Movie Hostess, the legendary Casey James

Casey James is as lethal as she is lovely and among her many roles in life she is kind enough to be Balladeer’s Blog’s Official Movie Hostess. This time around this voluptuous embodiment of men’s and many women’s desires is presenting the first in a series of my reviews of the more obscure Spaghetti Westerns – the ones not well known to viewers who are only familiar with Sergio Leone’s films. 

THE PRICE OF POWER (1969) –  There were literally more than 550 Spaghetti Westerns made in the 60’s and 70’s since when the Italians do something they do it in a big, big way. Those hundreds of films vary in quality from pretty good to hilariously awful and the creative talents behind them often tried to outdo each other in terms of colorful heroes and oddball plots. My favorites include those movies where the Italians took more liberties with Western history than American filmmakers ever dreamed of. 

That brings us to The Price Of Power which was also released under the title Texas. The point of this film is … well, it’s hard to say really. Even after repeated viewings. It’s difficult to determine if the filmmakers were trying to make a statement about the alleged conspiracy behind the assassination of President John F Kennedy or about the civil rights movement, or about capitalism’s impact on the political process in a free society or what. Whatever they were trying to do the end result is like a history lesson taught by Ed Wood himself. Let’s compare the historical record to the plotline of this very odd movie. 

IN REAL LIFE – President James Garfield was assassinated in 1881 in Washington, D.C. by a disgruntled patronage job seeker, an incident which caused an outrage large enough to help ease the way toward the current civil service system. … IN THE PRICE OF POWER – President James Garfield gets assassinated in 1890 in Dallas, TX by die- hard supporters of the long-dead Confederacy who are planning a second Civil War. …

IN REAL LIFE – Garfield’s Vice President, Chester A Arthur, rose above his corrupt past (well, generally) and resisted the influence of his  sleazy political patron, New York Senator Roscoe Conkling. … IN TPOP – Garfield’s Vice President Chester A Arthur is in the pocket of the Neo-Confederate conspirators, who plan to blackmail him into running the USA in a way favorable to them in the upcoming conflict. …

IN REAL LIFE – Allan Pinkerton worked with Union intelligence in the Civil War and established the U.S. Intelligence Service, the forerunner of the Secret Service. … IN TPOP – Allan Pinkerton is one of the Dallas conspirators looking to eliminate Garfield and install their puppet Arthur. …

IN REAL LIFE – James Garfield was dark-haired and bearded. … IN TPOP – James Garfield is played by the blonde and clean-shaven Van Johnson. Yes. Van Johnson. 

On top of its distorted history this film piles on plenty of JFK assassination parallels. … The President is shot while riding in an open vehicle down a Dallas street. There are lingering arguments over how many gunmen there were and from which location the fatal shots originated. The First Lady strolls around for awhile in a dress stained with her husband’s blood. There is a patsy for the assassination, and yes, he is indeed killed while being transported between jails, albeit in the film it takes place during a well-staged running gunfight. (Sort of makes you wish Jack Ruby had consulted a fight choreographer before shooting Oswald) The VP is suspected of complicity in a coverup and/or the assassination itself. That VP takes the oath of office in Dallas before heading back to Washington, DC, however, his first words as President are NOT “Let’s get airborne”. (rimshot) 

The hero of the movie, played by Giuliano Gemma, is Bill Willard, a man who served under Garfield in the Union Army during the Civil War. Bill is a native Texan who scandalized his family by fighting for the North while they all sided with the South. He’s on the opposing side again since his father is in tight with the conspirators trying to kill the president. Early in the film our hero saves Garfield’s train from being blown up on its way to Dallas in some very nice action scenes that have a sort of Wild Wild West feel to them. The patsy for the assassination is an African American friend of Bill who is depicted as having served in the same unit with our hero even though there were no integrated troops in the U.S. Civil War. 

This movie is so well-directed and acted (even the venerable Fernando Rey is in the cast) and has so many well-choreographed action sequences that you come to regret how ultimately laughable it is. The filmmakers would have been better off just going with a completely fictional president in this story to make their points about the JFK assassination and potential coverup and the civil rights movement. 

FOR MORE BAD MOVIES CLICK HERE: http://glitternight.com/bad-movies/

Casey James, Balladeer’s Blog’s Official Movie Hostess

Casey James is as lethal as she is lovely and she is kind enough to be Balladeer’s Blog’s Official Movie Hostess. This time around the voluptuous love goddess is presenting the latest in a series of my reviews of the more obscure Spaghetti Westerns – the ones not well known to viewers who are only familiar with Sergio Leone’s films. 

JOHN THE BASTARD (1967) – Don’t believe websites or reviews that call this a western adaptation of the story of Casanova. Instead, it is clearly a western adaptation of Don Juan, right down to a death by statue finale.

Our hero John Donald (Don Juan, John Donald … get it?) is a slick-talking gunslinger who seduces the ladies and outshoots their men as he roams the west with his manservant (not an African American) who often abets his boss’s trysts like Don Juan’s servant in the classic tale. Think of the scurvy adventures of the British antihero Harry Flashman and you’ll know what to expect from this movie.

John escapes a shotgun wedding with the help of the smitten sister of the woman he knocked up, then seduces and abandons that sister, too. He beds down with his brother’s wife, then protects a caravan of Mormon wives headed for Utah from the army of Ku Klux Klansmen trying to kill them enroute. Naturally, his pay for wiping out the Klan army is getting a steady diet of threesomes with some of the brides to help pass the time on the long journey.

Finally, in order to steal the family fortune he shoots down his brother, beds down with his wife again, and is crushed to death by a statue of his slain brother, a death engineered by a gunslinging Mormon Danite sent to kill John for “disgracing” the caravan of brides he was trusted to protect.

DON’T FORGET THE FRONTIERADO HOLIDAY ON FRIDAY AUGUST FIRST! 

© Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. 

Casey James, the Official Movie Hostess of Balladeer’s Blog

THE FRONTIERADO HOLIDAY IS FRIDAY AUGUST FIRST! We’ve all got our painted rocks on various bits of furniture around the house, we’ve all got our potted cacti with the toy gun-belts slung over them and for those old enough to drink there are Cactus Jacks and Deuces Wilds to be slammed down. In some homes families and friends will be gathering around to watch the official Frontierado Western, Silverado.

In the buildup to this major holiday I periodically reviewed my favorite weird westerns so to give us all a few more chuckles here’s one more, presented by the legendary Casey James, Balladeer’s Blog’s Official Movie Hostess.

JESSE JAMES’ KID (1966) – In my review of The Price of Power earlier this Frontierado season I mentioned how fond I am of those Spaghetti Westerns that distort the facts of the American west more outrageously than even our own home- grown westerns do. Jesse James’ Kid makes The Price of Power look like the writings of Herodotus.

In this deranged western which used to populate the 3am to 5am movie slot on television stations across the country we get the old-school bad movie fun of dubbing that never comes close to matching the movements of the performers’ lips. And that’s just the start. This film tells us that Billy the Kid was Jesse James’ son … yes, Jesse James’ son. And not only that but young Billy witnesses his “father’s” fatal shooting, which in this movie is not done by Robert Ford, but by Bat Freaking Masterson!!!

Billy grows up and in the usual western way wants revenge on the man who killed his father. In real life Billy the Kid was a rustler, but in this film he plays a hired gun helping a female rancher whose horses are being rustled away. The head of the horse-stealing ring is a rival rancher, none other than Bat Masterson himself! In this parallel universe version of the Lincoln County War the hostilities are between Masterson’s ranch and the spread where the Kid works. (Called The Double Horse Ranch, which sounds like a dirty joke) 

After lots of shooting between the ranch-hands of each warring faction (with Billy getting large slices of the action) the Kid and Bat have their showdown. In this joyously deranged scene Billy avenges his father Jesse’s death by pumping FOURTEEN bullets (you can count ‘em) into Bat’s body … from one six-gun … without reloading.

The really cheap and rushed dubbing job done by the stateside distributor of this Italian oater presents some ancillary characters being addressed and referred to as Judge Roy Bean, Pat Garrett and “Mr Clanton”, but whether that is the fault of the filmmakers or the people who dubbed this baby into English I can’t say. Not for all tastes, but a fun bad movie.     

© Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. 

Casey James, Balladeer’s Blog’s Official Movie Hostess

With the Frontierado holiday coming up this Friday August 1st the spectacularly beautiful Casey James, the Official Movie Hostess of Balladeer’s Blog, helps us get in the seasonal mood with another look at some very odd Spaghetti Westerns.

DYNAMITE JOE (1966) – The title hero is a Jim West- style government agent who dresses well, gambles even better and is a deadly hand with … dynamite. This oddity features Dynamite Joe on the trail of stagecoach robbers who have stolen a fortune in gold. Naturally he beats all the bad guys without once drawing (or carrying) a gun but by hurling sticks of dynamite with giddy abandon, regardless of the collateral damage. This is NOT a comedy, which makes it much funnier. The theme song tells us Dynamite Joe is “dyna-mighty”. I’m serious. 

BLINDMAN (1971) – A blind gunslinger, wearing a sign around his neck that says “Blindman”, is a deadly shot based on his extraordinary smell and hearing. This was one of the many Spaghetti Westerns adapted from Japanese movies, in this case the series about the blind, sword-wielding hero Zatoichi. There are blatant comedic elements in this movie, which costars Ringo Starr, or else it would have made the main list. A knowing sense of humor dulls the Bad Movie Appeal. See also Deaf Smith and Johnny Ears (1972).

KUNG FU BROTHERS IN THE WILD WEST (1973) – Two brothers from China are separated in Hong Kong, but encounter each other in the American west. They heroically protect their new hometown from the scourge of the evil warlord who has followed them across the ocean. Kung Fu Brothers in the Wild West is not nearly as much fun as that title and description make it sound. Unfortunately I’m afraid that this movie is so bad it’s barely even watchable.  

JOHNNY HAMLET (1968) – Hey, if we’ve had Don Juan in the west, why not Hamlet? Johnny Hamlet comes back from the Civil War to learn that his father is dead and his sinister Uncle Claude has married his mother. Uncle Claude has also taken over the family estate, a sprawling Ponderosa-sized ranch with the hilariously strange name “Rancho El Senor”. Elsinore … “El Senor” … Get it?

FOR FOUR NEGLECTED REAL-LIFE WESTERN FIGURES CLICK HERE: http://glitternight.com/2011/08/02/frontierado-week-four-neglected-wild-west-figures/

FOR THE NUMBER ONE FRONTIERADO FILM CLICK HERE: http://glitternight.com/2011/07/06/the-top-four-frontierado-movies-number-one-silverado-1985/

DON’T FORGET – FRONTIERADO IS FRIDAY AUGUST 1st.

Special thanks once again to the extraordinarily lovely Casey James, Balladeer’s Blog’s Official Movie Hostess! This time around Casey is helping present the first of my reviews of bad and weird superhero movies.

The Golden Bat: the ugliest superhero in the world.

THE GOLDEN BAT (1966) – Ogon Batto is the name of this film in its native Japan. The movie was based on the title character, Japan’s very first comic book superhero who debuted in 1930. That 1930 date puts him years before Superman and Batman in the west!  

At any rate for the 1966 movie Japan’s perennial action star Sonny Chiba played the leader of a group of science-oriented commandos in what looked like aluminum foil suits. Chiba and his gang have fancy aircraft like England’s Thunderbirds and their debut mission finds them trying to save the Earth from collision with a rogue planet called Icarus.

Chiba’s outfit has constructed a giant laser cannon to destroy Icarus before it can reach our planet. Trouble is it needs a final component to be found only on a lost island. When Sonny Chiba’s Mighty Aluminum Foil Power Rangers explore the ancient city on that island they uncover the tomb of … the Golden Bat!

Ogon Batto/Golden Bat is one weirdass superhero. He rises from his coffin like a vampire and looks like a monstrous hybrid of Lon Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera and Jerry Lewis in The Nutty Professor. He’s apparently all good-guy though and he helps Chiba’s team battle an evil alien named Nazu and his gang of interstellar criminals.

The extraordinarily lovely Casey James, Balladeer’s Blog’s Official Movie Hostess

Nazu wants to let the Earth and Icarus collide because, well, he’s simply that evil. His fellow E.T.’s include a four-eyed claw man, a wolf-man and a hot looking woman. The aliens can shoot energy beams just like the ones that the Golden Bat shoots from his cane, setting up some deliriously weird-looking fight scenes.  

Throw in evil super-ninjas, a flock of big-ass bats and the maniacal laugh of our hero and just let it all soak in. The Golden Bat’s adventures make Ultra-Man’s look down to Earth and inspired a 1967 Japanese television series plus a sequel movie in 1972.  

If you enjoy laughing at Japanese superheroes like Starman and Prince of Space then you will definitely get a huge kick out of this neglected little honey. 

FOR MORE BAD MOVIES CLICK HERE: http://glitternight.com/bad-movies/

© Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

International sex symbol Casey James, Balladeer’s Blog’s Official Movie Hostess.

Special thanks to Balladeer’s Blog’s Official Movie Hostess, the beautiful Casey James, as she helps present another look at a bad or weird superhero film. This time around the subject is the 1968 Mexican film Batwoman (La Mujer Murcielago).

For starters this should NOT be confused with the Jerry Warren film The Wild, Wild World of Batwoman, but often is because Warren was the stateside distributor for plenty of Mexican films in the 50’s and 60’s. This movie is purely a Luchadora film with Batwoman being a wrestler as well as a seasoned crime fighter.   

It’s not quite fair to call this a “bad” film, but it is a bit of a weird one. In my view it’s much tighter and more entertaining than most of the El Santo movies from Mexico. And I’m not just saying that because of how incredibly sexy the star Maura Monti is. She has an arresting (see what I did there) figure that’s perfect for her version of the Batwoman outfit: a bikini, boots, mask and cape. 

Like the Turkish movie Three Dev Adam, which features Spider-Man, Captain America and El Santo, this little honey did not pay for character rights but slipped under the radar long ago thanks to its south-of-the- border origins. Maura Monti has a certain screen presence that was lacking in other Luchadora flicks like Wrestling Women vs the Aztec Mummy. And this movie is nowhere near the embarrassment that Halle Berry’s Catwoman was.

Acapulco is the gorgeous setting for this fun, campy movie. The beachside locale is exploited in a way that makes it kind of a “Batwoman Meets Baywatch” affair with bits of Raquel Welch’s movie Fathom thrown in. Our heroine is called in by international authorities to look into the abduction of multiple wrestlers who eventually wash ashore dead and with their pineal glands removed.

A mad scientist with the sinister name Dr Eric Williams (?) is the villain behind it all and is operating out of a yacht called Reptilicus. He and his incredibly short but otherwise normal-looking assistant Igor arrange for the kidnapping of wrestlers supposedly because they are “the perfect athletes” and thus the best human pineal gland donors. The mad doctor then injects the glands into fish in his aquarium.

The end result of these bizarre experiments is a walking fish-man (Uh. Sure. Makes sense. Yeah.) that can’t help but put viewers in mind of both The Creature from the Black Lagoon AND the amphibious monster from the Mexican horror film Swamp of Lost Monsters, previously reviewed here at Balladeer’s Blog. Needless to say Batwoman takes down all of the bad guys and the mad scientist’s creation.

Maura Monti handles the action scenes in a very capable manner. She’s believable enough (for a superhero/ Mexican wrestler flick that is) whether she’s taking down thugs, schooling sister Luchadoras on the wrestling mats or behind the wheel in a terrific car-chase scene around scenic Acapulco. This chase scene is at least as competently choreographed as the ones in the 1960’s James Bond films.   

The Creature Feature-level monster, the wrestling angle and the regulation oddball song in a Mexican Wrestling Film are the main reasons the movie Batwoman is so frequently found listed in the “so bad it’s good” category. Maura Monti herself is spectacular in all kinds of ways and bears no blame for this film’s poor reputation.

FOR MORE BAD MOVIES CLICK HERE: http://glitternight.com/bad-movies/

© Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Balladeer’s Blog’s Official Movie Hostess, the sexy Casey James.

Special thanks once again to Balladeer’s Blog’s Official Movie Hostess, the extraordinarily lovely Casey James. Casey took some time away from stealing the hearts of men and women around the world to host another look at bad films from my archives.

Death Bed

DEATH BED (1977) – My review of this rediscovered lost movie from the 1970’s was one of my most popular posts back in 2010. Death Bed features a water-bed that is alive and has digestive juices inside it instead of merely water. The supernatural bed, spawned by the bloody tears of a demon, devours everyone who lies on it.

No it’s not a joke, it’s a real horror film with one of my favorite weirdass premises. The body count is extremely high as the title menace feeds on literally dozens of victims through the course of the movie. Absurd, bloody and with a narrator who is trapped in a wall near the bed. (Don’t ask.) FOR MY FULL LENGTH REVIEW CLICK HERE:    http://glitternight.com/2011/02/04/a-bed-that-eats-people-who-sleep-in-it-its-death-bed-from-1977/

BLOOD HARVEST (1987) – Real-life folk singer Tiny Tim was still alive in 1987 and starred in this late addition to the decade’s cycle of slasher films. His creepy performance as a psychotic clown in this movie is enhanced by how genuinely disturbed the man-child always seemed to be anyway. 

That aspect of the film exists in a void, however, and is surrounded by nothing but relentlessly inane dialogue, wooden performances, non-scary fright scenes and unintentionally hilarious “serious” scenes. Bill Rebane, the Larry Buchanan of Wisconsin, was the B-Movie legend behind this oddball slasher flick centering on the farm crisis of the 1980’s. FOR MY FULL-LENGTH REVIEW CLICK HERE: –http://glitternight.com/2011/11/19/bad-movie-page-blood-harvest-1987/ 

DEMEKING, THE SEA MONSTER (2009) – This isn’t truly a bad movie, just a misunderstood one. It’s a Japanese fantasy film regarding prophecies about a giant monster from space (not the sea, despite the title) who will destroy the Earth in 2019. Bad reviews from kaiju fans have spoiled the movie’s reputation in an unfair way.

The kaiju effects for the snail-like space creature and its arrival inside a meteor are very, very good. The rampage that follows is also presented in a very competent manner. The bad reviews were the result of the monster not showing up until about an hour and 5 minutes into the film, and even then being gone after about 10 minutes. (SPOILER: Just a dream.)

The movie is really a whimsical character study about human reactions to impending apocalypse and to conspiracy theories. So if that’s what you are in the mood for, not a Godzilla film, watch it.

CURSE OF A TEENAGE NAZI (1948) – It’s up to captive sex-pots of the Axis Powers to help a Bland White Guy from the O.S.S. That undercover agent, employing a Hogan’s Heroes– level German accent, is infiltrating a meeting of top German and Japanese brass as World War Two winds down.

In between witnessing catfights, bullying by Nazi prison matrons, PG-rated shower scenes and hilarious ethnic stereotypes the O.S.S. man actually crams in some spy work. He completes his mission by sabotaging a miraculous super-weapon devised by Axis scientists. FOR MY FULL LENGTH REVIEW CLICK HERE:   http://glitternight.com/2011/03/01/bad-movie-page-curse-of-a-teenage-nazi-1948/

FOR SIMILAR ARTICLES AND MORE OF THE TOP LISTS FROM BALLADEER’S BLOG CLICK HERE: http://glitternight.com/top-lists/

© Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

The 21st Century love goddess called Casey James offering birthday greetings to Balladeer’s Blog.

Yes, Balladeer’s Blog turns FIVE years old today! Thank you to the beautiful Casey James who took time out from stealing hearts and kicking butts to wish my site a Happy Birthday!

For some announcements and MORE pics of Casey read on:

What a beauty!

ITEM: Thank you to all of you who have stayed with me through five long years! I know I thrive on tweaking left-wingers AND right-wingers so it takes people who are secure in their own beliefs not to get huffy and leave. 

ITEM: Yes, I WILL be going back to my reviews of the Son of the Black Mass samurai films. Sorry about the delay but other things kept getting in the way. I will resume right where I left off – with the 4th movie – very soon. I promise.   

ITEM: Ancient Greek Comedies, Bad and obscure movies, neglected pantheons of gods, more of ALL of the offbeat topics I cover will be coming, including more milestones for this 30th Anniversary year of The Texas 27 Film Vault! 

© Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.