Cult Classics

Budget DVD company Mill Creek Entertainment releases a set of 20 obscure and exploitation films from the 30s to the 50s. These films were released back in the days when they wanted to show such taboo topics as drug use and sex on the screen yet they had to do it under the guise of showing the moral problems of their time.

Disc 1:

The Marijuana Menace: Also known as Assassin of Youth this 1937 snoozefest is a film made in the mold of Reefer Madness, although a lot less funny. What didn't help was the print appeared to be covered with hardened mud at some points and faded completely at others making the film a strain on the eyes to watch. Of course the near constant film breaks which just end scenes early don't help matters either.

What's interesting is how so much of the film was about other vices than marijuana and most of the film seemed to be about framing an innocent girl to cheat her out of her inheritance and an old gossiping crow spreading the rumors of the town while a Will Rogers knockoff defends the poor accused girl.

Reefer Madness: Here is perhaps the most famous exploitation film of all time. and yet it's the one I didn't watch it. Thats because there is a much better release out there by Legend Films with a quite funny commentary by Michael J. Nelson of MST3K. Don't buy this set if you want this film, get that release.

Marihuana: More exploitation about Marijuana. I think they already convinced me not to smoke pot already.

Child Bride: I heard once in an interview with Michael J. Nelson and Kevin Murphy of MST3K fame. They hinted at movies they felt were too terrible for the show such as one they described as starring a cast of local hicks about child brides. The description of that could only be this film, and after watching it I can see why they wouldn't touch it.

This exploitation film made supposedly to educate the public about child marriage in perhaps the most tasteless way possible.

Delinquent Daughters: Now here's a trash film warning about the dangers of juvenile delinquency. We have the typical good girl gone bad when she got in the wrong crowd scenario. The weirdest part of the film is this chubby cop who seems to show up everywhere as sort of the conscience of the film.

Note that the film has practically no detail left and any night scenes are about as good as watching a radio drama.

Disc 2:

The Cocaine Fiends: Apparently in the Thirties you could tell someone cocaine was a headache powder and people would gleefully snort it up their nose without a second thought. Two siblings leave their little country home and mother and go to the big city to get high on cocaine and gain fame and fortune. This one has it all: dope, cheap slums, violence, prostitution, pregnancy, suicide and more.

What's interesting is that near the end the film is padded with some vaudeville type acts. This is the only part of the film that is even close to being watchable and given that the experience of watching this film is like watching shadow puppets through cheese cloth it's still a strain on your sanity.

Chained for Life: Okay, I confess I never finished this one. This is the semi-autobiographical film about the famous Hilton twins who were born conjoined at birth. Apparently they had a pretty wild life but I was too bored to watch it all. I know that's not very professional of me but oh well.

Escort Girl: Now here is what I call total exploitation if I ever saw it before. It is supposed to be a warning about escorts going out of the bounds of the law and how they are run by old women and shady men with mustaches who talk in the typical accent of 40s gangsters.

Joyless Street: Somewhat out of place on the disc is this silent film starring Greta Garbo. In this, her first starring film, she plays a young girl living in post WWI Austria whose family has hit on hard times and thus must do what she can to find work to help her family.

This film wasn't bad, for an obviously very heavily edited film with an unrelated music track. I'd like to see it uncut sometime if such a print exists.

Test Tube Babies: No, not In vitro fertilisation but artificial insemination. This film warns that married couples will descend into sin, stripping and booze parties if they don't have children. The problem is, the man in this film is sterile and it's up to the then taboo subject of artificial insemination to the rescue! Of all the films I've seen in this set, this one so far was the worst.

Disc 3:

Terror of Tiny Town: Talk about exploitation! Here is a rather cheaply thrown together western about a bad guy rustling cattle from two families to pit them against one another. SO it's up to the good guy to the rescue to sort it out, get the bad guy and win the girl.

Oh, did I mention everyone in the film is a "midget?"

As exploitive and silly as it seems, this film features a cast of nothing but vertically-challenged (to be PC) people who act out the rather pointless and bland western. I give props to the actors who if given sets more to their size rather than the obviously oversized ones might have done a decent job of this film. Still, it's not awful, just really weird.

Sex Madness:

Slaves in Bondage: A dull movie about girls being forced into prostitution with the bad guys using a nail salon as a cover. The movie interestingly portrays the girls as seemingly willing and able to be prostitutes and yet the film insists they are "saved" at the end. Oh well, such were the 40s.

The Wild and the Wicked:

The Road to Ruin:

Disc 4:

Omoo-Omoo, The Shark God: See the review I did during my 31 Days of Film experiment.

Ten Nights in a Barroom: See the review I did during my 31 Days of Film experiment.

Mad Youth: See the review I did during my 31 Days of Film experiment.

Gambling with Souls: See the review I did during my 31 Days of Film experiment.

She Shoulda' Said No!:

Labels: Bad Movies, Cheap DVDs

Tales of Tomorrow - Vol. 1:

Now here is something different. EastWest has released four episodes of the now public domain TV series, Tales of Tomorrow. This like many early TV shows was shown in an anthology format with a different cast and story each week. There were also quite a few stars here such as Leslie Neilson, Lon Chaney Jr., Brian Keith and Thomas Mitchell. Many of the rest were Hollywood character actors and bit players.

As with much early television this was produced with a budget of nothing and the kinescoped prints do nothing to hide the cheapness of what was supposed to be Martian terrain and saddest of all when Leslie Neilson uses a geiger counter the clicks come from what sounds like someone hitting two drumsticks together.

The cheapness could be overlooked if the plots were decent but the plots just didn't have the
writing that later series such as the Outer Limits, One Step Beyond and, of course, the Twilight Zone would be forever remembered for.

Watch it as a curiosity but nothing else.

Labels: Cheap DVDs, Dollar DVD, TV Shows

Chase Step by Step / The Super Gang: Again I make a trip to the dollar store and get a few more public domain kung fu films.

Chase Step by Step, despite what the generic description on the back says is not about a kickboxer seeking revenge. It is actually about a couple of circus performers who are assigned to protect a shipment of gold. Unfortunately while the fights are mildly entertaining the film ultimately fails at being anything close to be worth your time.

The Super Gang: Now here's a piece of crap if I ever saw one. I know some out there go nuts for every Bruceploitation film ever made but I for one am not one of them. Personally I found this film quite boring and at times a strain to keep awake. Not really what I was looking for tonight.

To sum it all up, this disc rots.

Labels: Bad Movies, Cheap DVDs, Dollar DVD, Hong Kong

The Cosmos Conqueror: Over the last few months, I've been searching for the newest batch of IFD releases from Digiview. After finding two recently, they ended up at the top of the pile and I am so not disappointed.

This film, like the others has a rather thin plot. Aliens are again attacking the Earth. Lucky for us three kids got command of another alien robot, the "Robot King." Unlike the others, I did not detect any direct copyright infringement in the mech or character designs.

This one was definitely above average and I am more than satisfied with the last couple. Now I just need to find the other three.

Labels: Anime, Bad Movies, Cheap DVDs, Dollar DVD

Captain of Cosmos: They're BAA-ACK! Yes, just when you thought it was safe to visit the dollar bin, more Korean anime ripoffs come our way via Joseph Lai and the good people at Digiview.

In this release we see ripoffs from the Gundam universe in the form of character designs. Our hero in this film, Captain Leo of the Cosmos Warriors, bears a striking resemblance to Char when he has his helmet on and with it off, he looks just like Amuro. Now if that's not enough to get Gundam fans' heads spinning, they should know that the female lead alternates between Sayla and Kycilia Zabi depending on whether her helmet is on or not. The similarities stop there, I'm afraid as despite what the cover art shows, there are no Gundams or giant robots in the film at all.

The story in this was rather weak with an alien queen kidnapping humans to rebuild her destroyed planet and the Cosmos Warriors coming to the rescue. The evil queen has her army of robots and green centaurs apparently can fight but cannot think or build like the humans can. Forcing humans into slave labor the evil queen ends up capturing our heroes and the predictable happens.

What I will congratulate the Koreans on with this is that the plot actually seemed to be somewhat coherent as opposed to some others like Space Thunder Kids which flat out made no sense. I can't say I was enthralled with this DVD but I did get a good chuckle or two and it kept me awake.

I'm going to go out on a limb and recommend this one. Unfortunately I had to pick up my copy online at eBay since my local Wal*Marts have yet to pick them up for sale. Hopefully someone gets them in soon, or I can find the rest on eBay.

Labels: Anime, Bad Movies, Cheap DVDs, Dollar DVD

Silver Hermit From Shaolin Temple: Continuing with the weirdness, I decided to watch a classic chop sockey film. Unfortunately all I found in the dollar dvd bin was this movie.

Silver Hermit is a pacifistic martial artist who, along with three others, is invited to a contest to fight to win the hand of a young woman and thus inherit a prestigious martial arts school. Unfortunately for him two of them end up dead with one barely surviving. Of course he gets the blame and has to clear his name.

The film is rather dull at times, although the martial arts is pretty good. The problem stems mostly from the video presentation which is, as usual, pan and scanned plus horrendously dubbed. To top it off the film goes black at times and when you can see the picture, it's like watching it through a coffee filter.

I guess the only saving grace of the film was getting to cheer the opening credits when Joseph Lai's name came up. Yes, the same man who brought to you a monkey punching a snake! Unfortunately I still have yet to find the rest of his animated films even though I have heard they have been released.

Labels: Bad Movies, Cheap DVDs, Dollar DVD, Hong Kong, Kung Fu

The Wonderful Galaxy of Oz: Here's another Enoki anime release brought to us via our good friends at Digiview. Unfortunately, like their other releases this is a sloppy compilation of a 26 episode series into an hour movie. Still, it gives a good preview of what the show should be.

The original show is Space Oz no Bouken which ran for 26 episodes back in 1990. The animation style is quite familiar to fans of American animation of the time which was made in Japan as the show has decidedly DIC like character designs but yet never lets you forget that it's anime.

I guess for a dollar, it is alright but the whole 26 episode series released bilingually would have been nicer even if I realize that such a thing is impossible.

Labels: Anime, Cheap DVDs

Hercules Against the Moon Men: Take one crazy bit of Greek mythology and add in an Italian crew, mix in some crazy dubbing and a bit of science fiction and you end up with, well, a mess.

As I remember hearing somewhere, Italian cinema ran on fads and the "sword and sandal" fan ran for quite some time with many crappy films being exported all over the world. Of course, after this fad died down the more fondly remembered "Spaghetti Western" boom would begin.

Anyways, there's not much worth saying about this film except it is dull and uninteresting. Check out the MST3K version as it is at least watchable.

Labels: Bad Movies, Cheap DVDs, Dollar DVD

Bruce Lee: The Man, The Myth / Prisoner of Five Boulders: EastWest, our favorite dollar DVD company released yet another disc of kung fu movies of questionable legality. We get an interesting mix here but nothing special.

Bruce Lee: The Man, The Myth is a highly fictionalized account of his life and death starring Bruce Li. The film is rather dull and I found myself dozing off quite a bit.

Prisoner of Five boulders is another of the Mainland Chinese features that somehow got in the hands of some pranksters with a dubbing studio. The origin of the dubs on this is somewhat of a mystery but it is quite obvious they tried to follow in the footsteps of Woody Allen with his famous, "What's Up Tiger Lily?" and the old Pete Smith comedies. The problem is, this dub made me smirk a bit but it had no quotable lines and outside of hearing the emperor sing "Like a Virgin" I can't really remember anything happening in the film that was particularly funny.

When you spend a dollar on crap, you should expect nothing more.

Labels: Bad Movies, Cheap DVDs, Dollar DVD, Kung Fu

Fairy Tale Police Department: Case File #1: Going through Dollar Tree this weekend I happened across a new display. They had a few different DVDs in paper sleeves and I came across a cartoon series I had never heard of. I went ahead and picked up the two volumes they had and expected nothing. After all, I have been subjected to such mediocrities as "The Little Dinos" before and never did I really feel cheated out of my dollar.

This Australian cartoon is full of thick accents and silly stories of classic fairy tales and Mother Goose rhymes. This is somewhat like Fractured Fairy Tales meets CSI. The two main characters are Christine: a by the books cop and Johnny Legend the self-absorbed clueless cop. Together they maneuver their way through cases making sure each fairy tale has a happy ending.

It's quite silly but a lot of fun along the way. The Austrailian accents were a bit annoying at first but they seemed to grow on me with each episode. The stories themselves were simple enough for children but still kept my interest, although they never did surprise me with any major plot twists or shocking endings.

All in all, this is definitely worth the dollar I paid and more. This is an easy recommendation.

Labels: Cartoons, Cheap DVDs, Dollar DVD

Colorado Serenade / Tioga Kid: Here's another double feature of Eddie Dean westerns that I picked up at the dollar store.

Colorado Serenade was a standard western which wouldn't have been too bad but the film quality was rotten. It was filled in Cinecolor which did not stand the test of time. Much of the film is washed out and the colors are faded. This made the film a strain to watch.

The next film on the disc was Tioga Kid. This was a bit more conventional as it was in black and white. The plot on this one was basically the old evil twin story. Eddie apparently had a long lost twin brother. Eddie of course grew up to be a lawman while his brother became the Tioga Kid. Of course this leads to many scenes of mistaken identity wrapped around a typical plot of horse rustlers.

All in all, it's worth a buck but nothing more.

Labels: Cheap DVDs, Dollar DVD, Westerns

Harryhausen Shorts: Volume 1: EastWest DVD is a sort of enigma in the realm of cheap dvds. They have a handful of UPCs that they share over various releases and their copyright research is apparently, if any, is certainly not thorough. Yet, somehow they manage to find some very interesting things to put on DVD. This particular bit of animation history I picked up at my local Stop and Shop a while back and just got around to finishing it.

Included on this DVD are a couple of fairy tales told by one of the masters of stop motion animation, Ray Harryhausen. Harryhausen is best known for his work on such films as Jason and the Argonauts, It Came from Beneath the Sea and The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. Here we see some of his early work which dates back to the late 40s. This is certainly an interesting peek into a few rarely seen films, their entertainment value is somewhat lacking.

Bottom line is, buy this if you love animation history or Ray Harryhausen. All others pass on it.

Labels: Cartoons, Cheap DVDs, Dollar DVD

Jack Frost: During the days of the Cold War very little traveled between the US and Russia outside of threats of mutually assured destruction and the like. With Communism reigning and Lenin and Stalin sticking with the belief that "Religion is opium to the people" made strides to erase Christmas (and Christianity) from the USSR. To do this, they used the character of Father Frost, a sort of Russian Santa, and moved his day of giving presents to the religiously neutral December 31st. And so as Americans were watching their Christmas movies, the Russians were watching their movie on Father Frost day.

The Russians got cheated. While we in America got such classics as Miracle on 34th Street, the Communists got this train wreck. While one may argue that we got turkeys like Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, this film makes that look like a masterpiece.

So what is so bad about it? Well for one the story makes absolutely no sense at all. There is a cute girl named Nastenka who is being tormented by her stepmother and stepsister. She meets the braggart Ivan who, after forgetting to thank a mushroom man, gets turned into a bear and has to do a good deed. If all that sounds bizarre, it gets worse. There's a witch who lives in a house which has chicken feet and a group of dwarfs who sit in the forest pulling petals from flowers and robbing people. Of course we mustn't forget Grandfather Frost, our title character.

Actually, I would like to forget him and especially forget this film. I had seen it on Mystery Science Theater and bought it for a buck for that reason. I hadn't seen the episode in years but now that I've seen it without them, I don't know that I do anymore.

I see that Amazon has a more expensive version available. Either this thing is public domain or EastWest could be in trouble, which is no surprise. I can't imagine anyone besides me paying a dollar for it let alone 17! Avoid this film unless you are a masochist for bad movies.

Note: I got some of the information on Father Frost from various sources online. Most notable are: Wikipedia, Time and Sacred Texts

Labels: Bad Movies, Cheap DVDs, Dollar DVD

Steam Trains: Now here is a collection that I have watched off and on for a while without writing anything. I won't talk it up much as it is exactly what you expect, a cheap pre-BCI Brentwood DVD set that I bought for around $10. In this case the content is mostly old videos made by railfan magazine transferred to DVD. If you expect lots of camcorder and amateur footage then you are be right. The production values are nil but I suppose

Of note to us in the Northeast United States, one disc side is devoted to programs on the now defunct tourist trap Edaville Railroad which I visited as a child. My dad enjoyed that a lot so for the Edaville footage, I suppose it wasn't bad.

Labels: Cheap DVDs, Documentary

Dinosaur Island / Globehunters: It came again from the Bargain Bin! More accurately the clearance bin from Wal*Mart where I picked up this double feature cartoon DVD brought to us from the folks at DIC.

Dinosaur Island was the main bit of interest for me on this disc. This direct-to-DVD movie is about four teenagers who are supposed to be in a sort of Survivor television show and end up crashing on a mesa covered with dinosaurs. The Lost World angle is strong and thus in some ways its hard to separate it from the classic story. In the end, however, it falls up short on the enjoyment scale and its runtime of 80 minutes is pretty much the maximum they could've done, although the ending did seem a bit rushed.

All in all, it's mediocre but not bad.

Globehunters on the other hand was rather boring and I gave up watching after about 15 minutes.

Labels: Bad Movies, Cartoons, Cheap DVDs, Dollar DVD

Adventurers: Masters of Time: After watching the silly Altair in Starland and the mediocre but passable Shadow of the Elves, BFC delivers a cartoon series I actually want to see more of and I am disappointed that more is not available on DVD. To my knowledge the show is not on American TV but if I am wrong, I would like to know what channel and time this is on.

The show is about a few multi-cultural (token) kids who chase around a mad scientist through history thanks to a super computer made by their computer science professor who has become trapped by the villain known as "Hacker." They travel to Pompeii in 79AD and then in the other episode to Boston 1775. The show gives a quick History lesson without being too boring for kids.

The plot is familiar as it has been done several times before. The time travel aspect is always fun despite the fact that the same setup was done much better in The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd.

The animation is first rate in terms of Saturday Morning cartoon fare. The music I actually found to be above average and I found myself jamming a bit to the theme song.

My only complaint was that the history wasn't thoroughly researched. For example the computer system said that John Hancock signed the Declaration of Independence in Boston. He did sign it but it was in Philadelphia not Boston. Also, Sam Adams NEVER rode a horse but then, I suppose they just wanted kids to get the gist of it all.

Labels: Cartoons, Cheap DVDs, History

The White Gorilla/Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla: More dollar DVD goodness from PC Treasures. This Target find features what can best be describe, as my Dad put it, a unique film. I had a better term for it: CRAP!

The White Gorilla has Ray "Crash" Corrigan starring in a film which is essentially a narrated silent film. When Crash tells the story of what happened to him, he basically makes it appear that he was a coward who watched the hero rescue the girl time and time again. This was because clips of him peeking out of a bush were clumsily edited into stock footage from a 1927 serial Perils of the Jungle. Despite 18 years between the two films the people who made White Gorilla thought we wouldn't notice or care, I suppose.

Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla is another story. That film is a blast! Too bad the print on this DVD is unwatchable. Pick up the Alpha Video release like I have or the Digiview release which my brother bought for $1 and enjoys quite a bit. An interesting bit of trivia has this film under the name "The Boys from Brooklyn" so if you collect different prints of Public Domain films, there you go.

Sadly, I have absolutely no reason to recommend this disc at all. Save your dollar or buy some Snickers bars or something.

Labels: Bad Movies, Cheap DVDs, Dollar DVD

Shadow of the Elves: From Germany comes this animation brought straight to DVD here in the States thanks to the folks over at Genius Entertainment. This is the first three episodes and I do not know if other volumes are planned and how many more episodes exist.

The show is about a village of fairies who come under attack by the neighboring group of elves. As is the case with such things we find that the commander of the elven army, Daiman, falls for one of the fairy girls named Thalia. This plays out completely predictable and I found myself being bored with the story at times.

The animation is not bad with the character designs being above average. The elves and fairies are pretty much as you'd expect them with Thalia being scantily clad and the elves mostly in battle armor.

The show doesn't break any new ground, but it was on clearance for a dollar and it's well worth that.

Labels: Cartoons, Cheap DVDs

Classic Cartoon Collection: Cartoon Superstars: Here is another DVD from the collection I bought at Target last week.

The cartoons featured here are mostly typical public domain cartoons you've seen on umpteen other collections. I did buy this one almost exclusively for the Oswald Rabbit cartoon. While this is not a Disney Oswald, he is the black rabbit version and the cartoon is quite enjoyable.

The Popeye cartoon on here, Date to Skate, is a great cartoon but the macroblocking makes this almost unwatchable. The Casper one appears to have an audio problem but rest of the cartoons are passable quality based on a quick scan of them. I say if you are an Oswald fan like myself, pick it up. Otherwise pass on it.

Labels: Cartoons, Cheap DVDs, Dollar DVD

Attack of the Giant Leeches: A pretty bland and stupid horror movie from executive producer Roger Corman. It's bland, dull and not at all interesting. Yet it is rather disturbing at times and I can't reccomend it to anyone but those who like crap. However, if you must see this film, I would advise you instead to check out The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Vol. 6. At least Joel and the bots are enough to keep you awake.

Labels: Cheap DVDs, sci-fi

Cartoon Craze Presents: Porky Pig: Porky's Prize Pony: I don't really have much to say about this release other than it was $0.75 at Wal*Mart. It had your standard stable of public domain cartoons with some non-regular ones thrown in for good measure. I will say that I don't know how well I appreciated the animal version of Noah's Ark, but it did have some funny sight gags involving getting the clouds to rain.

Labels: Cartoons, Cheap DVDs

Assignment: Outer Space: Back in the 50s until about the 70s, cheap foreign sci-fi films somehow made their way to the US in the form of dubbed features that were released either to theaters for the drive-in or rundown theater circuit. According to the imdb, this film was released as a triple bill to theaters with First Spaceship on Venus and The Mysterians. This one is closer to the crap of First Spaceship as opposed to the watchable film of The Mysterians.

This film has a rather infamous scene in it where a spaceship crashes and stock footage of an explosion is inserted rather clumsily in that it plainly shows a car blowing up on a street. Apparently the cheesy special effects department ran out of models to explode. Of course, I wouldn't expect much from a director who has such credits as "Cannibal Apocalypse" under his belt.

By the way, I think Paul Frees was doing some of the voices but I was falling asleep (dare I say, 'spacing out') during most of the movie.

To end this otherwise dull and depressing blog post on a high note, I will give a sort of fond memoir for Alpha Video. I remember when my brother and I first found them at DVDEmpire for $3.60 and we bought a ton of them. It was as if they couldn't get any cheaper. Yet the dollar DVDs came and they have all but disappeared from store shelves. Ironically when I got this one at the dollar store, it was a "cut out" as if it was a real DVD release. They are still around and all and even have some exclusive titles, you just don't see them in the bins at FYE and such anymore. Honestly though, the only thing Alpha ever had going for them was their covers. They at least tried where others do not.

Labels: Bad Movies, Cheap DVDs, sci-fi