Death Race (2008)

Although many tried their take on classic exploitation themes in the last couple of years, I haven't touched such miserable crap as "Death Race", even "Bitch Slap" was better. Pitching a classic story of New World Pictures, unforgettable "Death Race 200" (1975), directed by Paul Bartel, which cost $300.000 to produce, this new independent movie brought to the ground all that made the original such a cool piece of budget filmmaking. Let's recall that the oddball pruduced by Roger Corman became a sort of cult flick throughout the years bringing forward the idea of "future sports" genre (originally derived from 60's pulp science-fiction novels) and directly inspired such film masterpieces as "Mad Max" if we are to believe its creators.

The modern "version", starring Jason Statham, hunts for old school cheap thrills, but completely misses the point in a fervour of blowing up everything on the screen. This is actually one of these things putting me off modern action movies as you really need to microwave your brain first. While AIP and NWP B-flicks were low budget fantasies, which featured cheesy special effects and weird scripts, they followed so called Corman's formula embracing "action, sex and humour". Due to this peculiar mixture often involving hints of anti-establishment stance or even over the top plots involving leftist revolutionaries, embedded in context of the stories, they made the trick of operating on more than one level and survived the sad times, when drive-ins eventually became history forcing producers like Corman to go straight into VHS.



"Death Race" nicks the original story with Corman's official blessing (executive producer credit) putting it in 2012, while American economy collapses and millions of workers are laid off, which causes general havoc and provokes bloody riots. Main character, Jensen (Jason Statham) shares the pain as he's been kicked out as well and paid dime. But coming back home won't be smooth as he's wife gets brutally butchered and he appears to be framed into beaing a murderer. Convicted by the court he's transported to a corporate, maximum security prison (public prisons have been erased in favour of private prisons, operated by international corporations), where he faces inevitable death from hand of the inmates if he doesn't agree to take part in Death Race... as Frankenstein, the biggest hero of this sport, who just died after a fatal car crash.

And there it goes, folks! 95 minutes of violence, car chasing, violence, car chasing and more violence. I personally reached for this movie when saw Corman onboard, nevertheless got bored with it after half an hour. The reasons are plenty. First of all, it bears scarce to none resemblance to "Death Race 2000". Second of all, oldtimers' exploitation formula has been ditched completely. There's no nudity, sex or even occasional tits dancing, so forget about a real fun, guys. Dialogues are as dull as in the shittiest Hollywood blockbuster, this feeling of having them written by a computer program applies well. Political musings are not completely absent, but they're quickly munched by monster car chasing. In fact the only idea of pumping up the action is to bring some locomotive-car with superdestructive firepower (so fuckin' gross). Don't even bother to give it a try if you have a long watchlist to go through, it's just a waste of your precious time.

Cockfighter (1974)

One of the most uncommon New World Pictures projects was exclusively Roger Corman's idea, adapted from a rather obscure novel by Charles Willeford. And though it was meant to be someting of an artistic provocation – I reckon, a replay of "The Intruder" – it became an instant disaster and flopped miserably. "Cockfighter" has been given to Monte Hellman, one of the oldest Corman's pupils, who came back around after directing "Two-Lane Blacktop" for Universal (till this day his most famous film), which never scored bigtime against it's powerful vision and raving press reviews. Nestor Almendros was hired as a cinematographer for the picture (later Academy Award winner for Days Of Heaven in 1978) and was paid to fly from Paris to USA – it was his first American movie. The only problem was Monte Hellman, who he felt like passing on this project when he saw a scouted dirt pit in Georgia with smashed Southerners around, betting heavily on blood-thirsty cocks.

"Cockfighter" has irrevocably retained this split. A strange picture, expressed in quick cuts, bloody close-ups and out of blue voice-over – it didn't manage to develop characters' potential either. Although definitely an artist's alley, it got dominated by second unit shots of Lewis Teague in an editing stage – film's editor, who volunteered to fill it with rough, shocking footage, demanded by Corman. Unfortunately this move cut it's legs totally, boiling it down to a vague half-way runner between typical New World exploitation product and a possible, multi-layered tale of love and passion in a violent world, which as we might only presume was something closer to Hellman's spirit. Inside screening uncovered a sheer brutality of the rough cut and it must've been really repulsive one as even Corman turned away from releasing it with so much chicken blood and guts flying around. As an effect the final cut was something of a compromise between Corman's salesman drill and director's artistic vision, but it satisfied nobody



"Cockfighter" is a story of Frank Mansfield acted by Warren Oates. Although he's a top cockfighting coach, he loses opportunity to win MVP of the year award when shooting his mouth off and getting his favourite rooster slaughtered in a hotel room before the big day... his love for whiskey is only part of the problem as there's alsoa girl, who loves him madly and is repelled by his unconditional blood lust. Shaken by the loss he takes an oath to keep his mouth shut untill he finally takes the trophy. That makes Warren Oates' performance a mute one for most of the time (which might as well be the best thing here) and his inner dialogues externalized by mentioned, bizarre voice-over. But shaping up is not that easy and Frank needs to hit the bottom before getting a grip again. Short on cash he sells his parents' house – which gets tolled away – and comes back to the game with a new partner (Omar Baradansky - weird Polish-American countryside businessman), who provides him with fresh chickens. Together they take on the toughest competitors of this southern sport step by step and eventually get down to the beat.

Apparently cockfighting was still a country entertainment in the South when the film was made, but in the same time it was a public embarassment and the topic hadn't a slightest chance to storm the box office. Tabooed at least, but most likely totally disgusting event for drive-in crowd, hardened by exploitation roughies – if it was made today, animalists would get a heart attack – it screened for a very short time. After expected wows didn't exactly come as a wave, it got yanked off by Corman, recut and reissued as Born To Kill. Joe Dante has done another oddball trailer with famous helicopter explosion – used in almost all New World Pictures teasers – but even these desperate gimmicks couldn't save the picture and it was shelved eventually. Somehow it survived underneath the surface and became a minor cult movie afterwards, considered a second, most important work of Monte Hellman. Although pacing is kind of wonky, Corman's influence overwhelming and it doesn't reach weirdness of "Two-Lane Blacktop", it's an interesting example of digesting the southern mystique by one of the most interesting American directors of the golden era. 70's curious zone!

The Terror (1963)

Among many Corman's cult classics "The Terror" occupies a very particular space as the only picture, which took more than three weeks to wrap up. In fact, it took nine months before any editing might have taken place as the story kept missing and missing from the reels, even if five directors were busy closing in on Corman's wacky idea. Have you ever seen a low-budget picture, which can hardly pull off any storyline? Well, meet "The Terror", which doesn't have any plot at all. Basic concept of this legendary gibberish, heavily outlined by the cast, critics and Corman's fans invaded director's brain when he's been finishing the shoot of „The Raven” (1962). He mentions looking at the beautiful, gothic set and feeling kind of upset from a necessity to tear it all down a day after. Thus he got touched by a genie and came up with another movie, which could have been shot over two days, without any need to cut between the scenes to save time by keeping the camera on!

Although one thing he still missed was the screenplay, Corman solved it quickly by calling his fastest writer, Leo Gordon, who eventually agreed to write some loosely linked pages in few days. Director now had a set, very basic story and a cast brought up in a jiffy. Jack Nicholson agreed to play a French Army officer – Duvalier, who wandered off of his regiment along Baltic Sea shoreline during Napoleon's military campaign. Sandra Knight (Jack Nicholson's wife) played Helene, a mysterious ghost dragging him into... that's the problem as nobody knew what exactly. Then there was Boris Karloff as Baron von Leppe, who got paid $30,000 by AIP to commit two more days to next Corman's movie. Finally, the role of his servant was filled by Dick Miller. Eventually it proved to be a rather poor triangle for a thrilling, gothic romp, hence two other characters were created to buzz it up – mysterious mute named Gustav and The Witch. The roles were grabbed by Jonathan Haze and Dorothy Neumann respectively.



As nobody really knew initially what the story was about and what the motivations of their characters were, Jack Nicholson and Boris Karloff were forced to stroll around the props for two days occasionally exchanging nonsense lines. After two days shooting Corman had to leave to Europe in a rush, where he was planning to make another quickie, "The Young Racers" (1963). Thus a task of finishing the movie was laid on Francis Ford Coppola, who was to direct exterior scenes linking the castle sequences with another part of the story or more precisely he just had to work up it's foundations. He manged to improve the story though by bringing Duvalier and Helene outside and making them interact, which unfortunately bent it out a little bit, leaving retarded "castle plot" even more problematic.

Confronted with an obvious gap in a storyline and missing more footage Corman gave a camera and some film to his assistant Dennis Jakob – fresh UCLA graduate. But Dennis shot his own movie about a Civil War in three days instead leaving Corman in a real despair. This time Monte Hellman was picked and asked to shoot additional scenes on the cliffs of Palos Verdes. He was happy to do it and filmed everything he was told to, but felt that the scipt should have been changed even more, so promptly rewrote an already messed up story overlapping it with another absurd twist, which made The Witch look for revenge and Gustav talk... but at least he was able now to explain the mystery of this movie to a beat up viewer. While Corman was pondering his long over time project, he figured he needed another man to round up the story by shooting some more footage.

Jack Hill jumped onboard and carried on for a bit, but Corman still needed one more day of filming and this time Jack Nicholson persuaded him he'd do it if everybody was doing it anyway. As the story didn't sparkle anyway – it definitely missed a beat – Corman decided to go for the ultimate twist. Baron was not a Baron, but Eric, witch's son, who took his place long time before by killing him in a duel. Bad news was, the witch didn't know that and tried to kill him all this time by using Duvalier and Helene to drive him completely crazy! As Jack Nicholson said: They don't make movies like The Terror anymore. The movie has become a cult trash since and was featured as a tribute by Corman's pupils in such movies as: "Mean Streets", "Targets" or "Hollywood Boulevard". A real chunk of low-budget movies history, where the movie itself is the least important thing!

Full Movie

Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel (2011)

One of these documentaries for which many of us have been sharpening their teeth and ticking days off as DVD release date was coming closer. Although it premiered on Sundance Festival a year ago, not all folks from around the globe could have attended, so instead they were forced to sit on their asses impatiently! As a big fan of Corman I need to say it's value lays mainly in high rollers of Hollywood uttering words of praise for the man, who let them literally be... who's been often their lifeblood. You have to check out Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern or Martin Scorsese who finally confirm, what we've all known but very rarely got admitted loud – Corman's film school has been the main link between 60's exploitation cinema and 70's auteur fireworks being the ground of new artistic forms developed in family environment.

As far as Corman's career is concerned, Alex Stapleton's movie speaks of few facts I wasn't aware. Documentary builds at large upon the story comprehensively told by Corman himself in his great book How I Made Hundred Movies In Hollywood and Never Lost A Dime, which tells you everything you need to know, hence those ones, who've read the book, might find a history of his career (revealed once again) a bit boring. But let's not forget, that there is still a lot of people outside the fandom, who've never heard of Corman or they've just drifted once or twice toward these regions and never really bothered to grab any solid book about the exploitation pope! "Corman's World..." seems to serve this purpose just fine mixing a biographical side with New Horizons office footage and very inspiring interviews with mentioned above and many others like David Carradine, Ron Howard, Joe Dante, Allan Arkush, Polly Platt, Peter Bogdanovich, Robert De Niro, Peter Fonda and many more. This list is very impressive itself!

On technical side it's a good job – maybe not ravishing, but all right – and it ticks all the boxes of modern documentary. Posters, trailers and press clipppings are being mixed with cinematic part and laid in simple manner, while narration heads toward tension build-up and eventually brings a climax. The movie seems longer than it really is, but that's due to compact construction. Corman's professional and private life in a pill was definitely a challenge, that's why screen time needed to be sped up multiple times, which reasonably trimmed his legendary 380 productions to 50 essential ones in a flash. Director also opted for leaving off Filipino chapter as that's been nicely exposed in another recent documentary - "Machete Maidens" (2010). Apart of that, we get basic treatment, from Corman's mythical schlock entries like "The Monster From the Ocean Floor" and "The Fast and the Furious", through unforgettable Poe flicks like "House Of Usher" or "Tomb Of Ligeia" (favourite Poe movie of Martin Scorsese) and then "The Terror", "The Wild Angels", "The Trip", and finally to New World Pictures period, when Corman made a fortune on such exploitation classics like "Big Doll House", "Grand Theft Auto", "White Line Fever" or "Death Race 2000" (to name only few).



But it wasn't exactly simplest task to do – covering a story of the guy, who has had three production/distribution companies, discovered 50% of Hollywood's biggest names, totally revolutionized production side of filmmaking, invented a new way of budgeting it, created dozen of exploitation sub-genres from a scratch giving a root to the modern action movie, improved and mastered the art of entertainment marketing (including these famous sticky trailers), took over distribution of European art films on US market in the 70's with profits and on the top directed more than 300 movies himself! Not all of these achievements have been discussed in "Corman's World...", but the most important were licked with clear sense of understanding, many to the credit of former Corman's collaborators and workers.

Saying that we need to stress once again, that Total Documentary on any topic is virtually impossible to score – the more extensive the subject, the more you need to shave it off as pedantic exploration of every single pocket carries a danger of down-playing or even losing the storyline completely. Grabbing all these threads together is hard enough and still it rarely happens on the screen! Making of an excellent documentary is very difficult as it needs a perfect insight! Besides, I'm deeply convinced, that no documentary can match a biography book as the latter one doesn't have time limitations and as a verbal medium cuts the distance to the analytical, left side of your brain. A film is a magic powder and it either turns you on or not – connection is more crucial than fishing it all out!

However, "Corman's World..." does one thing nicely. It creates a sense of slight disappointment in viewer's consciousness by picking the bits of actors talk as far as Corman's critical acclaim is concerned. Above all histories of life with their tutor, they spontaneously come up with one justified question, why he never got Lifetime Achievement Academy Award? And then it goes, smoke disperses while director shows Roger Corman tying his bow tie and heading to the L.A. ceremony, where Quentin Tarantino thanks him in the name of fans from around the world for making such a lot of great movies. He finally gets his official recognition, which he maybe didn't give a shit about, but it instantly cements his life-of-film-art status lifting him up from an underground phenomenon to acknowledged filmmaker of undeniable prestige. The thing is, he never chased for awards as money from his operations was smoothly flowing in, but in the end there are not many guys in this business with similar film score and such a massive worldwide cult. Along the line, this documentary should be treated as a cherry on the top!

Queen Of Blood (1966)

I watch all flicks produced by American International Pictures religiously, cause I always hope to find another, obscure gem. Obviously, you have to be nuts to watch all of them – without even saying that some are practically untraceable – as in this low budget fantasy land there’s been done so much trash as you can imagine. However, with a cult figure of Curtis Harrington ("Night Tide") as a director and pope of exploitation - Roger Corman as an executive producer, you start to wander unwittingly about "Queen Of Blood"... what is it gonna be? When you're through, it occurs that this piece of cheap film baking is not that great as we expect, but will definitely find it’s fans. "Queen of Blood" is not a picture I particularly liked, but it’s sci-fi thriller inclinations will be appealing enough for other obscurity diggers.

As we know, Roger Corman was a great asset player as far as the set production was concerned. He used to buy the rights to science fiction films from Eastern Europe and then just cut’n’pasted all useful effects in the editing room in order to make his own productions less expensive and fast as in bullet factory... and he was really fast! Given this for granted you will know how he managed to pull off such a great cinematography in "Queen Of Blood" – when you see those paper rockets and grotesque outer space background, just think how many of his disciples were given the same stuff to incorporate into their movies. Well, it’s not an important thing anyway as we watch these blobs mainly for pure fun.



Still, we face a story here! It’s 1990 and the scientists of "International Institute Of Space Technology" just received a S.O.S. signal from an alleged alien ship, hence they promptly send their elite astronauts for help. Among this cream there are two brave characters played by Dennis Hopper and John Saxon – second one is much more confindent in his role as Hopper seems kind of lame. At firts they localize only one dead body on Mars, but a following mission spots a green-skinned, alien female on Phobos (make-up comes off a bit when camera zooms).

They ty to hydrate and feed poor thing to help her meet the standards of cultural conversation (everything for the science!), but she chooses to hypnotize them with spectacular x-ray eyes and suck their blood instead – in couple of days two astronauts wind up dead. They tie the vampire up, but her magic powers are better than this and she finally breaks free to fulfill her destiny by spreading a bunch of jelly eggs all over the ship… which - as we discover in the end - are the only hope for scientists to find out something more about the alien race as the space vampire herself bleeds to death from a nail scratch wound...

A screenplay is bullshit and acting very unconvincing, but it doesn’t blow the project totally, cause at least gothic horror mood is great. Unfortunately music works against the suspense and somehow the climax is nonexistent… after all you cannot shake off the feeling that you’re watching a blatant ripoff of Bava’s "The Planet Of The Vampires" (which is much better by the way). What can I say, folks? Watch it, if you really have to. Otherwise, leave it alone!

Machete Maidens Unleashed! (2010)

While B-movie lovers genuinely understand, that what Americans were watching throughout the 70’s in then still widely popular drive-ins, was shot mostly in Philippines and other exotic countries… for newcomers it might come as a surprise. However, this fantastic documentary is NOT A GOOD PLACE FOR THEM TO START as it’s targeted specifically for classic exploitation cinema followers and I’m guessing that among this weird crowd it will find it’s purpose. After all, it talks about jungle movies, tits & ass, New World Pictures bunch, obscure spysploitation spoofs with Weng Weng, horrors with John Ashley and art of making sticky dive-in trailers. If you’re up for these themese, you’re gonna have a real ride with "Machete Maidens Unleashed!" as it definitely keeps the word unleashing almost everything there is to be unleashed.

Directed by Mark Hartley - who did a classy job on "Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story Of Ozploitation" documentary - this thorough look inside follows an exploitation timeline enlightening us about the beginning of American sponsored B-movies in Philippines from the first war movies, through cheap horrors and then stepping up to bring the story of Roger Corman and New World Pictures, who by their presence infuenced native Filipino directors and producers (the most obscure for the Western World), who by the middle 80’s cut couple of hundreds low-budget movies by themselves. What director did exceptionally well on this picture is he squeezed some real answers from the whole bunch of adventurous businessmen, directors, actors, editors and producers involved. Due to his priceless effort we get to know almost everything we’ve been always afraid to ask or because we just couldn’t afford this out-of-print book on obscure 70’s cinema. That’s where "Machete Maidens Unleashed!" breaks the ground in my opinion and that’s where it does the real favour. That’s quite difficult to undermine.



However, that’s not where this brilliant picture draws the line as it definitely generates a lot of new buzz around the exploitation cinema, which is accidentally or not coming back to life due to the rising interest in this style of directors and viewers! The exploitation revival has been a fact for the last couple of years, when we got such great movies as: "Planet Terror", "Black Dynamite", "Machete" or "Hobo With A Shotgun" and some less appreciated, but still fun to watch like: "Run Bitch Run!", "Nuns With Guns" or "Zombie Strippers". I personally don’t buy the arguments that they sometimes do not have a good plot (really???), or they’re in bad taste (hmmm?), or the acting is poor (sic!), or something else is wrong, for instance there is no Brad Pitt. Did "Big Doll House" have it? No, but it’s still a great brain junk. Even if you don’t like revival flicks, you love to feed your cravings with 60’s & 70’s classic, thus you will surely enjoy "Machete Maidens Unleashed!" and that’s why it’s been made for ya!

As a matter of fact, we lack tight, essential documentaries on the subject and in context of "Corman’s World…" arriving shortly, we might have a window to jump into the forgotten world of passion for the teen market when tits & ass were liberating feminine issues – an argument lifted primarily by the actresses in this documentary. When filmmaking was fun and the titles were often more important than the movies. When the trailes didn’t really concern a storyline and when you were making it for as little as you could making as much as possible (I’m fundamentally not at all against this concept) to be praised as a cult personality 40 years later! If all these things seem familiar and you were often pondering them stoned watching "For Y’ur Height Only", this is a movie to be enjoyed and rewatched!

The Trip (1967)

If you never heard about "The Trip", but psychedelic drugs are something you understand and you’ve been into, it’s definitely a movie for you – checking it out it will be like getting a proper flashback (lucky you). If you occupy the other side of the barricade thinking that drugs are bad, that you have to be a degenerate to mess with them, that people taking LSD get loco and hear voices, which make them jump from the nearest roof, don’t watch it, it’s not gonna be funny for you. After all to fully appreciate this cult movie, you need to get heavily loaded. How else are you gonna watch a movie about LSD trip, which is supposed to be real fun? Stone cold sober? Forget it!

Basically, this movie carries a real legend, which breaks down like that. One day Jack Nicholson approached Roger Corman suggesting him shooting a picture dealing exclusively with LSD experience, for which he even managed to cut a screenplay. Corman accepted it objecting only against it’s length, thus quickly rewrote it to make the film easier to produce. As he didn’t know anything about acid at this point, he promptly dropped a sugar cube in Big Sur to check it out – it’s hard to imagine that he didn’t do it before, isn’t it. It gave him a brilliant insight as "The Trip" is one of his best movies ever and could be definitely classified as drugsploitation or hippiesploitation classic.

Not everyone thought it was that awesome in the beginning though! Original cut (85 min.) has never seen the world due to AIP mongers, who messed with Corman's version cutting out the beautiful, transgressive ending! However, even this safe cut was never classified by the MPAA, which means that distribution has become impossible and the print itself was shelved. Then UK film office has followed banning a movie till 2002, which as we might expect totally cut it’s wings in Europe. But what was irreparably wrong in this picture? No violence, no even rough sex… just the fact that a character drops some acid and starts rediscovering the world around him. However, it was seen as drug culture manifesto back then – a hedonistic statement, which potentially might have corrupted the youth. As a matter of fact, due to AIP helping hand it contains one of the funniest disclaimers in film history, but even that didn’t convince the censorship unfortunately. Almost 40 years later it’s been finally released on DVD and got to live a second life.



I personally love this flick, it’s a beautiful work with a whole bunch of surreal scenes, in which main character - Paul Grove sees everything around being totally zonked out of his mind – it almost induces the acid experience itself. Worth mentioning is that the character does not do it recreationally, but as a way of feeling out where to go next (it was a part of the sales pitch back then). He faces a divorce with his wife (Susan Strasberg) and he’s not satisfied with his professional life either while all around his friends freak out and discover their inner child. A movie itself is a showcase of hallucinogenic effects! We get lens flare (the same used later in "Easy Rider" by Dennis Hopper), fantasy sequences, whirling lights and whatnot. Jerky shots of Sunset Strip were directed by Hopper (he plays Max character in the movie) and Fonda definitely knows what he’s doing as an actor. It’s a real sweetness that came our way from Corman!

As a bonus for watching "The Trip" comes fantastic, obscure soundtrack by The Electric Flag (originally released on Sidewalk Records), who recorded it as their first album in ten days session. It can be considered a masterpiece of San Francisco sound! 18 tracks cut were swinging around psychedelic rock, blues, various moods of free jazz and soul. It’s here, where Mike Bloomfield unveiled himself as a genius composer, arranger and one of the up-and-coming guitar talents in USA. The music leads a viewer through all Peter’s acid trip, from the first kick-in through blows of euphoria, paranoia, searching to be saved from bad trip and "circus court" to final wear-off. To imitate peculiar vibe of the acid trip, band used whole set of weird effects including lines played by Paul Beaver on one of the first Moog synthesizers, which were quickly to possess an American psychedelic sound.

Full movie

The Wild Angels (1966)

How corny a Corman’s movie may be, you can go and figure yourself by watching couple of his worst pictures. Did you see "Naked Paradise" (1956), "The Terror" (1963) or "Gas-s-s" (1970)? No? Well, don’t try if you’re not a die-hard fan. As Dennis Hopper said, Corman was never a good director, but he was great to discover talent in other people. At least you cannot go wrong by claiming that to be true as his disciples grew tall with time and their pictures beat Corman’s efforts to death. What can we say then about The Wild Angels (1966), a movie made in fifteen days for $360.000, which grossed about $10.000.000 in the box office? A picture invited to a screening at 27th Venice International Film Festival, which eventually won an award in Cannes? Cheap piece of trash that started a completely new class of B-movie – biker flick, which proved to be the most profitable exploitation genre ever?

Frankly, I have a little problem with all these golden letters as The Wild Angels stands for me as one of the worst movies Corman ever made. It’s supposed to be a gruesome story of a biker gang getting their kicks from violence and torture – as the trailer sings – but divorced from the moral stiffness of the middle 60’s, when it was seen as a strong statement, it comes now as a laughing pot. In a whole movie there are only two moments, which even now might seem interesting. First one is the beginning, when Blues takes his chopper out… while next door mom is chasing her small child on a bicycle frightened for it’s life. And there it goes, we hear frenetic riffs of Blues Theme by Davie Allan & The Arrows while Blues is hitting the highway (to be honest, you need to check the soundtrack better than film)! When he finally gets off his bike, the magic moment ends! Second one is the church bash in the end of the movie, nice mash-up of flying legs and religious blasphemy. Other than that, we watch mainly a cheesy biker melodrama with swastikas and subpar acting… yeah, the acting, I almost forgot!



We definitely have to check the acting and the other work behind the movie. Screenplay written by Chuck Griffith, eventually rewritten by Peter Bogdanovich is a piece of garbage pulp – you can hardly come across so poorly drawned characters in any exploitation movie. It practically abandons any idea of personality at all proposing instead a comic strip Blues character (played by Peter Fonda) and his barbie girlfriend (played by Nancy Sinatra). None of these acting creations are worth longer review – they suck as hell! In fact, the worst comes when we have to see them speaking as Fonda is pretty all right just sitting there and getting tanned. But when he gets to make a speech like the one in the church: We wanna be free to ride, we wanna be free to do our own thing… you feel like caught between a talking dog and door-to-door salesman, which makes it pretty hard to handle.

The Wild Angels is one of these bad AIP exploitation flicks and I’m not making a sales pitch here for the diggers – pure form without a meaning (bravo Roger, you’ve made it again). In fact the only worse biker movies I saw in my life are: "The Hellcats" (1967) and "Rebel Rousers" (1970), can you imagine? Anyway, let’s not argue with the box office as the movie was a storm back then and it made Peter Fonda a star giving him basic concept of the "Easy Rider" as well. However, if you really want to dig into some nice biker matter, go for "Hell’s Belles" (1969), "The Born Losers" (1967) or "The Glory Stompers" (1968) instead of losing your time on this one.

American International Pictures - przeglad zwiastunow!

We wpisie na temat filmu "Riot On Sunset Strip" po raz pierwszy pisalem na tym blogu o legendarnej wytworni filmow typu exploitation - American International Pictures, ktora pojawila sie w latach 50'w Kalifornii, by az do lat 70' siac postrach w glowach nastolakow swoimi niskobudzetowymi obrazami.

Oprocz wyzej wspomnianego filmu pisalem jeszcze o kultowym "The Trip", ale katalog tej wytworni liczy znacznie, znacznie wiecej. AIP realizowala filmy rozne, czasami tak dziwne, ze az ciezko sobie wyobrazic w jaki sposob powstaly. Wsrod nich sa zas obrazy dziwaczne w swojej obskurnosci i rozkosznie smieszne w swojej bezpretensjonalnosci. W najblizszych dniach zaczne wam przyblizac nieco wiecej z tych zapomnianych przez czas perel, tymczasem podrzucam wam garsc old skulowych zwiastunow filmowych, ktore dobrze pokazuja z czym mamy do czynienia.

"Wild In The Streets" (1968)



"The Wild Angels" (1966)



"The Born Losers" (1967)



"Psych-Out" (1968)



"The Trip" (1968)





ion

Najlepszy film o LSD?

Jakiś czas temu pisałem na blogu o "Riot on Sunset Strip" - kultowym filmie z gatunku hippiesploitation, który od czasu swojej premiery kinowej w 1967 nie został ponownie wydany na VHS czy DVD.

Dzieło to zostało wyprodukowane przez otoczona na Zachodzie nimbem undergroundowej legendy, wytwórnie American International Pictures lub po prostu American International.

Jednym z najwybitniejszych reżyserów, związanych z ta masowa stajnia filmów klasy B był sam Roger Corman. Jego podopiecznymi byli zaś min. Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda i Dennis Hopper. Swoje ostrogi zbierał tam także Laszlo Kovacs.

To przede wszystkim Corman był odpowiedzialny za sukcesy finansowe firmy kręcąc swoje filmy na spartanskich budżetach, co pozwolilo niemal wszystkim z nich zarabic kasę w młodzieżowych drive-inach!

Około roku 1966 American International postanowiło spieniezyc kolejna działkę kultury, tym razem były to kluby motocyklowe. Wypuszczenie filmu "The Wild Angels" z Peterem Fonda okazało się wielkim sukcesem finansowym i pozwoliło na dokrecenie kilkunastu innych. Tak narodził się gatunek "biker movie", który został kolejnym dzieckiem Cormana i AIP po serii horrorów gotyckich.

Rok później do Cormana przychodzi Jack Nicholson proponując mu zrobienie filmu koncentrujacego się wyłącznie na jednym motywie - tripie na LSD. Ten akceptuje scenariusz Nicholsona skracajac go tylko ze wzgledu na budzet, po czym sam wrzuca kwasa, żeby bardziej wczuć się w klimat głównego bohatera. W roli głównej obsadzona zostaje gwiazda "The Wild Angels", Peter Fonda.

Film nazwano po prostu "The Trip" i zrealizowano bardzo szybko, oczywiście krecac większość scen w plenerze. Oryginalna wersja liczyła 85 min. i pomimo wprowadzenia, mającego odeprzeć zarzuty apologii kultury narkotykowej, film nie doczekał się klasyfikacji wieku w Stanach Zjednoczonych (co praktycznie podcięlo dystrybucję) oraz został z miejsca zbanowany w Wielkiej Brytanii, co trwało do 2002 roku. Reedycja na DVD z 2005 liczy 76 min. i jest pierwsza po niemal 40 latach okazja zmierzenia się z tym żelaznym klasykiem drugsploitation.

Glowny bohater filmu, Paul Groves, to młody reżyser filmów reklamowych, który stoi na granicy rozwodu ze swoją żona. Jego przyjaciel John oferuje mu jednak sprobowanie nowego środka psychedelicznego - LSD, który może mu pomoc uporać się z trudna sytuacja.

Namowiony przez przyjaciela, Paul bierze LSD w hippisowskiej komunie, prowadzonej przez ziomala Johna - Maxa (Dennis Hopper), który funkcjonuje także jako diler i guru. W psychedelicznym otoczeniu Paul przeżywa oświecenie dostrzegając po raz pierwszy promieniowanie pomarańczy, a także mierząc się z wewnętrznym strachem przed śmiercią, demonami i kryzysem przed rozwodowym.

Wstrząśnięty przez wirujacy w mózgu kwas, wywołujący silne halucynacje, Paul ucieka jednak w koncu z komuny będąc przekonany, że jego przyjaciel nie zyje i walesajac się samotnie po centrum Los Angeles, a także wchodząc do napotkanego domu, gdzie nawiązuje dialog z mała dziewczynka.

W końcu udaje mu się w strachu przed policja odnaleźć komune, gdzie odzywa się nagle wielkie pożądanie do jednej z kobiet Maxa. Nie potrafiący otrząsnąć się z bad tripu Paul ucieka jednak ponownie, by natknąć się na inna kobietę, z która miał wcześniej wzrokowy kontakt. Spotkanie w barze zamienia się w seksualną przygode, która ustawia mu lot. Paul budzi sie rano, by odkryć ze stał się zupełnie innym człowiekiem.

"The Trip" to niezwykle tour de force Cormana, które graniczy z estetyka filmów Kennetha Angera, będąc także jednym z najbardziej osobistych filmów papieża kina klasy B. Niezwykle realistyczne odegranie przez Fonde przeżycia tripowania bardzo czesto sklanialo mnie do odkrywczego śmiechu (szczególnie, ze sam byłem trochę porobiony), ze ktoś mógł zrobić taki film. Niezwykle są tu także efekty świetlne i wizualne, a pokazanie tego co sie dzieje z Paulem przez wprowadzenie elementów fantasy i groteski, nadaje obrazowi niezwykłego klimatu. Poza warstwa filmowa to takze niezwykła "kapsuła czasu", która daje nam istotny wgląd w Zlote Lata kwasu.

Jeśli lubicie Cormana, Hoppera i Fonde, to film dla was obowiązkowy. Polecany oczywiście wszystkim tym, którym bliskie są wysokie loty na kwasie.

[Nowa recenzje filmu znajdziecie na lamach MGV]