The Specialist (1969)

One of the last Sergio Corbucci's spaghetti plates and one of these few gigs with Franco Nero being absent. A role of the gunslinger from nowhere is commissioned instead to Johnny Hallyday – a French Elvis Presley, who's been storming the European charts in the 60's, dubbed the hottest voice on the continent! However, his performance doesn't strike with the same charisma... or maybe the style of acting itself is subpar. Johnny Hallyday has been everything, but a method actor and this is detectable as far as his screen presence is concerned. Usually tensious and emotionaly rich Corbucci's close-ups do not sparkle with the same cool as Halliday offers a very haughty facade and lacks this quirky lick of Nero's affiliation. As far as director's ouevre is concerned, screenplay of "The Specialist" coins an intrigue picking the bits from "Big Silence" and "The Mercenary" (both screened a year before), crossing them both in a way.

Therefore the dude named Hud enters a corrupted, western town – where he had lived in the past – in order to track down a stashed cash of his recently murdered brother, clear up what really happened... and kill the malevolent ones, who pull the strings. But not an easy job to do while local sheriff is nagging him about checking the guns in and the crooks around the corner only wait to rip his heart open. He'll need to figure how to keep the guns and sling 'em fast to protect his life while digging out the dirt from underneath the porch. In the meantime a high-rolling, local female banker is gonna feel the heat crawling up her ass, hence will use all the paid manforce to terminate an old homie, who's getting too close to discovering the truth. She teams with another scumbag and together they jump on Hud's balls with a pure intention to scramble them once and for all!

While for my money "The Specialist" remains a secondary job of Corbucci, it does have some unusual elements. This is probably a first spaghetti western ever, breaking the ground by introducing smoking weed, western hippies. They are brought right up in the first scene exposing Hud's character and raise the action, being a closing bracket as well. A movie kicks off when they're down and out, crawling in the mud, pestered by a patrol of the Mexican brute – El Diablo, and fades when they finally raise to power, scraping the havoc leftovers to fill their end. Not without a reason they describe themselves as a "revolutionary group" in the movie. This particularly interesting element of late 60's Corbucci's works (it's gonna come back in "Companeros") serves as an off-beat commentary on the social change of the time. Countercultural dropouts/revolutionaries raising their hands in act of violence against the system charge up Corbucci's vibrant, alternative world and become a satirical teasing – in the same time coming through as a significant, social statement!

Usual triangle is used to stimulate the plot in "The Specialist". An outlaw gunfighter (Hud), a Mexican bandito (El Diablo) and corrupted powermonger (Madame Virginia) will play it out mostly against each other driving action full of treachery, back-stabbing and raunchy twists, which perk up the experience. If you like Corbucci and wanna go down the completist line, this is definitely a valuable proposition, especially as a precedence to "Companeros", which features few ideas outlined here, but circling back to "The Mercenary" structure. A really good movie after all, with tight secondary performances and plenty of amusing dialogue lines. It should be checked out if only for few weird scenes like town folks terrorized by the hippies to strip naked and crawl down the dirt road en masse or the sheriff getting smashed on a bottle of Champagne – probably a must put in a French co-production. A solid and entertaining genre flick!

Witchcraft '70 (1970)

The ultimate of infamous 60's shockumentaries, featuring fake native rituals, set-up occult ceremonies... and even couple of original rites from around the world. Italian director – Luigi Scattini, delivers gibberish footage from Europe, Asia and South America with a lurid voice-over meant to spike up the thrills. This basket of sleazy exploits was produced by Italians and initially titled "Angeli Bianchi, Angeli Neri", but when distibution got handled by Trans American Films ("Hallucination Generation"), it was repackaged as "Witchcraft '70" in USA and "The Satanists" in UK. In both countries it played as a typical exploitation picture, fixed for the youth market by yellow journalism sort of narration and sordid publicity. The topic at the time had all heads up with rising coverage of Manson's Family activity, great popularity of sexploitation movies and the success of "Rosemary's Baby". A right time to cash on satan related nonsense indeed!

Although this material was never praised seriously enough by anyone to become a big classic, much less a reponsible study of the subject, it got through the door of many occult movies collections anyway as a sort of B-class oddity. If you wonder, where's the contemporary lure, there's a rare opportunity to see on the screen such cult individuals as Anton Szandor LaVey or Alex Sanders. However, on the concept level this stuff is so miserable, that laughing might become difficult. Couple of absurd spoken sentences might bend you down a bit, but in general there's not much quirky humour going here. It's a blatant exploitation after all – a marathon of storytelling drivel, which unfortunately doesn't have much of a genuine, ritual footage to cover, instead packed in with so called tourist ceremonies - acted and directed versions of occult, tribal and religious rites, which overemphasize carnal elements and produce "sacred hysteria" going after Western expectations.



Not all of the sequences are fake though, but the real ones like a possession of a woman from south of Italy, who's mounted by spirit of Alberto and is thus able to pass the messages from the other world, are not very funky unfortunately. The same applies to "secretly captured on 8 mm camera" Candomble & native Indonesian ceremonies. The most valuable thing about this inane pile of bullshit seems capturing Alex Sanders and his wiccan coven's activities. This is one of very few video materials featuring this mythical personality, once called "King of the Witches" in England, who founded his own branch of wicca in schism with the original Gardnerian order. He let the crew watch his wiccan marriage ceremony, revealing the temple and his sky-clothed coven. Camera rolls while he's closing the circle with a sword and then kissing the body of The Goddess, but after that turns to shooting all the nice tits around!

But that's what this shockumentary is about (and the whole subgenre in general) – mixing sensational agenda about Satan worshippers popping up like popcorn all around the world with shots of naked cultists... and their beautiful breasts on the first plan. I don't know how successful this stuff was in drive-ins (or on TV), but it's dimy setting, paternal tone and rather slick pitch do not make for much entertainment nowadays. It's true, that they show some nice pieces of ass and from today's perspective nobody cares if they belong to a satanist, wiccan, hoodooist, neopagan or an Amish dropout. Still, narration is a real downslope, an essence of worn out gibberish, but there's an option of turning off the volume, if nothing else comes to mind. You might also try to read a book and turn your eyes when you hear something exceptionally gross, which happens every 15 minutes.

If you're here for LaVey, he comes on the screen by the end of this showcase opening the door of his San Francisco temple and then performing one of these famous pop-satanic rituals in his legendary outfit with flashing red horns on the top. Fascinating indeed! Nevertheless, from a necessary distance „Witchcratft '70” salacious agenda opens up to an interesting, off-screen analysis of the late 60's – creation of modern satanism by Anton Szandor LaVey, rising force of neopagan movement, exemplified by wicca covens in Great Britain and USA, sudden appeal of hybrid possession cults and the exposure of dark underbelly of the 60's counterculture, honked up by the media after Manson's Family gruesome acts. You definitely need to go around with this flick!

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D'Wild Wild Weng (1982)

Weng Weng ardent followers definitely figure, that our tiny geezer went further ahead after scoring bigtime with his original classic "For Y'ur Height Only" (1981) diving into much weirder areas! While his cult spysploitation flick was taking over American nests frying the brains of their owners, Weng Weng proceeded with his career and did few more hectic B-movies, which unfortunately didn't make it all through Filipino border. One of these oddities, which luckily got imported and retouched for American public by the same mocking crew – these guys must've had plenty of fun doing the audio, no doubt – was wacky Pinoy western "D'Wild Wild Weng". Produced as usually on a shoestring budget by the same, famous film cook – Eddie Nicart, it dropped Weng Weng as Mr. Weng into bizarre, western setting with another off-beat character, 7 ft tall giant named Gordon (Max Laurel)... and the rest is a real trip, man!

While this superduo heads to Santa Monica and Mr. Weng shows off his kimono – "a very dangerous place", we get to hear from randomly encountered, midget Indian – our heroes find out, that town has just been raided by a merciless bandito named Sebastian, whose band butchered the mayor and his family, raped local women, live stock and then pillaged all that was to be pillaged. However, Mr. Weng digs it as his secret mission is to bring peace and harmony back to this once idyllic land. He's not the type to be messed with (oh no!), capable of killing motherfuckers with all deadly kung fu techniques you've seen in "Enter The Dragon" and being extreme marksman – on the top of that he's the master of art of being totally invisible. Nevertheless, to accomplish his assignment Mr. Weng will have to play it rough. He'll nick banana from the table (sitting in a sack under a bench), fight Sebastian's regiment of black ninjas, escape from the prison hidden under Gordon's frock and protect lady of his heart from being violated and butchered by the brutes.



But before our hot turkeys get down to it, they will sneak into the town and find mayor's deputy – Lupo with his tongue ripped off, being able to make only pathetic (but funny), squeeling noise. Somehow they manage to get what poor lad is jabbering and make the shit boiling. There it goes, man! It's a real ride – no matter what this plot is about – including martial arts combat, heavy machine gun massacre, a passionate romance, war tricks, strategy planning, tall grass chase, doublecrossing and absolutely unforgettable lines like: Keep your cool, sword of the samurai will not be used that way! Mr. Weng is all about latest fashion as well, running around and delivering justice in a mariachi suit and white, ruffled shirt. These scenes are certainly charged with great Mexican music, washing out Ennio Morricone's spaghetti themes. Retarded circus type of acting with frequent slapstick gestures and grimaces sneaking in – that's your kind of fruit, so don't worry about it! It'll put you on a rollercoaster of histerical giggle!

If you still need to ask what it is, I'd say something of Sergio Corbucci's spaghetti western crossed with "Enter The Ninja" and "The Freaks". Whets your appetite? I thought so! Don't hesitate, I'm sure you wanna see a scene with banana. And the ninjas on the desert? That's like a cherry on a vanilla shake. Midget Indians more effective than SAS, Navy Seals and X-Men altogether – head down here! Western town looking like a typical Filipino village with chickens creatively enriching the landscape – you got it now! This distinctive Asian exploitation flavour is unmistakable in "D'Wild Wild Weng" – a feast for the nerds, stoners and exploitation fishermen. Ass-cracking high pitch whistle of all, that is too bad to be true in a low-budget cinema! Eddie Nicart confirms his status as a chaplain of trash by getting it all covered here – he even directed the stunts. If you ever find anything weirder than Weng Weng's exploits, let me know. This guy was Peter Sellers of camp – small in height, but big in style!

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[The movie can be purchased from Cinema de Bizarre]

Hell's Belles (1969)

An excellent biker drama with a sentimental touch, which firmly holds onto it's core due to wittily recycled screenplay, borrowing the best from a classic western "Winchester '73" starring Jimmy Stewart. A writer for the movie was James Gordon White, who rewrote the old, but nevertheless very sharp story and changed the original winchester to a motorbike, making "Hell's Belles" one of the strongest players in biker league. On the top, it does have a brilliant psych-biker-soul music by Lex Baxter, who partly took over the job when Davie Allan & The Arrows were dropped from Sidewalk Records after "Wild In The Street" soundtrack failed to sale (which doesn't seem strange as it was completely stripped from the usual fuzz) and it features beautiful Jocelyn Lane, who's acted in few films feigning American accent just to get married finally in 1971 and quit movie business. What can I say? It's definitely one of my favourite drive-in fodders from AIP.

Plot focuses on a biker named Dan (Jeremy Slate), who decides he wants to quit going where the wind blows and settle down instead. Luckily enough he wins $2,000 worth Triumph bike in a sand chase, that would pay his land's mortgage. Bike gets jacked though by a young stud, who doesn't want to get over his failure in the race and strongly desires the prize. However, the same day luck is to leave him, when mocked by a gang of randomly met biker dropouts, led by a ruthless and edgy dude – Tampa (Adam Roarke), he's eventually forced to make a non-negotiable deal and exchange the bike. It's gonna be between Tampa and Dan now... and nobody really wants to throw a towel. Dan wants his baby back, so tails the gang, but unfortunately gets caught in a desperate attempt to lay hands on it.

He gets fixed pretty good at first, but after that he's offered live biker stock, a chick named Cathy (Jocelyn Lane) as a sort of pay from Tampa. Although girl is a sex bomb (oh yes, yes, yes!), she's a nasty pussycat, who'll try everything to cut loose from her new papa. As the pursuit moves ahead, intimate feelings start to bloom between them both, brought up in few cheesy scenes – still very warm accent for a biker movie in my opinion. After the savages burn a local gasoline station and escape to the desert, Dan's luck is up again as he's entering the area known well as his own pocket, which will be used for his end. He's practically the master of the game now and without any mercy will crack down on the ugly bunch with inventive guerilla techniques, raising havoc and undermining morale to clear the ground for his final assault!



This salacious take on a classic western is very good one indeed and Maury Dexter ("Maryjane", "The Young Animals") directs the movie with a certain B-grade brilliance. Shots are precise, natural and highly involving, dialogues filled with hope and beauty (ok, they're soapy, but enjoyable) and acting is one of the best, you'll ever see in AIP movie. In fact, Adam Roarke, who's been sort of Lee Van Cleef of 60's biker movie, gives juicy performance in "Hell's Belles". I'd say he tops his much better recognized role of Buddy from "Hells Angels On Wheels", which is fine but lacks the effort he're strikingly obvious. Jeremy Slate's role is not bad either, he definitely digs this whole biker-cowboy vibe coming through with a mash of old school machismo and romantic depth. Apparently, Jocelyn Lane's acting cannot match any of the leading roles, but her mini-skirt beauty is such a kick here anyway... even when she utters cheap lines like: Bikes are like men. They're all the same, pouting like an angry teenager, she's such a cool babe.

Backdrop is this genre's classic – 80% of the time we get through the desert, visit deserted cabin or ruins, but at least we're doing it listening to some awesome music. Since it's been out of print for over a decade, it's a very rare record now! Worth having in collection though – a fantastic mix of cinematic soul, biker sound fuzz and chilling psych by Lex Baxter is a perfect artifact of the high 60's. It's very different from all that stuff, you usually get in biker movies and it kicks ass! While "Hell's Belles" effortlessly steps over usual exploitation brainstorming, featuring bikers getting around, having love-in, smashing clubs and killing random people, with it's quality story and all-rounded characters, the final scene is a real act of pagan genius. Two men on their bikes, like horses... and a girl. Furious, desperate and loaded with testosterone they will beat the shit out of each other keeping their dicks up no matter what. And it all happens in the desert, where rattlesnakes can kiss you goodnight or moon can sing you a song.

For my money 1969 pretty well wrapped up the biker stuff, exemplified by this shit, "The Hells Angels '69" or "Easy Rider", which kicked up a genre gig to the auteur level. With the 70's going pure baroque and bringing dumber and dumber low-budget productions to the screen, which in the end stopped making any fuckin' sense or were so miserable and repetitive, that failed to tap into the shifting market – now reigned by women-in-prison movies – flicks like "Hell's Belles" were sort of last products of very particular cheap thrills delivering school.

Rockin' at the Red Dog: The Dawn Of Psychedelic Rock (1996)

Attention, all 60's psych crazies! No matter whether you're a greenie San Francisco sound fan, a thorough West Coast scene completist or all obscure psychedelia collector, this film will definitely meet your needs. "Rockin' at the Red Dog: The Dawn Of Psychedelic Rock" is one hell of a documentary, directed and edited by Mary Works and John Nutt – experienced filmmakers, who grabbed an amazing opportunity to link all threads of early psychedelia together and showcased them in a mind-blowing string of extensive interviews, rare footage and on-screen insights – clearing up all daisy-chain connections, which eventually gave birth to San Francisco scene. After all, they had one in a lifetime situation to pull it off by witnessing the reunion of owners, workers and friends of legendary Red Dog Saloon in Virginia City, Nevada after 25 years from it's opening in 1965 – the original underground bunch, who's been nothing less than a missing link to psychedelic culture of the high 60's and whose deep passion marked a real change of the times!

This extended family of individuals was essentially a hot mix of underground entrepreneurs, musicians, drug dealers, hookers, go-go dancers, light/poster artists and all other sorts of countercultural dropouts... so called quality people. As history is being told, in the summer of 1965 three friends (Chan Laughling, Mark Unobsky, Don Works) decided to fork out their pocket money and get a start-up running. That's how Red Dog Saloon was born – a weird, retro-psychedelic venue, which quickly became a direct inspiration and a blueprint for the whole phenomenon of free form dancing events in San Francisco. This smooth transition on the other hand was enabled by a trio of free individuals, who spent the summer in Virginia City tasting psychedelics and having fun with new music and liberating atmosphere... they felt a new smell was definitely in the air. When the summer was gone, they rolled their sails and eventually drifted back to San Francisco, where they started a small collective – Family Dog, which today is considered a historical glue of San Francisco scene. By organizing dances to rock music with bands such as: The Great Society, Big Brother & The Holding Company, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Grateful Dead, Family Dog quickly established itself as the first truly alternative event agency!

Connection was made initially by Chan Laughlin, who's been scoring drugs in San Francisco for the whole team as they couldn't find acid in Nevada at that time (and probaby many other goodies). This was obviously the same acid, that Stanley Owsley has been manufacturing since March 1965, making Ken Kesey's Acid Tests possible and flushing whole Height Ashbury district as well, which around late 1964 transformed into flourishing area with new rock'n'roll bands, artists and hipsters popping like spring onions. One of these acts was early psychedelic group – The Charlatans, whose manager bumped into Chan around North Beach – a famous Beat Generation district – and proposed his band as a leading act for the Red Dog Saloon. As The Charlatans became regular contributors to Red Dog Saloon ambience, new bands formed around USA and few of them have flown to Virginia City. Among these obscure acts – some recognized only by ardent 60's psych diggers – were such bands as: PH Phactor Jug Band, The Final Solution, StoneGround and early Big Brother & The Holding Company. Although not all of this great music was registered, a heavy fusion of old school country, folk, Southern blues and rock'n'roll played live at the Red Dog Saloon, eventually mutated into what became known as psychedelic rock!



Especially The Charlatans with their vintage, circa 1890 dress code sprang a sense of new style – the fashion creation of "real me"! That was to evolve soon enough into a general hippie look, which flashed with LSD-inspired colours, Native American or Indian rags and circus uniforms (which went down on San Francisco streets like a hurricane, when a local theater has sold out it's costume department). Rolling on the wave of cultural, political and music revolutution, Height Ashbury district by 1967 became a flaming enclave of radical thinking, LSD culture, new forms of rock music, experimental theater, alternative press and full-blown commune living... but as David Getz and Peter Albin (Big Brother & The Holding Company) claim on the screen, this innocence started wearing off with people being overcome by their own self-importance just around when Summer Of Love finished. Before 1968 it was over and by 1969 it went baroque!

As they say, the psychedelic culture of the 60's was a great thing to live in and it gave an unique sense of cosmic identity, but eventually it spiralled downwards... the beginning and the end were divided by not more than 3-4 years, but even this short period mirrored the cyclical nature of the universe in a way, with golden age being the peak (1965-66), silver age carrying the first wind of inevitable downfall (1967) and iron age being the bottom (1968-69). On a personal level, many of Red Dog Saloon workers feel that LSD changed their lives blowing the lid off irreversibly... you weren't able anymore to simply tolerate being stuck in a traffic jam, because you needed to get to work, which you didn't know why you were doing and that apparently nudged a response. The end came down when The Media bought this news, digested it and passed it on as a fad for rebellious youth. As the effect a whole throng of teenagers, criminals and businessmen jumped on the bandwagon washing it out with their lack of commitment and pass the buck ethics. Still, all persons interviewed in this documentary claim they were profoundly transformed by the 60's and many found their way into things they didn't know anything about beforehand. A must-see for 60's researchers and 60's psych collectors, containing never seen before rehearsal footage of The Charlatans and The Final Solution + many rare photos by such a cult figure as Jim Marshall. Absolutely brilliant work!

[This documentary can be purchased from Monterey Media]

Hallucination Generation (1966)

A rare drugsploitation classic from small, independent shop – Trans American Films. The script veers away from usual West/East Coast setting, proposing Ibiza filled with black-dressed beatniks instead, who are heavily into drugs – LSD, weed, heroin, seconal... anything goes. Young Bill is the center of these titillating exploits hanging around with a gang of freeloaders on his family's tab. A luck dries out though when his auntie flies over from USA and tells him he needs to go on his own straight away. As Bill faces further life in Spain on a shoestring budget, he falls into a deep depression and even starts abusing his Spanish girlfriend. Eventually it comes down to the only solution – getting high and robbing the rich bastards!

An opportunity promptly pops up, when a girlfriend tells him about an older chap in Barcelona, who gets robbed at least once a week and doesn't even need to be held at a gunpoint – a real sucker. That sounds promising, but Bill with his artistic soul and moral dilemmas cannot just go for it. Here, where Eric comes into the game. Being a kind of spiritual godfather of all local beatniks, smuggling and slinging drugs from Morocco and turning everybody on to the tune of "new world is coming, brothers and sisters" rap, he's a perfect man to convince Bill, that it could be safe & clean gig. Eric's persona resembles sort of Timothy Leary and Howard Marks cross – creative in a cheesy way, just try to imagine! He has a girlfriend, who nags him all the time about the cool cats kicking back in their pad, but he doesn't give a shit getting around anyway.



While Eric advises heroin and LSD as a way to expand your consciousness (whou would coin such a gibberish in 1966?), he cannot sell the word to Bill, who basically likes to get high on weed and is afraid to get hooked on hard stuff. But when poor boy eventually breaks down from all the misery, Eric will pour a kool-aid down his throat effectively brainwashing his mind and tuning it to the crime note – he'd like his share after old man is shaved off. Still high on LSD, Bill and his friend get down to it, but the trip goes South and becomes a terrifying ride! What a bummer, man! Although I wouldn't consider this dumb flick by any means essential for 60's exploitation fans, the addicts should try to check it out, even if solely for "believe me, revolution is coming" wacky type of dialogue lines.

"Hallucination Generation" has an interesting pre-hippiesploitation feel as well – the last of retarded ones sort of vibe – cause who's been doing beatnik B-movies at this point? It features occasional 60's garage music and offers some lousy, cheapish visuals, particularly when LSD is kicking Bill's neurons, but on the top it's shot in black & white, which retains some vintage appeal. However, do not expect nothing but a drugsploitation drivel, no cinematic fireworks and definitely no nudity. If you manage to sit back and relax, you'll catch some laughable scenes, but that's it! Who would watch any of those ones seriously anyway? Acting is not that bad and these beautiful beaches or night lights of Barcelona somehow do the job. Edward Mann, who directed the movie, was kind of a minor cult individual for American experimental theater and that's a real news. The framing seems also very peculiar for a B-movie with long, dynamic shots, inevitably picturesque or even romantic if you like.

[The movie can be purchased from Cinema de Bizarre]

Surf Nazis Must Die (1987)

This highly entertaining chunk of trash lunacy shoves us an apocalyptic story of Surf Nazis – a gang of ruthless surfers, who step up to power when the great earthquake buries Los Angeles under thick pile of rubble and causes general havoc! A script looks kind of "The Golden Breed" meets "The Warriors" with pre-FSOL type of electronica, so if you're tense, keep reading. 80's kids watch out, this is something you might have missed during your salad rental days 25 years ago – a genuine VHS classic, well grasping a fever of the time as far as costumes and fighting sequences are concerned. Easily takes you back to those days, when you were going through a heap of freshly rented 20 kung-fu movies and still didn't know what "Mad Max" was about. Although acting is shit and budget limitations corner director on every step, bending him for very low-budget solutions, "Surf Nazis Must Die" throws you at least handful of absurd and ridiculous scenes.

As law doesn't exist anymore, these thugs are now ready to kill all the competition, till this point blocking them from absolute power over sunny beaches and the surf spots of California. Surf is up and Surf Nazis customize their surboards, mounting nose switchblades to kill other surfers while the waves roll high. Those ones, who get to the shore, will be executed on the beach with brutal krav maga (or hap-ki-do, or ju-jitsu) techniques, strangled or slaughtered with knife.... but hard comers were sending the message before to all these beach brutes and they didn't listen – surf or die, motherfucker! This movie watches like made between surf workshop and the nearest pile of beach rocks – that's Troma, they say! It features all these cheesy dialogue lines as well, like: "Hey, we're the hottest gang on the beach!" and family scenes, but what can you do? I loved it anyway.



After all, when you're 20 minutes through this inane flick, you suddenly start to rediscover what the 80's were about. Yuppie hair cuts, speedboats, Roland synthesizers, cyberpunk and post-apocalyptic B-movies all come back to you in a flash. This movie is soaked in this sauce with particularly interesting soundtrack of John McCallum, which lifts many sloppy scenes – they wouldn't probably make it without this little help at all... and there's the wreckage of the civilization with few fishermen still trying their luck around Santa Monica pier (or wherever it is) and the only remaining pawn shop. When camera rolls over these sunny beaches and palms again and again while surfers jump around with swastikas, you just cannot stop giggling. However droll this movie seems and that includes surfing sequences frequently cutting into the action – they basically turn the story into a surf TV – you just cannot miss on these cheap thrills.

Surf Nazis are not gonna survive long anyway. When during one of their beach frenzies, they kill a poor chap – Leroy, his big, black mama is gonna pick up a gun and eventually clean the mess herself. This makes the picture another absurd take on "Death Wish" storyline and delivers few over the top crumbles. Tough lady has what it takes, she'll toss a bunch of granades and then chase the last living suckers down the beach boulevard, even switching for a speedboat in the end. They say it's hard to make a dark picture under California sun and maybe that's not far from the truth, but these guys weren't really trying and delivered a Z-grade pot boiler instead. Plenty of fun and occasional nudity though, carrying a spirit of classic Corman's formula. I have to admit, there were these flaky minutes, which could have been polished, but the effect will be definitely enjoyed by lame obscenity witnesses.

Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)

Four people coming from nowhere, drifting, heading nowhere but rich in stories to tell, even if there are no words to describe them as their life is embodied solely in their racing vehicles or their never ending journey. This fiery classic by Monte Hellman has all the ingredients of a great cult movie: brilliant screenplay with extremely weird characters, passion, dark underbelly, fantastic photography and music. It's one of these late 60's & early 70's artifacts, which made to the silver screen only due to the fall of Old Hollywood, using created gap. Financed by Universal, Hellman's film flopped at the time of it's release against high expectations and very favorable press reviews, which dubbed it "the best movie of 1971". A blame in this case has been definitely on the studio executives, who folded the marketing machine promptly after the premiere and then tossed the picture down from big theatres to the drive-in circuit, where it played with exploitation goodies of freshly founded New World Pictures.

Nevertheless, the film eventually found it's public by becoming an obscure night player on American TV. This was fortunate and helped a lot to shelter Hellman's vision in fandom, which slowly has put it up to a cult status. By 2000 it was finally released on DVD after members of The Doors agreed to pass on the royalties to Moonlight Drive, one of many classic songs featured on the soundtrack. Since then "Two-Lane Blacktop" has begun it's second, glorious run, discovered by next generation of movie geeks and die-hard diggers of auteur cinema. Justice has been definitely reclaimed as next to "Easy Rider" and "Vanishing Point", this ravishing road flick is the shit, which shouldn't be missed by any serious cinema fanatic... and it's viewing is highly rewarding, bringing you these uncanny emotions of embracing the acid vision or a dream – both important levels of the epoch's speech. "Two-Lane Blacktop" is indeed an unique piece of creative lunacy.

Monte Hellman was initially another chap, stepping up the ladder of Roger Corman's "shoot today & edit tomorrow" film school in the 60's, which served as a catapult for such personalities as: Francis Ford Coppola, Dennis Hopper, Martin Scorsese or Peter Bogdanovich. He was actually one of this legendary crowd, who glued together "The Terror" (1963) when Corman left it after shooting few nonsense scenes on leftover props from "The Raven" (1962). In 1965 Hellman managed to get $150,000 from Corman to direct two westerns almost simultaneously. They were "The Shooting" and "Ride in the Whirlwind", both starring Jack Nicholson, released in 1968 and considered first "acid westerns" in history – today explained as a bizarre cross of revisionist western and hippiesploitation movies. Although these pictures never made a huge blast leaping high over exploitation pot boilers with their enigmatic plot structure, they are fascinating works, which have lead directly to Hellman's early 70's cult classics like "Two-Lane Blacktop" or "Cockfighter" (1974).



By the time Universal agreed to finance the production of "Two-Lane Blacktop" and forked $850,000, Monte Hellman has been already loking into a firm script by William Corry, but felt it's essence was kind of subpar and should have been reworked to match his ideas. This was assigned to Rudolph Wurlitzer – a fresh writer who just published his experimental novel, Nog (1969) – and Floyd Mutrux, who never got the credit by losing his case in Writer's Guild. Wurlitzer rewrote the screenplay completely, coming up with a copy of a more sophisticated nature, leaving a lot of symbolic space to play around for Hellman. Almost all shots were taken on Route 66, before it was transformed into a transcontinental highway and lost it's mythical allure, and then... the main actors were actual cars: heavily tuned up Chevy '55 and a brand new Pontiac G.T.O. '70 – both machines representing diverse values of car culture.

The film hits as an experimental theatre on the road featuring two hot rodders without a name: The Driver (James Taylor – a cult singer) & The Mechanic (Dennis Wilson – The Beach Boys drummer) going after any fluke in their Chevy '55. They're not really into money when dragging, they're just simply looking for means to make next part of two-lane blacktop... always ahead in their machine, which seems undoubtedly a centre of the world due to Hellman's witty frames, catching it as purely alienating space. Director seems to say with his camera: "That's it, man. There's nothing else" as dialogues are scarce and usually involve running a car or it's technical problems (very nerdy stuff, understandable only for club members). Even when guys meet a young hippie girl – another Summer Of Love dropout – who sneaks into their car to get a lift, they are not destined to end in some place with her. It's just another part of the game.

Action gets raised when they meet Mr. G.T.O. (fantastic role by Warren Oates) - a Pontiac driver, a guy who takes the road challenge and a compulsive liar, who keeps fabricating exploits about his life, passing them to hitchhickers... all for sake of going further down the road as if he'd like someone to cover his lack of purpose. The only moment when he starts to unveil his identity happens during the race, at front of The Driver, who squashes him immediately... as nobody really cares on the road, especially if they're racing for the wheels and the only thing that matters is the moment – very 60's psychedelic, hot rod ZEN message indeed. As they travel across America, the emptiness of their lives becomes strikingly apparent, but it's the only thing left after countercultural dreams went under... a freedom to ride.

This bitterswitness, soaked in post-revolutionary depression is a crucial undercurrent here, making "Two-Lane Blacktop" such a great picture. Even if we desperately try to grasp the meaning, it sneaks away as soon as the characters make another 100 miles. We basically run in the passenger's seat for this whole time just to get, that there are no simple answers, light always comes with a shadow and life will keep carrying on, no matter if you've already moved on or you're still hanging in there... the ending of the movie stands out as one of the greates scenes of American auteur cinema movement being correspondingly bold and confusing.