BLACK SAMURAI (1976) ***

 

I bought this on VHS for $5 at Roses in the late ‘90s during the Blaxploitation resurgence that occurred shortly after Pam Grier starred in Jackie Brown.  I’m not sure if it was my first Al Adamson movie or not (I also picked up Dracula vs. Frankenstein in a giant clamshell box around this time), but it certainly got me hooked on his films.  It’s cheap and chintzy, but the badass performance by Jim Kelly gives it an unmistakable sense of cool. 

Based on the series of Black Samurai men’s adventure novels, Kelly stars as an agent of D.R.A.G.O.N.  He is a master of the martial arts who lives by the samurai code.  When his girlfriend is kidnapped by a villainous cult leader, Kelly springs into action to get her back. 

Black Samurai finds Adamson working away from Sam Sherman and his usual Independent-International team.  Even though the film was essentially a for-hire gig, it very much feels like an Adamson picture.  I’m sure he was hired for his spendthrift ways, which helps give some of the action sequences a bigger (but not much) feel (like when Kelly drives a car loaded with gadgets, just like James Bond).

The cool Bond-style opening credits scene coupled with a funky theme song sets the tone nicely.  We also get a great scene where a shotgun-toting, poorly dubbed Felix Silla interrupts Kelly during his meditation.  (There are several fights involving dwarves and little people, actually.)

Although it’s a little more respectable than your typical Adamson production, we still get scenes of strippers shaking their goodies for all to see.  Adamson handles the action better than you’d expect too as Kelly’s Kung Fu scenes are solidly entertaining.  The best part is when he gets to bust out a jetpack.  Yes, it’s yet another Bond reference, but unlike 007, Kelly actually gets to use it for a lengthy amount of time. 

Kelly, who really should’ve been a bigger star, looks relaxed and confident, and he carries the movie effortlessly.  His performance alone should’ve warranted a slew of sequels, which we unfortunately did not get.  He has a lot of chemistry with Adamson regular Marilyn Joi, who plays the villain’s sexy right-hand woman, Synne. My favorite exchange is when she calls him, “my white knight!”, and he responds, “I’m never the white knight, baby!”

For a low budget Blaxploitation James Bond/Enter the Dragon knockoff, Black Samurai is hard to beat.  The budget can’t quite keep up with its comic book sensibilities, but that’s kind of the charm.  While it may drag in spots, once it starts cooking, it’s a damn good time.  It’s proof that Adamson, given a good cast and a decent script, could churn out a winner.

AKA:  Black Terminator. 

NURSES FOR SALE (1976) **

 

An epidemic breaks out in a third world country, and freshly inoculated American nurses are sent to administer a vaccine.  A corrupt police official mistakes the vaccine for heroin and steals the shipment.  He places the blame on a crusty sea captain, played by Curd (The Spy Who Loved Me) Jurgens and throws him in jail.  Jurgens eventually escapes and comes to the aid of the nurses, who have been captured by revolutionaries.

Nurses for Sale came about when producer Sam Sherman acquired a German movie he couldn’t do a whole lot with.  Seeing that Roger Corman was making a mint with his sexy Nurses series, he had Al Adamson add some spicy footage of horny nurses.

Adamson’s work on the film amounts to about ten minutes of screen time.  His major contribution was the pre-opening title sequence in which two sexy nurses engage in a three-way with their stud lover.  Whereas Adamson’s previous patchwork features had some semblance of cohesion, it’s pretty apparent that this beginning has been crassly tacked on as it really doesn’t match the rest of the movie.  The lighting is poor, the acting is bad, and the whole scene feels like a crummy stag reel that’s somehow managed to play as a short subject before the main attraction.  The girls briefly show up later as prisoners in the revolutionaries’ camp for a bit of lesbian lovemaking.  There’s also a forced blowjob scene that’s awkwardly cut in with the prison break sequence, but overall, these extra snippets don’t add much to the picture. 

The rest of the movie (directed by Rolf Olsen) is OK.  About halfway through, the film takes a detour into the jungle.  Because of the grimy cinematography and the jungle setting, it’s easy to see how drive-in patrons would mistake this for one of Corman’s lensed-in-the-Philippines actioners.  Unfortunately, the sleaze is limited to a scene of the nurses showering, a few tame sex scenes, and one gratuitous wardrobe change.  We also get a decent acid-to-the-face scene.  The comedy is lame too, and the dubbing is cheesy, but Jurgens makes it watchable.  (I liked the part where he butted heads with the dirty cop who tries to confiscate his shipment of alcohol.)

The good news is, it’s short.  At only 66 minutes, it’s by far the shortest film so far on the Al Adamson boxset.  (Although he was only responsible for about eight minutes worth of footage.)  Of course, it FEELS much longer than the running time suggests (the finale is especially protracted), but it’s far from the worst cut-and-paste flick featured on this set.

Two years later, Adamson and Sherman would take another Jurgens/Olsen collaboration, The Doctor of St. Pauli and repackage it as Bedroom Stewardesses.

AKA:  Captain Typhoon.  AKA:  Captain Roughneck from St. Pauli.

BLACK HEAT (1976) **

 

Kicks (Timothy Brown) and Tony (Geoffrey Land) are cops out to bust a hotel full of hookers.  The girls also help the sleazy kingpin Ziggy (Russ Tamblyn) pull off a series of heists.  After Ziggy kills Tony, he tricks his grieving girlfriend (Jana Bellan) into setting up his next score.  It’s then up to Kicks to get revenge and bring Ziggy down. 

You can say a lot of things about the quality of the movies Al Adamson and Sam Sherman made together, but you have to admire the ingenuity they had when it came to selling them.  Black Heat is an example where the genesis of the film is more interesting than the finished product.  They were looking to make a Blaxploitation actioner and a sexploitation potboiler, and figured why not just make two for the price of one?  They would create two different marketing campaigns under two different titles and film two different opening scenes (one that played up the gunrunning angle, the other featuring a bunch of scenes of the girls in the hotel getting naked, fucking, and showering) but keep the rest of the pictures the same.  They’d then play them in separate markets and the filmgoing public would be none the wiser. 

The film itself is serviceable at best.  Like most of Adamson’s work, the plot is a bit slipshod, with a few too many extraneous subplots that get in the way of the fun.  For example, the final junkyard confrontation between Brown and Tamblyn is well done, but unfortunately, the movie keeps going for another ten unnecessary minutes.  There is some trademark Adamson sleaze here (gang rape, forced lesbianism, a guy getting his legs ran over by a car, etc.), although not really enough to make it recommended.  Still, it’s not a bad Blaxploitation flick, all things considered.  (The score by Paul Lewinson is appropriately funky.)

The performances are what keep it afloat.  Brown is likeable as the suave badass cop Kicks.  He has an easy chemistry in the streets with Land and between the sheets with Tanya Boyd, who plays his reporter girlfriend.  Naturally, Adamson’s wife, Regina Carrol also turns up (as a nightclub singer), although she isn’t given a whole lot to do this time out.

AKA:  U.S. Vice.  AKA:  Syndicate Vice.  AKA:  The Murder Gang.  AKA:  Girls’ Hotel.  AKA:  Town Rats. 

HELLISH SPIDERS (1968) ****

 

Giant spiders from outer space travel across the galaxy to invade Earth.  They take the form of Earthmen (you can tell they’re spider men because they all have a small spider tattoo behind their ear) and begin harvesting human brains, the vital foodstuff for their queen, Arachnea.  Naturally, the only one who can stop them from conquering the world is everyone’s second favorite luchador, Blue Demon!  The aliens know this too, so they create their own invincible wrestler to go one on one with the champ in the ring.

I love it when low budget movies steal their special effects footage from other films.  Usually though, they try to pinch footage from higher budgeted and/or slightly better made features.  Director Federico Curiel probably had his pick of footage to blatantly steal from and put into this flick.  What makes Hellish Spiders so great is that he went and stole the UFO footage from Plan 9 from Outer Space, the one picture that’s notorious for its famously awful pie tin/hubcap spaceships and flying saucers. 

I fucking love it. 

Not content to steal only from Plan 9, Curiel lifts whole scenes from Teenagers from Outer Space too.  The famous dog disintegration scene from that movie is shown in its full glory.  It’s fitting though, because like the teenagers in that flick, the aliens in this movie leave a trail of fleshless skeletons in their wake, so it all kind of synchs up.  Not only does Hellish Spiders borrow footage from Plan 9 and Teenagers, it recycles some familiar musical cues from Creature from the Black Lagoon and This Island Earth.  Also, the spiders themselves look a lot like the ones found in Horrors of Spider Island, which only adds to the fun.

While the invasion is going on, Blue Demon spends most of his time wrestling.  There are at least five wrestling scenes, or seven if you count the two sparring sessions in the ring.  The brawl with the alien champion is particularly fast-paced and entertaining.  The shit really hits the fan when Demon smashes his opponent’s arm to reveal his spider appendage, horrifying the spectators in the process.  Blue Demon also does battle outside the squared circle with the spider soldiers, who wear pretty sweet looking Dracula capes.

Once again, Curiel shows why he is one of the premier directors in Lucha Libre cinema.  Sure, the production may be cheap and shoddy, but the sequences set in the aliens’ underground lair are loaded with atmosphere.  The shots of the heroine clinging to the giant web as a slimy spider inches ever closer to her are particularly well done. 

In short, this is one of Blue Demon’s best solo efforts.  There’s tons of wrestling, cool monsters, and very little plot to get in the way.  Ed Wood devotees will also love seeing the footage from Plan 9 being repurposed here.  What more can a B movie fan ask for?

BLAZING STEWARDESSES (1975) * ½

 

I already reviewed this a decade ago, but it never hurts to watch the movies on this Al Adamson boxset with a fresh set of eyes.  Adamson made a career out of slapping together two genres in order to reach a wider market.  Blood of Ghastly Horror was a mix of crime picture and horror movie.  The Dynamite Brothers was a hybrid of Blaxploitation and Kung Fu flick.  This is a blend of western and sexploitation.  As far as nudie westerns go, it’s got nothing on Herschell Gordon Lewis’ Linda and Abilene, THE definitive work of the genre, as far as I’m concerned. 

Connie Hoffman returns as sexy stewardess Debbie.  She returns home from a flight and finds her boyfriend in the sack with another woman.  She and her stewardess gal pals (Regina Carrol and Marilyn Joi) then take off for a vacation at a casino ranch owned by her old pal Brewster (Robert Livingston).  When a gang of modern-day rustlers try to put a stop to Brewster’s gambling joint, it’s up to a mysterious cowboy in a white hat (Geoffrey Land) to save the day.

The idea of cowgirl stewardesses could’ve worked, but there’s just too much filler.  It’s one thing to pad the movie with travelogue scenes of the stewardesses going to the zoo, shopping, watching parades, and attending rodeos.  I guess it makes sense as the film was still kind of aping the Stewardess Report template.  However, the straight western scenes are terrible, and all the comedy shit just plain doesn’t work at all.

The good news is, the sex scenes are decent.  Foot fetish fans will enjoy the toe-sucking rendition “This Little Piggy”, and the funny bit when a couple does it while standing on their heads.  Ultimately, there just aren’t enough of them to make it worthwhile. 

The cast aren’t much to write home about.  Yvonne DeCarlo (who sings!) plays the madam of a cathouse, but her role really could’ve been played by anyone.  While Hoffman was a lot of fun in the original, this time around, she seems like she really doesn’t want to be there.  Also, Joi, who was such a memorable presence in the first movie is pretty much wasted here.  Carrol on the other hand, gets way too much to do.  She completely overdoes the whole bimbo thing and her schtick becomes instantly annoying. 

Speaking of annoying schtick, seeing the Ritz Brothers (whose roles were originally intended for The Three Stooges!) still doing their antiquated pratfalls and facial contortions way past their prime is downright embarrassing.  Their impromptu dance number alone is enough to make you want to blow your brains out.  Originally a trio, only two of the Ritz Brothers, Harry and Jimmy, perform as Al passed away several years prior.  He was the lucky one.

Despite the fact his previous film, Jessi’s Girls was a decent enough western, Blazing Stewardesses shows that Adamson’s strength was more in the drive-in exploitation genre and not in westerns.  He isn’t particularly adept at comedy either (the stuff with the Ritz Brothers is painful), so whenever there aren’t any smokin’ stewardesses disrobing for the camera (which is about the majority of the second and third acts), it can be awfully rough going.  

Here’s my original review that ran on my old site on November 22^nd, 2010:

BLAZING STEWARDESSES  (1975)  * ½

Blazing Stewardesses is director Al Adamson’s pretty awful sequel to the pretty good The Naughty Stewardesses.  In this one, our swinging stewardesses head west to help an elderly cowhand revitalize his dude ranch.  Of all the places Adamson could’ve sent his sexy stews, he put them in a dumb western.  Why couldn’t we have gotten The Stewardesses in a Haunted House or The Stewardesses in Space or something along those lines?  But no, we’re stuck with this crap.

I will say one thing; the opening credits are kinda cool and look like something out of a B western from the 30’s.  After that though, the movie kinda falls apart.  To make matters worse, the sex scenes are few and far between.  There is however, one rather hot part where a chick plays an oral-centric version of “This Little Piggy”.  That’s about the only marginally sexy moment the movie has going for it.

Mostly though; it’s too much filler and not enough fucking.  This might be the first movie that’s all padding.  There are long parade sequences, rodeo scenes, and way too much godawful comic relief by the supremely annoying Ritz Brothers to make you think this could’ve ever been a good flick.  Speaking of annoying, Regina Carrol will grate on your nerves and totally overplays the whole bimbo thing.  Because she’s the director’s wife though, she gets a shit ton of screen time.

Bottom Line:  Ask your stewardess for extra pillows because you’ll be sleeping through this one.

AKA:  Cathouse Callgirls.  AKA:  Cathouse Cowgirls.  AKA:  Texas Layover.  AKA:  The Great Truck Robbery.  AKA:  The Jet Set.  AKA:  Up Like a Shot.

JESSI’S GIRLS (1975) ** ½

 

Jessi’s Girls is one of the more obscure titles on the Al Adamson boxset from Severin.  (Well, I had never heard of it.)  I had low expectations seeing as it was another western and Adamson’s last western, Five Bloody Graves was easily the worst film in the collection.  Turns out, it’s not too bad.  It’s competently put together, features some solid performances, and features just enough sleaze to appease to the drive-in crowd while simultaneously catering to western fans. 

Sondra (Policewomen) Currie stars as Jessi, a preacher’s wife who is traveling out west in a covered wagon with her husband Seth (Rigg Kennedy).  Notorious outlaw Frank Brock (Ben Frank from Death Wish 2) and his gang ambush the couple, tie up Seth, and take turns violently raping Jessi.  The hoodlums then shoot both husband and wife and leave them for dead.  Jessi miraculously survives, and with the help of a friendly old prospector (Rod Cameron) becomes a crack shot.  She sets out to get revenge on the men who raped her and ends up crossing paths with a trio of criminal women who aid her in her quest for vengeance. 

The opening is strong.  Adamson wastes no time getting to the sleaze with an extended gang rape scene.  From there, it becomes sort of a western version of I Spit on Your Grave (I Spit on Your Tombstone?), but with the addition of three fugitive women.  

Currie gives a fine performance as the vengeance-seeking cowgirl.  She gets naked a lot too, which helps bulk up the skin factor.  The other ladies in the cast are appealing too, even if they don’t get a whole lot to do.  (Save for Regina Carrol and Ellen Stern’s catfight).  Their characters never really get a chance to bond in a meaningful way either as they mostly feel like they’re just along for the ride.

The traditional western sequences look the part, even if they aren’t really all that involving.  The big problem is that revenge scenes lack the punch that the early attack scenes had.  Considering the Hell they put her through, you’d expect Currie to make her tormentors suffer, at least a little bit.  Instead, she merely hunts them down, flashes back to the men’s grimy faces, and then shoots them.  The lurid scenes of Currie and Carrol (who used a body double because after all, she’s the director’s wife) nursing wounded men back to health by banging them feel out of step with the serious tone, but again, it does up the skin factor. 

Also, you have to wonder if Rick Springfield saw this at the drive-in before writing “Jesse’s Girl”. 

AKA:  Jessi’s Gang.  AKA:  Jessi’s Gun.  AKA:  Wanted Women.

I SPIT ON YOUR CORPSE! (1974) ***

 

Note:  Although the title on the Blu-Ray is Girls for Rent, the version I originally saw (on Beta, no less) back in the early ‘00s was called I Spit on Your Corpse!  Because that’s the version I’m most familiar with, that’s the title I will refer to it as.  Of course, the retitling was meant to cash in on the infamous cult classic, I Spit on Your Grave, but apart from a subplot about a slow-witted redneck rapist, it’s really nothing like that flick.  It is however a solid slice of drive-in moviemaking, and certainly one of director Al Adamson’s all-time best efforts. 

Moreno (frequent Adamson star Kent Taylor) runs an organization that is kind of like an evil version of Charlie’s Angels.  One girl handles counterfeiting, another runs a call girl operation, one deals in stolen goods, etc.  He hires Sandra (Georgina Spelvin) as the team’s hit woman, and immediately gives her an assignment to take out a politician.  She doesn’t want to get her hands dirty, so she gets a call girl named Donna (Susan McIver) to unwillingly poison the perverted politico.  Once she realizes she’s killed a man, Donna hightails it out of there and heads for Mexico.  Moreno, nervous Donna will talk to the authorities, sends Sandra out in hot pursuit to silence her for good. 

While it never hits the zany heights of Adamson’s Dracula vs. Frankenstein, I Spit on Your Corpse! is his most consistently entertaining film.  It’s briskly paced, well-made, and looks great, thanks to Gary Graver’s excellent cinematography.  The score, which alternates from sounding like a Spaghetti Western to resembling a James Bond rip-off, is also very good.

Hot off the heels of her notoriety from The Devil in Miss Jones, Spelvin delivers a knockout performance.  Sporting a pixie hairdo and spouting her dialogue through a mischievous sneer, the tough-talking Spelvin kinda looks like a cross between Shirley MacLaine and Tura Satana.  The opening sequence, where Spelvin escapes from a prison roadwork crew, perfectly sets the tone for the movie.  Two female prisoners begin wrestling in the dirt to distract the guards before Spelvin conks them on the head and takes off into the desert.  My favorite moment though is when Spelvin seduces the slow-witted would-be rapist and blows his brains out just before he’s about to get his rocks off. 

We also get a great bit where Spelvin and her partner in crime, Rosalind Miles are hitchhiking, and roll a trio of drunks.  Spelvin lures them in by whipping out her tit (most people stick out their thumb while hitchhiking, but not Georgina), and it doesn’t take long for her and Miles to kick the shit out of some Good Ol’ Boys.  This sequence also features a brief smattering of topless kickboxing, and as far as I can tell, it is only the second instance of topless kickboxing in film history as it premiered just a few months after Cirio H. Santiago’s seminal T.N.T. Jackson. 

Although the film clips along at a steady pace for the first hour or so, it kind of fizzles out just before the finale.  The end chase through the desert is needlessly drawn out, almost as if Adamson was contractually obligated to reach a mandated ninety-minute runtime.  That blemish aside, there is enough skin and action throughout the movie to make it highly recommended for connoisseurs of sleazy drive-in fare. 

AKA:  Girls for Rent.  AKA:  Fatal Pursuit.  AKA:  A Life in the Balance.