THE FRENCH LINE 3-D (1953) **

When her fiancée leaves her high and dry, a sexy oil heiress (Jane Russell) tries to take her mind off things by taking a cruise to Paris.  She decides to find herself a new man too, but she wants to make sure that this time, it’ll be someone who loves her for her and not her money.  She gets more than she bargained for when she meets a French lothario (Gilbert Roland).

The French Line is a bit more tolerable than the last Jane Russell movie I saw, The Outlaw.  It has a standard issue story (the threadbare plot is a remake of the Fay Wray movie, The Richest Girl in the World), and the musical numbers are forgettable (Roland’s songs are particularly lame), but it does at least have the benefit of the 3-D gimmick.  As a 3-D aficionado, I would be remiss if I didn’t leap at the chance to see Jane Russell and her enormous talents in all their 3-D glory. 

The bubble bath number is nice because she gets to do a little teasing with the audience, hiding her exquisite frame inside the tub, while wrapped in a towel, and standing behind a partition.  While her figure doesn’t exactly leap out at the screen like the paddleball in House of Wax, Russell’s curves are accentuated by the format, even if director Lloyd Bacon doesn’t use the gimmick to its fullest potential.  Besides some bubbles that are blown into the camera, the only other eye-popping effect comes during a random ass musical number about people refusing to eat hors d’oeuvres when a waiter thrusts a tray into the audience.  The depth-of-field stuff looks okay during the dance numbers (especially the fashion show sequence), but the standard romance sequences don’t utilize the 3-D at all.

It’s probably more famous for how it was marketed than for what it actually contains.  Producer Howard Hughes had some great taglines in the ads like “See Jane Russell in 3-D!  She’ll knock BOTH your eyes out!”  That’s about all it took for me to check it out too.

Which leads us to the finale, which is the highlight.  It’s here where Jane sings “Lookin’ for Trouble” while dressed in a slinky one-piece that was so skimpy that it singlehandedly caused the film to lose its Production Code seal and become condemned by the Catholic Church.  Is it really that scandalous?  Well, there is one shot where Russell’s chassis just about lands in your lap, and for that oh-so brief moment, you thank the cinema gods for inventing 3-D.  Is it worth the wait?  Yes and no.  That moment will definitely get your motor running.  It’s just that the rest of the flick is so pedestrian that it almost feels like it came out of a different movie entirely.

The comprehensive 3-D rundown is as follows: 

·         3-D Bubbles

·         3-D Hors D’oeuvres 

·         3-D Fabric

·         3-D Jane Russell

Keep a lookout for Kim Novak making her film debut as one of Roland’s dancers, and Sandy Descher (the little girl from Them) also pops up as a bratty kid on the ship.

NECROPOLIS (1986) ** ½

A witch (LeeAnne Baker) tries to kill a virgin (Jacquie Fitz) on her wedding night and is stopped by a runaway slave (William K. Reed) before she can complete the ceremony.  Three hundred years later, she is reincarnated as a sexy punk rocker who rides a red motorcycle around New York City looking for the descendant of the slave (now a preacher in a homeless shelter) so she can exact her revenge.  She also resurrects a zombie army to aid her in her quest to kill the reincarnated version of the virgin bride.

LeeAnne Baker is fun to watch, which makes some of the witchy hijinks go down smoother than I expected.  With her bleached white punk hairdo, she resembles Lois Ayres a little bit and has plenty of attitude to spare.  Too bad she wasn’t in more stuff (her filmography is mainly limited to Tim Kincaid and Gorman Bechard movies) because she has a memorable screen presence. 

The opening of Necropolis did not inspire confidence as it’s awkwardly (okay, incompetently) edited.  At least it features a brief bit where Baker does a sexy striptease before getting down to the witchcraft shit.  In fact, Baker does these sexy little dance numbers to no one in particular for no good reason whatsoever throughout the movie, which prevents it from becoming too boring. 

Baker’s centerpiece sequence comes during the jaw-dropping scene where she sprouts four extra breasts and invites her zombie henchmen to suckle from her teats.  (Complete with close-up of her nipple leaking thick, slimy milk.)  Although the make-up on her spare boobs isn’t really convincing, I do admire the audacity of this scene.  Even if the majority of Necropolis is a little on the wonky side, this sequence stands as a memorable slice of WTF zaniness.  It even caused this jaded B-movie fan’s eyebrows to raise. 

The finale isn’t bad either as it features burning faces, severed heads, and hacked-off hands.  Too bad the follow-up sequence is predictable and goes on a bit too long.  I guess they were trying to set things up for a sequel, but it’s really only there to pad out the running time.  A sequel finally materialized thirty-three years later as part of Full Moon’s “Deadly Ten”, a series of films that were crowdsourced by fans. 

AKA:  Necropolis:  City of the Dead. 

CASTLE OF THE CREEPING FLESH (1968) ** ½

After a lot of heavy partying and lustful encounters, Baron Brack (Michel Lemoine) and his friends pay a visit to his neighbor, The Earl of Saxon (Howard Vernon).  They learn his daughter died only an hour before, and even though the dude just suffered a horrible loss, Brack and company impose on the Earl and worm their way into spending the night in his castle.  Naturally, one of the girls, Marion (Claudia Butenuth) is a dead ringer for the Earl’s daughter, and he schemes to use her body for his latest devious experiment. 

Oh, and there’s apparently a killer bear that’s on the loose on the castle grounds. 

I swear, half this movie is comprised of people giving each other conspiratorial, predatorial, or sexual glances.  The funniest bit of ogling comes when the Baron stares agog at the sexy Vera (Janine Reynaud) at the dinner table while she suggestively licks and sucks on a chicken bone.  The other half of this flick is devoted to long-winded, disgusting, real-life footage of open-heart surgeries.  Sometimes they are snuck in the middle of dialogue scenes, well, just because, I suppose.  Sometimes they are superimposed over nightmare sequences.  Sometimes the open-heart surgeries are superimposed over other open-heart surgeries.

I guess that means this would be perfect Valentine’s Day viewing.    

Although it was directed by Adrian (Mark of the Devil 2) Hoven, Castle of the Creeping Flesh feels a lot like a Jess Franco flick (which is fitting because he worked on the script), thanks to the participation of Vernon, the sluggish pace, the shitty camerawork, and the general air of horniness.  There’s probably a solid, concise story somewhere in there, but Hoven tells it in such a jumbled fashion that it’s often perplexing to watch.  It feels less like it had a screenplay and more like it was assembled from parts of other movies and haphazardly reversed engineered into something resembling an actual movie. 

Castle of the Creeping Flesh is slow moving for the first hour or so, but there is a span of like ten minutes that is a total laugh riot.  There’s a hilarious scene where a guy bursts in on a lovemaking couple to tell them their friend is missing, but they are too busy doing the deed to even notice.  It’s the random-ass bear attack that takes the cake when it comes to WTF nuttiness.  I especially loved the fact the bear kicks the guy when he’s down like a common street brawler after the fight is over. 

If you’re patient, you’ll be pleased to know that everything gets tied together in the very end.  If you make it that far, that is.  I can’t say it’s a conventionally “good” movie, but it’s moderately entertaining; alternating from disgusting to sexy to downright hilarious, which is no easy feat to be sure.

It also benefits from a great performance by Reynaud.  In her most memorable scene, she watches breathlessly as a young maiden is gang raped in a barn.  She gets so turned on that she whips out her breasts and heaves them up and down in front of the camera like she’s in a 3-D movie, and cackles hysterically when she climaxes.  If the rest of the ladies in the cast had the same kind of enthusiasm as Reynaud, Castle of the Creeping Flesh could’ve been a classic.

AKA:  Appointment with Lust.  AKA:  Castle of Bloody Lust.  AKA:  Castle of Lust.  AKA:  Castle of Unholy Desires.  AKA:  In the Castle of Bloody Lust. 

ROCK ROCK ROCK! (1956) ** ½

This “jukebox musical” was the first movie produced by the team of Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg, the brains behind Amicus Films.  It was also the film debut of Tuesday Weld, whose singing voice was provided by Connie Francis.  It features a veritable cavalcade of rock n’ roll talent including Chuck Berry, The Flamingos, The Johnny Burnette Trio, and Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers.  Alan Freed (a few years away from his infamous payola scandal) serves as the host of his own TV show and turns up later to emcee the prom at the end. 

Weld wants to buy a dress so she can go to the prom.  Her tightwad dad wants to teach her the importance of having a budget and refuses to give her money for the dress.  (“Money doesn’t grow on fathers!”)  To add to her woes, the new girl in school is making eyes at her boyfriend.  How can she compete with that unless she has that strapless evening gown that’s all the rage with the kids nowadays?  Why, think up a get-rich-quick scheme, that's how!  In the meantime, she watches Alan Freed introduce The Flamingos singing “Would I Be Crying”, The Moonglows doing “I Knew from the Start”, and Jimmy Cavallo and the House Rockers belting out “Big Beat”. 

The highlight though is Chuck Berry singing, “You Can’t Catch Me”.  There’s no backing band.  Just him on stage, tearing it up on the guitar.  It’s simply awesome.  He even does his patented duck walk too.

Oh, and… uh… Freed sings too (badly).

It should come as no surprise that the musical numbers are the main draw.  Even the ones that aren’t so hot are preferable to the inane sub-sitcom subplot with Weld running a collections racket.  Still, Weld is cute is a button, so it’s not totally without merit.  I also liked the scene where the dad slowly begins to enjoy the acts on Freed’s show and winds up giving them a big round of applause by the end.  Little moments like this help keep Rock Rock Rock! rocking, even when the bands aren’t front and center.

The future director of Space Mutiny, David Winters, also appears in a small role. 

DOLLMAN (1991) **

Dollman is yet another team-up between leading man Tim Thomerson and producer Charles Band.  Fans hoping for another Trancers will be disappointed because it’s not very good.  However, thanks to Thomerson’s game performance, it certainly has its moments.

While chasing a bad guy through outer space, interplanetary cop Brick Bardo (Thomerson) crashes his spaceship into Earth’s atmosphere.  The sudden change in pressure causes Brick to shrink down to 1/6 his size.  Trapped on Earth, he winds up being a protector to a single mom (Kamala Lopez) who is marked for death by a gang of thugs led by Red (Jackie Earle Haley). 

Dollman is a futuristic sci-fi movie directed by Albert Pyun, so you know it’s going to look muddy and ugly.  As is the case with most of his films, Pyun’s vision far exceeds his budget, which leads to some really chintzy moments.  The sparing effects are often cheap (even by Charles Band’s low standards) and are mostly good for groans instead of laughs. 

The best stuff takes place on Brick Bardo’s home planet.  The opening scene in which Thomerson does a mean Dirty Harry impression while threatening a gunman who has taken a bunch of fat ladies hostage in a laundromat is a lot of fun.  We also get a few exploding bodies, and a weird bad guy who’s nothing more than a severed head with wings.  Unfortunately, the film sorta runs out of steam once Bardo comes to Earth. 

Thomerson gives a fun performance, although you can almost see he wishes he had a bigger budget and better dialogue to work with.  The whole movie is like that though, as there are more missed opportunities than good ideas.  Take for example the scene where Dollman is crawling through a sewer pipe and comes face to face with a rat.  Instead of getting into a fight with it (which would be cool), he merely shoos it away with his gun.  In fact, they’re never even in the same shot together.  (That would’ve been way too expensive.) 

Thomerson fans will enjoy it.  People who will watch anything Band puts out will too.  Ultimately, Dollman comes up… short.

AKA:  MicroCop.

ABDUCTION (2019) * ½

Scott Adkins wakes up in a fountain in Vietnam with no memory of how he got there.  With the help of a concerned doctor (Truong Ngoc Anh), he eventually remembers his daughter was abducted by aliens from another dimension.  Andy On is a hitman whose wife (Lily Ji) was also abducted by the aliens.  Together, they team up to get their loved ones back and stop the evil extraterrestrials from taking over the world. 

Abduction is a weird hybrid of sci-fi and action that never comes close to gelling due to the fact that the plot is all over the place.  Although Adkins is top billed, it is On who does most of the heavy lifting throughout much of the movie.  The plot has them on their separate paths for the first two acts, and the constant cutting back and forth between their storylines leads to some serious narrative whiplash.  It also doesn’t help that Adkins spends a big chunk of the movie homeless and stuttering.

Once they finally team up, the film improves, although only slightly.  The fight sequence when Adkins is temporarily brainwashed by a mechanical spider that programs him to engage in Kung Fu fisticuffs against On is pretty good.  However, it really comes as too little too late.  The other fight scenes and shootouts pale in comparison to this duel, which is a highlight of the movie, but is far from Adkins’ best work. 

It also doesn’t help that the aliens are bland and stupid.  With their pasty faces barely hidden by hooded robes, they look like the Engineers from Prometheus reimagined as a Mortal Kombat character.  

Abduction is even more of a disappointment when you consider it was directed by Ernie Barbarash, who directed Adkins in the fun Jean-Claude Van Damme actioner, Assassination Games.  It was also executive produced by none other than Roger Corman.  It’s a shame the first team-up between Corman and Adkins wasn’t more memorable.  They seem like a good fit for one another.

Adkins does what he can with the material he is given, which is admirable.  I can’t fault him for trying something a little different, even if it doesn’t work.  The scenes of him wandering the streets and spouting gibberish are sort of like Bruce Willis’ character in 12 Monkeys, and Adkins looks like he’s having fun while trying to flex his acting muscles.  When it comes time to the uninspired fight scenes though, you can tell it’s just another day at the office for him.

MADAME OLGA’S PUPILS (1981) ***

Madame Olga (Helga Line) runs an illicit brothel in London procuring underage girls and training them to service her wealthy clients.  (If you thought the title was referring to her eyes, you were way off.)  One of Olga’s young prostitutes, Tina (Eva Lyberton) dies after a romantic rendezvous with a rich john, who naturally wants to sweep the incident under the rug to avoid a scandal.  When Tina’s friend Rafael (Jorge Gonce) comes around asking questions, Olga cannily offers him a job scouting new girls rather than have him making trouble for her business.  A conflict of interest arises once Rafael meets Olga’s latest pupil, Lavinia (Marie Harper).  She wants Lavinia converted to a life of prostitution, but Rafael wants her all for himself.

As far as I can tell, this has no connection to the Olga movies of the ‘60s.  I don’t know if it was retitled to cash in on the nostalgia factor or if it was just a happy accident, but at least the main character’s name is Olga, so it’s not one of those Wanda/Ilsa the Wicked Warden deals.  (It does, however, appear to have been retitled in the late ‘80s as “Sex Academy”, no doubt to cash in on the popularity of Police Academy.)  It’s not anywhere near as twisted as the Olga franchise from the ‘60s, but it’s a pretty good early ‘80s skin flick. 

Despite the sleazy premise, it’s all handled in a very proper and classy manner by director Jose Ramon (Vampyres) Larraz.  He films everything in his typically arty style, which kind of runs against the grain of the lurid plot.  Sometimes the doldrums creep in now and then, but there’s plenty of nudity to go around, so that’s a plus.  Larraz gives us shower scenes, sex scenes, lesbian scenes, voyeurism… you name it… he’s got it.  (The sequence in the “saddle room” is especially memorable.) 

Sure, the plot is thin, but the focus is soft, and the breathing is heavy, so who cares?  I will say the ending is abrupt and a bit unsatisfying.  Then again, if that’s what Larraz had to do to keep the running time down to a tight seventy-seven minutes, then I guess I can live with it, right?

AKA:  Sex Academy.