LET’S GET PHYSICAL: SEXUAL INADEQUACIES (1970) ** ½

FORMAT:  DVD (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on July 19th, 2023)

The title of this “White Coater” skin flick (which is done in the style of Danish sex documentaries but is really just a crass Italian exploitation film) is a bit misleading as it’s not about impotency or erectile dysfunction.  Rather, it’s a lurid expose on sexual deviation and perversion.  In fact, “Sexual Deviation and Perversion” would’ve made for a much more accurate (and better) title.

An on-screen narrator tells us that during puberty, masturbation is perfectly normal, that is, unless it is done to excess.  Then it can lead to… dunh… dunh… DUH!  Sexual deviation and perversion!  Then, we move on to several different vignettes that focus on said deviations and perversions.

The first sequence is about a nymphomaniac who tries to curb her urges by taking a cold shower before finally succumbing to her desires.  The next section is on voyeurism.  Here, we see a series of men sneaking a peek at women getting undressed.  Conversely, we also see some exhibitionists, one of whom is a pervert who exposes himself to young girls.  It’s then suggested that sadists and masochists are a product of childhood trauma.  Oh, and the views on homosexuality are hilariously wrongheaded and outdated.  We also get a funny scene where a couple has sex under laboratory conditions.  

Naturally, nearly all the so-called clinical information that is portrayed here is hilariously outdated or just plain wrong.  That’s sort of what makes it amusing though.  Unfortunately, the film was made with a conservative attitude and looks down on its case studies with contempt.  It often portrays them in the worst possible light too and tries to make them all subjects of scorn.  I’m thinking specifically of the bizarre sequence where a high-powered lawyer keeps his fetish doll in a Dr. Phibes-style secret chamber.  Sure, Sexual Inadequacies won’t win any awards for sensitivity, but moments like these deliver their fair share of unintentional laughs.

AKA:  In the Labyrinth of Love.  AKA:  The Labyrinth of Sex.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: THE WILD WILD WORLD OF JAYNE MANSFIELD (1968) ****

FORMAT:  DVD (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on September 15th, 2019)

Exploitation sleaze wizard Dick (Pieces) Randall produced this bonkers Mondo movie of blonde bombshell Jayne Mansfield going all over God’s green earth and reporting back on all the wild, weird, adventures she had along the way.  It has an added allure of sleaziness given the fact it was completed (more like cobbled together) after her death.  It kind of laid the groundwork for all those Bruceploitation pictures (of which Randall produced a few of), as it blends together old footage and body doubles to bring a dead star back from beyond the grave, while the cobbled-together narrative helps to sensationalize the public’s morbid curiosity about the fallen star.  

It begins with scenes of Jayne strolling around Rome, throwing coins into a fountain and trying to avoid the paparazzi.  One guy even pinches her ass.  The first thing you notice about this scene is that all the shots of Jayne are in black and white, but everything else is in color.  That’s because it was shot after her death, and nobody bothered to use black and white film to make it remotely match.  That’s the level of shoddiness we’re talking about here.  The funniest part is the breathless narration that isn’t spoken by Jayne, but a soundalike. (“There’s no place like Roma!”) 

Jayne then checks out some of her topless shots from Playboy and watches some women change.  Later, she goes to the Coliseum and imagines herself in Ancient Rome (actually just footage from her movie, The Loves of Hercules) before daydreaming that the Olympic statues come to life (actually just footage of Jayne with her bodybuilder husband, Mickey Hargitay).  We also see a battle between Hercules and a three-headed dragon (again, just footage from The Loves of Hercules). 

Then it’s off to France where Jayne watches prostitutes conduct business.  From there, she goes to Cannes where she ogles women on the French Riviera and is hounded by her fans.  Jayne’s hair and wardrobe changes from scene to scene and sometimes shot to shot during this segment, which shouldn’t come as a surprise.  Later, Jayne visits a nudist colony and even goes topless herself.  The cuckoo narration is particularly on-point in this segment (“Sometimes I think fish are so lucky!”), and some of the transitions are priceless (“Looking at my toes reminds me of other toes!”). 

Jayne next heads to Paris and visits Eiffel Tower.  (“I sure hope they don’t tear it down and put up a parking lot!”)  After watching people making out in public, she goes to a drag bar and later, watches male hustlers at work (while faux James Bond music plays).  Although this segment lightly pokes fun at European gay culture, it at least gave them a certain amount of visibility.  It’s certainly less judgmental about the lifestyle than most films of the time. 

God, what else?  There’s a “Best Boob” contest, stripping lessons, a topless interpretive dance routine, a trip to a bottomless club, a drag queen beauty contest (Jayne interviews a male Jayne impersonator), a segment on topless vocations (everything from an ice cream truck driver to a mechanic), and a number by a topless rock band (The Ladybirds).  We also get to see Jayne topless herself, courtesy of a scene from her film Promises!  Promises!  

Things take a turn for serious when Mansfield’s fatal car crash is recreated (complete with tinted crime scene photos).  We also get to see (staged) scenes of widowed Mickey Hargitay moping around his empty mansion while a newsreel narrator pontificates about his loss.  Yes, in case you’re wondering, the end is kind of like the beginning of Citizen Kane, if you can fucking believe it.

Some segments are weirder, wilder, and more explicit than others.  Others are a tad repetitive.  None of that really matters.  This is one of the crassest, cheapest, chintziest Mondo movies I’ve ever seen.

That is to say, I loved every stupid minute of it. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: VERSUS (2002) ** ½

FORMAT:  DVD (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on February 2nd, 2016)

Ryuhei Kitamura has had an interesting career. He’s made a Godzilla movie (Godzilla: Final Wars), a Clive Barker adaptation (The Midnight Meat Train), and a horror film for WWE Studios (No One Lives). Each of those flicks had their various ups and downs, but they were all interesting and at the very least, memorable. Versus was his debut feature-length picture as a director and even though it’s as uneven as anything he ever did (if not more so), it’s a good showcase for his “anything goes” aesthetic.

The film opens with a back story that’s kind of confusing (something about there being 666 realms in the world), but never mind. All you need to know is that two prisoners are being chased by gangsters through the woods. This isn’t just any forest though. Whenever someone dies in the woods, they come back as a zombie. Pretty soon, there are hitmen and gangsters shooting zombies left and right.

Versus is a fitfully amusing hodgepodge. Kitamura basically mashes up a bunch of genres and sees what sticks. It’s hard to completely hate any movie that features samurais, yakuza gangsters, Kung Fu, and zombies. However, it’s just a bit too incoherent to really work. Plus, at two hours, it’s about a half hour longer than was absolutely necessary, and despite a number of pretty good zombie attacks and gun fights, it gets a bit numbing after a while.

With this picture, Kitamura announced himself as quite a showman. He exhibits a lot of John Woo-type filmmaking gymnastics, his camerawork is often reminiscent of Peter Jackson’s early work (especially the fist-through-the-brain scene), and the zombie scenes have a definite Romero vibe to them. Although it goes on too long and is uneven as all get out, it’s still worth watching.

AKA: Down to Hell 2. AKA: The Return: Down 2 Hell. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: ARMED RESPONSE (1986) ***

FORMAT:  DVD (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on December 31st, 2010)

David Carradine stars as a Nam vet who owns a bar with his crusty ex-cop father (Lee Van Cleef).  Carradine’s detective brother (Brent Huff) gets double crossed and killed by his partner (Ross Hagen) over a jade statue belonging to a yakuza boss (Mako).  When Mako kidnaps Carradine’s wife and child and kills his OTHER brother, David and Lee decide to dust off their machine guns and take out the trash.

 

Despite the spotty pacing, convoluted plot, and slow-motion Nam flashbacks that only exist to pad the running time, I liked Armed Response a lot more than I thought I would.  The reason is because the cast is incredibly fun to watch.  I mean the flick is almost worth watching solely to see Van Cleef and Carradine playing father and son.  At first, it may seem a little goofy since they’re both older than Jesus’ gym teacher.  It actually makes a lot of sense though because Van Cleef was the Master Ninja on TV, so it’s completely possible that he fathered Caine from Kung Fu.

 

The supporting cast of villains is equally memorable.  Mako makes for a great yakuza boss, Hagen is appropriately greasy, and Dick Miller and Laurene Landon are pretty funny as Mako’s underlings who get ripped off.  We also get Michelle Bauer (who shows her tits) and Bobbie Bresee (who doesn’t) as strippers.  And B movie favorite Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa has an early role as one of Mako’s henchmen too.

 

Far and away the best performance comes from Michael Berryman as Mako’s right hand man.  He has a funny gimmick where he gives out fortune cookies to people right before he kills them.  The best part comes when one guy’s cookie says, “You can look forward to a bright future” right before his car blows up.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: LINNEA QUIGLEY’S HORROR WORKOUT (1990) ***

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As published in my book, The Best (and Worst) of the Video Vacuum)

Jane Fonda took the world by storm in the ‘80s when she released the Jane Fonda’s Workout video.  Soon after, every female celebrity from Cher to Traci Lords had workout tapes on video store shelves.  Heck, even Designing Women’s Dixie Carter made a workout, which goes to show you that anyone could make one.  Probably the high watermark for the workout video was Linnea Quigley’s Horror Workout.  It’s not much of a workout video or anything, but it does serve as the perfect sampler of her work as the reigning scream queen of the ‘80s.  (Although why anyone would watch this to work out anything other than their right hand is beyond me.)

The tape starts off with a terrific shower scene.  And it is one of the greatest shower scenes in Linnea’s illustrious career.  And if you’ve seen the many shower scenes Linnea has done over the years, you know that comes as high praise.

Linnea then gives herself a pretty funny introduction:  “I’m the girl who’s usually impaled on antlers or eaten by zombies in movies!”  She talks directly to the camera and host a collection of clips from her various movies including Creepozoids, Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, and Vice Academy.  What’s particularly great about this segment is that she’s wearing a studded black leather S & M leather bikini.  And much of her dialogue is pretty funny.  While talking about her immortal Dance of the Double Chainsaws scene in Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, she says, “Ginger Rogers had Fred Astaire!  I had Black and Decker!”  (We also get to see some cool 8mm home movies of a young Linnea too.)

Most of the clips show off Linnea’s tough and spunky side.  They almost always show her fighting someone (like Ginger Lynn Allen) or something (like a killer rat).  This segment justifies her need to keep in shape.  As if you needed justification to see Linnea working out in a skimpy studded black leather S & M bikini.

Then the “exercise” portion of the flick begins.  First, she does a lot of splits and side bends before doing some various stretching techniques while splayed out on the floor.  Oh, and by the way; if you’re looking to get a great workout from this tape, forget it.  There are no “instructional” parts of the video; just Linnea narrating and telling jokes over footage of her gyrating and doing sit-ups and stuff.  

After the stretching scene, Linnea then goes out jogging past a cemetery.  Before long, a bunch of zombies rise from the grave and chase her.  Finally, she chastises them for being out of shape and makes them do some calisthenics and dance moves.  But while this scene is sound in theory, it’s not very funny and goes on far too long.  Linnea’s boob does pop out of her torn up t-shirt at one point though, so it’s not like it’s intolerable or anything.  

Afterwards, there’s a scene where Linnea gathers together some babes for a slumber party where they have pillow fights and watch Linnea singing “Santa Monica Boulevard Boys” from Nightmare Sisters.  Then they all do a bunch of gyrating in their nighties to a heavy synth beat.  Like the previous sequence, it’s a good idea, but it just runs on a bit too long.  

The girls then get picked off one by one by a knife-wielding killer in a Ronald Reagan mask.  Again, there is some okay moments here (like when a decapitated head lands in a toilet), but some of the jokes fall flat (like when the killer stabs a victim dozens of times, but she doesn’t die).  And the final gag is predictable and not very funny.  

Ultimately, Linnea Quigley’s Horror Workout is a bit of a mixed bag.  The scenes of Linnea showing clips from her films are a lot of fun, but the actual “workout” part of the film leaves something to be desired.  And I’m not talking from a fitness standpoint either.  I know this thing needed a lot of padding to get to its hour running time (there’s even bloopers during the credits to help extend the running time), but many of the scenes are poorly choreographed and/or wear out their welcome fast.

But if you are a Linnea Quigley fan such as I am, this will be an essential addition to your collection.  It features some great clips from her movies and gives a nice peek at Linnea just being Linnea.  I can’t quite give it a Four Star rating because a lot of the exercise scenes go on forever, but this is a great time capsule of Linnea in her heyday.  And being such a fan of Linnea, I can’t quite ask for anything more.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: ANGELICA, THE YOUNG VIXEN (1970) ** ½

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY

Angelica, The Young Vixen was included as a bonus feature on the Blu-Ray of The Mummy and the Curse of the Jackals.  Presumably helmed by that film’s director, Oliver Drake (although there are conflicting reports on whether that’s accurate or not), it was released by Vega, who were also responsible for unleashing Mummy onto the world.  While it doesn’t exactly make for an ideal double feature, I’m still glad Severin was able to preserve it.

Leading lady Dixie (Miss Nymphet’s Zap-In) Donovan gets a great introduction as Angelica.  We first see her bent over for the camera while picking cotton.  When her boyfriend “Big Nick” catches her banging another guy, there’s a struggle, and he winds up killing Big Nick.  While awaiting trial, the judge allows Angelica to stay with him and his lesbian daughter, who wastes no time seducing young Angelica.  Predictably, it doesn’t take long for the judge to start banging his gavel… if you know what I mean. 

I love rarities like this.  The print is damaged (so much so that sometimes it almost looks psychedelic) and jumpy, but you won’t care.  Is it good, per se?  Not really, but it has some memorable touches.  There’s an odd scene where gregarious ethic folk singing is intercut with a guy boning two chicks.  The scene where Big Nick catches Angelica and her lover in a sleeping bag and zips them up and drags them around the camp to shame them is pretty good too.  You do have to deal with a long bad folk-rock number though, which I suppose was probably only there to pad the running time out to an even hour. 

The movie really belongs to Donovan.  Throughout the film, Dixie proves she’s dynamite, especially when running nude through the woods, skinny-dipping, and getting it on.  It Angelica, The Young Vixen some kind of long-lost cinematic treasure?  No, but as a vehicle for the talents of the winning Dixie Donovan, it’s an amusing watch. 

AKA:  Angelika’s Young Vixens.  AKA:  Wild and Sexy.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD (1980) ***

FORMAT:  4K UHD (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on July 17th, 2007, under the title, The Gates of Hell)

When a priest hangs himself in a graveyard, he opens up the titular Gates of Hell, which causes the dead to rise from their graves. This zombie flick from Italian horror maestro Lucio (Zombie) Fulci is short on sense and parts are downright boring, but it does have two of the greatest gore set pieces of all time, so it’s automatically recommended. In the first, a girl’s eyes start bleeding until she pukes her guts out, literally before her boyfriend gets his brains ripped out. The second has a jealous father taking the simple suitor of his daughter and putting a gigantic drill through his head. There’s also a pretty cool scene where it rains maggots too.

The Gates of Hell is definitely worth checking out at least once in your lifetime, if anything for the juicy gore scenes. Besides, the fast forward button is a great way to get to “the good stuff”. Fulci more or less covered the same ground with his next and even better film, The Beyond. Starring Christopher (Pieces) George, Catriona (The Beyond) MacColl, John (Cannibal Apocalypse) Morghen and Michelle (A Blade in the Dark) Saovi.

AKA: City of the Living Dead.

QUICK THOUGHTS:

Okay, so, it’s been a while since I’ve seen Lucio Fulci’s City of the Living Dead AKA:  The Gates of Hell.  Maybe it was the 4K presentation, but it was better than I remembered.  Sure, it has plenty of lulls and suffers from comparison to Fulci’s similar (and better) The Beyond (it often plays like Fulci’s warm up to that masterpiece), but when this thing cooks, it’s some Gordon Ramsay type shit. 

4K UHD NOTES:

The restoration by Cauldron is dynamite.  The picture is clean and crisp looking, and even the fog-soaked scenes look amazingly sharp.  The knockout gore sequences also look amazing in 4K as the gut-spewing, brain-crushing, and head-drilling just crackles in ultra-high definition.  Oh, and leading lady Catriona MacColl looks simply ravishing in 4K too.  In short, this is definitely worth the upgrade!