BEWARE THE BLACK WIDOW (1968) **

Director Larry (All Women are Bad) Crane’s Beware the Black Widow very much feels like a throwback.  It has the overall vibe of an old radio show, the constant organ music could’ve come out of a silent film, and the title character would look right at home in an Old Dark House mystery.  In fact, it would look like a Monogram movie from the ‘30s had it not been for all the nudity.  That hodgepodge of influences helps make it memorable, even if the film isn’t exactly successful. 

A call girl witnesses a figure in a black veil murder someone in an alley.  Later, a newspaper reporter sees the figure in black kill another person.  The connection is that both victims worked for a crime boss who runs the city.  He soon takes it upon himself to find the killer. 

Beware the Black Widow is goofy fun for a while, but the pacing hits a serious snag about halfway through.  It’s here where we get a long-winded flashback to “The Old Country” that explains the Black Widow’s motives.  The movie might’ve survived one of these flashbacks.  However, in the very next scene it gets played out again from another person’s point of view.  It’s totally unnecessary and only serves to pad out the running time.  I mean, Rashomon it is not. 

Sharon (Indecent Desires) Kent gives the best performance in the film as a dancer with a dark secret.  She looks fantastic and performs several stripteases, which are the main reason to watch it.  The most memorable character though is the guy who looks like a cross between Elvis Presley and the Phantom of the Opera.  Too bad he doesn’t get a lot of screen time. 

Amazingly enough, Crane sang the awesome theme song that sounds like an Irish drinking song on acid.  The soundtrack is full of bangers too, including “I Want a Doll for Christmas” (which accompanies a high energy striptease).  These ditties add to the nutty atmosphere, but they can’t salvage what is ultimately an uneven experience. 

VIOLATED! (1975) ***

A maniac is running around Hollywood in a variety of scary Halloween masks raping and cutting up women.  He sneaks into Rene Bond’s house and rapes her in the shower and carves a swastika on her breast.  As the police blunder about, the rapist claims more and more victims.  Bond then teams up with a fellow victim (Susanne Suzan) to take the law into their own hands. 

Violated! was the final film of exploitation filmmaker Albert (Confessions of an Opium Eater) Zugsmith.  It came out the same year as Rape Squad, but like that film, it doesn’t quite live up to its potential.  (The Rape and Revenge genre didn’t really hit its stride till the likes of I Spit on Your Grave and Ms. 45 came along.)  It could’ve been dynamite had it not been for the fact that Bond is essentially a supporting character.  One can only imagine how things would’ve played out had the screenplay given the dull detective less to do and put most of the focus on Bond’s quest for revenge.  Still, there are plenty of unexpected turns and nasty moments here to make it work. 

Bond looks amazing throughout, particularly while in her red leather miniskirt and matching boots.  We all know she was one of the hottest sexpots of all time, but with Violated! she gets a real opportunity to show off her acting chops and she doesn’t disappoint.  She’s excellent in the scene where she yells at the detective for merely suggesting that a jury might think she led her attacker on.  She’s so strong that show often wipes the floor with her fellow thespians.  As a consequence, the dramatic scenes that don’t feature Bond (especially the boring police interrogation scenes) pale in comparison.  At least the attack sequences have a kick to them.  

Overall, despite some missteps along the way, Violated! is a winner.  Zugsmith delivers the sleazy ‘70s sexploitation goods and gives us a handful of strong sequences.  For fans of Bond, this will be a no-brainer, but anyone who likes their grindhouse fare dark and depraved will also want to seek it out. 

AKA:  The Hollywood Ripper.  AKA:  The Rapist.

EMMANUELLE IN SOHO (1981) *** ½

Emmanuelle (Angie Quick, using the stage name Mary Miller) is a fashion model who is having an affair with her photographer, Paul (Kevin Fraser).  While Emmanuelle is doing all right for herself, Paul is struggling to make ends meet.  Because of that, his wife Kate (Julie Lee) decides to audition for a nude revue.  When Paul realizes his boss (John M. East) has been selling his photos on the side, he sets out to get payback with the help of his two lovely ladies. 

Fake Emmanuelle movies were made all over the globe.  I think the only other British Emmanuelle movie I’ve seen was Carry On Emmanuelle.  (There’s even a poster seen in the background in this movie for a rip-off called Emanuelle Meets the Wife Swappers.)  This was considered by many to be the last film in the cycle of British sex comedies.  If this was indeed to be the final curtain call for the genre, I’d say they went out with a bang (if you catch my drift).  Emmanuelle in Soho is highly enjoyable, mostly because it features wall to wall nudity.  There are sex scenes, lesbian photo shoots, casting couch auditions, random scenes where Emmanuelle doesn’t have any clothes on, nude dance auditions, stripteases, naked partying, and lesbians in hot tubs. 

Quick appears in more scenes naked than clothed, and when she is seen wearing them, they don’t stay on for very long.  She didn’t make too many other pictures, but her willingness to disrobe at the drop of a hat makes her one of the more memorable fake Emmanuelles of all time.  Lee is also plenty hot and what she lacks in acting talent she makes up for with her lack of inhibitions.  (Sadly, she passed away shortly after the film was released.)  East is pretty amusing too as the old publisher who makes jokes that have been around since the vaudeville era (some of which are still funny). 

For the first twenty minutes or so of Emmanuelle in Soho, you’re going to think this is going to be a classic.  However, it gets a bit plot heavy in the second act.  By “plot heavy”, I mean women only get naked every three minutes instead of every two.  The ending is a lot of fun though, and final party scene is a scorcher.  The theme song, an energetic Euro disco number, is great too and will leave you tapping your toes.  All in all, it’s a fine British sex farce. 

CENSORED (1965) ***

Barry Mahon’s Censored has an ingenious (and fake) gimmick.  It purports to be a compilation of footage that was cut out of adult movies for being too spicy.  Really, it was just a bunch of new stuff Mahon shot and threw together.  By using the gimmick, that means he can dispense with such cinematic elements as plot, competent acting, a basic sense of storytelling, an intelligible soundtrack, or coherence and get right down to business.  Brilliant!

Our host shows us clips from a wide range of sources.  The scenes are taken from such genres as nudist camp documentaries, nude figure model flicks, horror movies, bondage pictures, as well as a collection of “bedroom scenes”.  While he rails against moralistic censors, he doesn’t seem too pleased by the movies we are being show.  Nevertheless, he defends the filmmakers’ rights to make them. 

As an actual moviegoing experience, Censored is little more than a bunch of unconnected nude scenes strung together.  Some nude scenes have a pretense of a plot, like a couple on their wedding night or a husband coming home to find his wife’s lover hiding in the closet.  Many of these scenes are so tame you’ve got to wonder why anyone would’ve thought they were scandalous in any way, shape, or form. 

There are some moments here that flirt with delivering what the premise promises.  There’s a snippet from a horror flick where a girl gets her leg sawed off that has a kick to it (no pun intended) and the scene of Nazi torture would look right at home in an Ilsa movie.  One kind of wishes Mahon pushed the boundaries a bit further.  Then again, he probably would’ve run the risk of being… well… you know… censored.  Whatever polish the flick lacks is a moot point.  Seen purely as an exercise is exploitation hucksterism, Censored is top notch.  

AKA:  This Picture is Censored.

PROFESSOR LUST (1967) ***

Professor Lust starts off like it’s going to be the sexploitation version of The Nutty Professor before going off into an entirely weird area all its own.  Strangely enough, it never really takes advantage of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde theme inherent in the material either.  The fact that it doesn’t go where you’d assume just adds to the unpredictable nature of the film (and the fun).  If you’re in the mood for a perplexing and entertaining dose of WTF ‘60s sexploitation smut, it’ll be worth a look. 

One whiff of his secret formula turns a mild-mannered professor into an evil heroin-pushing kingpin who keeps a harem full of topless women in his cellar.  With the aid of his junkie sidekick, he’s perfected a drug that can make his ladies think that hideously deformed men are actually handsome and fuckable.  Oh, and he also uses the girls to star in the stag movies he makes on the side.  A prudish co-worker senses the professor is up to no good, so she follows him home and quickly falls victim to his evil ways. 

Professor Lust has a cool opening where the professor is on trial and tells his story to the jury (the audience) before heading into a flashback.  In another puzzling display of unpredictability, the film never circles back around to the courtroom again.  In fact, as far as I could tell, the professor never got arrested for his crimes since it ends with (spoilers) his henchman and his co-worker stealing his formula and taking over his operation! 

There’s another random sequence that doesn’t really go anywhere and similarly feels like it’s only there for padding purposes.  It involves men and women in Victorian era costumes participating in an orgy.  It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but if you have a thing for women in powdered wigs and/or in drag, it’ll be a moot point. 

So, overall, Professor Lust is an odd, sometimes frustrating, but always entertaining romp.  It never goes quite where you think it should, but by doing so, it makes for a memorable and unique viewing experience.  Director William Rose was also responsible for the minor classic Rent-a-Girl and The Smut Peddler, which is sadly lost. 

Our heroine’s rambunctious roommate gets the best line of the movie when talking about the titular character:  “He swings so far out, he makes Tarzan look like a cripple!” 

THE IMP-PROBABLE MR. WEEGEE (1966) ** ½

Arthur “Weegee” Fellig was a famous photographer in the ‘40s and ‘50s who was known for his sensational pictures.  He was able to parlay that notoriety into appearing in a handful of movies like Jules Dassin’s The Naked City.  By the early ‘60s he was appearing in nudie-cuties.  A few years later, he was headlining this one. 

Weegee gets busted for trying to marry a mannequin.  At the police station, he tells how he came to be enamored with his companion.  He leaves the streets of New York for London to investigate a supposedly haunted house.  From there, he heads to Paris where he climbs the Eiffel Tower and peeps into women’s windows using his telephoto lens.  Next, he appears on a Danish cooking show before finally setting out to become an artist. 

This is a weird fucking movie.  I’m not sure who the audience is supposed to be as there’s not enough factual information to make for a biopic of Weegee and not quite enough skin to score as a solid nudie-cutie.  The comedy bits (like Weegee’s run-in with a barber who doesn’t speak English) are uniformly unfunny, and the wraparound scenes at the police station are only there to pad out the running time.  However, if you enjoy antiquated oddball oddities like this, you might dig it.  It’s certainly never boring, and it even manages to be fun in spots. 

I guess this movie was ahead of its time.  Weegee’s love for his mannequin seems like the blueprint for today’s generation of people who are getting into romantic relationships with sex dolls.  Thankfully, we never get to see him consummate the “marriage”. 

If the nude scenes weren’t so darn brief, this might’ve skated by with ***.  The highlight is a great sequence where an enormously breasted woman shaves her legs in the nude.  Too bad moments like this offer more tease than please. 

Weegee is definitely an oddball character.  With his scrunched-up face, he kind of looks like Popeye (a resemblance that only intensifies during the scene where he’s chewing on a long, skinny pipe).  Real pictures taken by Weegee are also used, ranging from crime scene photos to shots of New York street life to celebrity snapshots.

If you’re looking for more movies about Weegee, Joe Pesci played a fictionalized version of him in The Public Eye. 

RED MIDNIGHT (1966) **

A man has an accident while waterskiing.  A doctor on a passing boat tries to be a Good Samaritan and helps him, little realizing he’s a foreign agent plotting to detonate a nuke on American soil.  The man’s co-conspirators kidnap the doctor who convinces them a coordinated attack on the country’s fire departments, combined with mass arson would be a wiser strategy in the long run.  Really, he’s trying to string them along so he can find the nuke and disarm it. 

Red Midnight contains its share of moments.  I enjoyed the opening credits sequence where the titles appear as newspaper headlines that are slowly burned away, kind of like on Bonanza.  There’s also an icky part where the doctor is forced to perform an impromptu cancer surgery on his captor. 

The plan itself is pretty interesting.  Too bad you are forced to sit through long scenes of people explaining it all again and again.  After all that, once the “Red Midnight” attack finally occurs, it’s underwhelming.  It also suffers from too much stock footage of firefighters, out of focus shots, and scenes of random indeterminable objects in flames that are supposed to represent (I guess) burning buildings. (The sequence detailing the inevitable fallout runs way too long too.)  Then again, what do you expect from a low budget flick dealing with such large-scale destruction? 

You also have to deal with lots of dull narration, amateurish acting, awful ADR, and choppy editing (including several jump cuts).  The film is packed with padding too, although some of the filler is kind of fun.  I’m thinking specifically of the perplexing side jaunt to a night club where characters inexplicably hop on stage and break out into song and dance numbers.  I mean, performing cheeseball music acts in a chintzy night club isn’t the kind of behavior you want to engage in while you’re secretly plotting terrorism on a massive scale.  (Granted, it’s against your will but still.)  The scenes of sexy go-go dancers shaking their moneymakers helps somewhat too.  These moments don’t save the movie, but they do prevent Red Midnight from being a total bomb.