Sisters of Death.

Six attractive young women take part in a ceremony inducting two new members into ‘The Sisters Secret Society’. Part of the ritual includes what should have been a fake game of Russian roulette that goes very wrong and kills Liz (Elizabeth Bergen) one of the new recruits. Moving forward seven years each of the remaining ‘sisters’ receives an invitation inviting each of them to a reunion. When they get to their hotel two men have been sent to collect the girls and transport them to a large estate in the desert. The house turns out to be very spacious villa with its own swimming pool; food and drink are laid on for their arrival. The two men drive off but return attracted by the girls. What none of them notice is the high electrified fence that surrounds the property obviously designed to keep the house guests from leaving. On further investigation they discover that Liz’s father who has sworn to get revenge on the girls for the death of his daughter owns the estate. 

As you can probable guess various unsavoury things begin to happen to both the girls and the two Casanovas and I would not dream of spoiling Sisters of Death (1976) for you if like me you are a fan of Grindhouse or B-movies. The copy of the film on the Grindhouse Channel was not particularly good but I don’t think you can blame its bleached out exterior shots on that.

Shot in 1972 but not released until 1976 it was directed by Joseph Mazzuca and starred amongst others Claudia Jennings an American actress and model who was the Playboy Magazines Playmate of the Year for 1970 and who appeared in various feature films and TV shows in the 1970’s before her premature death in a car crash at the age of 29. 

As with this kind of low budget movies it has a simple, slightly corny story line, although the second half hot’s up considerably, the acting is as you would expect but all in all it’s not a bad film. Plenty of pretty young ladies, but surprisingly without the nudity that normally embellishes this type of genre, and some good thrills and a climatic shot-out make it an interesting watch. Unfortunately the movie ends with a dubious explanation of the films reasoning which is its only real shortcoming.

      

Claudia Jennings Playmate of the Year 1970.

X+Y

This British funded movie is a great example of film making in the UK and stars Asa Butterfield, Rafe Spall and movie ramble favourites Sally Hawkins and Eddie Marsan. The focus of the movie is Nathan Ellis (Butterfield) who is a maths prodigy coached by a spliff smoking MS sufferer Martin Humphreys (Spall). Nathan is haunted by flash backs of his beloved father who was killed in a car accident. Nathan is unable to connect with his mother Julie (Hawkins) or to relate to people (he’s not missing much there!). National Organiser Richard Grieve (Marsan) wants Nathan to compete for the UK team in the International Mathematical Olympiad taking place in Taiwan. Unaccustomed to mixing with other teenagers of the same age the autistic Nathan finds it a problem integrating with other members of the squad and can’t get to grips with his feeling’s for one of the female Chinese competitors.  

Relationships are never easy in this excellent movie.

This enjoyable and gentle coming of age drama is, I am reliable informed, a sympathetic portrayal of autism. The movie brings to mind Mark Haddon’s novel The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Night Time which also deals with a teenager who knows a very great deal about maths but very little about human beings, in the novel the teenager in question has Asperger’s Syndrome. Rarely does a film convey such sadness about lonely people and what it is like to be categorised as weird. Inspired by his own 2007 BBC documentary Beautiful Young Minds, Morgan Matthews has managed to make a movie which as well as making you smile entices you onto an emotional roundabout that you will find it imposable to get off until the credits.  X+Y (2014) is a story of a wee lad that cuts himself off from the bleak realities of life following his father’s death and buries himself in a private world of numbers and the art of mathematics.  I know what your thinking, “this sounds boring” well I can assure you that it’s far from that!

Caged Heat.

Woman in prison films, or as they are known WiP, is a subgenre of the exploitation movie genre that allegedly started with the relaxation of censorship laws in the 1960’s. I’m sure you have sampled the genre if not then these are best described as films that involve women locked up in penile institution’s and left at the mercy of various rather unsavoury prison staff and inmates.

 

The wonderful Barbara Steele. 

One of the better-known WiP movies is Jonathan Demme’s debut feature film that he wrote and directed for Roger Gorman’s New World Pictures. Caged Heat (1974) has developed a cult following over the years mainly because of its humorous approach to the subject and elements of feminism and social consciousness not always found in WiP movies. Certainly a lot of the credit must go to its director who went on to direct films which included The Silence of the Lambs (1991), The Manchurian Candidate (2004) and the recent Ricki and the Flash (2015) which stars Meryl Streep.

 

Various scenes of violence and sex....

This 1974 grindhouse movie has all the ingredients that made up this genre including a sexually repressed prison superintendent, this time in a wheelchair and played by horror icon Barbara Steele. It also includes any excuse to rip the clothes of the female prisoners; lots of naked shower scenes, and an overriding hint of lesbian sex and of cause a doctor who is a perverted maniac who performs various nasty ‘things’ on the prisoners. And we must not forget a large and bloody dose of violence, prison breakouts and good-looking sexy women. There you have it, the actual story is not really important, in this case as with most of these films we have women locked up for various reasons, they fight the system, battle unfair treatment and hope to escape.

 

.... populate a WiP drama.

The movie also stars Erica Gavin who had the title role in Russ Meyers Vixen (1968), Roberta Collins who appeared in Jack Hills The Big Dolls House (1968) another cult WiP movie and the wonderfully named Rainbeaux Smith. John Cale, founding member of The Velvet Underground wrote and performed on the soundtrack, which also featured the guitar playing of Mike Bloomfield an original member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.     

In Old Caliente.

From a very early age I have always loved westerns, back in the 1950’s you could actually watch these films on the TV as well as at your local cinemas. I suppose it helped that I was brought up in North London that had an abundance of both small and large establishments showing various types of film both old and new.

 

Rogers with Lynne Roberts.

One of the most popular stars of the early 50’s was Leonard Franklin Slye, better known as Roy Rogers - King of the Cowboys. Appearing in over 100 films he also had his own named TV show which run from 1951 until 1957 in which he appeared with his wife Dale Evans and his horse Trigger, almost as famous as the singing cowboy himself! Starting on his road to fame as a singer in the country and western group Sons of the Pioneers, who signed to Decca releasing there first commercial recording in August 1934, his first film appearance came in 1935 and following this worked mainly in the western genre.

Rogers singing cowboy act owed a lot to the first of the singing cowboys Gene Autry but this type of act does not exist any more and I doubt would appeal to a modern generation. Simple movies with simple story lines, handsome cowboy sings his way into the heart of some pretty girl, always on the side of right and fighting the baddies with a pair of pearl handled gun’s with never a hair out of place. A different era it was almost ten years before Rogers received his first screen kiss in 1944 in San Fernando Valley in which he appeared with his wife Dale Evans, but the kiss was from Jean Porter, and that was in a dream sequence! Probable best known today for his role in Son of Paleface in 1952 playing opposite the very sultry Jane Russell, but Rogers was too fond of his horse Trigger to be stirred by Russell’s attention’s.

 

The singing cowboys.

In the 1939 B-Movie In Old Caliente he appears with regular George Gabby Hayes and his love interest is served by the attractive Lynne Roberts or as she was also known Mary Hart. Set in 1835 the newly annexed state of California is witnessing an influx of American settlers who are seen as a threat to the local Spanish Dons who own large tracks of land surrounding there haciendas. Amongst these ‘incomers’ are Gabby and his niece Jean (Roberts) who are on their way to meet Gabby’s friend Roy Rogers who works for Don Jose. But when the Don’s returning cattle drive is robbed of its proceeds things start to go wrong for the incomers and along with our singing cowboy are held responsible for the robbery.

 

Rogers with his horse Trigger.

As I’ve said before these movie have simple stories, generally quite harmless with never a sight of blood in the many shootouts but in our more enlightened age are not always politically correct. In Old Caliente certainly has a lot of reference’s referring to the villain as a ‘half breed’ which is a reason  given for the mans treachery. Ignore this and what you get is dated but enjoyable western. Maybe I should look out more of Roy’s large body of work? 

Jauja.

Argentinian film director and screenwriter Lisandro Alonso’s latest film is certainly related with what is known as the Slow Cinema Movement. Nothing wrong with a film that slowly reveals its story line as long as it has a narrative pathway that an audience can follow.  Jauja (2014) seems completely plot less other than a 15 year old girl who runs away with a boy not much older than her self and her father’s attempts at tracking the couple.  So far so good you may think but don’t be fooled it’s not an exciting road movie, if fact the word exciting has no place in this movie.

Lets look at it a little closer, father is Captain Gunner Dinesen (Viggo Mortensen) who when we first meet him appears to be an engineer who is in Patagonia in the late 19^th century searching for a mythological land called Jauja. The only thing his group of engineers seen to be doing is digging a deep trench – maybe the mythological land of abundance and happiness is underground its never explained. Also in the same area is a company of soldiers who are looking for one Colonel Zuluaga who, we are told is leading a band of renegade’s dressed in women’s clothing. As I have said Dinesen goes after his daughter Ingeborg (Viilbjørk Malling Agger) but he would appear now to be in a soldiers uniform!  He does nothing for quite a while other than get on and off his horse, discovers two mutilated bodies and has his horse, hat and rifle stolen from under his nose.

Until approximately 75 minutes into the film there is almost zero dialogue and no background noises to speak of and certainly no sign of a soundtrack!  He meets a strange women (Ghita Noby) living in a cave with her dog but we never see his daughter again although I feel the director wanted us to believe that the woman was his daughter in old age? The last section of the film brings us to present day Denmark and we meet the same actress playing a different young lady – or is it?

Two be honest I found this film to be a complete mystery! The most irritating part of the movie is the excessive, and I mean excessive, use of the static camera and long take and because of the square format used to shot the movie we are not even allowed to enjoy the landscapes of either Argentina or the Danish estate in the last segment. Really a festival circuit film, it did win an award at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival but distribution was a problem, which I’m not surprised. If you are a devotee of tedium and soporific cinema like Tabu (2012) or Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall his Past Life (2010) then this is the movie for you - every body else steer clear.