The Film Score Freak Recognizes: Mark Hellinger and Jules Dassin’s Prison Noir Masterpiece Brute Force (1947) & Jo Gabriel’s ‘The Simple Truth’

“HUMAN DYNAMITE! Told the Raw, Ruthless “KILLERS” Way!”

BRUTE FORCE 1947

Produced by Mark Hellinger and directed by Jules Dassin, the film is a strikingly potent Prison Noir Masterpiece. Brute Force (1947) is one of my all time favorite films that transcends genre labeling. The entire cast performs the piece like a well oiled Tanker filled with nitro glycerine speeding out of control. With a collection of characters pushed to the brink of fury, dominated by a sadist who reigns over the social institution and the beautiful women who wait for the men who are never coming home.

Richard Brooks wrote the screenplay and William H Daniel’s was responsible for the explosive cinematography that grips you by the throat. With an equally compelling score by the master composer MiklÃ³s RÃ³zsa.

Starring Burt Lancaster is Joe Collins, Hume Cronyn is the savage and psychopathic Captain Munsey, Charles Bickford is Gallagher, Yvonne De Carlo is Gina Ferrara, Ann Blyth plays Ruth, Ella Raines is Cora Lister, Anita Colby is Flossie, Sam Levene is Louie Miller #7033, Jeff Corey plays the rat ‘Freshman’ Stack, John Hoyt plays Spencer, Jack Overman is Kid Coy, Sir Lancelot is Calypso and Jay C Flippen is Hodges the guard.

I couldn’t resist mashing up in the mixing bowl, this brutal bit of noir with my tough as satin nails ‘The Simple Truth’ somehow the confluence of visual collective upheaval and raw honesty of my song… a track off my debut album ‘Island’

for the international label Kalinkaland Records, just seemed to feel right to me… I hope you enjoy this little homage. Here’s MonsterGirl as Jo Gabriel lending her music to a fire storming montage of images from Brute Force–

Always brutally truthful -Your MonsterGirl

Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971) & The Night God Screamed (1971)-Leave Your Faith, Fear and Sanity at the Water’s Edge. Part I

“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.” — Edgar Allan Poe

CapturFiles_20 take me to the water's edge — ‘Leave Your Faith, Fear, and Sanity at the Water’s Edge – *Jo Gabriel*

“There are terrible creatures, ghosts, in the very air of America.” -D.H. Lawrence

Taken from his chapter The Bloody Chords of Memory, which I think is very appropriate for this discussion, Scott Poole from Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting states that, “it would be too simplistic to view monster tales as simple narratives in service of American violence. The monster is a many-headed creature, and narratives about it in America are highly complex. Richard Kearney describes the appearance of a monster in a narrative, in a dream, or in sensory experience ‘as a signal of borderline experiences and unattainable excess.’

In 1971, two films were released with a sort of queasy verisimilitude, using a monochromatic color scheme and protracted themes of insanity, fanaticism, and self-annihilation. One drawing more of its flicker from the time of cult murders by religious fanatics, and an anti-establishment repudiation reflected in the cult fringe film. The Night God Screamed utilizes as its anti-hero the motorcycle gang who hate ‘citizenship’ and phony institutionalized prophets. These outliers are dirty, rebelliously dangerous hippies who are hyped up and deluded into following a charismatic cult leader, a Neanderthal named Billy Joe Harlan, performed with a Shakespearean griminess by Michael Sugich.

CapturFiles — *Michael Sugich* as the maniacal Mansoneseque cult leader Billy Joe.

He’s quite a Mansonesque figure with his malefic unibrow. This offering, aptly called The Night God Screamed, even boasts a scene where the cult actually crucifies the clean-cut minister Willis, a man of traditional gospel played by Alex Nicol. They essentially nail him to his own pridefully giant wooden phallic cross. Leaving his wife Fanny (Jeanne Crain) to scramble in the darkened halls, conflicted as to whether to try and help her husband or save herself from the cult’s ferocious blood lust, driving her into a numb moral and cognitive stasis of unresponsiveness, reason, and human connection. I will talk about this film in Part II.

CapturFiles_1 — The beautiful *Jeanne Crain.*

Let’s Scare Jessica To Death (1971) is a film that hints at a post-modern Americana Gothicism permeated by a rustic folksy style of vampirism, with its small town coteries, paranoia, and the archetypal hysterical woman in a sustained level of distress and adrift on a sea of inner monologues and miasma of fear. I’ll begin in Part I with my much-loved classic horror…

LET’S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH 1971

“Leave your insanity at the door.”

Let’s Scare Jessica To Death 1971) is not only a far superior film, but it also—perhaps unintentionally—embodies the most iconic 1970s tropes, capturing what made that remarkable wave of horror films from the era so extraordinary.

Continue reading “Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971) & The Night God Screamed (1971)-Leave Your Faith, Fear and Sanity at the Water’s Edge. Part I” →

Joel Metzger releases a gripping new audio noir thriller ‘Hothouse Bruiser’ THUGS, MUGS, DAMES AND BULLETS

JOEL METZGERÂ is the writer behind television’s The Dead Zone 2002, offering several of his works to Xena: Warrior Princess and contributions to the re-visioned The Outer Limits series (1996) and Sliders 1999. He’s a writer, director, producer, actor, cinematographer,editor as well as work in animation.

Now Metzger introduces his new Futuristic Neo-Noir story available for download: Inhabited by riveting characters and the fantastic actors who lend their voices to the project.

HOTHOUSE BRUISER

CLONES, ROTARY PARTICLE CANNONS AND BINARY DISEASE!

In Metzger’s own words, ” This audio journey of the imagination uses state of the art design to submerge the listener in the strange world of ‘The Hothouse’- a glass -walled quaratine that seals in all of downtown L.A.Inside this urban bubble, with the normal world peering in, is a gritty, violent hyper-capitalist techno jungle-equal parts George Orwell’s 1984 and Frank Miller’s ‘Sin City’ The listener follows ‘Bruiser’ (voice of Paul Nobrega) as he digs up the city’s underbelly in classic Film Noir detective style. Life is cheap in the Houthouse… but dull it ain’t.”

Bruiser is the voice of Paul Nobrega, Vera Grayle is the voice of the sensational Traci Lords (Blade 1998 Not of This Earth 1988)and The Chlorine Buddha is the voice of John Terry (Full Metal Jacket 1987). Jim Storm is the voice of SAEGER. Miss Power Tools is voiced by Vanessa Angel. (Weird Science 1994) Chief Plagman is Claudia Christian (Babylon 5), ah the good ole noir The Man Upstairs is voiced by John Billingsley, Then there’s Ginny Mills voice by Denise Crosby. Dr Wolverton voiced by Armin Shimerman. Jill Strauss is the voice of Sonita Henry. Graveyard Mike is the voice of James Leary. The Hothouse Sniper is voiced by Cliff Simon. The Pipe is Gideon Emery, Ash Hamilton is Michael Welch. And the Hothouse announcer is the voice of Alfred Thompson.

Chapter One opens with Miss Power Tools giving a drilling lap dance to Bruiser who is duct taped inside a warehouse called the Hothouse.

The music is trypnotic psychedelic surf guitars. ‘Hothouse Bruiser‘ is a tribute to the golden age of radio crime serials.
The sounds of water dripping slowing on a cold stone warehouse floor or perhaps the ticking from a clock. The mood is dark and dank. It’s got the feel of Sci-Fi Noir. Let’s not invoke Blade Runner just yet, let Metzger’s new project evolve on it’s own.

BRUISER-“If you’re hearing my voice right now I’m already dead. What year it is for you I don’t know"¦you ah, you just happened to be the one, the unlucky one who found a shoe box shoved way in the back of a shit hole basement. there was a little voice recorder and you decided to hit play.”

And now you might be as dead as me"¦”

We still hear the ticking, dripping sound and distant police sirens in the background then lock unlatching from a heavy iron door or the release of the safety catch on a gun, a sultry femme fatale named Miss Power Tools starts to coax Bruiser.

MISS POWER TOOLS-“Wake up gorgeous you’re a tall drink of something aren’t you, I almost ran out of duct tape"¦ now come on, don’t be mad"¦ give you a little lap dance. Now let’s play a game. You tell me what you were doing in my warehouse and if I like the answer I won’t perform any amateur lobotomies.”

We hear a power drill become engaged as the gears whir, spin and grind waiting to bore a hole in Bruiser’s skull.

BRUISER-“Everything I’m gonna tell you, happened to me inside The Hothouse. That’s what they used to call the Quarantine. Now How I managed to get myself duct taped to a chair for a lap dance and a root canal, let’s just say I’m a snoop"¦.”

Ginny Mills — She’s got the sass of noir’s *Marie Windsor*

Graveyard Mike — **He’s got the ghoulish charm of *Richard Widmark* in Kiss of Death**

Ash Hamilton — He’s got the stoic good looks of *Howard Duff*

The Pipe — He’s got the serpentine smile of *Timothy Carey*

the man upstairs — **There’s always a Man Upstairs in Noir**

You can hear the entire series on the free phone app or the iPhone and Android platforms. It’s also available on CD sets through the website. I can’t wait to hear what’s in store for Bruiser and the rest of the characters in this gripping new series by Joel Metzger. Stay tuned….

http://www.hothousebruiser.com/

FOLLOW ON:

https://twitter.com/HothouseBruiser

FREE iTunes App

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hothouse-bruiser/id538386673?mt=8

Stay out of the Hothouse, you’ve been warned: MonsterGirl

A Trailer a Day Keeps the Boogeyman Away! The Name of the Game is Kill! (1968)

THE NAME OF THE GAME IS KILL! [1968]

Also known as ‘The Female Trap’

Written by Gary Crutcher who gave us Stanley (1972) the man loves snakes, and Featuring the song-“Shadows”
Performed by The Electric Prunes

I keep coming across these great obscure creepy shockers from the 1960s. Often starring actors like Tab Hunter and Susan Strasberg. This bizarre theatre of lunacy was directed by Gunnar HellstrÃ¶mÂ

The Name of the Game is Kill! is a nice contribution to the psychotronic -cult-cinema genre, just because of the hostility, the great casting and the psychedelic music alone.

It’s an odd offering featuring some even more bizarre characters- three sisters, Susan Strasberg who plays Mickey Terry, Tisha SterlingÂ who plays Nan Terry and Collin Wilcox Paxton as Diz Terry.

I love Collin Wilcox, I think she is one of the most underrated character actresses, so it’s nice to see her here with Tisha Sterling and Ms Strasberg doing what she does best, playing a quiet, deeply composed box of kindling with layers and layers of mood and intuitive style.

Jack Lord of Hawaii Five -O fame plays a stranger, a Hungarian traveler named Symcha Lipa (Sim) who is passing through an isolated town and hooks up with the peculiar Terry family run by matriarch and patriarch Father and Mother Terry, theÂ androgynous T.C Jones (you remember Nurse Betty in Alfred Hitchcock Hour’s An Unlocked Window she/he was also in 3 Nuts in Search of a Bolt 1964 as Henry.)

The girls invite Sim to their home for some hospitality. Mother Terry lives with her three beautiful daughters and a menagerie of poisonous snakes and tarantulas.Mickey is friendly and welcoming but the other two sisters exude a malicious venom themselves. When Sim almost dies, he winds up in the hospital being warned by local SheriffÂ Fred Kendall played by Mort Mills not to get involved with the Terry family. Of course Sim doesn’t listen…

The Name of the Game is MonsterGirlÂ finding you delicious goodies to feast your eyes on.

A Trailer a Day Keeps the Boogeyman Away! ‘They Were So Young’ (1954)

“Too innocent! Too willing! and far, far Too Eager!… and so Beautiful!”

THEY WERE SO YOUNG 1954

Directed by Kurt Neumann (The Fly 1958)and starring Johanna Matz as Eve Ullmann a young girl who answers an advertisement for international models, whose fashion shows are just fronts for men to buy what they ‘like.’

What unfolds is the dark underbelly of international white slave trafficking. The film was shot on location in Hollywood but created as the playground of Rio De Janeiro.

Scott Brady is Richard Lanning, a guy who works forÂ Jaime Coltos a rich Brazilian mine owner (Raymond Burr) Jaime invites Richard to his country estate for a little romp, but one of the new ‘models’ Eve isn’t playing the game, and breaks a bottle over his head when he tries to get ‘friendly.’ Once Eve finds out the real operation she works for, she begins to make trouble. Also starring Ingrid Stenn ( Bewildered Youth 1957) as Connie Voorhees.

Also co-starring Gisela Fackeldey as Mme. Lansowa, Katharina Mayberg as Felicia, Erica Beer as Elise LeFevre, Hanita Hallan as Lena, Gert FrÃ¶be as Lobos.

Of course Richard with the bruised ego and head, will wind up being the hero in the end, not realizing that his Boss is behind the slave trade ring. It’s just a fun harmlessly risquÃ© romp, of course it’s not Preminger, Russ Meyers or even Ed L Cahn, but we love all the shades of bad here at the Last Drive In.

“They came to Rio with their heads so high in the clouds they never realized their feet were in the dirt.”

Still a young and wild MonsterGirl

From Tales of The Easily Distracted blog post-‘Saluting-our-real-life-auntie-mame’

BLOG POST FROM THE WONDERFUL DORIAN TB AT TALES OF THE EASILY DISTRACTED

From Tales of the Easily Distracted:Hosted by Dorian TB- A wonderful romp through the golden years, with fun facts and filled with love…

Post from Kristina at the slick and stylish Speakeasy Blog-

JUST SHARING THE LOVE:

The Hidden Room is a fabulous film- See what Kristina at the marvelous blog Speakeasy has to say about it…

The Film Score Freak Recognizes iconic 70s songwriter-Paul Williams

PAUL WILLIAMS

Growing up in the 7os, a lot of what inspired me to follow my journey as a singer/songwriter had much to do with the brilliant, evocatively poignant and memorable compositions by artists like the great Paul Williams. I still can’t listen or sing one of his iconic songs without becoming a fountain of tears, melting into an emotional puddle of ‘feelings.’ His contribution to the world as a singer/songwriter has been so immense, that I feel inadequate just showing a little love here, instead of doing one of my long winded posts.

But I am too agitated with excitement about the documentary Paul Williams Still Alive, and to have found himÂ alive and well on Twitter. I love you, We love you Paul Williams.

You have given us a magical, alchemical concoction of music that will forever flare up like molten gold in our hearts. It’s so good to see you again.

So here’s a just a little reminder of SOME of the things this beautiful, brilliant man has brought us from his heavenly throne where he sits with the other musical angels.

From the new documentary, here’s the official trailer for Paul Williams Still Alive

Karen Carpenter sings Rainy Days and Mondays

Kermit the Frog sings The Rainbow Connection from The Muppet Movie

Karen Carpenter sings We’ve Only Just Begun

Barbra Streisand sings Evergreen from A Star is Born

Jessica Harper sings Old Souls from Phantom of The Paradise

Here’s to the immortal genius! – With love Jo Gabriel the little singer/songwriting MonsterGirl

A Trailer a Day Keeps the Boogeyman Away! 2 Tales of Matrimony On the Treacherous Rocks!

“An Absolute Ball”

X, Y and ZEEÂ 1972

Elizabeth Taylor wears the role of Zee Blakeley, a Machiavellian temptress, who is married to the wealthy yet miserly, miserable, and misogynistic architect Robert, played deftly by Michael Caine who partakes every bit in the nasty psycho-sexual game playing their afflicted marriage has manifested over the years.

Zee is wild, possessive, and cunning, and Robert is melancholy, brutish, and at times downright violent. Longing for a change he pursues the lovely Stella played by Susannah York, who he meets at a party given by a friend, the bird-like, arty, jet-setting, gold LamÃ©, pink fluffy-haired Gladys (Margaret Leighton) who collects people and things for her ‘cocktail parties’ strewn with beautiful types, fags, artists and anyone with a title attached to their name.

Life and love are cutthroat in this film, and Taylor’s portrayal of Zee is unnerving and difficult to watch at times, as she fluctuates between venomous seductress and wounded little girl. York as always is like a fawn from the eldritch woods with those dreamy eyes. But talk about eyes, no one has a pair that arrests you quite like Elizabeth Taylor.

Liz Taylor — *Elizabeth Taylor* as the beautiful, tumultuous Zee Blakeley…

Once Robert decides to play house with Stella and leave Zee to wallow in her jealous vitriol, Zee goes on an orchestrated rampage to try and destroy their burgeoning romance, uncovering the shell of sweet Stella exposing that she has some secrets of her own. Written by Edna O’Brien, and directed by Brian G. Hutton who also directed Taylor in the thriller, Night Watch 1973, another equally disturbing film about the deep-rooted ugliness and danger of an ill-fated marriage.

With fabulous Costume designs by Beatrice Dawson.

Next up…

SUCH GOOD FRIENDS 1971

Such Good Friends film poster — **Such Good Friends title design by Saul Bass**

“The little black book that became a national bestseller.”

Based on the novel by Lois Gould, with a screenplay by Elaine May using her pen name Esther Dale, and an uncreditedÂ Joan Didion (A Star is Born 1976, Panic In Needle Park 1971) Directed by the omnipotent Otto Preminger.

Dyan Cannon is Julie Messinger a New York housewife who finds out that her husband magazine editor Richard (Laurence Luckinbill Boys In the Band 1970) has been cheating on her because he ‘doesn’t like her feet.’ She stumbles onto his little black book with the names of several ‘women.’

Nina Foch, plays Julie’s mother an annihilating, narcissistic harpy who criticizes her about everything.

When Richard winds up in a coma from complications stemming from a simple mole removal, Julie’s good friends gather around her for support. Including an impromptu cocktail gathering in the blood donor ward of the hospital…

It’s a biting, black comedic sexual romp through the self-explorative 70s, with a fabulous cast of characters.

Co-starring the wonderfulÂ James Coco as Dr. Timothy Spector, Jennifer O’Neill, as Miranda, Ken Howard as photographer Cal Whiting, Louise Lasser, Burgess Meredith, Sam Levene, William Redfield, James Beard, Rita Gam, Lawrence Tierney, and Doris Roberts. And an uncredited Salome Jens as a Blood Donor at the hospital and Joseph Papp and his Shakespeare Theatre.

Nurse-“Have you ever had venereal disease?”

Blood Donor-“No I was never even in the tropics!”

It’s been a ball-MG

Coming next to The Last Drive-In: A Chilling Double Feature

I feel like it’s time to show some love to one of my most very treasured classic horror films of the 1970s, a film that I’ve placed within my top 25 best horror films of all time. I’m talking about the atmospheric and illusory!

Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971) Starring Zohra Lampert

I’ll be covering this chilling gem in the next week and have decided to couple it with another rare oddity of the obscurely horrific 70s genre that is quite brutal and I feel works well as a companion piece. Starring Silver Screen beauty, Jeanne Crain in The Night God Screamed (1971).