Francois Truffaut named it as his favorite American film.
The film stars Tony Lo BiancoandShirley Stoleras Ray Fernandez and Martha Beck. Doris Roberts has a part playing Bunny. Also starring Mary Jane Higby as Janet Fay.
This is an intense, often grotesque film based on the true story of serial killers Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck who meet through a lonely-hearts correspondence club. Director Leonard Kastle creates a sickening atmosphere of acute sexual psychosis in The Honeymoon Killers , that forces you to feel repulsed by this pair’s Folie à deux.
Ray is a swarthy playboy, rough around the edges and a devious sociopath. Martha is ‘morbidly’ obese (and I use the term specifically tailored to her character), obsessive, paranoid and maniacally possessive of Ray.
The two concoct a dangerously horrific plot to lure lonely women into going out with Ray, until he proposes marriage. All the while pretending that Martha is his sister, a nurse. The plan is to con the women’s into turning over their entire savings, and then make them disappear. Neither Ray, nor Martha show any remorse of trace of humanity, within their claustrophobic narcissistic love affair. They are ruthless and brutal to no end.
The film is bleak, grimy and unashamed to show the ugliness of human nature. While it is unrelenting in it’s frankness, it’s oddly compelling to watch Lo Bianco and Stoler do their thing.
“One of the most bizarre episodes in the annals of American Crime.”
Directed by Will Cowen and Starring Carolyn Kearney (Molly Bancroft in Doktor Markeson episode of Thriller) as Jessica Burns, a young girl with psychic abilities who, like a dowser,
uncovers the ancient chest containing the severed head of Gideon Drew ( Robin Hughes), which has been buried for centuries on her aunt’s ranch. Once released from his entombment…
Gideon’s head wreaks havoc trying to be reunited with his evil body, as he used to be a 16th-century devil worshiper who Sir Francis Drake beheaded!
“Greed had made them unearth an evil that was centuries old!”
Like ‘Jan in the pan,’ it’s Gideon in the hatbox!
“The grave can’t hold it …nothing human can stop it!”
Charlton Heston plays Army doctor Robert Neville, a lone man living in post apocalyptic solitary urban confinement amidst a burned out Los Angeles, Foraging for supplies by day, and fending off a siege of mutated vampiric survivors by night.
Neville crusades to hold onto his humanity while struggling to create a cure for the plague that wiped out most of the human race.The film is pure 70s driven cautionary tale with a fantastic cast and some great nail biting scenes. One of my favorites from the decade!
Based on the novel ‘I Am Legend’ by Richard Matheson and directed by Boris Sagal (The man responsible for Rod Serling’s (TV series Pilot)"“ Night Gallery (1969) (segment “The Cemetery”) a favorite piece of television horror for me!
Anthony Zerbeplays Matthias the cult leader of the plague ridden remnants of civilization, who’s fanatical quest to conquer Neville and make him one of them is chilling.
The film also stars the wonderful Rosalind Cash as Lisa, Neville’s potential ‘Eve’ in the new garden of Eden he desperately tries to create, if he can perfect the anti-dote to the plague in time! Neville is framed as a Jesus figure at the end of the film.
Matheson’s story had been screened in the 1964 starring Vincent Price as Dr. Robert Morgan. The Last Man on Earth is powerfully evocative and unnerving, and holds up as a great bit of visual story telling even today.
Vincent Price in The Last Man On Earth based on Matheson’s I Am Legend
“Pray for the last man alive. Because he’s not alone.”
Released by A.I.P and directed by Gene Fowler Jr (I Married A Monster From Outer Space 1958), this fabulous bit of schlock brings you the ever tearful, keenly thoughtful, always Pa Ingalls in a very different light.
Michael Landon plays a rage filled, maladjusted teenager Tony Rivers, who is regressed back into an animalistic throwback, a drooling werewolf by Dr Alfred Brandon (Whit Bissell) who uses hypnotherapy for his evil experiment with this angry youth. ‘A scientist maddened by the mystery of the werewolf.’
The already volatile Tony starts attacking practicing gymnasts and classmates alike.
“a savage lust to kill”
When he’s not furry and foaming at the mouth he’s abusive to his girlfriend (Yvonne Lime),throws tantrums, is bitter, throws milk and beats up his friends.
Ida Lupino: Actress/Director – The Iron Maiden of Prison Noir
“State’s prison, all prisons look alike from outside, but inside each has a different character. In this one"¦ caged men"¦ separated only by a thick wall. From caged women"¦
The system is wrong but it goes on and on and on"¦”
Directed by Lewis Seller, and written Crane Wilbur, (He Walked By Night 1948, The Bat 1959, House of Wax 1953) with the screenplay and story by Jack DeWitt.
Ida Lupino plays Amelia van Zandt the sadistic borderline, psychotic Warden/Matron of a co-ed women’s prison. She is a total institutionalist, exerting strict regulations, with no gray area for sentimentalism. For van Zandt it’s about the cold hard road to rehabilitation… her way… the hard way.
Lupino has described herself as “the poor man’s Bette Davis.” Ida Lupino moved to Hollywood from England, after filming I Lived with You starring the beautiful Ivor Novello. (The Lodger 1927). She started to make some noise as the hard-edged dame in the 40s, starring in 2 powerful Noir films They Drive by Night (1940) and High Sierra (1941), both starring opposite one of my all-time favorites, Humphrey Bogart.
She starred in two other memorable films which are great contributions to classic Film Noir, Road House 1948 and On Dangerous Ground 1952. For more info about Ida Lupino, the actress, and how she got started as a prolific director of film and television you can read more about her here.
Lupino, while a uniquely beautiful woman, has a face that can convey heartlessness, a hollow shell of a woman, and a militant spinster. ‘The Iron Maiden’, is what I’ve dubbed Lupino for these two particular interchangeable roles.
Women’s Prison is swathed with an ensemble of various Noir Femmes as the rough and weathered inmates. Jan Sterling, Audrey Totter, and Hugo Haas regular Cleo Moore.
There’s also the wonderful Juanita Moore,Vivian Marshall, Mae Clarke, Gertrude Micheal as Chief Matron Sturgess, and one of my favorites, Phyllis Thaxter as the ‘nice girl’ thrust into a ‘bad situation’ who almost loses her mind from the claustrophobic and oppressive iron grip van Zandt keeps on her and the rabid choke hold she keeps on the jugulars of the other female inmates.
And don’t let Thaxter’s role fool you, I’ve seen her play ruthless psychotics in her own right on Boris Karloff’s Thriller episode air date Nov. 6th, 1961Â The Last of The Sommervilles as the conniving sociopath Ursula Sommerville. Interesting connection…Ida Lupino not only wrote the script for the episode but directed it as well!
Thaxter is the cunning Ursula with Martita Hunt as the eccentric Celia Summerville.
Although a gritty Noir ‘women in prison film…Â could easily sway into the campy territory, Lewis Seller’sWomen’s Prison stays very steady on a course of lensing the social implications of a corrupt and brutal institution that extols credit for keeping the female riff-raff out of the community while perpetuating the hard line, and struggle that many of these women face on the outside. Beating them down, and objectifying them as sexless social misfits who need to be kept away from ‘men’ and out of a ‘decent’ society.
Amelia van Zandt is the hyper-exemplification of what can happen when too much power is given agency and allowed to culminate into a destructive force. van Zandt is the linchpin of brute force, and the submission required in order to control a group or perpetuate an ideal. The fact that she is female illustrates that it does not only have to be a patriarchal institution that can break a women’s spirit. It is here that elements of class and social capital come into focus and play a role in predetermining their fate.
Lupino’s character is similar to Hume Cronyn’s sadistic and unempathetic Capt. Munsey in Jule’s Dassin’s Brilliant Brute Force 1947:
Is that a lead pipe Captain Munsey or are you just REALLY happy to see me?
In a way, van Zandt is just another ‘Boogeyman‘ created by an institution that dehumanizes its individuals.
Women’s Prison illustrates what happens when absolute control is given to a person or persons and that control goes unchecked, allowing their private or misguided motivations, mental health, ability to lead, and quite simply the lack of understanding about the human equation to dictate the terms of the human condition in/of an isolated/insulated environment.
Mel Brooks‘ brilliant Gothic farce about the legend of Dr Frankenstein, with a humorous spin on it that only Brooks could do! I’m sure Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley is smiling down upon Brooks and Wilder’s adaptation of her iconic contribution to literature, culture and film!
In the early 20th century, a Gorgon takes human form and terrorizes a small European village by turning its citizens to stone. This Gothic Hammer Horror of mythic proportions is directed by Terence Fisher and stars those British titans of terror Christopher Lee, as Prof. Karl Meister, Peter Cushingas Dr. Namaroff, and Barbara Shelley as Carla Hoffman.
European Director/Provocateur Roger Vadim(And God Created Woman 1956, Barbarella 1968, Spirits of The Dead 1968, Pretty Maids All In A Row 1971) adapts Sheridan Le Fanu’s tale of sensuality, jealous Obsession, and Vampirism.
The Gorgeous Annette Vadim is ‘Carmilla’ Karnstein who is jealous of her cousin Leopoldo de Karnstein’s (Mel Ferrer) upcoming engagement to the beautiful Georgia Monteverdi (Elsa Martinelli).
Carmilla’s fixation manifests itself in the form of a female ancestor who is a vampire, which possesses her thus beginning a siege of terror at the family estate, culminating in a surreal and stunning bloodbath.
Stumbling onto the ancestral tomb! Is it real or imagined?
This is a beautiful cinematic horror film… a surreal journey that is at times told in dream-like sequences that are utter visual feasts for the Gothic soul. Blood and Roses has some of the most memorable imagery, and tastefully lensed eroticism, especially for ‘Lesbian Vampire’ aficionados. One of my favorite classic Euro horror films of the 1960s.
Directed by Robert C. Dertano(Gun Girls 1957, Girl Gang 1954) Also known as Pin Down Girls!
Timothy Farrell (The Devil’s Sleep 1949,Jail Bait 1954)plays Umberto Scalli a gangster who manages women wrestlers as a front for his bookmaking, drug, and prostitution rackets.. Introducing… Peaches Page! ???
The strange love-life of a wrestling gal!
SHE WAS ONLY “18” AND EAGER FOR HER “NEW PROFESSION”
“He’s the kind of a guy who would change a girls evening stroll from recreation into an occupation!”
Directed by Gerd Oswald and written by Joseph Stefano
Two women decide the only way out of an abusive relationship with a sadistic blackmailer is to poison him. In the midst of fleeing, they come upon an isolated house with an odd old caretaker and a solitary young man who dabbles with clocks, time travel, and raising the dead.
The dreamy David McCallumplays Tone Hobart, the man who can tinker with time, space, and soul revival. Vera Miles plays the self-assured Kasha, Barbara Rush is the slightly neurotic Leonora, Cedric Hardwicke is Colus, the stoic manservant and Scott Marloweis the fiendish Andre. From one of the truly timeless series, with the advent of a social consciousness, The Outer Limits, is one of my favorite television series of all time!
As I’ve been known to write about Boris Karloff’s Thriller, I do plan on covering a few of my most treasured episodes in-depth and certainly with my usual long-winded overview and images of the original The Outer Limits!
For now… I couldn’t resist adding my musical voice to a ‘moment in time’ of one of the most poetic and haunting stories in the series. Here are edited scenes from The Forms of Things Unknown mashed up with my song ‘The Mistress of Time’ off my album The Amber Sessions.
