Sidney Poitier Fights Against Apartheid Again In 1975’s “The Wilby Conspiracy”

From left to right, Hauer, Caine, Gee, and Poitier.

Until the 1980s the word “apartheid” had been absent from daily speech here in America. Suddenly with growing attention from the western news, the anti-Sun City Movement, and films like “Cry Freedom,” “A Dry White Season,” and “A World Apart,” “apartheid” began to be a part of an open dialog in the USA. As a pre-teen in the late 1970s, I distinctly remember the first time that I heard the word spoken, which happened during an episode of the CBS drama, “The White Shadow,” a weekly series about a white coach of an almost all-African American basketball team in South Central Los Angeles. During one particular episode, Coach Reeves appoints the only white, but popular, player on the team, “Salami,” to be captain, which is fine with most of the team except for one player who speaks openly about the then current political situation in South Africa called “apartheid,” where the white privileged minority had been ruling the land without any members of the black African majority. The episode had left me curious, but even though I was growing up in a largely African American neighborhood in South Philadelphia, finding any information about apartheid at my local library was fairly impossible, that was of course until the middle of the subsequent decade when t-shirts declaring “Free Nelson Mandela” were seen everywhere you went in the city.

Even though the policies of apartheid had been established in after the general elections in South Africa in 1948, Hollywood had stayed clear of the subject until I assume it became a profitable “cause.” Finally, when television and film began depicting stories of this oppression from the last forty years, I became curious again, except this time I wondered if Hollywood had ever tried to tell these stories before during a period when it perhaps wasn’t in vogue to do so. The only example that stands out for me occurred in during the mid-1950s, when the massively underrated talents of director Richard Brooks touched on the subject in his film, “Something Of Value” which starred Rock Hudson and Sidney Poitier. Though the film was not about South Africa but Kenya, it successfully brought to the screen Robert C. Ruark’s novel of the same name about the real Mau Mau uprising that occurred in colonial Kenya during the 1950s. In that film, Sidney Poitier plays the African, Kimani, who despite being raised with his white friend Peter (Rock Hudson) has his father imprisoned by Peter’s father who protests Kimani’s father’s participation in a native Kenyan custom then deemed to barbaric by the colonial government. Outraged by his father’s imprisonment, Kimani joins an insurgency group called the Mau Mau that leads a bloody rebellion against the colonial leadership and eventually this forces Kimani to clash with his lifelong friend Peter. Though the film doesn’t directly address the situation in South Africa, it is Hollywood’s first and really only attempt before the 1980s (Brooks’ film was a box office flop) to expose American audiences to the growing political unrest in Africa stemming from apartheid colonial rule.

Twenty years later in 1975, Sidney Poitier is at his anti-apartheid ways again in the UK produced film “The Wilby Conspiracy,” an entertaining action film disguised as a political/cause thriller. What may have prompted the production of this UK film was that by the mid-1970s, mass paranoia was coming into vogue due to the Watergate scandal and Hollywood was frantically putting out political/anti-government thrillers with fairly complex plots such as David Miller’s “Executive Action,” Sydney Pollack’s “Three Days Of Condor,” and Alan J. Pakula’s “The Parallax View,” all of which were met with good critical and commercial success which surely prompted our friends in the UK to follow suit. “The Wilby Conspiracy” uses the apartheid situation in South Africa to run its plot, but due to the subject matter, filming was not permitted in South Africa and bizarrely the film would have to be shot in Kenya, the country that was the setting for Poitier’s earlier film, “Something Of Value.” Here Poitier plays Shack Twala, a jailed revolutionary who is released from prison at the beginning of the film by his Afrikaner attorney Rina van Niekerk (Prunella Gee) who has recently left her husband Blane (played by a very young Rutger Hauer in his first English speaking role), and she is now seeing British mining engineer Jim Keogh (Michael Caine).

Shortly after Shack’s release, the three are off to celebrate but are soon met by the South African police who hassle them for identification. When Shack, Jim, and Rita cannot produce the necessary ID needed, they are arrested but successfully fight off the police and make a run for it. Their arrest angers Major Horn (brilliantly played by Nicol Williamson who is best known to US audience as “Merlin” in John Boorman’s Excalibur) who chastises his second in command for not only his campaign of harassing black South Africans but also for arresting Shack, as his arrest will drive even more against the prevailing government. On the run yet again, Shack seeks out the assistance of Doctor Mukharjee (Saeed Jaffrey), an Indian dentist and fellow member of Black Congress. Soon Jim, Rita, and Shack are in the possession of a stash of uncut diamonds that will aid the Black Congress and their leader, Wilby (Joe De Graft), but, despite this success, they still must outrun the cunning Major Horn, who is still manically hunting them. You then have the necessary prerequisites for a 70s political action film with a few clever twists, a lot of very exciting car chases (Caine and Poitier were actually almost killed in one accident involving the car camera which became displaced), and even a bit of an unnecessary sex scene which is reminiscent of thrown in Dunaway/Redford tryst in “Condor.” Poitier and Caine do the absolute most given the fairly thin dialog which heavily leans on the buddy film tip, and they do produce some chemistry in their scenes together. Overall, the actors do a fine job, and script does provide a few laughs, but Nicol Williamson does steal the show as the intelligently written but villainous Major Horn.

“The Wilby Conspiracy” was directed with flair by American Ralph Nelson, who twelve years earlier had helmed the wildly successful and enjoyable nun extravaganza, “Lilies Of The Field,” which garnered an Oscar for his lead, Sidney Poitier, the first best actor Oscar awarded to an African American. Nelson would also direct Poitier and James Garner and hone his talents as an action director in the less successful but still entertaining 1966 western “Duel At Diabolo.” Through not possessing the intense drama of Brooks’ “Something Of Value,” Nelson keeps the pace quick in “The Wilby Conspiracy,” and with that fast pace he keeps up your interest in the story while never losing focus of dire conditions in South Africa at that time in history.

The Wilby Conspiracy Trailer

It would be almost a decade more before Hollywood would jump on the anti-apartheid bandwagon with their tear-jerking/heavy-handed offerings; films which now seem more concerned with preaching to a left leaning choir than opening up the discussion by presenting the situation in an action-driven political thriller format that would speak to a wider audience. Nelson’s film is illustrative about apartheid rather than didactic and thus, more effective in getting its core message out.

“La Vallee”, Barbet Schroeder’s 1971 Hippiedom Nature Exploration

“Well honey, at least we aren’t in Paris anymore.”

I rarely begin a review with a direct quote, but I thought it was important to include this quote from a 1971 interview with “La Vallee” director, Barbet Schroeder, conducted by famed French director, Bertrand Tavernier in understanding our director’s intentions for his film: “It’s up to each individual to decide whether or not he wants to conclude that his dream of returning to the bosom of nature is a sad utopian vision, and a flight from the self and its implications in society.”

The early 1970s were rife with films depicting this return to the “bosom of nature” as Schroeder stated about his film, “La Vallee,” with many being forced into pastoral exile as seen by Jim McBride’s superb 1971 post-apocalyptic tale, “Glen and Randa,” Nicolas Roeg’s violently abandoned school children negotiating the outback in “Walkabout,” or Mark the radical and Daria the free spirit in Antonioni’s “Zabriskie Point.” The time seemed to be right for abandonment of all things urban in favor of a Utopian or at least survivable natural experience that stemmed from the fear of a never-ending Cold War. That hunger for a utopia is very much the mission for our band of hippies in “La Vallee,” Barbet Schroeder’s almost distractedly beautiful 1971 film.

Viviane (Bulle Ogier) is in New Guinea purchasing exotic feathers for a shop in Paris. She is a gorgeous, well to do but bored wife of a French diplomat from Melbourne. She is being sold on some overpriced feathers and faux native trinkets at a trading post when she meets the beefy hippyish Oliver (Michael Gothard who played the most zealous priest that same year in Ken Russell’s The Devils). Olivier throws some wild boasts and the promises of more feathers to our uptight Viviane and eventually persuades her to visit his band of traveling freaks during the expedition into the jungles of New Guinea. Olivier shows Viviane his collection of rare feathers (the jungle version of etchings I suppose) but refuses to sell her any of them. No, if Viviane wants her precious feathers, she needs to join his band of freaks and find them them herself but not before a bit of the old in and out (sorry that’s a different 1971 film). I guess that a trip to utopia to gain a higher consciousness must first have a stop through Olivier’s pants. Such is hippydom I suppose…

At the camp, Viviane meets Olivier’s band of explorers, including the fiercely primal Gaetan, played by Jean-Pierre Kalfon, Ogier’s co-star in Jacques Rivette’s “L’Amour Fou,” a brilliant film that fosters the discussion about the relations between film and theater and even theater and theatrical aspects of reality, which culminates with Ogier and Kalfon turning their chic Paris apartment into a scene of primal expressionism. Watching the interactions between Viviane and Gaetan in “La Vallee” is an almost follow up of their characters from “L’ Amour Fou” if Ogier never left Paris and is meeting Kalfon whom she forced into such into a state of base behavior two years earlier. Soon, Viviane and her new friends are on the road with the promise of spiritual enlightenment in an uncharted valley, which sets up the plot with the potential of Viviane undergoing a transformation and finding herself in the wilderness. This is soon sidetracked when Viviane meets a native, who she is told will not sell feathers but will give them away to people whom he likes. Viviane makes no real connection to the native, except for a very western attempt to use her beauty to influence him, which bizarrely works in her favor. It is clear at this point that if a transformation is to occur within Viviane, it is to take place slowly or through some moment of dire circumstances. Viviane makes some attempts at connecting with nature, even at one point wrapping a serpent around her neck, much to the dismay of Olivier, but soon after Olivier makes it with another woman within the group, and it’s back to the jealousies and insecurities of the western world for Viviane.

Whilst continuing their travels towards the titular valley, our group stumbles upon a the Mapugas tribe and takes part in their rituals, shot in an almost documentary style that seems detached from the subdued Sierra Club visual storytelling which is the predominance of the “La Vallee.” Though Schroeder attempts to remove all gratuitous hippy folklore from the goings on of his film, there is still the slight air of liberal arts college field trip inherent in our hippies’ interaction with the Mapugas tribe, so much so that one wonders if Viviane is still picturing the chief’s majestic feathers sitting in a display case in some shop near the Eiffel Tower for a back to nature sale. These scenes between our actors and the tribe are of course improvised, and with that, there seems to be a natural disconnect as the over-reverence that the actors clearly possess in trying to relate to the tribe encumbers what should be a more of a transformative moment for their characters. Too many smiles from Viviane and company amidst the hog butchering and face painting take away from what should be a state of bewilderment. Was this Schroeder’s final goal: To show that these westerners/hippies could never truly immerse themselves into this wild frontier after all? Their subsequent journey to the mythical or symbolic valley would indicate that Schroeder thought otherwise in that a potential state of enlightenment was there for them at the end.

Perhaps it is my own western biases coming into play here, but like Roeg’s “Walkabout” I sometimes have to check myself to see if I am I am seeing the transformation of the urban being into a less complicated part of nature, or am I just watching a gorgeously filmed bit of environmental porn to overindulge in for two hours. “La Vallee” was shot by Eric Rohmer/Terence Malick’s cinematographer, Nestor Almendros, who does a brilliant job at capturing the landscapes, but he does keep the proceedings quite stoic, which again would indicate that Schroeder would want to infer that our group of free form travelers is forever locked into their western reality. Also the much heralded original Pink Floyd soundtrack that is less Syd Barrett era psych, and more sitting in your bedroom, staring at the gatefold cover while on shrooms Roger Waters style, goes even further in keeping the viewer from a totally immersive experience.

Original trailer for La Vallee

In the aforementioned interview with Schroeder from 1971, the director viewed the hippies as “the only contemporary movement which has produced a lunatic fringe filled with a spirit of adventure,” and “La Vallee” does make it clear that the spirit of adventure was very much alive with this collection of hippies, but perhaps that adventure had an emotional glass ceiling that was located in a small apartment somewhere in the 1^st Arrondissement in Paris.

Michael Schultz Directed Richard Pryor In Two Films in 1977 And “Greased Lightning” Was The One That Got Away

Richard Pryor Takes The Wheel in “Greased Lightning.”

Michael Schultz was one of the most successful African-American directors of the 1970s. Starting out in television as a director for the early part of the decade, Schultz graduated to the big screen in 1974 directing Diana Sands in “Honeybaby, Honeybaby,” a low budget action film that was to be Sands’ last film before she passed away in 1973. Schultz immediately returned with the successful 1975 film, “Cooley High,” a entertaining high school comedy/drama that many refer to as the “Black American Graffiti.” In 1976, Schultz hit it big with “Car Wash,” one of the many “workplace comedies” of the 1970s that was inspired by Altman’s “M*A*S*H,” and a film that also produced a number one soundtrack for the disco era. That film contained about eight minutes of a rising comic named Richard Pryor, who sometime between filming and release developed into a star after nine years of small parts (with the notable exception of 1″The Mack”) in over a dozen films. Schultz rushed out to cast Pryor in the lead role, and so in 1977, Schultz cast Pryor in a US remake of Lina Wertmuller’s “The Seduction Of Mimi,” called “Which Way Is Up,” converting the eternal schlubby Mimi of Wertmuller’s film into Leroy, a California grape picker who accidentally becomes a union leader. It is easily one of Pryor’s best performances as he (Pryor) plays several different characters in the same way that he could do onstage, with total commitment and at the drop of a hat.

While “Which Way Is Up” was filming, another successful African-American director from that decade, Melvin Van Peebles, contacted Pryor. Melvin wanted to make a biopic about Wendell Scott, a World War Two veteran, moonshine runner, and a stock car racer on the Dixie Circuit who would become the first African-American to drive for NASCAR. With another opportunity to play the lead, Pryor was onboard for the project, and the film would be fittingly titled, “Greased Lightning.” Unfortunately, somewhere during the casting process, Van Peebles and the producers of “Greased Lightning” began to have artistic differences, and Van Peebles was dismissed, leaving the film without a director. Eager to play Scott, Pryor asked Schultz while making “Which Was Is Up” to helm the project, and Schultz agreed. Shortly after the wrap of “Which Way Is Up,” Schultz and Pryor began work on “Greased Lightning.”

A lot of talent was attached to “Greased Lightning.” Besides Pryor, the absolutely gorgeous and talented Pam Grier was selected to play Scott’s wife, Mary, and she turns in the best performance of the pic. Cleavon Little (Sheriff Bart from the Pryor scripted Blazing Saddles) as Scott’s best friend, Peewee. Beau Bridges as Hutch, Scott’s only white friend and mechanic, and famed folks singer Richie Havens as would play Scott’s other mechanic, Woodrow and also contribute more than a few songs for the soundtrack, songs that at times supply the Greek Chorus for the film. Sadly even with all of that talent, it becomes clear as to what the artistic differences must’ve been between Van Peebles and the producers as this feels like quite the hatchet job.

First off, the tone of the film is almost unbearably light, like that of “The Buddy Holly Story,” which considering the amount of racism inherent in Wendell Scott’s story, some pretty awful moments of real hate from Scott’s life play out almost as comedy, and I would imagine Van Peebles would never even think of shooting it that way. What is truly unbelievable about the mellowing of those moments is that during the filming of “Greased Lightning,” racially biased locals in Georgia did everything they could to louse up the production, including whistling and yelling whenever director Schultz would yell “action.” Things got so bad in fact that Schultz would have to substitute the words “action” for “cut” so that the antagonizing yokels would be confused as to when to start yelling. Also the producer’s “feel good movie” intentions are made even clearer as “Greased Lightning” was released with a “PG” rating, which almost guarantees that any edge of that pesky racism would be almost entirely removed without expletives that would naturally be attached to such hateful speech.

Secondary to the watering down of Wendell Scott’s story is the editing which stunts almost every moment of real emotion from carrying through to the viewer. As stated earlier, Pam Grier puts a ton of love into her performance as Scott’s wife Mary, she carries so much love and hurt on her face, but most of her scenes are quickly cut before they can impact you. Beau Bridges’ gives a fine performance and is comedically great as Hutch, who first mocks but then befriends Wendell. Their scenes together are quite good, but, again, they are sliced down to almost nothing by the middle of film, so we never see the relationship mature in any logical way. Cleavon Little is relegated to just quick comedic insertions during most of his scenes, which is a waste for such a talented actor. The few racing scenes are well shot and are very exciting, especially Scott’s first race where he goes over the wall and comes back to finish the race, but those scenes are few and far between. The greatest editing sin is that shortly after Scott finally begins to win a race, the film cuts to him as an aging and medically challenged retiree at the age 42! The jump is stupefying as we have little idea of where his friends and crew have been during this time, and it makes his eventual win at the Grand Nationals, which ends the film, anticlimactic.

Original 1977 Trailer for Greased Lightning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTlM__C5AbE

It feels like there is more of a film there somewhere as “Greased Lightning” isn’t sure whether it wants to concentrate on Scott the driver, Scott the husband, or Scott the friend, and the film does none of these aspects of this heroic man any real justice. Richard Pryor does as well with the material as he can and proves that he can perform drama almost as well as comedy, and only one year later in 1978, Pryor would stun critics with his fine dramatic performance in director Paul Schrader’s best film, “Blue Collar.” Sadly, Michael Schultz, who continues to direct television to this day, in that same year of 1978, directed Peter Frampton and The Bee Gees in a musical interpretation of the Beatles, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band,” a film so horribly misconceived and painfully executed that it makes you wonder if Schultz was so rattled by the poor box office and criticism of “Greased Lightning” that his instincts were completely off for the remainder of the decade.

The Joyous Power Within The 1971 Concert Film, “Soul To Soul”

Ike and Tina Turner Stun The Crowd In “Soul To Soul”

The concert film, that relic of the screen before MTV, is still kicking around in 2015, though an artist has to reach the level of international fame of a Katy Perry or Justin Bieber before producers are willing to bankroll a two hour ego extravaganza to be seen by screaming teeny boppers worldwide. Prior the dawn of MTV, the concert film was the only way for many small town folks throughout USA and the globe to see a range of world class acts who wouldn’t come to their town in a larger than life way. As a boy I loved staying up late to watch Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert, the syndicated weekly live music show that brought many of us our first glimpse at rock and soul acts from Curtis Mayfield to Cheap Trick, but there was nothing like going to a theater to see a twenty foot tall Mick Jagger strut his stuff. In these years prior to the insanely expensive fees that now exist for music licensing, the concert film of the 1970s was a low risk moneymaker.

Adding into the frenzy of rock concert films was the wake left by the popularity of Gordon Park’s 1971 blaxploitation crime drama “Shaft” and its Academy Award winning soundtrack by Issac Hayes. Finally, Hollywood was now not only looking to distribute Afro American narrative films but also documentary films celebrating soul music that had the added potential of releasing a high selling soundtrack. Columbia distributed “Wattstax,” a 1973 concert film depicting the Stax Label fueled musical event that commemorated the Watts riots of 1965, and “Save The Children,” the film of the star-studded show attached to 1972 Jesse Jackson-led PUSH exposition held in Chicago, which was distributed by Paramount Pictures. Hot on the heels of “Shaft” and before even “Wattstax” and “Save The Children” was Denis Sanders’ superb documentary on the fourteen-hour concert that took place in Accra, Ghana in 1971, “Soul To Soul.”

After declaring its independence from England in 1957, Ghana had attempted to connect with a multitude of African diasporas and succeeded by getting the attention of poet Maya Angelou, who reached out to Ghana’s Prime Minister, Kwame Nkrumah, to invite many Afro American musicians to Ghana to help the newly independent country celebrate its freedom. Many years later, after Nkrumah was deposed, producers Tom and Ed Mosk presented the same idea to the Ghana Arts Council who agreed that the time was right for such an event to happen and thus the Soul To Soul concert was born. Amongst the American artists who would perform were some immensely popular soul artists: The Staple Singers, Ike and Tina Turner, Roberta Flack, and Wilson Pickett. The San Francisco rock group Santana would join the bill as would jazz performers Les McCann and Eddie Harris. Many Ghanian artists such as Kwa Mensah, The Kumasi Drummers, Charlotte Dada, and even house band for the Ghana Arts Council, The Anansekromian Zounds would play their hearts out for the tens of thousands in attendance.

The narrative construction of “Soul To Soul” would be much different from the previous mentioned “Wattstax” and “Save The Children” as far as showing the political (read: non musical) environment surrounding the concert. Gone are the moments within the town to hear what non-musicians think about the day-to-day lives. The few interviews that do exist in this documentary are mostly relegated to the beginning of the film, when the planeload of traveling soul artists is asked about their expectations for performing in Ghana. The musicians speak with great enthusiasm on their feelings about going back to the motherland, the clothes they will find and the people they will meet, but they all seem rather underwhelmed by the potential of hearing great music while there. Once they all land in Ghana, the wide-eyed tourist in our American envoy quickly disappears, as once they hear what their fellow musicians from Ghana can bring to the table, it becomes all about the music from that moment onward. A wide-eyed Tina Turner learning how to sing from a powerful Ghanian vocalist in the street is a moment that sums up the early collaborations well.

We then see the live concert, expertly filmed with brilliant sound that surpasses many films of its kind from that era. On stage, Ghanian musicians playing solo or with some of the American acts add a powerful communal element to the show. Also not lost on this viewer are the looks of awe from the audience upon seeing Tina and her backup singers howling out notes and gyrating wildly during “River Deep-Mountain High” in a way that I am sure would be scandalous for musical performances by women in Ghana at that time. Some dance in the crowd, but many just stare with open mouths and confused stares. More subdued but no less awe inspiring is the performance of Curtis Mayfield/Donny Hathaway written soul stirrer; “Gone Away” that Roberta Flack heartbreakingly sings that almost silences the enormous crowd. Strangely, Santana performs the most African sounding music of any of the American artists much to the crowd’s delight. The Staple Singers are given a few numbers on film and in general perform even better than they did on “Wattstax,” especially Mavis Staples on lead vocals, and the great Wilson Pickett, an audience favorite, gives his all as he always does.

There many powerful moments woven in between the live concert scenes, including a wedding and a funeral ritual that are seen without any over narration, and a trip to one of the many “slave castles” in Ghana that is done with few words from the guide and with a very poignant rendition of “Free” sung in acapella in the background. These scenes feel organic due to their placement, and therefore, flow well within the film’s construction as opposed to the attempts at similar emotional moments that are dispersed haphazardly in “Save The Children,” which leave you cold.

Original 1971 Trailer For Soul To Soul

Sadly, “Soul To Soul” saw less distribution than needed during its initial run, and the Mosks did not make back their initial investment, so the documentary was near impossible to locate for many years. Thankfully, The Grammy Foundation paid for a restoration of the film and reissued it back in 2005 with added footage, interviews, and a companion soundtrack that I’m sure would’ve been a must-have had the film be seen by more of an audience back in the day.

Peter Yates’ “Mother, Jugs, and Speed” And The “Workplace” Comedies Of The 1970s

Raquel Welch as well, “Jugs”

There are two events, one positive and one negative, that precipitated my review of the much maligned 1976 dark comedy, “Mother, Jugs, and Speed:” Extremely negative is the recent damning evidence against Bill Cosby, the titular “Mother” of the film that I am reviewing here, a fellow Philadelphian, and my comic hero whose self-admitted criminal behavior has broken my heart. And on a separate positive note, is the complete Robert Altman retrospective that is currently being mounted in my former town of Boston at The Harvard Film Archive that many of my dear friends are now enjoying. Why Altman you may ask? I will theorize that somewhere in the mix of 70s subgenres, is a rarely discussed collection of films that stem from the success of Altman’s game-changing counterculture film that began the decade, “MASH,” that I will define as “workplace” films. You remember this seemingly endless flow of films that feature a group of irreverent misfits that are all stuck in a job whom you feel real empathy for and are always trying to get one over on the man. A wide array of films from the successful “Blue Collar” to “Car Wash” and ending somewhere around 1981 with “Underground Aces,” an epic flop starring a young Melanie Griffith, about a group of wacky employees in a hotel parking garage in LA. Yes, by that point Hollywood must have ran out of every conceivable place of employ to stage a workplace comedy. At least that film had a kicking theme song from Lionel Ritchie-led Commodores that one-ups the messy soundtrack of the even messier scripted “Mother, Jugs, and Speed.”

In the middle of America’s finest decade of film making, Peter Yates, who had just come off the success of directing Barbra Streisand in “For Pete’s Sake,” and Robert Mitchum in “The Friends Of Eddie Coyle,” decided to throw his hat into the ring of “workplace comedies” with this tale of a group of bawdy Los Angeles ambulance drivers who seem to have an unlimited amount of time to do drugs, mess with each other, pull pranks on their chief competitors, and even buzz a few nuns crossing the street for a quick laugh. Watching the nuns scatter at the sound of an ambulance siren is the main joy of “Mother,” a beer-swilling, message parlor visiting meat wagon driver played by Cosby who per usual manages to be part of these bad goings on without uttering a blue word. This should come as no surprise as Cosby even made a couple of blaxploitation films during that time; “Uptown Saturday Night” and “Let’s Do It Again,” that similarly to “Mother, Jugs, and Speed” received a PG rating. So, unlike our friends at the 4077^th, the hijinks committed by our band of upstart paramedics are a bit toned down. Upon my third viewing of this film, I wondered if more than a few urban workplace appropriate expletives would’ve made it into the final script if Gene Hackman (Yates’ original choice for the role of Mother) had accepted Cosby’s part before filming began.

Added to the cast is Harvey Keitel, who that very same year had his pimpish hand off blown off in a whorehouse by Travis Bickle in “Taxi Driver.” Keitel plays the soft-spoken “Speed,” a recently suspended cop and Vietnam Vet who may or may not have sold amphetamines whilst on the job, hence his epitaph. Lastly, there is “Jugs,” played Raquel Welch, who does her best uptight feminist “Hot Lips” Houlihan imitation. “Jugs” never dates the drivers, much to their chagrin, as she spends every night going to school to get her EMT license. She brandishes her license one day at work but has no chance of actually driving a wagon as her boss, Mr. Fishbine (Allen Garfield at his uptight finest) is not going to put a woman out as a paramedic. No 1970s genre film is complete without an ex-football player/actor and here we get Dick Butkus as the cowboy hat wearing “Rodeo,” think a physically larger but similarly racist Duke Forrest from “MASH,” and finally to stay on the “MASH” target, we have the film’s heavy, Murdoch (Larry Hagman) who fills in for Frank Burns as the womanizing and boorish workplace dickhead. There is some real acting talent here and to imitate the character’s idioms from “MASH” is a venial sin, but where the wheels really come off on “Mother, Jugs, and Speed” is the script and Yates’ direction, which reminds us as to why Altman’s 1970 film is considered the masterpiece that it is to this day.

Altman had the gift in “MASH” of balancing some of the funniest moments captured on film with other moments of real drama and even a bit of viscera. Altman’s comic timing is perfect in “MASH,” and it makes the overall experience into a gem. “Mother, Jugs, and Speed” supplies us with many decadent, funny scenes that keep my attention when the film runs on late night cable, but these scenes are awkwardly pressed up against a multitude of poorly framed moments of pathos. Case in point is the scene where Mother’s ambulance partner, Leroy, is murdered by a crazed junkie who wants a fix. It’s a real and tough scene, but Yates immediately follows that scene with a comedic scene that just does not fit, negating any feeling the viewer has towards Leroy’s death and the laughs of the next moment. There are countless scenes that play out this way in “Mother, Jugs, and Speed,” and after a while, you just lose your taste for the film as you wait for inevitable laugh after an ugly moment. Unlike many of the workplace films where the moments of tragedy create empathy for the characters predicament at their job, such as Smokey’s ugly “accidental” death in Paul Schrader’s fine 1978 film, “Blue Collar,” the poor positioning of these moments in “Mother, Jugs, and Speed” feel too divisive and thus become the film’s undoing. Perhaps it was the low budget of the film had that forced such sloppy decisions. We now know that Gene Hackman and the original choice for “Jugs,” Valerie Perrine, both backed out due to low salary offers and perhaps other choices were made to cut corners that resulted in this mess of a film? Sadly, Yates’ film goes down as a sometimes hysterically funny but intensely uneven urban dark comedy whose inability to know what it wants to be stamps out any potential of being a classic in the genre.

Original Trailer for Mother, Jugs, And Speed

A few years later in 1979, Yates would shed the A-list stars and their salaries for a team of then unknowns (Dennis Quaid, and Daniel Stern to name a couple) and master the comedy-drama with the five time Academy Award nominated film,“Breaking Away.” A modern masterpiece that unlike “Mother, Jugs, and Speed” is almost eerily intuitive of American working class people’s dilemmas and dreams.

Up Yours Netherlands! The Mondoesque “This is America” (aka Jabberwalk) From 1977

Hey Vanderbes, we didn’t build the statue!

For many of us over forty year old Americans, the children of the VHS explosion, we remember the notorious “Mondo” films well. Those sort of documentaries from Italy depicting acts of perverse cruelty and sexuality from all over the world were quite popular from the 1960s onwards and made their way from house to house to bootlegs when I was growing up in Philadelphia. If you have never seen them, you weren’t missing much as these “docs” existed only to shock you with sometimes real/sometimes staged footage of bestial violence, war, and torture framed as commentary on the sick nature of humanity. In our neighborhood, the Mondo films would only be surpassed in underground popularity of the even more wretched and even less cinematographic straight to video refuse offerings entitled “Faces Of Death,” a poorly strung together collection of real and fake clips of human and animal suffering that to this day represent the lowest point of the VHS bootleg craze.

Keeping in line with the Mondo films is the first mockumentary from Dutch director Romano Vanderbes, “This Is America” (originally released under the title, “Jabberwalk”). For ninety minutes, Vanderbes takes you to USA to show you the sick excesses of the world’s richest country in all it’s shocking glory because I guess we aren’t as civilized as red light district walking, sex-obsessed Dutchmen. The film promisingly begins with the dulcet sounds of The Dictators performing “America The Beautiful,” and then director Vanderbes immediately takes you to one of the most hallowed traditions in 1970s American culture, that of the demolition derby. The over narration (the star of the film) goes on and on about America’s obsession with the automobile, and I guess the demolition derby is that obsession gone wild. As is the Indianapolis 500, which Vanderbes shows in all its crash up glory as well. Little Romano must’ve been thrilled to have found the footage from what appears to be the 1973 race, as he presents a montage of horrific accidents that took the lives of drivers and crew members. After that dose of bodies being thrown about the tracks of downtown Indianapolis, we immediately cut to the real focus of “This Is America,” …the sex.

We are now at the 1975 “Miss All Bare America Pageant” where, as you guess it, a parade of robust, nude American women goes full frontal for fun and prizes. I’ll save you the suspense; the woman with the largest breasts wins the contest, and she proudly wears her sash between her two massive mammary glands. In the slight chance that a few women may be lurking in the audience of “This Is America” we are whisked away to a ladies club where rejects from Magic Mike “erotically” dance in front of a sea of Melissa McCarthy clones who seem bewildered by the scraggly mess of gyrating men jamming their covered manhood in their faces. OK, that’s it for the ladies as we then are transported to scenic Nevada for a tour of seedy cathouses, some that even come complete with airstrips for that trick on the go who needs his corporate rod smooched. After a trip some naughty American massage parlors (the Netherlands have none of these I imagine) and the Eros Awards (the Oscars for XXX film industry), the director reminds Americans of their fast food fascination by explaining to us the shocking exploitative meat origins of the “hot dog.” Next is a triptych through many of the religious foibles of America, the drive-up church, a Lutheran Church where the priest makes himself up as a clown before handing out the body of Christ, various corny Las Vegas wedding chapels, and an up-close and clearly fake peek into the day to day life of a Mormon man with twelve wives. But then, it’s back to….the sex.

For those kinky folks on a budget who cannot afford a wooden pillory, we have “Rent A Dungeon” where the bored middle class can whip and rack each other into a sexual fantasy. And if that doesn’t shock you, then be prepared for the greatest shock of the entire “documentary,” a tour of an actual dildo factory! Maybe shock isn’t the right word, as I was more stunned by the fact that such things were once manufactured in the good old US of A and not Taiwan. Yes, once in America, teams of middle-aged sexually frustrated women toiled away molding, carving, and shining some of the finest sexual prosthetics that the world has ever known. In this factory, a sexual laboratory once existed to make strides into gratification technology by creating not only dildos the size of a Cub Scout’s arm, but also items like the “Accu-Jack” a personal masturbation machine bears an almost Orwellian quality in modern shape and efficiency. Sorry ladies but if you’re thinking that you get to see the aforementioned item used on a Channing Tatum, you are out of luck as we only get to see “Accu-Jack” tested on a mannequin with a painfully bored countenance.

This Is America/Jabberwalk Full Movie

What sets “This Is America” apart from the predominance of the Mondo films is that it is more on the sex and less on the violence and the entire film is done with a funny; tongue-in-cheek over narration that highlights the ridiculousness of the presented footage. In its few moments of attempted seriousness, the doc gains an almost surrealistic quality as seen through current eyes that exults it into cult film status. After 25 years of bad reality television, “This Is America” stands as a jolly “video nasty” that would pulled out of many of 1980s teenaged boy’s backpack for the purpose of wowing his friends into thinking that he found the Holy Grail of naughty tapes. A watch well worth your time in 2015 if you can gather a group together for giggles or if you can go back in time to my friend Sam’s basement where many a Mondo screened after his mom and dad went to sleep.

1978’s “The Manitou”…Or, How Many Genres Can We Fit Into One Bad Horror Film

“Mommy, why am I in space?”

The original tagline for 1978’s “The Manitou” went something like this…Evil Does Not Die…It Waits To Be Re-born. But I’m thinking….

“The new film from the director of the “Jaws’ ripoff, “Grizzly,” comes a horror, space odyssey, Native American, love story kind of thing with Tony Curtis.”

Karen Tandy (Susan Strasberg) has something or someone growing in her neck and it’s up to a team of doctors, her carny fortunetelling lover/friend (Tony Curtis) and shaman, Johnny Singing Rock (Michael Ansara) to save her! Still swimming in the wake of “The Exorcist,” which unfortunately was responsible for an endless sea of Satanic-possession horror film clones from “The Omen” onward, is “The Manitou” an almost inconceivably bad film that attempts to cash in on so many popular 1970s film genres at once, you begin to lose track about midway through the plot. Try and follow me on this one.

Our victim, Karen Tandy, lives in San Francisco, is kind of cute, and has a huge lump on her neck that could be cancerous but cancers rarely have their own heart and lungs. This baffles our crack team of doctors and they plan on operating immediately but not before allowing Karen to wander around the cable car town like an old Rice A Roni ad for a couple of days first. She descends on the Munstersesque apartment of Harry Erskine (Curtis), a Tarot Card reader and amateur psychic who spends the bulk of his days bilking old ladies out of their inheritance. Karen turns to our still adorable Harry for help and a bit of slap and tickle as she needs to know why she has a fetus gestating in her gullet. Harry consults the cards and pulls the “death card” (which you know in Tarot terms doesn’t mean actual “death) but lies to Karen anyway to calm her and perhaps loosen her panties up a bit. They tango and while she sleeps off her bed romp, Karen utters the phrase “Pana Wichy Saratoo” which sounds all mystical, so that springs our Harry into action as a paranormal investigator.

Meanwhile in the surgical theater, traditional medical science fails, as the neck fetus begins to control the hands of our surgeon, making him cut into himself. This is no normal neck fetus here, this thing has all kinds of mojojojo, and now our doctor must consult his super computer for answers. Back in the mystical realm, Harry has now gone off to see out mediums to séance the hell out of Karen’s neck to get her all OK again, but of course that fails as well. So while Karen lies in her hospital bed, the lump has grown into the size of a Billy Barty midget and is looking for a ripping exit. Frustrated, Harry gets the tip from another carny reject (played by a post-Rocky Burgess Meredith) that “Pana Wichy Saratoo” is Native American for “thing that lives in white woman” (actually “my death foretells my return”), and so Harry is off to the reservation to get himself the best Native American shaman that money can buy, and that shaman is Johnny Singing Rock.

“Manitou” Trailer From 1978

Johnny warns Harry that the “Evil One” is coming and that nothing in his white man world will stop him so Harry offers Johnny a monster load of cash to leave the reservation and battle the creature living in his maybe girlfriend’s neck. But they might be too late; as they head towards the hospital, the big moment occurs, and at least thirty percent of the special effects budget goes ripping out of Karen’s back and thus, the Misquamacus, is born. It is an ugly looking spud, and when Johnny gets a good look at him, well he’s pretty sure that the tiny terror will kill them all. What follows is a rapid blending of genres that goes so quickly that if you can stop giggling for a moment, you will see about four or five of them speed by your bewildered eyes. You get the hospital drama of course, but for a bonus you also get an “Exorcist-like” de-possession ritual, the downtrodden Native American soliloquy to evoke white man’s shame a la “Soldier Blue,” and an all-out “Star-Wars” laser battle between the “Manitou” (the spiritual and fundamental life force understood by Algonquian groups of Native Americans which this film reduces into more Star Wars gimmickry) of the white man’s technology and Misquamamcus in space no less. This final fight scene is all so impressive as it seems that some producer who must have really appreciated Girdler’s “Grizzly” sank some real bucks into the final showdown. Somewhere lost in this of course is the fact that the white man, triumphs over the Native American again and at the end we are supposed to bask in the joy of Tony and Karen sharing a cuddle while the savage’s spirit dies another death. Oh well.

After a career of directing some pretty awful knockoffs and even a blackploitation film (Pam Grier’s Sheba, Baby), “The Manitou” thankfully became Girdler’s final film. At least with “The Manitou” he can say that he directed a film in almost every genre.

Vikings, Moors, And Explosions Fill Tony Anthony’s Lost 1975 Spaghetti “Get Mean.”

Tony, are you sure that’s enough dynamite?

Once Asian cinema began to overwhelm the action film landscape in the 1970s, the days of the spaghetti western were numbered and thus the genre had to get crafty or else ride quickly into the sunset. To the rescue comes actor Tony Anthony, an American living in Italy at the time of Leone, who was well known for The Stranger character that first appeared in 1967’s “A Dollar Between The Teeth.” That film was successful, but Anthony was one of the first to see the writing on a wall in realizing that the genre needed some fresh ideas, so a year after that film debuted, Anthony and director Luigi Vanzi took The Stranger way east for “The Silent Stranger” (aka A Stranger In Japan), mixing the western with the samurai film. Tony wasn’t done yet with the Japanese sword epic, as he teamed up with veteran sword and sandal director Ferdinando Baldi and brought in ex-Beatle Ringo Starr to play the heavy for a spaghetti treatment of the blind swordsman, Zatoichi, in 1971 called “Blindman,” about you guess it, a blind gunfighter. For years“Blindman” was next to impossible to get here in the States, and for that reason, it was pushed into cult film status along side Anthony’s fourth entry into the Stranger series: a bizarre, genre-bending spaghetti from 1975 called “Get Mean.”

For “Get Mean,” Tony Anthony reunited with director Baldi and his co-star from “Blindman,” Lloyd Battista for this fantasy western where The Stranger, shortly after being dragged for a few miles by his dying horse past an ominous Phatasmesque silver orb, is offered fifty grand by a witch to escort a Princess back to Spain where she can regain her throne from the hundreds of Vikings and Moors who are battling it out back home. After a train and ship whisk him off to Spain from America, The Stranger must go to battle with the Vikings and Moors (what year is this?), find a treasure that is being hidden by ghosts, save the princess, and collect his money from the witch who offered him the money in the first place. All of this done with several hundred explosions, wild modes of torture, and a demonic freak out scene by The Stranger that would only be matched by Bruce Campbell as “Ash” from “Army Of Darkness.” Yes, there is much in “Get Mean” that makes you think that a VHS copy of this film made it into the hands of a young Sam Raimi sometime along the way. There are some huge plot holes and moments that leave you scratching your head, but there is almost a post-modernist element to the goings on here. Does it matter that The Stranger saves the princess or finds the treasure? After a while it doesn’t, but you just revel in the messy joy anyway.

Besides the above-mentioned weirdness in plot, what makes “Get Mean” so enjoyable are the performances of our Tony Anthony, whose “Stranger” distinguishes himself from the Franco Neros and Giuliano Gemmas in the way that he is more a wisecracking Brooklyn Bugs Bunny figure than a silent stare Clint Eastwood type, and Lloyd Battista, one of the films many villains, who reminds me of a demented late 1970s Ollie Reed doing Richard the Third with dynamite in hand.

On June 8^th at The Silent Film Theater/Cinefamily I had the honor of seeing a restored version (courtesy of Blue Underground) with Anthony, Battista, and executive producer Ronald Schneider in attendance that included one of the liveliest Q&A sessions I have been to in some time. In this clip that I shot from that evening, Lloyd Battista expresses his opinion on the excellent producer work of Tony Anthony. Seen on the video from left to right is Tony Anthony, Lloyd Battista, Ronald Schneider, and the moderator, Rob Word:

https://youtu.be/BHNvU4OzBk4

If you thought that the description of the film was beyond logical, for the predominance of the evening, Anthony, Battista, and Schneider made it abundantly clear as to the almost surrealistic efforts that were needed to be made in order to secure the funding to finish “Get Mean,” as well as the shortcuts that were made in order to get most out of the short money that they had to work with for the time in which they had to shoot. As Battista states in the interview I posted above, “every penny that Tony came up with, ended up on the screen.” For example, in an early scene in which The Moors are about to battle the Vikings, director Baldi had to shoot his extras dressed as The Moors in one shot, and because he did not have enough money to get more extras, Baldi then made the extras put on the Vikings costumes in a different shot on the opposite end of the battlefield to make the scene look more epic. Once the Vikings and Moors begin to clash, Baldi redressed some of his Vikings as Moors and relied on close-ups so that the scene looked like two large armies battling. “More work” Battista said, but it came out looking real. There were also stories of weird financial transactions that kept Anthony on location while everyone else bailed in fear of retribution from investors, or the story of twelve thousand dollars that came just in time to feed his enormous cast before things “got ugly.”

Despite all of the tribulations, forty years later this film was restored to its nutty brilliance and I am glad to have been there to see one of its first public screenings since the restoration. As someone who adores the spaghetti western mostly for its admiration but irreverent take on the American western, I have to applaud “Get Mean,” for the genre rarely gets more irreverent and downright deranged than this.

From Dirty Harry To Messy Diapers: Ted Post’s 1973 Infantilism Fantasy Film “The Baby”

“No, I think that it’s your turn to change “Baby.”

For his output in 1973, Ted Post may go down as having the single most wildly eclectic year for an American director. He scored a huge hit that year with “Magnum Force,” the second of Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry” series about the somewhat racist San Francisco cop who shoots a lot of bad guys but still ends up pissing off his captain. Though critically panned, “Magnum Force” ended the year outgrossing the original film in the series by a bunch. Ted also directed a young hunky Don Johnson and Don’s soon to be mother-in-law, Tippi Hedren, that same year in The Harrad Experiment, a pseudo-serious sexploitation take on the best selling novel of the same name about a Dr. Kinsey inspired college where students are encouraged to do the horizontal cha cha. Much to no one’s surprise, “The Harrad Experiment” went flaccid at the box office. So, if you think that the two films I just referenced are wildly apart in themes, then allow me to introduce you to the third film that Mr. Post’s directed in 1973, a torrid tale of forced infantilism entitled, “The Baby.”

At the core of “The Baby” is bright young social worker Ann Gentry (Anjanette Comer) a dedicated young woman who gets the stunningly suburban Wadsworth family as her case. The Wadsworths have a “mother” for the ages (Ruth Roman); her two oversexed daughters, Germaine (Marianna Hill) and Alba (Susanne Zenor) and their brother Baby (David Manzy), a grown man in diapers who is enabled by the Wadsworths to live in a state of perpetual newborn. Ann’s response, being that she is a seemingly normal state worker who soon realizes that Baby’s disfunction is not physical but conditional, is to get Baby some therapy so that he can stop sucking his thumb and pooping himself in his massive crib. A crazy idea indeed, but mother always knows best and soon mother Wadsworth puts an end to Ann’s wild idea of turning her son into a grownup who could potentially leave the home and have a life of his own or at least a son that doesn’t need his bum bum talced thrice daily. I guess if our hero Ann investigated a bit further she could’ve had Baby legally taken away from the Wadworths, what with his sisters occasionally supplying Baby with sexual enticement and the odd poke from a cattle prod. No, this isn’t just maternal instinct gone Munchausen syndrome, it’s more like a reversal of Baby Jane done during the feminism movement. By 1973, the Vietnam war had been going on for over a decade, and women finally were expressing a desire to be something more than a baby machine. Most importantly, an entire generation of men had been taken away, and I guess the ones that were left to look after the women weren’t seen as the epitome of the manly man, and thus we have it’s most extreme example, Baby.

You would think that all of the above activities in “The Baby” would define it as a dark comedy. I mean, we are talking about a draft aged male prancing around in diapers while a family of almost human Stepfordesque women simultaneously nurture and torment our grown infant into further regression, but you never feel okay enough to laugh at this because somewhere in all of the exaggerated moments is the horrifying thought that this behavior shown on Baby most likely didn’t start last week, and that it is a systematic routine of going back to Baby’s actual infancy. You suddenly think back to Alba’s freewheeling use of the cattle prod on Baby as being done on an actual newborn, and the goings on don’t exactly bring one to giggles. If director Post’s goal was to show a new generation of feminist women who look at a child as an albatross, then the point is well made here in a frenetically unfunny way. You have Mrs. Wadsworth as the matriarch who hails from a past generation, a woman can only see herself as a mother and her young daughters who are reviled by the thought of motherhood. Even our young social worker Ann, who appears loving and concerned is hiding a pretty big skeleton in her closet as well.

“The Baby” 1973 Trailer

A scene that truly brings home the notion that Mrs. Wadsworth is beyond seeing herself as a sexual being and just a mother as any woman would from her generation is the birthday party for Baby. Mrs. Wadsworth gets a ton of attention from the men at the party (who by the way don’t seem remotely bothered to be there to celebrate the birth of man baby), but she soon shrugs off that attention as she remains mommy, first, second, and third. After a decade of young men going off to Vietnam and not coming back or coming back broken, Mrs. Wadsworth has created her own version of the perfect man. A “man” who will always need her, and one who is going to be with her for ever and ever. “The Baby” was promoted as horror in the same way that Larry Cohen’s baby-gone-psycho film, “It’s Alive” was promoted a year later. And although “The Baby” doesn’t pack the visceral punch as director Cohen’s film, it still has enough cringeworthy moments to nestle it firmly into that genre more than just pure satire. I guess that generation had lots to fear from the newborn, whether that newborn be big or small. As for this generation, I immediately wondered if “The Baby” would play well as midnight cult film or would a screening end up like it did in our home, with confused looks and muffled giggles and a bit more than a little concern for why this film was made in the first place.

More than the feminism movement, America’s participation in Vietnam effected almost every film genre from action, to romance, to yes, the family horror dramas as is the case with “The Baby.” A few years later, our director Ted Post to a look at the beginning of our involvement in Vietnam when he directed “Go Tell The Spartans,” a film about a US Army major, played by Burt Lancaster, who goes to South Vietnam in the early 1960s as an advisor who immediately begins to understand that our growing presence there would be a futile effort that would just get a lot of Americans killed. Perhaps it was our major who had a talk with with Mrs. Wadsworth that encouraged her to go into the eternal-baby making business?

Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice and a Whole Lot of LSD: The Sexorcists From 1970 Seen With The Cinefamily

Original poster from 1970 Beautiful People/Sexorcists

My wife Lily and I have recently relocated to Los Angeles, and for one of our first film experiences here in the city, we went on down to the Cinefamily/Silent Film Theater on Fairfax, which is widely known for its rare niche programming to see “The Sexorcists,” a film that they even described as “one of the great white whales of sexploitation cinema—so elusive and rare, even we haven’t seen it yet.” Armed with that too tantalizing blurb we were thrilled to spend our late Thursday night on one of the plush couches at the Silent Film Theater.

Before I get into the experience of seeing this rarely seen cult film, directed by Louis Garfinkle, one of the screenwriters of The Deer Hunter no less, I should say that as a lifelong East Coaster, I have to address my preconceived notions of California that I concocted during my adolescence of watching spacey exploitation films depicting California as land of sexed out LSD ingesting freaks who are always trying to “experience” things that most East Coast Catholic boys would simply deem as satanic. Even more “mature” California scene films ranging from Mazursky’s 1969 film, “Bob And Carol And Ted And Alice,” to Bill Persky’s massively underrated 1980 film, “Serial,” did little to change my hardened heart that the other coast was a deranged place of self-help gurus and orgies. So, now that we know where I stand here, let’s address “The Sexorcists.”

Originally released in 1970 as “Beautiful People” to cash in on the aforementioned psychedelic scene, the film was re-titled and re-released (with a few scenes added in to keep it up to date with its new epitaph) as “The Sexorcists” in 1974. The film begins with Dr. Voxuber (in Halloween quality devil’s attire) letting you in on his evil plot to control the desires of his group of victims. We then cutaway to a pastoral camp known as “Godiva Springs” where our not good doctor runs a camp in which a group of California clichés is put together to “learn more about their bodies than they would ever dream of learning.” The group consists of Boobs (Leigh Heine), a gorgeous example of a wild 1970s California love child, Ruby Begonia (Sonja Dunson), a repressed African American church woman who is not too thrilled to be surrounded by a gaggle of messed up Caucasians, Shrink (Sina Taylor), a pretty housewife who is looking for a quick screw, Howitzer (Frank Whiteman), a hunky and slightly uptight man looking to lay whatever he can find, and Ding Dong (Ann Staunton), a spinster teacher who never gets much screen time. There is also Bubblegum (John Quinn), a blonde surferboy who chews a lot of gum and does little else, Sheena (Branch Halford), a gay transvestite who takes his character to a place that would make the average liberal arts school undergraduate snap in half from political incorrectness, and finally Burp (Harvey Shain), who is mute except for the occasional expressive oral flatulence.

Voxuber has a list of draconian rules that he announces to his California clan at the start of their stay that includes one that causes more than a few arguments which is “no touching under the waist and above the knees.” Howitzer seems the most pissed by this development and the doctor would spend the entirety of the film, pulling him off of almost every woman in the camp at some point, much to the delight of the Cinefamily crowd. And as I now write about this evening’s crowd at Cinefamily, I would be remiss in my duties to not share their favorite moment, which seems to go off about every ten minutes of the film: an EST-style primal scream that each character does in an ISO shot directly into the camera. They come as randomly as the rest of the plot, and those moments are always met with a good laugh from the audience because they frankly are pretty damn funny. Voxuber spends most of the film putting our group of 1970s California cartoon characters through a series of random self-help exercises but seems to spend most time with the most repressed Ruby Begonia, trying to bring her to a state of self-induced seizure orgasm while our campers watch in amazement and joy. Even after such an experience, Ruby is still filled with enough uptightness to freak out a room of Junior League women.

You may be wondering where the mandatory LSD scenes are hiding, and they are of course near the end of our film when or Voxuber dispenses his LSD infused brandy. An all-night group grope ensues of the trippy kind, but the next day the fuzz is there to whisk Voxuber away because (drum roll) he’s not an actual doctor. Oh no! What is our group to do with Dr. Voxuber’s list of commandments? I guess they just have an even bigger orgy involving a series of shots of underwater boobies and wee wees which is really the only time the “sex” in “Sexorcists” appears on the screen. Now comes another added scene of Dr. Voxuber (now looking a tad like Jon Lovitz’s SNL devil) explaining his successful execution of his master plan or the “orcists” portion of “Sexorcists.”

The evening ended with the Cinefamily curators receiving an ovation of the almost packed house and a promise from them to search for more lost cult films if we liked “The Sexorcists.” I then wondered at this moment how a film like this would’ve played out to an East Coast cult film crowd who might be looking at these characters with the same level of “you see, I told you they are all freaks out here” lodged in their subconscious as it was with me at the start of this evening. Then the thought occurred to me that California residents in attendance might actually have known real people like the ones depicted in the film, which brought me my first moment of actual horror from the evening.

LILY & GENEROSO 4EVER!

LOST IN THE 1970s WITH GENEROSO