Hubrisween 2018 :: G is for The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow (1959)

With the pedal already to the metal we open on a couple of souped-up jalopies burning rubber and swapping paint as one driver aggressively tries to prod the other into a drag race. Also, one cannot help but notice both of these drivers are not only teenage hot-rodders, but female teenage hot-rodders. And not one to back down, the challenged, Lois Cavendish (Fair), answers this provocation from her rival, Anita (Anderson), leading her into the drainage aqueducts of what is affectionately known as the L.A. River -- seen in everything ranging from THEM (1954) to Grease (1978) to Terminator 2 (1991), where their clash of engines only intensifies in this concrete canyon.

Then, this down and dirty rocket ride draws the attention of a passing motorcycle cop, who takes up the pursuit. But before he can catch up to them, Lois is able to ditch Anita by leading her through a deep pool of drainage water, which swamps the other girl’s engine, stalls her out, and causes a crash into the barrier wall. And while it looks like Lois has made a clean getaway, odds are pretty good Anita, looking for a little payback, will gladly snitch her out to the cops.

And that’s exactly what happens later once Lois returns to the garage/clubhouse of the Zenith Motor Club, currently playing host to a reporter, Tom Hendry (Bender), who is trying to get a handle on today’s car-obsessed youth culture and perhaps paint them in a better, and less delinquent, light. Leading this tour is Stan (Braddock), who is both the leader of this club and Lois’ boyfriend. Stan also appears to be the one behind the push to legitimize the ZMC by weeding out the troublemakers, meaning no more rumbles, chicken challenges, poker runs, or drags for pinks. And though it appears he has achieved most of these goals, meaning they will soon qualify for a national charter on such things, this may all prove for naught for two reasons: One, they are about to lose their clubhouse due to a lack of dues, meaning no rent money. And two, the only real troublemaker left in the group that could ruin everything is, well, the highly temperamental Lois.

But, the movie pretty much ignores this second issue, to its detriment, perhaps, to concentrate solely on the first instead as Stan does his best to translate all the piston-packin’ gearhead lingo into English for the baffled Hendry and introduce him to the rest of the gang as they all start making with the carbon-dioxide emissions, dig, including the nerdy Dave (McCann) and his even nerdier amazonian girlfriend, Amelia (Pelky); the comic relief couple, Bonzo (Tyler) and Rhoda (Dupon); and a brief cameo by legendary hot-rodder Tommy Ivo, who, along with his girl, Hazel (Scott), go over the specs of his new rail with Hendry just as Lois limps back into the garage.

Stan tries to introduce her, too, but Lois is more interested in laying low until the heat’s off and quickly disappears under her car. Here, Stan reveals to the reporter how Lois built her own car from the ground up all by herself and refuses to let anyone else mess with it. And after the rest all clear out to find some food and strategize on fundraising efforts, that policemen finally catches up to Lois and starts writing the girl up for her multiple moving violations, which will not go over well with Stan at all -- and will most assuredly bring down the wrath of her parents, which could officially put the brakes on Lois’ hot-rodding days for good … And, hey?! Wasn’t there supposed to be a ghost in this movie, too?

From its inception in 1955 as the American Releasing Corporation, the upstart American International Pictures had proven to be the little studio that could, culminating in 1957 when the production and distribution company released 11 double-bills and all of them turned a healthy profit. But just as this minor studio seemed on the verge of becoming a major minor studio things sort of hit a wall in 1958 as their latest batch of films didn’t make near as much money as the last -- and things looked even more dire for 1959.

Now, there were several mitigating circumstances for this lag but the three that loomed largest and threatened the studio with extinction all seemed to hit at once in ‘58. First, exhibitors were getting both nervous and greedy, and therefore were no longer paying the full percentages they owed and pocketed more of the profits. And so, strapped for cash, the studio started making movies even cheaper and more threadbare, resulting in four day wonders like The Astounding She-Monster (1957), or The Brain Eaters (1959) and The Giant Leeches (1959), or their ridiculously stock-footage heavy war pictures like Tank Commandos (1959), Paratroop Command (1959), and Suicide Battalion (1958). And these lack of finances also caused a bit of a brain-drain as AIP lost the services of Alex Gordon, Herman Cohen, and Bert I. Gordon, who all jumped ship over money disputes.

Second, other studios saw the success they were having with these types of genre pictures aimed at teenagers and drive-in crowds and started making their own. And not just the other minors like Allied Artists or Howco, who had pilfered a lot of talent from AIP, but the major studios were also cashing in, too, with Robert L. Lippert churning out Kronos (1957) and Space Master X-7 (1958) for 20th Century Fox and Sam Katzman doing the same for Columbia with Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) and The Giant Claw (1957). And with the big studio clout behind them, it was easier to get bookings, which threatened to squeeze AIP product out of theaters completely.

And third, and probably most devastating, Hammer Films had released The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and then followed that up with The Horror of Dracula (1958); both dazzling Technicolor Gothic horror romps of flowing blood and tensile cleavage that resulted in box-office windfalls for the studios that imported them. And so, clearly, Jim Nicholson and Sam Arkoff saw the writing on the wall and realized these old bait and switch cheap-jack black and white double-bills, which had been their buttered bread, just weren’t gonna cut it anymore.

Initially, they shored things up by following in Joseph E. Levine’s footsteps, who had made a killing importing and dubbing over Godzilla: King of the Monsters (1956) and Hercules (1958), and would seek out their own foreign product, turning Nel Segno di Roma (Sheba and the Gladiator) into Sign of the Gladiator (1959) and Il terrore dei barbari (Terror of the Barbarians) into Goliath and the Barbarians (1959), which went over huge and, essentially, saved the company. And with the profits from these imports and others, AIP was able to give Roger Corman the green-light to try something different: instead of making two black and white pictures for $150,000 each they would make one color picture in CinemaScope for $300,000 instead.

And so, while the studio madly imported foreign films to save costs, and get more production value per buck, and retooled for color domestically in preparation for The House of Usher (1960), AIP still needed product to fill up their release schedule for 1959; and so, they scoured the couch cushions in the office for as much spare change as they could muster to squeeze out just a few more of those black and white double-bills to plug the gaps between those imports. And while they were searching for quarters, but found mostly just nickels, they also unearthed an old unused script by Lou Rusoff for a proposed film called The Haunted Hot-Rod.

Rusoff was the brother-in-law of AIP co-founder, Sam Arkoff. Hailing from Canada, where he had written for TV and radio, Rusoff made the move to Hollywood in 1950, bouncing around productions before essentially becoming the sole staff writer for AIP in 1955, where he wrote the scripts to match the posters for Day the World Ended (1955), Girls in Prison (1956), and Dragstrip Girl (1957) to name just a few. “More than any other writer, Lou had a real appreciation for what we were trying to do,” said Arkoff. “He understood how to keep costs down by limiting the number of sets and locations. He framed his scripts beautifully into our titles and artwork. And he always kept a sense of humor, which was a real virtue under hectic circumstances."

A bit of a genre mashup, Nicholson, Arkoff and Rusoff had hoped to recapture the comedic gruesomeness of their hit, Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957), with The Haunted Hot-Rod by adding some spooks and yuks into a standard teenage potboiler of fast-cars, rumbles, rock 'n' roll, and making-out in the backseat. The problem was there just wasn’t any money to get all that creative, resulting in a rushed and shabby half-assed remake of Rusoff’s own shabby and half-assed Hot Rod Gang (1958), which itself was sort of a shabby and half-assed remake of Dragstrip Girl. Sensing a pattern here.

To helm the picture, they hired William Hole Jr., a journeymen TV director, who could work fast and cheap; and judging by what we get on screen Hole was up to that task. They spent so much time talking about cars in this movie, no one ever actually bothers to drive them -- outside of that opening drag race, and that was pretty sad. In fact, not to get too far ahead of ourselves here, but, screw it, the production was so damned cheap the climatic drag race to finally settle things between Lois and Anita HAPPENS ENTIRELY OFFSCREEN fer cripesakes!

And as for that ghost? Well, it doesn’t show up until the very last reel when the film takes an abrupt left turn from carburetor porn and badly lip-synced musical numbers to haunted house hucksterism. And while the film does contain a haunted hot-rod -- well, sort of, but not really, it, too, doesn’t show up until the very end of that very last reel of the movie. And so, always the title man, Nicholson cooked up an alternative designation: The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow (1959), to help ensure audiences wouldn't get their hopes to high and they would get to see at least something in the movie. Eventually.

Now, one notion AIP always liked to flog in their genre pictures was the burgeoning generation gap, where they tended to side with the younger crowd against the older squares. And on this note The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow actually makes some hay as Lois faces down her belligerent but buffoonish father over her brush with the law. For even though she’s grounded for two weeks it’s easy to see how Lois has her father, Wesley (Smith), wrapped around her little finger when he easily caves to a request of moving a planned party to their house, followed by a sleepover, so she can attend both while still technically serving out her house arrest.

And knowing Lois and Stan are getting pretty serious, Wesley asks if her mother, Alice (Tatum), gave his daughter the *ahem* ‘talk’ yet, and then goes apoplectic when told they have and he wouldn’t believe the things Lois taught her mother about the mating habits of the ‘birds and the bees.’ Again, it’s this relationship between Lois and her beleaguered father and her ‘just roll with it, dear’, mother that proves a rare highlight in Dragstrip Hollow, and the movie is lesser for it once they check out after the slumber party has concluded.

Meanwhile, Hendry has also come to the conclusion these kids are alright, too, which is concisely summed up with a conversation he has with Wesley while defending them, asking how would he have behaved at their age if the odds were 50-50 on whether or not you’d be a reduced to a radioactive shadow on a wall at any moment? So, the only reason they act up and push boundaries is they simply have nothing to lose. The reporter seems to admire this attitude among those who use this drive constructively and goes all in to try and help them find the money to save the old clubhouse. But the best idea they can come up with is to throw a Halloween dance featuring several local acts and charge admission to raise the scratch to save the charter. A great idea and all but the problem comes full circle because with the clubhouse already in the process of being repossessed, they have no place to hold this shindig.

Salvation comes with the timely arrival of Anastasia Abernathy (Neumann) and her foul-mouthed parrot; both holdovers from Hot Rod Gang, which, I guess, makes The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow not only a shabby half-assed remake but a shabby half-assed sequel, too. (Come to think on it, I believe Lois was also a holdover character from that first movie, too. I’d look it up but, meh.) For once Anastasia gets wind of her niece and her pals’ predicament, the eccentric old kook offers up one of her many properties: namely, the old Abernathy place out in Flint Canyon near Hollow Road -- known colloquially to the hepcats as Dragstrip Hollow. And while she offers these accommodations up for freesies, turns out there’s a catch. You see, the old Abernathy place is rumored to be -- waaaaaaaaait for it -- haunted by the malignant ghost of old man Abernathy himself.

Okay, look, The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow was already running on fumes long before the kooky and spooky third act kicks in as the whole gang heads to the alleged haunted house to flush out the ghost and prep for the party, which is a good thing, too, because, as the movie then proceeds to crash into a ton of tired sight gags, secret passages, and some kind of merry prankster of a monster lurking about, there’s nothing left in the tank to burn the wreckage. Meantime, Anita and her gang have been wandering in and out of the picture the whole time, trying to cause trouble, but just like with everything else nothing ever comes of this. And as I said earlier, when Anita at last goads Lois into another race this happens off-screen; she leaves, she comes back; that’s it. So all we get is her apology and a promise to never do it again. I mean, Did she even win?!

Anyhoo, after several more interminable songs during this masquerade jamboree, all of this nonsense finally comes to a merciful end when Dave and Amelia unveil the car they’ve been feverishly working on for the last few months. And this Frankenstein’s monster of a funny car is just that; an old ramshackle heap of mismatched spare parts, spot welds, leaking oil, and belching smoke, that has somehow become self aware and can speak to (and out-think) its master. (Yes. This, I believe, was supposed to be the “Haunted Hot-Rod” of the title. And yes. You’re right. This hot-rod isn’t haunted. Exactly. Moving on...) And so, this sentient mechanical monster is able to sniff out the ghost’s spider-hole hidden behind the fireplace because, obviously, it’s the smartest thing in the room.

And while this secret chamber is unoccupied, it does prove whoever has been scaring them isn’t a real ghost. And when Hendry calls for everyone to remove their masks, they are able to quickly weed out the true culprit and catch him. Here, the unmasking reveals a nebbish man who claims to be a former monster-maker for the movies (Blaisdell), who had been recently cast aside and set up shop at the old house for … reasons. Whatever. And with that, we devolve into one last dance number just as the real ghost of old man Abernathy stalks the dance floor as the end credits roll.

For those unaware, The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow gets oddly meta in that last scene. Poor Paul Blaisdell had been the unheralded monster maker for American International since its inception. But by 1959, weary of Nicholson and Arkoff’s good cop / bad cop routine, he was ready to walk away from the business altogether after he refused to build the monsters for The Giant Leeches (1959) and Beast from Haunted Cave (1959) for the pittance offered in budget and compensation. (Both movies missed him dearly, too, judging by the monsters we eventually got.) But Nicholson managed to coax him back one last time with the promise of an actual speaking role.

Of course, it was Arkoff who told him there was no money to build a new monster suit; and so, Blaisdell once more was called on to recycle what he could from creatures past, which was hard because most of his creations were not-so-accidentally burnt-up during the climax of the presciently autobiographical AIP film, How to Make a Monster (1958), where an old make-up man plots to murder the studio execs who fired him after he proved no longer useful. And so, Blaisdell drug out the old She Creature costume again, which had already been recycled once before in Voodoo Woman (1958), gave it a mastectomy, and essentially got to play himself as the fake ghost; and to me, his final speech of abandonment by his bosses rang a little too true and brings some melancholy gravitas to a movie that so thoroughly did not deserve it.

And I guess one should point out on top of everything else, American International Pictures was also trying to branch out into other mediums in 1959, resulting in the formation of American International Records. In concept, the studio would use their films as vehicles to promote their roster of singers and sell some records, explaining away the overabundance of songs in The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow, which netted the release of three 45-singles on the new label. One featuring Linda Leigh and The Treasure Tones (“My Guy”), The Renegades, who may or may not be a group called The Phantom Surfers (“Geronimo”, “Charge”), and Sheboygan’s own Jimmy Maddin (“How’s About a Little Kiss”). The music itself isn’t all that terrible -- in fact, a couple of the tunes are kinda catchy, but it all backfires once it hits the screen due to the cheapness of the production, which is plagued by terrible lip-syncing and, worse yet, a lack of playback during the dance numbers, meaning the cast had to flail around to non-existent music until it was dubbed in later. And that’s why everyone dancing looks like a complete idiot with all the rhythm of a barrel of scotch’d pickles. In less than a year AIP would abandon this concept and would focus solely on soundtrack albums instead.

Now, a lot of folks point to The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow as the missing link between AIP’s old noir-fueled and morality-driven teen-angst pictures like Cool and the Crazy (1959) and the gonzo fun in the sun of Beach Party (1963). But not me. Nope. I think you gotta go back to Dragstrip Riot (1958) to find the true Rosetta Stone, where director David Bradley and scriptwriter George Hodgins gave us hot-rodding beachniks, a roving gang of motorcycle hooligans, a jealousy-fueled love-triangle, goofy adults on the periphery played by famous and well-seasoned players, a goofy hang-out run by an even goofier owner, rumbles, riots, and, oh yeah, inexplicable musical interludes to find the true source of the Beach Party franchise. Jody Fair and ‘poor man’s James Dean’ Martin Braddock make a serviceable enough proto-Frankie and Annette but the movie is absolutely stolen by the statuesque presence of Sanita Pelkey; a former Miss Universe contestant, burlesque dancer, moon maiden in Missile to the Moon (1958), and a long standing cine-crush of Yours Truly.

Sadly, Lou Rusoff died of brain cancer before his biggest hit, Beach Party, got released, where his corny jokes and hackneyed premises finally congealed into a gloriously goofy romp that spawned nearly a dozen sequels, countless knock-offs, and one of the longest cinema summers on record. Several plot elements of The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow would also be recycled, sort of, in 1966 with The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, where a group of displaced beachniks descend on a haunted mansion for the reading of a will. But I’m in no way saying The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow was just ahead of its time. Nope. I’m just saying this metric ton of "derp" wasn’t completely useless. Almost. But not quite.

What is Hubrisween? This is Hubrisween. And now, Boils and Ghouls, be sure to follow this linkage to keep track of the whole conglomeration of reviews for Hubrisween right here. Or you can always follow the collective head of knuckle on Letterboxd. That's seven reviews down with 19 to go! Up Next: Seven little sorority sisters, sitting in a row. They all pulled a prank, and now they all must go.

Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow (1959) Alta Vista Productions :: American International Pictures / EP: James Nicholson, Samuel Arkoff / P: Lou Rusoff / AP: Bartlett A. Carre / D: William J. Hole Jr. / W: Lou Rusoff / C: Gilbert Warrenton / E: Frank P. Keller, Edward Sampson / M: Ronald Stein / S: Jody Fair, Russ Bender, Henry McCann, Martin Braddock, Elaine DuPont, Sanita Pelkey, Paul Blaisdell

Hubrisween 2017 :: T is for Terrifying Girls' High School: Lynch Law Classroom (1973)

Greeted with a girl’s terrified screams, the mood is now pretty much set for the next ninety minutes and change as we open on said girl, still screaming, bound spread eagle in what looks like a high school science lab, who is surrounded by several other girls decked out in the same type of school uniforms -- with a few modifications; most notably the bright red gloves, bright red surgical masks, and some kind of identifying armband worn by each of the girl’s tormentors, who strip her naked, use a scalpel to slash her exposed breasts, and then tap a vein with a needle to let the girl watch as her blood drains into a bottle.

And when the level of exsanguinated liquid reaches a certain amount, this girl, Michiyo (Jô), is told she will expire. And after this torture is drawn out a bit longer, the hysterical Michiyo manages to break free but is herded onto the roof by the other girls, who eventually force her over the edge and she plummets to her death.

Welcome to The School of Hope for Girls, whose mission statement involves turning wayward waifs into “good wives and wise mothers.” At least that’s what the senile old principal, Nakata (Kitamura), keeps insisting while all kinds of depravity and vice happen right under his nose. No, the real person in charge of this corrupt reform school is vice-principal Ishihara (Imai), who runs it as a front and makeshift brothel for a corrupt politician named Sato (Kaneko) while he schemes for his own power; and between the two of them, from the mayor, to the police chief, to the local yakuza, they seem to have the entire city on their payroll.

And acting as Ishihara’s personal gestapo within the school is the Disciplinary Committee, led by the sadistic Yoko (Ema), who keep their fellow students in line by almost any diabolical means imaginable -- especially if it involves genital torture or forcing someone to urinate in public after waterboarding them. And for their continued good work, including “taking care” of Michiyo, Ishihara pays them off with misdirected scholarship funds.

But there’s a seismic shift in the school’s power structure with the arrival of three new girls; Kyoko Kubo (Saburi), Remi “The Razor” Kitano (Ota), and Noriko Kazama (Sugimoto) -- a/k/a Noriko the Cross, a/k/a “The Boss With the Cross” (-- she wears a crucifix and sports a “ahem” ‘tasteful’ tattoo near her unmentionables. No. Lower.). Seems Michiyo used to be a lieutenant for this notorious girl gang leader from Yokohama; and now Noriko, not buying the suicide whitewash by the cops, has gotten herself remanded to The School of Hope to find out what really happened to her friend.

And while playing it cool with the junior gestapo as they wrap up their … uh, ‘initiation protocols’ (-- cavity searches, forced bathing), Noriko learns from a girl named Tomoko (Asano) what most probably happened to Michiyo, pointing an accusing finger at the Disciplinary Committee; not realizing it goes much deeper than that. Now, Tomoko seems oddly out of place at this reform school: an actual innocent and an overachieving student, who hopes to earn a scholarship and make something of herself; and all she has to do is get the approval of Mr. Sato. So, raise your hands if you all know how things are probably gonna work out for her. *sigh*

Thus, Noriko vows to avenge her friend’s death; and not just against the girls of the Disciplinary Committee, but the whole corrupt school system that bred them. Here, she picks up an odd ally for her crusade in the form of Wakabayashi (Watase), a tabloid journalist, who also wants to take the school down. But make no mistake, Wakabayashi isn’t on any noble crusade. No. Blackmail is his game and he’s currently targeting Sato, Ishihara and their whole chain of command. Thus, the road to vengeance will be paved with dirty pictures as the girls keep luring all kinds of horny old men of power into compromising positions.

And not just men as Kyoko lures one of the Disciplinary Committee into a bisexual encounter in the john, who gets so lost in the lust she confesses everything they did to Michiyo and why. And when Yoko flushes out the rat who squealed, the girl has a hot light bulb shoved up her hoo-haw and is then forced to do push-ups, hoping the bulb won’t shatter.

Next up is old Principal “Pederast” Nakata, who is lured to a motel by Noriko’s gang where he is essentially gang-raped by them. But his resistance is fleeting, and soon he is howling at the moon -- which is later broadcast over the school P.A. system, bringing his tenure to a premature end.

Then, Wakabayashi entices several of Sato’s most influential supporters into an orgy with a bunch of college girls at a secret location. Hence the blindfolds. But when they reach their destination, we recognize these “college girls” as the men lay siege on them. It’s all very creepy and not titillating at all in the usual exploitation sense even though the scene is shot with a lurid, voyeuristic eye as the women lay themselves out as pieces of meat to be abused.

Luckily this all comes to an abrupt end when Wakabayashi springs his trap, reveals this orgy was actually taking place inside the school and all the women were underage girls. And as the crap hits the fan, a scrambling Ishihara and the others are wondering what Sato is going to do about all of this to bail them out. But Sato seems more interested in the menu -- I mean, the school yearbook, until he finds what he wants: Tomoko. And while what happens next was totally expected, it doesn’t make it any less disheartening. In fact, it makes it kinda worse. Still, Sato’s latest despicable act will set off a chain of events that will finally bring his empire and the school a crumbling down...

At the dawn of the 1970s, despite an escalation of violence and explicit nudity, Japanese cinema, like their American counterparts, was still losing the battle to television and losing badly. And while fabled studios like Nikkatsu abandoned any pretensions and went full Roman Porno (Romance Porn) rival studio Toei fought on and found a modicum of success by amping up the violence and nudity and distorted soundtracks even more on two fronts: first by abandoning traditional Japanese themes of honor and tradition for the more brutal approach of cops and gangsters with the Battles Without Honor and Humanity (1973-1979) series, and second, ushering in the era of Pinky Violence -- or Sukeban (delinquent girl) action films, starting with the truly gonzo Stray Cat Rock and Delinquent Girl Boss series (1970-1971), before it devolved even further into even more sex and even more violence with the Female Prisoner Scorpion series (1972-1973) and the Girl Boss franchise (1971-1974).

Now, the Terrifying Girls’ High School series (1972-1974), four films in total, was conceived as a companion piece to Toei’s extremely popular Girl Boss films, which allowed them more room to showcase two of their breakout stars: Reiko Ike and Miki Sugimoto. 

And while these two often played rivals on screen their characters always seemed to be evenly matched. Ike was always cool and calculating while Sugimoto was more blunt and feral. In Terrifying Girls’ High School: Lynch Law Classroom (1973), the second entry in the series, Ike appears about halfway through the film as Maki Takigawa, a rival gang leader who has an old score to settle with Sugimoto’s Noriko. But she agrees to postpone this rumble until Noriko finishes up her vengeance quest, and even winds up helping her out along the way.

Miki Sugimoto was a fashion model who debuted on TV with Go Go Girl in All Night Fuji before migrating to films, beginning with Onsen mimizu geisha (1972), which was headlined by Reiko Ike. (More on this film in a sec.) But she moved to the forefront in the Girl Boss series, triggering a tabloid war over the perceived rivalry between the two actresses when, in fact, there really wasn’t any. And on top of her roles in the sukeban films, Sugimoto would make a lasting impression with her ah-mazing performance as Rei in Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs (1974).

As for Reiko Ike, she was still in her late teens (allegedly) when Toei Studios “discovered” her, either as a model or working in a nightclub. She made her debut in the first Girl Boss movie, Queen Bee Strikes Again (1971). And then a media frenzy erupted following the release of Onsen mimizu geisha, part of the Hot Springs Geisha series, yet another Toei franchise, which focused on life in a brothel, when Ike claimed to have lied about her age to gain a part in the movie and was only sixteen when she starred in the softcore sex film.

But the publicity from this scandal only served to make the film one of Toei's most profitable features of the 1970s. And over the next five years, Ike would continue to prove to be Toei’s top star and be the main focus of this particular cinematic phenomenon, with Sugimoto right on her heels, starring in the totally bonkers Sex and Fury (1973) and Criminal Woman: Killing Melody (1973). But as the 1970s came to a close, both of these cultural icons sort of quietly disappeared and without much fanfare: Sugimoto in 1978, when she married a former classmate and became a nursery school teacher. 

Ike, meanwhile, would try to move beyond these sukeban films with some success but after getting into trouble with the law on two separate occasions, once for drugs, the other for illegal gambling, she kinda withdrew from the public eye after her last feature, The Golden Dog (1979).

Now, circling back to the Terrifying Girls’ High School series, the main difference between it and the other Girl Boss series should be fairly obvious as instead of girl gangs fighting against aggressive yakuza, you have rebellious students fighting against an oppressive school system. And while the first film in the series, Women's Violent Classroom (1972), was more of the same glorious nonsense but just in a different setting, the follow-up, Lynch Law Classroom was not; for it was a decidedly darker, even horrific in spots, and way more audacious, easily making it the best installment of the series -- and maybe even an apex example of the genre as a whole. And the person who deserves the most credit for that, or blame, is director Noribumi Suzuki.

As Keith Allison said in his review of Lynch Law Classroom over at Teleport City, “The Pinky Violence films of Noribumi Suzuki represent one extreme of the tendency of Japanese exploitation films of the seventies to combine a very high level of craftsmanship with an unflinching preoccupation with human behavior at its most sleazy and mysteriously perverse … However, unlike Shunya Ito, whose distinctive vision lifted the Female Prisoner Scorpion films to damn near the level of art, Norifumi produced trash that, while littered with artistic touches and surprising moments of beauty, never really quite rose above the level of trash."

Yeah, probably most infamous for the ‘not right in the head’, School of the Holy Beast (1974), Suzuki was a bit of an odd duck. He started at Toei as an assistant director in 1956 before switching to screenwriting. And throughout the 1960s, Suzuki would both write and direct several features. Then, in 1968, he was asked by Toei to write a script about a female gambler, which was released as Red Peony Gambler (1968), was a smash hit, and spawned eight sequels. In the 1970s, Suzuki directed the first film in the seven part Girl Boss series before switching over to the Terrifying Girls' High School, taking Sugimoto and Ike with him; but after the first entry kind of fell flat, Suzuki regrouped and tried again, taking everything up to eleven. For Suzuki is, as Andrew Pragasam put it at The Spinning Image, “almost wholly unique in combining an adolescent glee over softcore sex and hardcore horror, a painterly eye worthy of Mario Bava, an endearingly silly sense of humour somewhere south of Benny Hill, with a seemingly all-consuming urge to unleash savage social satire."

So, what you have here, then, is perversion with a political point. You have to remember, in early 1970s Japan, big business interests and right-wing politicians allied themselves with the unseemly yakuza to rein in and suppress any attempts at social reform by liberals, counter-culturalists, and the floundering student revolution movement. Thus, the only way to get away with any kind of social commentary was to disguise it under an avalanche of sexploitation. And at that, Suzuki had few equals as he fired volleys at every corrupt institution he could think of, be it church or state, with a gleefully anarchic finesse. To which his boss’s at Toei often turned a blind eye, as the more audacious and freaky he got, the more money they made. In fact: they probably encouraged it. And the only stumbling point Suzuki ever failed to overcome was his tendency to punctuate scenes of aggravated sexual violence and other things quite icky with moments of misfiring comedy. You get a sense of what he was trying to do, using it for some kind of release, but most often they just weren’t very funny and made things even more uncomfortable.

In Suzuki’s films there were no “good gals” -- just smoldering engines of vengeance who lash out at what made them that way. We root for them by default as what they are railing against is usually represented as being so despicable and irredeemable, we don’t want these girls to just win but we want them to burn it all down to the ground, scatter the bones, and salt the ashes with lye. And so, with Suzuki’s “aesthetic scorched-earth policy” fully engaged, we reach the climax of Lynch Law Classroom, where Ishihara calls in the cops to round up Noriko’s gang, who then turn them over to Yoko and the Disciplinary Committee for disposal, who take them to their makeshift torture chamber in the science lab. There, while the other girls are restrained, Noriko is strung up, stripped naked, wired up, then lit up with several jolts of electricity. (Trust me. You do not want to know where those electrodes were attached. GAH!)

But Mako gets word of her predicament through the ever present and seemingly all-knowing Wakabayashi, who just pulled off his big score, getting fifty million yen from Sato over what he did to Tomoko among other things. And when taking into account how salacious everything has been so far, it’s amazing how angry a viewer gets while watching the slovenly Sato rape the young Tomoko.

Like all the other men in these films, Sato is both an idiot and a groping neanderthal who can’t keep his urges in check. So of course you don’t want to watch this pile of blubber in a Hitler mustache have his way with any girl -- let alone a girl who represents the sole conscience of the picture. And after she is defiled, Tomoko hangs herself in shame. And strangely enough, Suzuki handles this scene with a strange beauty and grace and solemness that equals the debauchery of her defilement. It’s quite an emotional turbulence, a thunderclap, that sets the stage for the “unhinged catharsis” which follows.

For, back in the lab, Mako breaks in, beats hell out those girls standing guard, and frees the others. And once freed, Noriko and Yoko duke it out, with Mako keeping everyone else out of it. And after a pretty hefty and brutal fight, Noriko is victorious. And as her crew limps away, they find Tomoko hanging from the ceiling. And this turns out to be the spark the rest of the students needed to rally behind Noriko; and thus, all hell is about to break loose on Ishihara and the school. Speaking of Ishihara, as he sees his political future going up in smoke, despite his fiance’s best efforts to salvage it with Sato, offering herself up as a sexual favor in another truly disturbing scene, he tries to salvage what he can by carrying through on the school’s 25th Anniversary celebration, which no student attends because they’re too busy rioting, screaming, and tearing the school down around them.

Thus, Lynch Law Classroom ends with a different kind of orgy; one of violence and poetic justice. And as Sato is exposed for the deviant he is, and Ishihara's regime is broken forever, this primal scream of rage continues on as hundreds of girls break every pane of glass and leave no desk upright. And this payoff, this howl of rage the film had been promising all along is very cathartic indeed as the girls refuse to back down, setting up barricades, chunking rocks at riot police, and overturning and burning cars -- there’s even an extended shot of a burning Japanese flag. (Here, even the scheming Wakabayashi gets his as the briefcase with all his ill-gotten money goes up in smoke.) 

And when the carnage finally comes to a halt, and order is somewhat restored, Noriko and the others can finally take a cleansing breath and soak it all in as they’re herded into several paddy-wagons, leaving only Wakabayashi behind to sift through what’s left.

As one watches these sukeban films a person can’t help but sense some influence on the early films of Roger Corman’s New World Pictures, like The Student Nurses (1970) and his other “Three-Girl pictures” which sprung from there, which were also heavy on social commentary but used a heaping dose of sex and violence and humor as a smokescreen to make those elements easier to swallow. And as those pictures moved toward the Philippines and the women in prison pictures, the influence becomes even more pronounced.

Make no mistake, these were all most definitely softcore sex films -- only the plots were more interesting than the sex. And I guess like a lot of genres, The Pinky Violence films were destined to flame out. After Lynch Law Classroom, both Suzuki and Sugimoto bailed on the Terrifying High School series. But Reiko Ike stuck it out for Delinquent Convulsion Group (1973) and Animal Courage (1973). And while I’ve never seen either of them, word from those that have say they weren’t very good and failed terribly as follow ups to Lynch Law Classroom. Still, I wish more of these sukeban films were available to see domestically. But it is getting a little easier.

Over a decade ago, Panik House Entertainment put out a fantastic Pinky Violence boxset, which threw a spotlight on Sugimoto and Ike and included Lynch Law Classroom plus an eclectic batch of films from the other sukeban series: Criminal Woman: Killing Melody (1973), Girl Boss Guerilla (1972) and Delinquent Girl Boss: Worthless to Confess (1972). The same label also had individual releases for Suzuki and Ike’s Sex and Fury (-- which also starred Christina Lindberg, of Thriller: A Cruel Picture infamy (1973)), and it’s sequel, Female Yakuza Tale: Inquisition and Torture (1973). Last check they were all still available and fairly reasonable, price wise. Also, Arrow Video recently released two stunning boxsets for the Female Prisoner Scorpion and Stray Cat Rock series. I have them both and they’re both outstanding. So they are out there, and I encourage you all to take a look. Fair warning: they’re like nothing you’ve ever seen before. And once you’re hooked, you're hooked for good. But, oh, is it ever so worth it.

What is Hubrisween? This is Hubrisween. And now, Boils and Ghouls, be sure to follow this linkage to keep track of the whole conglomeration of reviews for Hubrisween right here. Or you can always follow we collective head of knuckle on Letterboxd. That's 20 down with 6 to go! Up next: When stars are bright on a frosty night, beware thy bane on the rocky lane!

Terrifying Girls' High School: Lynch Law Classroom (1973) Toei Company / P: Kanji Amao / D: Noribumi Suzuki / W: Tatsuhiko Kamoi / C: Jûhei Suzuki / E: Kôzô Horiike / M: Masao Yagi / S: Miki Sugimoto, Reiko Ike, Seiko Saburi, Misuzu Ôta, Rie Saotome, Shigeru Satô, Tsunehiko Watase, Kenji Imai, Emi Jô, Nobuo Kaneko, Yukiko Asano, Ryôko Ema