Attack of the 50ft. Blogathon!

Well, since I had so much fun the last time, I am once more answering the call and will participate in Nathanael Hood's latest blogathon over at The Forgotten Classics of Yesteryear. This time, participants will be going all Bobby "Boris" Pickett on some gonzoidal monster movie gold nuggets from the 1950's. Some well known, others not so much. As for my choice of fantastic fright flicks, I'm gonna go off the beaten path a bit to tackle Richard E. Cunha's nefariously wonky piece of cheezecake cum proto-Nazisploitation insanity better known as...

It's totally Cunhalogical, folks. And that is freakin' terrifying.

Stay tuned!

I'm participating. Are you?

The Hunt is On.

See! This is what happens when you fall down one of them there Google image holes. And now that I've found it, even though there is no way it could ever live up to that poster, I. must. see. this. movie. And after a little more digging I found an alternative title, Massacre in Dinosaur Valley, meaning, dammit, to scratch this irritable irresistible itch, I've got one more Italiano Cannibal Atrocity flick to sit through. *sigh*

Netflix'd :: Clearing Out the Instant Que :: American International Blows a Gasket and Throws a Rod with Lew Landers' Hot Rod Gang (1958)

When the rent comes due on their clubhouse, Johnny (Ashley), the leader of our Hot Rod Gang, has a plan to get the scratch to get the landlord off their backs. Now, this plan entails him winning the next big drag race. Of course, to do that, he must first raise some cash to finish fine-tuning his jalopy first. (In fact, I don't even think the thing is built yet. Anyhoo...) 

Luckily, his new girl, Jody (Fair), has a back-up plan to raise the cash and fix the car so they can win the race to make the rent and save their clubhouse. Seems she knows Gene Vincent, and the girl is convinced she can sway the Be-Bop-a-Lula'n rockabilly wild-man to put on a show so they can raise the cash and fix the car to win the race and make the rent to save their clubhouse.

Alas, Vincent is booked solid, but the singer is acutely aware of Johnny's own singing prowess and convinces him that he should be the one to put on a show so they can raise the cash and fix the car to win the race and make the rent to save their clubhouse. 

But! Johnny refuses, citing that if his kooky old aunts (-- not to mention they're his sole meal ticket --) will disown him if they ever found out about his double-life as a Grease-Ball Hot-Roddin' Rock 'n' Roller.

Ah! But Vincent and Jody brainstorm a way around that and cook up a bop'n beatnik disguise for Johnny.

Thus, our bearded and pompadour'd heartthrob can jive and wail, like, incognito, man, so he can put on the show to raise the cash and fix the car to win the race and make the rent to save their clubhouse...

Wow. Just another heaping helping of crock-n-bull provided by veteran American International stock screenwriter, Lou Rusoff, with Lew Landers just walking everyone through it as fast as he possibly can. And did I mention that Johnny is also being framed for series of car thefts by his rival racers? 

No, well, then lets just forget I brought this moral clause up. I'm having a hard enough time dealing with those Spinster Aunts and their wild attempts to be hip to the hep. Yeesh.

Okay, I didn't think it was possible, but John Ashely is actually worse at the onscreen Rock 'n' Roll thing than Arch Hall Jr -- The Choppers (1961), Wild Guitar (1962). All of his performances are canned and dubbed in, and I wouldn't even venture a guess as to if that's really him singing or not. 

Now I've always liked Ashley as a supporting beachnik for Frankie and Annette -- Bikini Beach (1964), Beach Blanket Bingo (1965), and I loved his later producing work in the Philippines -- The Woman Hunt (1972) Black Mama, White Mama (1973), but his early starring vehicles for AIP were pretty odious and this thing does little to blow that particular cinematic Bell Curve.

Luckily, we do have Gene Vincent anchoring the movie, and, along with the Blue Caps, he performs "Dance in the Street", "Dance to the Bop", "Lovely Loretta" and "Baby Blue." I know Eddie Cochran's back-up band shows up, too, but why Cochran himself doesn't make an appearance is anyone's guess. 

And one can only laugh at Ashley's beatnik as, once more, the brass at AIP understood the beat culture about as well as they did the hippie and biker scene, losing almost everything in their translation.

I swear, I normally have a high tolerance for this kind of venture, but even I have my limits. Add it all up and this whole can of stoopidity known as Hot Rod Gang is, more or less, just plain stupid. 

Other Points of Interest:

Poster campaign for Hot Rod Gang at the Archive.

Newspaper ads for Hot Rod Gang at the Morgue.   

Hot Rod Gang (1958) Indio Productions :: American International Pictures / EP: Charles Rogers / P: Lou Rusoff / AP: Lou Kimzey / D: Lew Landers / W: Lou Rusoff / C: Floyd Crosby / E: Robert S. Eisen / M: Ronald Stein / S: John Ashley, Jody Fair, Steve Drexel, Doodles Weaver, Dub Taylor, Dorothy Neumann, Helen Spring, Gene Vincent

Why We Fight...

Video courtesy of tfwhaling3.

There a more days than less where I fear we, as a country, have lost something that we will never, ever get back. But sometimes ... sometimes something as a simple as a piece of music can rekindle your faith in the potential of what was and what could be again.

Thank you, Mr. Copland.

Happy Independence Day, all.

We Aim to Please, You Aim, too, Please :: Or John Wayne and the Fine Art of Bathroom Etiquette.

Just so we're clear, sporting one of John Wayne's finest performances, with Bruce Dern at his most vilest, a haunting score by John Williams, and some stunning cinematography courtesy of Robert Surtees, all combining for a rousing good time, owning the DVD of Mark Rydell's The Cowboys is worth it for the movie all by itself and all the bonus features are just gravy. Still, the bonus materials provided on Warner Bros.' Deluxe Edition are pretty damned cool. Included is a vintage featurette shot during the filming back in 1971 that focuses on breaking in the young cast members.


For his cowboys -- stress on the boys, the savvy Rydell split them down the middle, with half having an acting background, the other already firm in the fine art of ranching and rodeos. They gelled perfectly.


The second major bonus feature is a cast reunion with Dern, A. Martinez (Cimarron), Stephen Hudis (Charlie), and Norman Howell (Weedy) joining Rydell for a roundtable discussion on the movie and its major players, Wayne, Dern, and Roscoe Lee Browne. (Browne and Robert Carradine contribute via taped interviews.) And here, I encountered the biggest laugh I've had in a long time when the director related a story about having dinner with the Duke:

"Walk into a restaurant with John Wayne in Santa Fe was like walking in with Lincoln or something. He signed everybody's autograph; he went over and met everyone's grandmothers; he was the sweetest guy. And then he walked to the bathroom ... He comes back and the side of his pants is soaking wet. And I said What happened?And he says, It always happens to me all the time. Some guy is standing next to me [at the adjoining urinal, sees me, turns, startled, and still firing, and excitedly says] You're John Wayne!"

That happened to him all the time? Seriously?! Meaning there are untold numbers of people out there who can proudly claim to have [accidentally] peed on John Wayne. Again: Seriously? And that, my friends, is just too hilarious to contemplate any further.


The Cowboys (1972) Sanford Productions-Warner Bros. / P: Mark Rydell / AP: Tim Zinnemann / D: Mark Rydell / W: Irving Ravetch, Harriet Frank Jr., William Dale Jennings (Novel) / C: Robert Surtees / E: Neil Travis / S: John Wayne, Roscoe Lee Browne, Bruce Dern, Robert Carradine, A. Martinez

In Lieu of Actual Content :: Another Link!

Well, ever since my Flickr account went tits up about a month ago I've been slowly moving my digital poster archive over to a new home on Wordpress. The purpose of which? Well, for one, my OCD movie mania knows no bounds; and two, as a public service, providing a (complete as I can get it) archive of promotional materials that haven't been tagged, obscured or altered in anyway (aside from cleaning them up a bit). About dozen flicks already posted, with lots more to come.