While rare, Hollywood on occasion births a sequel greater than the original: The Godfather: Part II, The Empire Strikes Back, Hillbillys in a Haunted House. The latter is the 1967 follow-up to the prior year’s Las Vegas Hillbillys. Arguably, Vegas boasts more star power, but lacks Haunted‘s — how you say? — je ne sais quois. Ah, yes: gorillas and Joi Lansing’s garguantas.

Vegas does have Jayne Mansfield and Mamie Van Doren. As the appropriately named Tawny, Mansfield pops in and out of the movie, with each appearance accompanied by that percussive “bong” sound that signifies cups-poureth-over pulchritude. So there’s that. Director Arthur C. Pierce (Women of the Prehistoric Planet), I salute you.

After nearly 15 minutes of country music performances, a story takes root: Tennessee good ol’ boy Woody Wetherby (Ferlin Husky, a real-life singer probably more or less playing himself) is called to settle the estate of his newly croaked uncle, so he and near-illiterate pal Jeepers (Don Bowman) hop in a jalopy with an umbrella for a roof and head for Sin City. Woody has inherited the strip’s near-empty Golden Circle casino and bar … and an accompanying $40,000 in debts. If only he could get some quality singers to attract paying customers.

One comes built-in — and built — with waitress Boots Malone (Van Doren), who likes to sing and dance atop the bar, and attracts the eye of Woody: “She reminds me of a 2-year-old filly that’s ready to be tamed.” Woody dreams many more live music numbers; 007’s dentally challenged nemesis Richard Kiel appears as muscle; and everyone in the movie has so much fun, it ends in a pie fight. Glad to see someone had that much of a ball. —Rod Lott

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I hate to spoil it for you, but in Hillbillys in a Haunted House, some hillbillies visit a haunted house. Reprising their role from 1966’s Las Vegas Hillbillys are actual country singer Ferlin Husky and Don Bowman as, respectively, fake country singer Woody Wetherby and Jeepers, his manager. Jeepers is aptly named because he’s a coward. Traveling with them is another singer, Boots, who’s one consonant away from being aptly named, because she’s played by 38.5-23-35 Scopitone siren Joi Lansing.

On their way to Nashville for a jamboree — whatever the hell that is — the three experience car trouble. With a storm coming, a local recommends they take shelter for the night in an empty mansion, but forgets to inform them that it’s haunted. They see a skeleton, a gorilla and bats that Jeepers suspects can’t all be him “imaginatin’,” and he’s right: It’s the work of a spy ring in the basement trying to scare them off.

As padded as Lansing’s front is, the film is padded even more, with musical numbers; the last 15 minutes are literally a concert! Good thing most of the songs are good. See if “The Cat Came Back” doesn’t stick in your noggin. See if Merle Haggard’s two appearances doesn’t make you wish the genre never changed from there. See if Lansing’s ode to gowns while she’s imagining herself decked out in Southern belle regalia doesn’t make you stand at attention.

The sexy, super-stacked Lansing is the main reason to watch cornpone comedy. The second may be the novelty of seeing horror icons John Carradine, Basil Rathbone and Lon Chaney Jr. as members of the baddies in the basement, which is decked out with various torture devices. For some, Hillbillys in a Haunted House is torture on its own, but for me, it’s too good-natured to provide any pain. —Rod Lott

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Italy is home to some of the sexiest women in the world. So why does less than a fourth of the crazed-hormone comedy anthology The Queens satisfy? Cartoon credit interstitials depict a super-horny guy, which will have to pass for amusement in this Italian/French co-production telling four tales of the female species’ comely powers over the male.

First, Queen Sabina (Monica Vitti, Modesty Blaise) is saved from rape by a passing motorist. As he gives her a ride, she teases him with her cleavage and legs and moaning, which drives him to madness, to the point where he pulls over to chase her. And another motorist drives by to save her, but instead of continuing the cycle, the tables are turned.

Queen Armenia (Claudia Cardinale, Once Upon a Time in the West) is a poor and incredibly manipulative woman who endangers infants, much to the chagrin of a visiting physician. Queen Elena (Raquel Welch at her va-va-voomiest) flirts with a married man in her kitchen; a fizzing Alka-Seltzer tablet is this film’s “train going through a tunnel.”

Finally — and I do mean finally — Queen Marta (Capucine — not a capuchin monkey, but the Pink Panther actress) is a professor’s wife who toys with a servant at a lavish party, being passionate one moment (“Bite me until I’m out of my mind!”) and ice-cold the next — an apt description for the film itself. So much promise exists, so little actually works. Underwritten and underwhelming, this crown is fatally rusted. —Rod Lott

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While fooling around loading a top-secret experimental rocketship, Abbott and Costello accidentally launch into the air, veer through the Lincoln Tunnel and land in New Orleans, which — because it’s during Mardi Gras — they amusingly, but far-fetchingly (even for them) mistake for the planet Mars.

Meanwhile, they’re on the run from the cops because two escaped convicts go around committing crimes with space suits and freeze guns they lifted from the stranded ship they happen upon. Then the crooks hijack Bud and Lou to Venus, which they also mistake for the planet Mars.

Venus is populated by no men — just an ageless group of fine women, including Anita Ekberg and several Miss Universe contestants in va-va-voom suits. Lou briefly becomes the king of Venus until the jealous queen subjects him to a series of sexual lie-detector tests — easily the film’s high point.

Then, they finally go home. Thus, Abbott and Costello never go to Mars in Abbott and Costello Go to Mars. All the same, you’ll enjoy the antiquated optical effects, harmless slapstick set-ups and good-ol’-fashioned alcoholic jokes. —Rod Lott

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Between the big-screen Jackass gross-outs, Paramount releases a feature’s worth of outtakes directly to DVD. And let’s face it: Testicular trauma amid Johnny Knoxville and his merry band of pranksters plays just as well as home as the multiplex.

Shortly after 2010’s Jackass 3D, we got Jackass 3.5, and it has all the snapping turtles, barrel surfing, ghetto defibrillators, dildo rockets, ass cannons, skiing into trees, paintball assaults from an RC helicopter, skateboarding through drywall, exploding cola bottles, skating on belt sanders, enema long jumping, pecker-pecking woodpeckers, flaming gauntlets, electric limbo sticks, fart-propelled darts, horse semen, donkey urine and senior-citizen camel toe that its predecessor clearly lacked.

Why, yes, I did laugh a lot. Thanks for asking. —Rod Lott

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