Thriller

Hot Cars (1956)

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hotcarsNick Dunn (John Bromfield, Revenge of the Creature) is the worst kind of used-car salesman: honest. His sales position at the Big John lot is eradicated after he lets a $700 MG sale collapse because he points out all its safety features, or lack thereof.

Dangling wads of cash, a flashy man named Markel (Ralph Clanton, 1950’s Cyrano de Bergerac) hires Dunn for one of his lots in a deal that seems to good to be true. That’s because, as Dunn is informed by a nosy detective (Dabbs Greer, Invasion of the Body Snatchers), it’s a “real cozy hot car racket” for stolen vehicles. Being a square-jawed, stand-up guy, Dunn quits … but then asks for the gig back when a hospitalization of his infant son for some vague malady forces him to change his tune.

hotcars1Steered with no-nonsense efficiency by Western TV director Don McDougall, Hot Cars runs exactly one full hour, giving the story no time to idle. It’s a nice, tidy forgotten chunk of noir with a booming Les Baxter score and winning tough-guy dialogue, even for the dames: “I’ve got broad shoulders, Nick. I’ll even let you cry on one of them.”

That line is spoken by Markel’s mink-wrapped, big-bosomed, kept-blonde hussy (the hubba-hubba Scopitone fantasy girl Joi Lansing) who tests Nick’s loyalty to the wedding ring ’round his finger. And speaking of dangerous curves, the film famously ends with a thrilling fistfight-to-the-death on a moving roller coaster. —Rod Lott

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Sex

The Harrad Experiment (1973)

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harradexperimentAt Harrad College, they preach and practice free love. Boys and girls are paired up as roommates, encouraged to plug away and attend morning yoga sessions in the nude. This is all fine and dandy if you’re a smooth and suave ladies’ man like Don Johnson, wearing a beret and neckerchief, but a little daunting if you’re, well, Bruno Kirby (City Slickers).

Ironically, Bruno’s character, Harry, warms up and gains confidence with his skinny, sexy roomie (Laurie Walters of TV’s Eight Is Enough), whereas Stanley (Johnson) finds out — thanks to his homely partner, with whom he bonds over pot farming — that love can be, goshdarnit, so, like, complicated.

harradexperiment1As heads of the school, James Whitmore (Planet of the Apes) and Tippi Hedren (The Birds) are top-billed, but hardly in it, to make room for all the young wangs and thatches. That Hedren, mother of Melanie Griffith, later would become Johnson’s mom-in-law in real life lends their sex-charged scenes a higher level of creepiness.

Certainly the wildly dated The Harrad Experiment remains an embarrassment to all involved, which makes it top-notch, unintentionally hilarious entertainment for you and me. “All involved” includes Ted Cassidy (Lurch on TV’s The Addams Family), of all people, for helping pen the screenplay, and director Ted Post, for whom only The Baby tops this for sheer weirdness among his CV. And about the only thing more unsettling than seeing Fred Willard in a flick like this is knowing that Brillo-haired comedian Marty Allen did the following year’s sequel, Harrad Summer. Zoom, zoom, zoom! —Rod Lott

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Thriller

A Christmas Tale (2005)

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xmastalePart of Spain’s Films to Keep You Awake series, A Christmas Tale takes place in December 1985, and the year can’t be coincidental. That summer saw the release of the Steven Spielberg production The Goonies, which this film so closely resembles it’s like the unauthorized Spielbergian-tribute counterpart to J.J. Abrams’ official one in Super 8.

With virtually no apparent parental supervision, four tween boys and one girl ride bikes and hang out and watch VHS tapes. One day in the woods, they happen upon a deep pit, into which has fallen a grubby woman in a Santa Claus suit. Upon learning from the TV news that she’s the “extremely dangerous” bank robber Rebeca Expósito (Maru Valdivielso, Romasanta: The Werewolf Hunt), they decide against helping the injured fugitive to safety, but for keeping her as their “secret pet.”

xmastale1They even get a crash course in extortion, exploiting her hunger to learn the whereabouts of the millions she stole. An escape, however, is only a matter of time, and Rebeca’s shuffling, ax-dragging body chasing them through an abandoned amusement park reminds the kids of Zombie Invasion, a film-within-the-film (starring Beyond Re-Animator‘s luscious Elsa Pataky) whose rules of undead-killing they appropriate to get out of their particular pickle alive.

The only thing running more heavily through A Christmas Tale (aka Xmas Tale) than danger is nostalgia. These kids play Milton Bradley’s Simon, worship Star Wars, and rewind the crane-kick climax of The Karate Kid in amazement. That’s not to suggest the film doesn’t have balls; [REC] franchise director Paco Plaza appears all too happy to burst out the gore when it’s called for, and the ending leans more naughty than nice. —Rod Lott

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Horror

Silent Night, Bloody Night (1972)

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snbnOn Christmas Eve 1950, the only thing roasting at the Wilfred Butler mansion was Wilfred Butler himself! Mysteriously dying by fire, he left his estate to his only surviving family member, grandson Jeffrey (James Patterson, In the Heat of the Night), with explicit instructions to leave the house untouched. Twenty years later, Jeffrey and his attorney (Patrick O’Neal, The Stepford Wives) — neither of whom has stepped foot inside the place — come to town to negotiate its sale.

Coinciding with their yuletide arrival, the sleepy small town is terrorized by an escaped lunatic out for revenge, citing the ol’ crimes-commited-years-earlier reason. What director Theodore Gershuny (Sugar Cookies) attempts to pass off as suspense is actually poor story structure. By not revealing pertinent facts until the second half, viewers are left to wonder just what the holy hell is going on.

snbn1That’s why the back half of this mouse-quiet shocker is better, if not gorier. The extended asylum-revolution flashback is genuinely disturbing, as is the finale. Alternately stylish and amateurish, Silent Night, Bloody Night is often slow-moving, but effective in building atmosphere that’s palpable even in the shoddy public-domain prints.

Over the years, I’ve found it’s a movie that improves a bit with each viewing — all but its gratuitous Mary Woronov voice-over — once you come to peace with what it is and what it is not. And it is most definitely not Silent Night, Deadly Night, so don’t confuse the two. —Rod Lott

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Reading Material

Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies: The First Wave, 1959-1969

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hollywoodbeachsurfJust because it’s currently cold outside doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies: The First Wave. In fact, since Thomas Lisanti’s book is dedicated to the sunniest of cinematic comedy subgenres, it might even make winter life more pleasurable.

The title of this paperback — a more affordable reprint of the book’s original hardcover release in 2005 — tells you everything you need to about it, as Lisanti provides the reader without spirited overviews of arguably the first 32 films, from the ones that birthed the craze to the ones that killed it.

Ironically, I’ve never seen Gidget, which started the craze, nor any of AIP’s Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello pictures, yet I’ve consumed more beach movies than I had realized, including the horror spoof The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini; the early Sharon Tate vehicle, Don’t Make Waves; the original Where the Boys Are; and Catalina Caper, thanks to its now-legendary appearance on the second season of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Well, Lisanti has seen them all, and now I pretty much want to, as well. Even when he dogs a picture, there’s an affection to his voice — especially given the bevy of bikini babes who romp through these pictures with the skimpiest of coverage; not for nothing did he have to type the phrase “buxom blonde” so often. (With the book being published by McFarland, scads of photos are contained within, in case the reader desires visual proof.)

These films represent a squeaky-clean Americana that likely never truly existed outside of the screen, but they’re a blast to visit and revisit. Through his gossipy but substantive behind-the-scenes stories culled from many personal interviews (many of which also informed his recent, recommended Drive-In Dream Girls), Lisanti guides us through the gamut, from terrific to terrible.

He notes not only which flicks succeed on their merits, but delves deep into those merits, from whose curves best filled swimwear to whose songs fell as flat as a surfboard. (Semi-related on that note: his takedown of The Supremes’ appearance in 1965’s Beach Ball: “Diana Ross is a fright with her chipped tooth and big beehive wig. Her close-ups are scarier than anything found in The Horror of Party Beach.”)

At nearly 450 pages, Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies: The First Wave concludes with profiles of 23 actors often associated with the subject, including John Ashley, Yvette Mimieux, Sandra Dee, Chris Noel, Quinn O’Hara, Shelley Fabares, Aron Kincaid (who provides the book’s foreword) and — meow — Susan Hart. It says a lot when you can get joy from reading on-set stories for movies of which you’ve never seen a frame. I’d love to see what Lisanti had in store for The Second Wave, but considering this First Wave hit seven years ago, I’m guessing we may not be so lucky. —Rod Lott

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