Billed as a "documentary" about a rock music festival "near one of America's largest cities," this hippie hokum stars Florida's own Terri Juston (Miss Leslie's Dolls) along with future hardcore heavy hitters Jamie Gillis (Abigail Leslie Is Back In Town), Marc "10 1/2" Stevens (Teenage Hitchhikers), and "Tanya Tickler" from It Happened In Hollywood. Written, produced, and directed by the pseudonymous "A. J. Romero." Only the film's trailer survives.
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Harry Kerwin (Strange Rampage), the younger brother of Bill (Blood Feast) Kerwin, wrote and directed this oddball 1970 Miami-based mash-up of nudist film, Please Don't Touch Me-style sex hang-up exposé, and full-frontal investigation of the swinging lifestyle. Both brothers also appear in the film, with Bill starring as Steve, a television cameraman whose wife Lori (Suzan Thomas from Odd Triangle) avoids his amorous affections. So naturally he follows the advice of his friend George (Brad Grinter from Blood Freak) and takes her to a nudist colony. What follows revolves around a secret plot concocted by George and his wife Liz (Sherry Nealson from nothing else) to induct Steve and Lori in their swingers' circle. With Harry and Bill's sister Betty and Bill's daughter Barbara as sun worshippers along with appearances from numerous bosom buddies of Grinter from Spartan's Tropical Gardens Nudist Camp. The title referenced Richard Brooks' raunchy adaptation of Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird Of Youth (1962), also filmed in South Florida.
A long-lost Los Angeles production, the sole directorial credit for "Peter Duncan Fox," Millionaire's Women (1969) is today known primarily through its hyperbolic pressbook synopsis:
Hollywood, the fun ground of America. Where glamorous guys and gals do their thing. Our picture takes you a few blocks away from Sunset Strip, and deposits you in the heart of lavish Beverly Hills, right amongst the "MILLIONAIRE WOMEN." The bold color camera has captured the wild uninhibited habits of the mink coated jet set. We take you there and let you watch their private games. See for yourself how these glamorous creatures conduct themselves while their husbands play the same game with other men's wives. For the first time on any screen you will see poolside parties, why husbands come home late from the office, and the hideaway swinging nightclubs where the Millionaire's Women spend their free time. This film is not intended to be an expose. The story you will see is true and any similarity to living people is not coincidental. In a super fast 80 MINUTES, the screen will show you things that your eyes will find hard to believe. You will have to judge for yourself... is "MILLIONAIRE WOMEN" fact or fiction. South Florida's Bud Irwin, aka Mr. Bunny Yeager, directed this 1964 omnibus film that features six tales with the painfully unfunny Pauly Dash as a henpecked husband who dreams up fantasies of fleshy femmes who don't wear hair curlers. Cinematography by Yeager. Irwin reused the title in 1971 but with more nudity and simulated sex. This latter version featured Terri Juston (Room 11), busy Bill Rogers (Shanty Tramp) and (then) married couple Chuck Traynor and Linda Lovelace (Deep..., uh, you know).
Brooklyn's Harvey Court (The Vixens) picked up a 1963 French film entitled La prostitution and edited in new softcore sex scenes shot in New York to create To Be A Woman (1967). The original, written and directed by Maurice Boutel (Brigade des moeurs "Morality Brigade"), starred Etchinka Choureau from Michelangelo Antonioni's The Vanquished, Evelyne Dassas from Robert Hossein's The Vampire Of Düsseldorf, and former Crazy Horse dancer Rita Cadillac from lurid Spanish crime film The Unsatisfied (1961). Also with Robert Dalban from the 1964 Fantomas.
Mr. B.I.G., aka Bert I. Gordon (Tormented), produced and directed this 1965 sci-fi spoof aimed at the teen market but hedging its bets with eyefuls of Brogdingnagian go-go gals for post-pubescent punters. The trouble starts when young Ron "Opie" Howard, freed from the clutches of Aunt Bea, invents a growth serum that transforms cats, ducks, spiders, and teenagers into towering behemoths. It's all based on a novel by that teen favorite H.G. Wells, who would likely have dropped dead had he not already expired twenty years prior to Gordon's depredation. With a who's who of young television and films stars including Howard as well as Johnny "The Rifleman" Crawford, Tommy (Swiss Family Robinson) Kirk, and boyish Beau Bridges (The Red Pony). Also with choreographer Toni Basil of "Mickey" infamy and jiggly Joy Harmon from One Way Wahine.
Another apparently lost Barry Mahon production, Girl Smugglers (1967) is a mystery. Direction is credited to British filmmaker Bob Kellett (The Chastity Belt), with a script also of U.K. origin (writers Caryl Brahms and Ned Sherrin), but was filmed in New York City with local sexploitation regulars such as former Broadway hopeful Lucky Kargo from Chuck McCann's The Projectionist (1970) and Christine Cybelle (Come Ride The Wild Pink Horse). It's about a sinister plot to kidnap schoolgirls in Puerto Rico and smuggle them into the Big Apple as sex slaves.
The 1950 Geman jungle adventure Die Göttin vom Rio Beni from director Franz Eichhorn (The Green Hell) was dubbed into English and released in the U.S. two years later by United Artists. The UA campaign should look familiar to aficionados of ballyhoo, particularly of the "mondo" genre. Helmuth Schneider (Dirty Heroes) is Edgar, who as a child was the sole escapee of a headhunter attack during an expedition into the wilds of Brazil's Matto Grosso. Now an adult, Edgar leads an expedition in hopes of finding his missing father. Also featuring former ballerina Angelika Hauff (1944's Melusine) as Edgar's "white goddess" love interest. Exhibitors were advised to "Display pirana (sic) fish" inside the theater and to "arrange with local museum or individual collector of Inca relics to lend them to you for display in the lobby!"
Eichhorn, with the help of Eugenio Martin (1972's Horror Express) remade the film in 1964 as Die goldene Göttin vom Rio Beni with Pierre Brice from Mill Of The Stone Women (1960) and lots more gore. Often considered hard-bitten director Sam Fuller's weakest work, the 1969 Shark (aka Man-Eater) starred Burt Reynolds as a smarmy gun-runner who runs afoul of treasure hunters in a Sudanese coastal village (actually Colima, Mexico). Fuller disowned the film after the producers hired hack Rafael Portillo (Midnight Dolls) to recut it under the supervision of schlockmeister Herbert L. Strock (The Crawling Hand). Fuller's trademark cynicism took the biggest hit, though Excelsior Pictures eagerly used the actual death during filming of stuntman Jose Marco, the victim of a Great White that managed to elude a safety barrier, as a promotional gimmick in a Life magazine spread. With Arthur Kennedy (Emmanuelle On Taboo Island), Barry Sullivan (Pyro...The Thing Without A Face), and Luis Buñuel star Silvia Pinal (The Exterminating Angel).
Flint, Michigan's blue collar arena rockers Grand Funk Railroad were somehow convinced to appear in Weekend Rebellion, a 1970 concert film from nudie king Barry Mahon (Fanny Hill Meets The Red Baron). Ersatz scenes of college revelers punctuate sub-par footage of Mark Farner and crew along with country soul crooner Billy Joe Royal, Nuggets-era frat band The Swingin' Medallions, "beach" music big-timers The Tams, and others. It was paired with Mahon's ridiculous Musical Mutiny from the same year, with proto-metal band Iron Butterfly leading a pack of never-rans such as The Grit and the "barock" New Society. Because it's southern Florida, Brad (Blood Freak) Grinter and son Randy also make an appearance. Filmed at the defunct Pirate's World amusement park, where the mind-numbing exploits of a reincarnated buccaneer serve as pirate padding. Aaarrrgghh!
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