Freebie and the Bean (1974)

James Caan and Alan Arkin in the title roles. We never hear their real names. A couple of very violent San Francisco detectives who keep beating information out of people. An action-comedy that wasn't really funny. Their incessant banter wears thin and most of the "jokes" were just car accidents. Does show the danger car chases pose to innocent by-standers which you didn't really get watching Bullitt.

Detectives Freebie and Bean are after a wealthy hoodlum running a hijacking ring. They find themselves protecting him when they learn there's a contract out on him. 

I watched this on HBO when I was kid, and I for one liked the transvestite hitman (Christopher Morley who passed away this year). Kung Fu was still on the air but I had grown weary of David Carradine's fake martial arts. I liked how Morely effortlessly battered James Caan with karate in a women's restroom. It ends with Caan shooting him more times than necessary which was taken as a violently anti-trans thing, which it was, but that didn't occur to me when I was 13.

With Loretta Swit and Valerie Harper just as they got big on TV.

Free on Movieland.Tv. For $3.99 elsewhere.

Cronenberg's The Fly (1986)

Eccentric scientist Jeff Goldblum is prone to motion sickness. Hates vehicles. So he invents teleportation. But when he tests it on himself a fly gets in there with him. The machine doesn't know what to do, so it combines his DNA with that of the fly.

When I was a young fellow watching this in the theater, I thought it was a good thing he didn't have a tapeworm, but what about eyebrow mites?  

I had a friend who insisted we see the movie again and again, but he refused look at some of the gross special effects. He'd cower in his seat looking away and covering his eyes. Jeff Goldblum slowly turns into a giant fly and flies vomit on things they eat.

Cronenberg denied it, but people at the time thought it was an AIDS allegory.

And then there was the OLD movie, The Fly (1958). A guy invents a teleporter. He gets in, doesn't notice there's a fly with him, and when he comes out he's half-man, half-fly. I took a class in junior high school called "Monsters" where we studied horror fiction. It was before home video, so the class was going to rent a 16mm horror film to watch. We each had to pitch in 50 cents. The teacher read us our choices so we could vote on which one to rent. He read a brief description of The Fly, and because it had a teleporter, he sneered, "That sounds like Star Trek." I had never seen the movie, but I'd seen promos for it on local TV, so I knew it was nothing like Star Trek. In my outrage, I voted for The Fly, but thanks to the teacher's comment only one other kid did, too. He probably liked Star Trek.

Available for Halloween on The Criterion Channel. I wasn't sure if I wanted to watch it after seeing it so many times 38 years ago. I remembered it pretty well, but it was okay seeing it again. The special effects my friend couldn't bear to watch weren't that awful.

Let's Kill Uncle (William Castle, 1956) Horror High (Larry N. Stouffer, 1973)

William Castle directed. Orphaned tween Barnaby (Pat Conti) has an overactive imagination and no one believes him when he thinks his uncle wants to murder him for his $5 million inheritance. He and his girl friend set out to bump off the uncle. 

The little fellow was fourteen or fifteen when he starred in this, but looked twelve. If he and his uncle had made realistic attempts on each other's lives it might have been better. There's a large shark in the murky water of the swimming pool. Piranhas would have been more plausible.

Horror High

Was inspired to watch Pat Conti in Horror High, his last acting credit made seven years later, about an abused, bullied high school science nerd who comes up with a formula that turns him into a Jekyll and Hyde. I could certainly understand the gym teacher as villain, and even the English teacher, but why the janitor? The teachers threaten his future, telling him they'll flunk him so he can't graduate and get into college. Filmed in Texas. Made today, it would be an allegory for school shootings.

Let's Kill Uncle is free on Movieland.Tv. I should quit watching that channel.

Horror High is free on Fawsome. 

The Fearless Vampire Killers aka Dance of the Vampires (Roman Polanski, 1967)

I don't know how much snow Romania really gets. I don't remember any verbal jokes in it. It was almost all visual. A Jewish vampire doesn't react when someone tries to ward him off with a crucifix, which may have inspired a similar joke in Love at First Bite, and there's a gag involving ballroom dancing and a mirror Mel Brooks may have picked up on for Dracula: Dead and Loving It. Scenes of the guys walking around on snow covered rooftops made me think of the scene in Frantic where Harrison finds walking on a rooftop more challenging than he expected.

Jack MacGowran and Roman Polanski venture into the vampire's castle to rescue Sharon Tate.

Free on Movieland.Tv and Cinema Box which seem to be identical streaming channels. Available on Amazon Prime and AppleTV if you don't mind paying. 

Race with the Devil (1975)

Roger Ebert wrote in a review of Albert Brooks' Lost in America:

Every time I see a Winnebago motor home, I have the same fantasy as the hero of “Lost in America.” In my dream, I quit my job, sell everything I own, buy the Winnebago and hit the open road. Where do I go? Look for me in the weather reports. I’ll be parked by the side of a mountain stream, listening to Mozart on Compact Discs. All I’ll need is a wok and a paperback.

I always think about how awful it would be, lumbering around in one of those things, cars lined up behind you waiting for a passing lane. I would dream of driving something easy to park, eating in restaurants and staying in motels which would be cheaper than buying one of those behemoths. Although I would also dream of a car with a TV and a bathroom.  

In Race with the Devil, two couples go on vacation in a giant motorhome. The pull off the road, park in a secluded spot in the Texas wilderness where they witness Satanists sacrifice a naked girl. Now the devil worshipers are trying to chase them down and they're everywhere. They stop at an RV park and the other people stare at them menacingly. When they go out to eat, the satanists kill their dog and plant rattle snakes in their cupboards.

Peter Fonda and Warren Oates with their wives, Loretta Swit and Lara Parker are going from San Antonio to Colorado. Hicks can be scary, but it's hard to picture them as part of a huge network of devil worshippers. 

Johnny Nobody (1961)

A Catholic priest (Nigel Patrick who also directed) in an Irish village is called to calm things down when an atheist writer (William Bendix) upsets a small mob of Catholics. I thought the priest might tell the mob that the writer was entitled to his opinion or that physically attacking someone for not sharing your religion was against the law. Instead, the priest berates the writer and assures his parishioners that God will take care of him. 

Just then, a man (Aldo Ray) walks up and shoots the blasphemer. The priest asks him who he is and what he did that for. The man doesn't know his own name, but an unseen force told him that he must kill this guy. The villagers think it's a miracle.

Since Aldo Ray can't remember his name, the press dubs him "Johnny Nobody". The judge at his trial decides that's a good enough name since they don't know what else to call him.

The priest is called to testify. The defense attorney asks him if he believes that the murder was the direct intervention of God Almighty.

The prosecution objects. It's Friday afternoon and the judge says he will rule on the objection Monday morning.

The priest wracks his conscience. How would he answer the question? How can he be a priest and not believe that God sends amnesiacs to gun down unbelievers? 

It was more murder mystery than religious drama with an idiotic plot, murdering a guy on the assumption that Irish Catholics will believe anything and refuse to convict.

Contrast the priest in this movie with the vicar in Straw Dogs (1971) who has fun arguing religion and science with Dustin Hoffman, or the bishop in Bunuel's The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) when a peasant woman tells him:

"Father? I want to tell you something."

"Then tell me, my child."

"I really don't like Jesus Christ. Even as a little girl I hated him."

"Such a good, gentle God? How is it possible?"

"Want to know why?"

"Let me tend to this sick man first, then we'll talk."

Seemed like a nice fellow. Not that he was above shooting people.

Free on Movieland.Tv.

Gator Bait (1973)

Another swamp girl movie. A sheriff, his deputy son and a family of degenerate swamp dwellers hunt for the elusive swamp girl (Claudia Jennings) who the deputy falsely blames for killing the swamp family's son/brother. The swamp brothers seem intent on raping her. One was sexually assaulting his own sister when the sheriff came to tell them of his brother's demise.

They attempt to rape but then murder the swamp girl's sister (Janit Baldwin). The swamp girl's younger brother (Tracy Sebastian) runs to get her and the two of them set out for revenge. 

I assume this was a movie aimed at an exclusively Southern audience. I heard this about Burt Reynolds' movie White Lightning and such movies as Walking Tall, that any money they got from non-Southern audiences was icing on the cake. Is this how Southerners see themselves? Are cruel Southern stereotypes their self-image?

Free on Movieland.Tv.

Here is an article about the makers of the movie. Claims he got some interesting advice from Walt Disney.