May 2025

When you talk about exploitation cinema, here’s a good example to include in your discussions. The 1960s and 1970s were exorbitant decades for movies that pushed beyond good taste; which, of course, is the provocative and decadent theme of any enjoyable exploitation movie. The Devil’s Sisters took its cue from the real-crime story of the Gonzalez Valenzuela sisters (Las Poquianchis), who ran their murderous prostitution ring from the 1950s to 1960s. William Grefè (Sting of Death, Death Curse of Tartu, Whiskey Mountain, etc.), directed the movie in Florida over ten days. Rantbit has an engrossing write up worth reading. Grefè also directed Impulse, with William Shatner and Harold Sakata (you know him as Odd Job from Gold Finger). The extensive documentary, They Came From the Swamp, the Films of William Grefè, discusses Impulse and how Sakata almost strangled to death during one scene. Shatner, suddenly realizing turning blue wasn’t one of Sakata’s acting skills,  rushed to help him.

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Bob Steele was a B movie cowboy star through the late 1920s to 1940s, working at the Republic, Monogram, Producers Releasing Corp, Supreme,  and Tiffany studios (TMDB). I have a special liking for Steele because he stood 5 feet and 5 inches, my height, and still seemed to tower over the bad guys. He had a brief but unforgettable role in The Big Sleep, and won acclaim for his portrayal of Curley in Of Mice and Men. While his early cowboy days saw the most dusty trails, he still appeared in various westerns including Rio Bravo, The Comancheros and others. He also did the non-westerns, Atomic Submarine and Giant From the Unknown. In the 1960s, he played Trooper Duffy on F Troop. From the silents to the talkies, he had a long, and memorable for us, career.

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Have not caught this movie noir yet, but the reviews are meh. Filmed in ten days, notable problems mentioned with the film include lackluster direction, stifled acting, and lack of suspense. It’s use of San Francisco landmarks and its depiction of a city-wide manhunt provide a unique period snapshot for the city in the early 1950s (San Francisco Film Locations). The movie also made use of voice-over narration that early 50s movies seemed to love. Here it’s more of the documentary-styled type (used in crime dramas) instead of the character-driven type (like in Sunset Boulevard). Noir movies especially used the voice-over narrator to instill a sense of  reflection, and inspection, into the private gumshoe’s mind and viewpoint. See Jessica Jones for a good example of its modern usage. Sonny Tufts (yeah, that guy in Cat-Women of the Moon), had a good career going until his slide into alcoholism, making the 1950s and beyond one, long, downhill run. This period of his life led eventually led to his name becoming a punchline for joking, with it mentioned in such places as The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show and My Mother the Car. Marjorie Steele did only four movies before moving on to a career in sculpting and painting.

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It Came From Hollywood sends along this pressbook for The Night They Killed Rasputin. Here’s what they had to say.

Distributed by Brigadier Films, this drama picture features John Drew Barrymore as the character Prince Felix Yousoupof, an homage to this father, John Barrymore’s, portrayal of the character Prince Paul Chegodieffin in the 1932 film Rasputin and the Empress. That 1932 Rasputin offering also featured John Drew Barrymore’s Aunt & Uncle, Lionel and Ethel, respectively. Drew Barrymore, daughter of John Drew Barrymore, has yet to make a Rasputin picture. If you’re keeping count, I’ve mentioned the name Barrymore five times and the name Rasputin three times, just in case this turns into an internet-drinking game! Brigadier Films distributed only four films in its existence between 1960-1962. The other three were The Tell-Tale Heart (1960), Kamikaze (1961), and The Smashing of the Reich (1961). Kamikaze & Reich saw some success as a double-bill in 1961, and both showed up in TV packages that were played almost non-stop between 1962 and the mid-1970s.

John Barrymore Jr. (he changed his name to John Drew Barrymore) had a lot of weight on his shoulders coming from such an illustrious family of actors. He did fairly well in American movies and television, and also in Italian movies, but a troubled life with addiction problems, and four marriages, eventually made acting parts dry up and he turned away from public life. “Barrymore eventually withdrew from acting, with his final two appearances being a 1974 episode of Kung Fu and an uncredited role in the 1976 film Baby Blue Marine” (Wikipedia).

Try selling a movie today with the tagline “with guts and a gun and a babe for bait,” I dare you. Yes, there was a time where the male gaze was all over the place in movies, and bosomy women were always depicted with little clothing in the poster art. That’s not to say the movies were bad to watch; just male-centric to a point that wouldn’t be acceptable today. And for good reason. Typecasting beauty could be stifling when the variety of roles was limited. But Anita Ekberg was indeed an eye-full and Dana Andrews, even through his alcoholism, was good to watch, with that raspy, pillowy, voice and his hardboiled edge. From Laura to Night of the Demon, he delivered the goods.

The Cobra, an Italian and Spanish production, imported by AIP, was pure 1960s movie fodder with its drugs, espionage, and spy drama. Anita Ekberg plays a strung out junkie in the film. Given little to do except look pretty (which kind of worked against being strung out), critics still took notice of her acting chops. She is forever remembered for THAT scene in La Dolci Vita where she waded into Rome’s Trevi Fountain. She also appeared in Abbott and Costello Go to Mars and Screaming Mimi.

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