Son of the Red Corsair (1959)

April 15, 2013June 16, 2018 ~ monsterhunter ~ Leave a comment

If I wanted to see a real butch he-man like Lex Barker dressed in his satiny finest and wearing a powdered wig, I would go to that premium members only web site that’s discreetly billed to my credit card at $29.98 month!

But it wasn’t as if the transgendered appearance of one our great Tarzans was the only thing marring my enjoyment of what should have been an easy sell to someone as indiscriminate as me when it comes to Italian adventure films. There was the nasal and simpering voice used to dub Lex’s no doubt brawny real life voice, the fact that Lex fought sword fights while undercover with a blade that had his real name on it, and of course the pansified dance scene Lex and the audience were forced to endure during one of the movie’s numerous bouts of action anorexia. Continue reading “Son of the Red Corsair (1959)” →

Tiger of the Seven Seas (1962)

April 15, 2013June 16, 2018 ~ monsterhunter ~ Leave a comment

Is there a love strong enough that can withstand one pirate believing that her boyfriend pirate murdered her father in an effort to get revenge on her and her father because she bested him in humiliating fashion during their epic sword fight to determine who the new captain of the Santa Maria would be?

Of course the answer is normally, “fudge no!” What sort of pirate gets beat by his girlfriend and then mocked by her father and doesn’t come back later on and burn their entire freaking village to the ground and then salt the earth just to make sure they get the message? Some receipts just have to be issued in bloody triplicate!

But this isn’t a normal pirate love affair between a swarthy, lice-ridden, insecure brute and his barrel-chested, toothless 17th Century version of a used up biker mama! Continue reading “Tiger of the Seven Seas (1962)” →

Rampage of Evil (1961)

April 14, 2013June 16, 2018 ~ monsterhunter ~ Leave a comment

You know what was on a rampage in this movie? Talking. And planning. And talking about planning. And talking about planning about what do with a bunch of mutinous Slavs.

Sure, you had your adrenaline-fueled moments of our hero going undercover as a goat shepherd (whose herd was made up of exactly one goat) where he fooled three drunken Slavs with a beard so fake that no one but a trio of Slavs who can’t hold their liquor would be fooled.

And when the Slavs stab our hero’s only goat for no apparent reason, we all held our breath to see if our hero could muster anything sufficiently resembling vague confusion at the wanton act of goat-cruelty so that his cover wasn’t blown. Continue reading “Rampage of Evil (1961)” →

Marie of the Isles (1960)

April 12, 2013April 15, 2019 ~ monsterhunter ~ 1 Comment

When the French teamed up with the Italians in 1959 to make a pirate movie for release the next year, one could be forgiven if the viewer was antsy that such a pairing might result in the sort of new wave pirate movie fans of Italian swashbuckling tales wouldn’t recognize, much less enjoy.

Would all the action take place in a guy’s flat with improvised dialogue between three characters moaning about the pointlessness of the human condition while unconventional filming techniques were used to show not only contempt for cinematic tradition, but also for the audience itself? Continue reading “Marie of the Isles (1960)” →