Son of the Red Corsair (1959)

~ monsterhunter ~ Leave a comment

Son of the Red Corsair PosterIf 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)” →

By Love Possessed (1961)

~ monsterhunter ~ 3 Comments

It was the one night stand that made him a better person and fixed all that was wrong in the lives of those closest around him! (Except for his son’s girlfriend who committed suicide, but that was necessary for his personal growth, so that worked out, too!)

Arthur is a lawyer who is partners in a firm with his best friend Julius and his father-in-law, Noah. Arthur is a pillar of the community, a guy who believes in the black letter law of what is right and wrong, even to the point that he would rather get his crazy client acquitted for murder than have her convicted so that she could get mental health treatment! Continue reading “By Love Possessed (1961)” →

Tiger of the Seven Seas (1962)

~ monsterhunter ~ Leave a comment

Tiger of the 7 Seas Poster ResizeIs 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)” →

Captain Nemo and the Underwater City (1969)

~ monsterhunter ~ 1 Comment

Though Senator Robert Fraser tells Captain Nemo that he can’t possibly stay in his underwater city of Templemere because of pressing government business topside involving European arms sales, it’s safe to say that after the tedious tours of his undersea kingdom that see Nemo harassing his pet octopus, preaching his unrealistic isolationist philosophy, and showing the models of his future projects that Fraser was more likely just simply bored out of his mind by this salt water addled old fogey!

Fraser meets Nemo after Nemo’s men rescue him from a sinking ship along with a few other passengers. Fraser and company are taken to Nemo’s secret underwater city where Nemo advises that they will spend the rest of their lives there because he can’t risk one of them tattling on him to the surface dwellers about Templemere. Continue reading “Captain Nemo and the Underwater City (1969)” →

The Amazing Captain Nemo (1978)

~ monsterhunter ~ Leave a comment

To paraphrase one of the great philosophical statments/tourism ad campaigns, what happens 20,000 leagues under the sea really out to stay 20,000 leagues under the sea.

The Amazing Captain Nemo (re-titled in optimistic fashion from its original title, The Return of Captain Nemo) recasts the anti-government submarine captain as an explorer turned reluctant crime fighter employed by the United States government. As distasteful and diametrically opposed to everything Nemo was about all that is, it’s done in late 1970s TV movie fashion so that he comes off like the Six Million Dollar Man, but with a kick ass sub instead of bionic superpowers. And instead of Bigfoot, he’s battling Burgess Meredith, whose character appears to have just escaped the old folks home for evil geniuses suffering from dementia. Continue reading “The Amazing Captain Nemo (1978)” →

Love Has Many Faces (1965)

~ monsterhunter ~ 1 Comment

As the movie’s title suggests, love does indeed have many faces. There is its morose face, which Pete unceasingly displays throughout the film, whether he is trading nasty barbs with his ice queen rich wife, romancing his dead friend’s old girlfriend, or engaging in surly tough guy talk with Hank, another beach stud who is openly trying to steal his old lady. Continue reading “Love Has Many Faces (1965)” →

Rhythm and Passion (1990)

~ monsterhunter ~ 2 Comments

Rhythm and Passion VHS CoverSmartly mixing the Lambada craze of 1989 (or about two weeks of 1989 at least), ingeniously inept filmmaking by an unknown Italian director (he twice uses the same pointless shot of star Andy J. Forest hanging up the phone where the camera pans up from the phone, over Andy’s crotch and finally up to Andy’s typically corpse-like expression he wears throughout the film), and a conspiracy involving a garbage truck, Lambada (released for the U.S. home video market as Rhythm and Passion, probably to avoid confusion with Cannon Films‘ own 1990 movie called Lambada) is a sweaty, panty-flashing, occasionally topless experience so adroitly malformed that the main characters don’t matter, the whole reason they are in Brazil is mostly ignored, and the big dance contest to end the movie is a contest only in the sense that there is a bunch of dancing, a banner announcing said contest, and a passing reference to the bad guy having 98 points. Continue reading “Rhythm and Passion (1990)” →