Okay, where were we? 

Oh, yes. Plan 9 was over, the audience was slowly digging their way out of the avalanche of paper plates, and we'd already cored The Apple. The Norris Center was now under lock down, like a reverse-engineered, old school roach motel. (You can get out but you can't get back in.) So that's six films down, with 14 to go. Whoa, we're gonna need some more Twinkies. Stat! And where the heck did I put the Slim Jims?

Fred "The Hammer" Williamson stars in Larry "Commando Filmmaker" Cohen's thinly veiled remake of Edward G Robinson's, Little Caesar, where the Hammer works his way up through the syndicate, leaving dead bodies and dismembered ears in his wake. But to reach the top he pays too heavy a price as everyone he didn't kill during his quest for power are now conspiring against him -- including his former best friend and his wife. (But who can blame her after that forced rape scene. Gah!) And when the hammer does drop on the Hammer, the conclusion really should have wrapped up after the "shoe polish" scene in the climactic showdown with Mr. Big. Instead, in the end, the Hammer is bitten in the ass -- and whomped on the head -- by bitter irony when he finally, and I mean finally, dies.

Black Caesar is blaxploitation but its tone is 180-degrees the opposite of the originally scheduled film, Black Belt Jones. There's still plenty to make fun of, but some scenes are more than a little disturbing. I do love all the shots where Cohen was probably filming without a permit, and as the Hammer stumbles around on the streets, mortally wounded, several people, unaware of what's going on, try to help him. The "chili on pancakes" gag rears itself when Sean shouts it out after Hammer orders something in Italian, translating it into a Denny's blue-light special. And the ending does go on too long as the audience's patience was getting stretched way beyond the point of credulity. But I don't know; me, I still like to think that out there, somewhere, the Hammer is still stumbling around, mortally wounded, going no place in particular ... In fact, he was miraculously saved for a sequel Hell Up in Harlem, but that's a film for another B-Fest.

Did you know you, girls, that you can get syphilis just from jitterbugging? You can also contract it just by sitting around and talking. Of course you're just sitting around in your underwear! In fact, all anti-social behavior will eventually lead to your body parts rotting off unless you never, ever come into physical human contact ever, never again! Well, that'll happen if you believe that old yahoo who berated us for a good fifteen minutes -- but he could never remember which camera he was supposed to be looking at, so I don't trust him. So there. *nyeah!*

This short was part of a promotion for Phil Gladstone's Forbidden Desire a/k/a Damaged Goods that's based on a novel by Upton Sinclair (-- who also wrote The Jungle). It was one of those old roadshow "educational films" that toured the country, where the producers really made a killing selling "How To" and "How Not To" guides and brochures in the lobby after scaring the audience with the film and a lecture by a ringer posing as an expert. (See also Mom & Dad.)

"One Moment of Ecstasy. A Lifetime of Sorrow!" and with the deadly threats of juvenile delinquents, white slavery rings, and venereal disease, it really makes you long for the days of What is Communism? don't it.

Final Score:

V.D. Mr. Cranky 69 0

Beauty and the Robot

(a/k/a Sex Kittens go to College)

Mamie Van Doren is the two-gun-toting-tassel-twirler from Tallahassee. She's also an ex-stripper who's trying to escape her past by becoming a college professor, who discharges firearms in public as not to draw attention to herself. Meanwhile, there's a refrigerator-box robot handicapping the horse races; Tuesday Weld breaks her bra strap to seduce Norm Grabowski; while two bumbling gangsters stumble around with a Thompson hidden in a violin case, but as far as I can tell they're pretty irrelevant to the plot; there's also a monkey banging on a typewriter, who I assume is working on the script; then Uncle Fester shows up; and John Carradine is dancing the Charleston; Louis Nye is running amok; I think I just saw Vampira; and Martin Milner looks just as confused as I am (One-Adam-12. One-Adam-12. See the man about a crappy movie); and, oddly enough, Conway Twitty was there summing it all up in song. Gah. Okay, there was something about the college trying to get some super-grant, and it's up to Mamie Van Wowsers and the monkey to seduce the benefactors, which she does through hypnosis, and soon she has them doing the Charleston. And then the whole thing train wrecks after an extended chase scene with a fire truck. After which, Mamie decides to go back to being a stripper, rendering the entire movie pointless -- eyegitty-eyegitty-eyegitty!

This thing didn't make one damn bit of sense, and I'm convinced that several chunks of the film were missing. There had to be. It's the only possible explanation! And the film's schizoid nature really prevents any pleasure being rung from it beyond the sassiness of its star and John Carradine enjoying the hell out of himself. I got a pretty big laugh when the producer's credit appeared: "You mean Touch of Evil Albert Zugsmith?" This one also hit Jessica pretty hard, scaring her back from the front of theater toward us, and I spent half the movie trying to "talk her down." Then together, we limped to the end, where she bluntly told the movie what it could do with itself. I'm not going to argue with her.

Okay. I, uh -- wow ... In between the last two reels of Beauty and the Robot, A&O Films sprung another short on us. Now it's been my experience that when this happens, the short is usually of a very pornographic nature. Sometimes I hate being right.

This nonsensical experiment in animation debauchery sees the very, well, blessed Mr. Horton screwing everything that moves -- and some things that don't move; be it animal, vegetable or mineral. And most get sloppy seconds. Machines or knotholes, it just doesn't matter. Unfortunately, Mr. Horton's "equipment" has a mind of its own and has a tendency to run off by itself, much to his chagrin. And as we get deeper and deeper into inexplicable weirdness, and we cringe as to what Mr. Horton will do with "it" next, the short unfortunately/mercifully comes to an end.

The folks sitting behind me couldn't believe that I was snapping pictures of this, but, dammit, I needed proof that this wasn't some kind of sleep deprived delusion. While not as patently offensive as The Further Adventures of Super Screw, which they showed a few years ago, Buried Treasure was scurvy enough. Rumored to be the first animated porn film ever made back in 1928, the same source alleges that the likes of Max Fleischer [Betty Boop], Paul Terry [Mighty Mouse] and Walter Lantz [Woody Wood*gack*pecker] had a hand in making it as gag for Windsor McCay [Gertie the Dinosaur] as either a birthday present or a gag for his stag party. Again: Wow.

Charles Bronson's Paul Kersey returns to kill more bad guys, and this time, he has the full backing of the local police precinct because he can do what they can't! Here, Kersey comes to the defense of a tenement, besieged by some local street punks that I assumed were leftover extras from The Apple. Things come to a boil after Counselor Troi from The Next Generation is stripped and gang raped, Martin Balsam gets his head kicked in, and Kersey's new girlfriend takes a one-way trip down a very steep hill in a very combustible Buick. Now on the warpath, Kersey starts out small, using a board with a nail in it; and then a bigger board with a bigger nail it; but then gets serious with a 50-caliber machine gun and a LAW rocket in his one-man crusade for urban renewal.

Murder! Murder! Murder! Murder!

If watching bad movies teaches us anything, we know we shouldn't meddle with an Indian burial ground, get on a plane if William Shatner's on board, and to never, ever, become romantically involved with Charles Bronson in a Death Wish movie or your sentence is an immediate and ludicrous death. At some point during the screening, something in my right knee popped, so I moved out into the aisle to stretch my legs. Mike returned from wherever he went to sack out, and I break it to him that he missed the Toon Porn. Then Tim wandered over and Jessica returned, and together, we tear into this one unmercifully. The abundance of punks getting shot off of rooftops brings the very much appreciated multiple appearances of the B-Fest Dummy being thrown from off stage, and the official Bronson-o-Meter to gauge how much ass he's kicking at the moment. (And while I'm thinking about it, a big shout out to Slide-Whistle Guy, whoever you are. It wouldn't be B-Fest without you.)

There are some days that I really wish that I could live in the Golan/Globus universe where crap like this, The Apple and Breakin' can happen. Actually, it would be kind of cool if all of those were in the same universe. As Ms. Ritchey so eloquently put it "This is like Sam Peckinpah's Breakin' 3". But the riff of the overnight goes to Tim, though, commenting on the film's villain: "Is it possible to be a poor man's Jake Busey?"

Final Score:

Paul Kersey Due Process 118 -118

Project Moonbase

(Love and Rockets)

In the far flung future of 1974, evil forces conspire to take out America's orbiting space satellite by sneaking a secret-agent/suicide bomber on board that next supply ship, posing as some scientist, to blow it's eventual destination to smithereens. Meanwhile, Captain Testosterone is mad because he's been bumped from the pilot's chair by Colonel Estrogen and her dangerous curves. And that sound you just heard resonating throughout the theater was everyone that was still awake's jaw hitting the floor when these astronauts mounted their rocket in very short shorts, t-shirts, and rubber skull-caps. (And watch Captain Testosterone scream like a little sissy during the eventual launch.) Later, when the spy makes his move, the ensuing fight knocks them so far off course it results in an emergency landing on the moon. And after the bad guy is killed, contact with the Earth authorities is re-established, who suggest that since they're stuck there until help arrives, why don't Captain Testosterone and Colonel Estrogen just get married? Sure, why the hell not. What? Wait. They're actually going to do it?!

Project Moonbase falls into what I like to call the serious sci-fi category, meaning no rubber-suited monsters, and lots and lots of narration; but every attempt at scientific accuracy only adds to the film's high hilarity, and the scenes of the ships docking and coupling with the satellite are made even funnier for those of us with an Eveready Horton hangover. And at that point Jessica officially gave up and headed off to parts unknown, while I, in my Twinkie and caffeine induced fugue state, can't stop staring and boggling at Colonel Estrogen's rocket-bra fueled perkiness.  Man ... it must be really, really cold on the moon.

Rocky, Cole and Tum Tum must save their new girlfriends from a Loni Anderson led terrorist organization that has taken an entire amusement park hostage for ransom. Luckily for them, Hulk Hogan is there as a washed up Power Ranger to pitch in. There is much raping and pillaging, and odd hesitations from the bad guys so the 3 Ninjas can make their moves. (How were we going to attack them? All at once. And what did we do? Attacked one at a time.) And I think you know you're in trouble when Jim Varney steals your movie.

Nothing says fun to me like putting pre-adolescent bratlings in mortal danger for my bemusement. And I will argue with anyone that films like this, Home Alone and Ferris Bueller's Day Off are more detrimental to the youth of America than any horror movie or Satan record ever made. I'm always amazed at what goes over well at B-Fest. If I was watching this thing at home alone I'd probably have thrown a brick at the screen. Here, though, the audience eats it up. It was awful, make no mistake about it, but at this hour, I think I'd be ready to laugh at singing monkeys in soiled diapers. And I think we can all agree the most terrifying thing shown this year was all those close-ups of Loni Anderson's surgically altered cheeks and skinned-pulled-taut face. (My god, Jennifer? What happened to you?)

Due to a few, slight, technical-glitches, and the inclusion of an unscheduled ten-minute reel of vintage toon porn, the program was running long, meaning there was only about a 20-minute window to round up some grub before B-Fest headed down the back stretch.

I was still holding up pretty well; awake and alert, and not really all that hungry. (Along with all the other junk, I'd woofed down a foot-long turkey sub during Project Moonbase. And as piece of advice to all fellow B-Festers: at 4am, protein is your friend.) With my fellow survivors, we gathered at a table to share war stories and compare notes from the overnight endurance test. But the best part of the break is to get out of the funk of the theater for awhile and get some fresh air; but it's only a brief respite. We've barely passed the half-way point with EIGHT more films to go. 

With that, I wandered back to theater early, not wanting to miss a minute of one of my favorite films off all time: Robot Monster. Then I tracked Jessica down for a little pre-game warm up for a bit we concocted during Death Wish III. 

That's right. I'm going on the stage. 

I'm going to get to play Ro-Man.