BFI's Midsummer Psych-Out

The Flipside crew at London's BFI have another fine event on the agenda - the Midsummer Psych-Out.

As the name suggests, this is a night of mind-blowing visuals and late 60s tunes, which takes places on Saturday 21st June from 6:20pm. The film program is outlined over the page (taking place in two parts), with the visuals followed by a 'freak out' at no extra charge to the swirling psychedelic sounds of DJs Mariko and Anti-Gravity Man (The Girls in the Garage) in Benugo bar. Tickets are £8.60 each show or a joint ticket is available for £12.50 (concessions £9.25).

Cult Clip: Disco Godfather (1979)

Here's the plot - a retired police officer becomes a celebrity DJ in the disco boom of the late 70s. But all is not well - a strange new drug is sweeping the streets, killing the Godfather's nephew.

Which sets things up for a kung-fu-filled revenge flick, as the Disco Godfather takes to the streets to deal with the dealers, nipping back behind the decks now and then to spin some tunes for the disco massive.

Enjoy...

Coming Soon: Grindhouse Trailer Classics

Grindhouse seems to be a word to  drop for just about everyone operating on the shock/horror genres thse days, but if you want to know the real meaning of the term, you might want to check out Grindhouse Trailer Classics.

Essentially, it's a two hour collection of promo, trailers and clips from movies operating outside the mainstream in the 60s 70s - so expect sex, drugs, violence, destruction, monsters and freaks, all compiled by an expert of the genre - Marc Morris (co-author of Shock! Horror! Astounding Artwork from the Video Nasty Era).

With titles like They Call Her One Eye, The Thing With Two Heads, Three On A Meathook, Ilsa: She Wolf Of The SS, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, Blood Sucking Freaks, The Corpse Grinders and Wham Bam Thank You Spaceman, you should know what to expect. And if that's not enough, there's also a feature on the history of grindhouse, along with  sleeve by horror artist Graham Humphreys, the artist behind the theatrical poster campaigns for The Evil Dead and A Nightmare On Elm Street, and whose artwork has graced the album sleeves of bands such as The Cramps and The Lords Of The New Church.

Grindhouse Trailer Classics will be released on DVD by Nucleus Films on 24th September 2007. Expect to pay around £14.99.

More about the DVD at Amazon.co.uk

The Trip coasters

Part exploitation movie, part psychedelic journey, the 1967 film ‘The Trip’ is a cult classic. Directed by B-movie maestro Roger Corman with a script by Jack Nicholson and starring Peter Fonda, Susan Strasberg, Bruce Dern and Dennis Hopper, it certainly have all the sixties cult credentials.

The film probably isn't to everyone's taste, but if you are a fan, then you may like these, ‘The Trip’ coasters from Etsy-seller, Kate Black. The Brooklyn-based designer has made these coasters from original magazine advertisements for the film, which reflect the dream-like quality of much of the movie.

The coasters are priced $17.99 (approx £9) and the seller will ship worldwide. Visit Kate Black’s Etsy shop for further details.

Via Retro To Go

Wild In The Streets (1968)

On the same record buying expedition that netted me The Touchables soundtrack, I managed to score a copy of Wild In The Streets. The LP sounded fantastic, garage punk and acid rock trippiness thanks to Mike Curb, Les Baxter, Jerry Howard and mythical band Max Frost And The Troopers aka The 13th Power….awesome.

Directed by Barry Shear and created under the auspices of ever-so-hip American International Pictures, this has Christopher Jones playing Max Frost, rebel cum self-made millionaire cum acid guru rock star who runs for election as the President of the USA and wins. He successfully gets the vote for 14 year olds, forces everyone over 30 into retirement camps and dispenses LSD as a form of control. He seems unstoppable…or is he?

I saw this film in America a few years ago and time hasn’t diminished my regard for this strongly acted classic of its genre. It really stands head and shoulders above the other late 60s teen exploitation, counter culture, anti-establishment flicks and even got an Oscar nomination. It features great over-the-top turns by a young Richard Pryor, Shelley Winters, Hal Holbrook and Diane Varsi and songs, Shape Of Things To Come, Free Loving and Wild In The Streets are uniformly excellent..

Again, Youtube come to our rescue with some great footage from another hard-to-get long lost gem...

Mark Ellis

DVD Review: Satan's Sadists (1969)

B-movie maestro Al Adamson explored many genres when he was making films in the sixties and seventies including horror, blaxploitation and sexploitation. Satan's Sadists (1969) was his entry into the biker genre which became extremely popular during the sixties. Adamson made Satan's Sadists in one week on a shoestring budget and it shows, but if you’re in the mood for some good b-movie biker fun, it's well worth a look.

The film stars American actor and movie legend Russ Tamblyn as the leader of a ruthless motorcycle gang called Satan’s Sadists. Tamblyn leads his drug-taking motorcycle gang on a deadly rampage through the California desert as they leave a trail of corpses in their wake. When the bikers come in contact with an ex-Marine named Johnny (Gary Kent) just back from Vietnam, their luck starts to change and the members of Satan’s Sadists are soon forced to pay for their crimes.

Most of the actors are rather forgettable except for Russ Tamblyn who gets to deliver the best lines in the film and seems to genuinely be having fun as the gang leader Anchor. John 'Bud' Cardos is also good as the mohawk wearing biker called Firewater and he does all of his own stunts in the film. The director’s wife Regina Carrol plays Tamblyn’s neglected love interest 'Freak Out' Girl and she has some memorable scenes as well.

Psych Out (1968)

“They’ll ask for a dime with hungry eyes, but they’ll give you love for nothing!” ran the sensational blurb on its release. Psych Out was easily the most successful movie depicting San Francisco during the legendary “Summer of Love” although lets not get too excited here.

While the world watched on in varying degrees of intrigue at the antics of the love generation, few filmmakers ventured out to catch the lightning on Haight Ashbury’s streets, leaving Psych Out as the sole dramatisation of the period. Psych Out’s producer, TV pop impresario Dick Clark, was evidently keeping a watchful eye on the hippy phenomena, and despite his Hollywood leanings, he managed to lift a sizeable chunk of ambience from the hippy hangouts of San Francisco.

The cast took a young Jack Nicholson, by then on the cusp of moving from Biker B-flicks to the mainstream, and Susan Strasberg, whose innocent beauty was enough to secure a fair amount of love interest on screen. The plot concerns Strasberg’s deaf alter ego arriving in town in search of her renegade brother. With nowhere to stay, she’s picked up by Nicholson and his band of musos, who act as her guide and mentor around San Francisco. With her elusive brother playing an intricate game of hide and seek, she ends up being dosed with STP, a concoction known to fry even the wackiest of brains. Although this all might sound a trifle sensationalist, there’s little to offend here.

AIP, the film’s producing agent, had been badly burned after their previous effort, The Trip, ran into all manner of problems with the censors due to its veiled promotion of LSD. As a result, Psych Out held back on any obvious drug promotion or slap and tickle. Visually, there’s fair bit of visual vox pop from the Haight, while The Seeds and Strawberry Alarm Clock offer up some psychedelic intrigue for the soundtrack. Within a year, Nicholson would lift off into stardom, leaving behind the likes of Psych Out to be picked over by historians of the period.

(c) Simon Wells 2007

More about the DVD at Amazon.co.uk

DVD Review: Valley Of The Dolls 40th Anniversary Edition (1967)

Valley Of The Dolls is (or was) one of the most successful novels of all time, shifting in the region of 30 million copies. For Hollywood, it was commercial gold, despite the critics being far from positive about the big screen adaptation. Does it rate any better 40 years on? Well, in a word, yes.

Valley Of The Dolls in 2007 is a very different beast, less serious drama, more camp classic, with all the associated tragedy and laughable dialogue, not to mention a plot that would be laughed out of a soap operas. And it's all the better for it.

That plot centres around three very different women, Anne Welles (Barbara Parkins), a graduate heading to the big city for a big career, showbiz glamour girl Jennifer North (Sharon Tate), trying desperately to be more than just a body and Neely O'Hara (Patty Duke), a talented singer on the rise in the clubs and movies.

Girls Gone Bad - The Delinquent Dames Collection

If you like your dames dolled up and packing heat, you won't want to miss Passport Video's new NTSC Region-1 DVD set called Girls Gone Bad - The Delinquent Dames Collection. This 5 disc set contains 25 different films spanning a 35 year period from 1930-1965. The movies in the collection feature many beautiful bad girls in low-budget exploitation films centering around crime, gangs, sex, prostitution, drugs and teenage rebellion.

A few of the cult classics you'll find in the Girls Gone Bad - The Delinquent Dames Collection include Party Girl (1930), Cocaine Fiends (1936), Slaves In Bondage (1937), Mad Youth (1940), Lady Gangster (1942), Delinquent Daughters (1944), Blonde Ice (1948), She Shoulda Said No (1949), The Girl Gang (1954), Swamp Women (1955), The Flesh Merchant (1956) and Bad Girls Go To Hell (1965).

Many of the 25 films in this set have been available on DVD before, but this impressive new collection brings them all together for one low price. If you don't already own the movies presented in Girls Gone Bad - The Delinquent Dames Collection it's a great time to pick them up. Unfortunately the quality of the DVDs leaves a lot to be desired. Many of the prints show noticeable damage, but it's doubtful that audiences will ever get the chance to enjoy these entertaining B-movies any other way.

You can find more information about the new Girls Gone Bad - The Delinquent Dames Collection DVD set at Amazon.

Cult Clip: Blast-Off Girls (1967)

Blast-Off Girls (1967) is directed by by B-movie legend Herschell Gordon Lewis. Lewis made a lot of low-budget horror movies and exploitation pictures in the sixties, and I think Blast-Off Girls is one of his best films.

The movie is about a greasy low-life band manager named Boogie Baker (Dan Conway) who tries to turn a small-time garage band called The Big Blast into an overnight sensation. Boogie Baker uses every sleazy trick he can come up with to promote the band including pot parties, blackmail and the cute Blast-Off Girls who are willing to do just about anything to help support the band. Unfortunately Boogie Baker has alternative motives and pockets much of the money that The Big Blast earns for himself.

Blast-Off Girls is a fun look at the sleazy side of the music business. The band in the movie is played by the relatively unknown real-life Chicago garage band called The Faded Blue and the movie also includes a cameo from Colonel Sanders who founded the Kentucky Fried Chicken fast food chain.

The movie is available on NTSC Region-1 DVD from Something Weird Video. The DVD also includes the Herschell Gordon Lewis' teen rebellion flick Just for the Hell of It. For more information about the DVD please Amazon and you can check out the trailer for Blast-Off Girls below:

Coming Soon: Valley Of The Dolls 40th Anniversary Special Edition (1967)

Reissued on 14th May 2007 is Valley of the Dolls 40th Anniversary Special Edition.

If you haven't caught it previously, the movie is based on Jacqueline Susann's bestseller about the underside of Hollywood, following three ambitious but very different young women in their pursuit of fame - and how it affects them.

But don't worry - it's not as serious as it sounds - time has made it all the more watchable as an entertaining period piece than as a serious piece of drama.

The new two-disc DVD set will includes a selection of featurettes, screen tests, TV spots, trailers, karaoke singalongs of the music, plus the tracks themselves. We should have a review online before release.

DVD Review: More (1969)

Hippy nonsense or a powerful critique of the 60s drug scene? Probably neither, but there's an element of both sides in More, Barbet Schroeder's tale of heroin addiction on the isle of Ibiza.

The focal point of the story is Stefan (Klaus Grünberg), a German student who hitchhikes to France after finishing his studies, but runs out of money - leading to a spot of breaking and entering to finance his journey. He also meets American drifter Estelle (Mimsy Farmer), following her to Ibiza for a spot of romance in the sun.

Yes, Ibiza in 1969, hippy paradise and drugs galore. And that's where the downward spiral starts. Stefan meets Estelle again, but realises she has a heroin habit. Intrigued as to why she's addicted, he tries it himself, gets hooked, then gets himself in debt to the mysterious Dr Wolf, an ex-Nazi who runs the drug trade on the island.