I love it too. Better than my james bond/Ilsa idea

Cheers mate! I like the cute dog best.

TV CREDITS


1967 Haight Ashbury PD - Ep.4 "Speed Kills"

1967 Haight Ashbury PD - Ep.7 "Freeze! Don't Bogart That Joint!"

1967 Haight Ashbury PD - Ep.9 "The Peyote Killer"

1967 Dr. Brooding Investigates Ep.16 "Dime Store Doubt"

1968 Dr. Brooding Investigates Ep 19 "Bad Medicine"

1968 Captain Teflon The Inpenetrable Man Ep 3 "Captain Teflon and the Mystery of the 7 Keys"

1968 Captain Teflon The Inpenetrable Man Ep 7 "Captain Teflon and the Monk of Saigon"

1968 Captain Teflon The Inpenetrable Man Ep 9 "Captain Teflon and the Death Clock of Artemis"

1968 Captain Teflon The Inpenetrable Man Ep 14 "Captain Teflon and the Cursed Blade"

1968 Fox Rocket 7 Ep 3 "Tina and the Bubblegum Planet"

1968 Vigilante Joe: Trucker for Hire Ep 6: "Joe and the Southside Mooks"

1968 Vigilante Joe: Trucker for Hire Ep 9: "Joe saves the plantation"

1968 Fox Rocket 7 Ep 4 "Mandroids have feelings too!"

1968 Fox Rocket 7 Ep 6 "Gigi and Space Lizard get married"

1968 Jimmy and his Psychic Dog Ep 15 "Schools Out"

1968 Jimmy and his Psychic Dog Ep 18 "Aunt Mimi Solves a Murder"

1969 Fox Rocket 8 Ep 9 "Pitstop on Pluto"

Hal was a law unto himself, none of the above would surprise me.

An interesting, loosely related story. Hal briefly flirted with the mainstream in the late 60s, directing TV episodes for various big stations, mostly in the Crime and Sci Fi genres. He directed 17 shows in all before coming unstuck on the set of camp Space series Fox Rocket 7.

A throwaway bit of fluff, the show revolved around the adventures of six female space operatives and a mandroid onboard an interstellar craft patrolling the edge of the Galaxy. Each week they land on a new planet, solve a mystery and end up dancing to the local alien beat groups.

On what would be his final day on a Hollywood set, Hal decided to make an example of actress Molly Dasher (Green Acres, Black Hearts / Fiends of the Mind Zone), who was notorious for flubbing her lines. He used her prize Poodle as an ashtray and never worked again.

Reviews to follow.

Hal's two dope pictures really illustrates his glorious lack of morals when it comes to film production, first churning out a moralizing anti-drug flick for the Norman Rockwell crowd to tut over while getting some illicit jollies before doing a complete volte face in the late 60s when he creates a Technicolor orgy of positive hippy vibes, body painted nudes and Haight Ashbury Psych bands like The Electric Monsoon, 1846 Lollipop Shop and Pastoral Cranium.

Hal's Restricted Growth picture is a definite product of it's time and stars the legendary 70s porn queen 'Tiny' Trixie Bangaround.

Japanese exploition movies win out for me over the output from any other country in terms of style and surprises.

When you get into genre films, repetition is an important factor. I'm always looking for the how the money shots, those elements of a particular genre that must be included to get punters into the fleapits, are handled in a movie.

But with Japanese films, it impossible to predict what's going to happen. Each of these movies took me completely by surprise. I think they deserved to be elevated above their Women-in-Prison genre roots. They've got so much more to offer.

Your comment makes an excellent point, I'm usually quite questioning about my motives for watching some of the more unseemly stuff.

I think with Hanzo that the central conceit of a guy training his Penis, montage style, in order to glean information from women amuses me so much that my critical faculties are blurred.

I also think the fact that the films exist in a far more fantastical realm than say I Spit on Your Grave or Last House on Left lessened the impact of the sexual abuse in the film. Edo period swordplay movies often have a mythic quality to them and this, in combination with the wacky sidekicks and detective elements means there's a little more to focus on than it straight up exploitation movies. the 70s Japanese stuff is also much more stylishly made than most US trash cinema.

This isn't written by way of excuse for letting my moral guard down, I just think these movies are a colourful jigsaw of elements so the focus isn't just on the darker moments.

Thanks Spooks.

Early 80s Dancehall next!

Don't forget the SHOUTING!

I love this movie and it's a great example of how clueless the censors were during the early 80s.

Amazing that a tabloid scare could expand to take in what is essentially an extreme arthouse movie.

That was the thing about video, it released underground movies from a middle class cinema club ghetto and gave them to any working class prole with enough redundancy money left to hire a toploader from Radio Rentals.

Seems to me that it was fine when such movies were the preserve of film buffs who 'understood', scarier for our moral guardians when the plebs got their hands on them.

This is what I love about new media technologies, the first people to take advantage are always the pornographers and exploiters. It's only when these technologies go overground that legislators suddenly get nervous.

When photography was introduced, it didn't take long for shutterbugs to start snapping Parisian whores for the enjoyment of respectable gentleman. Yes, those pioneers of the plain brown envelope.

So when video sprang up and the major studios were slow to adopt the technology, the little guys moved in and the easiest way to turn a buck was to distribute stroke movies and exploitation flicks.

Several kneejerk TV reports featuring fibbing children quoting erroneous film titles later and Claire Rayer's on the box lambasting "Killer Driller". Suddenly the adult population needs protecting from our innate urge to go on extended rape rampages.

Funny really...