Weekend Pass (1984) – Lawrence Bossof.

With its slavish adherence to smutty incident, bawdy humour, Horndog males, ribald hi -jinks, thinly sketched caricatures, and clunky dialogue, infamous Pulp-makers Crown International Pictures could never once be accused of flaunting their idiosyncrasies. Four likeable swabbies savour the sinful sights and perky electro pop sounds of L.A. During a gaudy weekend of booze, and eagerly anticipated iniquity! To their credit, I don't believe Crown International Pictures had any intention of making art, merely churning out easily digestible, lowest common denominator soft core, Drive In shenanigans. Lawrence Bossof's Weekend Pass is good for a oner, even if it is a largely inane experience. In its favour, Weekend Pass does sporadically provide a garish, neon-hazed snapshot of 80s L.A. Along with some attractive ladies, and a pleasingly bouncy score. I didn't exactly hate Weekend Pass, as some of it even expresses a modicum of genuine wit, as the monotony is momentarily enlivened with a memorable sequence in a comedy club, hosted by the legendary Phil Hartman! An amiable enough Crown International time-killer, but, quite frankly, this Naval L.A. Romp is currently showing severe signs of battle fatigue.

 The Marseille Contract (1974) – Robert Parrish.

This compelling, thrillingly hard-boiled Euro-thriller has an exceptional international cast, headed by Anthony Quinn, James Mason, and national treasure Michael Caine. Terse action, a sharp script, agile direction, and another magnificently moody score by Roy Budd makes The Marseille Contract nigh on unmissable vintage entertainment. Grizzled veteran DEA agent Ventura (Anthony Quinn) abhors his sedentary desk job in Paris, stymied by bureaucracy, he becomes frustrated, unable to get the dirt to stick on protected higher echelon drug baron Brizzard (James Mason). Opting for more draconian action, Ventura covertly hires Johnny Deray (Michael Caine) to eliminate Brizzard, but his slick, paranoid quarry proves wily, vicious, and utterly elusive. The Marseille Contract remains an vital 70s thriller, gorgeously replete with stunning Riviera vistas, electrifying action, beautiful jet-set babes, and some juicy cat n' mousing betwixt the seemingly omnipotent Brizzard and no less capable killer Deray. Unlike much of the pallid, redundantly recycled, politically correct action baloney of today, The Marseille Contract demonstratively has both of its balls intact. I can still appreciate the fact that 70s action movie foreplay is administered behind the screaming pistons of ton-up, road-burning supercars!

 Beyond Justice (1991) – Duccio Tessari.

Slickly Gung-ho 90s action/adventure stars Rutger Hauer, Carol Alt, Omar Shariff, and Elliott Gould in a 'Powerful tale of passion, intrigue, and betrayal...'BEYOND JUSTICE!!!'. Aye! I nabbed that directly from the Vidmark Entertainment VHS trailer (YT); while succinct, the booming bathos still kinda made me giggle a bit! I initially thought they might have gone for the more Seagallian vibe of: 'When a mother's beloved son is kidnapped, she would need a MAN willing to go...BEYOND JUSTICE in order to bring him back ALIVE!!!!??? (or, perhaps not!!!???) At this specific point in time, the handsome, wickedly charismatic Hauer was successfully banging out a noisome plethora of boisterous actioners, and while many were DTV pulp, his dynamic presence always brought an additional patina of class.

Undeniably formulaic, Beyond Justice remains a fitfully enjoyable blast of far-flung, shoot 'em up hokum, ably directed by noted Italian genre film-maker Duccio 'Tony Arzanta' Tussari, and enlivened with a rousing score by maestro Ennio Morricone. Fulci Fans may, or not, appreciate the fact that BEYOND JUSTICE also includes Brett Halsey, admittedly in somewhat less grisly guise than Touch of Death!!!! While BEYOND JUSTICE hasn't aged especially well, it is good for a oner, especially doable for serious Hauer completists, plus maestro Morricone, and the exotic locale provides a little more cinematic heft. On a more personal, admittedly spurious note, I quite enjoyed repeatedly saying “BEYOND JUSTICE!!!” aloud in a faux, slightly painful baritone, which I believe was precisely the film-makers intention.

The Pom Pom Girls (1976) – Joseph Ruben.

If you have seen one raunchy Crown International Pictures teen romp, you've seen 'em all, but at least Ruben's boisterous Pom Pom Girls remains one that most closely resembles a credible drama. While it might be utterly fanciful, I've always thought it would be quite lovely if Richard Linklater had echoes of Pom Pom Girls in his creative mind as he prepared Dazed and Confused. Super-gnarly Hot Rods, gnarlier nubiles, hunky, hormonal jocks, prodigious levels of Beefburger consumption, and multitudinous examples of rumpy pumpy-inflected hi-jinks. What demonstratively separates Pom Pom Girls from the more mundane iterations of Crown International Pictures schtick are its likeable characters, and the playful, winningly upbeat vibes, excluding the meatball who got a bit previous with his switch-blade! Make Love, not war, guy!!!!

Granted, it is altogether shallow appreciating a bouncy B-flick based largely upon the attractiveness of the perky peeps within it, but it MUST be said, whomever cast Pom Pom Girls did a bang-up job, as it's crammed Pom Pom-to-Pom Pom with some primo eye candy, dude! Joseph Ruben's engaging, sunnily nostalgic Pom Pom Girls has maintained its effervescent nature, and I still maintain a fondness for the deceptively mousey Miss Pritchett (Sandra Lowell), as she kinda (ish) looks like a lady Joey Ramone Hubba! Hubba! Hubba! Gabba Gabba Hey! One of us!!!!! One of Us!!!!! Additional kudos awarded for the audacious Fire truck theft, goofy food fight, egalitarian views of delicious male and female botties, and Robert Carradine's adorable overbite! Ai mi Corazon!!!!!!!

 

 The Cut-Throats (1971) – John Hayes.

This engagingly smutty example of skuzzball, howlingly cheapnis warsploitation presents a risibly inauthentic US Commando unit, tasked to infiltrate, destroy, and liberate all the salient documents within an isolated German barracks. Expect strong, lo-fi'd ultra-violence, splendidly goofy 'rat-a-tat!' action, Full-Frontal nudity, mild horseplay, wretched production design, and excremental dialogue. Much of this is a malodorous bag of greasy monkey fingers, but the relentless crudity of film-making, playfully engenders the palpable aesthetic of kids boisterously playing war during their school lunch break. One of the true glories of grotty exploitation cinema is the fact you can believe that you have experienced the nadir of Grindhouse drossage, and then a splendiferous pile of munge like The Cut-Throats comes along. A rare treat for hardened masochists and super-tweaked bad movie completists, but in its GREAT favour, the feisty Fräuleins are beguilingly luscious, and explosively bodacious bombshell Ushi Digard expresses her prodigious talents quite magnificently! Without belabouring the point, the searing inauthenticity of The Cut-Throats must truly be seen to be disbelieved!

 Melvin, Son of Alvin (1984) – John Eastway.

'If things get rough, you may have to use sex!!!!!'

Legendary Aussie cocksman Alvin Purple's angsty teenage son Melvin (Gerry Sont) has an equally magnetic effect on women, but he is a timid, painfully shy virgin, aggressively pursued by hordes of libidinous lovelies, he is unable, or unwilling to consummate, Melvin hopes his infamously priapic father can remedy his mounting frustrations! While unapologetically crude, frequently salacious, and triumphantly silly, the bawdy comedy Melvin, Son of Melvin proved to be an amiable enough coming of age romp, with the onus on 'coming'. Will poor Melvin finally pop his cherry with his gorgeous Greek paramour? (Lenita Psillakis) Will his sexually depleted father Alvin (Graeham Blundell) get his monolithic Mojo back, and will the frisky Purple People cult orgasmically reach their Alvin-obsessed, nookie-fied Nirvana? All this, and a lurid preponderance of gratuitously jiggly T&A shall be naughtily exposed in Eastway's zesty 80s time-capsule of crudely slap n' tickled Aussie humour. As an additional bonus for Dr. Who fans, the blissfully bouncy cast includes the delicious Katy Manning, one of Jon Pertwee's more memorably luscious companions.

 The Great Alligator (1979) – Sergio Martino.

'The Great God of the river has been roused!!!!!'

Ever since hyperbolic Drive-In gems like The Giant Claw, captivatingly schlocky horrors about enraged, elephantine man-slaying beasties have captured the hearts, minds, and bloody gizzards of cinematic thrill-seekers far and wide. Gnarly Creature Features continue to beguile horror fans, as since time immemorial man has been acutely aware of his mutable place in the food chain, take away his knife, gun and missiles and he is rendered terribly fragile, fatally susceptible to any number of mammalian/insectoid/amphibian aggressors. In this instance, Italian action/Giallo maestro Sergio Martino places his quality cast in the ravening jaws of a predatory, monstrously outsized alligator, and thus another snappy Creature Feature is gruesomely born! Not for the first time handsome, altogether classy Claudio Cassinelli provides additional depth, plus Stelvio Cipriani's funky score is pretty sweet, and you certainly wouldn't kick blistering bombshell Barbara Bach out of bed for eating monkey nuts! Admittedly, it's somewhat naïve, but I'd like to believe at the core of every righteous monster-fest there beats the liberal heart of a socially conscious eco-warrior. Euro-cult fans will no doubt appreciate the fine contributions from Romano Puppo, Silvia Collatina, Demons icon Bobby Rhodes, and a brilliantly twitchy cameo by the Bond that got away Richard Johnson.