FRIDAY NIGHT MOVIE: WHO? (1973) ELLIOTT GOULD

aka Roboman, The Man in the Steel Mask is an early 70s paranoid thriller oddity. It came out the same year as Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye; Elliot Gould starred in both.

as Philip Marlowe in The Long Goodbye (1973)

A top American physicist attends a conference in East Germany but ends up in a suspicious car accident. He is forced to get re-construction surgery in East Germany and gets metal implants. The rest of the film is Elliot Gould’s US Agent trying to figure out if he is the real deal or a spy for the Germans. Trevor Howard co-stars as a Russian general.

Released in 1973 after a prolonged dry spell for Gould, “Who?” is a decidedly minor blip in Gould’s overall career. A rather gentle drama about a gentle, misunderstood man.

An American physicist who gets in a car wreck during a visit to Russia, after which surgeons replace his face, organs and the bulk of his limbs with those of a cyborg. For the rest of the film (based on Algis Budrys’ novel), a government agent (Gould) and his team try to figure out if the scientist’s mutation story checks out or if he’s actually a Russian spy.

 

Gould had more to say about the time period in which he shot “Who?” than the film itself.

“When Bob [Altman] was putting together ‘California Split,’ thinking we were gonna do it with Steve McQueen, at that point I was in Munich making an interesting B-movie called ‘Who?’ Maximilian Schell showed me his picture ‘The Pedestrian,’ and in it, he says, ‘The closer you are, the less you can see.’ As I said, I was more than just confused, I was so ignorant as to how [the industry] worked.”

Director: Jack Gold
Screenplay: John Gould (based on the novel by Algis Budrys)
Producer: Barry Levinson
Elliott Gould            Sean Rogers
Trevor Howard     Colonel Azarin
Joseph Bova        Lucas Martino
Edward Grover     Finchley
John Lehne          Haller
James Noble        General Deptford

COPYRIGHT 2007-2015 OH BOY! 3LAWNVIEWAGOGO / ALL RIGHTS RESERVED MR.E.

ED SPRINGSTEAD, JR.

BECAUSE SHE'S SO HOT, YOU'RE TRYING TO OVERLOOK

 HER...

belief in unicorns and elves

unshaven armpits


boyfriend


girlfriend


strap-on

colostomy bag


opinion that Saddam Hussein "had some good points"


menagerie of glass animal figurines


Adam's Apple

winning the "Best Gang Bang" scene at last year's Adult Video Awards


criminal record for stalking ex-boyfriends

complete collection of "Faces of Death" dvds


job as a sales rep for Mary K-K-K

labia being pierced


voice makes Fran Drescher's seem musical


mulatto bastard

wheelchair

COPYRIGHT 2007-2015 OH BOY! 3LAWNVIEWAGOGO / ALL RIGHTS RESERVED MR.E.

ED SPRINGSTEAD, JR.

FRIDAY NIGHT MOVIE: MINI-SKIRT MOB (1968) A.I.P. Ross Hagen Jeremy Slate Diane McBain Harry Dean Stanton

“Disregard their good looks/They’re just a bunch of dirty crooks/With skirts showin’ plenty of knee/That’s the Mini-Skirt Mob/On another spree.”

Thus begins the 1968 exploitation oddity "The Mini-Skirt Mob," with a jaunty theme song sung by Patty McCormack, former child star ("The Bad Seed") turned B-movie actress, who plays Edie, the kid sister to Shayne, the villain of the piece, played with bouffant-haired menace by Diane McBain ("Surfside Six"). McBain and McCormack had co-starred with Fabian in "director Maury Dexter's infamous "Maryjane" earlier that year.

PATTY McCORMACK

Written by James Gordon White ("The Glory Stompers," "The Thing with Two Heads"), it's a strange combination of biker movie and western revenge drama – McBain's character is reminiscent of Mercedes McCambridge in "Johnny Guitar," albeit a lot better-looking and a bleach blonde – with the plot consisting of Shayne's single-minded, psychotic vengeance against her former lover, rodeo champ Jeff Logan (Ross Hagen), who has had the gall to marry another woman (Sherry Jackson). Shayne enlists the aid of her sister's boyfriend, Lon (Jeremy Slate), his rodeo tramp sidekicks Spook (Harry Dean Stanton) and L.G. (Ronnie Rondell), and redheaded bimbos Fran and Bea (Sandra Marshall and Barbro Hedström) in her quest to win back Jeff's love through extreme violence. Shayne is the leader of "The Mini-Skirts" motorcycle gang ("They're hog-straddling female animals on the prowl" according the tagline on the film's poster art), and soon proves that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, as she pulls out all the stops to achieve her evil goal, from a wild catfight with the bride to tossing Molotov cocktails at the newlyweds' trailer.

ROSS HAGEN

McBain is pure malevolence as the unhinged biker chick, even if she looks more like a slumming débutante than a badass motorcycle mama. Speaking of which, the bikes in the film are closer to scooters than choppers, which significantly undercuts the intended menace and adds to the overall absurdity of the film. After starting out as a contract player with Warner Brothers, McBain went from movies to TV (she memorably guest-starred on "Batman" as "Pinky Pinkston") to grade Z schlock like "I Sailed to Tahiti with an All-Girl Crew." Her performance in "The Mini-Skirt Mob" is pretty freakin' awesome, as she gives her all despite the mediocrity of the material, elevating the movie in the process.

Jeff Logan, rodeo star, is honeymooning with his new bride in a camper when his old gang shows up. Miffed that Jeff has decided to quite, and fueled by the Mob leader’s jealousy of the new wife, the gang picks a fight and ends up beating up the happy couple. Jeff runs them off with a shotgun. All seems settled, and the bride and groom plan to continue on to the ranch. Unfortunately for them, the gang has other plans. In classic horror film style, the gang begins a tirade of attacks and after the death of LG (as a result of trying to run the camper off the road with the bikes) sabotage the car, and end up with the couple trapped like sitting ducks in the camper, while they keep watch from a hilltop…

SHERRY JACKSON

There are some unexplained bits, like a Cub Scout troop that witnesses the murder, and illusions to the cops being hot on the trail, but really these never pan out, and it all culminates in the propane tank exploding on the camper from beer bottle molotov cocktails, and a pretty fun motorcycle chase down of the couple on foot at the end, where Spook gets taken down, and the mild mannered bride chooses to let Shane fall to her death, rather than saving her.

DIANE McBAIN   JEREMY SLATE

“What is this any how? We was going on a party, now two of us is dead.” 

Spook (Harry Dean Stanton)

 AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL PICTURES

Producer/Director Maury Dexter

Ross Hagen as Jeff

Jeremy Slate as Lon

Diane McBain as Shayne

Sherry Jackson as Connie

Patty McCormack as Edie

Harry Dean Stanton as Spook

COPYRIGHT 2007-2015 OH BOY! 3LAWNVIEWAGOGO / ALL RIGHTS RESERVED MR.E.

ED SPRINGSTEAD, JR.

ROCK AND ROLL'S LOLITAS

ROCK AND ROLL LOLITAS (and the pedophiles who serenade them)

"Baby Love" The Supremes, 1964

"Bobby Sox to Stockings" Frankie Avalon, 1959

"Born Too Late" The Poni Tails, 1958

"Child Woman, Woman Child" Roy Orbison, 1969

"Come Back When You Grow Up"  Bobby Vee & the Strangers (1967)

"Cradle of Love"  Billy Idol (1990)

"Dance on Little Girl" Paul Anka, 1961"

(Young Girls, They Call Them the) Diamond Dogs" David Bowie, 1974

"Don't Hurt My Little Sister" The Beach Boys, 1965

"Go Away Little Girl" Steve Lawrence, 1962; Donny Osmond, 1971

"Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen" Neil Sedaka, 1961

"Hot Child in the City" Nick Gilder, 1978

"I Want a Little Girl" Nat King Cole, 1956

"Little Girl in Bloom" Thin Lizzy, 1974

"Little Girl (in the Big City)" Roy Orbison, 1969

"Little Sister (Don't You)" Elvis Presley, 1961

"Only Sixteen" Sam Cooke, 1960

"(She's) Sexy and 17" The Stray Cats, 1983

"Sixteen Candles" The Crests, 1958

"Sweet Little Sixteen" Chuck Berry, 1958

"Sweet Young Thing" The Monkees, 1966

"Thank Heaven For Little Girls" Maurice Chevalier, 1958

"Wake Up Little Susie" The Everly Brothers, 1957

"What's Your Name (Little Girl)?" Lynyrd Skynyrd, 1977

"You're Sixteen (You're Beautiful and You're Mine)" Johnny Burnette, 1960; Ringo Starr, 1973

COPYRIGHT 2007-2015 OH BOY! 3LAWNVIEWAGOGO / ALL RIGHTS RESERVED MR.E.

ED SPRINGSTEAD, JR.