7/2 HD Cinema Premiere Movies

[Sean Mota]

HD Cinema (104):
The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant * (1971, SciFi)​

Summary: Astonishing is the only word to describe this over-the-top exploitation movie. Bruce Dern plays a psycho doctor who splices a maniac's head onto a huge retarded man's body. The original head cries and babbles while the new head takes the body on a homicidal rampage. Cult movies just don't get much weirder than this.

CinemaClassics-HD:
Merrill's Marauders **+ (1962, War) ​

Summary: An action packed war movie about a group of grunts fighting the Japanese and building the Burma Road.

CinemaGunslingers-HD:
Black Gold **+ (1947, Drama) ​

Summary: this was Allied Artists "first film:....it was really a Monogram picture and this was the first release in 1947,under their new name for their 'better' product ALLIED ARTISTS. It was a fairly expensive film for them then ($450K) and filmed in colour. As a film it is a very effective multicultural experience and it is a credit to them to take such a risk on what one would think was then un marketable themes: illegal immigrant chinese boy is adopted by land owning red indian family, who send him to school. Kid gets taunted because of his new family and chinese face. Pop, Anthony Quinn discovers oil on the farm and gets rich. They buy a racehorse and it becomes a champ and they become richer! Racial prejudice gets and airing too when they enter' society'. All quite startling and effectively handled. For these themes to be their first high profile calling card, AA/Monogram get a good report and deserve recognition for their worthy ideals. It is worth noting the interesting films Monogram decided to make as Allied Artists in their first few years, as THE GANGSTER and IT HAPPENED ON 5TH AVENUE attest. BLACK GOLD seems corny by today's cynicism, but the was a deserving hit for them. Like Republic's COME NEXT SPRING, a real Americana treat if you can find it and just enjoy.

HD Cinema (104):
The First Time *+ (1969, Comedy)​

Summary: starred Jacqueline Bisset, Wes Stern, Rick Kelman, Wink Roberts in a seldom-seen, low-budget teenage "coming of age" flic.

Three teenage boys decide they want to experience the, shall we say, "finer things of life"....as in FEMALES. So, they arrange for a trip to the tourist-town of Niagara Falls, New York, with the intent to visit the seedier side of town. As luck might have it, they get diverted from their goal when a beautiful "lady in distress" (Bisset) crosses their path. The boys proceed to help her, and ultimately develop a relationship with the lovely mid-20's-aged lass.

Do the boys achieve their goal and "become men"? You'll have to watch and see. You might be surprised at what happens. Then again, maybe not.

This isn't a kar flic, by any means. However, there is a kool Bucket-T hot rod displayed during the opening credits of the film. One of the boys also rides around on a Schwinn Stingray bike (with shift on the cross-bar)....pretty kool.

This film really is of little consequence. Some liken The First Time to the 1982 film Porky's, although this saga is quite a bit tamer. Some might also wonder what a "big Star" like Jacqueline Bisset is doing in this low budget film....good question.

The really interesting thing, though, is that the film becomes a travelogue of Niagara Falls. The film has LOTS of location shots, and if you want to see what 1969 Niagara Falls looked like, here ya go. Kind of interesting. No kidding. On that basis, I recommend The First Time for a look, for reasons that have nothing to do with cars.

HD Cinema (103):
Angel Unchained ** (1970, Drama) ​

Summary: A lonely biker rides into a commune and takes up with one of its female dwellers, which makes the local townsmen very unhappy.

CinemaClassics-HD:
Vera Cruz *** (1954, Westerns)​

Summary: You're the first friend I ever had," grins flamboyant mercenary Burt Lancaster to lean, laconic Gary Cooper with a smile that suggests that he may be the last. They're a pair of Americans abroad looking to cash in on the Mexican revolution by selling their services to the highest bidder in this energetically cynical south-of-the-border Western. They meet cute, conning, robbing, and out-witting one another in a bit of one-upmanship that bonds the men in mutual admiration, and then team up to escort a royal convoy through revolutionary country. When they discover its secret stash of gold bullion, they revert to their old way, selling out anyone it takes to get the treasure for themselves, even each other. Played out as a seat-of-the-pants con game of shifting alliances and double crosses, this is a cheerfully ruthless tale that served as a veritable blueprint for the Italian spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s. Director Robert Aldrich has a real flair for turning rogues and opportunists into deviously riveting characters, and went on to work the same sort of magic on Kiss Me Deadly and The Dirty Dozen. The cast of character actors features Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, and Jack Elam in the gang, George Macready as Emperor Maximilian, and Henry Brandon as the martinet German captain Danette. --Sean Axmaker

CinemaGunslingers-HD:
Mr. Majestyk **+ (1974, Action / Ad)​

Summary: Vince Majestyk (Charles Bronson) absolutely has to get his watermelon crop in, come hell or high water, and nothing in the world is going to stop him. Trouble comes, however, in the form of Bobby Kopas (Paul Koslo), who tries to force Majestyk to use a crew of winos rather than Majestyk's hand-picked migrant crew. After Majestyk cleans his clock, Kopas swears out an assault complaint, and soon the melon grower finds himself in the county lockup. In jail he meets hit man Renda (Al Lettieri), and the two regard each other with hostility and suspicion. In a segment worthy of action director John Frankenheimer, Renda's pals try to break him out of a prison bus in a street shootout. Instead, Majestyk commandeers the bus and drives off with Renda, with the intention of using him as a pawn to get the charges dropped on himself…so he can get his melon crop in, of course. The script for Mr. Majestyk was written by none other than Elmore Leonard himself, and the rhythms of his hard-bitten prose are clear throughout. As expected with a Leonard story, there are plenty of plot flip-flops and more than a little tongue-in-cheek humor (the flinty Bronson even gets a few of the good lines). A word of warning: Vegetarians and those with sensitive temperaments may be disturbed by the machine-gun slaughter of hundreds of defenseless watermelons, in one of the movie's more sublime scenes. It's not great stuff, but Mr. Majestyk is a fast-moving '70s action flick that doesn't take itself too seriously and isn't above a blithely ridiculous plot device or two. --Jerry Renshaw

 

[barth2k]

I gotta give cinema10 credit for actually giving us new movies, unlike some other movie channel *cough* hdnet *cough*. Unfortunately, 95% of the movies still have zero appeal to me.