Orgy of the Dead (1965)

ORGY OF THE DEAD (1965) ****
Officially, Stephen C. Apostolof (1928-2005) is the director of Orgy of the Dead, but it bears so many of the trademarks of its screenwriter, Edward D. Wood Jr., that it could play as the back end of a doubleheader with the immortal Plan 9 from Outer Space directed by Wood.

Loopy dialogue? Check. How about “Torture, torture! It pleasures me!” “A pussycat is born to be whipped.” “If I am not pleased with tonight’s entertainment, I shall banish their souls to everlasting damnation!” “Q: Is it some kind of college initiation? A: It’s an initiation alright, but not to any college as you or I know it!”

Criswell as narrator? Check. On top of being the narrator, Criswell stars as The Emperor, giving him more screen time than Plan 9 and he’s the source of most of the quotes in the above paragraph. Yeah, anyway, here’s the epic narration to open the film in true Wood (and Criswell) style, “I am Criswell. For years, I have told the almost unbelievable, related the unreal, and showed it to be more than a fact. Now I tell a tale of the threshold people, so astounding that some of you may faint. This is a story of those in the twilight time. Once human, now monsters, in a void between the living and the dead. Monsters to be pitied, monsters to be despised. A night with the ghouls, the ghouls reborn from the innermost depths of the world.”

Questionable acting? Check. Continuity errors galore? Check. Shoddy visual effects stemming from a micro budget? Check.

Unlike Plan 9 though, Orgy of the Dead features about one dozen bizarre topless dance sequences and that ultimately gives it the edge over Plan 9.

I love a film where the nominal protagonists have the only proper names. Of course, one of them answers to Bob and he’s a writer looking for inspiration. Boy, does he ever find it. Otherwise, in addition to The Emperor, we have The Black Ghoul and the bevy of dancers, Hawaiian Dance, Skeleton Dance, Indian Dance, Slave Dance, Street Walker Dance, Cat Dance, Fluff Dance, Mexican Dance, and Zombie Dance (great Cramps song). That’s all the plot synopsis necessary.

Orgy of the Dead, though, also leaves plenty enough room for poorly costumed Mummy and Wolfman as imperial henchmen. Pat Barrington essays a double role as Bob’s lady friend Shirley and the Gold Girl. The Gold Girl calls to mind Shirley Eaton’s infamous golden paint demise in the 1964 Bond film Goldfinger. At first, I thought they were saving the good girl’s nudity for last, like the bodaciously buxom good girl Debra Blee in the 1982 sex comedy The Beach Girls, but that’s not true in Orgy of the Dead since Barrington also played the Gold Girl.

Even the taglines for Orgy of the Dead (Titty Dance of the Dead describes the film more accurately) are incredible, especially “Are you heterosexual?” and “In Gorgeous ASTRAVISION and Shocking SEXICOLOR!” Shocking sexy color, indeed.

Goin’ Coconuts (1978)

GOIN’ COCONUTS (1978) 1/2*

In the distant future, one of the great mysteries of human behavior will be why there were so many teen idols after, oh, let’s say, 1955. Imagine trying to explain Tiger Beat, Joey Lawrence, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys, and Justin Bieber to future generations.

I can only hope that future rational beings will reach the conclusion that many people (mostly girls, but also boys with such beacons of humanity as Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, et cetera ) in the late 20th and early 21st centuries obsessed about the shallow and the superficial and the stupid and such attributes as perfect hair, perfect teeth, and dimples. “He / She has got such a perfect body. He’s so cute. She’s so hot.” All that jive can just go fuck off.

I thought about this “teen idol” angle during and after GOIN’ COCONUTS, the motion picture debut and finale of former teen idols Donny and Marie Osmond. Since I watched it after SLITHIS, I just might have survived the worst two movies I have ever seen back-to-back; I am blanking on whether or not I ever watched BATTLEFIELD EARTH after LEONARD PART 6 or vice versa.

Anyway, I hated just about every second of GOIN’ COCONUTS. Hated every musical number. Hated every bit of perfunctory dialogue. Hated every single attempt at humor. Hated the jewelry caper story and every single plot development that we have seen before from a million different movies and TV shows. Hated seeing legendary movie villains being reduced to buffoons for comedic purposes that miserably failed. Hated it the longer it went on. I rejoiced at the first sight of the end credits and turned off the movie. I didn’t even care all that much about the Hawaiian scenery, just because we had to watch this stupid movie take place within it.

I felt especially bad for actors like Kenneth Mars, Ted Cassidy, Khigh Dhiegh, and Harold Sakata. But, hey, not that bad, since they got paid and had the opportunity to make a movie in Hawaii. That sounds great right about now. I could go for that, even a movie as shitty as GOIN’ COCONUTS.

The reason I felt bad for them was they had to play cosmically inept. Like, for example, Sakata’s Ito could not take out Donny Osmond, for crying out loud. The filmmakers made the dread mistake of costuming Sakata (1920-82) in the same hat that he wore in GOLDFINGER as super henchman Oddjob. Sure we all remember what Oddjob did with his hat in GOLDFINGER; let’s just say that he wears the hat throughout GOIN’ COCONUTS and that’s that. It’s so insulting to see a World War II veteran and an Olympic silver medalist in weightlifting (Sakata represented the United States in the 1948 Summer Olympics in London) reduced to playing the fool, thwarted at every churn of the plot by a couple teen idols and their perfect teeth.

Dhiegh (1910-91) played a key role in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE as brainwashing expert Dr. Yen. Yes, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, one of the most intelligent movies ever made. Then, 16 years later, Dhiegh appeared in GOIN’ COCONUTS, which should have borrowed from THE WIZARD OF OZ its musical theme … “If I Only Had a Brain.” Again, it simply defies all credibility that Dhiegh’s character would be outsmarted by a pair of coconuts.

In GOIN’ COCONUTS, Mars (1935-2011) more or less gives us a variation on his characters from the Mel Brooks comedies THE PRODUCERS and YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, only without the laughs.

Cassidy (1932-79) played Lurch on “The Addams Family” and would it have been too much to ask director Howard Morris (who played Ernest T. Bass on “The Andy Griffith Show”) and screenwriters William Marc Daniels and Raymond Harvey to include a gag where Cassidy’s Mickey answers the phone with “You rang.” Yes, of course, it would have been too much to ask. That’s silly to ask if you’ve survived GOIN’ COCONUTS.

It was a pathetic sight every time watching these villains shoot their guns at Donny and Marie. They should have been sent back to marksmanship class or had their diabolical henchmen licenses revoked.

Aside from the end credits, there was something else great about GOIN’ COCONUTS. Since it failed at the box office, Donny and Marie made only this one movie rather than a series of Donny and Marie spectaculars. They returned to their variety show where they belonged with their aw shucks gee whiz nature and perfect teeth intact.

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

THE SPY WHO LOVED ME

THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (1977) Three-and-a-half stars

This is the best of the James Bond films starring Roger Moore (1927-2017) and the one that ranks with the Best of the Bonds like FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, GOLDFINGER, ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE, TOMORROW NEVER DIES, and SKYFALL.

I believe it’s no small coincidence that after our small Kansas town of Arcadia finally picked up cable TV, I became hooked on watching James Bond films on TBS. It also helped that I hit puberty during this Bond discovery. Bond just fits perfectly with an adolescent mindset.

Moore had the unenviable task of replacing Sean Connery as Bond. Connery established Bond in the hearts and minds of the public after playing the character in DR. NO, FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, GOLDFINGER, THUNDERBALL, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, and then DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER after the George Lazenby Bond Experiment proved disastrous. (I’ll argue that ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE is one of the two or three best James Bond pictures.)

Connery’s first three Bond pictures especially worked as legitimate thrillers. He brought a conviction and toughness to the character that Moore generally lacked during his run from 1973 to 1985. Moore made seven Bond films, beginning with LIVE AND LET DIE and ending with A VIEW TO A KILL. In 1983, both Moore and Connery starred in competing Bond pictures, Moore in OCTOPUSSY and Connery in NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN, the latter title a reference to Connery’s reported quote from 1971 that he would never play James Bond again.

Moore played a radically different Bond than Connery and his worst Bond films descended into campy territory, everything from the cheesiest double entendres and over-the-top product placement to a cartoonish character like Clifton James’ Sheriff J.W. Pepper in two films and a Bond-meets-Blaxploiation plot like 1973’s LIVE AND LET DIE.

Connery got down and dirty, whereas Moore never soiled his suit. That’s at least the perception.

THE SPY WHO LOVED ME is a cinematic exhibit for that old phrase “third time’s a charm,” since this is Moore’s third outing as Bond.

Moore fits the character better and let’s face it, THE SPY WHO LOVED ME benefits significantly from a great Bond girl, Russian agent Major Anya Amasova a.k.a. Agent XXX (played by Barbara Bach), and a great henchman, Jaws (played by the 7-foot-2 Richard Kiel). Both Agent XXX and Jaws stand among the great Bond girls and great Bond henchmen, respectively.

On top of that, we have Carly Simon’s “Nobody Does It Better,” one of the great Bond songs with music by Marvin Hamlisch and lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager.

Jaws puts a genuine fright into Bond and we like the British super agent a lot better under such circumstances. Bond’s one-liners won’t save him against this relentless Jaws, who does take a licking and keeps on ticking. He’s a dedicated henchman.

We cheer on Jaws’ destruction — he does some great work on a truck — and we especially love him when he makes Bond squirm. Of course, we’re rooting for Bond, but it’s still more fun seeing the indestructible Bond against the indestructible Jaws. It’s a fair matchup, for a change. Silly fools that we are, we believe for isolated moments that Bond might finally meet his match. We hadn’t felt that way since ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE and before that GOLDFINGER.

Not only does Bond face Jaws, but Agent XXX wants revenge on Bond once she finds out that he killed her lover Sergi Barsov (in the movie’s opening). Will she or won’t she kill Bond? Of course, we all know the answer.

Production designer Ken Adam (1921-2016) did some of his best work for THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, and he earned an Academy Award nomination. Our megalomaniac Stromberg (Curt Jargons) wants to destroy the world and build a civilization under the sea … designed by Adam.

Veteran cinematographer Claude Renoir (1913-93) worked on his uncle’s films TONI and THE GRAND ILLUSION. His work on THE SPY WHO LOVED ME should have been a fourth Academy Award nomination for the film.

In other words, THE SPY WHO LOVED ME is a first-rate production and entertainment that ranks among the very best James Bond films.

Five best James Bond films:

— ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE (1969)

— GOLDFINGER (1964)

— FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (1963)

— SKYFALL (2012)

— THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (1977)