SEX MADNESS - A VD HORROR MOVIE FROM THE 30'S

     I first encounter the movie SEX MADNESS on the old NIGHT FLIGHT TV show on the USA network back when it was an interesting cable network. You can now find the film on the INTERNET ARCHIVES and on YOU TUBE with little trouble.
     This film was shot in the early 30's in the days before penicillin was invented and VD was hard to treat. There was many untreated people back then who went blind or suffer brain damage.
     The film opens with with a very old man reading the newspaper and saying to his very old wife that he wished the police would do something about the displays of sex. He is talking about the burlesque show of the time. Their son walks in (They must of had him in their late 40's) and tell them that he's going on a date.
     Else where in an office an stereotype lesbian in a suit jacket and tie makes the moves on her co worker and they decide to go to the burlesque show that night.
     The movie then switches to the burlesque show. A bunch of women in tight shorts are dancing. Watching them is the girls from the office. They decide to stay the night together. The son from the open scene goes to a hotel with his girlfriend and a sleazy looking man who watched the show murders a little girl.
     The rest of the film has nothing to do with these people. The film now fallows a dancer from the burlesque show. She has VD and is seeing a doctor who is helping her. But she wants to go home and married her boyfriend. She goes to quack who sells her a fake cure and she gets married.
     Soon after getting married and having a baby things go bad. Her husband is losing his sight and the baby becomes sick. The family doctor in his office tells them that they have VD and demands that the husband admits that he is the cause. The wife breaks down and admits that she is the one who infected them.
     The VD horror films of vintage exploitation movies era are a lot like the AIDS dramas we have now. Since there is no cure there is a sense of doom in the movies. Just like in the early AIDS era when there was no treatments and no one was living very long.
     A lot of people who considered themselves moral attacked the victims of AIDS when if first started killing people saying it was their own fault for their life styles. The same thing happen back in the VD days. People would insist that VD was the results of what they believed was a bad life style and that 'nice' people did not get sick like that.
     Of course there is still people who think that way. Maybe heart attacks are the results of their lifestyle.
     SEX MADNESS is a crudely shot movie with low productions values. I'm sure it played in many grind house movie theaters until penicillin came along.







    

OTELLO AND THE ROBOT- A SCI FI MANUSCRIPT. Novel and Ebook

     Once in a while I think I'm a writer. I just put out on Lulu.com the novel OTELLO AND THE ROBOT: A SCI FI MANUSCRIPT. The novel tells the story of a slacker who leads an aimless life and who is working on a novel about a woman named Otello who meets a robot with no name.
     You can check out a few pages of the novel by going to www.lulu.com/aronaamora - I also have a couple of other books and another novel: I LED ONE LIFE.
     Lulu.com is a publish on demand service and the novel can by bought in paperback form or as a PDF ebook for download.

This is the PDF ebook edition- The print edition as another cover.

    

THE CREATURE OF DESTRUCTION

     The CREATURE OF DESTRUCTION was one of the cheap horror movies made by Larry Buchanan for AIP-TV. It was a color remake of the B movie THE SHE CREATURE.
     The highlight of THE SHE CREATURE was the great costume for the monster which was made by Paul Blaisdell a B movie costume maker who made monsters for the films: INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN, VOODOO WOMAN, THE DAY THE WORLD DIED, IT CONQUERED THE WORLD and had a cameo in the movie THE GHOST OF DRAGSTRIP HOLLOW as a bitter monster movie suit maker. That last film role became true a few years later.
     The monster suit in the CREATURE OF DESTRUCTION looked like a rubber diver suit with scales and a silly looking monster mask with ping pong ball eyes and fangs. It looked like a cheap Halloween mask. This suit was also used in the movie IT'S ALIVE also by Buchanan.

THE EYE CREATURES

     THE EYE CREATURES (1966) was a color remake of the 1950's sci fi comedy INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN. Shot on 16mm THE EYE CREATURES was released as part of a TV package by AIP TV.
     The space invaders of THE EYE CREATURES were men in lumpy suits who wear head masks that featured a bunch of ping pong ball eyes and large open unmoving mouths. Some of the actor did not wear whole alien suits. They wear black tights and monster masks. I guess director Larry Buchanan thought no one would notice.
     This film would be featured on MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000.

SCHLOCK TV MOVIES OF LARRY BACHANAN.

     Back in the 70's and the 80's when local TV would run movies I use to see a lot of the TV movies of Larry Buchanan.
     Larry Buchanan was an exploitation film maker who made a deal with AIP-TV to make some 16mm movie features in color for them to fill out their TV packages.
     Among the films Buchanan shot for AIP-TV was THE EYE CREATURES (A remake of INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN) ZONTAR THE THING FROM VENUS (A remake of IT CONQUERS THE WORLD) IN THE YEAR 2998 (A remake of THE DAY THE EARTH DIED) IT'S ALIVE (Not the one with the mutant killer baby) CREATURE OF DESTRUCTION (Remake of THE SHE CREATURE) THE CURSE OF THE SWAMP CREATURE, and the film he is best known for MARS NEEDS WOMEN.
     Buchanan films were shot for very little money and it shows. The same monster costume is used in both IT'S ALIVE and CREATURE OF DESTRUCTION. All of Buchanan's monsters have ping pong ball eyes.
     After MARS NEEDS WOMEN  the movie THE EYE CREATURES  seem to be Buchanan's best known film. The film is pretty much a scene by scene remake of INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN but lack the great pulp magazine type alien invaders. The film would be featured on the TV show MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000.
     Many of Buchanan movies can be found at the Internet archives. http://www.archive.org/

ANOTHER CAB CALLOWAY CARTOON

     This is from the cartoon MINNIE THE MOOCHER with the voice of Cab Calloway as a ghost scaring Betty Boop and her sidekick Bimbo.

LOST MOVIES

     I heard somewhere that about 70 percent of all silent movies made are lost and about 50 percent of all sound movies. As a film fan I find it depressing to think that a movie would disappear off the face of the Earth after playing in movie theaters  and will never be seen again.
     From time to time they do find some lost movies. Sometimes it's just a few reels or a few minutes of footage like in the case of THE GOLEM (1915) Other lost movies found in my life time are: MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM, THE GHOUL, and the 1910 version of FRANKENSTEIN  from the Edison Studios.

    The 1910 version of FRANKENSTEIN was the Holy Grail of lost movies for a long time. No LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT.

     I always like to think that somewhere there is a print of a lost movie waiting to be found.