Monthly Archives: April 2021

Friday Night At The Home Drive-In: Forbidden World (1982)

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Someone once asked me if I had seen a movie called Forbidden World. I said “Yes, of course,” but I was thinking of Forbidden Planet (1956). This is not unlike an incident that was once described to me by a friend. His parents made a plan to meet another couple at a Chinese restaurant called The Good Earth (named after the book and movie, I would presume). Unfortunately, on the same street about a block away from the The Good Earth, there was another Chinese restaurant called The Great World. I don’t recall who went to The Great World, and who went to The Good Earth, but each couple sat in a different restaurant waiting for the other couple and getting angrier and angrier. It’s only lucky that I hadn’t been invited to meet someone at a theatre showing Forbidden World – I might have ended up angrily watching Forbidden Planet by myself. Of course, neither one of these films was playing the theatres by the time that I could have gone…

Oddly enough, Forbidden World (1982) is not a ripoff of Forbidden Planet. It’s actually a ripoff of Alien (1979), and as I talked about it my post about Galaxy of Terror (1981), there were many, many ripoffs of Alien out there. Both Forbidden World and Galaxy of Terror were produced by Roger Corman, and I had heard that Forbidden World was a sequel to Galaxy of Terror. It’s not, at least in any way that I could notice. Perhaps it could more correctly be described as a follow up to the first film. Apparently, in typical Roger Corman style, some of the same sets were used for both films (and they were designed by future filmmaking superstar James Cameron!). The two movies are, however, completely different stories (similarities to Alien aside) with completely different characters. The strangest part might be that Galaxy of Terror is actually more like Forbidden Planet than Forbidden World is – go figure.

Allan Holzman was already an accomplished film editor when he was given the chance to direct Forbidden World. He went on to direct a few other feature films including Grunt! The Wrestling Movie (1985), which was done in mockumentary style, perhaps predicting Holzman’s future career as a documentary filmmaker.

Apparently, Roger Corman was unsatisfied with Holzman’s original cut of the movie, so he trimmed five minutes out of it. The director’s cut has been made available, for the first time, as an extra on the Shout Factory Blu-ray.

A friend of mine has referred to Forbidden World as one of the best Alien clones, and it’s hard to argue with that. It certainly delivers the goods in a way that many such films don’t (violence, gore, nudity, etc.). And at 77 minutes (82 for the director’s cut) it’s a tight, fast paced package of fun. 

Jesse Vint, perhaps most famous for Macon County Line (1974), stars as Mike Colby, “the best troubleshooter in the Galaxy”. Along with his robot sidekick, Colby is brought to planet Xarbia to investigate a hostile synthetic life form, which was created by an elite group of scientists. Among the researchers is lab assistant Tracey Baxter, played by Dawn Dunlap, who only appeared in a handful of movies during her brief career. She got her start playing the title character in Laura, les ombres de l’été (1979) at the age of 15. June Chadwick, who many of us remember from This Is Spinal Tap (1984) – in which she played Jeanine Pettibone, long time girlfriend of David St. Hubbins – plays Dr. Barbara Glaser in Forbidden World. And if anyone has ever lain awake late at night wondering what she might look like sharing a futuristic shower/steam room with another woman (Dunlap), Forbidden World provides a very clear answer…

Forbidden World star Dawn Dunlap got her start in Laura, les ombres de l'été (1979).June Chadwick, with Michael McKean, in This Is Spinal Tap (1984). We see a lot more of her in Fobidden World!

It’s fair to say that Forbidden Planet is a better movie than Forbidden World. Forbidden Planet is a is a certified classic, after all. But Forbidden World is as fine an example of #NotQuiteClassicCinema is as I have ever seen. If you enjoy a good ripoff of Alien, or if you like gooey gore and over-the-top exploitation from the early 1980s, you really can’t go too wrong with this sci-fi horror sleaze-fest. I have not yet watched the longer director’s cut, but I am very much looking forward to doing that on a future #FridayNightAtTheHomeDriveIn. 

Friday Night At The Home Drive-In: Chained Girls (1965)

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Chained Girls is a phrase that has immediate connotations and resonance for me. When I see it on a movie box – or poster – I assume that I am looking at a Women In Prison film (or WIP as some people like to abbreviate it). This is a genre that I have a particular interest in – and connection to – as I once wrote an important essay about it when I was a film student, and subsequently wrote an entire musical play poking fun at it (which was called  Bad Girls Jailhouse and was first produced in 1994). That play started me on a long path of writing, producing and directing crazy musicals, which was my main focus for over ten years – but that’s another story.

Chained Girls (1965) is an old exploitation movie that is NOT about women in prison. It is, as stated in its own publicity materials, “A daring film about lesbianism today!” If that wasn’t shocking enough for audiences in 1965, Chained Girls also claimed to be a documentary. That’s right. A documentary, as opposed to a sleazy sexploitation drama that one might typically have seen at certain drive-ins and grindhouses back in the day. Chained Girls wasn’t a cheap exploitation picture, it was EDUCATIONAL, so… uh… back off censors and other rule mongers. We have to show the public what lesbians do so that honest, morally upright people can LEARN something. This movie is good for them, like eating granola. It can help prevent tragedies and poor life choices by showing what happens to people who who’ve made those poor choices.

Poster for Mom and Dad (1945), perhaps an influence on Chained GirlsI suppose this suggests that Chained Girls is part of that unique exploitation genre, most popular in the 1930s and 40s, which includes infamous movies like Mom and Dad (1945), Marihuana (1936), Child Bride (1943) and She Shoulda Said No! (1949). On the other hand, it was probably influenced by the emergence of mondo movies, like Mondo Cane (1962), Mondo Cane 2 (1963) and La donna nel mondo aka Women of the World (1963). These movies were pseudo documentaries that purported to show shocking but true (and often sleazy) stuff from around the world. Many of them contained footage that was “fake”, or at least explained as being something other than what it was. For example, a film could show footage of a bunch of Poster for Women of the World (1963), perhaps an influence on Chained Girlsmen standing around in a foreign country while the narrator says “These men are here to buy female slaves…”. I suppose it could be true, but there is no actual evidence of slave-buying visible in the footage.

Chained Girls uses this technique often throughout its scant 65 minute running time. One of my Twitter friends (hello Peter) pointed out this questionable gem uttered by the film’s narrator: “Most teenage lesbians are prostitutes or drug addicts.” As I recall, we are simply looking at shots of young women interacting when the narrator says this. I could be wrong, as this movie (despite its claims of being a documentary) is a full production featuring actors who appeared in other exploitation pictures. I don’t think that it contains any Poster for Joseph P. Mawra's Olga's House of Shame (1964), which shares stylistic similarities with Chained Girlsactual “documentary” footage of people living their own lives. Having said that, there might be stolen shots of real people on the streets of the city. But the “scenes” that we witness throughout the film are all staged.

The movie was directed by Joseph P. Mawra, who is best known for his Olga films, such as Olga’s House of Shame (1964), Olga’s Girls (1964), and White Slaves of Chinatown (1964). 1964 was a very busy year for Mawra. As I recall, all of these movies use the same stylistic approach (silent footage of women doing stuff while a narrator says lurid things – and the narrator is often the same guy, Joel Holt, who also acted in and directed a few films as well). Both Mawra and Holt seem to have played out their entire filmmaking careers in the 1960s. Perhaps the arrival of hardcore sex films in the 1970s put them out of business. Who knows?

Chained Girls (1965) is not for everyone, but for those with a taste for its unique brand of antique sleaze, it’s pretty darn entertaining. For those with a sensitivity to out of date, inappropriate and offensive material, it would likely be much less fun. On the one hand, it’s a “documentary” with a lot of misinformation & stereotyping in it. But on the other hand, I kind of believe them when they say they got their facts from recent (in 1965) research. Probably some biased, 2nd rate studies by would-be Masters & Johnson types. This makes it a fascinating window into the crazy beliefs of the time. And it’s the over-the-top inappropriateness of what the narrator is saying that makes the movie a jaw dropping good time (for those who can stand it). John Waters is apparently a fan of this film, and I can see why. In some ways, it’s kind of a distant relative (and perhaps an influence on) Waters’ A Dirty Shame (2004). it’s been a while since I saw that movie, but I recall Waters educating the audience about different types of unusual sexual practices (a plate job, for instance). I really need to see that movie again soon…

One reviewer on the IMDb says “For what it is “chained girls” is one of the best cinematic experiences I’ve ever had… Rarely has a movie made me laugh so hard and so deeply… Really this film is a treat if you are in the right frame of mind and/or watching it with someone who truly has a firm grasp of irony.”

I first saw Chained Girls with my friend Brian during one of our all day movie marathons. We had no idea what we were getting into, and I think we both spent the entire 65 minutes with our jaws hanging open in disbelief (when we weren’t laughing, of course). Watching it again now only confirmed our original impression of it. I remember turning to Brian halfway through the film and saying “This movie could be turned into a brilliant fringe musical.” As I mentioned earlier, I spent many years working on crazy musicals and I had a pretty good eye for material that was ripe for adaptation. “I don’t think I could do it, however,” I said. “The playwright and/or composer needs to be a woman – and preferably a lesbian.” I made a mental note to mention this idea the next time I ran into the right person, but alas, it never came up. So, if any of my lesbian playwright friends are reading this, here’s an idea for you…

As for the rest of us, we can still enjoy Chained Girls (1965), for what it is, on any #FridayNightAtTheHomeDriveIn on which the spirit moves us, grabs us, or otherwise chains us to our seat. It’s the kind of #NotQuiteClassicCinema that must be seen to be believed.

Friday Night At The Home Drive-In: The Ghost of Sierra de Cobre (1964)

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When I was a kid, there were a lot of cool looking scary movies in the theatres. I used to scan the listings in our local newspaper, see the ads, and wish that I could go. Unfortunately, I was too young to get in to most of them. I also didn’t have any money, so I had to rely on my parents taking me – and they weren’t generally choosing horror movies. One of the first films I went to see on my own (with friends) was Poltergeist (1982) – but that was years after I’d started reading the listings. VCRs were still just a futuristic dream for me at that point. So what was a horror loving kid to do in the 1970s and early ’80s?

One answer was TV movies. There were also regular movies on TV, of course. That’s how I saw Frankenstein (1931), Dracula (1931), etc. But TV movies were a really big thing in those days. It seemed like whatever types of horror movies were selling tickets at the theatres, there would soon be suspiciously similar looking movies popping up on my TV.

Newspaper ad for The Lynda Carter made for TV movie Hotline (1982) - a different kind of horror than The Ghost of Sierra de Cobre (1964)When slasher films were all the rage on the big screen – often two or three opening in the same week – I recall getting to watch made for TV “slasher” movies like Hotline (1982), starring Lynda Carter. It wasn’t exactly a hard core slasher film, but get a load of the description on the IMDb: “A beautiful telephone operator is stalked by a murderous madman.” it says. “Hang Up! Before HE comes to cut you off…DEAD!” Now I really want to see that movie again – but it will have to wait for another Friday night…

The Ghost of Sierra de Cobre (1964) was made for TV before my time. I did not see it rerun as a late movie. I didn’t even know it existed until sometime last year. Apparently it was the pilot for a proposed TV series called The Haunted, which never got made. The producers added some more footage and released it as a standalone movie.

Martin Landau stars as an architect who moonlights as a paranormal investigator. It’s not clear to me if he was supposed to be a recurring character on The Haunted, but it wouldn’t have been a bad idea for a show.

The Ghost of Sierra de Cobre is stunningly shot in black and white, and has loads of creepy atmosphere. The story is also interesting, and perhaps a bit more complicated than the average old fashioned ghost story. It starts with an idea that could have been (and probably was) ripped right from the pages of Edgar Allan Poe. “Terrified of being buried alive by mistake, a woman puts a phone in her crypt to be able to call home if she needs help.” says the IMDb. When I read this description, I couldn’t help but think of Poe’s The Premature Burial. However, this is all back story for The Ghost of Sierra de Cobre. The film actually begins with the dead woman’s son receiving mysterious phone calls that he believes are from her – and our story goes from there (this made me think of Psycho II (1983), but that film didn’t exist yet).

Diane Baker and Martin Landau explore the crypt in The Ghost of Sierra de Cobre (1964)

The cast is excellent, and also includes Judith Anderson, who was in such classics as Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940), Agatha Christie’s proto-slasher And Then There Were None (1945), and film noir masterpiece Laura (1944). The film also stars Diane Baker – who was in such classics as Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie (1964), William Castle’s Strait-Jacket (1964), and a movie that I first watched and enjoyed a few years ago, Stigma (1972).

When I was young, I thought that made for TV horror was somehow inferior to regular theatrical horror films. I suppose it was because of the limitations of television in those days (no gore, no nudity, little violence, etc.). Now, I have the almost polar opposite opinion. I’ve seen more than my share of mind-numbingly awful recent horror films that contain all the nudity, gore and violence that anyone could hope for, and yet are boring, have no compelling story, or are just plain stupid. Made for TV movies – especially the ones made back in the 1960s, ’70s and early ’80s – could not rely on things like gore to entertain the audience, so they had no choice but to tell a compelling story. Made for TV horror films like The Night Stalker (1972), Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (1973), Salem’s Lot (1978), Trilogy of Terror (1975) and Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981) are now considered classics of the genre.

My friend Brian and I have an all day horror movie marathon once a year, and recently we’ve taken to watching nothing but old made for TV horror films. Having already seen most of the classic gore and extreme horror films of the past, TV movies were kind of the last frontier of undiscovered material for us – and we have unearthed a few gems in our modest quest so far. Some examples are When Michael Calls (1972), Home For the Holidays (1972), Scream Pretty Peggy (1973), The Victim (1972) and  A Cold Night’s Death (1973). Had we watched The Ghost of Sierra de Cobre, it would have been very high up on our list of favourites. 

The Ghost of Sierra de Cobre (1964) is #NotQuiteClassicCinema that could have been a bonafide classic if it had ever been given a chance. I had never heard of it, and I have been exploring the fringes of horror and made for TV movies for quite some time. I have often talked about home video (VHS and Beta – rentals in particular) being the equivalent of the “home drive-in” of the 1980s and ’90s. I’ve come to realize that movies shown on late night TV, and made for TV horror films, were the pre-VHS and Beta “home drive-in” for people like me. It’s always a thrill to discover an old made for TV movie that would have thrilled me, or scared the crap out of me, when I was too young to see it in the theatre – and I will undoubtedly be revisiting The Ghost of Sierra de Cobre on a future #FridayNightAtTheHomeDriveIn.

Friday Night At The Home Drive-In: American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt (1989)

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When I was in school, ninjas were the height of cool. There were always one or two guys in my shops classes that were secretly making ninja weapons when they should have been working on their assignments. I witnessed guys making “numchucks” or nunchaku sticks in wood shop. I saw guys making throwing stars in metal shop – and had to duck a few times when they threw them at me. I even remember some persistent geniuses making weapons out of the raw materials in electronics shop. I don’t recall anyone making weapons in food shop (or cooking class as some people called it), but that didn’t mean food shop wasn’t a dangerous place  – and not just because there were knives and forks around.

In my first year of junior high school, students were forced to try ALL of the shops classes – regardless of which ones might have interested them. I guess it was almost like a sampler year; we spent a few weeks in each shop to give us an idea of what it would be like to take any one of those classes for a full year (or half year as the case might have been). This meant that my friends and I were forced to take sewing and cooking, alongside more traditionally “male” activities such as sawing wood and building speakers for telephones (it should be noted that not too many years before that, guys weren’t even ALLOWED to take those shops – and vice-versa for girls). As it turned out, many of us guys decided that food shop was actually the best place to be. Not only was it fun to learn how to bake a cake or make Jamaican Patties, but it meant that we got to eat a free meal at the end of each class. What could be better than that?

Another positive side effect of being in food shop all afternoon was that there were very few psychopaths trying to make weapons and hurl them at us. I won’t go so far as to say that there were none, because two of the most annoying troublemakers in the school decided that they liked to bake their cakes and eat them too. The class was divided into several kitchens, each one with two to four people in it. My kitchen included a good friend of mine, Kevin, and a couple of other decent guys. The kitchen next to us featured the two troublemakers. One of the troublemakers was physically smaller than Kevin and me, but he was always getting in our faces – perhaps because he felt he had to prove himself. He walked into our kitchen on the first day and put Kevin into a headlock while we were seated at our table. I got up and told him to get out. He said something unfriendly, but I grabbed his arm and carefully led him out of our kitchen. I say carefully, because I was trying to diffuse a potentially bad situation. I was studying Tae Kwon Do at the time, and probably could have wiped the floor with this guy, but he had a lot of friends – many of whom were much bigger and more dangerous than him.

After he was gone, Kevin got up from the table and said “That guy smelled like dried piss.”

We both laughed, and from that day forward we always referred to that guy as Dried Piss.

“If he smelled so bad, ” I asked, “then why did you just keep sitting there? Why didn’t you do something?”

“I considered calling him an asshole,” Kevin said.

I laughed and said ” Next time help me kick him out.”

The other troublemaker, and kitchen-mate of Dried Piss, was the de-facto leader of all the troublemakers at our school. He was larger than Dried Piss – and larger than us, too. He wore a stupid looking bandana around his head, and liked to cause trouble for me in particular. He was clearly more dangerous than Dried Piss, but I was fairly confident that my martial arts training would serve me well in a fight against him. My bigger concern was the gang of goons that he would send after me in retaliation. Part of me wanted to fight him anyway – and for a while I was convinced that a showdown between us was inevitable – but that’s part of a much larger story that did not ultimately play out in food shop.

Stupid Bandana would periodically invade our kitchen, and I would carefully shove him back out. Over time I got less careful, and I’m still not sure how the situation never escalated further than smirking and insulting words aimed at Kevin and me. Perhaps on some level Stupid Bandana knew that it would be a bad risk to fight a trained martial artist. He was one the people who made ninja weapons in wood and metal shop, but he was certainly no ninja and I think he knew that. Perhaps he was afraid that my non-weapon-building friends and I might be – if not actual ninjas – whatever the Tae Kwon Do equivalent might have been. We weren’t, of course, but we enjoyed watching ninja movies. Enter the Ninja (1981), Revenge of the Ninja (1983) and Ninja III: The Domination (1984) were the holy trinity, of course. We discovered American Ninja (1985) a little bit later, but for some reason I did not watch any of the sequels until very recently…

American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt (1989) is not the continuing saga of Joe Armstrong, American Ninja, as played by Michael Dudikoff. Apparently Michael Dudikoff was originally supposed to be in this movie, but he was feeling “burned out” on martial arts and didn’t like the fact that the movie was going to be filmed in South Africa while apartheid was still going on. Dudikoff did return to star in American Ninja 4: The Annihilation (1990).

I knew nothing about American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt prior to last Friday, and I had expected David Bradley to be playing the same character, Joe Armstrong, that Michael Dudikoff had played. Much to my surprise, he plays a different guy named Sean Davidson – who is also referred to as The American Ninja at times. Steve James, who reprises his role as Curtis Jackson, does not know Sean Davidson at the beginning of this movie. At one point he says to him “Are you a ninja?” and Sean answers yes. “That explains a lot…” Curtis says.

So, it’s like Curtis makes an easy transition from best buddy of Joe in the first two movies, to best buddy of Sean in this one. I’m not sure why they didn’t just have David Bradley play Joe Armstrong, the way Roger Moore took over the role of James Bond. But in some ways, it just adds to the inspired lunacy of this movie, so I guess that’s a plus. It also paved the way for American Ninja 4: The Annihilation to feature BOTH David Bradley and Michael Dudikoff playing their respective characters. I haven’t seen that movie yet, but if it isn’t cinematic gold then something is wrong with the universe. 

American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt is not as good as the first two movies. David Bradley is a really good martial artist – perhaps better than Michael Dudikoff, but Dudikoff is a better actor than Bradley. The story is relatively ludicrous – which could actually be a good thing – and Steve James doesn’t have enough to do in this movie (although he is great at what he does). In some ways they should have just made a movie about his character. Having said that, American Ninja 3 is still quite entertaining for anyone with a taste for this kind of late ’80s insanity. One of the characters makes use of disguises in ways that are a constant source of delight. And who doesn’t love watching scores of incompetent ninjas getting knocked around the screen?

All in all, American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt (1989) is a very pleasant way to pass a #FridayNightAtTheHomeDriveIn. While it may not have reached the heights of other third-in-the-series vigilante action films (hello Death Wish 3 (1985)), it continued the flow of quality ninja entertainment from The Cannon Group – a veritable fount of #NotQuiteClassicCinema that has rarely – if ever – been equalled.

Friday Night At The Home Drive-In: Sudden Fury (1975)

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Growing up in Canada, there were opportunities to see unusual and obscure Canadian films on TV from time to time. This was due to a little thing called Canadian Content Rules. TV stations were required to fill a certain percentage of their schedules with Canadian programming. TV stations, however, believed that no one wanted to see Canadian TV shows and movies, so they used a lot of tricks to avoid actually showing any. The two exceptions were local news and sporting events, which not only counted as Canadian Content but were actually popular. Aside from that, Canadian TV stations used to air several extremely short form programmes in between and/or during popular American and British shows – almost like commercials. If you grew up in Canada in the ’70s and ’80s, you will undoubtedly remember shows like Hinterland Who’s Who. Each episode lasted barely more than one minute, and provided some brief information about a particular form of wildlife that called Canada home. Here is an example from the National Film Board:

There were other short programmes, such as Body Break which provided health and fitness advice in very brief segments, and Canada Vignettes by the NFB. TV stations would air some of these shorts over and over again, and seeing some of them became almost like hearing a favourite song on the radio. I know I would always get excited whenever I saw certain vignettes, like this one called Faces:

Canadian TV stations did show Canadian movies from time to time, but usually late at night or during the summer – when less people were watching. I, of course, was one of those lesser people – and over the years I saw some really memorable movies, like the craptacular shot on video Niagara Strip (1987). I didn’t know this at the time, but it was one of the now legendary low budget movies made by Emmeritus Productions for a TV station in Hamilton, Ontario. In retrospect, I really admire them for making movies like this to satisfy their Canadian Content requirements. At the time, I just thought it was a horrible movie – but it kind of inspired me. If those guys could make a movie this bad and get it onto TV then why couldn’t I? Unfortunately, I never did.

I also saw good Canadian movies on TV, like The Changeling (1980) and Terror Train (1980), but it’s more interesting to think back on the strange ones that I’d never heard of before (and in some cases, since). I’m not even sure what some of them were. I have vivid memories of scenes, or moments, or images – like a young, hippy-ish biker wearing a leather jacket with a Canadian flag on the back. I have no idea what movie that was from. If anyone can tell me, I’d be very interested.

One movie that I did not see on TV back in the day (and had not even heard of until very recently), is Sudden Fury (1975). Oddly enough, since I tweeted (and posted) about watching it last Friday, a few people have told me that they saw it on TV when they were kids – and that it really disturbed and/or frightened them. How cool is that?

Sudden Fury is a suspense thriller that borders on horror at times. It was directed by Brian Damude, whose only other directing credits are a short film from 1974 and a made for TV feature that was apparently shot in 1986 but never released. It’s hard to believe that Damude didn’t have more of a career as a filmmaker because Sudden Fury is masterfully done. He is a film professor emeritus at Ryerson University’s School of Image Arts, so that may explain what he’s been doing with his time since making this movie back in the mid ’70s.

Perhaps Damude’s lack of filmmaking success could partly be blamed on the fact that Sudden Fury was another one of those Tax Shelter films that never got a very wide release. The people that put money into it likely only cared about the tax breaks and didn’t work too hard to ensure that the movie was seen. I knew nothing about it until very recently – and I have a particular interest in Canadian movies from the 1970s so that’s saying something. Still, it’s good to know that some people of my my generation were lucky enough to see in on TV back in the day (before it virtually disappeared). I am so glad that Vinegar Syndrome has now restored and released it on Blu-ray (with the approval and involvement of Damude).

The cast includes Dominic Hogan, a successful theatre actor who spent three years at the Stratford Festival. He has a few TV credits, including the Canadian sci-fi show The Starlost (1973-74) – another weird Canadian production that I remember seeing on TV when I was very young. Hogan apparently died one year after Sudden Fury was made, at age 40. According to a MacLean’s magazine profile of actress Julie Amato, Hogan had been living with Amato for six years when he suddenly died of a heart attack.

Strange Personal Connection: Julie Amato starred in Canadian TV series called House Of Pride (1974-1976), which was partially shot in Winnipeg (my home town). One of Amato’s co-stars was Doreen Brownstone, my friend and favourite (currently) 98 year old actress. I first learned about Amato from Doreen’s stories about working with her on that show. Amato would have been living with Dominic Hogan at the time that Doreen knew her.

Gay Rowan plays Dominic Hogan’s wife in Sudden Fury. She was a regular cast member of The Starlost TV show. I really need to buy the complete series and re-watch it one of these days…

Sudden Fury (1975) is an excellent, gritty, suspenseful 1970s crime thriller. It’s complete lack of commercial success is hard to believe, but it also makes it a #Certified #NotQuiteClassicCinema classic. I will undoubtedly be watching it again (and again) in the future – perhaps on another #FridayNightAtTheHomeDriveIn.