Warner Bros released Two on a Guillotine on 13 January 1965.

In 1964, Warner Bros announced that it was investing in a number of directors. But it did not work out as planned. For example, the company hired Hugh Griffith and Maximilian Schell to direct films. But they never did. But Warner did manage to get three TV directors to make films for them. They hired Jack Smight and William Conrad.

You probably know Conrad as an actor. He starred in Cannon (1971-1976) and Jake and the Fatman (1987-1992). But he was a highly successful and productive TV director starting in the late 1950s through the 1960s. But in the middle of this, he made three films for the company. They were all released in 1965. After Two on a Guillotine, he produced and directed the two neo-noir films My Blood Runs Cold and Brainstorm.

Guillotine is a haunted house film. It stars Connie Stevens and Dean Jones. And much of it could pass as a live-action Disney film (except that it is in black and white). As a result, most of the middle section of the film feels a lot like 13 Ghosts. But this is mixed with some excellent horror sequences. And then the whole last act is pure horror/thriller.

In this film, Conrad directs creatively with great clarity. This is no surprise. TV directors don’t get the respect they deserve. They are given little time and few resources. They need to shoot quickly without being boring. And Conrad used the extra resources very effectively. (So did Jack Smight. One of his films for Warner was the excellent Harper.)

It’s not clear to me why TV directors aren’t grabbed by film producers more often. Nor is it clear why Warner didn’t continue to experiment. But let’s take the opportunity to appreciate the first of these, Two on a Guillotine.

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Two on a Guillotine (1965) via Wikipedia via Fair Use.

Alan Sharp was born on 12 January 1934. He was Scottish but by the end of his life, he had homes in Scotland, New Zealand, and the US. Otherwise, I don’t know much about his personal life.

Sharp was a very successful screenwriter. He went through phases. He started in TV, moved on to feature films, and went back to TV. In the middle of his later TV work, he penned his best-known film, Rob Roy. He also wrote a few well-reviewed novels early in his career. But I haven’t read any of them.

He wrote (or co-wrote) two films I’m really not fond of. But I don’t think the problem was his scripts. The first is Damnation Alley. Sharp was brought in to rewrite the script to keep the budget under control. It was still expensive for its time and it’s just horrible to even look at. The second is The Osterman Weekend. It suffers from two problems: Robert Ludlum’s ridiculously complicated novel and Sam Peckinpah’s bad direction.

My favorite of Alan Sharp’s films is Dean Spanley. It is based on Lord Dunsany’s novella. But Sharp only took the basic idea. His script is so much richer than the book. I highly recommend watching it. There’s a good print on OK.RU. But it isn’t psychotronic. (Not that I couldn’t make the case. It’s about a guy getting a priest drunk because he remembers being a dog when drunk.)

But a close second is Night Moves. It is another of those great 1970s paranoia films that I love so much. But it is far deeper and more disturbing than other films of this type. The takeaway of the film is that there is no ultimate truth — just another layer of reality. And idiotic is he who expects an explanation.

Alan Sharp wrote a lot of other great screenplays. Pyschotronic fans may want to check out his first three features: The Last Run, The Hired Hand, Ulzana’s Raid. But for now, watch Night Moves.

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Night Moves (1975) poster via Wikipedia under Fair Use.

TFO Productions released Monster from Bikini Beach on 11 January 2008. I assume they released it direct-to-video. But the only version I can find is from its 2013 release.

Christy Savage & Amy Slockbower produced the film with Darin Wood writing and directing. I need to look into him more. He has made a handful of features. And they seem to all be similar. But the production values have definitely improved.

That’s not to say that this film lacks production value. It features weak video quality. But that’s about the only complaint. The lighting is better than competent. And Wood and his wife Christy Savage’s editing is excellent. It is well-used to cover over some of the issues that come with a micro-budget production like a lack of extras.

Then there are the things that are a joy to witness. First, Wood wrote a solid screenplay. I’ve never quite understood why low-budget films so often suffer from poor scripts. It’s the one thing you can get right without spending any money! But it is what it is. And Monster from Bikini Beach features a good script with more than enough content for its 95-minute runtime.

The gore here is also excellent. Wood uses it a lot in the last half-hour of the film. And the monster itself is awesome. Yes, it is more Sigmund and the Sea Monsters than Alien. But that is intentional. The film isn’t meant to be frightening. It is a monster that wants to mate with go-go dancers!

The acting is also way better than you would expect. It features Stephanie Hyden and Galen Howard as journalists and romantic leads. Stephen Vargo plays the bad cop and Laura Megan Stahl is his girlfriend. Keith Letl and Liesel Hanson as a redneck conspiracy couple.

I highly recommend checking out this film. It is a hoot! This print isn’t great but it will do. You really should get the film on DVD if you can.

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Monster from Bikini Beach (2008) poster via IMDb under Fair Use.

Parufamet released Metropolis on 10 January 1927 in Germany.

It is a great film. Everyone should see it. It’s hard to believe it is almost a hundred years old. It looks great. And the special effects are awesome.

The film’s content is what most impresses me today. It takes on the unjust class divide in society. And sure, it also shows workers as fools. But it doesn’t do one thing that is all too common in modern films. It doesn’t present a bunch of demigods as the only characters worth caring about. And it doesn’t present the implicit message that humans are useless swine who should be ruled by their betters.

I’m thinking of superhero films, of course. Remember when they were fun?! Thor is refreshing given that he is explicitly a god. All the rest are just implicitly gods. The worst, of course, is Iron Man. That’s what a great nation needs! Bow down to your tech billionaire lords!

I’m not suggesting that these films cause people to be submissive to power. It’s the other way around. They are submissive to power. So they love entertainment that tells them they are worthless. And that’s not what happens in Metropolis. (But as I noted, it has problems. Otherwise, Joseph Goebbels wouldn’t have liked it so much.)

The film went into the public domain three years ago. And that’s all you need to know about copyright law. Because by any reasonable definition, Metropolis entered the public domain in the early 1930s. But think about this. It is 2026. We are just now starting to see a notable number of sound films fall into the public domain. It’s madness.

But we can enjoy what we have.

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Metropolis (1927) poster via Wikipedia. It is in the public domain.

Lee Van Cleef was born on 9 January 1925.

He fascinates me. In the 1950s, he was like a lot of actors. He made a meager living playing bad guys in westerns. And then Sergio Leone cast him in For a Few Dollars More. And then, after only 13 years, he was an overnight star!

He was 27 years old before he to his first film acting gig, High Noon. Producers wanted him for the part that Lloyd Bridges eventually took. But they wanted him to get a nose job. He refused and got the much smaller part you see in the film.

This was certainly a mistake in the short term. Hollywood instantly typecast him as a bad guy. And he worked a lot throughout the 1950s. But in the early 1960s, he was mostly confined to TV — normally as a guest star. You probably remember him on My Mother the Car. (That was a joke. But he’s actually quite funny in the episode!)

Leone had apparently seen him in High Noon and thought he had a great face. Van Cleff always exuded intelligence on the screen. Leone’s idea was the use it in a role with more depth. In For a Few Dollars More, that meant making him a Good Guy — better than Eastwood’s mercenary character.

But Cleef didn’t have to be a Good Guy. Leone then cast him as one of the most evil characters in all of cinema in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Regardless, his career took off at this point. He worked mostly for Italian productions. But he had top billing in most of these. The days of character acting were over. He was a star — at least in Europe. But he was also a much bigger deal in the US than he ever had been.

I prefer Lee Van Cleef in Good Guy roles. For a long time, For a Few Dollars More was my favorite Leone film. (It could be again with some editing!) So let’s watch one of my favorite films featuring him, Death Rides a Horse.

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Lee Van Cleef in Death Rides a Horse via Wikimedia. It is in the public domain.

Trimark Pictures released Leprechaun on 8 January 1993 throughout the United States. But they released it in limited theaters in 1992.

Critics hated the film. But it made a lot of money at the box office. And it started an 8-film series. The critics hated all of them! But Rotten Tomatoes gives the highest score to the last film in the series, Leprechaun Returns. But even that is just 45 percent based on 11 reviews.

I don’t know. I just don’t see what the problem is. These films are exactly what they intend to be. But critics have a very hard time with that kind of thing. As a group, they are narcissistic. They think every film should be made for them.

Warwick Davis stars as the title character in the first six films. The seventh is an origin film, so he wouldn’t be in it anyway. He claimed that he didn’t want to do horror anymore until his kids were grown up. But I smell a rat. I suspect it is simple. He is tired of the role. And he’s so successful financially that he doesn’t need to. And good for him!

I’m not a huge fan of the Leprechaun franchise. But the series is dependable. You know what you are getting. The producers aren’t running a bait and switch. And I think the first film is rather good. Later films get a bit tiresome. But that’s because they do stick to the formula. Watching one at a time never disappoints!

I embed the first film below. But here are links to every one of them, in case you would prefer a different one:

• Leprechaun
• Leprechaun 2
• Leprechaun 3
• Leprechaun 4: In Space
• Leprechaun in the Hood
• Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood
• Leprechaun Origins
• Leprechaun Returns

And now for our main attraction!

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Leprechaun (1993) poster via Wikipedia under Fair Use.

William Peter Blatty was born on 7 January 1928. He died at the age of 89, shortly after his birthday. I bring it up only because he clearly had the time to direct more than two films!

Today, we know Blatty mostly as a novelist. In particular, he wrote the novel The Exorcist. But he wrote a lot of screenplays. He’s like William Goldman. He was successful as a screenwriter and a novelist. But I’m highlighting him today as a film director.

Blatty wrote the screenplay for and produced The Exorcist. It’s a great film and I don’t think any film of that type has matched it. But I have no interest in ever watching it again.

If you are only going to direct two films, you should make them great. Blatty did!

In 1980, he produced, directed, and wrote (based on his novel) The Ninth Configuration. It’s hard to classify. I tend to think of it as a horror film but it isn’t by most definitions. Most of the film is pure insanity, which makes sense given it takes place in an asylum. It’s an easy film to put on for 10 minutes, starting anywhere. You’re sure to be entertained.

Ten years later, Blatty directed and wrote (based on his novel Legion) The Exorcist III. This film never gets old. It is scary with interesting ideas and great characters. But don’t take my word for it. Owen Gleiberman hated it. And he is pretty much always wrong. If you find that you agree with him about a film, you need to rethink the film.

No one should leave this universe without watching both of William Peter Blatty’s films. So I’m going to embed both of them. First, The Ninth Configuration.

And second, The Exorcist III.

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William Peter Blatty via Vanity Fair under Fair Use.

United Artists released Coma on 6 January 1978. It’s a bit weird. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer produced the film. They didn’t distribute their own films?! Whatever.

I remember seeing this film with my parents at the drive-in theater. My mother was an obsessive reader. And whenever they made a film based on a novel she’d read, we all had to go out and watch it. I barely remember it.

But I watched it recently. And it is really good. Michael Crichton is not much of a director. He clearly listened to the professionals around him. So the camera work is good. But it doesn’t do much more. It’s not like he had a plan. But the film is based on an excellent novel. And his screenplay is first-rate.

I’d love to say that Crichton is a piece of garbage but… Wait, he was a piece of garbage! He’s a typical example of how our society over-praises successful people. As a result, they become convinced of their brilliance and lose the humility that keeps the rest of us from becoming arrogant pricks.

I’m not saying he was William Peter Blatty, who had actual skill as a film director. But he managed to make watchable films. And I think Coma is way better than the excessively praised Westworld.

But maybe I’m wrong. I love 1970s paranoia. Watergate might have been bad for politics in the United States. But it was great for art! Night Moves is one of my all-time favorite films. And there are so many more. It’s like if you are into westerns. You’ll enjoy even poor westerns. I’m into paranoia that way.

I highly recommend watching Coma. It works really well. And Geneviève Bujold in the lead is fabulous. And best of all, from my perspective, the bad guy fails and gets punished!

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Coma (1978) via Wikipedia under Fair Use.

David DeCoteau is 64 years old today. He was born on 5 January 1962.

DeCoteau has directed well over 100 feature films. All the films are low-budget. But what is amazing is, he makes shockingly good films. I don’t really know why. He is more or less the US version of Japan’s Takashi Miike. Although I think Miike gets lager budgets.

Of course, he doesn’t always create gems. Consider: Bigfoot vs DB Cooper. No one has ever come up with a better film title. When I saw the title, I immediately found the film and watched it. It is little more than gay porn. No sex. Just beautiful young men posing. And as such, it’s well made. Because DeCoteau is a great director. But come on! I could write a dozen screenplays for that title that would be better.

But that was 2014. That was the time when lots of psychotronic directors (eg, Fred Olen Ray, Jim Wynorski) were making softcore porn. I don’t blame DeCoteau. I just wish he hadn’t wasted that title!

David DeCoteau made the Puppet Master franchise. It was okay before him. But Puppet Master III: Toulon’s Revenge set the bar. And he directed the best films in the series.

Generally, he directs many films each year. He’s done a dozen or more some years. And as much as I like his work, I haven’t watched much of it. You see, I am not the target audience for most of his films. But that’s true of everyone. His output is varied. He’ll make softcore porn one day and a children’s film the next. (Check out A Talking Cat!?! — it’s adorable.)

His first big success was Creepozoids. It is an excellent Alien rip-off. So, it seems a fitting film to highlight David DeCoteau’s birthday!

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David DeCoteau via Absolute Horror under Fair Use.