Welcome Home Brother Charles (1975) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - May 19, 1976

The feature film debut of cult filmmaker Jamaa Fanaka, who would go on to make the Penitentiary trilogy starring Leon Isaac Kennedy. This film's biggest claim to fame is the memorable moment when Brother Charles strangles a man to death using his monster-sized penis. Really.

I'm sure there is a scathing social, cultural, and political statement being made at that moment, but did anybody bother to take it seriously? Could it be taken seriously?

I haven't seen any of Fanaka's films and, maybe, I should remedy that by watching Welcome Home Brother Charles or the first Penitentiary, at least. Maybe.

Fright Flicks - Trading Card #66

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 Dream Warriors (1987)

 

The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - May 18, 1966

While I did watch and enjoy The Incredible Mr. Limpet, The Reluctant Astronaut, and The Shakiest Gun in the West whenever they aired on TV, back in the day. My title choice for this blog makes the admission that The Ghost and Mr. Chicken is my all time favorite no surprise whatsoever.

"Atta, Luther!"

The film was directed by Alan Rafkin, who worked primarily in television. Amongst the hundreds of credits are numerable episodes of sitcoms I was exposed to during my childhood. Which means that the work of Alan Rafkin was an unrecognized element of the pop culture miasma I experienced as a child in the 70s and as a teenager in early-to-80s.

An incomplete list includes, but is in no way limited to, The Dick Van Dyke Show (4 episodes), Gomer Pyle: USMC (5 episodes), I Dream of Jeannie (3 episodes), Bewitched (2 episodes), The Andy Griffith Show (27 episodes). The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1 episodes), Get Smart (6 episodes), The Odd Couple (3 episodes), Love, American Style (9 episodes), The New Dick Van Dyke Show (5 episodes), Rhoda (2 episodes), The Mary Tyler Moore Show (4 episodes), The Bob Newhart Show (29 episodes), What's Happening (1 episode), Sanford and Son (17 episodes), M*A*S*H (2 episodes), Alice (5 episodes), Laverne & Shirley (22 episodes), The Love Boat (11 episodes), and One Day at a Time (123 episodes).

There are a lot more. though. The above list are just shows I remember watching, either every now and then, or with week-to-week regularity.

Alien 3 (1992) - Trading Card #30

Datalog: Approx. 0:200 Hours, Day 3

The screams had died down to mere echoes and hushed, panicky voices. Dillon went to investigate carrying only an axe. He reported that one of the prisoners had been killed, badly mangled. Dillon had come across the body in one of the side corridors. But there was no sign of the Alien. 

Abbott & Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951) / The Fat Man (1951) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - May 15, 1951

Three or so years after the Vincent Price voiced cameo "appearance" of the Invisible Man at the very end of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), the famed comedy returned to the Universal Monster well for this entertaining special effects laden romp. It has a better reputation than most of the other Abbott and Costello movies of the early to mid-fifties, but I have a greater nostalgic affection for Meet the Mummy.

The second half of this double feature is The Fat Man, a film adaptation of the popular radio mystery series of the same name. Whether it was meant to, or would have, birthed a series of films featuring the titular corpulent detective is moot. Dashiell Hammett's imprisonment during the Black List era killed the radio show and, one might suspect, any interest in a cinematic series version.

Fright Flicks - Trading Card #65

Vengeance: The Demon (1988)

AKA Pumpkinhead.
 

The Hand (1981) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - May 14, 1981

The Hand was the second, of only two, horrors films written and directed by Oliver Stone. The first being an under scene oddity from 1974 titled Seizure, which started Jonathan Fried and Martine Beswick.

While I remember the ad campaign, both newspaper and TV spots, and reading about the film in the pages of both The Twilight Zone and Fangoria magazines,  I would not see the film itself until it debuted on HBO.

Although I did part with some coin in the spring of 1981 in order to purchase the source material's retitled movie tie-in edition. I never got around to actually, you know, reading it. So it goes.

While I am on the subject of somewhat embarrassing (to me, at least) admissions. While D-Day had been one of my favorite characters in Animal House (1978), I did not recognize character actor Bruce McGill in this film as the actor that had played that very character. Then again, I was all of 13 or 14 years old at that time and far more interested in Adrienne Barbeau.
 

Alien 3 (1992) - Trading Card #29

Datalog: Approx. 0:200 Hours, Day 3

I heard Kevin give his signal, "Door C9 closed." Then Jude, "Door B7 safe." Someone else shouted that the V Channel was secure. They were slowly driving the Alien toward the Lead Works. But then I heard screams. Chaos. Something must have gone wrong.

The Car (1977) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - May 13, 1977

Star James Brolin is reputed to have quipped that the working, or shooting, title for this film was Wheels. A tongue-in-cheek reference to the at all in no way subtle fact that The Car is a Jaws knock-off. This film, just as yesterday's subject (William Girdler's Grizzly) did, duplicates the narrative structure of Jaws almost point-for-point. The only thing missing here is a problem denying town official. Somebody that emphatically refuses to cancel the town parade because there is no way for that psychopath to drive his measly little sedan into the center of town and through the gathered crowd of townsfolk. Not if the town sheriff (James Brolin) would do his job.

One interesting piece of trivia about this desert set oddity. The script was written by the then writing team of Dennis Shryack and Michael Butler. This creative duo would retrain the desert vistas as location and backdrop for yet another vehicle heavy action-thriller script that was produced and released at the close of the same year. The Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke road movie The Gauntlet.

Fright Flicks - Trading Card #64

Aliens (1986)