DEATH DIMENSION aka FREEZE BOMB aka THE KILL FACTOR (US/Italy - 1978) Directed by Al Adamson. Written by Harry Hope. Cast: Jim Kelly, George Lazenby, Harold "Odd Job" Sakata, Terry Moore, Bob Minor, Patch McKenzie, Aldo Ray, Myron Bruce Lee, April Sommers, Linda Lawrence, T.E. Foreman, Frank Scarpitto, Madame Sally Conforte. (R, 88 mins) With the fateful inevitability of a foretold prophecy of doom, a collaboration between Al Adamson and Dick Randall simply had to happen at some point, and we got just that with 1978's DEATH DIMENSION. It did reteam Adamson with producer Harry Hope (THE DOOMSDAY MACHINE), who bankrolled his teen sex comedy SUNSET COVE the same year, but DEATH DIMENSION's co-producer was the infamous Randall, best known for bad-movie classics like 1973's FRANKENSTEIN'S CASTLE OF FREAKS (featuring one "Boris Lugosi" as "Ook, the Neanderthal Man"), 1980's CHALLENGE OF THE TIGER, 1983's PIECES, and 1984's other killer Santa movie DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS. Randall's company, Spectacular Film Productions, was quite busy throughout the '70s and '80s, setting up shop at various times in places like Italy, Hong Kong, Spain, and the UK and moving around like a shell company perpetually trying to stay one step ahead of the posse. At the time of DEATH DIMENSION, Spectacular and Randall were based in Italy, though he didn't bring along any Italians or even any of his usual actors (how are Brad Harris and Edmund Purdom not in this?). Other than some Italian financing, DEATH DIMENSION is a standard-issue Adamson exploitationer shot in his frequent stomping grounds of Los Angeles, Palm Springs, and Reno. It even includes a visit to the Mustang Ranch, along with a cameo by its madame, Sally Conforte, probably throwing in a few bucks toward the budget (or perhaps supplying other services) in exchange for promotional consideration along the lines of Colonel Sanders popping up in a KFC in HELL'S BLOODY DEVILS.
1980 re-release poster, with title font
apparently doodled by a bored
high-schooler during study hall
Included on Severin's sprawling new 14-disc, 32-movie Adamson box set (because physical media is dead), DEATH DIMENSION stars Jim Kelly, just five years removed from his breakout turn alongside Bruce Lee and John Saxon in 1973's classic ENTER THE DRAGON. Kelly was an unknown at the time, but he had a loose, likable screen presence ("Bullshit, Mr. Han Man!") and could kick ass onscreen, so he became the first black martial-arts star when Warner Bros. immediately rewarded him with his own movie, reuniting him with ENTER THE DRAGON director Robert Clouse for 1974's BLACK BELT JONES. Later the same year, they teamed him with Jim Brown and Fred Williamson on the insane THREE THE HARD WAY. After supporting roles in Clouse's Joe Don Baker actioner GOLDEN NEEDLES in 1974 (a busy year for Kelly) and the 1975 western TAKE A HARD RIDE (again with Brown and Williamson), Kelly's big-studio career ended with Warner Bros' little-loved 1976 kung-fu comedy HOT POTATO. When that flopped, he found himself sucked into the Adamson orbit, starring in 1976's BLACK SAMURAI. It wasn't quite the same as what Kelly had grown accustomed to in just a short time, but he and Adamson reunited for the ridiculous DEATH DIMENSION. Kelly is Lt. I.J. Ash, an L.A. cop who ends up on the trail of ill-tempered Reno megalomaniac Joe "The Pig" Santamassino (Harold Sakata, who was so identified with his iconic turn as ultimate Bond villain henchman Oddjob in 1964's GOLDFINGER that he was just now going by Harold "Odd Job" Sakata). The Pig is very much Adamson's version of a Bond supervillain, except that he appears to live in an ordinary average ranch-style house with distinctly 1970s wood-paneled walls. And his plan is a doozy: hijack the blueprints for constructing a "freeze bomb" that a scientist (T.E. Foreman) has benevolently invented in the name of controlling the weather to eliminate droughts. But it also has the ability to reduce the temperature of large areas to absolute zero, and The Pig intends to sell the patent to the highest bidder to be used in warfare or terrorist attacks. Ash sums it up best when he tells his boss Capt. Gallagher (one-and-done 007 George Lazenby), "That's heavy stuff."
"Yeah Jim, I know you were in ENTER THE DRAGON.
I was James Bond, for Christ's sake! And yet, here we are."
The scientist has stored the information on a tiny microchip and implanted it just under the skin on the forehead of his assistant Felicia (Patch McKenzie), who finds herself targeted by The Pig and his chief henchman Tatoupu (Bob Minor). The Pig tries to broker a deal with Verde (Aldo Ray), a representative from a foreign country with interests in the freeze bomb, and they end up holding Felicia prisoner, with The Pig pulling out a giant, ugly-ass snapping turtle and threatening to have it "bite your tit off!" and even mocking her by shouting "You're going to be flat-chested!" Ash spends his spare time at his karate dojo and relaxing at home with orange juice and malt liquor, but his pursuit of The Pig gets personal when Tatoupu kills his wife (April Sommers), leading to his teaming up with kung-fu cop Li (the debut and farewell of martial-arts non-sensation "Myron Bruce Lee") to rescue Felicia, stop The Pig, and make sure he doesn't detonate...the Freeze Bomb!
FREEZE BOMB was actually an alternate title when the film was re-released in 1980, and it underwent yet another title change when it hit VHS as THE KILL FACTOR. Under any name, it's reasonably entertaining junk so long as expectations are tempered. It's Al Adamson, so you've got choppy editing; jaw-dropping continuity errors (watch when Ash and Li are battling bad guys on two separate speedboats, and one speedboat suddenly vanishes and they're both together on one); inept fight sequences where you can see guys huffing for breath and waiting for a cue to attack Ash; Ash's arrival in Reno beginning with an establishing shot that looks like it came from 1965, followed by travelogue footage of Kelly wandering around the strip, with onlookers gawking at him before he ducks into a casino and plays a few pulls on a slot machine; McKenzie walking around downtown L.A. with Adamson and cinematographer Gary Graver employing a trippy kaleidoscopic lens filter for no reason at all; a dubbed Sakata's vein-popping overacting, whether he's petting his turtles or demanding a massage from his girlfriend (Linda Lawrence) and yelling "Soothe me, Sheila!"; and of course, that absolutely pointless detour to the Mustang Ranch, where Ash walks in, exchanges pleasantries with Madame Sally, gets a girl, ducks away while she's undressing, walks down a hallway, pops into a room where a guy's in a jacuzzi with several women, gets kicked out, then heads to the Reno strip. Why was he there? Who was he looking for? There's no point to this entire sequence other than promoting the Mustang Ranch. With the presence of Sakata and Lazenby in the cast, it's obvious this is intended as a tongue-in-cheek Blaxploitation 007, and the climax involving a helicopter vs. cable car at the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway has an unmistakably "Bond on a tight budget" feel that's scored by inappropriate jazz piano and ends with the same aircraft explosion stock footage that Adamson recycled multiple times during this period, including at the end of 1976's BLACK HEAT. Kelly next starred in the 1978 Hong Kong kung-fu actioner THE TATTOO CONNECTION and appeared in 1982's ONE DOWN, TWO TO GO, with his old buddies Jim Brown and Fred Williamson. He then left movies and continued practicing martial arts in addition to becoming a tennis pro on the senior circuit. He appeared in a 2006 Nike commercial with Lebron James, made a one-off return to movies with a cameo in the 2009 YouTube-inspired AFRO NINJA, and in his later years, was a regular presence at fan conventions. Kelly died of cancer in 2013 at the age of 67.
SLAUGHTER HIGH (UK - 1986) Written and directed by George Dugdale, Mark Ezra and Peter Litten. Cast: Caroline Munro, Simon Scuddamore, Carmine Iannaccone, Donna Yaeger, Gary Martin, Billy Hartman, Michael Saffran, John Segal, Kelly Baker, Sally Cross, Josephine Scandi, Marc Smith, Jon Clark, Dick Randall. (Unrated, 90 mins) Perhaps more than any other slasher movie of the '80s, SLAUGHTER HIGH's rabidly devoted cult following is rooted more in nostalgia for the era rather than any inherent greatness in the film. Because, frankly, SLAUGHTER HIGH is pretty terrible. It's able to get away with boasting "From the makers of FRIDAY THE 13TH" because co-producer Steve Minasian was one of the partners in Georgetown Productions, the company that helped finance the original FRIDAY THE 13TH, even though Minasian was never credited onscreen. Minasian ended up partnering with veteran schlockmeister Dick Randall on the Spanish-made 1983 chainsaw epic PIECES and the British-made 1984 killer Santa movie DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS, both of which are more in line with Randall's lowbrow oeuvre (CHALLENGE OF THE TIGER, FOR YOUR HEIGHT ONLY) than any groundbreaking, trailblazing slasher horrors in Sean S. Cunningham's classic. Among the first theatrical releases of Vestron Video offshoot Vestron Pictures, a studio that would fold just a couple of years later with DIRTY DANCING being their only big hit, SLAUGHTER HIGH isn't nearly as much fun as either PIECES or DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS, but it's nevertheless beloved by fans. This could be due to its overt and at least partially intentional silliness (it takes place at a high school that looks nothing like a 1986 high school and is in the middle of nowhere) and mockability as a Bad Movie, but it does manage to pull off a few fairly decent and splattery--at least in the unrated version--kill scenes. But throughout, SLAUGHTER HIGH is played so broadly, with grating, "wacky" music cues and terrible performances that it's never really scary because by 1986, audiences had seen nearly a decade of these things post-HALLOWEEN and were savvy enough to know when all the jolts were coming. It's more likely that SLAUGHTER HIGH is cherished not for what it is, but for the period in which it was created.
35-year-old Caroline Munro as the
world's least-convincing high school student.
Shot as APRIL FOOL'S DAY but retitled when the producers learned Paramount had their own APRIL FOOL'S DAY slasher film in production, SLAUGHTER HIGH was filmed in the UK with a mostly British cast sporting American accents that range from "kinda sorta OK" to "completely embarrassing" (Carmine Iannaccone as jokester Skip is actually American, while Scottish-born Billy Hartman, seen that same year as Connor MacLeod's cousin Dougal in the classic HIGHLANDER, has what might be the worst American accent in movie history as Frank). In a nearly 20-minute prologue, all the cool kids play a cruel April Fool's Day prank on Marty Rantzen (Simon Scuddamore), "the dork of Doddsville High," a dweeby science nerd who's led into the girls' locker room under the pretense of being seduced by beauty queen Carol (genre vet Caroline Munro, 35 years old at the time and playing a teenager). Of course, Marty is humiliated and later given a laced joint that he lights up in the chemistry lab, which eventually leads to a nitric acid spill that causes an explosion setting him ablaze. Ten years later, the group of students behind the prank--including Carol, who's now a cokehead movie star--are invited back to the now-closed Doddsville High for a reunion. It's all a set-up as they're offed one by one in a variety of inventive ways by Marty, his disfigured face obscured by a grinning jester's mask. That creepy jester's mask is one of the few effective horror elements of SLAUGHTER HIGH (the killer's mask in DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS was also unexpectedly unnerving). There's a few memorable kills--the acid bath, the exploding stomach, the dual electrocution in mid-coitus--and when composer Harry Manfredini drops the wonky synth cues and goes for that frenzied, screeching sound he brought to the suspense sequences in FRIDAY THE 13TH, the film occasionally manages to vaguely look like the American slashers that it's emulating, but in the end, it's a lesser entry in the '80s subgenre that's further diminished by a stupid twist ending that leaves the door opened for a sequel that never happened.
The creative team of George Dugdale, Mark Ezra, and Peter Litten are credited with writing and directing, though on the commentary track of Lionsgate's just-released Vestron Collector's Series Blu-ray, Dugdale and Litten explain that Dugdale did most of the directing, Ezra did most of the writing, and Litten did the special effects, with each frequently contributing in other areas. There's some intermittently interesting information in the commentary--such as the occasional Dick Randall anecdote; the exteriors of the high school being an abandoned asylum, and the interiors (usually the same slightly redressed hallway) being the shuttered St. Marylebone Grammar School, a building constructed in 1791 and closed in 1981; and that Randall offered Telly Savalas $25,000 for one day's work as the gym teacher in the prologue, with Savalas slamming the phone down on Ezra when Randall wouldn't meet his demand of $50,000 (the role went to American expat Marc Smith, a voice actor best known as the guy who dubbed Franco Nero in ENTER THE NINJA and Lou Ferrigno in HERCULES)--but otherwise, the two filmmakers blather on endlessly about mostly uninteresting stuff (like what the weather was like when they shot a particular exterior). They don't even mention Caroline Munro's name until an hour into the commentary, which is bizarre considering 1) she's a beloved cult movie icon, 2) she's the biggest name in the cast, 3) was Dugdale's girlfriend at the time of filming, and 4) has been his wife since 1990 (why didn't she come along?). Even more egregious is barely even mentioning Simon Scuddamore, whose name finally comes up near the end when one of the directors mentions the actor is only playing Marty at the beginning and the end, and isn't the guy walking around in the jester's mask in the rest of the movie.
Simon Scuddamore (1956-1984)
Ezra, the only one of the three filmmakers who's gone on to a somewhat successful career in the industry (he wrote some British TV shows and was a producer on the later arthouse hit WAKING NED DEVINE), isn't on the commentary but is instead interviewed separately in a featurette, and he goes into much greater detail about the production in 15 minutes than Dugdale and Litten do in 90. Ezra actually provides some information about the enigmatic Scuddamore, who won the role after an open audition, had no acting experience, and requested weekends off during the shoot so he could continue his volunteer job at a facility for special needs children. Just days after SLAUGHTER HIGH wrapped production in November 1984, Scuddamore committed suicide in what was believed to be an intentional drug overdose. Ezra doesn't go into specific details, but he mentions Scuddamore's unexpected death and that it was under unfortunate circumstances, which is more than Dugdale and Litten say. How does the death of the movie's star just after filming not be a key talking point on a commentary? The fact that Scuddamore died in 1984 and the movie remained unreleased for two years might also be a topic to discuss, but it never comes up (nor is there even a dedication to Scuddamore in the closing credits). Neither do other potentially interesting tidbits, like 23-year-old future acclaimed author of the Thursday Next mystery series Jasper Fforde being a member of the camera crew. Even a junk movie like this deserves a thorough and informed commentary for fans. On the plus side, the Blu-ray looks good, and it's nice to see this properly framed after Lionsgate's janky DVD release from several years ago put forth zero effort and just used the full-frame VHS transfer. I've seen SLAUGHTER HIGH four or five times in 30 years and I still don't really like it--or, perhaps more accurately, I don't see why fans love it as much as they do--but even I'm guilty of being suckered in by the nostalgia element, and now I own the Blu-ray. I get it. I miss the '80s, too. Will I watch this unremarkable and thoroughly mediocre movie again? Of course I will.
SLAUGHTER HIGH opening in
Toledo, OH on February 13, 1987
DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS (UK - 1984) Directed by Edmund Purdom and Al McGoohan (Derek Ford, Alan Birkinshaw). Written by Derek Ford and Al McGoohan (Alan Birkinshaw). Cast: Edmund Purdom, Alan Lake, Belinda Mayne, Gerry Sundquist, Mark Jones, Caroline Munro, Kelly Baker, Pat Astley, Kevin Lloyd, Wendy Danvers, Lawrence Harrington. (Unrated, 86 mins)
The November 9, 1984 release of SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT, with its concept of a homicidal, axe-wielding maniac dressed as Santa Claus, was the subject of a major controversy, a media circus, and a ludicrously hyperbolic condemnation from Siskel & Ebert. It's not like the idea of Christmas-themed horror was new: we'd already seen Bob Clark's terrifying BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974), the original "the calls are coming from inside the house!" scenario with a hidden killer stalking the stragglers at a sorority house during Christmas break, and the opening "And All Through the House" segment of Freddie Francis' TALES FROM THE CRYPT (1972), David Hess' TO ALL A GOODNIGHT (1980), and Lewis Jackson's CHRISTMAS EVIL, aka YOU BETTER WATCH OUT (1980) all dealt with the idea of a killer Santa long before SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT was nearly banned because of it. The breathless panic and the cries of "What about the children?!" that surrounded SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT had more to do with the mindset of the time than anything inherently offensive in the film, which, for the record, is not very good, though even it has its one legitimately iconic moment. Thanks to HALLOWEEN (1978) and FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980), and the flood of imitators that hitched a ride on the bandwagon, the popularity of slasher films was at an all-time high. Much like today's debate over the violence in video games, there was much parental concern about things like movie violence and the "Satanic Panic" of the era, with heavy metal acts like Ozzy Osbourne, W.A.S.P., and Judas Priest being the favorite targets of outraged parents. There was a growing belief that if kids were bad, it had to be the movies they were watching, the music they were hearing, and the books they were reading.
Prior to SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT's release, protest groups announced plans to picket and demonstrate outside theaters showing the film. But, as in most cases like this, all they really succeeded in doing was drawing more attention to a cheap, forgettable film that, because of all the media hype, stayed in theaters for two weeks instead of just the one it would've lasted had the protesters simply said and done nothing at all. SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT landed in eighth place at the box office in its opening weekend, dropped significantly in its second weekend, and was gone--or "pulled from release," depending on who's telling the story--by Thanksgiving, with a May 1985 re-release generating little fanfare. It's still revered as a "classic" by '80s horror fans prone to grading on an overly nostalgic curve, and it spawned four sequels (the last two in-name-only) and an abysmal 2012 remake. But late 1984 also saw another Santa-themed slasher film that fell through the cracks: the British-made DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS only got a very limited release on December 7, 1984 by exploitation outfit 21st Century Distribution Corp. before turning up in video stores several months later courtesy of the immortal Vestron Video. DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS was produced by veteran American schlockmeister Dick Randall, who had just set up shop in London after a decade-long run in Italy and Hong Kong, and Steve Minasian. Minasian was a veteran in grindhouse distribution and theatrical exhibition with his time logged as co-owner of Esquire Theaters and Hallmark Film Distributors. Minasian helped conceive the infamous "vomit bag" campaign for Hallmark's 1970 release of the German WITCHFINDER GENERAL ripoff MARK OF THE DEVIL. He was Randall's business partner on a number of 1980s European ventures, including the Spanish PIECES (1983) and the British SLAUGHTER HIGH (1986), but is perhaps best known for being involved as an investor in Georgetown Productions, the company that independently-produced FRIDAY THE 13TH. Minasian knew producer/director Sean S. Cunningham, who produced the Hallmark-released Wes Craven debut THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972). Minasian was a money man, had no creative input in FRIDAY THE 13TH or the first four sequels that carried a Georgetown Productions credit, and he isn't individually credited anywhere on the film, but that didn't stop him or Randall from exploiting that connection to the box-office phenomenon time and again throughout their partnership.
DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS newspaper ad
from the Temple of Schlock archives.
Perhaps the most interesting figure involved in DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS was Edmund Purdom. Purdom (1924-2009) was a British actor who had some small roles in a few UK films and appeared on Broadway with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh before heading to Hollywood in search of stardom. He had bit parts in TITANIC (1953) and JULIUS CAESAR (1953), and in 1954, lucked into the lead in the lavish MGM musical THE STUDENT PRINCE. Mario Lanza quit the film over a dispute with the studio, who apparently expressed their displeasure with the star's sudden weight gain. The very popular Lanza, a beloved tenor who parlayed his voice into a movie career, was prone to binge-eating and wildly fluctuating weight. He had already recorded the soundtrack to THE STUDENT PRINCE before shooting began on the film, and as a result, MGM owned the rights to the music. This put Purdom in the awkward position of lip-syncing Lanza's vocals in a film that was actually advertised as "featuring the singing voice of Mario Lanza!" The film was a huge success, but people were going to hear Mario Lanza, not to see Edmund Purdom. Purdom's next film was the 20th Century Fox mega-budget Biblical epic THE EGYPTIAN. Marlon Brando was cast in the lead, but decided he didn't like the script and bailed at the eleventh hour. Fox courted Farley Granger and an up-and-coming Dirk Bogarde, and both declined the offer. Scrambling, they finally settled for their fourth choice--Purdom--and, coming on the heels of the Lanza brouhaha over THE STUDENT PRINCE, the Hollywood gossip rags started derisively referring to him as "The Replacement Star." MGM offered him a contract and appeared committed to making Edmund Purdom happen: he and Vic Damone romanced Jane Powell and Debbie Reynolds in the musical ATHENA (1954), with Purdom's character being the only lead to get no musical numbers, presumably because MGM had no more Mario Lanza vocal tracks lying around; he starred with Lana Turner in the epic spectacle THE PRODIGAL (1955); and was billed above the likes of David Niven and George Sanders in the swashbuckler THE KING'S THIEF (1955). None of these three post-EGYPTIAN films were successes, and just like that, Purdom's Hollywood career was over. He never got past the stigma of "The Replacement Star" and after an Allied Artists quickie with 1956's STRANGE INTRUDER, he left Hollywood to test the waters of the Italian film industry. He ended up spending the rest of his life there, his career largely concentrated in Italy with a few British, Spanish, French and/or German co-productions scattered throughout his filmography.
Purdom starred in adventures, westerns, gangster dramas, and horror films during this second career, and also found much work as a voice dubber and voiceover artist. There were some prestigious Italian productions for him in the 1960s, but as time went on, he was relegated to supporting roles in everything from high-end gialli like THE FIFTH CORD (1971) to low-grade Eurotrash like Jess Franco's THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF (1973) and the Italian-made Randall production FRANKENSTEIN'S CASTLE OF FREAKS (1973), featuring the infamous credit "and Boris Lugosi as Ook the Neanderthal Man." Purdom would appear as Vittorio De Sica in the 1980 TV-movie SOPHIA LOREN: HER OWN STORY and had small roles in a pair of 1983 miniseries: THE WINDS OF WAR for ABC and THE SCARLET AND THE BLACK for CBS--all American productions with scenes shot in Purdom's base of Rome--but by the 1980s, he was mostly appearing in things like Joe D'Amato's HALLOWEEN ripoff MONSTER HUNTER (1982) and grimy Randall fare like Alan Birkinshaw's INVADERS OF THE LOST GOLD (1982) and the legendary PIECES, as the chainsaw-killer college dean assembling a human jigsaw puzzle out of the body parts of his victims. It was Purdom's friendship with Randall that led to their final, doomed collaboration: DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS.
Still basking in the glow of their PIECES triumph, Purdom talked Randall into letting him direct DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS, where the veteran actor plays Scotland Yard Inspector Harris, investigating a string of brutal and graphically gory murders of men dressed as Santa in the days approaching Christmas. The Santas are, in no particular order, shot in the head, stabbed, have a spear run through their head and out of the mouth, forced face-first onto a grill, and in the film's most infamous scene, castrated with a straight razor while using a men's room urinal. Much of the film focuses on Kate Briosky (Belinda Mayne), the daughter of one of the victims, and her busking flautist boyfriend Cliff (Gerry Sundquist), who's immediately pegged by Harris as a suspect. There's also Harris' partner Powell (Mark Jones) doing some investigating on his own after being tipped off by sketchy journalist Giles (Alan Lake), as well as a porn palace peep show stripper (Kelly Baker) who witnessed one of the killings and is eventually abducted by the murderer. There's an unusually large number of characters drifting in and out of the film, and many of the scenes appear awkward, choppy, and incomplete, with a seemingly romantic dinner between Harris and Kate immediately cutting to Kate alone in her apartment, or Kate suddenly seen in a waiting room and being told "Dr. Bridle will see you now," and we never see Dr. Bridle, nor was he mentioned before or after this scene, and we never know the reason nor the result of this phantom appointment. There's a reason for the frequently random, nonsensically slapdash feeling throughout DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS: even by Dick Randall standards, the production was a complete clusterfuck.
At some point during filming, Purdom was relieved of his duties as director and subsequently quit the project as an actor, with Randall handing the task of directing off to screenwriter Derek Ford. Ford was best known for scripting the excellent 1965 Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper thriller A STUDY IN TERROR and the sublimely trashy 1968 Peter Cushing plastic surgery laser hippie freakout CORRUPTION, but eventually found himself in the smutty 1970s British sex farce gutter with the likes of I AM A GROUPIE, THE SWAPPERS, SUBURBAN WIVES, and COMMUTER HUSBANDS. Randall wasn't happy with Ford's work and after a few days, fired him and brought in Alan Birkinshaw, the man responsible for the truly pathetic INVADERS OF THE LOST GOLD and now in charge of saving CHRISTMAS. Now that Ford was gone, Birkinshaw was assigned to completely overhaul the script to factor in the star no longer being around, take over directing the film, and reshoot some earlier Purdom sequences with which Randall was dissatisfied. Purdom wanted to make an old-fashioned thriller, and in a revelatory archival making-of on Mondo Macabro's 2011 DVD release, he's shown directing one murder scene involving the porn-booth stripper and says "I'm not really interested in showing a lot of blood here," demonstrating a fundamental disconnect with everything Dick Randall. Both the actress and the Santa actor are not the ones in the finished film. Birkinshaw reshot this sequence with a different actress (Baker) and buckets of blood and was actually responsible for almost all of the gory murder sequences. Purdom wasn't interested in splatter, and, by all accounts, was an eccentric and well-meaning guy who wanted to direct a movie but was in over his head and really didn't know what he was doing behind the camera. This is evident in a lot of the scenes in which Purdom is acting, which have the actors positioned in odd ways in shots that have a tendency to end abruptly, sometimes in mid-sentence, in an editorial necessity that can probably be chalked up to little or no coverage. Even with Birkinshaw's reshoots, new storylines, and massive re-edits, the film just doesn't cut together well at all.
Caroline Munro in DON'T OPEN
TILL CHRISTMAS, for some reason
Birkinshaw rewrote much of the script, introducing the subplot about the abducted stripper (Purdom never directed Baker at all), and another explaining the long stretches where Harris, the ostensible central character played by ostensible star Purdom, is completely absent from the action. DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS is entertaining for all the wrong reasons--way to waste the iconic Caroline Munro in a three-minute cameo as "herself" in a concert sequence, performing something called "Warrior of Love"--and barely hangs together, but it has its charms. Des Dolan's synth-heavy score has sections where it sounds a bit like something John Carpenter might compose on an off-day, Dick Randall aficionados will appreciate its sometimes PIECES-levels of nonsensical stupidity and incompetence, and the sight of the killer's smiling mask is undeniably effective. Birkinshaw hides behind a pseudonym, getting an "Additional scenes written and directed by Al McGoohan" credit presumably shared with Ford's equally anonymous directing contributions, and estimates that once Purdom's and Ford's useable footage was salvaged and he knew what he had to work around, he ended up directing about half of the film. Birkinshaw, the director of the 1978 video nasty KILLER'S MOON as well as dreadful remakes of THE HOUSE OF USHER and THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH for Harry Alan Towers during that ill-fated late '80s Poe revival, describes Purdom as "a sweet man," but this whole grease fire begs the question: how badly do you have to fuck up and how catastrophic is the destruction left in your wake when Alan Birkinshaw is the guy who gets called in as a cleaner?
Diana Dors and Alan Lake in
happier days, in an early 1970s
photo with their son Jason
DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS is also morbidly noteworthy for the premature and tragic ends of two of its stars. Born in 1940, Lake, a veteran British TV actor with a busy but unexceptional career, was known to UK audiences for his marriage to 1950s starlet Diana Dors in 1968 after her divorce from Richard Dawson. Dors, the British Marilyn Monroe in her prime, drifted into Shelley Winters-esque character parts as she got older but was nonetheless a popular tabloid subject throughout her life due to her sultry screen image, her weight gain as she aged, and stories of hosting celebrity orgies and homemade stag films dating as far back as the late 1950s. Lake also earned some notoriety when he served a year in prison over 1970-71 due to his part in a violent pub brawl. Dors wrote several tell-all memoirs about her storied life, and she and Lake were regulars on British talk and game shows. Dors was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1982 and was only 52 when she died in May 1984, a couple of months after Lake finished his work on CHRISTMAS. A devastated and inconsolable Lake was finding it difficult to cope with her death, and a bad situation only got worse: shortly after losing Dors, Lake was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. On October 10, 1984, five months after Dors' death and two months before the release of DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS, Lake, just 44, took a shotgun to his head and ended his life, leaving the couple's 14-year-old son an orphan.
Born in 1955, Sundquist was a promising young actor who arrived on the scene in the mid '70s, and was soon labeled "the best-looking man on British TV." His biggest success in British cinemas was THE MUSIC MACHINE (1979), a knockoff of the 1977 blockbuster SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER that never got released in the US. Outside of the UK, he's known for the 1978 German sex comedy BOARDING SCHOOL, a favorite on late-night cable in the early '80s thanks to an early appearance by Nastassja Kinski, but his most high-profile role in the US was as the love interest to Esmeralda (Lesley-Anne Down) in the Anthony Hopkins-as-Quasimodo CBS/Hallmark Hall of Fame TV-movie THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (1982). Sundquist also had a supporting role in the 1984 ABC miniseries THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII just prior to DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS, but his momentum was quickly stalling. The actor was plagued by depression throughout his life, and he developed a serious drug problem as his career fizzled out in the mid '80s. He only managed to score a few sporadic TV guest spots over the next few years, and his personal issues worsened into the next decade. In 1993, the 37-year-old Sundquist committed suicide by jumping in front of a train at London's Norbiton train station. DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS was the final film credit for both Lake and Sundquist.
Purdom in his later years
DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS opened in several theaters in and around NYC on the same day as BEVERLY HILLS COP, 2010, and CITY HEAT. It never expanded nationwide and didn't attract any of the controversy or media attention heaped upon SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT, which was already out of theaters and yesterday's news. DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS got some coverage in Fangoria and became a video store fixture in the VHS glory days. It's earned a solid cult following over the years, mainly due to increased interest in the trashy grindhouse legacy of Dick Randall (1926-1996), who also produced the 1980 Bruce Li epic CHALLENGE OF THE TIGER and the 1981 Weng Weng classic FOR YOUR HEIGHT ONLY, both of which, like PIECES, have to be seen to be believed. Purdom licked his wounds and kept working throughout the '80s and '90s, either in voice work or in brief onscreen appearances in films like the Golan-Globus prestige project THE ASSISI UNDERGROUND (1985), and in ENDLESS DESCENT (1990), PIECES director Juan Piquer Simon's contribution to the late '80s undersea monster craze. He never attempted to direct another film. His final screen appearance came in Pupi Avati's medieval Italian epic KNIGHTS OF THE QUEST (2001), headlined by F. Murray Abraham, Thomas Kretschmann, and an unlikely Edward Furlong. He died of natural causes on January 1, 2009 at the age of 84, a highly recognizable, respected figure to fans of Eurotrash cult cinema. Purdom seemed to realize very quickly that Hollywood stardom wasn't in the cards for him, and he instead stayed consistently busy in movies that were mostly far beneath him, but he seemed OK with it. He was a working actor who went where the work was. He likely lived a very comfortable life of luxury in Europe, but he's still regarded--if at all--by devotees of Hollywood's Golden Era as "The Replacement Star," a heavily-hyped washout and the George Lazenby of his day, a strong and capable actor thrown into a can't-win situation and rejected by moviegoers mostly for not being someone else.
Mostly forgettable Italian crime obscurity written by Fernando Di Leo and featuring Tomas Milian is of little interest to anyone but Eurocult die-hards. Raro USA's packaging makes it look like a Milian polizia, but he's really just got a supporting role as a dogged inspector after a trio of rich kids on a crime spree. He's tipped off by Lea (INFERNO's Eleonora Giorgi) that her boyfriend Louie (Max Delys), and his pals Paul (Stefano Patrizi) and Joe (Benjamin Lev) are planning to rob a gas station with toy guns. Louie is the reluctant driver and isn't aware that Paul and Joe are packing real heat and don't plan on stopping with the gas station. Why? Spoiled boredom and bad parenting, according to Milian, who spends his time lecturing their parents and telling them "Communication is the key to understanding." You don't normally watch Italian crime films expecting Afterschool Special messages. Was Di Leo going soft here? These shitbags don't need a hug. They need Milian smashing their heads through pinball machines Maurizio Merli-style.
1976 Italian poster
Di Leo and director Romolo Guerrieri (THE FINAL EXECUTIONER) choose to focus on the three hoods--none of whom are very interesting characters or actors (Joe is incredibly annoying, made even more insufferable by Lev's nonstop mugging)--while making the mistake of relegating a commanding presence like Milian to the sideline. YOUNG, VIOLENT, DANGEROUS (original Italian title: LIBERI ARMATI PERICOLOSI) has a couple of good chase sequences and is never dull, but it's definitely not top-tier Italo crime. Guerrieri, a competent journeyman director, just doesn't have the sense of style or energy that an Enzo G. Castellari (Guerrieri's nephew), an Umberto Lenzi or Di Leo himself would bring to these kinds of films. Raro's DVD has been remastered and looks surprisingly good considering the 1.85:1 image is presented non-anamorphic. Non-anamorphic. In 2012. Really, Raro USA? Includes Italian and English audio tracks (the latter featuring the usual dubbing voices like Ted Rusoff, Michael Forest, Pat Starke, and others). There's also an interview segment with Guerrieri, shot in 2004, a Guerrieri bio and filmography, plus a PDF critical essay to view on your PC in place of the booklet Raro used to put in the packaging. PDF, non-anamorphic...Raro USA's been up and running for a year, but after a roaring start, has recently had two glitch-laden releases (THE SECRET OF DORIAN GRAY and TO BE TWENTY) and now they're already cutting corners elsewhere. All things considered, the YOUNG, VIOLENT, DANGEROUS DVD presentation has some issues, but it's an acceptable package for hardcore Eurocult genre addicts and completists. (Unrated, 97 mins)
THE GIRL IN ROOM 2A (Italy - 1974)
Molasses-paced Eurosleaze from grindhouse god Dick Randall, an American expat who had a long career producing trashy, bad-movie classics in Hong Kong, Italy, Spain, and the UK. Anyone familiar with gems such as CHALLENGE OF THE TIGER, FRANKENSTEIN'S CASTLE OF FREAKS, DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS, SLAUGHTER HIGH, the infamous Weng Weng vehicle FOR Y'UR HEIGHT ONLY, and the immortal PIECES, arguably the greatest bad movie ever made, already has a handle on Randall. The Italian-made kinda-sorta-giallo THE GIRL IN ROOM 2A, written and directed by American William Rose, takes forever to get going with its story of an unjustly-jailed young woman (Daniela Giordano), paroled to a halfway house run by a group of mysterious weirdos who take it upon themselves to punish "bad" girls--who always get assigned to Room 2A--as some sort of moral Inquisition of their own. They even have a red-cloaked/hooded torturer, who looks like a villain out of a 1940s Republic Pictures serial. Giordano sees all sorts of strange goings-on and teams up with John Scanlon, whose sister was a previous tenant of Room 2A, to investigate.
1975 US theatrical poster
Rose, who only made '60s underground NYC nudie flicks up to this point (with titles like THE SMUT PEDDLER, PROFESSOR LUST and 50,000 B.C. (BEFORE CLOTHING)), has no sense of pacing whatsoever and is hopelessly out of his element making a--and I use the term loosely--"legit" film. The film is a total snooze enlivened only by intermittent nudity or splatter, filled with ludicrously inappropriate music that does nothing to establish a suspenseful mood. What's supposed to be a scary sequence is ruined by what sounds periously close to circus music. Randall must've stepped in to save the day, because after 75 minutes of coma-inducing torpor, THE GIRL IN ROOM 2A erupts into all-out hilarity during the ridiculous climax, filled with cheap gore, terrible music, awful fight choreography, and just the general nonsense that one normally associates with Dick Randall productions, as Giordano is about to be sacrificed while Scanlon and his sister's ex-boyfriend (longtime Randall pal and ex-peplum star Brad Harris) attempt to rescue her. The last ten or so minutes are so stupidly entertaining and laugh-out-loud funny that it makes the first 75 totally worth the endurance. Also with Eurocult regulars Rosalba Neri, Karen Schubert, Frank Latimore and Angelo Infanti, plus, as the main villain, a curiously slumming Raf Vallone, who was getting a lot of work in Hollywood movies and on American TV at the time. Mondo Macabro, a company that seems to be exclusively releasing Randall product these days, presents THE GIRL IN ROOM 2A in an occasionally beat-up but generally nice-looking transfer that the packaging lists as 1.66:1, but is actually 1.78:1. Extras include a short interview with Giordano, where she dispels the longstanding rumor that William Rose was a pseudonym for Ramiro Oliveros, a Spanish actor who often gets credited in print and online with directing this film, plus some cast/crew info, and a lurid trailer for the film's 1975 US release ("Kidnapped! Enslaved! She became a sexual plaything in a strange, sadistic ritual!"). (Unrated, 85 mins).
