SISTERS IN ARMS

Larger than life and twice as revolutionary.


The schlock factory known as American International Pictures and director Eddie Romero team up for another low budget romp with Savage Sisters, one of numerous shot-in-the-Philippines action epics they put together for the grindhouse circuit. AIP regulars Sid Haig, John Ashley, and Vic Diaz make appearances, but the stars of this one are Cheri Caffaro, Gloria Hendry, and Rosanna Ortiz, playing women caught up in a third world revolution.
 
Violence and dumb comedy combine into an entertaining mix, but entertaining isn’t the same as good. Savage Sisters is strictly for movie parties with pals, something you glance at between beers and bong hits to catch the intermittent gun battles and soft titillation. Gil Scott-Heron said the revolution would not be televised. It won’t be organized either, if these plotters are any indication.
 
It’s ironic that all these AIP movies about overthrowing repressive governments were shot during Ferdinand Marcos’s exploitative Philippine regime, but we guess he was just happy to have film production in the country and didn’t actually care about the finished product. As long as you don’t care too much about the finished product either you can put Savage Sisters in the awful-but-fun bin and enjoy. It opened in New York City today in 1974.

The way you say that word makes me so hot. Say it again. Say… “epaulettes.”

Sorry, dude, I can’t reach that knife in your pocket. But I can hold your hand. It’ll comfort us both as we die of exposure.

Damn, girl. I never noticed before, but when the light hits your face just right you look a lot like Peter Frampton.

I think we all knew that Iota Kappa Ass has the most difficult initiations of all the sororities but this is just crazy.

It’s a revealing outfit for a military assault, I know, but after we shoot up this munitions depot we’re headed to the disco.

I think I just realized something. I don’t give a fuck about the revolution. I just want to ventilate some honkies.

I’m uniquely qualified to lead this revolution because of my grand vision and infallible foresight. Take my outfit, for instance. This will never go out of style.

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1933—Franklin Roosevelt Survives Assassination Attempt

In Miami, Florida, Giuseppe Zangara attempts to shoot President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, but is restrained by a crowd and, in the course of firing five wild shots, hits five people, including Chicago, Illinois Mayor Anton J. Cermak, who dies of his wounds three weeks later. Zangara is quickly tried and sentenced to eighty years in jail for attempted murder, but is later convicted of murder when Cermak dies. Zangara is sentenced to death and executed in Florida’s electric chair.

1929—Seven Men Shot Dead in Chicago

Seven people, six of them gangster rivals of Al Capone’s South Side gang, are machine gunned to death in Chicago, Illinois, in an event that would become known as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Because two of the shooters were dressed as police officers, it was initially thought that police might have been responsible, but an investigation soon proved the killings were gang related. The slaughter exceeded anything yet seen in the United States at that time.

1935—Jury Finds Hauptmann Guilty

A jury in Flemington, New Jersey finds Bruno Hauptmann guilty of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, the son of Charles Lindbergh. Hauptmann is sentenced to death and executed in 1936. For decades, his widow Anna, fights to have his named cleared, claiming that Hauptmann did not commit the crime, and was instead a victim of prosecutorial misconduct, but her claims are ultimately dismissed in 1984 after the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to address the case.

1961—Soviets Launch Venus Probe

The U.S.S.R. launches the spacecraft Venera 1, equipped with scientific instruments to measure solar wind, micrometeorites, and cosmic radiation, towards planet Venus. The craft is the first modern planetary probe. Among its many achievements, it confirms the presence of solar wind in deep space, but overheats due to the failure of a sensor before its Venus mission is completed.

1994—Thieves Steal Munch Masterpiece

In Oslo, Norway, a pair of art thieves steal one of the world’s best-known paintings, Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” from a gallery in the Norwegian capital. The two men take less than a minute to climb a ladder, smash through a window of the National Art Museum, and remove the painting from the wall with wire cutters. After a ransom demand the museum refuses to pay, police manage to locate the painting in May, and the two thieves, as well as two accomplices, are arrested.

Cover art by Roswell Keller for the 1948 Pocket Books edition of Ramona Stewart's Desert Town.
Rare Argentinian cover art for The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells.

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