Vintage Pulp

June 4 2021

HEAT OF THE MOMENT

The temperature goes up but everything else goes down hard in low budget action flick.

We’re drawn by cool promo posters, but even though there’s nothing special about the cheap-ass art for the 1976 blaxploitation flick Black Heat, we had to watch it anyway because we love low budget vintage cinema. It’s like panning for gold. Usually you end up disappointed, but occasionally you find something shiny and nice. Black Heat stars Timothy Brown, who we last saw in an epic disaster called The Dynamite Brothers, aka Stud Brown, that probably should have ended his cinematic career. But here he is two years later still riding the blaxploitation wave. He plays Kicks Carter, an L.A. cop trying to get to the bottom of illegal activities at a fancy hotel, keep his partner’s born loser girlfriend out of gambling trouble, and make time for romance on the side.

Considering the bad luck Brown had with The Dynamite Brothers we’d love to tell you Black Heat is a major step up in his career. It isn’t. It’s terrible. The only spark is provided by co-star Tanya Boyd, who you may remember from her eye popping turn in Black Shampoo. Anything she’s in, we’ll gladly watch, because as far as heat is concerned her dial goes to eleven. But she about covers the positives here. Well, her and the fact that the movie features one of our favorite sights from ’70s cinema—the car that goes over a cliff with a dummy in the driver seat. It’s a good metaphor for the film—basically driverless, destined to crash and burn. Black Heat premiered today in 1976.

Las Vegas, Black Heat, The Murder Gang, Timothy Brown, Russ Tamblyn, Tanya Boyd, Jana Bellan, poster art, cinema, blaxploitation, movie review

Vintage Pulp

October 15 2018

FREE RIDE

This is your screenwriter's brain on drugs.

The poster you see above is the U.S. promo for the b-flick Free Grass, aka Scream Free!, aka Street Drugs, which starred Richard Beymer and Lana Wood in a drug drenched counterculture road adventure. We won’t mince words—this movie is godawful. It’s painful to admit, since we’re pro-counterculture guys here at Pulp Intl., but in terms of writing, editing, directing, scoring, and especially acting, this movie is off-the-charts terrible. Basically a hippie runs afoul of the law when a cop is killed during a Mexican drug deal, and has to evade narcotics agents while trying to keep his flower child girlfriend safe. Besides Beymer and Wood there are other semi-famous performers here, such as Casey Kasem and Russ Tamblyn, and it’s amazing any of them ever showed their faces in public again after this turkey hit cinemas.

Like most drug movies, Free Grass borrows Jefferson Airplane’s concert lighting for drug trips and club sequences, but just when the hypnovisuals start to dazzle your brain terrible dialogue rudely ejects you back into reality. And to think, four guys were needed to write the movie. We can only assume they took the title literally and wrote the entire script while ripping bong hits of Mexican weed. There’s one draw here—the uniquely beautiful Wood, who would reach her high water mark, cinematically speaking, as Plenty O’Toole in the 1971 James Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever. Here, unfortunately, she reaches her low water mark wearing a cheap ash blonde wig and spending the last few reels of screen time tied to a bed.

At one point Beymer, besieged by psychedelic lights and seriously bummer vibes, puts his fists to his temples and reels as if his head might explode. That’s how we felt: “Why? Why? Why is this happening to us?” We count ourselves lucky not to have flung ourselves off our balcony before the credits rolled. But like all bad trips this one finally ended, and we hope to make it through our remaining years without flashbacks. Free Grass premiered in the U.S. in Detroit, Michigan today in 1969—and the city still hasn’t recovered. But at least Lana is here to remind us there’s goodness and beauty in the world. Choose life.

Free Grass, Scream Free!, Street Drugs, Diamonds Are Forever, Lana Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Casey Kasem, poster art, cinema, movie review

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

October 6

1966—LSD Declared Illegal in U.S.

LSD, which was originally synthesized by a Swiss doctor and was later secretly used by the CIA on military personnel, prostitutes, the mentally ill, and members of the general public in a project code named MKULTRA, is designated a controlled substance in the United States.

October 5

1945—Hollywood Black Friday

A six month strike by Hollywood set decorators becomes a riot at the gates of Warner Brothers Studios when strikers and replacement workers clash. The event helps bring about the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act, which, among other things, prohibits unions from contributing to political campaigns and requires union leaders to affirm they are not supporters of the Communist Party.

October 4

1957—Sputnik Circles Earth

The Soviet Union launches the satellite Sputnik I, which becomes the first artificial object to orbit the Earth. It orbits for two months and provides valuable information about the density of the upper atmosphere. It also panics the United States into a space race that eventually culminates in the U.S. moon landing.

October 4

1970—Janis Joplin Overdoses

American blues singer Janis Joplin is found dead on the floor of her motel room in Los Angeles. The cause of death is determined to be an overdose of heroin, possibly combined with the effects of alcohol.

October 3

1908—Pravda Founded

The newspaper Pravda is founded by Leon Trotsky, Adolph Joffe, Matvey Skobelev and other Russian exiles living in Vienna. The name means “truth” and the paper serves as an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991.

October 3

1957—Ferlinghetti Wins Obscenity Case

An obscenity trial brought against Lawrence Ferlinghetti, owner of the counterculture City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, reaches its conclusion when Judge Clayton Horn rules that Allen Ginsberg’s poetry collection Howl is not obscene.

October 3

1995—Simpson Acquitted

After a long trial watched by millions of people worldwide, former football star O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. Simpson subsequently loses a civil suit and is ordered to pay millions in damages.