Author Archive: Retro

Disguised as a cautionary suspense thriller, Violated is essentially an excuse to display some strippers taking their clothes off. Lili Dawn plays an exotic dancer named Lili DeMar, who is used as bait by the police to bring a sex offender out into the open. The acting is bad and the direction worse, but there’s no denying that the film is extremely well-photographed by Pat Rich. Those uninterested in the undulations of Lili Dawn will enjoy the creative musical score by Tony Mottola, who in 1953 had achieved a measure of fame for his work on TV’s Suspense. Considered hot stuff when first released, Violated is mild to middling when seen today.

In the War’s closing days, when a conscience-driven Japanese soldier fails to get his countrymen to surrender to overwhelming force, he adopts the lifestyle of a Buddhist monk.

Part Color and Black & White. Continuation of Part I, Ivan takes on the boyars in a battle for power. His wife dead from poisoning and his chief warrior, Kurbsky, defected to the Poles, Ivan is lonely as he pursues a unified Russia with no foreign occupiers.

Dir. Sergei Eisenstein. In 1547, Ivan IV (1530-1584), archduke of Moscow, crowns himself Tsar of Russia and sets about reclaiming lost Russian territory. In scenes of his coronation, his wedding to Anastasia, his campaign against the Tartars in Kazan, his illness when all think he will die, recovery, campaigns in the Baltic and Crimea, self-imposed exile in Alexandrov, and the petition of Muscovites that he return, his enemies among the boyars threaten his success.

Anti-war love story about Soviet man sent to war, leaving behind the woman he loves. Produced and Written by Mikhail Kalatozov. Dir. Mikhail Kalatozov.

Two brothers rob a bank and take a young girl hostage. They find out that the girl is a nudist, so they force her to take them to a nudist colony so they can hide out.

A student researching the German settlements of Central Texas unearths the grave of a reputed witch. The witch (who happens to be both beautiful and naked) rises from her grave and embarks on a campaign of seduction and murder against the descendants of her persecutors. It’s up to the student to stop her bloody reign of terror-if he can resist the seductive powers of her evil beauty.

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