After the Shock

After the Shock

United States - 1990

Director - Gary Sherman

Paramount Home Video, 1990, VHS

Run Time - 1 hour, 32 minutes
 Starring - Yaphet Kotto, Rue McClanahan and Scott Valentine

Badge of the Assassin

Badge of the Assassin

United States - 1985

Director - Mel Damski

Vidmark Entertainment, 1989, VHS

Run Time - 1 hour, 36 minutes
Starring - Yaphet Kotto and James Woods

Come on, this is one of Kotto's best performances in the 80's and despite his face being above Woods', he isn't even listed on the cover. Incredible box fail. This was the second time that Kotto and Woods worked together on a film, the first was 1976's Raid on Entebbe which I cover on Tuesday for Kotto Week. As I said just above, Kotto is terrific in this, as is Woods, both turn in fantastic performances, the subject matter of the movie bears a bit more analysis.

Pretty Kill

Pretty Kill

a.k.a. Tomorrow's A Killer

United States - 1987

Director - George Kaczender

Lorimar Home Video, 1987, VHS

Starring - Yaphet Kotto, David Birney and Season Hubley

In my anticipation of Kotto Week, I scanned a bunch of VHS boxes for films starring our man of the hour (week). I normally post on Mondays and Fridays, but for the coming week I've switched it up a bit. I hope that all of you regular readers will visit the other contributors who are participating in the event, and if you want to take part in the next one (there will be more of these) I hope you'll get in touch with me.

In 'N Out

In ‘N Out

United States/Mexico – 1984

Director – Ricardo Franco

New World Video, 1987, VHS

Run Time – 1 hour, 30 minutes

In 'N Out first came up here when I discovered a number of Mexican films about border crossing. The Spanish title, Gringo Mojado means more or less literally “white wetback”, and I got excited for something that contradicted “our” narrative of the border and gave some insight into that of our southern neighbors. The director’s Spanish surname further encourages this line of thought and I had high hopes.

It is honestly hard for me to say how much of the Mexican sentiment came through in this film because I haven’t seen many purely Mexican films. I would be willing to guess very little. For one thing it’s filmed in English indicating its intended audience. And secondly all the supporting characters (and at times the stars) conform to expected stereotypes. Despite the obvious assumption, it turns out the director is a Spaniard (a nephew of Jess Franco), and only one of the four producers is not United Statesian. Despite being outnumbered and facing an uphill battle this small Raza element does manage to ripple some otherwise placid waters.

The script itself is a thoroughly uninspired and confusing attempt at comedy but it has it’s moments. Rafael Inclan plays Nieves Blanco (“Snow White”), a mariachi who longs to immigrate to the U.S. in order to be a lounge singer, “the Mexican Dean Martin.” He lives in a small house with his sister Lupita (Mexican TV actress Rebecca Jones) a domestic worker who hates the U.S. and wants nothing to do with it. When Murray Lewis (Sam Bottoms, Apocalypse Now) goes to Mexico to track down a mysterious inheritance, he becomes friends with the Blanco siblings who mock his “woman’s” name, “Maria Luisa”. Throughout the rest of the film, Murray is accosted and harassed by Mexicans who make it abundantly clear that he is not welcome in their country.  At one point, he and Nieves get drunk marveling at the irony of their situation, and Murray suddenly realizes that Mexicans are Americans too. “Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States, “ Nieves replies. Murray has to sneak back into Mexico a number of times and in the films greatest moment he and Lupita fall for each other and remain in Mexico, while Nieves, with a new passport and a new name, heads North to croon.


Many of these moments, couched as they are within an unchallenging narrative, simply pass by without comment or emphasis, as if they were accidental. Comedies rely on a large element of expectation and its fulfillment or un-fulfillment to exploit their humor, but In ‘N Out oftentimes fights against itself. If the script had stuck to either a comedic formula, or fully rejected it, it would have been less confused by its own meanderings, both literal and metaphorical. Still, there’s no reason it couldn’t have been both, but the moments of transgression are not played for their comedic potential, and the attempts at comedy thus have little to anchor them. My conclusion, is that despite its moments of transgression, In ‘N Out couldn’t be too challenging otherwise it might have been a message film, and lord knows there's no audience for that.

A Coeur Joie

A Couer Joie

France - 1967

Director - Serge Bourguignon

Starring - Brigette Bardot and Laurent Terzieff who died this year (2010)

Another one that caught my eye because of the artwork. I wish I knew who the artist was, it's classic late 1960's early 70's design with those coarse brushstrokes forming the background. Love it. Also, check out the format, Eastmancolor/"Franscope".
Again I don't remember where I got these Boardot posters, sorry.

Une Parisienne

Une Parisienne

France/Italy - 1957

Director - Michel Boisrond

Starring - Brigette Bardot

I like this poster for both obvious and not so obvious reasons. The latter because of the uncluttered design which obviously focuses even more attention on the focal point. A lot of modern posters are really dark, even black, with a bright or highlighted central image. I like the posters from this era because they're bright and use a lot of negative space instead of filling it up with a totalizing oppressive darkness. The Longest Day had a great poster that demonstrates almost perfectly what I'm talking about with empty space.

Les Petroleuses

 

Les Petroleuses

France/Italy - 1971

Director - Christian-Jacque

Starring - Brigette Bardot and Claudia Cardinale

I was attracted to this poster by the western theme combined with the name of Claudia Cardinale whom I first became familiar with in Once Upon A Time In The West.

Cette Sacree Gamine

Cette Sacree Gamine

France - 1956

Director - Michel Boisrond

Starring - Brigette Bardot

I've never seen a Bardot film in  my life, but I was hunting for some other poster images online and ran across these. Damn if I can remember where I got 'em.

Zero Woman

Zero Woman

Japan - 1995

Director - Daisuke Goto

Tokyo Shock, 1998, VHS

Run Time - 1 hour, 30 minutes

21 years after the original, Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs, a "sequel" was born, and it was bad. The trailer for this film can be seen at IMDB, here is a trailer for Red Handcuffs from user Asianwack. Listen to the music by Daisuke Okamoto, brilliant.

John Solie

John Solie is another name that exploitation film fans should know, except that a lot of us don't, we're too young. Solie is no longer in the movie poster business because the movie poster business is no longer into art. Solie first went to work for Columbia pictures in the early 1960's despite his best efforts not to get the job. He kept increasing his demands but he got the job anyway and it turned out he loved it. He continued illustrating movie posters for the next thirty years, for major and independent studios including Roger Corman's New World Pictures.









In an interview in "What It Is... What It Was", Solie says that it was one of the funnest jobs he has had, with total freedom to come up with whatever he wanted, sometimes a sketch on a cocktail napkin  was the only draft he submitted. Most of the posters you can find online by searching for Solie are for either blaxploitation films or Corman productions. Solie did over 200 movie poster images, but I have only been able to confirm those I've listed or scanned here.  but by the 1980's posters with art were starting to disappear.

Once there was no longer a market for illustration in movie posters, Solie moved on to do romance book covers but these too became the realm of computers and he did work for TV Guide magazine which you can see at his website HERE. In addition he has done a number of fine art pieces with western and war themes as well as commissions for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).


It is surprisingly hard to find the names of many of the movies Solie did posters for, much less the artwork itself. Below is a list of all the posters collected at IMPAwards as well as anything that readily turned up in an image search engine. The images I've included here are those not included in the first two categories. I would appreciate any confirmable contributions to this list if you come across them.

John Solie dot com

Big Bad Mama
Candy Stripe Nurses
Capone and Capone 2
Challenge to White Fang
City on Fire
Grand Theft Auto
Last Days of Man on Earth
Lili
Moving Violations
Piranha
Raid on Entebbe
Ryan's Daughter
Savage!
Shaft In Africa
Shaft's Big Score
Smokey and the Bandit
Soylent Green
Starcrash
Strange Brew
Street Girls
Summer School Teachers
Swashbuckler
Tarzan
Tender Loving Care
The Invisible Boy
The Swinging Barmaids
Tidal Wave
TNT Jackson

Solie's painting of the last cavalry charge in U.S. military history, commissioned by the U.S. Army.

 John Solie with a painting he did for the Sylvia Beach Hotel in Oregon.

A Solie painting of the Hubble Telescope.

Waves of Lust

Waves of Lust

Una ondata di piacere (original title)

Italy - 1975

Director - Ruggero Deodato

Las Perfumadas

Las Perfumadas

Mexico - 1983

Director - Victor Manuel Castro