8 NIGHTS OF GRATIS OPEN-AIR CULT CINEMA

OPEN-AIR CINEMA IN HUSET’S COURTYARD: AUG. 8-15
AUGUST 8th to 15th inclusive – 8 nights of movies under the night sky. These films are GRATIS and start at 21.00 (If it is raining the films still take place – inside the Huset café)

08.08: JOURNEY TO THE 7th PLANET , 1962
09.08: FLASH GORDON, 1980
10.08: THE DOLL SQUAD, 1973
11.08: THE FIVE GIANTS FROM TEXAS, 1966
12.08: VIVA LAS VEGAS, 1964
13.08: BATMAN (1966) and TERMINAL USA (1992)
14.08: BRAINSTORM, 1965
15.08: X: MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES, 1963


Program Notes:

THE DOLL SQUAD: This low-budget mix of James Bond and Charlie’s Angels stars none other than the erotic dancer Tura Satana who eight years earlier had set the screen aflame in Russ Meyer’s FASTER PUSSYCAT, KILL KILL! In THE DOLL SQUAD she is part of a commando team of judo-choppin’ gun-slingin chicks sent out on a dangerous mission to neutralize a bad guy and his army of hopeless goons. Their evil plan: to take over the world by setting off swarms of rats infected with bubonic plague! This is a tour-de-force of unconvincing acting, grindhouse style brutality and wildly implausible plots twists with a James Bond-meets-blaxploitation soundtrack thrown in to quicken the pulse. Its loaded with extreme early-70s fashions (How would you like to be judo-chopped by a gal wearing hot pants and white go-go boots?) and vulgar interior home design that should be a crime to even remember. This is early-70s grrrl power B-movie rapture at its most entertaining and bizarre with all the raw ends exposed. (Note: this film is repeated in the open-air series). As for Tura, she was still doing her burlesque dance act at this time and a brief dance performance is shown in film.

JOURNEY TO THE 7th PLANET, voted most popular film from our first season, this Sidney Pink directed science-fiction fable employs Danish actors such as Ove Sprogøe, Carl Ottosen, Annie Birgit Garde, Mimi Heinrich, Peter Monch, Greta Thyssen and Louis Miehe-Renard. The men fly to “the 7th Planet, Uranus, on a spaceship, only to be forced to battle it out with a giant blob monster who dwells deep inside a maze a caverns and uses their own dreams and desires against them. This is where the gals come in, as seductive visions who do or don’t really exist. Oh, just see the movie, I can’t explain it. …Pink had directed the better known REPTILICUS the year before, shooting it in Copenhagen.

FLASH GORDON, you probably already know how bizarre this 1980 musical is. With special effects and costume designs as only the masters of Italian studio camp could make them (stuff unseen since BARBARELLA) and a soundtrack by Queen, this is a guilty pleasure indeed, an over-the-top assault on the brain cells that impacted a whole generation via screenings on TV. Now see it on the big screen, see a plot that is (intentionally & unintentionally) beyond absurd, see sexy space babes, brain-dead monsters and winged angel warriors. What the hell - we can get back to more intellectual film fare when the summer is over.

FIVE GIANTS FROM TEXAS, a classic Spaghetti-Western full of great atmosphere, music, brutality, death, sexy dark-eyed women and the like. Shot on the desert sands of Spain, it’s an ideal summer viewing experience.

VIVA LAS VEGAS, Elvis, sings and dances his way through this mindless romp together with a feisty Ann-Margret in what is considered to be one of his three best films, best being a relative term. Smouldering with raw emotional intensity, Elvis genuinely appears to be having a good time. With its numerous song numbers and racetrack scenes, it’s a perfect drive-in type flick.

BATMAN and TERMINAL USA: The media has been full of talk about the new Batman film. Now see where it all began: on television in the mid-60s. The 25 min. episode we present tonight is from 1966 and entitled CATWOMAN DRESSED TO KILL. It stars the purrrfectly perfidious Eartha Kitt as the feline villainous. … Following this is Jon Moritsugu’s 55 minute underground cult masterpiece from 1993, TERMINAL USA. This was part of a series about “the American Family” that was produced for TV but the Hawaiian born Moritsugu inserts an Asian-American family instead of the usual Caucasians in this wickedly provocative satire about cultural stereotypes. Too extreme to be played on television, it probes the limits of political incorrectness. Gross and delightfully perverse.

BRAINSTORM, a film noir thriller about a man who feigns insanity in order to murder his boss, but something goes terribly wrong! Excellently acted and scored, a real gem, but still twisted!

X: MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES, considered Roger Corman’s best film from the early part of his career, this fable about the tragedy that befalls a man who can see through anything is perhaps the most profound of our open air cinema offerings this season but is still action-packed and bizarre. Actually they are all quite bizarre… I hope.