Tag Archives: Radley Metzger

The Scumbag Annihilator

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The French film poster for the 1985 exploitation cop thriller DEATH SQUAD, directed by Max Pecas.

You may not know the name Max Pecas, but along with Jose Benazeraf and Jean Rollin, he was one of the more famous French directors of softcore erotic/exploitation films of the 60s and 70s. Two of his earliest films helped launch the film career of German sexpot Elke Sommer. De Quoi tut e Meles Daniela! (English title: Daniella by Night, 1961) was an espionage melodrama highlighted by some brief nudity of the lead actress and Douce Violence (English title: Sweet Violence, 1962) depicted jaded teenagers going wild on the Riviera in a style imitative of the New Wave films of that era. Pecas later moved on to more explicit adult fare in films like The Sensuous Teenager aka I Am a Nymphomaniac! (1971) and I Am Frigid…Why? (1972) before turning out some genuine hardcore X-rated features such as Felicia (1975) and Sweet Taste of Honey (1976), which were also released in edited R-rated versions. Despite low budgets, his films often had a classy veneer with gorgeous actresses but critics routinely derided his work despite their popularity with grindhouse audiences. Then toward the end of his career, Pecas surprised everyone with a dynamic but violent crime thriller set in the seedy underworld of Paris – Brigade des Moeurs (English title: Brigade of Death aka Death Squad, 1985) – which was closer to the gritty style of an Abel Ferrara film like Ms. 45 (1981) or Fear City (1984).

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The Kidnapped Heiress

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The French film poster for SEXUS (1965).

When it comes to crime films, what’s your pleasure? The genre breaks down into so many sub-categories that it helps if you have a particular theme in mind. Bank Heists? Home Invasions? Police procedurals? Gang wars? How about kidnapped heiresses? James Hadley Chase’s 1939 pulp fiction novel No Roses for Miss Blandish is a classic example of this edgy situation and has been adapted for films at least twice – the 1948 British noir of the same title starring Jack La Rue and The Grissom Gang (1971), Robert Aldrich’s violent remake with Kim Darby as the unfortunate victim. Even real-life cases involving kidnapped heiresses have inspired numerous crime dramas such as the 1974 kidnapping of Patty Hearst which spawned Abducted (1975), a sleazy exploitation rip-off from director Joseph Zito, The Ordeal of Patty Hearst, a 1979 made-for-TV dramatization, Patty Hearst (1988), Paul Schrader’s take on the events with Natasha Richardson in the title role, and probably the best of the lot, Robert Stone’s 2004 documentary, Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst. But, if you want to see an arty, minimalistic treatment of the kidnapped heiress theme with erotic interludes and a cool jazz score by trumpeter Chet Baker, look no further than L’enfer dans la peau (1965), a French softcore crime drama from director/writer/producer Jose Benazeraf, and released in the U.S. in an edited form entitled Sexus.

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The Lee Art Theater: A Forgotten Cinema Treasure

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As a lifelong film lover, I have fond memories of my movie-going youth in Richmond, Virginia. There were not only distinctly different neighborhood venues like The Westover Theater, the Willow Lawn and the Westhampton but also much more opulent movie palaces in the city like the Byrd, the Loew’s and three first-run hardtops, which were situated on one Broad Street block known as Richmond’s Theater Row – the State, Colonial and the National; the latter was later renovated and rebranded the Towne. B-movie double features, sword and sandal epics and English dubbed European genre films were more likely to show up at seedier theaters like The Grand and the Venus. There was even a theater that catered solely to black audiences – The Booker T – and a plethora of drive-in theaters scattered around the city like the Sunset, Rose Bowl and Twin Pines which exhibited some of the most obscure and bizarrely titled films of the period as witnessed by marque headliners Invasion of the Animal People, Daughter of the Sun God and other oddities. But the most eclectic of all was The Lee Art Theater on West Grace Theater, which often paired racy adult features (Russ Meyer’s Lorna, Paris Ooh-La-La) with serious art house dramas (The L Shaped Room, Breathless).

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