Here's one of our favorite movies, one that Eegah!! and I saw way back when we were in 6th grade! This movie is great, and today we have a colorized version to show off. You can see on this British poster that it was rated X (adults only), just like all the other horror movies at that time.
The cast is awesome, which includes Dick Miller, Barboura Morris, Anthony Carbone, Julian Burton, Ed Nelson, Judy Bamber, Bert Convy, Bruno VeSota and even Sheila Noonan!
Beatnik poet Maxwell is doing his thing, accompanied by saxophone, for the audience at The Yellow Door hangout. There on the left is the owner, Leonard, enjoying the groove.
Walter Paisley is a busboy there, he has memorized Maxwell's hip poetry and is quoting him to some customers, and they're impressed by his artistic enthusiasm.
Walter decides that he wants to be a real artist and buys some modelling clay. He's attracted to a girl at the Yellow Door, Carla, and tries to do her face in clay to impress her but fails miserable, and gets violently frustrated!! He ends up killing the landlady's pet cat with a knife (not on purpose) who got stuck in the wall, and won't stop screeching. Then, Walter gets an idea...
The next day before work, Walter takes his new sculpture to The Yellow Door to show to Leonard and Carla. They're so impressed that Walter gets to display it inside the club with the other artists. The name of the piece is called.. Dead Cat! Leonard asks him why it has a knife in it, and Walter replies.. I didn't mean to!!
Then, when leaving the club, drug addict Naolia hands Walter a small packet and tells him to stick it in his pocket, which he does. An undercover cop sees the transfer and follows Walter to his home. The cop tells Walter, who's holding a griddle, that he's under arrest for possession of horse. Confused as Hell, Walter buries the pancake maker in the cop's skull after he pulls out his gun!
At this point, Leonard knows that Walter just covered the cat in clay. An art dealer wanted to buy the piece for $100, but Leonard says it's not for sale, because, he knows the dirty secret and it would be bad for business if discovered. Then the guy offers him $500 because his wife wants it so bad! And greedy Leonard sells it to him. Leonard gives Walter $50, instead of 50/50 as agreed!
Leonard wants Walter to work at home and complete a number of pieces for a show, instead of bringing them to the club one at a time. This one's called.. Murdered Man!
So, Walter invites Leonard and Carla over to check out his new sculpture. Carla is totally impressed with the piece, but Leonard is freaked by what he thinks might be under the clay! I have to admit, my favorite part of the crazy story is the fact that Leonard knows what's going on the whole time, and how he reacts to one horror after another, just to keep the secret.
Then super bitch Alice shows up at the club and makes fun of Walter's claims of being an artist, but does mention that she will model for him for $25 an hour. Later, Walter goes to her place and tells her he'll pay the price, and he's ready to work. The rest is history.
At Maxwell's place, Walter gets to show off his newest masterpiece, a Nude!! Everyone loves it, Walter is definitely a superstar.
Later at the club, Maxwell celebrates King Walter's accomplishments to the audience, all hail the King of Sculptures!!
Walter leaves the club, he's drunk as Hell and gets an idea for another piece!
He show it to Leonard the next day.
Before Walter's show starts, he says he wants to talk with Carla. Walter says that he's in love with her and wants to get married! Carla levels with him, she's not in love with him, not good.
They go back to the club for the show and Walter's in a horrible mood.
Then it happens, Carla has noticed that the nude has a body beneath the clay. She goes to Walter and tells him, and he says.. Yeah, that's Alice! Carla dashes out of the club and runs down the street in the dark, followed by Walter.
Then, the other undercover cop finds his partner under the clay, and it's a race to find the killer.
Walter is hearing voices now, he finally heads for his home for safety.
The others have followed him and when they open his door!... Hope you enjoyed this classic movie in dying color!!
11 comments:
It looks like the Germans released HOUSE OF WAX as DAS KABINETT DES PROFESSOR BONDI, so we'd think it's a sequel to THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI!
And when that worked, they released BUCKET OF BLOOD as DAS VERMACHTNES DES PROFESSOR BONDI, so we'd think it's a sequel to HOUSE OF WAX!
The German version of BUCKET OF BLOOD has a new, screwy nine minute prologue, in which it is revealed that Walter Paisley is doing the bidding of Dr. Bondi (who is presumably Professor Jarrod from HOUSE OF WAX)! It's on Youtube!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdwX_-A1AEU
Seriously, Professor Bondi? WTF?!
I'm digging the Hell out of Professor Bondi!! But, what a fit!
Bruno Ve Sota is a name all "B-movie" watchers see
at least once a year. His name is in a lot of places.
Especially Corman work.
Why a soft drink hasn't been named after him I can't understand.
Barboura Morris looks like a screamer from The Wasp Woman.
Despite this film having been shot in gorgeous black and white, the color tints look fairly decent. In the last several years, colorization has gotten somewhat better. I still plan to shoot my film in black and white, tho'. ;)
Don't blame you there KD, that's what THE CREEP was all about ~
THE CREEP is an *amazing* independent film! One of the best I've ever seen, and I've seen lots! Alas, my film will be more of an impoverished/minimalist type of thing, especially in these pandemic times. But it'll happen.
Awesome Comments!! Thanks guys, we learned so much, wow!
Here is some background info I found on a German movie wiki (no English version available).....
The Legacy of Prof. Bondi was made in collaboration with Charles B. Griffith, who later produced the films "Little Shop Full of Horrors" and "Creature from the Haunted Sea" with him, which also belong to the black comedy genre. The film "Little Shop Full of Horrors" was even made on the same sets as "The Legacy of Prof. Bondi". The film was realized with a budget of 50,000 US dollars within 5 shooting days. The sets had previously been used for the production of the film Diary of a High School Bride.
The film itself uses elements of the horror films The Secret of the Wax Museum and its remake The Cabinet of Professor Bondi, to which the German version refers. In addition, beatnik culture is made fun of. This was followed in 1995 by a television remake entitled A Bucket of Blood.
Jules Feiffer was the illustrator of the film poster
The name Walter Paisley was used several times by leading actor Dick Miller as an inside gag, examples being films like The Beast (1981) or Glory Days (1994). He himself was unhappy with the result due to the low production budget and said about this that he regretted that there was hardly any money for the film. For the statues, mannequins were used, especially with the last scene in which he is doused with clay, which he felt was weak, as this could be better staged with a bigger budget and more time. About the mood of the filming, he said that the mood and timing had been good.
Alex Hassilev was the guitarist who scored the film with the following music:
The Ballad of Tim Evans by Ewan MacColl
Gari, Gari (Russian Gypsy song)
Great info, LL!
One clever thing about this movie is that Antony Carbone's Leonard character starts out like the "heavy" (since he orders poor Walter around), then more and more you identify with HIM (because he's horrified by the sculptures).
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