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This Month’s Zatoichi: New Tale of Zatoichi (Tokuzô Tanaka, 1963)
Hitting Japanese cinemas in March 1963, the third Zatoichi film saw the series moving to colour for the first time, with a suitably heroic new main theme from the legendary Akira Ifubuke pointing the...
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This Week’s Wheatley: Dennis’s Mates.
“The Reverend Montague Summers was a most interesting man. He was not only a great authority on witchcraft, werewolves and the rest, but also wrote a number of excellent books on Restoration theatre....
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Franco Files: Lorna the Exorcist (1974)
AKA:‘Les Possédées du Diable’, ‘Caresses de Chattes’, ‘Les Possédées du Démon’ [all titles used in France?], ‘Exorcism’ [Norway], ‘Sexy Diabolic Story’ [Italy], ‘Linda’ [U.S.A.], ‘Kleine Feeksen Maken...
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Penguin Crime Time: The Widows of Broome by Arthur Upfield (1962 / first...
Cover design by John Sewell.Despite not knowing much about the author or his work, I think Arthur Upfield’s Australian crime novels sound quite interesting – an impression that is greatly aided...
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Penguin Crime Time: The Nose on my Face by Laurence Payne (1964)
Cover drawing by David Frost.Total classic Penguin Crime cover. British Crime incarnate.Movie fans with good memories may remember Laurence Payne more for his acting career, which took in roles in...
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Penguin Crime Time: The Night of Wenceslas by Lionel Davidson (1962)
Cover photographs by Jean-Luc Blanc.(“..EVEN Kingsley Amis!” )
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Bande Dessinée Adulte.
Not much going on here beyond a glorified link post with some pilfered images I’m afraid, but, since I no longer ‘do’ tumblr, I thought this might be a good space in which to share a link to this...
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Nippon Horrors: The Great Yokai War / ‘Spook Warfare’ (Yoshiyuki Kuroda, 1968)
It would be interesting, I think, to know precisely when Japan’s legion of Yokai Monsters ceased to be a genuinely frightening presence in the nation’s mythology – boogeyman-esque nasties conjured up...
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Deathblog: Norifumi Suzuki (1933 – 2014)
“But entertainment, see... if you look back at its history in Japan, it's been anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment, since the Edo Period. That's precisely what thrills the audience. You've got to...
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This Month’s Zatoichi: Zatoichi The Fugitive (Tokuzô Tanaka, 1963)
For an itinerant blind man who has presumably spent the majority of his spare time achieving his uncanny mastery of swordsmanship, Zatoichi sure has a lot of hobbies, and carries a wide variety of...
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Old New Worlds:June 1965.
Skipping over the much-ballyhooed 150th issue extravaganza (which I don’t have a copy of), our next visit to Michael Moorcock’s New Worlds brings us to June 1965, with a new, slightly more trendy cover...
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The Songs of Herman Cohen: Konga (John Lemont, 1961)
Having started work on a series of posts earlier this year examining the British-made films of American ex-pat producer Herman Cohen, I confess I’ve found myself repeatedly staggering to a halt when it...
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Penguin Crime Time: Gun Before Butter (1963) & Because of the Cats (1963) by...
Cover design and photograph by Denise York.Cover design by Denise York, photographs by Resnais.*Like the Arthur Upfield book featured here back in April, the words and imagery on Nicolas Freeling’s...
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Penguin Crime Time: No Grave for a Lady by John & Emery Bonett (1963 / first...
Cover design by Sheila Perry.
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Nippon Horrors: The Bloodthirsty Roses /‘Evil of Dracula’ (Michio Yamamoto,...
Having reviewed the first two installments in Michio Yamamoto’s trilogy of Japanese vampire movies, I feel duty-bound to take a crack at the final film, although to be honest I don’t have a great deal...
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This Month’s Zatoichi: Zatoichi on the Road (Kimiyoshi Yasuda, 1963)
A brief pre-credit sequence in this fifth Zatoichi instalment has Ichi performing a bit of a ‘greatest hits’ set – using his hearing to identify the sound of a crooked dice, splitting candles in two...
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Franco Files: La Muerte Silba un Blues /‘Death Whistles a Blues’ (1962)
NOTE TO READERS: having recently posted several truly epic Jess Franco reviews that ended up sprawling across a fairly untenable word-count, and with over thirty Franco films potentially awaiting...
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Franco Files: Mädchen im Nachtverkehr / ‘Girls of the Night Traffic’ (1976)
Of the innumerable sex comedies and caged women exploitation pics produced by Erwin C. Dietrich’s Switzerland-based Ascot/Elite productions during the 1970s, most prove fairly dismal viewing (to my...
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Nippon Horrors: Ghost Cat of Otama Pond (Yoshihiro Ishikawa, 1960)
Thus far in this ‘Nippon Horrors’ strand, we’ve been looking at movies that are either modern style, Western-influenced horror films, or else just lunatic one-offs of one kind or another, but it is of...
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Penguin Crime Time / Weird Tales: The Dain Curse by Dashiell Hammett...
In general, I feel that the design policy on Penguin Crime paperbacks became far less aesthetically interesting when they began moving toward photo covers from the mid ‘60s onwards. Anyone who has...
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