I shall open with a quote from Movies and Mania, which doesn’t see fit to identify their authors:
An uneasy mix of styles – 1930s Frankenstein lab action one minute, H.G. Lewis-style gore close-ups and gratuitous naughtiness the next – Blackenstein is probably near the bottom of the blaxploitation barrel, badly acted, flatly directed by William A. Levey and slow-moving.
Yet, it’s much more entertaining than the bigger budget Blacula, having a quaintness and odd charm that somehow pulls it through despite all the faults.
Exactly right. Could not have said it better myself. This is a true bullseye of a bad yet entertaining film. And few people bother to see it, they just read reviews which slam it and then never even bother to watch it themselves. So tonight, I bring it to you. It has a little T&A, and some butcher store budget gore thrown in as well. My other caveat is that all the action happens in the second half of the movie, so if you get bored, just jump to halfway.
I have some trivia! From IMDB:
According to special effects makeup artist William Munns in an interview conducted for the 2024 Kino Blu-ray edition of The Boogens, the lead actor of Blackenstein, Joe De Sue, was charged with first degree murder. His defence lawyer Frank Saletri, the producer of Blackenstein, got him an acquittal on the charge, so De Sue appeared as the monster in the film to repay the favor.
Even more interesting: Frank R. Saletri, the writer/producer (and lawyer), was killed in a supposed mob hit at his home a decade later. Breaking Bad stuff!
So watch! Or don’t! Everything is voluntary! If you still don’t believe me, see below. Next week, we continue Every Week is Halloween with a new film! Cryptic! I really enjoyed Cryptic a week or so ago and I wanted to play it here. It’s a tension filled mystery. Definitely not my usual.
Help! I Don’t Want to Talk About Movies!
This is Thursday night! There are no limits. Nobody is going to scold you if you first on an article with another topic here. This is your place for anarcho-libertarianism. Talk about other subjects and have a good time. BY GOOD TIME MEAN…
I love the inclusion of the subtitle, “The Black Frankenstein” just in case I couldn’t figure that out.
Gratuitous naughtiness? My favorite kind.
*judo chops play button*
Everyone enjoy the secret video tonight, “IGORRR: VERY NOISE.”
It was made four years ago before the big AI craze set in.
I didn’t know there was a Blackenstein. But I did watch THIS many many years ago:
I present: BLACULA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sncs7Hivx3Y
Funky!
Funny enough, there was a plan for a whole series of films, with Blackenstein and Dr. Jeckyl, Mr. Black, etc… All of the ideas were shelved after the dismal performance of Blackenstein.
Oh yes. There were two, starring Pee Wee Herman’s King of Cartoons, a former Shakespearean actor. They were classy. Hence I am playing Blackenstein.
William Marshall, who was also in a memorable episode of the original Star Trek.
“M-5 is great! I am great!”
The first Blacula also has a small part for Elisha Cook, one of the great character actors.
Wasn’t there a black vampire movie with Eddie Murphy?
Yes, Vampire in Brooklyn. Last time I saw that was at an outdoor theater here:
https://screamspark.com/
I can’t get that website to load.
Maybe no one outside of Texas is allowed to see the glory of five haunted houses, bars, Scaryoke and a movie theater in one place?
That sounds awesome. Unfortunately, some sites block VPN’s. Although I got a couple different errors.
Blackenstein is probably near the bottom of the blaxploitation barrel, badly acted, flatly directed by William A. Levey and slow-moving.
I think the bottom of the blaxploitation barrel would probably be Abar: Black Superman, which I think you did a post on. (I know I’ve suggested it before.)
I sure did!
That was a weird one.
Needz moar Ivory Stone.
BY GOOD TIME MEAN…
The brain ship reminded me of the NOSE DIVE ship from “Heavy Metal”.
Diving into the main feature….
A drug that makes you look like you play for the Bengals? Now, that is evil.
So true.
Funny how it seems.
Ted’S – you’re supposed to draw attention to music that isn’t fantastic.
Nice legs.
Cortical Death is a great band name.
For some reason, I don’t trust retarded Lou Rawls.
Looks like I was right.
For the life of me, I am failing at understanding why Blackenstein is wearing such nice shiny shoes.
At one point in his life, he was hep.
Or maybe not. I mean, he had no legs. Maybe his girlfriend bought them for him once he had feet again?
I wonder if he played that funky music?
He can keep a beat.
At this point, I would say a lot of the gore was cut out of this edition.
Maybe that was in the extended version?
I’m only about 27 minutes in, as I had other stuff to do.
Vaguely relevant
Dr. Stein looks suspiciously like Reuben Kincaid.
He’s the illegitimate love child of Omar Sharif and Dick van Dyke.
Boobies!
Finally. Took em long enough.
I’m only 16 minutes on. How much longer do I have to watch for the payoff?
Jump to just beyond halfway and spare yourself.
These are not the boobies I was looking for.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihyjXd2C-E8
Next month.
There they are.
Oh , baby, you KNOW what I like.
KK knows the eternal truth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUL4BSARdyY
So Malcolm got the lady doc in the end.
Thanks RJ! Time to head to bed.
I will have to as well. Long day of driving and paperwork ahead.
Sorry but semi-OP: Blackenstein. “fabulous.” Um. Hrm. *furrows brow, adds check to Lists-ev’s-On*
Speaking of lists, I wanted to address what MikeS found. There is a lawsuit against TUBI for sharing demographics with advertisers without appropriately notifying customers.
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/verify/settlements-verify/yes-there-is-a-tubi-app-settlement/536-f0ee7574-b410-496b-ae71-33b6a7ca2279
Still sketchy, as you know darn well they are going to cater ads to your tastes. But it is real. The only info they ever had was your email (if you log in), and your movie tastes, and approximate location.
I feel sorry for whatever idiot has to analyze my account for ads. Tubi sent me an email and let me know I have 606 movies in queue, and 91 started. Good luck analyzing that, folks!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1tj2zJ2Wvg
CONTINUE WATCHING
TOO GOOD NOT
TO FINISH
Pick up right where you left off. 91 titles are waiting.
MY LIST
“WILL I FINALLY WATCH IT TONIGHT?”
What My List pick will you watch today? Stream your 606 saved titles now.
I signed up for giggles.
Fuck! Ha. The semi-OP cart was deleted…
I watched most of the Harris on Fox ‘interview.’ Jesus. Unknown Unknowns are terrifying. But I find KNOWING her vacuous evil, with the unknown anticipation and anxiety of what/ if/ and how her banal insidiousness will (attempt to) be implemented — to be far more unnerving. The constant worry of “How much fucking worse will this continue to keep getting?
She is the Blackenstein ‘we’ hope to not ‘share.’ We will be unburdened by stress of what burdened us before, now burdened by what we worried would continue to burden us, and further burdened by what we wished not to be burdened by in the first place. And so much more.
She is going to be worse than Joe having been being completely non compos mentis for the last six to forty-eight months of his administration.
If she wins, it’s going to be like Obama, where no one is going to criticize her, comedians won’t make fun of her, etc. because of identity politics — double, because she is both a person of color and a woman.
This is a damning indictment of big pharma.
Well spotted. I should have pointed that out. A missed opportunity!
Pfizer was always at war with either Eurasia or Eastasia.
Silence. Bow before Bayer and His Son Heroin. Far more supreme than the Coca-Cola echelon of branding. Through times, slang, linguistic and legal terminology of all opioids, Heroin lives on.
Damn. *Raises FIST of POWER*
Opioids make me projectile vomit. Thank goodness.
Roosevelt Jackson may be the blackest name ever to appear in a film credit.
LOL
Hello! I’m getting drunk.
First!
You’re not even the first drunk Glib.
You may be worse than Nikki.
Ugh. Mikki is the worst
Pretty sure the first to get drunk was several thousand years ago.
Well, that was something.
Yeah, the 90’s have left the building, but goddamn these guys should have been bigger in the states.
Unpopular opinion:
They were never going to be big in the States.
Gord was so far inside his own head that it came across as talking over Americans’ heads so as to condescend to them.
It’s a common Canadian attitude that is far too common and that I hate.
Yeah, you’re probably right. I’m terrible for not actually listening closely to lyrics. But the musicianship was excellent.
Huh I remember CFNY playing them all the time but it’s just not up my alley. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yeah, I don’t mean to say they were ignored down here. Just that I thought they should have gotten more attention.
Oh, they were completely ignored in the US. I lived in Buffalo where we got the Toronto radio station I mentioned 🙂
I have no idea what they were “about”, so to speak. I just don’t care for the music.
FWIW there are many, many Canadian bands I did grow to like during that time.
Should I buy a weed grinder?
Yes
TOS has posted their “Who are you voting for?” article for 2024. Enjoy.
https://reason.com/2024/10/17/how-are-reason-staffers-voting-in-2024/