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Obscure movies that you remember from your youth


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OK, this movie came out in 1973, but I was only 4 years old then - so I must have seen it on TV on the "Late, Late, Late Show", or else some Saturday or Sunday afternoon on that one station in every town (usually on the UHF dial) that always played old movies instead of sports, cuz they didn't have no network affiliation.

Anyway, it must have been the early 80's when I first saw this, and how the hell I still remember some of it - after having only seen it that one time, or maybe twice (at most) -- both times in the 80's -- is totally beyond me. Anyway, here it is (from http://www.allmovie.com/)...

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Link: The Last of Sheila (1973 - USA)

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This suspense drama features an all-star cast, including Richard Benjamin, Dyan Cannon, James Coburn, James Mason, Ian McShane, and Raquel Welch.  An interesting production fact about the film: its screenplay was written by actor Anthony Perkins and lyricist/songwriter Stephen Sondheim. The character's careers depend on keeping in the good graces of Clinton (James Coburn), a powerful movie producer. That is why a group of actors, director, agents and other movie professionals (who hate each other) accept an invitation to spend a week on the producer's yacht on the anniversary of his wife's untimely death in a hit-and-run car accident. Once on board, Clinton (Coburn) requires them to play a vicious game which involves each person's revealing a damaging secret about themselves or someone else in the party. When one of the secrets to be revealed involves the hit-and-run murder of his wife, the game turns fatal. — Clarke Fountain

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The Last of Sheila is cold-blooded fun for fans of cinematic murder mysteries, especially those who prefer them somewhat on the chilly and cerebral side. Not that Sheila is off-puttingly erudite; although the screenplay is witty (not to mention bitchy), it's not the dialogue that will lose some people, it's the intricacy of the plot. Still, that's half the appeal in films of this type, and unlike some other similar movies, Sheila's plot never lets the viewer down by copping out, throwing in too many red herrings or misleading for no real reason. Everything that happens happens for a specific reason. Some will find the characters unpleasant or wish that they could get under their skin more deeply, but these are minor flaws. Herbert Ross's direction is visually uninspired, too often looking like a 1970's made-for-TV movie, but he's on top of his game when it comes to creating atmosphere and to keeping the balls in the air so that the viewers do not guess too early where they will land. Ross seems at a loss as to what to do with Raquel Welch, whose performance is embarrassingly weak, and Ian McShane, who is only slightly better. Fortunately, James Mason's understated thoughtfulness and, especially, Dyan Cannon's sparkling combination of unabashed selfishness, ebullience and blowsiness more than make up for shortcomings in other cast members. Sheila was largely ignored when originally released but has since developed a loyal following, partly due to the involvement of co-writer Stephen Sondheim, better known for his groundbreaking Broadway musicals. — Craig Butler

Edited by Rooster_Ties
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I remember renting this one back in the late 80's (when I was in high school, probably a senior), lookin' for a little T&A, as I recall ;)

Sure, there was some of that (I think) - but more importantly, what a FRICKIN' weird and REALLY BAD movie, as I recall.

Only saw it once, but it left an impression as well...

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Link: Satan's Cheerleaders (1977, USA)

I won't reproduce the plot and review here (but you can go to the link above), as the details of the film are pretty unimportant.

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planetderaffen1969plakat.jpg

OK, nothing obscure about the five "Planet of the Apes" movies. But the second one in the series (and arguably the worst of all five - and possibly the most obscure) had several scenes that I absolutely remember to this very day. First the set up... Since I was born in '69, I never saw any of the "Apes" moveis in theaters, and I only vaguely remember ever seeing maybe just one of them on TV as a teenager (perhaps the 4th one -- which I think is the best of the series, after the 1st one, of course).

SOooo.... The summer after my freshman year of college (1988), I'm waiting tables at Denny's -- on the NIGHT shift. And on my nights off, I stay up all night watching movies, so I can keep my internal "sleep/wake" clock set right. And so, not having ever seen any of the Planet of the Apes movies before, I rent ALL of them - and do a marathon "Apes-fest" one evening/night - for like 7 or 8 hours straight.

Anyway, several times during the 2nd movie - "Beneath The Planet of the Apes" - the mutant humans are worshipping "The Bomb", which is the very last nuclear warhead left over from a prior generation. The scenes are set underground, in a very "church-like" cave-like environment. And all through many of the last scenes, for what seems like 2 or 3 minutes at a stretch -- there is this amazingly bazaar church-organ music, along with the "mutant" congregation singing -- in praise of "The Almighty Bomb"!!!!. And the music sounds like a cross between the "two marching bands at the same time" aspects of Charles Ives (think the 2nd movement of "Three Places in New England"), crossed with some of the ugliest block chords ever played on any church organ. When I first heard this, as a mere 19-year old, I was repulsed, and strangely mesmerized by the shear beauty and ugliness of this music, all at the same time. (And the strange "Bomb" in place of "God" lyrics were suitably wacko as well.)

1039997753484_Secret_planete_singes_ph2.jpg

Anyway, I've only seen the 2nd "Apes" movie one other time since then, but man, that "church-music-from-hell" sure as hell made a BIG impression on me. Gave me something to hang on to (and mentally refer back to), a couple years later when I was first exposed to Schoenberg's "Pierrot lunaire", and a whole shitload of other atonal delights. :g

Edited by Rooster_Ties
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"Planet of the Apes" is cool! :tup I have the DVD box set, but I don't think I've watched the last couple of them yet. I like the first two the best, even with all that weird bomb stuff. I wish there had been more Charlton Heston in the second one, and that he'd been in all the others. I really liked his character a lot.

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Does anybody remember a horror movie from the early 70's called "Wicked, Wicked"?

Never heard of it, but the very brief description from the AMG (All MOVIE Guide) sounds interesting...

Wicked, Wicked (1973, USA)

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Set on a coastal resort in California, the thrills in this mystery begin as a strange killer chops up three blonde beauties forcing the house detective to work overtime to figure out that the killer is right under his nose. The film was shot in "Duo-Vision," a technique that splits the screen and allows two different images to be projected simultaneously. — Sandra Brennan

Is this similar to the multi-camera/multi-image stuff in the Woodstock movie???

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Remember a movie called The Adding Machine from late nite TV. Pretty cool, actually, especially the closing scene.

Not from my "youth", but I saw a flick called "The Day The Fish Came Out" one afternoon when I was married but childless (and that SEEMS like my youth...) that was just freaky.

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Rooster, never mind the music, what about when the mutant humans take off their face-masks to reveal that THEY HAVE NO SKIN!!!! One of the most indelible and horrifying movie moments of my childhood. I was visiting relatives in Iowa, and persuaded my Uncle to take me to see Beneath the Planet of the Apes. I knew nothing about the series, just thought it looked cool in the paper. My aunt & uncle knew nothing about it either, so they took me to see it. I must have been 7 or 8 at the time. We saw it at a drive-in. Through most of it I was struggling to understand what the heck was going on... Then the bomb-worshipping scene; wierd music; "We reveal to the Holy Bomb our true faces"----then they start clutching at their faces...the skin bunches up like saran-wrap...you realize their skin had been some sort of fake plastic skin all along....and underneath was just blood vessels and muscle!!!! AAAAUUUUGH!!!!! I screamed, I covered my eyes, then I peaked through my fingers and screamed again. It was utterly horrifying. Gave me nightmares for months! I feel sorry now for my aunt and uncle; if they'd had any idea what was coming, they never would have taken me to that movie. Still gives me the shakes now, thinking about it. (Shudder) :blink::unsure:

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I don't know how obscure this movie is (pretty obscure I would imagine), but there was this one movie called "H.O.T.S." that I remember staying up late to watch on Skinamax one Friday night. Like Rooster Ties, I watched it hoping to see some T&A. It was SO bad, and SO stupid, I don't think I stuck around until the end. I just remember that there was this brunette with VERY big boobs who I was hoping to see topless. Don't think it happened though. It was a "Porkys"/"Animal House" college sex "comedy." It's probably become a cult classic. I can imagine some drinking games that might have come from it.

t14562ag1mn.jpg000006420_HOTS1X.jpgHOTS1.jpg

The woman with the letter "O" on her chest is the brunette of which I spoke earlier. I found out, through a little research just now, that her name is Lisa London, and that she has gone on to become a casting director and a second unit director on several bad movies like "McHale's Navy" and "Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles." What a remarkable career!

Edited by Alexander
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I found a very funny review of "H.O.T.S.":

Think Animal House meets the Revenge of the Nerds and you have the essence of H.O.T.S.’ plot. A couple of goofy girls are feeling out of place because of the high-brow superiority of girls belonging to the Pi sorority, so they form their own sexy retaliation group. A final showdown between the outsiders and the elite ensues and you have a film attempting to achieve a nirvana of sexual-appeal. Throw in some lame-brained subplots, like bears flying hot air balloons and burglars trying to recover lost booty, and you have a truly wretched piece of celluloid.

These not-so-pretty girls yearn for some sort of acceptance but, for unforeseen reasons, this desire soon translates into plain-old exploitation. The filmmakers would like us to believe that these women aren’t particularly attractive in the film’s early scenes, but this certainly isn’t the case. A quick make-up job and the addition of form fitting clothing (apparently borrowed from the staff of Hooters), reveals – surprise, surprise – that they are far more attractive than their Pi counterparts. And that is how we have H.O.T.S., a sorority that takes its name from the first initials of its four founding members. Isn’t that witty?

An obese girl is added to the ranks of the sorority in what can only be seen as the filmmaker’s lame attempt to validate the rationale behind the formation of H.O.T.S. I doubt anyone would buy any of this obvious baiting, because the film is the kind of garbage that caters solely to folks who consider Playboy to be the ultimate in literature. There isn’t much of a plot here, just lots of topless women trying to steal the boyfriends of the Pi girls while playing touch football with each other. Oh, lets not forget the classic beach ball scene in the house between one of the top-heavy girls and their mascot, a seemingly aroused seal.

The most confounding thing about H.O.T.S. is the fact that it was written by two women, Cherri Caffaro and Joan Buchanan. Now, after watching this film, it will not come as a surprise to anyone that these women never wrote another screenplay. What is surprising, though, is the fact that Caffaro and Buchanan were not excommunicated from planet Earth for what has to be one of the most ridiculously sexist films I have ever had the displeasure of laying my eyes on.

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Speaking of movies that freaked people out, sometime in the early '70s-I think I was 7 or 8, Night of the Living Dead was on TV. I only got through to the cemetary scene when the zombie goes after the brother and the sister barely escapes ... but I didn't know that at that time because "there coming to get you, Barbara" freaked me out so bad that I not only had nightmares, I didn't even see the entire film for almost 20 years after!

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  • 5 years later...

Me bringing up old threads again...

Hey, check out the "choral" music starting just after 3:30 in this Youtube clip (until about 7:45) -- which I described below, gosh, 5 years ago -- before there even was Youtube.

Totally wack!!

All those "Planet of the Apes" soundtracks were cool as hell!!! I only know the music from the movies (which I've only seen a time or two). I probably should seek out the actual soundtrack recordings someday.

planetderaffen1969plakat.jpg

OK, nothing obscure about the five "Planet of the Apes" movies. But the second one in the series (and arguably the worst of all five - and possibly the most obscure) had several scenes that I absolutely remember to this very day. First the set up... Since I was born in '69, I never saw any of the "Apes" moveis in theaters, and I only vaguely remember ever seeing maybe just one of them on TV as a teenager (perhaps the 4th one -- which I think is the best of the series, after the 1st one, of course).

SOooo.... The summer after my freshman year of college (1988), I'm waiting tables at Denny's -- on the NIGHT shift. And on my nights off, I stay up all night watching movies, so I can keep my internal "sleep/wake" clock set right. And so, not having ever seen any of the Planet of the Apes movies before, I rent ALL of them - and do a marathon "Apes-fest" one evening/night - for like 7 or 8 hours straight.

Anyway, several times during the 2nd movie - "Beneath The Planet of the Apes" - the mutant humans are worshipping "The Bomb", which is the very last nuclear warhead left over from a prior generation. The scenes are set underground, in a very "church-like" cave-like environment. And all through many of the last scenes, for what seems like 2 or 3 minutes at a stretch -- there is this amazingly bazaar church-organ music, along with the "mutant" congregation singing -- in praise of "The Almighty Bomb"!!!!. And the music sounds like a cross between the "two marching bands at the same time" aspects of Charles Ives (think the 2nd movement of "Three Places in New England"), crossed with some of the ugliest block chords ever played on any church organ. When I first heard this, as a mere 19-year old, I was repulsed, and strangely mesmerized by the shear beauty and ugliness of this music, all at the same time. (And the strange "Bomb" in place of "God" lyrics were suitably wacko as well.)

1039997753484_Secret_planete_singes_ph2.jpg

Anyway, I've only seen the 2nd "Apes" movie one other time since then, but man, that "church-music-from-hell" sure as hell made a BIG impression on me. Gave me something to hang on to (and mentally refer back to), a couple years later when I was first exposed to Schoenberg's "Pierrot lunaire", and a whole shitload of other atonal delights. :g

Edited by Rooster_Ties
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"The Window" (1949), with Bobby Driscoll as a too imaginative, tale-telling ten-year-old who while sleeping on the fireplace one hot night sees the couple in the apartment next door kill someone, can't get anyone to believe him and then is kidnapped by the killers. Scared me out of my wits at age five, and I believe it's a pretty good movie too, with Barbara Hale and Arthur Kennedy as the boy's parents and Ruth Roman and Paul Stewart, who played the unctuous/sinister servant at Xanadu in "Citizen Kane," as the killers. Familiar from many supporting roles, Stewart had dark bushy eyebrows and silvery hair and a slight lisp, an eerie combination of traits that he must have been well aware of.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042046/maindetails

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I was 9 or 10 years old when I saw "Ring Of Bright Water" in the theater. (1969) It's basically a story of a man who adopts two otters and how it changes his life. I remember how charming and joyful the otters were and how fun it was to watch them play and get into mischef. All was moving along greatly as I was carried away by this feel-good movie when suddenly and unexpectantly, I was devasted, horrified and shocked by the tragedy at the ending. I lost a bit of my innocence viewing that Saturday matinee and that memory is still very clear to me to this day.

Edited by mikelz777
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Does Freebie and the Bean count as obscure? I always thought it was a popular well known movie but have come across very view that ever saw it, or at least remember seeing it.

Two scary movies I remember seeing as a youngster with my older brother and sisters...

Let's Scare Jessice To Death (71) and The Legend of Hell House (73). scared0008.gif

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In the early 70s when ABC Movie of the Week was popular I was probably 4-9 years old. I couldn't stay up late for all of them, but they (or rather the trailers) certainly had some formative influence on my brain for sure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABC_Movie_of_the_Week

Also just free associating some titles, I also recall (again on TV) One of my wives is missing (Jack Klugman)

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and Taking of Pehlam One Two Three (Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw) which for some reason gave me a lasting image of New York that I didn’t shake until I actually visited the city 30 years later)

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The one that scared the crap out of me after a diet of cheesy horror films on TV (Detroit members may remember Sir Graves Ghastly on Channel 2 in the 70s, Saturday afternoon) was The Brotherhood of Satan

200px-BrotherhoodofSatanposter.jpg

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Maybe someone can identify this movie for me. It was a black and white film set in the bad side of town in a big city. I don't remember much about it except one scene where there was a group of kids hanging out on the steps of an apartment building and some teenagers/thugs ran up and stabbed one of the kids and ran off. I think the thugs were in a gang called the Horsemen (which my 5-year old brain couldn't understand because none of them had horses). And the killers may not have been caught (not sure); in fact, the killing may not have been the central part of the movie. That scene/movie scarred me for life because it was the first time that I became aware that everything could be be taken away from you for no reason other than meaness, and that bad guys don't always get punished. I doubt that I saw this on The Wonderful World of Disney. My wounded psyche thanks you in advance.

Oh, and that scene with the underground bomb people in Beneath the Planet of the Apes gave me nightmares for months. That and the commercials for an Exorcist rip-off called Beyond the Door. Not to be confused with Beyond the Green Door.

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taking_of_pelham_one_two_three.jpg

and Taking of Pehlam One Two Three (Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw) which for some reason gave me a lasting image of New York that I didn’t shake until I actually visited the city 30 years later)

Not exactly an obscure movie, but if NYC didn't look like that how can you be sure you were there? :lol:

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