Maramark Productions – Missile Test

Crown International Pictures is a repository of crap. For some, that’s a bad thing. For shitty movie fans, we misguided many, that makes Crown something heroic. It’s too bad they went belly up in 1992.

Many, many years before that happened, however, in 1975, they graced us with a cheap Ocean’s 11 ripoff, wherein a hooker, a waitress, and a trapeze artist plan and execute a casino heist. There are even shades of Charlie’s Angels, as the trio are given their marching orders by a mysterious man who lurks in the shadows. Although, this flick came out a year before Charlie’s Angels premiered. Does that make this film groundbreaking? Hell, no. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Las Vegas Lady”

Best Friends movie poster I knew nothing about this film when I began watching it. I found it on a YouTube channel that collects old grindhouse and drive-in movies that have fallen into the public domain. That copy was crap, but being in the public domain meant that the film could be found elsewhere. Amazon Prime has a much better quality copy, so should one actually want to seek out and watch this turd, I recommend doing so on Amazon.

Keeping in mind where I first found this film, while I had no clue what it was about, or who made it, or who was in it, I did make assumptions about the type of film it would be. Nestled in a playlist alongside such gems as The Brain Machine, Night of Bloody Horror, and Legacy of Blood, I was expecting violence in this flick. There is some. But, at heart, Best Friends is a character study.

From director Noel Nosseck and screenwriter Arnold Somkin, Best Friends tells the story of two best friends, Jesse and Pat (Richard Hatch and Doug Chapin), who have a falling out during a road trip. They are accompanied on the trip by Jesse’s fiancée, Kathy (Susanne Benton), and Pat’s fiancée, Jo Ella (Ann Noland). The trip is the start of a new life for all of them. Jesse and Susanne are getting married at the end of the trip, while Pat just returned from a tour in Vietnam, where he was wounded. There’s a lot swirling around under the surface with all the characters, and now they’ve been jammed together in an RV for a multi-day journey. That’s a recipe for drama. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Best Friends”