Ernst R. von Theumer Movies

It's young love on the steppes in this romantic fable based on a 1956 story by Chingiz Aitmatov. The movie was filmed on the beautiful Kirghiz steppes. The story reflects the wistful memories of Seit, a N.Y. painter as he reminisces about his youthful, innocent love affair with Jamilia back in the Kirghiz countryside during the 1940's. Jamilia was beautiful and also, the best horseback rider in town. Unfortunately, Seit's older brother marries her in an arranged ceremony. Seit is designated, Jamilia's protector after his brother goes off to war. Nothing comes of it as a dashing, wounded soldier interlopes and she falls for him. Eventually Seit returns to his homeland, but he is afraid to meet Jamilia who is now a grandmother. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Father Joseph Mohr (Steve Bond) comes to stay with the family of Franz Guber (Cyrus Elias) in this romantic costume drama. The region is plagued by the evil Baron Von Seidl (David Warner) who delights in persecuting everyone including his own family. Magdalena (Nastassja Kinski) works at the local inn and falls in love with the unavailable Father Mohr. Janza (Franco Nero) is the insurgent who tries to incite a revolution against the despotic Baron. This drama of unrequited love contains nudity. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

This high-tech spin on the slasher genre pits a group of sex-obsessed teens spending the night in a shopping mall against the mall's marauding robotic security guards -- whose programming turns homicidal after a bolt of lightning scrambles their control circuits. Director Jim Wynorski cut his exploitation teeth working for Roger Corman's legendary "B"-movie factory New World Pictures in the '70s and '80s, and this film's comic early scenes contain homages to that outfit's heyday -- with humorous cameos from Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov (reprising their characters Paul and Mary Bland from Bartel's Eating Raoul) and the ubiquitous Dick Miller. The majority of the film, however, is essentially a teens-in-jeopardy story, with the lethal bots unleashing their amped-up arsenal and bringing the victims to nasty ends amid buckets of gore -- such as the unforgettable moment when one woman's head is targeted by one of the droids and blown up like an overripe melon. (The shot is repeated during the end credits.) ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

This routine actioner is about several models caught in a South American jungle battle between drug lords and drug busters. Cesar (Paul L. Smith) and Don Vito (John Vernon) are about to conclude a cocaine deal in Peru, and a drug enforcement agent is about to bust both men by sending a secret agent, disguised as a model, into the jungle with several other models, a photographer (Nina Van Pallandt), and their manager (Marjoe Gortner). Cesar shoots down the plane carrying the models, captures them alive and unharmed, and keeps them imprisoned where they are tortured by his evil sister (Sybil Danning). Just as everything looks the darkest, the final battle arrives at last. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This sombre European melodrama was also released as Julie Darling. A teenaged girl witnesses the rape and murder of mother. Because she hated her mom, the girl feels responsible for her death. Later on, her dad remarries. Despising her stepmother as much as she did the original article, Julie begins plotting her new mom's demise. Anthony Franciosa and Sybil Danning also star in Daughter of Death, but the bulk of the film is in the hands of newcomer Isabelle Mejias. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A medical student decides to enter the world of boxing and dives into a life of superficial values and corruption in this remake of the 1947 classic. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide

This lurid but entertaining Italian/Spanish twist on the Frankenstein legend begins with Baron Frankenstein (Joseph Cotten) being assisted in his research by his sultry daughter Tania (Sara Bay). The doctor's first attempt at a stitched-together creation results in a lumpy, pop-eyed monstrosity with little of the expected respect for its creator. In fact, the monster begins its rampage by murdering the Baron and escaping into the surrounding village. The younger Frankenstein returns from medical school with newly-acquired surgical expertise and a desire to follow in her late father's footsteps. She soon begins work on a creation of her own by transplanting the brain of her brilliant but deformed assistant Charles (Paul Müller) into the body of a brawny handyman. The result is a handsome and powerful male creature not only capable of destroying the original monster, but virile enough to satisfy his creator's overwhelming sexual appetites. Tania is apparently quite eager to test the latter, and she does quite frequently, as indicated in the film's numerous softcore sex scenes. This lengthy romantic interlude is cut short when the first monster returns to finish what he started. Directed by Mel Welles (who B-movie fans will remember as Gravis Mushnik from Roger Corman's cult classic Little Shop of Horrors), this film plays like a sexually-obsessed version of an early Hammer production. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

In this spooky Italian-Yugoslavian horror movie, a lovely English bride is possessed by the vengeful spirit of an 18th-century Transylvanian witch on her wedding night and creates all sorts of bloody mayhem for her hapless husband and others. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Perhaps the greatest movie ever shot in two days, Little Shop of Horrors was originally conceived as a followup to Roger Corman's black comedy A Bucket of Blood (1959). Jonathan Haze plays Seymour Krelboin, a schlemiel's schlemiel who works at the Skid Row flower shop of Mr. Mushnick (Mel Welles). Experimenting in his spare time, Seymour develops a new plant species that he hopes will lead him to fame and fortune. Unfortunately, the mutated plant -- named Audrey Junior, in honor of Seymour's girlfriend Audrey (Jackie Joseph) -- subsists on blood and human flesh. It also talks, or rather, commands: "Feed Me! FEEEEED ME!" Before long, the luckless Seymour has fed his plant the bodies of a railroad detective, a sadistic dentist, and a flashy trollop. Meanwhile, Mr. Mushnik, who has stumbled onto Seymour's secret, has inadvertently offered up a burglar (played by Charles Griffith, who also wrote the script and supplied the plant's voice) as a midnight snack for the voracious, ever-growing Audrey Junior. (When the plant blooms, the faces of its various victims are reproduced in its flowers.) Ignored on its initial release, Little Shop of Horrors began building up a cult following via repeated TV exposure in the 1960s. By the mid-1970s, it had attained classic status, spawning a big-budget Broadway musical (and followup feature film) in the 1980s and a Saturday morning cartoon series in the 1990s. Enhancing the original Little Shop's reputation was the brief appearance by star-in-the-making Jack Nicholson as a masochistic dental patient (Nicholson is often incorrectly referred to as the star of the film, though in fact he barely receives billing). Much as we love Nicholson, our vote for the most memorable Little Shop cast member goes to the ubiquitous Dick Miller ("No thanks, I'll eat it here"). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A group of scientists arrive on a remote Pacific island to investigate what became of the previous team, which was sent out there as observers of American hydrogen bomb tests and disappeared without a trace. They island is uninhabited and devoid even of most animal life, except for a few land crabs. The group's arrival is marred by the death of one of the navy crewmen accompanying them, who falls into the ocean and comes up with his head taken off. Then the navy plane that carried them there is blown out of the sky before it can get airborne, leaving them stranded and unaccounted for. Led by Dale Drewer (Richard Garland) and Dr. Karl Weigand (Leslie E. Bradley), they find the journal of the previous team, but no explanation of what happened to them, only that they'd noticed evidence of strange creatures and inexplicable physical phenomena on the island. Soon the scientists are hearing the voices of members of the previous scientific party, calling to them in the night. Their own radio is sabotaged and something has been probing the area where they're living; finally, the group is lured into the caverns where the real menace is hiding -- gigantic, bloodthirsty mutated land crabs that communicate telepathically and seem to have all of the knowledge of the previous team's members. One by one, all but three of the members -- Brewer, electrical engineer Hank Chapman (Russell Johnson), and scientist Martha Hunter (Pamela Duncan) -- are killed off and their minds and memories absorbed by the mutant crabs, who also have the power to focus infrared radiation into deadly, destructive beams that they use to gradually pulverize large sections of the island. By the end, a single giant crab has run the trio to ground on a remaining parcel of land just a few dozen yards across. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

In this entry in the long-running series, The Bowery Boys must help their leader after he becomes hypnotized by an unscrupulous mesmerizer who sends him back in time to the swashbuckling days of Blackbeard the pirate. There he is to find a buried treasure. The lad finds it, but upon awakening, he finds the hypnotist holding a gun on him. The crook then escapes to find the loot. Fortunately the other boys beat him to it. At the location, they learn that the treasure is really the hidden loot from an old theft of a jewelry store. The honest boys hand the crook, and the treasure over to the police. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this adventure, a man a man is paroled from prison and made to join the army so he can break up an international counterfeiting operation involving an ex- army buddy. they use him to woo the friend's lover and pump her for information. He finds her to be a dry well, but the importing firm she works for is a different story. In the end, the fellow breaks up the gang, wins the heart of the girl, and get back together with his father, a Treasury agent. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide