Charles Beach Dickerson Movies

In this teen-sex laugher, a high-school Romeo is killed in a car accident but is able to return to life for a 24-hour period. During this time he chases after his dreamboat only to find she's not interested. So, he turns invisible at the most opportune times (for him) such as in the girls' shower room, etc. He's out to have as good a time as he can in the little time that he has. ~ All Movie Guide

Ben Gazzara stars in this low-level depiction of legendary gangster Al Capone, who rose to command the mob underworld in 1920's Chicago. Born in Brooklyn, Capone joins his first gang at the age of 11. From there, he graduates to the infamous "Five Points Gang" run by Johnny Torrio (Harry Guardino). After moving to Chicago a few years later and wiping out Torrio's crimeboss uncle, Capone becomes Torrio's right hand man. Capone becomes head of the area's prostitution and racketeering business, but, as his mind deteriorates from syphillis, so does his empire. There's not much to recommend here, aside from a surprisingly good appearance by Sylvester Stallone as fellow gangster Frank Nitti. Gazzara is frankly awful in the title role and producer Roger Corman uses stock shootout footage from other gangster films, including footage of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre from his own, earlier movie on the subject. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

Barbara Peeters's Summer School Teachers concerns three gals from Idaho going to teach at Regency High in Southern California, where they have three interwoven adventures: gym teacher Conklin T. (Candice Rialson) battles hyper-macho coach Sam Johns (Dick Miller) to start a girls' football team; chemistry teacher Denise Carter (Rhonda Leigh Hopkins) seeks to clear the name of a misunderstood juvie; and photography teacher Sally Hansen (Pat Anderson) gets involved with a pornographer. All three girls end up suspended from teaching after a series of bizarre events: there's a big conspiracy involving payola, a porno scandal, and a kidnapping at an abandoned warehouse. It all comes to a head -- as such films must -- at the big football game, which becomes an all-out brawl as various protest groups and do-gooders clash for liberation. The closing theme is a rallying cry for activism. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

A six-foot biker chick grabs a shotgun, jumps on her Harley and hits the highway with two compadres to search for the ones who murdered her brother in this lurid actioner that is the first biker flick to have a female director. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

With a style and tone that wreaks of the late '60s, this cheap-looking adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft story plays like an obvious reference to the battle between the establishment and the counterculture. The film stars Dean Stockwell as Wilbur Whateley, a brooding young man who makes a connection with a pretty librarian named Nancy (a very out-of-place Sandra Dee). Whateley wants to get his hands on the Necronomicon, a diabolical book that he believes will help him to open a doorway to a dimension inhabited by unspeakable creatures known as the "Old Ones." Hypnotized by Whateley's spell, Nancy accompanies the man back to his cursed home where he lives with his nutty grandfather (Sam Jaffe) and an unseen "thing" that is kept in an upstairs room. Meanwhile, the Necronomicon's owner, Dr. Armitage (Ed Begley), does some detective work on Whateley when he begins to fear for Nancy's safety. He quickly realizes that Whateley means to sacrifice Nancy in order to accomplish his diabolical plan. Whateley manages to steal the Necronomicon and begins the ritual to resurrect the Old Ones. As Armitage races to stop him, the thing from the upstairs room breaks out and beats a murderous path towards Whateley as well, leading to a final confrontation that leaves a lot to be desired. ~ Patrick Legare, All Movie Guide

In this actioner, a government agent must stop a South American arms-smuggling operation that has been providing firearms to a fanatical sect in Texas. Along the way he meets a wanderer who helps the undercover agent join the gang. The drifter begins impersonating a sailor and meets a prostitute whose lover receives the smuggled arms. The sailor manages to hook up with the head smuggler. When he finds the agent stabbed and dying beneath a dock, the sailor realizes their whole cover is about to be blown. Still he helps the gun runner move the arms ashore; he then kills the ring leader and his gang, and blows up their ship. When he gets back on shore he finds that the hooker and her boyfriend have been killed. The wounded agent is very impressed with the drifter's good work and offers him more, but the drifter is disgusted by it all and wanders away. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Three friends from a small North Carolina town face bleak economic futures in the years following World War II. Johnny (Robert Walker) takes to running moonshine after his discharge from military service. He tries to think of a way for a better life for wife Carol (Diane Varsi) and their young son. Johnny and Carol hook up with Roger (Dick Clark), an ex-army demolitions expert. They plan to blow up the safe of a bootlegger, steal $200,000 and head off for a new life in sunny California. Their plans are thwarted when Roger uses too many explosives and the noise draws the attention of a Federal agent. Johnny kills the agent in this backwoods crime drama. Merle Haggard has a bit part and sings a few songs with the help of his band The Strangers. Clark was the producer who, with Michael Fisher, is responsible for the story. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

This early bit of "B"-movie fluff from Roger Corman and company is a hastily slapped-together melange of crime thriller and monster flick, laced with enough ham-fisted satire to make the entire mess enjoyable. The plot centers on a two-bit crook (Antony Carbone) who offers to transport a band of exiles from a war-torn Caribbean country -- along with a coffer of cash, which he intends to keep for himself. After killing his charges and dumping their bodies in the ocean, he blames their deaths on a sea monster told of in local legends -- a beast which eventually shows up for real. The lush tropical settings of this weekend wonder are the same lush tropical settings seen in Corman's Last Woman on Earth, which employed most of the same players as well. Corman protégé Monte Hellman served here as second unit director before embarking on his own low-budget film career. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, a courageous high-schooler goes undercover and joins a teen-age gang so he can get revenge upon his father. When his cover is blown, his life is endangered. Fortunately, the second-in-command has a change of heart and tries to help the young man. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Filmed under the title Prehistoric World, Teenage Caveman stars future Man From UNCLE Robert Vaughn as the eponymous hero, known only as The Boy. A member of a primitive tribe living in a desolate valley, The Boy has been warned never to journey into the Forbidden Area, lest disaster or death befall him. But after participating in a bear hunt, The Boy and his spear-carrying fellow tribesmen head into the Forbidden Area in search of fresh game. One by one, the intrepid hunters are killed off by quicksand, stock-footage dinosaurs and other such impediments to progress. Exiled by his tribe for venturing into the Forbidden Area, The Boy is compelled to live for a time in an isolated cave, where he is comforted by the Maiden (Darrah Marshall), who has fallen in love with him. Later on, the Boy once more risks life and limb by entering the Forbidden Area. It is at this point that he is told the horrible truth of the Valley's history by a very old man who is dressed in what looks like a 20th-century radiation suit. Without revealing the "surprise" denoument (surprising only to those who've never seen a post-apocalyptic movie), it can be noted that Teenage Cavemen comes to a close with the words "The Beginning." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Loving You was the most autobiographical of all Elvis Presley's movies, and, not coincidentally, features the most naturalistic, easygoing performance of his early career. He plays Deke Rivers, a truck driver with a penchant for singing and a raw animal magnetism where women are concerned. He attracts the business interest of publicity agent Glenda Markle (Lizabeth Scott), who sees a potential gold mine in Deke. She hires him to appear with a band that she handles, fronted by aging country & western singer Tex Warner (Wendell Corey), who used to be romantically involved with Glenda and is now a client. Pretty soon he's pulling in bigger crowds and generating more excitement than Tex did during his best days (which drives the older singer to start drinking again), but also a lot more controversy, too. Deke is so provocatively sexual a presence on-stage that some citizens in the southern and border states where the band is working think that what he does is immoral. Girls can't keep away from him, their boyfriends despise what he symbolizes, and their parents are aghast, even as concert promoter Carl Meade (James Gleason) smells a fortune to be made from this boy. Glenda parlays these disputes and a ban on one of Deke's performances into a national television event. Amid all of this, Deke reveals the private, vulnerable side that no one ever knew -- that he's not even Deke Rivers (it was a name he took off a gravestone), but an orphan named Jimmy Tompkins, and that he's never had a home. He also reveals that he's attracted to Glenda, mistaking (with her encouragement) her interest in his talent with a personal involvement, but he's also drawn the the band's female singer, Susan Jessup (Dolores Hart), who could genuinely love him, and offers him a caring family of her own that would accept him. Deke and Glenda's conflicts are eventually straightened out, and Deke gets to say his piece and sing his music on network television. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide