Stanley Livingston Movies

Murder, lurid sex, and clowns drive this exploitation flick in which a psychotic loner terrorizes a strip club, "Zipper's Clown Palace," and takes everyone hostage at gun point. He then proceeds to force a weedy nerd to have sex with a stripper, while quizzing his frightened prisoners on trivia about the 1960s musical Gyspy. Duane Whitaker, who played Maynard in Pulp Fiction, wrote the script. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

B-movie specialist Steve Barkett directs this sci-fi shocker about a pair of astronauts who return from a mission in space to discover that the world has been decimated by a nuclear holocaust. Arriving back on terra firma, the two space travelers learn that sadistic despots have horded high-tech weaponry and now reign through fear and violence. Now, in addition to fighting hordes of mutated marauders, the terrified pair will join a resistance movement in a valiant attempt to take back the planet and reestablish civilization. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A teenage runaway gets more than she bargained for when she moves into an old hotel in this wildly offbeat shocker from director Paul Bartel. Cheryl (Ayn Ruymen) fled an unhappy home in Ohio for the sunny skies of California with her best friend in tow; however, after they have a falling out, Cheryl is left with no place to stay. Remembering that her Aunt Martha (Lucille Benson) runs a hotel, Cheryl arrives at the King Edward, a decaying residential inn located in one of L.A.'s less desirable neighborhoods, and persuades Martha to give her a room for a few days. Cheryl soon discovers the King Edward is home to a wide variety of eccentrics -- defrocked priests with muscle-men fetishes, falling-down alcoholics, senile old women, and a voyeuristic photographer named George (John Ventantonio). Cheryl, who indulges her own voyeuristic impulses by sneaking into the rooms of her fellow boarders, is attracted to George and enjoys playing dress-up as he watches her though a peephole, despite Aunt Martha's warnings not to interact with the other guests. But when Cheryl decides to cross the line into physical action with George, she learns his obsessions are more dangerous than she imagined -- and that both he and Aunt Martha have some rather surprising secrets. Private Parts was cult figure Paul Bartel's first feature film; it was produced for MGM, but was released through their Premier Productions subsidiary, perhaps in deference to the film's kinky sexual content. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Director Leo McCarey was clearly past his prime when he made this screen version of Max Shulman's comic novel Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys; still, the film was a success, no small thanks to the star power of real-life husband and wife Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. The scene is Putnam's Landing, Connecticut, where commuter Harry Bannerman (Paul Newman) is driven crazy by his wife Grace's (Joanne Woodward) insistence upon joining every civic committee known to man. When the government chooses Putnam's Landing as the location for their new missile base, Grace immediately joins a committee to halt this project-which causes no end of trouble for Air Force reservist Harry, who is expected to be the government's liason man for the new base. Adding to the dilemma is local vamp Angela Hoffa (Joan Collins), whose efforts to get her lunchhooks into Harry lead to a dizzying series of recriminations and misunderstandings. Satirical barbs are aimed at military stupidity (as personified by thick-eared Captain Hoxie, played by Jack Carson), small-town hypocrisy, and the teenaged "beat" craze. Among the supporting players are Dwayne Hickman and Tuesday Weld, cast respectively as Marlon Brando wannabe Grady Metcalf and nubile high-schooler Comfort Goodpasture (!); within a year of this film, Hickman and Weld would be reunited on the TV series Dobie Gillis, likewise based on a Max Shulman novel. Also appearing are reliable comedy foil Gale Gordon and an uncredited Murvyn Vye as Angela Hoffa's neglectful husband. Considered fairly racy in 1958, Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys seems slightly childish and draggy today; one wonders how it would have fared had Leo McCarey been at the height of his powers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide