Nadiuska Movies

Producer, writer, director, and lead actor Max Boulois gives credit to William Shakespeare in the credits to this film, but Will's last name is misspelled. This is one of several oversights which tend to leave Othello's story a little disjointed in parts. In Boulois' incarnation, Othello is a black U.S. mercenary in Africa who falls in love with the daughter of a Senator from Boston. The commando group that includes Othello and the erstwhile Desdemona then gets transferred over to a Central American country where the rest of the plot unfolds to the detriment of the lead characters, killing off all chances for a sequel. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Challenge of the Tiger is one of the more notorious members of the "Bruce-sploitation" subgenre of martial arts movies, a loose label referring to exploitative quickies that cashed in on the untimely death of Bruce Lee. Such films often featured a lookalike martial artist billed with a name and likeness close to that of Bruce Lee and Challenge of the Tiger doesn't disappoint in this respect -- it stars one Bruce Le, who also directs this bizarre outing. Le plays C.I.A. agent Wong Leung, who teams up with fellow agent Richard Cannon (played by European exploitation star Richard Harrison) to keep the forces of evil from getting their hands on a serum that makes its users sterile. The film uses this premise as springboard for plenty of sex and violence, including such memorable highlights as Harrison playing tennis with a bevy of topless women (in slow motion, no less) and Le using his martial arts skills to fight a bull. Between the premise and such scenes, Challenge of the Tiger has earned a legendary reputation amongst fans of exploitation fare. Genre devotees should note that the film was also released on video as Gymkata Killer and received a formal DVD reissue in 2005 by Mondo Macabro. ~ Donald Guarisco, All Movie Guide

"Names have been changed to protect the innocent" in this infamous fictionalization of the tragic mass suicide of 914 followers of Jim Jones' "People's Temple" in Guyana in the fall of 1978. Rev. James Johnson (Stuart Whitman) is a charismatic but deeply paranoid man of the cloth who moves his flock from Northern California to a settlement in Guyana, where he intends to create an interracial socialist utopia. Addicted to prescription drugs and convinced he is surrounded by enemies, Johnson rules his colony, "Johnsontown," with an iron fist, torturing anyone who violates his rule, seducing both women and men from his congregation, confiscating money and property from his followers, and forcing them to work long hours in the fields for meager rations. Lee O'Brien (Gene Barry), a California congressman who represents the district Johnson and his followers once called home, has received complaints from friends and relatives of the Johnsontown settlers, convinced something is wrong. O'Brien and a team of reporters fly to Guyana to find out the truth about what is happening; Johnson is convinced O'Brien has seen too much, and armed gunmen ambush his party before they can return to the United States (with a number of Johnsontown residents who wish to leave). After a failed attempt to arrange exile in the Soviet Union, Johnson convinced his followers to perform a "final revolutionary act" before authorities arrive. This oddball blend of fact and fiction also features Joseph Cotten and John Ireland as Johnson's lawyers, Yvonne de Carlo as Johnsontown's press officer, and Bradford Dillman as the doctor who mixes the punch for Johnson's final gathering. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide