Samuel Z. Arkoff Movies

This campy remake of Roger Corman's 1957 drama Sorority Girl was part of a series of made-for-cable adaptations of old American International Pictures titles, prepared by original co-producer Samuel Z. Arkoff. Uli Edel captures just about the right over-the-top theatrics in this period drama, set at the end of the 1950s at a small college campus. Jamie Luner of TV's Profiler and Melrose Place, plays Sabrina, a troubled and sadistic co-ed newly arrived at college, who proceeds to try and dominate the students around her, manipulating the men and tormenting and disrupting the lives of the women. She's not above blackmail and fabricating vicious lies to get what she wants, showing a potentially murderous streak as well. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Long thought dead, the victim of a horrible accident, Dr. Anton Phibes (Vincent Price) still lives, surrounded by art-deco bric-a-brac and attended by mute beauty Vulnavia (Virginia North). Outwardly normal in appearance, Phibes actually wears a rubber mask, covering his hideously deformed countenance; giving away the artifice is the fact that, when he dines, he takes his food through his neck rather than his mouth. Able to speak only when plugging a wire into his damaged vocal chords, Phibes elucidates his plan to murder the medical team whom he holds responsible for the death of his wife. Each of the killings is patterned after the ten deadly plagues. Phibes saves his worst for last: trapping chief surgeon Dr. Vesalius in his lair, Phibes forces the hapless medico into a race against time to save the life of his own son. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A light, almost beach-party atmosphere pervades this comedy, based on The Late Boy Wonder, a novel by Angus Hall. Larry Hagman plays a college president with political aspirations who flunks out a college student (Wes Stern) and then has the temerity to save the boy from committing suicide. In revenge, the boy decides to bed the three women most important to the nefarious college head, including his wife (Joan Collins). Though he is a real bumbler, somehow he succeeds in wooing the man's wife, daughter, and secretary. This is one place where two of the more successful stars of America's night-time soap operas from the 1980s (Dallas and Dynasty) can be seen working together. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

A rock star decides he'd rather rule the free world than just sell records in this ambitious fusion of political satire and teen exploitation. Teenage rebel Max Flatow (Christopher Jones) has grown tired of life in suburbia with his domineering mother (Shelley Winters) and weak-willed father (Bert Freed), and, having saved up 800 dollars he earned by selling home-brewed LSD to his schoolmates, he blows up the family car with a makeshift bomb and strikes out on his own. A few years later, Max has adopted the name Max Frost, and is one of the world's biggest rock stars, selling millions of records and earning a fortune from concert appearances and music publishing. Max has learned firsthand about the buying power of America's youth, and when Sen. John Fergis (Hal Holbrook) asks Max to appear at a "youth rally" to mobilize younger voters, he realizes the kids could also sway an election if they wanted. At Fergis' rally, Max debuts a new song, "Fourteen or Fight," which demands the voting age be reduced to 14; the youth respond by rising up in support of Max's demands, reducing many American cities to a standstill. As political leaders bow to public pressure, the age of suffrage is reduced to 15, but rather than choosing candidates to support, Max decides it's time he and his inner circle took control. After Max doses Washington, D.C.'s water supply with LSD, congress votes to make any registered voter eligible to hold federal office, and before long Max Frost has become president of the United States. Once in office, Max unveils a bold plan to once and for all do something about people over 30 -- including his parents. Wild in the Streets features an early screen appearance from Richard Pryor as drummer and political activist Stanley X, while media personalities Dick Clark, Walter Winchell, Army Archerd, and Melvin Belli portray themselves. Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil wrote the songs for fictional rockers "Max Frost and the Troopers," including the hit single "The Shape of Things to Come." ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

American-International's Beach Party series came to an abrupt end with Ghost in the Invisible Bikini. Because of such tangible reasons as contractual commitments, coupled with such intangibles as illness and death, most of the series "regulars" are absent. Deborah Walley and Aron Kinkaid fill the roles usually played by Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon, while Benny Rubin plays a comic-Indian role obviously intended for Buster Keaton. Only Harvey Lembeck, as the inimitable Eric von Zipper, is on hand from the good old days. The plot is set in motion by the ghostly Boris Karloff, a corpse who must perform one good deed before gaining entrance into the Hereafter. Together with a sexy spirit (Susan Hart) (the titular lass in the invisible bikini), the corpse attempts to save the heiress (Walley) from the murderous machinations of a greedy attorney (Basil Rathbone) and his cohorts (Rubin and Jesse White). Music is provided by such second-generation celebs as Nancy Sinatra and Claudia Martin, and with The Bobby Fuller Four lip-synching a pair of songs. The climax is a less-funny reworking of the final sequence in Beach Blanket Bingo, with the heroine (Walley) strapped to the longest buzzsaw plank in film history. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The great Vincent Price obviously had fun with his characterization of Dr. Goldfoot in this campy spy spoof directed by Norman Taurog. With his henchman Igor (Jack Mullaney), the demented doctor builds a machine that mass-produces an army bikini-clad babes. Goldfoot programs his vixens to seduce the wealthiest men alive and convince them to sign their fortunes over to him - thus enabling the fiendish doctor to amass tremendous wealth and take over the world. Frankie Avalon co-stars as Secret Agent Craig Gamble, who sets out to destroy the women and bring Goldfoot's plan to a screeching halt. Annette Funicello and Harvey Lembeck provide cameo appearances. Strictly for fans who loved those 1960s drive-in quickies. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Part of American-International's "Beach Party" series, Beach Blanket Bingo was directed by William Asher. Frankie (Frankie Avalon) briefly deserts Dee Dee (Annette Funicello) in favor of pop star Sugar Kane (Linda Evans). Also around and about is a mermaid, appropriately named Lorelei (Marta Kristen). Scurrilous cycle gang leader Eric Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck) finds time to sing a tune, while Paul Lynde sneers a lot, Don Rickles insults a lot, Buster Keaton mimes a lot, and columnist Earl Wilson lets everybody know who he is by exclaiming "That's Earl, brother." The whole cast rushes to the rescue when South Dakota Slim (Timothy Carey) binds the lovely Sugar Kane to a buzzsaw. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

How to Stuff a Wild Bikini is considered to be the strangest of the "Beach Party" movies. Frankie (Frankie Avalon) is off in the navy, serving in the South Pacific, and nervous about all of the guys that will be hitting on Dee Dee (Annette Funicello) back at the beach. He makes a deal with an eccentric white witch doctor (Buster Keaton), who conjures up a woman named Cassandra (Beverly Adam) who is irresistible to all men, and she attracts all of the guys on the beach. But complications ensue when lunatic advertising man Mickey Rooney decides to try and make Cassandra a new national sex symbol, and she gets noticed by nutsy bike gang leader Erik Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck), who vows to have her. With enough plot complications to rival A Midsummer Night's Dream, Wild Bikini is laced with satire and some surprisingly good music. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

On the verge of bankruptcy, undertaker Vincent Price hits upon a novel method of drumming up business. Together with his cringing assistant Peter Lorre, Price sneaks into the homes of wealthy old men under cover of night and smothers the sleeping occupants to death--then collects a hefty commission when the victims' relatives come calling. At home, Price is continually frustrated in his efforts to poison his senile father-in-law Boris Karloff, who owns the undertaking business. Meanwhile, Price's neglected wife Barbara Nichols takes quite a shine to the shy Lorre. The homicidal undertaker's best-laid schemes go terribly agley when his latest "customer," wealthy Basil Rathbone, doggedly refuses to stay dead. Joe E. Brown has a cameo as a cockney graveyard attendant. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This hilarious monster mess from the makers of the Godzilla series (including director Inoshiro Honda) essentially recruits Mary Shelley's classic creature into the ever-growing ranks of Japanese city-stomping behemoths -- albeit with a less colorful costume. The only nod to the original Frankenstein involves the monster's reanimated heart, rescued from Nazi Germany and blasted with radiation in the Hiroshima blast. When the heart is accidentally eaten (don't ask) by a Japanese youth, the poor kid bulks up to titanic (though hardly Godzilla-esque) proportions, apparently presenting a threat to Mount Fuji's current guardian, the lizard-monster Baragon. The two duke it out Toho-style while token yank Nick Adams comments on the proceedings. The plot originally pitted the colossal Frankenstein monster against a giant sea creature (the film's original title was Frankenstein vs. the Giant Devilfish), but the alternate opponent was edited out of the final print. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

Dr. James Xavier (Ray Milland) is a brilliant but unorthodox researcher whose work with human sight has yielded an experimental chemical that may vastly increase the range of what we can see. Despite the misgivings and warnings of the two people closest to him, Dr. Diane Fairfax (Diana Van Der Vlis) and Dr. Sam Brant (Harold J. Stone), he uses it on himself and finds that he is able to look inside the human body in real-time. This gives him the ability to save the life of a patient in surgery, but in the process, he offends a top physician and calls his own judgement into question. He won't stop or even slow his experiments, however, and when Sam is accidentally killed trying to stop him, he is forced to flee. Soon he is living the life of a hunted man, and is protected and exploited by Crane (Don Rickles), a larcenous carny-man who sets him up as a "healer" on skid row, taking peoples' pennies while Xavier makes his diagnoses. After getting away from Crane, Xavier is found by Diane, who joins him on the run, and by now his own worst nature is coming to the surface. They head to Las Vegas, where his ability to see through objects allows him to win at most of the games in front of him, but he is discovered because of the attention that his "streak" draws to him. Pursued out of town, he heads out to the desert, and by now his ability to see transcends the boundaries of earthly space, leading him to a terrible quandry and a hideous solution to his plight, inspired by an encounter with a preacher. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Roger Corman's Tales of Terror stars Vincent Price in a trio of short stories, liberally adapted by Richard Matheson from the works of Edgar Allan Poe. The film gets off to a rousing start with "Morella," in which Price's bitterness over the long-ago death of his wife results in tragedy for his estranged daughter Maggie Pierce. The last of the three terror-filled tales, "The Case of Mr. Valdemar," finds Price being put into a state of suspended animation by the diabolical Basil Rathbone; when Rathbone claims Price's bride Debra Paget for himself, Price briefly revives, only to melt before our eyes (this horrific image was reproduced on the film's advertising posters). The film's best story is its centerpiece, "The Black Cat," which weaves elements of "The Cask of Amontillado" into a mordantly funny revenge tale concerning Price, his bitter enemy Peter Lorre, and Lorre's two-timing wife Joyce Jameson. This is the one in which a besotted Lorre walls up Price and Jameson in his cellar, then endures a hellish hallucination of Vincent and Joyce playing a football game with his head! A mixed bag, to be sure, but Tales of Terror remains one of the best of Corman's Poe cycle (though it does lose a lot when not shown in its original Cinemascope form). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide