*contains spoilers Director and screenwriter Larry Cohen (1941-2019) died on March 23 of undisclosed causes. He left a small trove of low-budget B-grade material. Notable are the It’s Alive trilogy (1074, 1978 and 1987) about mutant babies. Those movies play on any expecting parent’s fears as, in the original movie It’s Alive (1974), a mother…
*contains spoilers Bipolar and bisexual actor Jack Cassidy (1927-76 burned to death) was the father of pop star David Cassidy (1950-2017 liver failure) and he seemed to be on the verge of something big in terms of his character acting career just before he died in an inferno in his West Hollywood penthouse apartment sparked…
Read more The Cult of Actor Jack Cassidy in The Phantom of Hollywood (1974)
*contains spoilers It was Darren McGavin’s (1922-2006 heart disease) tv portrayal of Hammer in Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer (1958-59) that followed this film and McGavin is a decided improvement over Bray even though it’s a half hour tv format. The violence is there if not the sex of the Spillane novels. But McGavin’s Hammer again…
Read more The Cult of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer (Part Two)
