*contains spoilers Director/Editor/Producer Brian Kavanagh (1935-) is one of the key filmmakers in the resurgence of the Australian film industry in the 1970s after a couple of decades where the industry more of less lay fallow. He directed only three feature films but he left his mark as a film editor on some bona fide…
*contains spoilers Ed Adlum said of Michael Findlay: “(He) wanted to make real movies, not porn movies, but when you have no money, you make porn movies.” He also said the Findlays had a propensity to film one for $7000 and sell it for $10000. Shriek of the Mutilated was Adlum’s gift to Michael to…
Read more The Cult of Michael and Roberta Findlay and Shriek of the Mutilated (Part Two)
*contains spoilers When we talk about the movies of directors Michael (1937-77 killed by helicopter blades) and Roberta Findlay (1948-), many will think of pornography, if they know the filmmakers at all. But it is their horror movies that this article will be concerned with, and even though Michael Findlay only made a couple before…
Read more The Cult of Michael and Roberta Findlay and Shriek of the Mutilated (Part One)
*contains spoilers After this rare foray into comedy, Forbes wrote and directed the excellent The Whisperers (1967). Again, he has helped his lead actress, this time Edith Evans (1888-1976), deliver a performance which was nominated for an Oscar. She lost to Katherine Hepburn in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967) in the usual sympathy vote.…
Read more Actor/Director Bryan Forbes Takes Over the Asylum (Part Two)
*contains spoilers Actor/Writer/Director/Producer Bryan Forbes (1926-2013 long illness) worked himself up the ladder in the British film industry from a bit part actor to become the studio head of EMI studios in the early 1970s. He is a name not many people recognise today, but his brief stint as head of a filmmaking asylum or…
Read more Actor/Director Bryan Forbes Takes Over the Asylum (Part One)
*contains spoilers When we look at the trilogy of the Office of Scientific Investigation (OSI) movies from the early to mid 1950s, we must give credit to the producer Ivan Tors (1916-83 heart attack). Tors was a European émigré, he came from Hungary in 1939, and his name is probably more familiar to those who…
Read more The Cult of The Magnetic Monster and the Office of Scientific Investigation
*contains spoilers Australian cinema remained in the doldrums for decades after its heady days in the 1930s and it wasn’t until the early 1970s thanks to some funding from the Federal Government that filmmaking got underway again in the country. One of the handful of films which kicked off this renaissance in Aussie filmmaking was…
Read more The First Real Aussie Cult Film was Sandy Harbutt’s Stone
*contains spoilers While he was filming Longstreet, Jimmy set up the James Franciscus Celebrity Tennis Classic to raise money for the now politically incorrect titled charitable organisation Foundation for Retarded Children of the Desert. Held in the Palm Desert area, the classic appears to have run a few years and should have helped Jimmy get…
Read more The Cult of the James Franciscus Facial Tan Club (Part Two)
Cult Film Alley 