Exorcist Vengeance (2022)

If ever a film screamed at you from a shaking bed to give it a "meets" quote for its DVD cover, it is Exorcist Vengeance. The complement this film is fishing for being "Death Wish meets The Exorcist meets Midsomer Murders".  Exorcist Vengeance is the latest star vehicle for professional Charles Bronson lookalike Robert Bronzi, who in the tradition of such performers as Bruce Le and Robert Sacchi has made a career for himself in B Movies on the basis of resembling a dead star. American director Rene Perez effectively birthed the 'Bronsonsploitation' genre by putting Bronzi into his horror/western 'From Hell To The Wild West', but it was their follow up 'Death Kiss' that ended up catching the media's attention. Perez's formula of extreme violence, exposed breasts and conservative politics making him a worthy Michael Winner to Bronzi's Charles Bronson reincarnate.

Homebody Perez might be reluctant to shoot outside of Shasta County (although his upcoming horror film 'Nightfall' has British involvement on the producing side) but Bronzi has been lured to the UK by the duo of Scott Jeffrey and Rebecca J. Matthews. First for the action movie The Gardener (green fingered Bronzi Vs. home invaders) and now Exorcist Vengeance. The latest film to walk the...ahem 'Bronzi beat' sees Bronzi play Father Jozsef, a maverick Catholic priest whose penchant for vigilantism makes him both a liability and an asset to the Vatican. After a spot of vigilante justice on the streets of London gets Father Jozsef in trouble with the law, he is bailed out and 'weaponised' by the Vatican. The church then sending him off on a mission to help Christine (Nicola Wright) whose country home has come under demonic attack, one which has left Christine's mother dead and her maid Magda (Anna Liddell) possessed. Fortunately Jozsef is the kind of priest who believes in bringing a gun to an exorcism, and soon tools up with holy water, a bible and a firearm. Jozsef's arrival is met with hostility from Christine's son Nick ("what is this… a fucking exorcist...you're all out of your minds") and skepticism from her brother Patrick (Simon Furness) and daughter Rose (Nicole Nabi) but receives a warmer reception from Christine's other daughter Rebecca (Sarah Alexandra Marks) who becomes Jozsef's closest ally in the house.

Exorcist Vengeance is a lively affair by Scott Jeffrey and Rebecca J. Matthews standards. It's tempting to wonder if the hands on, US involvement in the production- which includes Death Kiss producer Jeff Miller and Commando director Mark L. Lester- resulted in a faster paced movie than we've come to expect from the British duo. Indeed, if you're accustomed to Jeffrey & Matthews movies having a punchy pre-credits scene followed by twenty minutes of melancholic drama, it's jolting to see Exorcist Vengeance go straight from its Death Wish flavoured opening to immediately piling on the horror movie incidents. The order of the day here being throat slashings, levitation, vomiting up blood (there's lot of that in this film) and dog collar shaming insults aimed in the direction of Jozsef. Exorcist Vengeance even toys with following Amityville 2: The Possession down the rabbit hole of brother and sister incest, before nipping that idea in the bud, or to be more precise stabbing it repeatedly in the neck. In a first for Jeffrey & Matthews, the two films they've made in collaboration with Miller and Lester, also manage to afford the luxury of established, name actors. Gary Daniels in The Gardener, while Exorcist Vengeance ropes in, and robes up, Steven Berkoff for a couple of scenes as a bishop who clashes with Jozsef over his methods, but when push comes to shove has his back. "The pope appreciates your service"

Exorcist Vengeance doesn't entirely follow The Exorcist beat for beat. There's a massive plot twist halfway through that succeeds in both pulling the carpet from under you and freeing the film to go off in the direction of a Midsomer Murders type whodunit instead. As Jozsef turns amateur sleuth and attempts to figure out which member of the household is going around committing murders- including the oh so British demise that is death by watering can. Before the third act returns to exorcist territory with even more possession, vomiting up of blood and Father Jozsef taking on the forces of evil, anyone would think he had a (wait for it)...Death Wish.

Exorcist Vengeance does, but of course, include many of the hallmarks we've come to expect from a Scott Jeffrey production. Namely, aerial views of the countryside (where would modern British horror filmmakers be without their drones), put on American accents (some of the family "went off across the pond") and age blind casting (Magda is meant to have raised Nick and Rebecca since childhood but the actress playing her is roughly the same age). Like Father Jozsef himself, Jeffrey & Matthews stick to their guns, playing Exorcist Vengeance totally straight and admirably avoiding the piss taking faux-Grindhouse approach...no matter how preposterous the action gets. My favourite piece of dialogue in the film comes after Jozsef pulls a gun on Magda during the exorcism, causing do-gooder Patrick to complain "the only thing I expect to see in your bloody hand is a bible". Exorcist Vengeance does put a couple of steps wrong at times, with the back-story about Jozsef's troubled youth and the death of his wife threatening to kill the momentum. It does strike you that Exorcist Vengeance missed a trick by not having Jozsef's wife be killed by muggers, which would have given the opportunity to work further Death Wish elements into the film. Although the Bronson spirit is evoked in the scene where Father Jozsef finally loses it with do-gooder Patrick and beats him up at the breakfast table.

Unlike his earlier films, in which he was dubbed by someone trying to impersonate Bronson, the Hungarian born Bronzi gets to use his real voice here. The strong accent initially feels incongruous with the Bronson image, but does at least manage to give Bronzi an identity outside of merely being a tribute act. Exorcist Vengeance, along with the recent prison based Bronzi vehicle 'Escape from Death Block 13', represents an honourable attempt at giving him more to do acting wise, even if Bronzi's appeal remains primarily visual. Fortunately Jeffrey regular Nicola Wright is on hand to lend solid acting support, and as the good (i.e. devout and non-incestuous) daughter Sarah Alexandra Marks leaves a bigger impression here than she did in the Jeffrey produced 'Monster Portal' boding well for the half a dozen other movies Jeffrey just signed her up for. The cast is filled out with the irrepressible Chrissie Wunna in a relatively sedate role as a policewoman, albeit one whose dress sense is more in keeping with an Ann Summers customer impersonating a policewoman. If you've ever wanted to put a face to the name, I believe that is also Scott Jeffrey himself playing the man who yells 'Oi' at the thug being chased by Bronzi in the opening scene.

Overall, Exorcist Vengeance is everything I expected and wanted it to be, others may not necessarily see that as a recommendation, but for my money the world is a slightly better place for having a British made, exorcist themed Bronsonsploitation movie in it.

 

Tango for Two (1980)

 

There are British rarities then there is Tango for Two, an unreleased, unloved and up until now undocumented sitcom pilot starring Peter Gordeno and Linda Lou Allen.  He’s a nimble-footed Italian lothario, she’s a rich American heiress...they’re thrown together when they inherit a London nightclub, trouble is everyone else who works at the club is trying to murder them!!

The bastard child of Saturday Night Fever, by way of home-grown disco sleaze like The World is Full of Married Men, Tango for Two sees wide of collar but low on funds ladies man Peter Manchelli (Peter Gordino) sharing the dance floor with aloof American socialite Linda Lou Albert (Linda Lou Allen) thanks to a corpse that talks...well sort of.  Nightclub owner Mr Ross has sadly passed away, but has decided to go out in disco-fabulous fashion by having his funeral held on the stage of his beloved nightclub... while a female dance troupe shake their booties around his open top coffin. 

Mr Ross ‘talks’ to the mourners via a pre-recorded message, dropping the bombshell that he has left the club to his two favourite protégées, Peter and Linda Lou.  It’s safe to say that the club has seen better days, but Manchelli thinks that with his talent for dancing and singing, plus a cash injection from Linda Lou’s father, they can turn around its fortunes and once again make Mr Ross’ place the hottest ticket in town.  The club also comes complete with it’s own ensemble of quirky staff members.  There’s the accident prone Mr Ramsbottom, Waldo the irate waiter, Dotty the cloakroom attendant who dreams of stardom, as well as camp barmen Tony and Louis, portrayed with all the swishy, limp wristedness you’d expect from gay characters in a 1980s sitcom.  Not forgetting the club’s resident femme fatale Hilda, played by Maggie Wright who back in the 1970s had cornered the market in playing ‘sexy older women’ in British sex comedies like The Love Box and Sex and the Other Woman. 

In an attempt to rally the troops, Peter decides to treat the staff to a little bit of the Manchelli magic, by taking to the stage with the dance troupe from Mr Ross’ funeral (played by ‘The Peter Gordeno Dancers’).  Since no one puts Linda Lou Albert in a corner either, she also partners up with Manchelli onstage for an all singing, all dancing rendition of ‘Razzle, Dazzle’ from the musical Chicago.  The result?...the staff decide that they’d be better off trying to murder the pair of them.  A proviso in Ross’ will dictating that if Peter and Linda Lou drop out of running the club, or drop dead, the staff get everything.  Thus Tango for Two temporarily becomes a comedy about how best to kill two innocent people and get away with it.  A surprisingly mean spirited twist that throws a spanner in the works of what was intended to be a light hearted sitcom.  After all would the British public have taken to the staff of Grace Brothers had they planted a bomb under Young Mr Grace’s car, Granville had he sank an ice pick into Arkwright’s head and blamed it on a burglar, or the students of Mind Your Language had they thrown Miss Courtney out of a window.  In a scene reminiscent of the one in An American Werewolf in London where the living dead discuss the best way for David Kessler to kill himself, the staff bounce around ideas of how to do away with their dance crazy employers.  Waldo wants to electrify Peter’s door, Tony suggests cyanide, while Dotty wants to give ‘em pills.  Whatever they’re planning, Waldo advises they need to “strike while the iron is hot”.  At which point Waldo strikes an iron, while it’s hot.  Subtle comedy has no place on this dance floor.  The jokes in Tango for Two do feel like they’ve been pulled straight out of Talbot Rothwell’s dustbin.  “While he’s asleep I’ll wire up his door knob” Waldo tells a confused Dotty.  “Oh, I don’t think that’s fair” she tells him “I mean it might cause him an injury”.

Speaking of the Carry On series, they managed to talk a genuine Carry On star into briefly appearing in Tango for Two.  Step forward, Alexandra Dane who was in five Carry On movies, and whose cleavage you might also remember from such films as The Ups and Downs of a Handyman.  Alexandra was also the woman who discovered a severed head in Peter Cushing’s fridge in Corruption.  I can rattle off Alexandra Dane credits with ease, but I wasn’t aware she was as much of a household name to warrant playing herself in a sitcom.  They were obviously tickled pink to get her though, with Tango for Two allocating Dane the red carpet treatment (not that Tango for Two had the budget for an actual red carpet) as the staff fall over themselves to take her fur coat and address her as ‘Miss Dane’.  Resting her cleavage near the bar, Dane sticks around just long enough to offer a sympathetic ear to Tony and Louis over their American and Italian management.  “All beefburgers and spaghettis, you’ve got problems”.  Dane’s appearance does make you wonder who else they had lined up to guest star in further Tango for Two episodes, who could have possibly filled Alexandra Dane’s shoes?, let alone the top half of her dress?

Despite the cash strapped budget, Tango for Two clearly had its eye on the transatlantic market, conjuring up visions of a globetrotting romp with opening credits that see Gordeno and Allen’s faces transposed over postcard images of Rome, New York, Las Vegas and London.  Only to kill such expectations dead by confiding the rest of the action to a dark, smoke filled club.  Supposedly Tango for Two was filmed at a Chelsea Nightclub called Country Cousin, whose existence I can suspiciously find no other reference to.  In spite of the Chelsea address, I doubt the likes of Joan Collins would be seen dead in Mr Ross’ place, even if Alexandra Dane would.  In a bid for a US sale, Tango for Two plays to American sensibilities by having Dotty do a protracted Mae West impersonation, we also get US pop culture references to Charlie’s Angels (Linda Lou: “gosh, I feel like one of Charlie’s Angels”, Peter: “so do I, but I doubt I’ll get one” ).  Whether a US audience would have known who Alexandra Dane was, or got the bit where Mr Ross, the sort of talking corpse, does a Bruce Forsyth impression, is another matter. 

Hailing from Kansas, as does her near identically named character in the show, Linda Lou Allen managed to calve a name for herself as the token American in British TV shows like The Professionals and C.A.T.S. Eyes.  Building up enough of a profile to show up on Celebrity Squares and Star Games.  It was in 1980, on Star Games, that she was partnered up with Peter Gordeno, presumably giving someone the idea that these two could be the Fred and Ginger for the 1980s.  Taking no chances, in case Tango for Two doesn’t drive that idea home enough, it literally has a character make that observation at one point. 

Tango for Two would turn out to be Peter Gordeno’s only stab at sitcom stardom.  A likeable, and reportedly well-liked, showbiz all-rounder, it is fair to say Gordeno’s true talents lay in the fields of dancing, chorography and singing, with acting coming a distant fourth.  On the set of Carry On Columbus, Gordeno reportedly drove Gerald Thomas up the wall with his constant flubbing of lines.  Gordeno’s history with acting dated back to essentially playing himself- a dance choreographer- in 1966’s Secrets of a Windmill Girl, before achieving his greatest success as an actor in Gerry Anderson’s UFO, then graduating to leading man status in Derek Ford’s swansong Attack of the Killer Computer.  Only for the Ford film to sit on the shelf for decades, never seeing the light of day during Gordeno’s lifetime.  As a singer, Gordeno pitched his stall someplace between Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck, as an actor he is competition for Gareth Hunt and Alan Lake in the ‘women want him, men want to be him’ stakes.  It could just be that Gordeno was having an off day when he appeared in Carry On Columbus, let’s face it, he wouldn’t have been alone there.  Personally, I don’t think Gordeno is too bad as a lead here, with some signs of chemistry between him and Miss Linda Lou, and rarely will you see an entertainer as much in his element as when Gordeno’s singing and dancing skills are called upon here.  Naturally it is Gordeno who sings Tango for Two’s absolute earworm of a theme song “Tango for Two, who’d ever thought I’d bump into a partner like you, there’s gonna be a Tango for Two, we’re headed for an unexpected rendezvous”.  Presumably had Tango for Two gone to a series, the ‘will they, wont they’ question over Peter and Linda Lou’s relationship would have been a running theme.  As this is just the pilot however, Peter stands little chance of draining his disco balls into Linda Lou, with the sophisticated American resisting the charms of the red blooded poor boy from the streets of Rome for now.  So it is the Penthouse suite for Linda Lou, while Peter is consigned to the couch in the dressing room.  “You can swing a cat in there” remarks Peter, as for the couch “you can swing that too”.

Sadly Tango for Two marked the final acting appearance of Audrey Jeans, who plays the eccentric coatroom lady Dotty.  Showbiz veteran Jeans was perhaps best remembered for acting alongside Sid James when he had his fatal onstage heart attack in 1976.  James died in Audrey’s arms.  Tragically, Jeans herself was killed –in a hit and run incident- not long after shooting her scenes in Tango for Two. 

The Tango for Two pilot was the brainchild of Paul Bernard, who was never a household name, despite his name being beamed into millions of British homes from the 1960s to the 1990s.  A prolific TV director, Bernard’s name could be found on Coronation Street, Doctor Who, The Tomorrow People and Z Cars, amongst others.  Aside from his TV work, Bernard was also active in the world of ‘supporting features’ that would prove to be worth their weight in Eady money when they were foisted upon unsuspecting cinemagoers alongside more commercially minded fare.  Bernard’s first foray into supporting features The Contract (1974) pitted white bikers against an African gang for control of the drugs trade in Hounslow.  Coronation Street star Ken Farrington does a remarkable against type turn, shedding his soap opera image to play a leather clad, white supremacist biker who snorts coke, plays Russian roulette and hurls racial insults at his black, female counterpart (Kubi Chaza).  A freakish combo of Scorpio Rising, trashy paperback novels and Love Thy Neighbour, The Contract is the last thing you’d expect from a Coronation Street director.

Bernard followed that with The Tiger Lily (1975) another depiction of a wrecked head trying to keep it together in a nightmarish, urban environment.  The Tiger Lily stars Diane Cilento as a TV personality whose show is on the brink of being axed by her boss (John Gregson, in his last cinema role) and whose relationship with a younger, out of work actor (Leigh Lawson) is also threatening to dissolve.  Set amongst a harsh, brutalist landscape reminiscent of early Cronenberg movies, The Tiger Lily also benefits from a superb psychedelic soundtrack by Alan Blakley, formally of The Tremeloes, and an unknown female singer calling herself ‘Rasputin’.  The Tiger Lily played Soho’s Cameo Moulin cinema in 1977 as the co-feature to Serge Gainsbourg’s film Je t’aime Moi Non Plus (1976) starring Jane Birkin and Joe Dallesandro. 

It’s hard to deny that Bernard had range, going from an offbeat, near unclassifiable movie like The Tiger Lily to middle of the road fluff like Tango for Two in a matter of years.  I do struggle to reconcile the fact that these two were made by the same man.  By the early 1980s, the era of the supporting feature was all but over, turning Bernard back to full time TV work.  Had Tango for Two made it to TV, it might have found an audience with suburban dads who fancied themselves as the next John Travolta, and caused bored housewives to go wild for the disco hips of Peter Gordeno.  Sadly it wasn’t to be, Tango for Two never got the chance to strut onto our TV screens, receiving the thumbs down from the TV execs and failing to go to a series.  The pilot was forgotten about until copies of it, The Tiger Lily and The Contract were rescued during a clearance of Bernard’s home, following his death in 1997.  In defence of Tango for Two, there are worse sitcoms out there that did make it to air, but by rights it is The Tiger Lily and The Contract that you should know Paul Bernard’s name for.  Bernard’s work juggling the supporting features that gave him the chance to flex his artistic muscles with the conventional output of a TV grafter. 

As to how I came to be in possession of Tango for Two, I may have to partially plead the fifth there. Let’s just say it was part of my reward for supplying a boutique label with rare footage of a British exploitation film maverick, whose work is soon set to be reborn in shiny disc form.  We all have our price, now I know that mine is an unbroadcast sitcom pilot starring Peter Gordeno.   

Sex Is My Business (1974)

 

A bit of an info dump about the softcore loop ‘Sex Is My Business’ and the players in that story...for whatever record exists.  I rarely write about Mary Millington these days, it feels a lifetime ago since I last did so, but in the words of Badfinger “all our sins should be confessed before we carry on”.

Porn actor ‘Short Jack Gold’ remembers Sex Is My Business being filmed late on a Saturday night in 1974.  A sex shop called Lovecraft, in London’s Coventry Street was the shooting location.  Calling the shots was smut-meister general George Harrison Marks, who Short Jack Gold had worked for since 1972, after answering an advert Marks had placed for talent in Time Out magazine.  “I had seen pictures of him in some of the Kamera magazines I had squirreled away in my teenage home, so I knew exactly who he was. I have to admit to being more than a little excited” remembers SJG “It became pretty evident very early on in the interview that the increasingly louche looking GHM was drunk as a skunk. He spoke in a deep affected manner-  like an old time actor-and proceeded to tell me about his work. There was no market he said, for the usual glamour stuff. Too much competition, he moaned, and the punters wanted something stronger. I was offered a glass of something, and asked if I was interested in doing some "Blue" Not knowing what that meant precisely, and feeling the strength of the something in my glass permeating my senses, I naturally said… "yes...very".

  

Marks had been declared bankrupt at the start of the 1970s, and legally wasn’t able to run his own business.  So operated as a freelance man during the decade, selling his work to other pornographers like Russell Gay, Charlie Brown and David Sullivan.  Sex Is My Business ended up being acquired by Sullivan’s Kelerfern company, and was sold on 8mm through Sullivan’s top shelf magazines...£12 for the black and white version, £22 for it in colour.  Relations between Marks and Sullivan were not destined to end well.  The subject of Sullivan becoming a sore point for Marks, who was prone to rants about “the fat little monster who eats a box of chocolates every morning for breakfast”.  The film became a lucrative pick-up for Sullivan on account of it starring Mary Millington, whose subsequent fame through his magazines gave it obvious appeal to his readership.

The genesis of the career Millington that would become famous for had begun a few years earlier when she forwarded test shots of herself to Mayfair magazine.  Her letter was answered by veteran glamour photographer Ed Alexander (died. 2014), who saw potential in her as a nude model, giving Millington her desired foot into the door of that industry.  All the characters in that world...Ed Alexander, George Harrison Marks, Russell Gay, June Palmer...knew each other, and chances are if you impressed one, you’d get the chance to work with the others.  Ed Alexander was particularly close to Harrison Marks’ wife Toni, who tended to get on better with men than women.  Short Jack Gold has fond memories of Toni H.M, but members of Toni’s own sex have a different tale to tell.  “Toni was a strange woman.  I found her bitchy and quick to criticise the looks of other women” one of Marks’ models told me “(Toni) pointed at me and remarked that one of my breasts was slightly larger then the other.  This is normal and didn’t faze me- but it was a stupid observation”. 

Toni has a small non-sex role in Sex Is My Business, playing one of the punters milling about a sex shop.  Once Toni has departed from the screen, the sex in the eleven minute short kicks off when another customer (Short Jack Gold) accidentally drops a powerful aphrodisiac on the shop floor, rendering the staff and the punters sex crazy.  In a self-congratulatory touch, the sex shop is stocked up on Marks’ old June Palmer nudie loops, while the peep booths are playing his more recent softcore offerings like ‘Santa’s Coming’ in which SJG plays a horny Father Christmas.  Although Millington wasn’t remotely famous when Sex Is My Business was made, Marks seems to have instinctively picked up on her star quality.  She becomes the film’s main source of eroticism, whether she is making out with an afro-ed chick, or dragging a male customer to the backroom, thoughtfully turning on the CCTV system so the other customers can get an eyeful.  The most memorable use of Millington in the film is a POV shot from the customer she is straddling, which culminates in Millington practically swallowing the camera lens. 

For many years Sex Is My Business remained a mystery title in the Millington filmography.  In the early 1980s David Sullivan is said to have junked all his physical copies of the film when its commercial value ran dry and video largely supplanted the 8mm market. A similar fate befell the theatrical trailers to the softcore feature films Sullivan produced, with only the trailer for ‘Come Play with Me’ having since resurfaced.   Around 2008, I was in touch with a film collector who owned some terrifically rare British erotica from the early days of VHS.  Generous with his collection, it was through him I got to see the BBFC banned ‘Precious Jewels’, the Stanley Long rarity ‘It Could Happen To You’, and the Shelagh Harrison big bust fetish video ‘Erotic Images’.  The really intriguing part of his collection though was a Super 8mm film with the handwritten label ‘Sex Shop starring Mary Millington’.  He had gotten this as part of a deal several years before, but not owning a projector, never had the chance to check it out.  After a bit of nudging from yours truly, he sent it off to be transferred to DVD by an online company who I knew to be discreet and willing to work on adult material, having previously used them myself to have Marks’ mad doctor themed 8mm softcore short ‘Dolly Mixture’ transferred to disc.  Seeing Marks’ name on the resultant 8mm to DVD transfer of Sex Is My Business came as quite the surprise, given that prior thinking had it that John Lindsay was the film’s director and Marks had claimed to never have worked with Millington outside of Come Play With Me.  Marks’ directorial hand is all over Sex Is My Business however, quite literally, as he manages to get his hand into shot whilst giving camera directions during the exterior footage of Coventry Street.  The 2008 transfer of Sex Is My Business was adequate, but when Come Play with Me was being prepared for a bells and whistles DVD release in 2010, I was asked to provide contact details for the owner of the Super 8mm copy of Sex Is My Business.  In order that a second, more professional transfer could be made and included as a DVD extra.  Thus, a superior copy of Sex Is My Business was able to rise from the ashes of yesterday’s pornography. 

Toni and George Harrison Marks were living apart by the end of the 1970s.  In March 1977, George found himself in court, charged with assaulting Toni, and he eventually left the St. John’s Wood apartment they shared together.  After the separation, Toni decided to muscle in on George’s business, and along with her new boyfriend Arthur, began making softcore loops –intended for the 8mm market- at the St. John’s Wood place.  Short Jack Gold starred in one, opposite Shelagh Harrison who had a day job working as a secretary at ITN, where she is said to have set a famous newsreader up on dates with Page 3 girls.  During the filming of the loops Toni seemed delusional, claiming these would lead her to an important film directing career.  Toni’s catty nature soon pissed off the other women involved in the loops.  “To be frank, I disliked her” remembered one “I thought that Toni fancied herself as a woman who could manipulate others and scare them into working as slaves.  The film I did with Toni was the first and the last.  Her attitude and manner of talking to others was unpleasant”.  As far as anyone knows, Toni and Arthur’s softcore loops never saw the light of day, and it is believed she subsequently emigrated to Australia. 

George Harrison Marks worked with Mary Millington on at least two other occasions outside of Come Play with Me and Sex Is My Business.  Prior to splitting up with Toni, he’d photographed an explicit, inter-racial lesbian photo shoot featuring Millington and her Afro-ed Sex Is My Business co-star at the St John’s Wood apartment (there may also be a film to accompany that shoot called ‘Blonde on Black’ but nobody has been able to trace that one).

In early 1979, right towards the end of her life, Millington and Marks were thrown together one more time.  By 1979, Millington had achieved fame and was no longer appearing in porn loops.  She and her hubby had taken up residence at a six-bedroom house in Surrey that Millington claimed to own... a claim that has been disputed in some quarters.  In her will Millington left £23, 521.  A tidy sum by the standards of the late 1970s, but not enough to have owned a six-bedroom house in Surrey, the two sex shops that she and her husband ran and the Villa in Fuengirola that she also claimed to own.  The numbers just don’t add up there.  In 1987, The Sunday Sport reported that Millington’s financial affairs were still being investigated by the Inland Revenue, eight years after she had died.  The article claimed Millington had been aided by “plenty of advice from the business tycoons she gave her favours to” and complimented the deceased on “having a real head for business”.

The exclusive Surrey address, which Millington would ultimately die in, was used for sex related business on several occasions.  In 1979, Euro loop company Color Climax hired the premises, employing Marks to shoot a hardcore loop there, the charmingly titled ‘Cockpit Cunts’ sometimes known under the more polite title ‘The Aviator’.  Short Jack Gold stars as a lucky bloke who knocks on the door of chez Millington, and ends up in a four person orgy that takes place in the bedroom, and on the very bed, that Millington committed suicide in a few months later.  SJG remembered Millington being “in and out of the house during the day when we were there”, but seemed disinterested in what was going on, having presumably seen enough people having sex for one lifetime.  Harrison Marks was deeply affected by Millington’s death, according to his girlfriend at the time, he spent the day venting his spleen over the taxmen he believed had sadistically hounded Millington to death, as well as reopening old wounds over he who eats chocolate for breakfast.  A deeply superstitious man, it’s likely Marks interpreted Millington killing herself in a room he’d filmed at a few months earlier as bad karma.  After Cockpit Cunts, Marks never worked in hardcore porn again, instead focusing all of his attention on spanking videos and magazines.  Sex, at least in the conventional sense, was no longer his business, but his years in hardcore, dealings with Sullivan and the death of Millington all left a bad taste in Marks’ mouth that not even his superhuman consumption of alcohol could wash away.   

          

Preacherman Meets Widderwoman (1973)

Yurp, it turns out there really was a sequel to the hicksploitation, corn-pone comedy Preacherman (1971)... after years of folks speculating that Preacherman Meets Widderwoman was either unmade, unreleased or merely just a re-titling of the first film.  Hallelujah and praise the Lord!!!

There is actually plenty of evidence of the film’s existence on the net these days- stills from the film, second hand copies of the soundtrack album, reproductions of the movie’s poster and even Preacherman Meets Widderwoman mugs are all available from online auction sites...tracking down the actual film isn’t so easy though.  Unreleased on tape in the USA, and just about everywhere else in the world, the only known video release of Preacherman Meets Widderwoman was in the UK during the early 1980s pre-cert era.  It was put out by a label called A.T.A, which released a handful of movies –including Creation of the Humanoids, The Cremators and the blaxploitation oddity Top of the Heap- before disappearing into the blue yonder.

A case of ‘more of the same’ Preacherman meets Widderwoman begins pretty much where the original Preacherman left off, with con-man and phoney pastor Amos Huxley (Albert T. Viola) shacked up in a motel with the mysterious lady in red who picked him up at the end of the first film.  The po-lice are still on the Preacherman’s tail (Bill Simpson and Colleen McGee reprise their roles as the Sheriff and the Lady in Red from the first film) and soon the preach is on the lam again, where his horny, greedy eyes turn in the direction of a god fearing widderwoman called Alzena Suggs (Marian Brown).  Despite Alzena’s reputation –as the film’s dialogue and soundtrack is fond of reminding us the widderwoman has ‘married five, buried five’-the Preacherman sees Alzena as his latest mark.  The Preach being spurred on by the fact that Alzena is loaded with cash and has a daughter called Willie Mae (Jeramie Rain) who done gone set a bad example for the young uns in the audience, by engaging in ‘sax-ual inner-course’ with the menfolk and has a sideline stealing watermelons.  The Preacherman is soon up to his old tricks, winning over the locals with his bible bashing sermons, running gambling scams, seducing the woman folk and helping himself to money intended to build a church.  What with the po-lice from the original film largely sidelined, the Preacherman’s nemesis this time is Usses (Bob Berg) a former suitor of Alzena, and father of Willie Mae, who sets himself up as competition to the Preacherman when it comes to winning Alzena’s hand in marriage.

Unlike the original Preacherman, the sequel is actually based on not one, but two plays ‘Poor Rudolph’ and ‘Feather and the Bell’ by Chet McIntyre.  Which begs the question were there Preacherman stage plays being performed back then?, or was the Preacherman character written into these plots for the big screen?  Preacherman meets Widderwoman doesn’t entirely shake off its stage play origins, it is a little talky and set bound.  That, and the lack of exploitation elements, may have factored into its obscurity.  The brief nudity, and more sexually driven plot of the first Preacherman film gave the original film a second lease of life when Troma re-released it theatrically, sending it out as late as 1983, and later issuing it on video.  Lady luck didn’t shine so much on the PG rated, family friendly Preacherman Meets Widderwoman, which doesn’t appear to have played a great deal outside of the Southern drive-in circuit in 1974 (you do have to wonder then, how a copy of the film ended up in the UK, let alone be released on video there).  The very definition of a regional production, Preacherman Meets Widderwoman may well be the most North Carolinan movie that I ever done gone seen.  Highlighting a predominately local- one movie and they’re done- cast, revelling in hillbilly caricatures, and with its sense of humour tailor made for a Southern drive-in audience.  Preacherman Meets Widderwoman’s idea of down-home entertainment is folks getting custard pies in the face, a simpleton being told you can only get a woman pregnant by sticking your fingers in both her ears, a harmonica led musical interlude, and a montage involving Usses and his idiot stepson playing hopscotch and doing a jig in a field.  Preacherman Meets Widderwoman also brings back a variation on one of the funniest gags from the first film, when the Preacherman talks a yokel into spending a night in a field ringing a cowbell in an attempt to appease ‘the angel Leroy’, while indoors the Preacherman seduces his betrothed.  Once again Albert T. Viola throws himself into the Preacherman role with demented conviction.  Viola is spellbinding as the charismatic, sweet talking, snake oil salesman type, you genuinely believe he really was a phoney, Southern preacher, rather than the Brooklyn born playwright and former nudie filmmaker that Viola was in real life.  It’s an illusion that the film actively encourages you to buy into, with Viola declining an onscreen credit for the lead role, instead favouring the billing “Amos Huxley...as himself”. 

Viola’s multi-tasking on the production, he directed, starred, wrote songs for the film and co-authored the screenplay, could give the impression of a man on an ego trip.  However, he is surprisingly generous with screen time, regularly stepping out of the film in order to give the other actors their moment in the spotlight.  Jeramie Rain shines here as the sexy, no-nonsense, white trash daughter, a persona that also served Rain well as Sadie in Last House on the Left, made a year before.  

Curiously while Rain used her real name in Don Schain’s The Abductors and Last House on the Left, two films she is on record as loathing, she uses the pseudonym ‘Sue Davis’ on the comparatively wholesome Preacherman Meets Widderwoman. 

I have a theory that Rain’s co-star Rebecca Payson, who plays Armanda, the other piece of eye candy for the Preacherman in the film, is actually an actress called Deborah Loomis.  It is Payson (possibly aka Loomis) who is all over the Preacherman Meets Widderwoman poster, rather than the more mature actress who plays the Widderwoman.  Like Rain, Loomis was an actress whose career largely centred around the New York area, and includes a three episode stint in Dark Shadows, Joel M Reed’s horror anthology Blood Bath, and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first film Hercules in New York.  Whether it can ever be proven that Miss Payson and Miss Loomis are one in the same, is another matter.  A few years ago, when Schwarzenegger became governor there were several, presumably well funded attempts by scandal sheets like the New York Post to locate Deborah Loomis.  Done in the hope that she may have some dirt on Schwarzenegger from the time she played his love interest in Hercules in New York.  However she proved to be untraceable, so if the might of the American tabloid press couldn’t find Deborah Loomis, what chance do the rest of us have?  Come to think of it, a bunch of muckraking city stickers searching for a former actress in the hope of discrediting a governor sounds like it could have formed the basis for a third Preacherman film, I’m sure ol’ Amos Huxley would have taken their money and lead ‘em on a wild goose chase.

Hang on just another minute y’all, a quick word about the various versions of the original Preacherman (1971) that are currently floating around.  The 1983 UK video release on the Video Unlimited label is missing nudity from the scene where Mary Lou undresses and gets into the bathtub, there are also cuts to the sex scene between Mary Lou and Clyde, as well as nudity cuts from a later scene where Mary Lou undresses by the window.  An American VHS put out by Troma in the 1990s is the uncut version, but judging by comments on the IMDB an earlier American video release on the Paragon label was a censored version “some very obvious jump cuts (sound and picture) remove most of the nudity”.  So basically the Troma tape is the way to go for all you sinners out there who wanna see Miss Mary Lou as neekid as a jaybird.