HAND OF DEATH

d. Gene Nelson (1962)

Dr. Alex Marsh (schlock superstar John Agar, Shirley Temple's first husband) is one of those madly intense scientists obsessed with making the world a better place by inventing unspeakable things. 

The main thrust of his work is to combine a hypnotic drug and non-deadly nerve gas, thereby giving the U.S.A a paralyzed and compliant enemy to invade. His reasoning is that it will save the horror and destruction of nuclear war but, as he speaks, his eyes glitter and his mouth grows wet: the idea excites him very much, a lot more than his over-eager fiancee seems to, who is reduced to playing the coquette with his cheerful best friend in desperate lieu of attention from her permanently working husband to be. 

 

One late night, an exhausted Marsh clumsily spills some of his experimental solution over his hands, and tears open his lab coat and Hawaiian shirt in pain and horror before falling onto the bed and hallucinating test tubes, beakers and scurrying white mice. When he awakens, he not only has a first class tan, but the merest touch of his hands means instant death, a lesson his Mexican lab assistant learns very quickly. Ever responsible, Marsh douses the corpse and the rest of the lab in white spirit and puts a match to it before driving off to cause chaos downtown.

A film that runs out of steam very quickly and soon descends into jumbled images of a bloke just staggering about, Hand of Death is most notable for Marsh's transformation from handsome(ish) young(ish) scientist to bloated, blackened monster, as mutation turns his head into a lump of swollen coal and his deadly hands into bunches of over-ripe bananas. 

Interestingly, to disguise the disfiguring condition that has distorted his entire body and robbed him of his speech and sanity, he does the only thing he can under the circumstances: he puts a hat on.  

THE FIEND OF DOPE ISLAND

d. Nate Watt (1961)

The Fiend of Dope Island is about a love triangle between a marijuana farmer and gun runner called Charlie, a heavily accented showgirl called Glory La Verne and an undercover narcotics agent (I didn't catch his name). It is not, as far as I know, based on a true story. 

The semi-psychopathic and possibly brain damaged Charlie (he has two prominent scars on his head) is played by Bruce Bennett. Bennett used to be an Olympian called Herman Brix, and was lined up to play in the first MGM Tarzan film until he broke his shoulder and Johnny Weissmuller took his place. Brix soon returned reborn as Bennett and played Tarzan in a cheap serial overseen by Edgar Rice Burroughs himself. His Tarzan was a gentleman: educated and articulate, but he was no match for Weissmuller and soon went back to character roles. Bennett’s performance here is pretty wild, but not particularly good, which is great, especially if you like ham. 

The film is relieved from being tedious by little studs of excitement like fist fights, shark attacks, bongo music, some surprising nudity and lots of corporal punishment. A well-oiled bull whip is the weapon of choice, if you don't count 'The Yugoslavian Bombshell' Tania Velia, who cha cha cha's into the midst of the male dominated island like a sex grenade with the pin out.  

The credits claim that this delightful trash flavoured trifle introduces Tania, but she’d already been in Hollywood for a few years at this point. Soon after this film was released she went home to Belgrade. Draw your own conclusions. 

PURE SHIT

d. Bert Deling (1975)

The darkly playful title refers to Heroin, a drug that continues to polarise public and private opinion but is universally agreed to be extremely more-ish. This very Australian fly on the wall documentary style film, compiled from real life junkie war stories, attracted major controversy in its time, with the censor forcing a name change to Pure S and the Vice Squad raiding the premiere. Watching it now, it’s easy to see what shook up the powers that were: the star of the film is Heroin, the pursuit of it, the taking of it, the dirty pleasure of it; when it's not onscreen the characters talk about it and crave its presence more than food, money, sex and love. 'H' is the sort of role the brilliant but ruthless egomaniac Kirk Douglas would have enjoyed playing: the undisputed centre of attention. 

The users live entirely outside of 'normal' society, only engaging with non-junkies and non-dealers when they are robbing pharmacies or prostituting themselves for cash. They are unwashed, extremely foul mouthed, obsessed with double denim and so trapped on the hamster wheel of addiction that they have no time for anything else, least of all dreams of a better future. There are no poetic and wistful monologues here: these junkies like being junkies and, of the alternatives, even a sudden puke covered death seems preferable to the hell of rehab and Methadone treatment.

It gets shrill and repetitive and muddled quite quickly, especially when the early narrative about the protagonists seeking heroin and never quite getting it goes off track. Within twenty minutes they all start clumsily and repeatedly jabbing needles into their scabby arms (I assumed that junkies would be better at injecting, or perhaps I’ve just seen too many glossy drugs films) and vomiting into buckets, revealing the full  scuzz of their grim drug addled life for all to see. These scenes are given added impact by apparently being real or, at least, seeming real, which is, after all, what cinema is about. I suppose the Aussie authorities were worried that Pure Shit might glamourise drug addiction or even provide step by step instructions on how to score and shoot up but, seriously, if you watch this film and think ‘cor, I don’t half fancy some Heroin’ you pretty much deserve what comes next.