Thursday

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To see and use all the Funhouse features, you need Netscape 6.+ or MSIE 5.+.

• Netscape 6.2.2 is available free for download or on CD.
• MSIE 6.0 is available free.

Solamente nero (1978), given a US title of The Bloodstained Shadow is the fourth giallo of a recently released box set. This one is by Antonio Bido, and is the weakest of the four (see previous reviews for Chi l'ha vista morire?, The Case of the Bloody Iris, and The Night of the Glass Dolls), but is still an ok whodunnit. Lino Capolicchio returns home to Sicily to visit his brother the priest. On the train, he meets Stefania Casini and starts dating her once home. On the night he arrives, a woman is strangled just outside the church, and he begins to investigate. Someone is making threats on the priests life. More and more people die, and skeletons in the closet are slowly revealed.

Slowly is the operative word here. The pace was leisurely, and the tension was not allowed to build, but rather ebbed and flowed. The director himself admitted that this was a mistake in an interview also on the DVD. Casini shows breasts and buns, and a hint of bush in an extended sex scene with Capolicchio. Many of the locations are worthy of a picture postcard, and there are some nice camera angles and lighting. It is passable as a mystery. This is a C.

I strongly recommend this boxed set entitled The Giallo Collection to anyone interested in exploring giallo. All four titles are decently dubbed, and each DVD features an interview with the director, and it is region 1 NTSC.

Here are the latest movie reviews available at scoopy.com.

• The yellow asterisks indicate that I wrote the review, and am deluded into thinking it includes humor.
• If there is a white asterisk, it means that I inexplicably determined there might be something of interest.
• A blue asterisk indicates the review is written by Tuna (or Lawdog or Junior or C2000 or Realist or ICMS or somebody else besides me)
• If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.

Shelby Chong (Tommy's wife) is oh so briefly topless in the Cheech and Chong movie, "Far Out Man".

• Shelby Chong

Kathryn Harrold and Sue Bowser in Into the Night. Kathryn is not the least bit nekkid, but she reaches into her bathing suit to rearrange one boob. In contrast, Sue is topless as can be... and impressively so.

• Kathryn Harrold
• Sue Bowser

Okay, then we get to this very uneven movie, called Party Animal. This was the performance of a life time by Matthew Causey as a Southern yokel who comes to college to get laid. It was, to be sure, Matthew's only performance, and justifiably so. The movie is stupidly episodic and involves his character's attempts to get cool, get smooth or develop an aphrodisiac. Good news: six babes get nekkid, five of them in very long scenes. Bad news: none of them is directly credited. Credits list twelve "featuring" women, and I assume that list includes the nekkid six. Now, normally I would give this mess a pass, except that one of the featured babes, credited as Judi Evans, is Judi Evans Luciano, an actress who spent 17 years in 3 soap operas and starred as Patsy Ramsey in the movie, entitled "Getting Away with Murder." So here you go, guys, a collage of one babe who plays the part of 'Holly' and a second collage of five other babes in the above-mentioned long scenes. Does anyone recognize Judi Evans, or any of the others?

• Holly
• Featured Babes

Last up are the babes of Hollywood Passions, a movie that doesn't even make it into the IMDB. This is movie without pretense or annoyance; it's not very funny and it is not at all melodramatic. Tis a terrific vehicle of a boatload of topless babes, some of whom are veteran B movie bims. We have the following:

• Carol Holt in a couple of sport humping scenes. (1, 2)
• Diane Cuevas, with a guy paying very close attention to her hooters.
• Donna Spangler, dancing topless with a red feather boa.
• Janine Andreas, showing boobs and a hint of bush.
• Leigh Betchley and her hooters-so-robo you can see the gears working.
• Mary Scott, a queen of an actress, showing boobs (both collages) and bum (the second collage).
  (1, 2)
• And an uncredited actress who has speaking lines and everything... in this case, the everything includes a couple of better than average hooties.

Today a little "Hankster Lite". First it's Kirstin Carlstrand in "Forbidden Sins".

• Kirstin Carlstrand, topless in all 3. Full frontal in #3 (1, 2, 3)

Then we take a trip back in the time machine to 1978's "Scorchy" with just a glimpse of boob from Connie Stevens. As far as I know it's the only nudity she ever did. Connie was best known as Cricket Blake in the (1959-1963) TV hit "Hawaiian Eye". I know...I'm showing my age.

• Connie Stevens (1, 2)

BUSINESS MELTDOWN: MARTHA CHOPPED, WORLDCOM FRAUD
The Only Green She Has Left - Rumors of insider trading have caused Martha Stewart's stock to drop 34 percent since June 6, reducing her personal wealth by over $150 million. Tuesday, an exasperated Stewart did her regular appearance on CBS's "Early Show," and claimed she would "be exonerated of any ridiculousness" as she forcefully chopped cabbage.