IN MY LITTLE BEACH SHACK

My favorite Elvis Presley movie song, this week anyway, is "Beach Shack" from Spinout (1966).  For you eagle eyes, try to spot Christopher Riordan, Thordis Brandt, Phyllis Davis, and Arlene Charles who may be in this musical number. The King's leading ladies are Shelley Fabares, Diane McBain, Deborah Walley, and Dodie Marshall. He's a singing racecar driver trying to deflect the marriage-minded ladies.

 httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mB52OCn86Q

A STERLING DANCE

 

 In the clip below Fantasy Femme Tisha Sterling go-go dances to The Prunes as Jack Lord and Susan Strasberg look on in one of the weirdest films from the 60s, The Name of the Game Is Kill!   In the film, Lord (just before he landed Hawaii Five-0) played a Hungarian immigrant named Symcha Lipa who meets beautiful Strasberg, the “normal” sister, while wandering the highways of Arizona.  Susan operates a family-owned gas station and invites him to stay with her and her sisters: child-like, spider-loving Tisha Sterling and masculine Collin Wilcox, plus dear old mom female impersonator T.C. Jones.  All three sisters try to seduce and then kill Symcha. 

 httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bs_wt6TL-g

 

 

 <object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/1bs_wt6TL-g&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object> Commenting on the movie, Tisha said in the book,

 

 

“Making this film was an extremely wild experience for me.  I have never seen the film in its entirety and would love to see it one day.  It was a really hard shoot because we had to work long hours in this weird little town called Jerome—it was not much more than a ghost town.  The temperature was close to 120 degrees and it was horrendous.  We also all hated Gunnar Hellstrom [the director]. He was mean and we all wanted to mutiny.  Anyway, I thought I did pretty well in this movie.” 

 

You can read more of Tisha's comments about The Name of the Game Is Kill! in the revised soft cover edition of Fantasty Femmes of Sixteis Cinema due out in late summer.  Below is the film's trailer:

 httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXi05egnu7Y

 

 

  

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/wat

SIXTIES POP CINEMA: THE CULT, THE BAD & THE CAMPY

Actress Valerie Starrett (soap fans will remember her as the original Diana Taylor on General Hospital) joins Nancy Czar, Lada Edmund, Jr., Mimsy Farmer, Aron Kincaid, Marlyn Mason, and Christopher Riordan as interviewees for my new book above. Valerie will be sharing anecdotes about the making of the biker film Run, Angel, Run. See trailer below: