KRIS GILPIN IMHO DEPT. "Buchanan's Bergmanesque Berries!"

"Buchanan's Bergmanesque Berries!"

Reviewed By Kris Gilpin.

When I was lucky enough to get to talk with the late, great cheesemeister Larry ("Zontar, the Thing from Venus") Buchanan he told me, "And once I shot a Bergman knock-off I called Strawberries Need Rain [ha!], opened it in a few drive-ins and people at first bought it as a real Bergman film [ha!]." 

"Introducing" the lovely Monica Gayle (pretty face, great boobs) (even tho she'd been in, I believe, 8 features before that) as Erica, a young virgin who begs Death to give her 24 more hours of life--so she can get laid. Gayle is actually good in this & Death is played by Les Tremayne, who walks thru the whole movie lugging a scythe on his shoulders (Les also appeared in Buch's Creature of Destruction)....And half a decade later she would co-star as the sexy Patch in Switchblade Sisters ;-).

Crank notes- Monica Gayle, who I know most for her role as Patch in Switch Blade Sisters, was just in Take it out in Trade. She went from Ed Wood to another kind of low brow trying to be high brow schlock. Bergman's Wild Strawberries, which the title attempts to cash in on, came out in the 50s. I recently watched her in Nashville Girl, a film that shows the seedy underworld of a country star, Johnny Rodriguez shows up at one point.

First she tries to seduce an old friend, but he's just a dork who kisses pages of tit shots from soft core mags by flashlight under the covers at night & he doesn't know what to do when offered the real thing. Then she goes off with a motorcycle scumbag who beats her & tries to rape her, until Deathie gives him the scythe. Finally she hooks up with an old teacher of hers & . . . well, there ya go.

bring me the head of Buck Dharma!

This is nicely photographed (for L.B.) by Roger C. Jessup, who'd also shot 3 earlier films for our beloved writer-director, has some time-padding scenes (like walking thru fields, accompanied by cheesy folkish music of the time [1970], and drugstore shopping), and it's a typically amusing, different type of Buchanan epic, carried of course by Ms. Monica's natural charm(s)...SNR was shot silent, with dialogue & incidental sound FX dubbed in later.

charmed for sure, but those feet are dirty.