Yet another update on some of the people behind the drive-in classic The Monster and the Stripper (aka The Exotic Ones).  First I have been meaing to post a link to a long and interesting interview and article with one of the dancers of the film Diane Jordan. I was actually going to copy and it paste the article but I now realize it is simply too long. I am re-reading now over some instant coffee and it is an amazing story. The link can be found here:

Diane Jordan by John O’Dowd

The work put into this by writer John O’Dowd is of a thoroughly professional quality. I did put the section of the interview that pertains to her involved with The Monster and the Stripper at the bottom of this post. Diane is a wonderful and charming person who has sent me a few emails and her warmth shines through in them. I myself am a southern boy having lived outside for one year as a kid. The stories in the article of Diane meeting and working with some of the big names in Nashville at the time is fascinating.

Seems there has been a bit of a reunion –or the beginnings of one anyway- between Diane, Tim Ormond and their co-star from Monster Georgette Dante. If I and this humble site had even the slightest thing to do with that I am thrilled and wish them all the best as they reminisce over their adventures since they last saw each other. Seems Georgette is involved to some degree in a huge Burlesque festival being held in New Orleans this September and there will be a screening of The Monster and the Stripper. The event is organized by one Rick DeLaup and a link is available here:

New Orleans Burlesque Festival

And on a sadder note Tim Ormond’s family house was devastated by the flooding in Tennessee. I have a couple images and one must remember that what you are seeing is the 2nd floor of the houses. I have a small comment from Tim and he seems likes a real nice guy and it is just too bad this happened to him. I wish him the best and at the same time was happy to hear that he had contacted Georgette after many long years. Here are some of Tim’s comments on the situation:

Just touching base and filling in a few people on what’s happened in my life in the past months.
But before I write about that, I JUST this minute got off the phone with Georgette, this is the first time we’ve spoke in a MANY years (more than I care to mention). Georgette will be in New Orleans in mid September at a Burlesque festival, where they will show “Monster”, should be fun.
For me, I am recovering from the floods that hit my area in May. My place was totally wiped out and I lost pretty much everything. I was able to salvage most of the stills from my mom and dad’s early years, and the movies masters were stored off site, so they are safe.
Here’s a couple of links that will show you the flood (or go to youtube and type “Nashville Flood”). [I uploaded the images here-Bill]
When you see these keep in mind I lived on the first floor, the pictures show the second floor, my place was COMPLETELY underwater.

Here is a long and interesting interview with Tim by Jack Sargeant from his book Suture 2 that foucuses a lot on Ron Ormond’s Christian propaganda films made with the Rev. Estus Pirkle. It also provides some fresh history and biographical information fans may be interestd in reading:

Tim Ormond interviewd by Jack Sargeant

I hope after reading this some of my readers may be inclined to go out and search for this rare and genuine cult classic by Ron Ormond. It was one of the longest posts I have ever written and I am truly happy it has sparked some responses from the wonderful and interesting people involved in its making. I wish them all the best and hope they stay in touch and let me know how things go with Georgette who played the most interesting character in the film with the exception of the monster itself played by singer Sleepy LaBeef. My original article is here:

The Monster and the Stripper

Open the ‘read more’ link below and check out the story from Diane’s interview with John O’Dowd about her experiences on the set on The Monster and the Stripper and of working with Ron and June Ormond.

EXCERPT FROM THE JOHN O’DOWD INTERVIEW WITH DIANE JORDON ABOUT THE MONSTER AND THE STRIPPER >>

I came to learn a little about Metal music a bit late in life. I Have always felt there is no need to close doors to music simply becasue we get older. I think the first real Metal I bought (not counting stuff like Metallica or Megadeth) was an album by Naplam Death and I recall not liking it at all but thught the cover looked cool. As many years have gone I have developed a curious interest in the Metal genre and its different movements though I am by no means a true fan or follower. If I had to select a style I prefer the most it would be the Black Metal music of Norway over, lets say, the Death Metal style of the bands out of Florida like Cannibal Corpse. I do like some of the Morbid Angel material but they sound more European than American in their approach (in my opinion anyway) and I like some of the stuff by British band Carcass who is supposed to be a Grindcore band. I have read rabid forums posts about which bands are Thrash and which are Death Metal and which are Grindcore and so on. But I certainly have some fascination with bands with wild names like Carpathian Forest, Emperor, Mayhem Darkthrone and Satryicon. The songs are often epic in their scale and delivery and the sound is tastefully augmented with synthesizers, something not found on the hard core death metal albums. The lyrics typically focus on Norse mythology and similar grand themes.

MORE ABOUT THE DARK WORLD OF BURZUM HERE >>

I am making my second horror book now that I am about half way through with my history Jack Hill’s exploitation style cinema. The Jack Hill book was very informative and gave he in an insight that I did not have before into the world of low budget film making and in particular with working with Roger Corman. I would definitely like to find the Roger Corman auto-biography How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime in PDF format. Well my next hmemade book project is a hefty one at 313 pages and yet worth it. It is A History of Horrors: The Rise and Fall of the House of Hammer. I can’t wait to get it bound up and sit back and read through it and then provide some articles on what I learn. I may have to do some posts that add some new information to some of the many Hammer posts I have already done here. I also have collected almost every Hammer film ever made here and have them scattered about on several DVD discs. I just enjoy those films so much and have seen many of them several times. Some I have yet to actually see – such as The Stranglers of Bombay and Maniac – and look forward to some viewing as soon as I get through the movies I am watching now. I should say while I am the topic of movies I am watching that I have watched quite a few Vincent Price films in the last few months and have yet to write one blasted post on the man or his films. I will have to correct that situation soon. So in the mean time I lifted some images from the PDF of A History of Horrors and will share those with you. I left the text to the images so the context can be explained. I am sure most of these have never been seen online before. Most show behind the scenes activities or dinner parties for the Hammer bigwigs.

UPDATE: Got the book made today and thought I would post the cover to it. Again, like the Jack Hill book, it cost me about .50 to print as we used our own paper and printer to print it out. This is a great book and of course it would nice to own the real thing, but that is not going to happen here in China. Here are some scans of the covers. I had to make a cover in Word Doc for the fibery cover the printing places use and then put a color cover on the inside. The quality is pretty good.

IMAGES FROM A HISTORY OF HORRORS

MORE RARE PICTURES FROM THE HISTORY OF HAMMER FILMS >>

Anyone who has seen any assortment of paperback or men’s magazine covers from the 40’s to 60’s has most certainly gawked in wonder at more than a few that were painted by one of the kings of the genre, Norman Saunders. Saunders was a prolific illustrator who was known for turning out high quality paintings within tight deadlines. He is most remembered for his lurid crime scene type paintings with gun totting tough guys and even tougher gals in dramatically lit poses. But he was able to handle most any design themes the magazine field including combat, westerns, science fiction and even sports illustrations. He also painted a famous series of trading cards for Topps in 1962 called Mars Attacks whose images later inspired Tim Burton to create his film of the same name. He was born Normand Blaine Sanders (he signed a lot of his work Blaine that he did outside his main job at Fawcett) in 1907. He would later drop the ‘d’ from Normand. At the age of three he suffered an accident that left him blind for six months. Luckily his sight was restored after several surgeries and he soon began drawing everything he saw, no doubt in appreciation for his restored vision. He was hired by Fawcett Publications and as the story goes he unknowingly hitched a ride with a couple bank robbers from North Dakota who had the young Saunders keep lookout for cops from the back of their Model-T. He was a hard working artist whose work did not seem to suffer from their rushed qualities. The colors are bright and lurid and the content is consistently exciting and dangerously erotic. It is the because of the work of men like Saunders that the artwork from the pulps now are treasured by collectors over what was produced in the ‘slicks’ of the same period. I could never tire of looking at stuff like this.

MORE OF THE AMAZING ARTWORK OF NORMAN SAUNDERS HERE >>

I was watching The Keep last night and was struck by the film’s soundtrack by Tangerine Dream. I have the soundtrack, and almost all of their music, but have seldom listened to it as I tend to listen to the same things over and over. I mostly listen to Stratsofear, Phaedra, Ricochet, Exit and Force Majeure. I also, however, listen quite a lot to the Thief and Sorcerer soundtracks. I recently got in both the AVI files for Thief and Sorcerer but have not had a chance to rewatch them as I ahve them them both a few times already. I also got in The Keep at about the same time and it is all a matter of strange coincidence that Tangerine Dream did the soundtracks to the three films. The group would undergo many lineup changes and the once three man outfit at some periods had four or more musicians. The lineup for Sorcerer is Edgar Froese, Peter Baumann and Christopher Franke. As far as I am concerned this is the lineup that did most of the groups most memorable music during the 70’s on the Virgin label. The first Tangerine Dream album I bought was Stratosfear with the original Virgin label designed by Roger Dean on the vinyl. Some parts of Sorcerer sound like very similar to sections of Stratosfear. The lineup for Thief and The Keep – both films directed by Michael Mann – is still Froese and Franke  but with Johannes Schmoelling taking Baumann’s place here and on much of the work done in the 80’s. I am not an authority on the group and later there are many lineup changes and the mood of the music changed at times but not too drastically. I tried to supply some more upbeat selections from the recordings here rather than some of the meandering incidental music that is nice to listen to while blogging but not the best examples to try and hook a new listener with. This style of music is what really helped me move from being a believer in vinyl and analog to someone who prefers digital music. The music of Tangerine Dream, Brian Eno, Vangelis and Philip Glass has to be heard without surface noise and skips. I know there are the true believers who see digital as the end of music as we know it but I am not one of those. I welcome evolution and the necessary extinction of the BSR turntable and the 8-Track tape in order to bring forth a fitter form of listening pleasure. Enjoy the selections here in all their sacrilegious digital glory.

LISTEN TO SELECTIONS FROM TANGERINE DREAM SOUNDTRACKS HERE >>

I thought I would balance my recent post on Dave Sheridan’s Tales from the Leather  Nun with another remarkable underground comic from the early 70’s, Rick Griffin’s Tales From the Tube. Griffin is maybe best known for his Grateful Dead postsers and album covers as well as his posters for many San Francisco area music and surfing events. He helped to launch the underground comic movement with his contributions to ZAP. His style was highly detailed and a discernable cut above most of his underground peer’s work. Rick was a surfer himself and Tales from the Tube his intricately drawn tribute to the surfing world. The book is drawn with all the strange mystical symbols that most all of his work contained. Some parts of the book reflect Griffin’s recent conversion to Christianity. Like Leather Nun I once owned the original comic book for Tales from the Tube and it was an awesome thing to hold in your hand once in while and flip through. I would like to be able to find a complete version of the comic book online as well as his illustrations for The Book of John project for Marantha! Music from 1970. Truly one of the greats from the period.

MORE TALES FROM THE TUBE BY RICK GRIFFIN HERE >>

Tales from the Leather Nun, along with Dealer McDope, is the comic book effort the late Dave Sheridan is best remembered for. I picked up a copy way back in 1978 or so while working at a sort of counter culture shop in Lexington Ky, around the University area. I had stopped buying Marvel and DC comics and the Warren titles were losing steam. This was my William S. Burroughs and High Times magazine period in life and it only seemed natural to start buying underground comics. Of course I loved the stuff by Robert Crumb and I picked up Tales from the Leather Nun chiefly because it featured a short four page story by Crumb in it. Sheridan did the excellent cover and the first story. All the stories were well drawn and a little over the top really even for me at the time. But it was one of the treasures of my old comic book collection and I am happy to present a few sample pages. I picked up a copy in a batch download of underground titles and really did not expect to get something like this in the assortment of titles. The stories are irreverent but in that sort of satirical, almost inoffensive 70’s style. Hope you enjoy this glimpse into one really unique and perverted comic book.

MORE TALES FROM THE LEATHER NUN HERE >>