1967, Directed by Herschell G. Lewis

Only a madman could understand it all, they say. That’s not the best indication that a movie has a clear narrative…

The plot synopsis genuinely is something weird - a man is facially disfigured in an accident which also inexplicably gives him psychic powers. He is then coerced into shacking up with a grotesque shape-shifting witch who fixes his face, and they go off to banish ghosts and catch a serial killer. All in a day’s work.

Something Weird lacks the usual gore of Herschell Lewis’ movies, but makes up for it by not making much sense. Brilliantly, some people remember a “3D” version of this movie.

The excellent DVD company Something Weird Video took their name from this film - they specialise in hoovering up the rights to forgotten and strange old movies and releasing them to the home market before they’re lost forever. Trailer Club 70 salutes them.

Favourite bit: The incredibly sub-standard make-up on the witch. School panto a-go-go!

IMDB LINK

1966, Directed by Conrad Rooks

No, your speakers have not broken. There is no sound at the very start of this trailer.

Conrad Rooks wrote, directed and starred in this seemingly autobiographical tale of an extended cold turkey session, undertaken after 5 years of solid drug addiction. Sounds jolly!

I’d never heard of Rooks but he appears to have been at the heart of the sixties psychedelia scene if this movie’s cameos are anything to go by - Allen Ginsberg, Ravi Shankar and William S. Burroughs himself all appear as actors. Far out, etc.

This trailer has a distinctly art-school feel about it - I have a horrible feeling Chappaqua was some kind of trippy vanity project for Rooks. I’d lay down money that there is no coherent plot and dull, extended hallucination scenes. Hey, it did win the Silver Lion Award for pretentious self-indulgence at the Venice Film Festival…

Favourite bit: “I withdraw from the case!”

IMDB LINK

AKA Marihuana: The Devil’s Weed, Marihuana: The Weed with Roots in Hell!



1936, Directed by Dwain Esper

So ‘marijuana’ used to be spelled with an H rather than a J? As this trailer can’t spell the word ‘weird’ correctly I suppose they could have just gotten it wrong…

A propaganda extravaganza along the lines of the infamous ‘Reefer Madness’, this movie attempts to warn young people of the dangers of cannabis using dubious melodrama. And a very creepy man who talks into the camera and says “Nude parties.”

Favourite bit: The hands pointlessly waving over the pills and syringes.

IMDB LINK