Stan Delvecchio’s Boston based Magno films had a brief run of releases kicking off with two pickups from Britain. The A title in the double feature was the 1973 mad killer movie SITTING DUCKS. The B title was the 1972 sex romp MADELINE TAKES MANCHESTER, rechristened LOVE TO LOVE YOU BABY for US audiences.
Picking up the US distribution rights for a decent price from Charterhouse Films, the double bill did well and was a good first step for the fledgling company. Delvecchio, who had been in the business since the MGM lion was a cub, was in his seventies when he started up Magno.
DELVECCHIO: People always asked me, why did you start a company at 74? You should relax and enjoy your retirement. It was always something that I wanted to do, be my own boss. Besides, I hired good people to run the day to day. Frankly, I didn’t like our releases or understand the appeal. Things were getting more and more violent, and the nudity was more prevalent. Now don’t get me wrong, I like looking at a naked broad as much as the next guy and a certain amount of violence is needed in some pictures, but it was getting a little over the top. But this was the direction that the audience tastes were headed. I had a good man running the office, Dante Phillips.
SITTING DUCKS: In modern day England, a failed musician, unhinged by the constant rejection of his music, dresses up in Victorian age clothes and terrorizes London with a grisly murder spree that brings back bloody memories of Jack the Ripper.
LOVE TO LOVE YOU BABY: Madeline sets Manchester alight with her scorching hot sexual attitude, as she sets out to bed the entire phonebook.
“Can a modern-day bird take on old-fashioned sexual stereotypes and come out ahead?”
This is a prime example of a double feature, that on the surface, does not seem like an idea pairing, but ends up working well together. The lead in SITTING DUCKS, Ian Donnelly, plays a similar character, a musician, though timid and non-violent, in LOVE TO LOVE YOU BABY, which provides a unique through line for the double bill.
Ian Donnelly made his film debut in the 1971 British sex farce PERCY, THE ULTIMATE SEX GURU and went on to work exclusively in television, from comedy, CHURCHILL SLEPT HERE (1975-1977), JESUS OF JOLLY’S BOTTOM (1979), to drama, CASTLE OF THE FALLEN HERO (1981).
Playing the lead character, Madeline, was Maggie Hawthorne. She initially broke through as a popular Page 3 girl for The Sun, making the jump to sex films including CONFESSIONS OF A GOVERNESS (1976), SEE YOU NEXT FRIDAY (1977), SOHO AFTER DARK (1978) and CONFESSIONS OF A TROUSER SALESWOMAN (1978).
Magno’s next release was a horror triple feature that would thrust them onto the exploitation map. The bill was headlined by the 1974 Spanish shocker DON’T GO NEAR THE WENDY HOUSE aka UN NIÑO PEQUEÑO LOS MATARÁ aka A LITTLE CHILD SHALL KILL THEM.
Billed as “Three Intense horrors that will shake the shock out of you!”, this triple feature turned out to be a surprise hit for Magno Films. Pairing DON'T GO NEAR THE WENDY HOUSE with the low budget American made rock-horror of 1973’s THE MUMMY OF MONTEREY POP and a second Spanish thriller THE LAST HOUSE AROUND THE CORNER AT THE BOTTOM OF THE HILL (1972).
Over the years Magno would employ these types of ads with slightly different warnings . . .
“TO AVOID MENTAL ANGUISH”
“TO AVOID YELLOW JAUNDICE”
"TO AVOID AN IRS AUDIT"
This triple bill turned out to be a massive hit for Magno, as word of mouth spread amongst the film bookers and theater owners. This bill would play for near a decade in drive-in theaters across the country.
DONT GO NEAR THE WENDY HOUSE - PLOT: A couple buys an antique Wendy house from a curio shop. The mysterious owner of the shop relates that the Wendy house has a sinister aura with a history of violent death, the couple thinking the story to be an old man’s sales trick, purchase the house for their eleven year old daughter, Emma. Once home, the malevolent force that exists inside the house awakens and starts to cause mishaps, these are minimal at first, but soon grow to deadly proportions. Strange sounds and disembodied voices start to emanate from the Wendy house. A glass window explodes causing the shards to fly out and severely cut the maids face. A playmate chokes to death while playing inside the house. . . and the situations get worse after that.
The daughter was played by Imogene Cervera, the go-to child actor of the Spanish exploitation world of the seventies. She had previously appeared as the creepy child of a werewolf, who was creepier than the werewolf, in 1973’s THE WEREWOLF PROWLS AT NIGHT aka COLMILLOS SANGRIENTOS BAJO LA LUNA LLENA aka BLOODY FANGS UNDER A FULL MOON aka WHEREWOLF (US video retitling).
Cervera plays the daughter of a diplomat, who is just as creepy prior to being possessed by the devil, than after, in 1976’s THE POSSESSION OF A LONELY CHILD aka A BUNDLE OF HELL, aka NATALIE: SPAWN OF THE DEVIL. In 1977’s WHY ARE OUR CHILDREN KILLING US?, she plays the leader of a group of children in an isolated small town, that have moved on from playing with dolls and toy cars to brandishing weapons and dispatching the adults of the community in gruesome ways. The best of which is when her character plants a billhook into the throat of a priest trying to stop the killings. In her final appearance, Cervera plays the daughter of a woman whose new husband may or may not be dead in 1978's ¿QUIÉN INVITÓ AL CADÁVER A LA BODA? aka WHO INVITED THE CORPSE TO THE WEDDING?.
THE MUMMY OF MONTERREY POP: A mummy unleashes its slow-moving fury on the concert goers and artists at the Monterrey Pop festival.
Filmed prior, during and after the famous music festival, THE MUMMY OF MONTERREY POP is a fine curio, but does not delivery much in the way of scares. The film does feature musical acts, but none of the actual performers that played the festival make an appearance, though the producers did find actors to approximate the Mamas and the Papas, Canned Heat and The Association with varying degrees of success. The Mamas and the Papas clone foursome does contain two men and two women, one on the chunky side, but it is safe to say that Canned Heat never featured a balding tuba player.
THE LAST HOUSE AROUND THE CORNER AT THE BOTTOM OF THE HILL - PLOT: Another horror film based around supernatural shenanigans. A vacation house located in the middle of nowhere seems to draw in visitors with none of them fairing too well. A plumber gets his leg stuck in a hole in the basement floor and then drowns as water gushes from a pipe and fills the basement. When the next group of people arrive, there is no body and no sign of a flooded basement. A docile family dog turns malevolent and rips out his master's throat.
Magno’s final release was another hit for the company as they jumped on the “Redneck car crash genre” with 1978’s energetic BLOCKADE BUSTERS.
PLOT: Del and Dan are brother truckers who work as independent contractors. When their family house and ranch is about to be stolen from them by an unscrupulous, but well dressed, land buyer, Del and Dan have to take a job hauling illegal whiskey to be able to retain their homestead.
Starring Patrick Gifford as Del and Lou Myers as Dan, both in their only film roles.
Playing the land baron with gleeful evil is Paul Lowman, whose long thin frame and slicked back hair can be seen as a confused rocker in DEATH BEFORE DISCO (1979), a bewildered deputy in THE GREAT PUCKERBUSH COUNTY 100 YEAR FEUD (1977) and as a befuddled cockfighter in BALLAD OF A COCKFIGHTER (1978).
The soundtrack was released on Tonearm Records International
Del’s and Dan’s Theme:
Del and Dan are truckers, they like to drive their truck
Sheriff Blue don’t care for them, but they don’t give a ---
Luck is always on their side, they treat their job with skill and pride
Don’t give a Quarter, don’t budge an inch
when it comes to hauling freight, they come through in a pinch
Many try to stop them but their all pressing luck
Del and dan brake for nothing, cause they don’t give a ---
Stan Delvecchio was getting up in age at this point and was constantly in ill health. He stopped acquiring new product and just kept his films in circulation until he passed away in 1983.
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