G.C.R. Film Distributors was another company that extracted gold from the mines of European exploitation during the fertile seventies. Founded by three partners in 1973, David Glenn, Michael Christian and Oliver Rittenhouse.
OLIVER RITTENHOUSE: We had a guy in Europe who knew the business well. He’d watch the films available for sale and recommend what to buy. His instincts were always on target as far as we were concerned. He had originally picked out some westerns, but we wanted to have a horror release.
The companies' first release proved to be a popular horror double feature with a Euro pedigree.
NIGHTMARE OF THE COFFIN CREATURES (1972) was the lesser of the two on the bill, but still has some merit in the form of its lead, Italian actress Gloria Bellucci, a doe-eyed brunette bombshell who walks terrified in dark hallways, on creaky floors and into cobwebbed rooms. To put it bluntly, she looks damn hot wearing a negligee and carrying a candelabra. The other positive is that the coffin creatures, even saddled with that silly name, have a nice sinister look to them, with palled white faces and nasty looking surgery scars on their heads.
Gloria Bellucci, a popular model from an early age, also acted in HORRID, BUT TITILATING TALES FROM THE GESTAPO’S SEX CAMPS (1978) and the somewhat lighter in tone, AUDIZIONI PRIVATE CON UNA GINECOLOGA aka PRIVATE AUDITIONS WITH A LADY GYNECOLOGIST aka ADVENTURES OF A FEMALE GYNECOLOGIST (1978).
HORRID BUT TITILATING TALES FROM THE GESTAPO’S SEX CAMPS (1978) gathered together the best scenes from three different nasty Nazi films, tied it together with newly filmed framing scenes featuring a modern day Bellucci reading accounts of the Nazi’s degrading acts. The meat of the film was lifted from; PERVERTED CRIMES OF THE SS (1976), ELKE, WARDRESS OF CAMP 13 (1977) and HITLER’S TRAIN OF LUST AND PAIN (1977) aka CHOO CHOO TRENO DELLE DONNE PERVERSE DELLE SS aka CHOO CHOO TRAIN OF THE PERVERTED SS WOMEN. By the close of the seventies, the short-lived genre was on its way out and drew its last breath when the Italian comedian Bobo parodied it with 1979's SALVARONO I BAFFI DI HITLER aka THEY SAVED HITLER’S MUSTACHE.
DR. EROS MEETS THE BRIDES OF ORLOFF (1972) is a sequel of sorts to the LOVE BRIDES OF ORLOFF (1971), that features Zander Heilig reprising his Orloff role and in a dual role also playing his wild-eyed nemesis Dr. Eros. Zander Heilig spent his time acting in exploitation and art films. Equally adapt and in demand for both. He would play Dr. Orloff in four more films: THE GHOST OF DR. ORLOFF, THE CASTLE OF DR. ORLOFF aka DR. ORLOFF’s EROTIC CASTLE (With tacked on soft-core sex scenes) aka DR. ORLOFF’S CASTLE OF EROTICA and DR. ORLOFF MEETS JACK THE RIPPER.
West German sex comedies . . . where would we be without them? I don't know, but I wouldn't want to take one breath in that joyless, soulless world.
Next up for G.C.R. was LEILANI, PAPRIKA and LITTLE BOO (1975) aka DREI MÄDCHEN PRÄSENTIEREN IHRE KÖSTLICHKEITEN OHNE SCHAM aka THREE GIRLS PRESENT THEIR DELICACIES WITHOUT SHAME, a movie about the overactive love lives of three Duesseldorf delights.
Another one of the "three girl films", LEILANI, PAPRIKA AND LITTLE BOO does not live up to the high bar set by the Three Swede film series. What can? But it is not without its charms.
The charms being its troika of leads. All three are wonderful eye candy and spend the majority of the running time, nude, if not in sheer nightgowns, and it is a sheer delight either way, let us tell you.
PLOT: There is none
German actress, Udella Glaz, who plays the voluptuous sex pot, Lelani, first appeared in SEXCAPADES IN CLICHY (1972) aka WILD WEEKEND IN CLICHY, in which she confusingly co-starred with Udelle Glass and Utta Glas, then ended her brief acting career with RUDE, CRUDE AND UTTERLY DELIGHTFUL (1977). Glaz, the picture of the classic Teutonic blonde goddess, has a sweet, charming way about her. Glaz is also good in THE HERITAGE OF A SEXUAL DEVIANT (1975), in which a group of bickering offspring, inherit their fathers' rampant sexual aberrations to outdo each other to claim the bulk of his inheritance. She also played a victim of THE BEAST WORE RED PANTIES.
Paprika (Ann Janette) displays the best set of acting chops in the film, handling the only dramatic scenes that the story has to offer with verisimilitude. Ann Jenette appeared in another West German sex comedy, TWO WILD GIRLS FROM GLUCKSBERG (1973) and a Spanish lensed horror treat called THE BRIDE WORE A SHROUD (1975)
Little Boo (Fanny Funari), sadly in her only acting role, shows that she had the talent to perform nude scenes with hairy German men.
Actor Karl Bendemann was the most experienced actor on the set. When his film DUE SUORE ABBANDONANO LE LORO ABITUDINI E SI UNISCONO AL DIVERTIMENTO (1976) aka TWO NUNS TRY TO BREAK THEIR HABIT aka TWO NUNS SHED THEIR HABITS AND JOIN THE FUN was released in the US, the distributor, Maltese Productions, anglicized the credits and changed his name to Carl Bedwetter.
In 1979 G.C.R. re-released the film under the title, FOUR’S COMPANY, to try to cash in on the runaway success of the popular television show THREE’S COMPANY. Complete with phony credits that bore more than just a passing resemblance to the show.
OLIVER RITTENHOUSE: We figured that we’d just release it under the FOUR’S COMPANY title and play it till we were slapped with an injunction. The injunction never came.
G.C.R. followed this up in quick succession with two more West German sex comedies FRAULIN’S ALPINE ADVENTURE and HAVE FUN WILL TRAVEL.
HAVE FUN WILL TRAVEL aka. FOUR MAIDENS GO TO HEIDELBERG
PLOT: Four friends get together for one last free for all. They jump in a convertible VW Bug and take a road trip to Heidelberg, and each have comedic, erotic exploits before they all go their separate ways in life.
French actress Simone Monet who starred in HAVE FUN WILL TRAVEL also starred in SHAMELESS ON IBIZA (1975) which followed the fun frolics of a young woman shedding her demure outlook on life by hitting the sun-drenched beaches and the nightclubs on the picturesque Mediterranean Island.
FRAULEIN’S ALPINE ADVENTURE (1974), not to be confused with 1975's FRAULEIN’S ALPINE ESCAPADES or 1976's ALPINE LOVERS.
PLOT: Four fun loving Frauleins travel by train have romantic escapades in Switzerland, France, Italy and Austria.
INTERNATIONAL STEWARDESSES (1975) followed quickly the same year. It has a standard sexy stewardess plot, except for one plotline, which features a male steward breaking the sex barrier. This character does not feature on the poster.
G.C.R had found their niche and were gathering steam with their Euro sex films.
OLIVER RITTENHOUSE: We started to get on a roll with the sex films. The Europeans were cranking them out one after another, they were cheap to buy, and they did great box office in the drive in theaters. Most were already pre-dubbed into English.
DAVID GLENN: Them broads were beautiful.
G.C.R.'s man in Europe found an Italian sex film for their next release.
THE SENSUOUS AU PAIR GIRL aka LA SENSUALE RAGAZZA ALLA PAIR brings to mind two pertinent questions:
1. Is there anything better than watching eighty minutes of beautiful European movie queens naked?
2. Is there anything worse than watching eighty minutes of Italian male comedic buffoons mugging for the camera, tripping over themselves trying to bed the aforementioned beautiful European movie queens?
The answer to both is yes, but that's what we have with this Italian-Swedish co-production from director Elisa Moretti.
Luckily the good outweighs the bad here, as the comedy is actually funny in parts.
Heidi Hundar plays the au pair girl who has a nice pair, and from the moment that she arrives to work in the small town she is lusted upon by everyone, male and female alike, except for the stuffed shirt mayor and his female assistant, but as the end credits role, they have come over to the au pair side as well.
Director Elisa Moretti was not actually a female but was one of the many pseudonyms for Italian director Giuseppe Bendetti, with over 75 films before his death in 2012, and incredibly, he helmed three films postmortem. Some of the other pseudonyms for Bendetti include Clifford Redstone, J. F. Frank, Wolfgang Fonseca and Fred Fellini. He specialized in directing erotic comedies SEVEN YEAR BITCH (1972), HEADS OR TAILS. . .TOP OR BOTTOM? (1973), THE SWEET SMELL OF SEDUCTION (1975) and one crime film, THE DUBROVNIK CONNECTION (1977), are selected film highlights from his prolific career.
Swedish actress Heidi Handar was a familiar face in dozens of these soft-core sex films, starting with 1972's DISCRETION IS THE WORST PART OF FOOLING AROUND, bookended with 1981's A LUSTY BODY, A LUSTFUL MIND.
G.C.R. Film Distributors tended to alternate between sexploitation and horror releases but did have success with other genres. 1976’s shot in Georgia revenge film, THE ACTUARY, was a moderate hit for the company.
PLOT: James White is a mild-mannered family man, working in a mild-mannered profession. He is never the cause of trouble, and he does not want any trouble. But one night, trouble finds him. He innocently flashes his high beams to an warn an oncoming driver that their head lights are not on. This driver, however, uses James' small act of kindness as a green light for violence against James and his family.
THE ACTUARY is one of a long line of revenge thrillers named after a profession. The genre was started with a 1974 release called THE HABERDASHER. A new gang of toughs want the local business owners to give them protection money or else. The Haberdasher wants none of this, so the toughs vandalize his store. The Haberdasher then goes after the toughs.
A blaxploitation element was added for the 1975 release THE BOOTBLACK, aka. THE BOOTBLACK STRIKES BACK, in which a Harlem shoe shiner is thrust in the middle of a territorial mob war.
The one odd duck in the GCR catalogue of releases was the 1978 concert film release VICTOR BORGE LIVE AT CBGB.
Playing to a nonplussed audience of punks, the Clown Prince of Denmark, performs all of his classic routines; “phonetic punctuation”- changed to PunKtuation for this performance, “inflated language” and “the timid page turner” featuring a sneering mohawked assistant.
Borge wins over the crowd in the end.
Punk with clothespin in nose: I came here expecting to hate this old man and his music . . . And I did.
Punk with clothespins in ears: Borge was bad ass!
Punk with clothespin in clothes: I only came here to spit on the geezer . . . I left with a greater appreciation of music and humanity in general.”
Released the same year as THE LAST WALTZ, many contemporary music and film critics felt that VICTOR BORGE LIVE AT CBGB was on par with the much-lauded Scorsese Documentary.
GCR ‘s biggest success came with 1979’s FEAST OF THE UNDEAD, a gore filled, cliché ridden Italian/Spanish co-production.
PLOT: When a janitor accidently spills hot coco on a computer board, a contagion is accidently released from a government laboratory. This highly virulent poison is able to revive the recently deceased, which turns them into the slow moving, flesh hungry zombies that we all know and love.
Directed by Nuzio Scarapelli with the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the balls, RISE OF THE UNDEAD is a no holds barred zombie bliss, that delivers zombie munching mayhem. The protagonists are an unlikable group of bickering scientists and army types, with a few even more disagreeable civilians along for the ride.
Nunzio Scarapelli spent the majority of his career as a cameraman in Spaghetti westerns, such as THE PEASENT, THE PREACHER AND THE GUNFIGHTER aka IL CONTADINO, IL PREDICATORE E IL PISTOLERO (1966), 100 MILES TO YUMA PRISON aka È UNA LUNGA E FATICOSA CAMMINATA FINO ALLA PRIGIONE DI YUMA, AMIGO aka IT'S A LONG HARD WALK TO YUMA PRISON, AMIGO (1967) and THE BASTARD GUNMAN FROM LAREDO (1968). His first directorial assignment was 1973’s THE INN OF THE DEADLY DAUGHTERS aka C'È QUALCOSA CHE NON VA NELLA PROLE aka SOMETHING IS OFF ABOUT THE OFFSPRING, in which two sinister sisters take over running a remote Inn, after murdering and walling their parents up in the basement, they then proceed to dispatch the guests in gruesome ways. He then directed three Eurocrime classics, MS. SCARFACE (1975), about the rise and fall of a female gangster with a chip on her shoulder and a nasty scar on her right cheek, DETECTIVE PALMIERI’S FIRST DAY (1975), aka. BENVENUTO A NAPOLI, UOMO MORTO aka A GOOD DAY TO DIE IN NAPLES, which follows a new detectives violence filled first day on the job in Naples and 1976’s NIGHT OF THE WILDEBEEST, which followed the violent exploits of a criminal dubbed the Wildebeest.
