 Mess with her and you'll end up six feet under. 
We can't say the promo poster you see above is expertly executed, but it has a quality we appreciate. It was made for the low budget action flick Bury Me an Angel, which premiered this month in 1971, and stars Dixie Peabody. She plays a tough biker chick named Dag Bandy whose brother is messily murdered via shotgun, sending her humping a hot steel hog on a roaring mission of revenge. Nice copy there from the promotional scribes behind the poster. It's a wonder people walking past the cinemas where the movie played weren't sucked bodily into the front row, such being the irresistible power of those words. Note to our non-U.S. readers (and thank you for your visits): a “hog” is a motorcycle. Normally, it's even a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. And to hump it, well, is— Oh, never mind.
The star here, Dixie Peabody, is obscure. She appeared in only two other films, Night Call Nurses and Angels Die Hard, both of which, like Bury Me an Angel, issued from Roger Corman's grindhouse mill New World Pictures. She was seventy-two statuesque inches tall—seventy-six counting her hair—so she definitely looks the part of an action hero, but even action heroes gotta act, and as Hamlet said so concisely: There's the rub. Peabody can emote, but she can't act. There's a difference. Of course, numerous b-movie performers of the 1970s couldn't act, so if we adopt the principle of willing suspension of expectation™, what do we have here? We have a lead performer with flashes of talent and more than a bit of presence, but who's stuck in a cheap-ass movie that doesn't feature much in the way of script or structure. It worked for Easy Rider, but not here.
You won't necessarily go away disappointed, though, because you get the expected cheapo movie fare: a drug montage, a bar fight, a skinny-dip, the three b's (boobs, bush, and booty), counterculture lingo, and cheesy mysticism. Somewhere in there you also get future Grizzly Adams portrayer Dan Haggerty as a guy in a diner who entices Peabody into bed, which somehow doesn't collapse under their combined weight. If you ever wanted to see a naked Grizzly, this is your chance. Eventually the film gets back on track toward Peabody's roaring rampage of revenge, which has been all roar and no rampage to this point, but finishes with a climax that asks the age-old question, also possibly from Shakespeare, since he seemed to ask every question ever: If you murder a murderer, is it justice or murder?
We can't actually recommend Bury Me an Angel, but as with its promo poster, though it isn't expertly executed, it has a quality we appreciate. It seems to us that, combined with the inhalation or ingestion of a psychoactive substance, you might find some real enjoyment here. Maybe in the end that's the surest sign of a worthwhile b-movie: it's much better high. As a side note, it was written and directed by Barbara Peeters, one of the few women who called the shots behind the camera during the grindhouse era. She would helm five motion pictures, all of them bad, reaching her apogee with 1980's Humanoids from the Deep, which took sexualized schlock to virtuosic levels. We'll be checking out one or two of her other efforts later.
    
 Bisset holds all the cards. 
 English actress Jacqueline Bisset peeks out from behind the suits of a card deck in this striking promo image made sometime during the late 1960s. A different photo from the session was used for the cover of Italian publisher Garzanti's 1970 release of 007 Casinò royal, which you see here as well. Bisset was born as Winifred (ouch!) Bisset in 1944 and made a name for herself in such impactful films as Bullitt, Murder on the Orient Express, The Deep, and Casino Royale. You could include efforts like Under the Volcano, The Man from Acapulco, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, and Two for the Road in the aforementioned list. All told, Bisset seems a bit under-appreciated considering her filmography, but not by us.
 Sharks aren't the worst predators in the water. 
Behold! The longest piece of promo art we've ever shared. The oceangoing thriller The Deep premiered in the U.S. in June 1977 as part of a wave of similar movies that came in the wake of Jaws (see what we did there, with the "wave" "wake" thing?). Yeah. So anyway, author Peter Benchley, who wrote the novels that spawned both films, used similar themes for the two, but switched the monster shark for human dangers in The Deep. The Japanese run of the film began today in 1977, and for once the Japanese title isn't something wildly different—they went with ザ・ディープ, which means “the deep.”
We've never seen anything like this poster before, and we doubt we will again. Also of note is that the movie, which was not considered top notch, was a massive hit thanks to a brilliant marketing campaign that saw co-star Jacqueline Bisset wardrobed in a white t-shirt that turned transparent when wet, such as during her opening diving scene in the warm Bahamian waters. Never had a pair of nipples made such a splash. A longtime a sex symbol and thirty-three years old when the The Deep appeared, the film made Bisset a legit superstar for the first time. 
 Currents and caves are bad enough, but lies can drag you into really dangerous waters.  
Last week we talked about the 1959 drama Zoku-zoku-Kindan no suna: Akai pantsu, third film in the Shochiku Co. franchise sometimes referred to as the Underwater Series. You know we're sticklers for talking about movies on their premiere dates, which is why today we're looking at Zoku kindan no suna, which opened in Japan today in 1958. In the west the movie was known as Forbidden Sands or The Prohibited Man's Sand, and like the others in the series deals with the loves and troubles of an ama—a female skin diver. Two bank robbers steal seven million yen, which we think is like forty or fifty bucks, and hide out on an island peopled by amas and their families. The crooks pretend to be a marine biology professor and his assistant, and they don scuba gear and hide the cash in some underwater caves known as the Dragon's Caves—a name which just screams trouble. They're convinced the treasure is inaccessible, but these amas are really good, and one in particular has no trouble at all making especially long dives. One of the crooks takes a shine to her, and warns her to stay out of the caves because they're dangerous, but the shine is mutual, so surprise surprise, as a gift she decides to swim down there to find rare specimens for his phony marine research. Yes, theft is one thing, but lies are a whole other bucket of starfish. Zoku kindan no suna is a recommendable flick, but be forewarned that if you're in the States it might be even harder to find than that loot in the Dragon's Caves. But at least you can enjoy the posters. We aren't done with this series, so keep an eye out for another installment in a bit.
    
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1933—Prohibition Ends in United States
Utah becomes the 36th U.S. state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the United States Constitution, thus establishing the required 75% of states needed to overturn the 18th Amendment which had made the sale of alcohol illegal. But the criminal gangs that had gained power during Prohibition are now firmly established, and maintain an influence that continues unabated for decades. 1945—Flight 19 Vanishes without a Trace
During an overwater navigation training flight from Fort Lauderdale, five U.S. Navy TBM Avenger torpedo-bombers lose radio contact with their base and vanish. The disappearance takes place in what is popularly known as the Bermuda Triangle. 1918—Wilson Goes to Europe
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sails to Europe for the World War I peace talks in Versailles, France, becoming the first U.S. president to travel to Europe while in office. 1921—Arbuckle Manslaughter Trial Ends
In the U.S., a manslaughter trial against actor/director Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle ends with the jury deadlocked as to whether he had killed aspiring actress Virginia Rappe during rape and sodomy. Arbuckle was finally cleared of all wrongdoing after two more trials, but the scandal ruined his career and personal life. 1964—Mass Student Arrests in U.S.
In California, Police arrest over 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, following their takeover and sit-in at the administration building in protest at the UC Regents' decision to forbid protests on university property. 1968—U.S. Unemployment Hits Low
Unemployment figures are released revealing that the U.S. unemployment rate has fallen to 3.3 percent, the lowest rate for almost fifteen years. Going forward all the way to the current day, the figure never reaches this low level again.
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