All language subtitles for Machete.Maidens.Unleashed.2010.1080p.BluRay.x264.AAC5.1-[YTS.MX]

Where is everybody going?

To the refreshment center!

It's everybody's favorite
spot for delicious, tasty food.

From a snack to a full meal,

plus all the extras including
gum, ice cream, candy.

Make your evening at this
drive-in even more enjoyable.

The refreshment stand

has everything to make your
visit here a pleasant one.

Why not get something now?

This contains 70,000 feet of film,

reduced to the most terrifying
90 minutes every made.

We were giving the audience
what they wanted to see.

The most grotesque creations

we ever dared to show
on your screen!

We did not have stars so we had
to exploit the subject matter.

A tremendous social
revolution is taking place.

Here, for the first time,
is the story of that change.

And I full accept the statement
we were making exploitation films.

Exploitation really is
about ballyhoo.

It's about marketing.

I have here the up-chuck cup,

a little item passed out by the
management to remind you

that if you can't take the current
double bill of horror films

called Frenzy of Blood,
that you better not come.

So in exploitation films,
if you're selling sex it's,

"The girls with the biggest breasts,

and the most beautiful teeth,

and the most luscious thighs,

and you can have them
if you come to this theater!"

You know, I mean,
that's what they're saying.

It's sort of like,

"Never before have you seen

material so ripe for masturbation!"

A titillating motion picture
of a young girl

looking for fun and kicks!

The truth is exploitation implies

lower budget and second-run.

One of the things
about low budget is

you go where it's cheapest
to make movies,

and that is really where
the Philippines come in.

You've got jungles,

you've got girls
who you can exploit.

You've got everything
and you get it cheap.

So many of the
exploitation films made there

were made for the United States,
Australia and Europe.

These were western-style
Roger Corman tits-and-ass movies.

And Marcos said,

"Come on down.
I'll give you the army."

American movies that were
shot in the Philippines

in the 60s and 70s
and through to the 80s

were basically low budget
drive-in movies.

American companies would
come to the Philippines

and use it as a backdrop.

They weren't sold as Filipino movies.

They were sold as
jungle action movies,

and the fact that they were shot
in the Philippines was kind of secondary.

And you'd think,
are they Mexican?

What are they?

Because they weren't Chinese,
they weren't Japanese.

The Philippines appealed
in several ways.

First, it was inexpensive.

The cost of labor was so affordable.

We could hire Filipinos
for about five bucks a day.

They have an amazing
movie industry.

They had studios,

they had all of the camera
equipment that we needed.

We shot with a Mitchell
that was so old

that the serial number on it
was, like, 006.

They had stunt people,

they had special effects,
demolition people.

They used to say,

"When you're hiring
a pyrotechnics crew,

just check their fingers.

Just make sure they've
got all their fingers.

It's probably a good sign.

Anti-Americanism was rampant
all over the world,

and we had liberated
the Philippines

from Japanese occupation

so the Philippines was a place

that still really appreciated
American culture.

That was very significant, I think.

The Philippines was the Wild East

as opposed to the Wild West.

There was kind of a lawlessness
about the whole thing.

You were aware that this
was a gun-happy,

very dangerous society.

The make-up man had a.45.

The airline policy was that,

you know, you won't have
your guns on your person

while we were in the air.

So they were collecting the
passengers' handguns.

And you're thinking to yourself,

I mean, is something
going to break out?

Why is everyone armed?

Somebody had a gunfight
in the lobby

while some of my
people were there,

but that apparently...
those things were kind of common.

Human life was cheap,
film was cheap.

It was a great place
to make a picture.

The period of the B-movies
in the 70's, 80's,

maybe starting even
from the late 60's, you know,

is one of the sadly obscure
periods in Philippine cinema.

Eddie Romero is definitely
the guy that created

this kind of Filipino
exploitation movie genre.

I'm not exactly a pioneer
in that area,

although probably the first Filipino
who entered that field.

He began writing at a
very, very early age

and he came to the attention
of Gerry de Leon.

Gerry was considered one of
the best directors we had

in the Philippines.

Gerry de Leon was the master,

Eddie Romero was the faithful
and very gifted apprentice,

and from there,
I am quite sure, you know,

the collaboration
started to happen.

It started with an American G.I.

Who had been stationed
in the Philippines

and he stayed on.
Here loved living there.

His name was Kane Lynn.

We got to talking
and he wanted to know

if we could get together
on production in the Philippines.

It was just the perfect set of
conditions to start something like this

and to his credit
Eddie Romero seized it

Kane Lynn, Eddie Romero
and Irwin Peizer's company,

Hemisphere Pictures,
was the first company

to make real American
co-productions in the Philippines.

They were making war films

like Raiders of Leyte Gulf,
The Walls of Hell.

Will the American agent
reveal the plans

for General MacArthur's return
to the Philippines?

The was films
were not popular here

and they could barely sell them

I said, "Look, I think you ought
to get involved with horror films.

Forget about these war films."

Well, Kane said,
"I have an old horror picture."

I saw it and I was knocked out.
It was a great movie.

Terror Is A Man was a spin on
The Island Of Doctor Moreau.

He knew that the forbidden
secrets he uncovered

were against the laws of nature!

It's a not very subtle one but

what de Leon brings it it is
sort of visceral feeling of the pain

that this creature that's being
created out of animals feels.

The shots were always striking.

They way they were lit,
the way they were framed

and they way they were composed.

Although it's just
an exploitation movie,

exploitation subject,

you really do feel something
for this poor creature

that's midway between man
and monster.

Hemisphere put a gimmick in
where this bell goes off...

A special warning bell
has been installed

to protect the faint-hearted.

When the bell rings,
we suggest they close their eyes

and not open them
until it rings again.

...and God knows where
they picked up that footage.

It does look like someone
cutting into meat.

I said to Eddie,
"It looked very realistic."

He said, "Oh, we shaved the pig
and they cut into him."

Kane Lynn changed the title
to Blood Creature

and it went through the roof,

and they realized
horror pictures were the answer.

We learned especially in the
small towns of the United States,

horror films were
practically a staple.

Visit one of the most
mysterious corners of the world,

where unbelievably cruel,

barbaric customs are still practiced!

The Blood Island series

were really just American
drive-in movies

with a bit of action,
the suggestion of a bit of sex,

some horror happening somewhere,

the weird rubber-faced
monster coming at you.

What sold the Blood Island movies

to American audiences was
the blood, breasts and beasts.

The three Bs.

The kind of elements people
wanted that went to the drive-ins.

They went in the car with
a girlfriend to make out,

and every now and then
they'd hear a scream,

and they'd look up,
see some-thing lurid happening

and then they'd go back
to their snogging.

And I think that's how
these movies are structured.

If you went to see a film called
Brides of Blood and you came out

complaining about, you know, the
fact that it was a cheesy movie

with some naked Filipino girls
being eaten by a monster,

I mean, who would have
listened to you, you know?

What would you expect?

It seems that some living
organisms on this island

are undergoing drastic mutations.

They were kind of two-dimensional
stories to begin with.

Gerry and I tried to
flesh them out a little more,

but that was very limited

on account of the nature
of the market.

Serve us as simple
characterizations as we can,

lets create a situation
that was very tense,

and make sure that people don't
have too much dialogue to say

because these probably
weren't great actors

and they might get it wrong.

Better go away now.

You are making me
uncomfortable again.

John Ashley was kind of
a teen heartthrob

throughout the mid to late 50s.

A romantic idol among people
who didn't know any better.

Married to Deborah Walley,
they divorced.

His way of getting over
the divorce in the late 60s

was to take a job
in the Philippines

doing Brides of Blood.

It was exotic for him.

He loved the people,
he loved the excitement.

Well you've got to admit
he's got style.

John was a lover, you know?

He had quite a few
escapades here.

I had a shirt made for him

and all his girlfriends were
embroidered on the shirt.

A lot of embroidery.

Ashley ended up becoming
a producer on his own there

with Eddie Romero.

He was a charming person.

He was very easy
to get along with.

He had great sensitivity for the
personalities of other people.

He was a good friend.

Kane came to me because I was doing
their advertising and marketing,

and he said, "Brides of Blood!
We want to have marketing.

We've got wedding
and engagement rings."

Female patrons who
showed up to see the movie

got cheap plastic wedding rings

because apparently they were
marrying a monster in the film.

"Genuine synthetic wedding
and engagement set free."

And I had the catch line:

"Here comes the bride with a
non-human creature by her side."

And then Mad Doctor of Blood Island

had green blood that was
handed out to everyone.

I invented this idea of
the Oath of Green Blood.

You had to take it before
you could see the movie.

I join the Order of Green Blood
with an open mind,

and through this liquid's powers
am now prepared to safely view

the unnatural green-blooded ones
without fear of contamination.

The green blood potion has been
known to passionately affect

some people after drinking it.

I said, "Well, look,
before we give these out

I should test it."

Well, I took it, I had a
stomach-ache the whole night.

The Mad Doctor of Blood Island

with his supernatural beings

caught up in the rampage
of gory brutality!

I thought
Mad Doctor of Blood Island

was the best of the three
Blood Island pictures.

There's at least one scene
where someone's intestines

are ripped out in glorious detail.

The monster in that film
is particularly awful.

It looks like papier mache.

There's a tendency to overuse
zooming the zoom lens,

and I haven't found anybody
that likes it except myself.

There were really no rules as to
what kind of films they were making

and what they could get away with

so I think they were
testing the boundaries.

I don't think we came close
to pushing the envelope.

A lot of what they did became
the standard for low-low budget

horror films.

The MPAA, the ratings board,
didn't see these films.

They could care less.

So little kids were going to see
monsters raping women

staked to poles.

Beast of Blood was the third film

and it was the least horrific
of the three.

From the world of the
gruesome and grotesque,

comes your most
horrifying meeting

with nerve-chilling fear!

It had a lot of nudity that
Celeste Yarnall didn't want seen.

That was supposed to
never be seen by anyone

other than the Japanese market

which for me at the time
seemed so far away.

Of course now, with DVDs,
it's all over the world,

and I'm, "Did I do that?"

I guess I did.

You'll see an orgy
of bloody terror,

as a mad fiend
transplants human heads!

Good morning, Ramon.

I hope you slept well?

The head can talk
to Doctor Lorka.

The day may come soon, Lorka.

Hence the famous line,

"Lorka,"

because that head
is going to get Lorka

if it's the last thing he does.

The conditions were incredibly
primitive on that picture.

They went back and
back into the jungle.

I had just found out
that I was pregnant,

and I tried to confide in them

that some of these things were
going to be a little bit rough on me.

I'm supposed to drop down
and be enveloped by quicksand.

Well, the head stuntman
had a rifle over his shoulder

and when he leaned over
to pull me out,

the rifle swung over his
shoulder and split open my face.

That picture made a fortune.

They found this formula
and they stepped it up.

They brought it up to
a new level of extremity

and it worked in their favor.

It did well.

But I got a little tired
of them after a while.

I think everyone's affection
for those movies is based in

tolerance.

Sam Sherman, the guy who
urged Hemisphere

to get into making horror films,

ultimately lost patience
with them because

they did make horror Films,

they just kept making
the same one over and over again.

Eddie Romero was
planning a picture called.

The Beast of the Yellow Night

as a follow up to Beast of Blood,

and it was a very complex
Faustian story.

He suffers the cruelest curse
ever placed upon mortal man

by the Host of Darkness!

Condemned to stalk the night
with an insatiable lust

for living flesh!

It was wild,
but I felt it was too far out

for this kind of a market.

Why do you think I keep
bringing you back, Langdon?

To awaken the latent evil in the
people that I come in contact with.

I felt that for that type of film,

the characters were
more fully developed,

more believable.

Whatever else you might be,
you are still a man.

It didn't do as well.

When the film was
released in the UK

the reels were put
the wrong way round,

and when I told Eddie this,
you know, he just laughed.

He said, "Did anyone notice?"

And I said, "No,
it probably made the film better."

It ended up going
to Roger Corman,

and Roger Corman was
kind of stuck with it.

He didn't really like it.

It was such a twist of fate, really,

that Roger Corman
came to the scene.

John Ashley recommended coming
to the Philippines and said,

"You have Carte blanche there.
You can do whatever you want."

Roger Corman wasn't like
Kane Lynn or John Ashley.

He had no love
of the Philippines.

This was just a money-making
opportunity for him.

I first visited the Philippines
in 1970,

which was the year
I started New World Pictures.

New World and Roger Corman

were really the experts
at genre films.

Well, in any film that
I've ever worked on with Roger

there are three main elements
that he's looking for.

One is humor,

which he considers
tremendously important.

Grand Theft Auto is a love story...

with cars.

Another is action,

which he considers
very important.

And another is sex,
which he considers important

but not quite as important as the
other two elements, I don't think.

This clinic deals specifically
in sexual problems.

What's the matter?
Having trouble?

Cinema was really changing,

and it was becoming R-rated,

and these are low budget movies

moving away from the studio films.

In fact, if you look from
today's perspective,

at 1970s exploitation pictures,

they look like they were
made on another planet.

The basic elements of them

are things that you couldn't put
in movies today and get away with.

And these pictures
always played at drive-ins

where huge screens
can be seen for miles around

by cars driving back and forth,

and the images in these
pictures are astonishing.

The New World Company

built their success on
women's exploitation.

It's the candy striper's job

to make the patient's stay
in the hospital more pleasant.

This is not what
we mean by pleasant.

It was pleasant, wasn't it?

Our first film was a picture
we made in the United States

called The Student Nurses,

which turned out
to be a major success.

The Student Nurses...

Once you've met them
you'll never forget them.

New World did a lot
of nurse pictures.

Roger was just turning them
out as fast as he could,

making five, six pictures a year.

Student nurses, student teachers

and then what else
could we have?

How about young
female prisoners?

There have always been
women-in-prison films.

There's always been
bad-girls-in-juvie-hall

or the dormitory films.

The difference between the films

is really only how tawdry
are we going to get?

By the time we started,

you could do a lot that was
just absolutely unheard of,

so that really made
the difference, I think.

So what have you got
in the Philippines?

Jungle.

The Big Doll House was originally
written for the United States,

but after I saw
the Philippines I thought

we could easily switch this
to a tropical prison

and I could make a
bigger picture for less money.

The prison films focused
always on beautiful women

who were imprisoned
rightly or wrongly

and fought their way out.

This way you'll only get killed.

Not if we get out of here fast.

Women in cages
and in boxes and confined.

We hear in one of the movies that

the women are only allowed
two showers a week,

but we as the lucky viewers
get to see both showers.

You've got to have T&A
and then a little torture.

The person being tortured
on the wheel

or having fire beneath them
and they're all screaming

and then in the next scene
they're fine.

As far as incorporating
all those elements,

you had to have
at least one per reel.

I just imagine the
screenwriters just saying,

"Okay, I've done three pages,
nobody's been tortured."

And they just write that in.

"Strip. Torture."

Women guarded by barbed wire
and guns in a tropical hell!

They call it The Big Doll House!

The Big Doll House
set the tempo

for almost every women-in-prison,
women-in-jeopardy situation

that came after it.

Prerequisite girl-fights
and dunking heads in toilets.

That was pretty humiliating.

I mean, they did it.

They took my head
and put it in the toilet.

I read the script and I thought
it was just, just awful.

I said, "Oh my God, what am I
going to do with this?"

Jack was aware

that people were willing
to see women in these

incredibly tense conditions,
all being thrown together.

What were the pressures

that were going to build
among these women?

Green, scared and pretty.

And they're not
wearing very much

and there's going to be
lesbianism.

You can bed down over here
where I can take care of you.

And there's going to be
cockroach races.

That's it, go boys!

The Filipinos got these
huge cockroaches

that they were able
to catch very easily.

There were plenty
of them around.

Come on, baby! That's...

All of these elements
that ended up making for

what he knew was going to be
a sensationally entertaining film.

Judy Brown strapped
to a table naked

and then being menaced
by a live cobra

on some kind of contraption
like The Pit and the Pendulum.

Silly, huh? Ridiculous.

Totally ridiculous.

There was a sheet of glass
involved there.

I'm a bit claustrophobic.

Being enclosed in,
that was what scared me more.

And I was topless.

Yeah.

All these girls were ready
to take on new experiences.

They wanted to get
their careers going

and they wanted to be
up on the screens

and if it involved cobras, okay!

Meet the girls of
The Big Doll House!

Well, you don't look like
a hardened criminal to me.

They're young,
they're beautiful

and they're killers!

There were no big stars

who came out of those pictures
and went on to huge movies.

That wasn't the case.

No shit!

Pam is the exception because

Pam is basically
Jack Hill's discovery.

Even though she had
virtually no experience

and no training that
I was aware of,

I just felt she was a natural.

And she went over there
and she learned to act.

They gave me The Actor's Studio,

The Actor's Workshop,
The Method.

They gave me all these great
books on Stanislavsky, right?

So I'm learning this
profound work,

and I'm going to do
a Roger Corman

booties in the jungle movie.

So I said, "I'm gonna do it.
I don't care if it's a B-movie.

I'm goin' in there
and I'm gonna kill ya!"

She had an intensity,

obvious good looks,

extremely large breasts
and she was smart.

She probably still is smart.
You don't get dumb.

And I think all of that
shone through.

Who you can talk into to
going to the Philippines.

That was the trick.

My agent said,
"Don't you do this movie!"

I don't think a Hollywood starlet
would be very happy there.

It's so humid and so hot.

I remember I got heatstroke.

I don't remember ever having
dressing rooms or honey wagons.

My dressing room was a cave,

and guess what else
that cave was used for?

The men's latrine.

It was just horrible.

You would immediately
get a call from the agent

saying that they were living in
some rat-infested jungle hut.

I saw a rat carrying a kitten
through the window.

I wonder if everybody
in this place lives like this.

And you would have to
say to the agent,

"Well, you know,
it really is the best

of those jungle huts
down there, you know?

They're really out there
in the middle of nowhere."

The bugs were enormous.

Bugs the size of birds
that were flying around.

I can remember eating a salad

and roaches were
climbing out of my salad.

I don't recall that there was
any health or safety on set,

off set, whatsoever.

We were using military-trained
attack dogs.

The director of photography

went in with his light meter
to get a reading on the dog

and the dog ate it.

You just want to do the scene

and you want to do it properly

and get out.

There was always a rumor

that there was one girl
who didn't come back

and it was circulated
around the actresses

and they were all afraid
to go because

of this supposed girl who had
vanished in the Philippines

and never came back.

Roberta Collins.

She was in the first couple.

Action, big mouth.

She was like a favorite for
directors of this kind of film.

She had just a
remarkable personality.

Get it up
or I'll cut it off.

The audience just exploded
with that line,

and that was one
that I wrote myself, actually.

I don't know if I should be
proud or ashamed of that.

In my family,

there was a lot of outrage about
The Big Doll House.

"What have you been doing, Jane?

What kind of movies are these?"

I didn't like the film.

I thought it had gone
a little bit too far with the sex

and the violence.

It was the most profitable
independent picture ever made

up to that time.

It was just a huge, huge hit.

The film cost about $100,000

and grossed something
like four million.

When I saw the grosses,
I have to admit

my scruples faded away,
and I said,

"Let's make another one."

Women in Cages!

The sensational new motion
picture that rips the veil off

the dirtiest racket ever conceived
by the minds of vicious men!

The market was
flooded immediately,

essentially flooded by us.

Women in Cages was
Gerry de Leon's

last American-funded film.

It's a beautifully shot film,

but very lackluster in the
performances and the plotting.

If you like the title
Women in Cages,

you're going to like this movie,

because you know what it's got?

Women in cages.

So, you know,
it's truth in advertising.

The next film that I did in the
Philippines was The Big Bird Cage,

which I did almost as a spoof
on women-in-prison pictures.

I felt to just do another one
wouldn't work

so I kind of made fun
of the whole genre.

Darn!

Nothing like that
ever happens to me.

Jack was trying to appeal to
what the audience responded to

and we were surprised at how much
the audience liked the humor.

The Big Bird Cage!

A strange and brutal world
of men who are only half-men!

Don't play coy with me, tootsie.

You don't have anything
I'd be interested in anyway.

And women who were
more than all woman!

I told you I was gonna cut it off

if you tried to pull
that shit on me!

But still including the kind
of ingredients that you need.

Being hung up by
your hair in the sun?

That always seemed
to me a bit extreme.

The fact is,
if you really have a lot of hair,

it's not that big a deal,

that that can
support your weight.

I just liked the combination of
Sid and Pam Grier working together

so I starred them as a team
in The Big Bird Cage.

Say, when are we gonna
have that revolution anyway?

Pretty soon, pretty soon.

Sid Haig is a lazy revolutionary

who gets this wonderful idea of

breaking the women out
of this women's prison

in order to help get
the revolution started.

Worst plan in
the history of movies.

Everybody gets killed,

and it's supposed to be
a happy ending.

The Big Bird Cage did not do
as well as The Big Doll House

and maybe the fact that we
played it a little bit too much

for the humor hurt it.

A lot of the pictures had no
really redeeming factors

as far as the stories
were concerned.

They were very bizarre,
to say the least.

I remember one film we made
called Night of the Cobra Woman.

I was getting tired of the
women-in-prison concept,

so we started to move
into science fiction.

How much longer must I remain
in this ridiculous human form?

It featured a woman
who was part-cobra.

Plunging her fangs
into warm flesh,

she sucks the life
from the bodies of men!

She's a woman who
has sex with men

and it extends her life

but when they wake up they're like
90 years old and then they die.

Marlene Clark had
some sort of snake skin,

and I remember a scene where
she just peeled it off her body.

It was a very strange movie.

Only the cobra could satisfy
her unearthly desires!

If there's an underlying theme

then it would be:
Be careful of women.

They're snakes,
they'll suck the life out of you.

I've sucked the years
out of your body.

It was only way I could be
a human and a woman again.

It was filmed in Slitherama,
with a hiss.

I came up with that,
Slitherama.

One of the things that made
these films note-worthy

was the fact that
very few people

were making films
with women leads.

Roger treated women
in film really as heroes.

And that was a departure.

Moviegoers were not used to
seeing women doing action at all.

And even if they were little
mousy girls at the beginning,

by the end they're toting
two machine guns

and shooting down
scads of guys.

Female guerrillas...

Machete maiden action...

You not only had
a female heroine

but you also had
a female being abused.

So you got both sides
of the coin

and you appealed to
the male audience

and you appealed to any
dates they may have had to bring,

which I suspect were not many.

Is this how you get your kicks?

There are a lot of filmmakers
who are responsible filmmakers,

but sometimes what's fun are
the irresponsible filmmakers

who later say,
"Well, of course, I was doing this."

They were about women being
abused at the beginning,

but then taking over
and having revenge.

I think that was very
helpful overall

in terms of women
establishing themselves

on the screen
as powerful figures

and being empowered
as women.

Women really related to that,
and began to love us as heroes.

You hear people talking about

the crassest,
most exploitative,

sexist, racist films as

liberating and intelligent

and I'm thinking,
"What are they smoking?"

I mean, "What?"

You can't rape me.

I like sex.

Feminism and women
taking their power

was worldwide at that time,

so taking off our tops

was kind of a powerful
thing to do.

It was, to a certain extent,
liberating.

Look, I can do this,

I can still be an actress

and I can still be respectable.

It's an interesting mixture
of feminism

because there we were
being exploited in a certain way

and at the same time,

we were showing that
we were powerful women.

They took control,
but they'll show you their tits.

All those films
in the Philippines,

ten beautiful women,
naked every single time.

Hundreds, I mean, hundreds

of beautiful little girls
running around bare-assed.

And the only guy is you.

That's right.

I don't buy that feminist stuff.

Whatcha talking about?

It's a tit shop,
pure and simple.

Feminism with aggressive women

was not going to be
palatable in the mass market

without tits and ass.

Buonos días, senoritas!

Somehow we had to do that
in order to get to the next step.

I didn't feel badly about it.

I saw it as a path.

Are we not taking this
a little too seriously?

Intellectualizing this?

This is not a film
about the human condition.

This is a film about
tits and ass.

A lot of filmmakers deal
with people all the time

where someone says,
"In your film,

when the, you know,
mutant woman

gave birth to
the mulatto monster

who tore the head off the Nazi,

weren't you talking about
the exploitation

of colored peoples
around the world

and their ultimate triumph?"

And they'll go,

"Yes, I was."

And inside they're thinking,

"What the fuck
are they talking about?"

The revolutionary spirit
of young people in the 60s

continued into the early 70s,

so with a number of these films

we had a rebel
revolutionary spirit to them.

The revolution is at hand.

The time has come.

A lot of pictures with rebels,

a lot of pictures with corrupt
regimes being overthrown.

It was very easy for our directors
to get the political content in

because I told them
I wanted the political content.

In his mind, it was kind of
a moral balance between

the exploitable ingredients
that he needed to sell it,

and giving him a feeling
there was some importance to it.

And I bought that
completely myself.

If you look at Jonathan Demme's
The Hot Box,

that's overtly political.

The Hot Box!

Four American nurses snatched

from their work
in a foreign hospital!

We abduct nurses to
provide healing and medicine

to our guerrilla army.

We were doing the
whole thing that Roger likes.

You know,
"Oh no, don't take us!"

You will do
what you are told to do!

If not,
you will all be shot.

I played a character
in the film called Bunny

and Bunny was the one
who always got hysterical.

I hope someday
you're on a date

and then some
maniacs come along

and shoot your date
and drag you into the jungle

and then attack you
and then not even tell you why!

She wasn't very deep
but she really said it like it was.

We escaped, only to
discover that the military

was actually the brutes.

Soiled, spoiled and violated,

they wouldn't take it
lying down!

It was the girls learning firsthand

what the efforts of the
revolutionaries were about.

Do you get tired of seeing
your sisters assaulted?

Your families abused?

Paying a fine week after week
for trying to sell what you grow?

The original title was called
Rx Prescription Revolution.

One day I get a call from
Roger Corman and Roger says,

"Margaret?"

"Hi, Roger."

"I just want you to know
that the title,

Prescription Revolution
is now The Hot Box."

His sense of it was that we
didn't have that iconic moment.

He said, we're going to
shoot that scene of the hot box.

Plunged into the fiery
depths of the hot box!

They had some guy kind of
spraying us down with hoses.

A tropical torture chamber
where anything can happen!

And we were standing in the
corner freaking and screaming,

and now the movie
was The Hot Box.

The girls were treated in a way
that was some-what titillating

for that kind of audience,

and I was really dismayed
that the purity

of what we thought
we were going after

was really kind of undermined.

One of the great ironies
for the Filipino pictures is

you have these movies
being made about revolution

against essentially
fascist dictatorships

in a fascist dictatorship.

1972, alright?

That's when all
the TV stations just stopped

and then suddenly
there was that face.

I have signed
proclamation number 10/81

placing the entire Philippines
under martial law.

Marcos declared martial law
and he called all the shots.

He was the ultimate leader.

Martial law means
military power,

and he,
as Commander in Chief,

was in absolute control
of this country.

There were checkpoints.

You know, militia with the
guns and the whole thing.

And they were on every corner.

You had to be inside at a
certain time in the evening.

And if you were in a club
and it was midnight,

the owner of the club just went over
and put the lock on the door

and you had to stay
and party all night

till six o'clock in the morning.
Okay.

And if you went outside
after curfew,

they would put you in jail

and you would end up
picking up trash

along the streets the next day.

When they declared martial law

you were supposed to go
to some town square.

All unlicensed firearms
now in your possession

should be turned over to
the Philippine constabulary.

After that time, you know,
anybody with a gun,

it was a serious offense.

Brutality was absolutely
a reality in this country.

They'd stop somebody because he
was kind of shady looking and...

oh, there's a butterfly knife!

Big offense.

And they just shot him
right there on the spot.

Life was like...

You could get snuffed out
just like that.

State control was
almost absolute.

And media definitely

had no escape from
this kind of governance.

Artists of all kinds
who were subversive

were afraid to express
any kind of opinion

because they would disappear
or end up in the prisons.

Print, radio, television,

and of course
the movie industry

were all under the
control of the state

through its various
instrumentalities

such as, for example,
the censorship board.

The only problem
there with censorship is

if you do a film that
deals with subversion.

In The Big Doll House,

Pat Woodell's character
has that one line...

Before you can do
anything in here,

a lot has to be changed
out there.

If that were made
in a Philippine movie,

that would be stricken out

and you'd never hear
from the director again.

You're under arrest!

Somebody's determining exactly

what kind of entertainment
we're going to have,

but the American movies
were just out there.

So, you are the
representatives of the people.

Their liberators.

And we are the oppressors.

Almost as if censorship
was not in place.

I don't think they had
any jurisdiction over us.

They had no idea what we were
doing on a day to day basis.

They didn't read the script.

To a certain point
that was kind of liberating

for some of the Filipino directors

who engaged in the
production of films for export.

If you're making an
exploitation picture

you actually can get away
with a lot more subversive stuff

or really powerful statements
because nobody's looking.

One of the reasons that
we were able to get away with films

with a revolutionary theme

was the fact that we
didn't really say in all the films

they were in the Philippines.

Well, I shouldn't even be here.

My trial was a real joke.

Those fucking
banana republic cops.

And I don't think Marcos would
look at a character such as the.

Commandant in Big Bird Cage
and equate himself to that.

After that, the almost desperate
need for the dictatorship

to attract business
into this country.

We were trying to explain
production to President Marcos,

and we were talking about
the various aspects,

and the subject came up about
below the line costs, right,

in which he got a rather
puzzled expression on his face

and said, "Can you explain
about this below the line.

Is that something like
under the table?"

We got all the cooperation in
the world from the Philippines

because we paid 'em.

Almost anything we needed,

Marcos was very open
to giving us.

I asked the army to supply me
with three helicopter gunships

to be there at
nine in the morning

and the captain in charge said,

"I apologize for being late

but we were 100 miles north
strafing and bombing rebels.

We will now change
to blank ammunition."

Excellent idea, I thought.

The army was very willing to
stage the battle scenes for us.

And that actually was important,

because although we started with
the women-in-prison pictures,

we very quickly moved
to action films.

Black Mama, White Mama!

From a hellhole
of twisted passions

to an inferno of flaming death!

When Roger called me to

invite me to do
Black Mama, White Mama,

he said, "I want you to know
it's the female version

of The Defiant Ones."

Chains of hate
kept them bound together!

Two women,
totally different purposes.

A terrorist and a hooker.

You two should have
lots to talk about.

Out for themselves but in the
end finally bonded together.

Pam dragged me through the
jungle and I dragged her

and then I got raped while
she was on the other end of the...

Pam Grier was amazing
on all of these shoots

because she was up
for almost anything.

There I am, hooked with
handcuffs together with her,

and if Eddie asked her
to jump off a cliff

she would have gladly done
it and taken me with her.

Some of that is an exaggeration,

but we got along very well.

I liked Pam very much.

What's that?

It's a charm bracelet.

The later Eddie Romero movies,
Woman Hunt, for example,

was a lot sleazier

in terms of the way
the times had changed

and that audiences
expected more.

They certainly offered
a more extreme meal

than the early ones had.

Pig, ready for the butcher.

Come, join the woman hunters.

Set your sights on
the tastiest game.

Pretty basic formulas.

Women being kidnapped
and sold into slavery.

They haul us in there in a cage
through the jungle,

and they turn us over to this
lesbian black widow kind of woman...

Do you like to put on
a beard when you do it?

Do you dress up like Tarzan,

or do you pretend
you're a woman?

...who has her way with us.

Another incredible bevy
of beautiful women

who were being hunted down

by these wealthy industrialist
perverted guys.

We're all pigs,

and we're all going
to be slaughtered.

Roger liked that theme

where they were the game,
the naked prey,

and literally, having to
flee for their lives

and having to fight the hunter.

It was a unique way
in which to present

a new women-in-jeopardy theme.

Hello, lover.

In the Filipino films,

the best ones are the ones
that are trying to do it for real,

are trying to make a good movie.

Failing miserably, but trying.

I would look at making a
B-picture for a B-audience

with B-elements,
but not Eddie Romero.

Every picture to him
was an A-picture

that had complexity of story.

I wanted to make the characters
and the stories more believable.

My own wife,
my closest colleague,

you never understood.
You never understood!

Eddie was doing a film with Roger

called The Twilight People.

We had all these characters
that were half-human, half-beast,

and one of the characters
was The Bat Man.

Eddie sent Roger
a long script rewrite

on how he wanted
these characters to interact

and so on and
develop their stories.

Roger sent back a very
terse telegram which said,

"Eddie, just make
the goddamn bat fly."

"You make the bat fly
and we're in business."

Nobody could really take any
of those things that seriously,

let's face it.

So it's a take-off but it
wasn't meant to be amusing.

You gotta play it straight.

I would hate to do a film
without any trace of humor.

I don't think there were many
spots where you'd break out

and really laugh unless it was
maybe the poor little Bat Man

trying to fly.

When they decided that there was a
limited return that you could get

from pictures that were R,

then they said,
"Okay, we'll make some PGs.

We'll make some
fantasy pictures."

A movie about Atlantis
with fish monsters.

They were odd-looking creatures,

except for Leigh Christian who
was a Terrific-looking creature.

And also John Wayne's
son as the star.

What's the pitch?

Ashley assured me that
they were going to attempt

to do something on a higher level,
certainly a PG level.

A primeval princess

leads a people from
a kingdom beneath the sea

to a blazing battleground above!

Beyond Atlantis!

That's almost always
the kiss of death

because people who don't know
how to make fantasy pictures

for families end up making fantasy
pictures that don't work for families.

Cannibal fish!

We need a rope.

I got one.

My father and I kept
this hybrid society going

by having me mate with humans.

It is your destiny
to mate with an outsider,

not to love him.

It was, like, highly improbable.

You had to suspend disbelief
along the way for all of this stuff.

I wasn't very happy
with the script.

We tried to do what
we could with it.

I kind of, like, got the idea
that people cared about it.

I'm given a script
and I do what I'm told

and I collect my paycheck
and go home.

Eddie Romero got the idea

that the scenes that I did
with Pam Grier

were incredibly sexy.

Perverted but sexy.

And so he thought that,
"God, it would be great

if we had him with two girls.

That's gotta be
twice as sexy, right?"

Then we did Savage Sisters
and I had four women.

C'mon, girls.

Line up for your present!

I'm going,
"This is totally nuts."

But I wound up the whole
deal by shooting all four.

You needed only
one bullet last time.

Stinking bitches
wouldn't stand still!

Straighten your tie...

shine your shoes...

company's coming!

Three little maids from the
toughest school in the jungle

with plenty of ammunition
stacked in just the right places!

You couldn't possibly
take it seriously.

It was really a cartoon.

It was full of sex...

I'm a dog.

What kind?

A whipped dog.

...money...

Greenback salad.

My favorite dish.

...killings...

I guess this is where we
blow your stinking heads off!

...anything you can think of.

I enjoyed doing that,

but there were limits to what
I can do with the material.

You look kind of sexy
all tied up like that.

Well, I used to think
I'd let all of you pee in my face

just to see where it came from

but hell, not anymore!

I don't know if I want
to become so descriptive

of what I had to do in the movie,

but if you could just take
your imagination

of the middle part of a man's body

and have a good time with it
and tear it off.

Things were a little tense

but I think it came off alright.

To say that I'm
proud of the movie?

No.

These are not really the kind of
films that I've been longing to make.

They are the films that
I had to make considering

what the market had to offer

and what the market wanted.

Eddie's a very honorable man,

and whatever he did
he always gave it his best shot

and sometimes it didn't live up
to his hopes and expectations,

but what else is new?

He wasn't proud of the films

and pretty much disavowed
them late in his career.

I was always tired of them

but I felt, you know,
I had little choice.

He's now a national artist
for cinema and a grand old man,

which is pretty amazing
for a guy who started with.

Terror Is A Man.

Cirio Santiago was kind of the
next generation of filmmakers

after Eddie Romero.

They saw what Eddie
had done and they thought,

"Well, we can have some of that."

Here comes this
maverick director, Cirio,

who saw in the Filipino films
that they produced, you know,

something that was not
Hollywood enough.

He was making Philippine films
when I met him

and then he made the transition
to working with me.

He asked me if I wanted to
direct for this market.

I said, "Yeah,
I would direct for free."

He said,
"No, I'll pay you $3,000."

The first film Cirio directed
for me was Savage!

Savage!

That's his name.

"The biggest dude
with the baddest gun."

He's more than a man!

He's a death machine!

Now their family's new hero.

Savage, they call him.

I had grown tired of the
women-in-prison genre,

and I felt this black soldier
of fortune action film

might do well.

Let's do something to excite
the imagination of the people.

Something dramatic.

It'll be dramatic, alright.

That was a time when black films
were very special in drive-ins.

They were very big.

Stronger than Slaughter!

Slicker than Shaft!

More super-high than Super fly.

Savage!

Cirio was a good director

and he got the army
to come in for the big scenes.

Fire, all units!

So we really had
a fairly big-looking film

for a small amount of money.

Savage! Is still
a pretty shitty movie.

That's what you call
an understatement.

TNT Jackson!

Black bombshell
with a short fuse!

The basic idea behind
TNT Jackson

was to combine the
black exploitation concept

with kung fu.

You want it black,
you got it black.

Roger called me up one day
and said, "We have a script."

I had read the theme.

It didn't seem to read right.

He said, "Well, you rewrite it."

It was started by Dick
and he got, I think, $500.

Roger said, "Well, aren't
you going to write any more?"

I said, "I'm finished."

And he said, "I wanted
to get my money's worth."

I heard them talk.

He said, "Well, for $500 what do
you want, Gone With The Wind?"

I know very little
about kung fu.

The idea is to as much
as you can on film at that time

so you write a good sentence.

You write, "The battle begins."

That could be, you know,
months of shooting

and you got it covered
in one sentence.

It was fast and furious.

It starred Jeannie Bell.

The name is Diana Jackson.

Damn.

TNT to you.

She was an unknown so I said,

"We've got to publicize
Jeannie Bell."

My wife at the time, Sylvia,

came up with the idea
of a fake award.

The first annual
Ebony Fist award

as the greatest black
kung fu fighter in the world.

She was a two-time winner.

She was a two-time winner, exactly.

Jon Davison, who was
the head of our publicity,

came up with a great catch line:

"TNT Jackson...

She'll put you in traction."

With that dynamite bod,
she's a jet black hit squad!

"You'd better treat her fine
or she'll shatter your spine."

"You know you've been kissed
by her ebony fist

when the blood from your face
stains your diamond necklace."

That may have only been
used in the TV spots.

She's a one-mama massacre squad!

This was one of those movies
that was not, shall we say,

in the forefront of the great
even Filipino movies

and we had to do a lot of
faking in the trailer.

We just decided to make up a
whole subplot about heroin.

Undercover,
out to blast a killer army

that's poisoning the people
with deadly China White.

"Deadly China White
in black Chinatown

where the red dragon rules."

Black Chinatown,
where flesh is cheap

and life is cheaper,
and the red dragon rules.

Films like Savage!
And TNT Jackson

did bring a different look
to the black exploitation films.

They took it out of
the United States of America

to do black filmmaking,

and as a matter of fact,

you wouldn't think of that
in the Philippines.

Black actors in
a new environment.

It definitely opened up
the business.

Still want to go home?

Where's home?

Yeah, I know what you mean.

I think we've found our turf.

Once Cirio started
producing and directing,

I mean, all bets were off

in terms of product being,
you know, halfway-decent.

They were usually out of focus.

The sound quality was
sometimes terrible.

There were all sorts of scratches.

There was gouges, and you'd
occasionally see, you know,

what could be claw marks
from rodents.

Roll 'em!

Roger would just get
madder and madder

during the course
of the screenings.

"I mean really...

we're really screwed this time."

And they basically
needed to be doctored.

They needed new scenes shot.

And Roger almost always
wants you to add another chase

or at least another explosion.

You could hear him screaming
at Cirio through the walls.

"You really screwed me, Cirio!"

Break the sex barrier
with the stewardesses of...

Fly Me.

Rated R.

I wasn't supposed to be a
karate-kicking stewardess,

but when we got back
to the States

they decided that it needed
a little bit more punch.

Fly Me, which was
another terrible picture,

had Jonathan Demme direct
three days at the Amishira.

They got David Carradine
to come in for the day

and he taught me karate
and kung fu in an hour and a half,

and then I just beat people up.

I kicked the shit
out of a lot of people,

is really what I meant to say.

As the pictures went on,

they became a little bit
more threadbare,

and when Cover Girl Models
rolled around

it was pretty much the
nadir of the period.

Authentic Oriental
crap is what it is.

But what it did have
is it did have a lot of dresses

because they were supposed
to be fashion models,

and we said,
"They're always overexposed...

...but they're
never under-developed."

Very important.

This is Mark "F Stop" Fitzgerald.

If his camera could talk
he'd be in jail for statutory rape.

It's one of the best
trailers we ever made.

It doesn't reflect
the movie at all.

At some point someone is running
and fires a gun in the air,

and you cut to a helicopter.

Now that's the picture where the
exploding helicopter came from,

and we learned that anytime
anybody fired a gun,

if you cut to the exploding helicopter,
it looked like they blew it up.

So later, when we found even,
you know, less attractive movies

were coming our way, we always
had the exploding helicopter

in our drawer.

They made her a criminal
in Jackson County Jail!

As a viewer you would see
New World trailers and go,

"Wasn't that explosion in
Eat My Dust?"

So I used to look at
these things and say,

"These are brilliant.

In some cases, the trailers
are better than the films."

Steve Carver did a lot
of trailers for Roger

before he moved on
to directing for Roger,

and he came up with some of the
more memorable catchphrases,

one of which was...

They wanted love...

"He gave them terror and death."

We did push the limits
whenever possible.

On or off duty,

they always come when you call.

There were a lot of tricks that
I employed learning from Roger,

of course, how to
distract the rating people.

Wow!

If something was
coming up on the trailer,

all I had to do was say something,

they'd turn their heads and miss it.

Learn the bare facts from
the Summer School Teachers.

And that's how we got
a lot of that stuff by.

Jon Davison bet Roger Corman

that he could make the lowest
budget picture they had made

at New World at that time.

Welcome to Miracle Pictures,

where they make
a picture a week

and if it's a good picture
it's a miracle!

I said, "What is the film?"

They said, "It's going to be
Hollywood Boulevard

and it will be a parody
of a low budget

motion picture
production company."

Girls, I've called you all here

to offer you a
glorious opportunity.

Look out.

It is Machete Maidens
of Moracau.

Miracle Pictures new
super spectacle

shot entirely in the Philippines!

We were making fun of
something that we knew very well.

We did this under the guise
of a moviemaking plot

and the girls go to the Philippines

and they shoot Filipinos out of trees,

but the Filipinos falling down
are from another picture.

But we went out to Malibu

and shot the starlets
with machine guns firing away.

Go! Go!

I want action!

There's a scene where
they try to get

Mary Woronov to meet some dogs,

and it's just because we had
this shot of this Filipino guy

holding these vicious dogs.

And so we just shot a scene
that was the other angle.

That whole movie doesn't exist
except for the existing material.

"Why is there a cut
to that pig?"

"Well, because the pig
was in the Philippines

and we were here
and he was a free pig."

Ten days.
Two units, ten days.

No waiting.
Two units, no waiting.

Two directors, no waiting.

Roger said it was the best
10 day picture of the decade.

It did reflect the spirit
of New World.

As a matter of fact, a number of
directors who had started with us

and moved on came back
to play roles in the picture.

Paul Bartel came back as a
totally pretentious director

of a low budget nonsense picture.

You tell the writer, T.G.,
that we have taken his empty,

flaccid, stupid little story

and firmed it up into a pulsating,
penetrating, thrusting,

unflinching look into the future.

Now when you look back at it
it's kind of a documentary

of how New World Pictures
were really made.

If you wanted a job
with Roger Corman,

he would like give you a broom.

And if you did a really good job
sweeping up, he would say,

"Would you like to be
assistant editor on this film?"

And if you did a really poor job
sweeping up, you know,

you just stayed sweeping.

It was an absolutely terrific
place to be a young editor

or young director or
somebody who wanted to direct.

I would say that this is
maybe the finest moment

in my motion picture career.

I respect and
I admire Roger Corman

but he is so full of shit.

He's about money.

Roger's about money,

and because he's about money

he has given many,
many people their breaks,

which means,
"I'm going to let you break your ass

and work so hard for me,
not pay you,

make millions,
but you'll have made a movie."

And, believe it or not,

that's not a bad deal
for a lot of people.

And you look at all the people
who started with Corman.

But you don't hear
Bobby de Niro saying,

"Roger gave me my start."

He says, "That fucker
still owes me money."

Roger loves films.

You know, Roger loves,
in his own way.

As he says, "There's only
three ways to make films:

The right way, the wrong way,
the Corman way."

You shoot the beginning,
the end and the action.

And the sex.

We want frontal nudity
from the waist up,

total nudity from behind,

no pubic hair, go to work.

Everything else,
all the dialogue scenes

and all of the developmental
scenes of the characters,

those are left up to the editing
and you shoot them very sparsely.

Go to your cameraman and say,
"How long to make it excellent?

How long to make it good?

And how long to get an image?"

And then get the image.

It's nonsense.

I mean, I have no idea
how these stories come up.

From the start of the
partnership with Roger,

Cirio was able to also produce
and direct for other film companies.

Ebony, Ivory and Jade!

Three foxy mamas with
a thousand ways to kill!

In Ebony, Ivory and Jade,

I play Ebony,

and I'm a track star

and my rival, Ivory,
and my best friend, Jade,

get kidnapped by some terrorists.

What the hell is this?

If you say one word, you die.

And we have to karate chop
our way to freedom.

These sisters got soul
they can't control!

There's action...

...pretty girls...

I'm ready for my close-up,
Cecil B. De Mille.

...kind of campy dialogue...

Oh, stop talking
like a martyr!

That's all you're trying to be
is another black martyr!

With exploitation movies,

dialogue and acting
is always the problem.

You want the film to move fast
so you have a lot of action.

Whatever you do, don't fall down

because if Cirio wants
to cut you out of the picture

all he has to do is cut
to a guy firing a gun

and you're out
and you're home, you're gone.

He was trying to do
good American films

within a limited budget
and limited time.

He understood that
kind of exploitation template

with the humor.

We got mosquitoes,

we've got ants,
we've got no can opener.

Dinner is served.

That's what I wanted to do.

This is fun.

Don't take me seriously.

The Muthers to me, you know...

it was what it was.

Sexual exploitation in the jungle.

Just like every other
snake I ever met.

Can't leave my tits alone.

And the storyline was...

We were two black
female pirates.

The lead pirate, Jeannie Bell,

her sister has disappeared.

Do you have any idea
where she went?

When little Sandra
gets out of camp,

she doesn't leave her itinerary.

We get into the plantations
so we can take her out

and she gets killed.

Then we have to find a
way to get out ourselves.

Didn't you know?
There's no way out.

There's my way.

It's one of the few movies,
I know for decades,

where four black actresses
play the lead.

One of the things that we all
had hoped for in Hollywood

was the opportunity
to get into a script

where it didn't really matter
what color you were.

I mean, we're not
trying to be black

or against the white woman.

We're just out there,
wanting to get our freedom.

It has nothing to do
with what color you are.

It has to do with survival.

The only other parts that were
available for me were hookers

so I'd rather beat 'em up
than be beat up.

Firecracker was an
idea of Cirio's.

TNT Jackson had been
so successful,

he felt we should make
a similar film

but make it with a white girl.

See Jillian Kesner,

grand prize winner
at the Black Belt Olympics.

She'll mix seduction
with destruction!

She was a real trooper.

She didn't know that much about
martial arts at the time

but she really studied hard
and went full bore.

The final showdown
was interesting.

They said, "Okay, we have
these collapsible sticks,

and she's gonna jump up
and come down

and gently push them
on your eyes

and they will collapse
into themselves

and maybe some blood
will squirt out."

And I'm, like, "Really?
Let me see them."

And they like showed me on a
dummy and of course they stuck

and the guy's jamming 'em down.

I said, "You know, I don't think
I want Gillian to push those

down on my eyes."

So of course they used a
mannequin at that point.

In the end, when they showed
that sequence and she jumped up

and, you know,
my eyes squirted out,

my mom literally
almost had a heart attack.

At that point, she jumped out
of her chair and was, like,

"Oh my God!"

Firecracker!

The screen's first
erotic kung fu classic!

Cirio lived a dream.

He basically, you know,
worked on a film

every day of his adult life.

American films,
I did about close to 40.

Filipino films,
I made about 63.

More than a hundred.

He had diplomatic immunity
for a number of years,

which was a good thing
considering the pictures he made.

Vampire.

We are all vampires.

We're all dead.

And we don't like you very much.

Vampire Hookers...
Yeah, that was awful.

Coffins are for being laid to rest,

not for being laid.

The catch line was, "Blood
isn't the only thing they suck."

Imagine that.

He used to tell his cast
and the crew,

"Don't think that
we're making a B-movie.

Think that we're making
the best movie we can make."

Cirio was a pioneer.

Now we're having a hard time
getting into the international market

but he was there ahead,

although he denied
they were done here.

I think he was
still proudly Filipino.

Bobby Suarez was a guy
who'd worked for Rank,

the English film producer
and distributor.

The big difference between
Cirio and Bobby

was Cirio was personally unflappable
but Bobby was like a spark.

He did the whole film with a
cocked.45 automatic in his belt.

And every now and then
he'd just shoot at something.

It kept everybody
really nervous and in line.

Nobody gave him any lip.

He's very proud of the fact
that he was a Filipino

and he had this opportunity to
make a little noise for the country

as far as his films were concerned.

He was a salesman
as well as a film producer

so as he's making his movies

he's thinking what is
commercial and what will sell,

what is needed
in the western world.

The plots always
got very confusing.

What's going on?

I never really knew
who the bad guys were.

Who?

Where?

I didn't really understand
what they were doing,

but they were bad so I killed 'em.

I figured no one's
ever gonna see this.

Money was always scarce.

They had car chases...

and because they ended up
wrecking the cars

they didn't want to get
a really good car.

And they'd do flat out
35 miles an hour.

I remember doing one car chase
and traffic's passing us by.

We were supposed to
be speeding along.

The breakthrough movie for
Bobby Suarez was Cleopatra Wong.

She's a fighter.
She's a mean machine.

It's about a syndicate
that took over a nunnery.

They actually capture the nuns.

Don't tell me that nuns in this
country sport automatic rifles

underneath their
monastic uniforms.

Like all exploitation movies,
it's got these scenes in it

that stick in your brain.

The finale, where the convent
was blown up,

there were so many guys
dressed up as nuns

and they never seemed to die,
you know?

They keep on coming,
and those scenes were all in slo-mo.

And you kind of think, "Well if all
of the film was as powerful as that,

then it would be some kind
of a masterpiece."

When Bobby was making it,

he didn't think that guys
dressed up as nuns were funny.

It was a very serious movie.

He was always trying
to build a franchise,

and he wanted to do a series
of films using the same characters.

That's why he made
Dynamite Johnson.

That's The Bionic Boy Part 2.

Still very similar
to Cleopatra Wong.

They have this group of
Nazi-obsessed people

that took over
a whole mining camp.

I was Doctor Hiss.

By this time Tuesday,
Hong Kong will be no more.

The scientist who had come up
with this plan to have a laser

that was going to blow
up anything he wanted.

The mine was guarded
at night by a metal dragon.

Well, I don't know if
it was made out of cardboard

but it was certainly made
out of something flimsy

that was about all we could afford.

You know, Bobby had run
out of money by that point.

That dragon has got
twin cannons for eyes,

it has got a machine gun at its tail,

and when the mouth opened,
it breathes fire.

The person who was inside
working the flamethrower,

the thing backfired
and he got burned

and everyone was
running out of the dragon.

It was hilarious.

He would kind of make
whatever he thought

he could get someone
to put up the money for.

All Bobby needed was a film title,
a good-sounding film title.

He wrote something down.
He said,

"This will be my next film."

And I looked at it and it said,

The One-Armed Executioner.

I said, "Okay."

I said, "What's it about?"

He said, "Doesn't matter.
It's the title.

That's what gets 'em in."

Haunted by the memory
of a love that refuses to die,

he ruthlessly seeks revenge!

I'm going to kill
every last one of them.

So help me God.

Bobby Suarez was kind of
dragged out of retirement

by suddenly realizing
or hearing that

Quentin Tarantino was
a big fan of some of his movies.

He started to dust off
some old scripts

and send 'em 'round
to all and sundry,

and they were
pretty much remakes of

Cleopatra Wong and Bionic Boy.

Bobby was like P.T. Barnum.

Everything was larger than life
as far as his films were concerned,

and, I mean, they were
what they were.

They were okay for what they were,

but, I mean, they weren't
exactly blockbusters,

even though in his mind
they might have been.

I don't think he realized
that time had moved on

and these movies were being looked
at with a kind of nostalgic glow.

God bless him
for his vision, you know?

He wanted to do something better
than what was being done

and he gave it a shot
and to a great extent he did.

Here come The Losers!

Killers by instinct,
mercenaries by profession!

The Losers was about
five Hells Angels in Cambodia

rescuing a CIA agent,
taking on the whole Chinese army.

The plan was to blow
a big hole in the fence.

We got there too fast

and I would have been blown up.

It's too late to stop.

Oh my God!

I headed the front wheel
to hit this post,

and I hit it dead on.

The bike was in the air
and it landed on top of me.

Safety issues were pretty crazy.

Health and safety takes money.

I sustained a lot of injuries.

They made me hang from
a helicopter 100 feet up

without any safety nets.

I almost fell
during the second take.

Bobby said, "Do you mind rolling
out of the car at 35 miles an hour?"

I said, "Yeah!
Yeah, I mind doing that."

The fights,
it was no-holds-barred.

Bobby calls me over.

He goes, "Chris, it doesn't
look like you're hitting them."

I said, "You mean
really hitting them?"

He said, "Yes."

I said, "Well, I'm not."

"That's what they're paid for.
Hit them!"

Kick them!"

One of the hoodlums
really punched me here.

My appendix burst out.

Stunt guys there are nuts.

They'd drive off cliffs,
they'd jump off the cliff themselves.

They would just cross
themselves and jump.

The people they would get
to do the stunts

they would regard as "Breakables."

I said, "I tell you what.

Bring me about 20 cardboard boxes
and two twin bed mattresses."

So they did and
I set up a little fall pad.

It was like, "Oh my God,

we can drop an actor out of a three
story window and not kill him!

This is great!"

Here we have fire suits
that protect them

and there they just put some
fuel on a guy and lit him up

and when he got hot
he jumped in the water.

If somebody got injured
to the point where they just

couldn't work anymore they'd just
stuff a five peso note in his pocket

and send him home.

There were a couple of times
in the films with Bobby

where I'd throw a guy
through a window.

It was a glass window.

They didn't know
what candy glass was.

They saw an American go
through a window, they thought,

"Well, hell we can do that!"

There was this tower.

It was supposed to be
hit by a truck.

The guard was supposed to
jump first but he panicked,

he hung on.

He was killed.

In a country where the rich rule
and the poor are shit,

you can get away
with that kind of thing.

They would take risks because
this is the big American movie.

You don't want to look back
and say, "Well, that was exploiting."

But they were paid their salary.

We employed many,
many Filipinos.

Hundreds and hundreds.

You could hire thousands of them
if you needed thousands of 'em,

and all they had to really do
was put on black pajamas

and charge up the hill with
their AK-47 bad-guy guns

and if they were close
to an explosion

they were supposed to
flop over and play dead.

So anybody can do that.

I mean, it didn't take
a rocket scientist.

Apocalypse Now, of course,
was without a doubt

the biggest production that
ever came into the Philippines.

My film is not about Vietnam.

It is Vietnam.

It's what it was really like.

Coppola was able to use
helicopters, tanks, whatever.

Marcos gave us just a blanket okay

and then it filtered down
to military men.

Marcos didn't make
any promises.

You know, he complained that
he couldn't get hold of any helicopters

because Coppola was
using all of them.

The Philippine commander
would say,

"Well, the helicopters
are sick today,

but if we had a certain amount of
money we could make them well."

There was always these
Islamic rebels in the south.

The military would use it
all for the time for an excuse.

The real war took precedent
over the fake war.

The Philippine government,
the fucking helicopters,

they take away
whenever they feel like

and they've done it
three times already.

It was a crazy shoot.
That's not news.

Every time things were smooth
and were running right,

all of a sudden something
disastrous would happen.

Marty Sheen's heart attack,

Marlon Brando arriving
100 pounds more than we expected.

The typhoon.

The roofs of major houses
were corrugated metal

and those sheets would fly off

and it was like a guillotine
that could decapitate you.

When it cleared, it was
just this kind of war zone.

As they say, "Shit happens."

I think Francis was absolutely
brilliant on that movie.

It's amazing what he got
under those circumstances.

He expected to get
everything he needed

and sometimes very often,
he expected too much.

It was...

a little bit insane
towards the end.

There's a scene where
they come in

and there's all these bodies
hanging from the trees,

and they were using real bodies.

Somebody said they were
in the refrigerator

in in the art department
next to the beer.

My lips are sealed.

My buddy told me,
"Come check this shit out."

But I never...
I never saw that.

You're in the asshole
of the world, Captain!

You're just thinking,
"Can we get through this?

Can we get through this day?
Can we get through this week?

When will we ever
get out of here?"

There was no calendar

so you never felt you were
progressing or achieving.

We would refer to it as
"Apocalypse Never."

The good thing, a wonderful
great movie came out of it.

It defied fate.

It should have failed, right?

To relive it, I can't put it
on here and watch it.

You couldn't pay me.

It was Francis Ford Coppola's
big fantasy is what it was.

You had Playgirl bunnies

and people falling out
of helicopters

and guys smoking dope
and taking drugs.

It was a joke, and I don't know
one Vietnam veteran

that really could watch
that movie and enjoy it.

It just made us
look like simpletons.

Made us look like a
bunch of total idiots.

That was nothing like Vietnam.

They were opulent.
They overspent.

They spoiled people for a while
and then they went away

and everything eventually
got back to normal again.

Marcos and Imelda saw
that it might create

a feeling around the world
of serenity and security

and kind of make it a
little more enticing for tourism.

Imelda Marcos was in love
with actors and movies

and really wanted to promote
that side of her country.

I said to him,
"What is my role as First lady?"

And he said, "As President,
I'll be the father of the country.

I'll establish a strong house.

And you make it a home."

So I said, "I'll build the cultural
centre of the Philippines

to be the centre
of the Filipino soul

and the monument
to Filipino spirit."

She did a great deal to expand
the potential of Filipino films.

She was the one who started the

Manila International Film Festival.

The dream was supposed to
have the Cannes of the Orient,

you know?
The Cannes of Asia here.

And so they built the
modern day Parthenon.

In a rush to finish building,

a whole floor collapsed
on workers.

And the story is that Imelda said,

"Well, look, you know, we
haven't got time to dig 'em out

and restart again so
let the concrete dry

and just slice the limbs off
and then cover over it."

In that pantheon
of the cinematic arts,

it's also a burying ground.

Which is a big lie.

We got every piece of debris
and we did not stop

until we got each
and every one of them,

and each and everyone's
family was compensated.

When it was finished,

her dream of putting up
the festival became a reality.

All the big producers
were there.

The thing that most of them
seemed to be interested in

was this character called
Weng-Weng.

Brace yourselves for the
acclaimed international star

of the Hollywood Cannes
and Manila Film Festivals,

Weng-Weng!

Who the hell are you?

Check it out.

He was a midget,
but he's proportioned.

And he turned out to be
this three and a half foot

secret agent guy.

They used him as a
decoy during raids.

He could infiltrate a small opening,

they'd shove him in,
open the doors, you know?

He made a whole series of films,
as we discover now.

This is Agent 00,

and he will stop at nothing
to get his man in.

For Y'ur Height Only!

Lo and behold,
to everyone's surprise,

this film became the
darling of the market.

You're such a little guy, though.

Very petite, like a potato.

Yeah, let's go.

I can see why it may have been
considered a bit embarrassing.

All of the things that you get
in James Bond movies,

you know, the karate scenes,
the flying jet packs,

the daring escapes,
and the getting the girl,

are all in the
Weng-Weng movies.

He could parachute
using an umbrella.

One of the people behind
the promotion of Weng-Weng

was Dick Randall,

and one of his specialities
was dubbing of movies.

But he had a very peculiar
sense of humor, did Dick,

so when he got the chance to dub
this Weng-Weng movie into English

he really went to town.

You know sex is like tequila.

Take one sip and you're a goner.

Shall we get it on?

Yes, darling, bare your bod.

My husband just
adored Weng-Weng.

He would sit on his lap,
and Dick'd get all excited.

"Oh, oh,
Weng-Weng's wonderful.

We have to..."

You know, you're
making me fall for you.

He had his own style.

He could be funny.

If you find that
sort of thing funny,

you know, you will be able
to watch that film

with pleasure
for the rest of your life.

If you don't get it,
you're gonna just not get it at all.

Oh, my little head.

I didn't understand it.

I'd look at it and say,
"Oh my God."

He was really a parody
and we are all just laughing at it,

not laughing for ourselves
but laughing for America.

But I think it's revenge
of third world filmmakers

to be able to take these kinds of
popular genres from Hollywood

and slightly subvert them and
then send them back out again

and just say,
"Well, look what we've done,

and a big raspberry to you."

Hey, take this!

We shrunk the goon.

It makes perfect sense.

This is exactly
what Filipinos do.

We transform our pain
into ridicule.

Did Hollywood use us,

or did we really make a
breakthrough in Hollywood,

at the margins as it may be,

and use this for our own
cultural agenda?

Why the rest of the world got it,
I will never know.

The audience was changing
a little bit in the late 1970s.

People started thinking,

"You know, I'm paying
the same amount of money

for this as I am
to see Star Wars

and this isn't nearly as good."

What Spielberg and Lucas did,

their big influence was
to take exploitation films

which had always been B-budget

and now make them
A-budget pictures.

The biggest of that type
of film was Jaws,

and when it came out
Vincent Can by,

the main critic for
The New York Times said,

"What is Jaws but a
big Roger Corman film?"

What he didn't say was,
It was not only bigger than mine,

it was better than mine.

And when I saw Jaws,
I thought,

"I'm in trouble and my
compatriots are in trouble."

I made Piranha for Roger
and it was an unexpected hit,

and of course I was asked
back to do another film.

I was asked to do a picture
called Humanoids From The Deep,

which was another
American version of Piranha.

Humanoids From The Deep.

Later on, he did a picture called
Up From The Depths,

which was the Filipino
rip-off version.

Beneath these waves lies
a horror beyond imagining,

hungry for human flesh,

and it's coming
Up From The Depths!

I sent Chuck Griffiths,
who was a good writer-director

and had done many films for us,
to the Philippines.

Chuck was dealing
very often with the dreck

and so he was sent off
to do Up From The Depths

and the only way he felt
that he could do justice to it

was to make fun of it.

I'll kill it!

I'll kill it!
I'll kill it!

No, you fool!

There are people out there!

Ow, my foot!

And the producer,
being Cirio Santiago,

wanted to make it a scary,
more serious film.

The sun's in my eyes.

So then it becomes somewhat
of a dilemma because

you have kind of two films
going on simultaneously,

and, you know,
what is it, you know?

Roger didn't mind you
making fun of the movie,

but he really didn't like it
if the movie wasn't as advertised.

A living tidal wave
of terror is rising,

clawing, eating its way
Up From The Depths!

The creature they built
was a little bit crude.

It wasn't as good as
it should have been.

Chris Walas made
an underwater monster

that was supposed to be
propelled by a diver

who was holding it
in front of him.

But the front half was so heavy

that when you would
start to shoot it,

it would just dip down like this.

We got it!

Jimmy!

Anything that mimicked
a large budget film like Jaws,

if Roger's version
were to come out

it would be panned
automatically.

The critics were a big problem

and I think critics
change audiences.

I felt maybe we had made
too many films

in too short a period of time
in the Philippines,

so we concentrated on
coming back home

and shooting in America.

Fewer and fewer marketplaces
were available to him.

The drive-ins were
starting to close.

The grind houses are
starting to disappear.

The big budget films
were starting to dominate,

so we had to adjust to that.

And Roger still continued
making pictures into the 80s

but the places to play them
became limited

and they started to go
directly to VHS.

But that's life.

I think we lost that because
it's nice to have your film

shown in a theatre,
enjoyed by people.

Sometimes it would be difficult
to promote the Philippines

as a safe filmmaking site
because of the security problems.

In the south you have
the Muslim militants,

who are in constant uprising

and they're always
shooting people

and kidnapping people
and blowing things up.

Banditry was not a problem
when I was shooting there

but a little later on
when things deteriorated,

it was dangerous to
go out on the road.

People in the Congo area they
could kill for a bottle of beer.

I put my kids in a little
Montessori school

and there were guys
with sub-machine guns

guarding every entrance
to prevent kidnapping.

The political climate,
I think, just went a little crazy.

Filmmakers just finally
got to the point where

they were afraid to go over

and even if they weren't afraid to
go over and shoot their movie there,

the insurance companies
wouldn't bond us.

That was basically the start
of the end of filmmaking

in the Philippine islands.

That is a time in filmmaking that

will probably never
happen again, ever.

I'm not saying that time
was better than this time,

although it may have been.

I look back at it now

and really do think of it
sort of as the good old days

because we were having fun.

It felt raw over there.

That's what I liked
a lot about it.

It wasn't anything
that was polished,

made to appear to be
anything more than what it was.

It was an amazing time.

Exciting, fun, creative.

We did have an audience
for these movies,

which helped the studios go,

"Aha! I think I'll have
another female action lead."

Which is good.

Very good.

They're silly
and in a way primitive

but also very engaging
and visceral.

I think the salaciousness
of them and the sexiness

is so trivial by today's standards

that you can really look at
these films and you can say,

"Gee, these are really fun."

They all did well
and they excited us

and they were the ultimate
guilty pleasures.

You know, you can look back
on these things and think,

oh, it was sleazy or
it was this or it was that,

but it really wasn't.
It was really revolutionary.

To have one of those great
B-movies in the Philippines

under your belt,
that's not so bad.

To me, it's always an exciting
time to be making films.

The first time Savage! Was shown
on Hollywood Boulevard,

I was there for one hour
looking at the marquee.

The stories that
take place on a film set

are ten times better
than any of the movies,

any of the movies.

I've worked on too many films
where people are like,

"We're losing the light!
Jesus Christ!

Oh, shoot into the...

just shoot this!

Okay, and run over there,
blow that up,

action sequence,
okay, shit.

If this isn't coherent;
We'll put it in anyway."

And later people are going,

"The brilliant direction of"
somebody somebody, you know.

I've worked on too many
movies to buy into this stuff.

I don't know. Where do these
statements come from?

This is one of the weirdest
interviews I've ever had.

As you leave the theatre, folks,
please be careful.

Don't let this
happen to your car.

If you should accidentally
pull a speaker loose,

please turn it in to our
snack bar or box office.

Thanks.