BEAT THE DEVIL

A group of warring thieves and con artists are racing to outdo each other in the crime business. After a minor 'misunderstanding' with the police in a small Italian port town, they all set sail for Africa where they plan to 'creatively acquire a uranium mine. Along the way, they are shipwrecked on the African coast, captured by Arab revolutionaries and hatch a plot to win their freedom by promising the leader a date with Rita Hayworth! If the plot sounds a bit screwy, well consider not only Trueman Capote's involvement but also the fact that Capote and Houston were ---individually and co-operatively--- rewriting the film on location as shooting progressed!

"it's probably the funniest mess---the screwball classic---of all time."-----Pauline Kael

Directed by John Houston. Written by John Houston and Trueman Capote. Stars Humphrey Bogart, Gina Lollobrigida, Robert Merely and Peter Lorre.

Britain/ Italy, 1953, 93 minutes. Original English language version as filmed.
ISBN 1-55881-035-8
$19.95

LION'S LOVE

Agnes Varda presents an eccentric love story through disjointed episodic scenes that examine late 1960's social & political issues. Ragni, Rado and Viva play themselves, waiting for their big Hollywood break and casually drifting into a menage a trois. Varda captures the quirky, laid back lifestyle of 1960's Los Angeles as her characters contemplate metaphysics, the dangers of milk consumption, Hollywood sinking into the ocean, and try to understand why the Bank of America does not have a cash delivery service for non-customers. Along the way, Viva decides she might want children and rents some to see what the experience might be like. After discovering that the kids will not behave, will urinate in the pool and will only eat ketchup Viva concludes, "I think we have to find another way to a spiritual life”. "in all of these random details, Lions Love is very funny, cool, loose and honest, more adult than most films. It also possesses a sense of time and place. Lions Love is a kind of meta-Warhol movie which is charming. Miss Varda has taken Viva, Warhol's most valuable found object and lit and framed her in a way that brings out the gentle pre-Raphaelite beauty suggested but never realized in Warhol's films. Varda has also found two perfect foils for Viva. Rado, blandly handsome and Ragni, who looks and acts like a liberated member of the three stooges share Viva's Talent for the magnificently convoluted non-sequitur."- Vincent Canby, NYT.

Written and Directed by Agnes Varda. Starring Viva, Gerome Ragni,James Rado, Shirley Clarke. This complete, unrated version contains nudity, adult language and situations.

USA 1969 115 min color. Slight Letterboxed (l.66)

OUT OF PRINT

DIVINE DOUBLE FEATURE

Two rarely seen performances from the late Great Divine comprise this special videotape tribute. First up, a John Waters short, "The Diane Linkletter Story", featuring a young Divine as a girl who wants to "...get high..", "...get laid..." "...do my own thing momma...". David Lochary and Mary Vivian Pearce play her distraught parents who try to figure out where they went wrong: "She was such a beautiful child","She was?" Following that, the only existing performance of the smash off, way off, Broadway show, "THE NEON WOMAN". Divine plays the hottest stripper that ever lived who has gone legit, opened her own strip joint, and is trying to cope with whatever comes along. There's Kitty Larue, the stripper with an identity problem; "l'm a Iesbian, no, a transvestite no...", There's the horny Bible thumping senator who wants to pray with Divine; "...give me strength, give me faith, give me salvation...", but really wants something less spiritual; "...give me those tits!!!" Finally, Divine's young virgin daughter returns from boarding school and within minutes is turned into an alcoholic, heroin addicted stripper who has been betrothed to the black janitor. To spice thing up, there's an evil Divine twin subplot, a series of nylon stocking murders, a junkie stripper who dies and goes to Hell via a limousine drive through Pittsburg (with Leslie Gore singing “...it's my party and I'II cry if want to..." on the limo radio)...there's more, but as the cliche goes, it has to be seen to be seen to be believed!

CAUTION: This tape was mastered years ago using primitive video equipment. The quality is only fair and not up to our usual standards.110 minutes.

OUT OF PRINT