When was the last time someone gave you a hickey?

 The Lords Of Flatbush (1974)

Wednesday, November 5th

Films starts at 8pm

Lady Jay’s

633 Grand St (bet Leonard & Manhattan), Bklyn, NY 11211

Free popcorn, Juke Box Meccanica, $2 Bingo for Prizes. PRIZES!

Perry King at The Motorcycle Film Festival Ride & Repeat

This week’s film review is brought to you courtesy of The New York Times, circa 1974…but, I had to pop in for a moment to mention the reason I chose the flick. Of course it’s a favorite of mine and has been in the Cine Meccanica que for some time, but then two weeks ago while at the AIM EXPO in Orlando which I attended with The Motorcycle Film Festival, I had the honor to meet the one and only Perry King, who was there to host the AMA Motorcycle Hall Of Fame Inductions. Of course it took all of 2 minutes for us to get to chattering about motorcycle movies…including the very first movie he rode a motorcycle in. Yup, you guessed it, The Lords Of Flatbush. He also let me in on a bit of trivia that the original chopper in the film was stolen overnight while parked outside one of the NYC locations during filming, and they finished the film with a stock 1966 Harley-Davidson Electra Glide . 10 points if you can spot it!

Corinna

It was 1958 when making love meant “making out”

Film review courtesy of The New York Times, 1974

“The Spikes Gang,” which opened yesterday at the Trans-Lux West and other theaters, is a Western about an elderly desperado and the three young farm boys he tries, unsuccessfully, to turn into bank robbers.

It’s a movie without a center, with no coherent tone, directed by Richard Fleischer, fresh from such triumphs as “The Don Is Dead” and “Soylent Green.” Mr. Fleischer is incapable of sustaining even minimal audience interest in the material. During something as basic as a chase one’s mind is likely to notice the cloud coverings.

You want a ring? I got a ring for ya. In my bathtub.

The screenplay by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr. is no help. It’s nominally based on a novel by thors don’t hesitate to lift a thors don’t hestitate to lift a line (“Money is like manure. . . .”) most recently used in “Hello, Dolly.”

The film stars Lee Marvin, as the old desperado, and Gary Grimes, Ron Howard and Charlie Martin Smith, as the boys, but none are of particular help, either. The entire enterprise is as convincing as the Spanish landscapes, which are meant to suggest the American Southwest but don’t.

The Cast
THE SPIKES GANG, directed by Richard Fleischer; screenplay by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr., based on a novel by Giles Tippette; produced by Walter Mirisch; music, Fred Karlin, film editors, Ralph Winters and Frank J. Urioste; director of photography, Brian West; a Mirisch Corporation production distributed by United Artists. Running time: 96 minutes. At the Trans-Lux West Theater, Broadway at 49th Street, and other theaters. This film has been rated PG.
Harry Spikes . . . . . Lee Marvin
Will Young . . . . . Gary Grimes
Les Richter . . . . . Ron Howard
Tod Mayhew . . . . . Charlie Martin Smith
Kid White . . . . . Arthur Hunnicutt
Jack Basset . . . . . Noah Beery

“Grow up, you’re so immature,” the tearful truth flung by an anguished, pretty teen-ager at the class Adonis on the make, seems fitting for “The Lords of Flatbush,” which arrived yesterday at the Baronet and Brooklyn’s Kenmore theaters. Like first love, this study of the growing pains of the leather jacket-bobby soxer Brooklyn high school set of 1957 is, by turns, cheerful, confused, juvenile and never fully realized.

Reportedly the first effort of its directors, Stephen F. Verona and Martin Davidson, who filmed on Brooklyn locations, this largely light-hearted remembrance of the past concentrates more on incidents than fuller explanations. If the incidents project some bittersweet emotions, the character and goals of its carefree, fumbling principals remain, for the most part, dated and indistinct.

As the rough but happy-go-lucky quartet, the “Lords” make school a blackboard jungle and spend most of their time on sex drives, a casual car heist, a quick rumble, in pool rooms or in goofing off in a local candy store gulping egg creams.

1966 Harley-Davidson Electra Glide

Handsome Chico, a proud owner of a motorcycle, is, for example, frustrated by an unrequited affair with Jane, the blond daughter of an Army colonel who finds his passionate advances immature. On the other hand, Stanley, the muscular, inarticulate pigeon fancier, is partly conned into marriage by the anxious Frannie, whom he has bedded down more than once on a local beach. And Butchey and Wimpy are content to go along, somewhat aimlessly, with the club’s “social and athletic” activities.

Perry King, Sylvester Stallone, Henry Winkler, Paul Mace, Susie Blakely, Maria Smith and Renée Paris (as Frannie’s scheming friend) are fairly believable in the leading roles even though they seem to be out of place in the clean, tree-lined streets and comfortable homes of Flatbush.

Individual scenes and indigenous humor touch the heart and tickle the funny bone in this obviously tender reminiscence. But in the end, “The Lords of Flatbush” fades from memory like the summer of 1957.

Oh Chico… you made a mess!

The Cast
THE LORDS OF FLATBUSH, directed by Stephen F. Verona and Martin Davidson; screenplay by Mr. Verona and Gayle Gleckler; photographed by Joseph Mangine; edited by Stan Siegel and Muffie Meyer; music, Joe Brooks; produced by Mr. Verona; released by Columbia Pictures. At the Baronet Theater, 59th Street at Third Avenue and Kenmore Theater, Brooklyn. Running time: 88 minutes. This film is classified PG.
Chico Tyrell . . . . . Perry King
Stanley Rosiello . . . . . Sylvester Stallone
Butchey Weinstein . . . . . Henry Winkler
Wimpy Murgalo . . . . . Paul Mace
Jane Bradshaw . . . . . Susie Blakely
Frannie Malincanico . . . . . Maria Smith
Annie Yuckamanelli . . . . . Renee Paris
Crazy Cohen . . . . . Paul Jabara

Trailer

 

Watch the full film