Movies... For Free! The Street Fighter's Last Revenge (1974)

Welcome to this week's "Movies... For Free!" column, where we showcase classic movies freely available in the public domain (with streaming video!). Read the article and watch the movie right here!


The Street Fighter's Last Revenge, 1974.

Directed by Shigehiro Ozawa.
Starring Sonny Chiba, Reiko Ike, Sue Shiomi.

The Street Fighter's Last Revenge is the final instalment in the cult 1974 martial arts trilogy that also includes The Street Fighter and Return of the Street Fighter. Sonny Chiba returns to his role of mercenary Takuma 'Terry' Tsurugi, accepting a mob contract to deliver a pair of stolen cassette tapes that hold a formula to create cheap heroin. Naturally the mob double-cross Tsurugi (when will they ever learn?), and the martial arts master then sets about to bring down the drug cartel with a little help from female government agent Kahô (Sue Shiomi, who would also appear with Chiba in the unrelated spin-off Sister Street Fighter, released the same year).

With this third movie production company Toei drew upon elements of the spy genre such as Bond and Mission: Impossible to breathe new life into the franchise. Chiba’s character is now a master of disguise with an array of gadgets at his disposal, and there is a noticeable shift away from the brutal action of the earlier movies to focus more on story. Nevertheless, the film remains enjoyable and is presented here in an English dub that includes voice-over work from Star Trek legend George Takei as one of the mobsters in pursuit of Chiba.



Embeds courtesy of Internet Archive.

Click here to view all previous entries in our Movies... For Free! collection.

Movies... For Free! The Flying Deuces (1939)

Welcome to this week's "Movies... For Free!" column, where we showcase classic movies freely available in the public domain (with streaming video!). Read the article and watch the movie right here!


The Flying Deuces, 1939.

Directed by A. Edward Sutherland.
Starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.

The Flying Deuces is a classic Laurel and Hardy feature that reworks the scenario of an earlier short, Beau Hunks (1931), with the hapless duo enlisting in the French Foreign Legion after Ollie is rejected by a married woman. Naturally the pair soon discover that military life is not for them and go AWOL, only to be caught and sentenced to death by firing squad. Will they manage to escape in time?

Although the legendary comic double-act had appeared as guest stars in four MGM pictures, The Flying Deuces marked their first headlining performance without long time producer Hal Roach. The film's success would ultimately lead to the dissolution of this partnership and while Hal Roach Studios released two more features the pair soon moved on to contracts with MGM and 20th Century Fox.



Embeds courtesy of Internet Archive.

Click here to view all previous entries in our Movies... For Free! collection.

Movies... For Free! Horror Express (1973)

Welcome to this week's "Movies... For Free!" column, where we showcase classic movies freely available in the public domain (with streaming video!). Read the article and watch the movie right here!


Horror Express, 1973.

Directed by Eugenio Martin.
Starring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Telly Savalas.

Horror Express is a low budget Spanish production that reunited the celebrated 'Hammer Horror' duo of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, while director Eugenio Martin reused the sets from his previous effort Pancho Villa (1972) along with star Telly Savalas, whose appearance in this picture comes hot on the heels of his debut as Kojak in the American television series.

Anthropologist Professor Saxton (Lee) has discovered what he believes to be the 'Missing Link' frozen in Manchuria, and he and associate Dr. Wells (Cushing) board a train bound for Europe with the fossilised creature stored in a crate. A number of brutal murders soon occur and when the creature is found to be responsible it is destroyed. However they soon discover that the fossil was inhabited by an alien entity that possesses the ability to shift between bodies, and the two set about to rescue the remaining passengers with the aid of Captain Kazan (Savalas) and his small band of Cossacks.

Like many European productions of the time, Horror Express was mostly shot without sound and dialogue recorded for the various different markets in post-production (with Lee, Cushing and Savalas all providing their own voices for this English version). While the film failed disappointed at the Spanish box office it did prove successful in the U.K., and has since achieved a cult following due to repeated television broadcasts throughout the 1970s and 80s.



Embeds courtesy of Internet Archive.

Related:

The City of the Dead a.k.a Horror Hotel (1960)

Click here to view all previous entries in our Movies... For Free! collection.

Movies... For Free! Return of the Street Fighter (1974)

Welcome to this week's "Movies... For Free!" column, where we showcase classic movies freely available in the public domain (with streaming video!). Read the article and watch the movie right here!


Return of the Street Fighter, 1974.

Directed by Shigehiro Ozawa.
Starring Sonny Chiba, Yōko Ichiji, and Masashi Ishibashi.

After Bruce Lee's classic Enter the Dragon (1973) had popularised the martial arts genre in the West, Japanese production house Toei Company quickly capitalised with their own release, The Street Fighter (1974), starring Sonny Chiba (also available in our Movies... For Free! collection). With The Street Fighter achieving wide international success, Toei immediately began work on a follow up and Return of the Street Fighter was rushed to cinemas later that year.

Chiba returns as martial arts master and mercenary Takuma 'Terry' Tsurugi, who once again upsets his yakuza employers when he refuses a contract to kill personal friend Masaoko (Masafumi Suzuki). Naturally the gangsters aren’t too happy with Tsurugi's insubordination and set about to make him pay, while old enemy Junjo (Ishibashi) also has his sights on revenge, laying the foundations for a bloody ballet of cartoon hyper-violence.

Return of the Street Fighter managed to repeat the success of its predecessor and inspired another sequel - The Street Fighter's Last Revenge - to complete the trilogy.

Please note that the film is split into two parts - the second part will load automatically after the first has finished, simply click play to resume.



Embeds courtesy of Internet Archive.

Click here to view all previous entries in our Movies... For Free! collection.

Movies... For Free! Lady of Burlesque (1943)

Welcome to this week's "Movies... For Free!" column, where we showcase classic movies freely available in the public domain (with streaming video!). Read the article and watch the movie right here!


Lady of Burlesque, 1943.

Directed by William A. Wellman.
Starring Barbara Stanwyck and Michael O'Shea.

Lady of Burlesque - also known as The G-String Murders and Striptease Lady - is a 1943 murder mystery set in a New York burlesque house and is notable for pushing the boundaries of the Motion Picture Production Code, a stringent set of guidelines which governed all American productions until the late 1960's.

Based on the novel The G-String Murders by famed striptease artist Gypsy Rose Lee, the film adaptation stars silver screen legend Barbara Stanwyck as Dixie Daisy, a newcomer who has quickly adapted to the ruthless and bitter backstage politics of the burlesque scene. When Dixie falls out with a rival singer and later discovers her body - killed via g-string strangulation, naturally - she becomes the prime suspect in a murder investigation.

This was Stanwyck's second role as a showgirl in as many years (the other being in Howard Hawks' 1941 feature Balls of Fire), and she is joined by Michael O'Shea as her romantic interest, comedian Biff Brannigan. With elements of comedy in addition to song and dance routines, Lady of Burlesque remains an entertaining and suspenseful film, albeit somewhat dated by today's standards.



Embed courtesy of Internet Archive.

Click here to view all previous entries in our Movies... For Free! collection.

Movies... For Free! Dementia 13 (1963)

Welcome to this week's "Movies... For Free!" column, where we showcase classic movies freely available in the public domain (with streaming video!). Read the article and watch the movie right here!


Dementia 13, 1963.

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
Starring Luana Anders, Patrick Magee, Eithne Dunne and William Campbell.

A scheming widow Louise Haloran (Luana Anders) pretends that her husband John is still alive in order to manipulate her way into her rich mother-in-law's will. Visiting the family's castle in Ireland, Louise discovers that Lady Haloran (Eithne Dunne) is wrought with guilt following the death of her daughter Kathleen many years before, and sets about a ploy to convince the elderly lady that Kathleen is attempting to contact her from beyond the grave. However Louise gets more than she bargained for when she is brutally slain by an axe-murderer, and it is up to family doctor Justin Caleb (Patrick Magee) to unravel the mystery and find the killer.

Produced by b-movie maestro Roger Corman, Dementia 13 is a low-budget horror and marks the feature debut of acclaimed filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. Initially working as a sound man on location in Ireland for Corman's 1963 release The Young Racers (also starring Anders, Magee and William Campbell), Coppola was offered the opportunity to remain in Ireland and use the leftover budget to produce his own violent and bloody thriller, with Corman keen for something along the lines of Hitchcock's Psycho (1960).

Coppola and Corman clashed over the final film with the producer wanting more gore and a longer running time. Corman employed another of his proteges, Monte Hellman, to direct a five minute prologue that had little to do with the narrative (not included in this version), and an additional death scene was filmed by exploitation director Jack Hill. The final movie was released to mixed reviews with the rushed production criticised heavily (the screenplay was written in just three days), although Coppola was also praised for his inventive direction, hinting at what he would later come to achieve.



Embed courtesy of Internet Archive.

Click here to view all previous entries in our Movies... For Free! collection.