Valentina Cortese & John Saxon in The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963)

Obscurity factor: 6

Keeping with the "woman in danger" thriller theme from yesterday we find Nora (Leticia Roman) visiting Rome to care for a sick aunt. After her aunt dies she is invited to stay in the home of a new acquaintance, Laura (Valentina Cortese) while she's away on vacation. She witnesses a murder, but is told that it must have been a hallucination because the crime had been committed 10 years earlier - part of a grisly series of murders by a serial killer dubbed the Alphabet Killer. As she tries to make sense of it all she begins to suspect she may be the next victim. The only one she can turn to for help is a young doctor (John Saxon), but can she trust him?

Poster source: Wikipedia

This film is part of the Italian Giallo film movement and was directed by Mario Bava. It's very moody and atmospheric and while the story takes some suspension of disbelief to swallow, it has a very stylish quality to it that makes it interesting.

This film, which was renamed The Evil Eye for the American market is available on DVD and can be seen in its entirety on YouTube. Part one is above, uploaded by monster4josh.

Obscurity factor: 6 (available on DVD & YouTube, known to Gaillo fans, largely unknown to the general public)

Faye Dunaway in Eyes of Laura Mars (1978)

Obscurity factor: 3

This film is really more notorious than obscure, but many people haven't seen it, so I thought I'd include it. Laura Mars is a successful fashion photographer in the mold of Helmut Newton. Her images combine the gloss of fashion with violent imagery. When the people she works with start turning up dead, brutally murdered, the police become interested in her work because her fashion photos closely resemble their unpublished crime scene images. As the case develops a strange things starts to happen - Laura begins to have visions of the crimes as seen through the killer's eyes.

This film, which was produced by Jon Peters, while he was still dating Barbra Streisand, is very stylish in both acting style and presentation - so much so that it gets in the way of the story at times. The visuals are really remarkable and worth the price of admission and Faye Dunaway gives a very studied and self consciously serious performance that can be fun to watch. Streisand turned down the role, but ended up recording the theme for the film.

Look for this film on DVD. Above is a featurette filmed during the making of Eyes that is fun to watch, and gives you an idea of what to expect. It was uploaded to YouTube by CyanArea. The poster above is available from MoviePosterShop.com.

Obscurity factor: 3 (Available on DVD, has cult following)

Paul Lynde & Mel Blanc in Where's Huddles (1970)

Obscurity factor: 8

The world of professional football was the setting for this summer replacement series with some similarities to The Flintstones - it had a prime time slot and featured the voice of Wilma Flintstone (Jean Vander Pyl) as Marge, Ed's wife. Best friends Ed Huddles (Cliff Norton) and Bubba McCoy (Blanc) were members of the Rhinos professional football team and lived next door to each other. On the other side of Ed's house lived Claude Pertwee (Lynde), who was always doing his best to throw a wrench into the works of whatever plans were on the table for Ed and Bubba that particular day. Though the character Lynde plays is a not-so-subtle jab at gay men, the series still has some fun moments in it. In the episode below, he's apoplectic about the boys plan to install a pool in Ed's back yard.

Though this series didn't have much of a life after the 10 weeks it played on CBS in the summer of 1970, it did spawn a comic book that ran for 3 issues and can occasionally be seen on the cartoon cable channels. A few episodes are available on YouTube. The one above - The Swimming Hole - was uploaded by patricktoons. The series is not available on DVD.

Obscurity factor: 8 (largely forgotten, not on DVD, on YouTube and occasionally aired on TV)

Lynda Carter & Loni Anderson in Partners in Crime (1984)

Obscurity factor: 8

Yesterday we featured the 1982 crime series, Matt Houston. Today I thought we'd carry the thought through to the female version, sort of. This series was only on for one season, but was worth noting for the paring of the two stars - both still very popular from their recent hit shows (Wonder Woman and WKRP). When private eye Raymond Caufield is killed, his two ex wives Carol (Carter), a photographer and Sydney (Anderson) a con woman and bassist find out that he's left them everything he owned, including his agency. Both of them are struggling to get by, so they decide to try and make a go of it as detectives, with mixed, but entertaining results. Look for veteran character actor Eileen Heckart as Raymond's mother.

This series isn't available on DVD, but you can watch a few episodes on YouTube. The first installment of the pilot is above, uploaded to YouTube by Edster73. Seeing Loni Anderson playing an upright bass is worth watching for.

Obscurity factor: 8 (not on DVD, relatively unknown, available on YouTube)

Lee Horsley in Matt Houston (1982)

Obscurity factor: 6

Detective shows was a big television staple in the 80's. Hart to Hart, Spencer for Hire, Cagney & Lacy... And before Texas so strongly represented one side of the political divide (or at least before I was aware of it) Matt Houston combined elements of all of them. Matt was a fabulously wealthy Texas oil man who spent most of his time in Los Angeles playing at being a private detective - and he played hard at it! His glamorous sidekick (Pamela Hensley) was always there to fill in the necessary information about a case. The action was dramatic - breaking windows, falling cars, running across roofs - and the stories were easy to digest with plot lines you could follow while you made yourself a snack in the radar range. Lee Horsley was quite the show piece, in that mustachioed way that was so popular in the 70's and 80's, and Pamela Hensley was something of a siren herself, and eerily similar to Barbara Stock who played her counterpart on Spencer for Hire. When she show first premiered the opening credits gave a hint to the slightly quirky humor to be found in the series, as you can see in the video below.

The series ran for 3 seasons (I was a devoted viewer as a kid). I was pleased to see that the first of those seasons has been released on DVD. The opening credits above were uploaded to YouTube by bretmaverick2004.

Obscurity factor: 6 (Available on DVD, remembered by some, largely lost to the sands of time)

Irving Rapper Directs The Christine Jorgensen Story (1970)

Obscurity factor: 7

1970 was quite the year for transgendered films. Yesterday's Dinah East reminded me of this biopic about the first transsexual, Christine Jorgensen (John Hansen). It chronicles her life and transition from male to female at a time when sexual roles were highly stereotyped in society. Add to that the fact that this procedure had never been done before and you have a sensation in the making. Jorgensen became a very unwilling subject of media attention and the butt of countless jokes, but her bravery in living out her destiny paved the way for many people to follow.

What's most remarkable to me about this film is that it was directed by Irving Rapper, who directed Now Voyager with Bette Davis. The subject is handled sensitively and the acting is good. The production values are mediocre and the marketing campaign was exploitative. It's worth a look though, as another early attempt at understanding alternative lifestyles.

Trailer provided by Video Detective
This film has yet to be released on DVD, though you can get a copy at iOffer.com and it can be watched in full on Netflix streaming. The trailer is above, uploaded to Video Detective. The poster above is available from MoviePosterShop.com.

Obscurity factor: 7 (not on DVD, available on Netflix, has cult following)

Jeremy Stockwell & Ultra Violet in Dinah East (1970)

Obscurity factor: 9

For years, there was a rumor floating around Hollywood that Mae West was actually a man. In 1970, writer/director Gene Nash turned that rumor into the fictional account of film star Dinah East (Stockwell). She was a popular star in the 1950's, wealthy, successful and when she dies in an automobile accident, it's discovered that she was actually a man. The story of how she came to be who she was is told in flash backs, juxtaposed with the scandal caused by the posthumous discovery.

This film has a rumor associated with it that Mae West sued to have it removed from distribution. I believe that rumor was dispelled, but it certainly created some buzz. It's not a great film by any standards, but it is a remarkably sensitive portrait of a man living as a woman at a time when that sort of thing made you a pariah. There is lots of nudity in the film - both male and female, which gives it an exploitative quality, earning it an X rating, but there's some meat on the sensationalist bones as well.

This film is available on DVD in two separate releases. The trailer above is uploaded to YouTube by VictoriaWarrior.

Obscurity factor: 9 (available on DVD, mostly unknown except by a handful of cult followers)