Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Little Laura And Big John (1973)

What we have here is a low budget ripoff of Bonnie And Clyde. Instead of the Barrow Gang this one follows the life, crimes and death of the John Ashly Gang, not to be mistaken for John Ashly from all those Philippines Beast Of Blood movies. Nope, this John Ashly is played by a actor named Fabian Forte and hes not even worth talking about. The real star here is Karen Black and she doesn't do a very good job either. Karen plays Little Laura, John Ashly's girlfriend and she helps take part in the bank robberies and some of the gangs other exploits. Unlike Bonnie And Clyde the female character is the one to blame for all the misfortune that will come. Big John Ashly finds himself in a whole world of trouble from the beginning because he tries to please Little Laura.
This film really let me down because it had one of the coolest opening scenes I have seen in a long time. It opens up in New York with mobsters being mowed down in the streets with Tommy Guns. It almost started off like a trailer with fast paced action shoot outs and cars flipping over all with a voice over narration. The film goes down hill from here on. Most of the film takes place in Florida and its kind of hard to get into a mobster flick with palm trees and white beaches all over the place. I was also let down because I am a huge fan of Bonnie And Clyde (1967) with Fay Dunaway and Warren Beatty. This one rips it off in every way possible and still manages to be awful right down to the infamous nihilistic shootout ending. Another thing that really bothered me about this one is the soundtrack. The music was so discombobulated, it made no sense at all. First we would be listening to a old time 20's ragtime piece and then it would go to 70's funk-a-dellic fuzz guitar that sounded like it should be out of a Blaxploitation flick. Then for the car chase scenes we had some Blue Grass that sounded like it was lifted right out of Bonnie And Clyde and the next sequence would have some awful song that sounds like a Carpenters track. Aside from the crap soundtrack the audio was all off on the print that I have. Everything sounds muffled and oddly enough it helped make the action scenes even worse. Don't waste your time on this one. Stick to Bonnie And Clyde!

7 comments:

  1. Is this the same Karen Black of the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black?

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  2. I don't like this movie or that band

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  3. I only have 2 songs from the band. The music is alright but her lyrics are kinda retarded. I know she's Mama Firefly in House of 1,000 corpses and that the actress from this movie & House of 1,000 corpses is also a "singer" & that Karen Black of the Voluptuous Horror is an "actress" but I haven't found anything mentions all these together. BTW, how do you or I know about comments we've posted or responded to? Is there some sort of notification cos I didn't get any kind if so. I just assumed you responsded.

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  4. The lead singer of THE VOLUPTUOUS HORROR OF KAREN BLACK is performance artist Kembra Pfahler who was in some Nick Zedd movies and also sang back up on some of GG Allins recordings. The band is awesome but not for their music just for the fucked up stage show they put on.

    Karen Black, the actress has written and recorded some stuff here and there but is mainly just an actress.

    And yes you can set it so you're notified by email if someone replies to your messages.

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  5. Well thanks for clearin that all up, Steve. I figured you'd have ALL the answers. Options: Site Settings: Messaging then check "Allow site members to send messages to your email address" to be notified, yes? Sorry, I've only recently started following blogs, and even then it's mostly been to just download shit.

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  6. There's a subscribe button down below these comments. You just have to click that.

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  7. Yeah THE VOLUPTUOUS HORROR OF KAREN BLACK is visually so apealing. I just couldn't give a shit for the music at all.
    I remember Steve and I went to a Nick Zedd screening in Brooklyn and we watched some doumentary type film on the band and also a few short films invoving them.

    I love the actress Karen Black. Shes visually appealing too.

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