Mid West Pioneers

WILLIAM GIRDLER

The Manitou(1978)
Director: William Girdler
Running time: 104 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Stars: Tony Curtis, Susan Strasberg, Michael Ansara, Ann Southern, Burgess Meredith, Stella Stevens

A 400-year-old Indian spirit gets himself resurrected through a fetus on a young woman’s  neck.  The final film for Kentucky director William Girdler who was killed in a helicopter accident shortly after it was made.  Based on a novel by Graham Masterson.

Abby(1974)
Director: William Girdler
Running time: 92 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Stars: Carol Speed, William Marshall, Terry Carter, Austin Stoker, Juanita Moore.

Speed, the wife of minister Carter and daughter-in-law of minister Marshall, finds herself possessed in this black variation of “The Exorcist,” which Warner Brothers found so close to its hit film that they sued and had the film pulled within two weeks of its release.  Directed by Kentucky’s William Girdler

K. GORDON MURRAY

Shanty Tramp (1967)
Director: Joseph P. Mawra (as Joseph G. Prieto)
Running time: 72 minutes
Stars: Lee Holland, Bill Rogers, Lawrence Tobin

A loose woman out on the prowl causes trouble for everyone she meets.  Included in her schemes are a sadistic motorcycle gang, a virtuous black kid, a crooked tent-revival preacher and her own alcoholic father.  When he wasn’t presenting kiddie fantasies, K. Gordon Murray produced and wrote the story for this B-movie romp where the sleaze is as thick as the summer night it all takes place in.  Filmed in Florida.

Santa Claus (1959)
Director: Rene Cardona
Running time: 94 minutes
Stars: Jose Elias Moreno, Cesareo Quezadas Pulgarato, Jose Luis Aguirre ‘Trotsky’, Armando Arriola, Lupita Quezadas

Santa Claus enlists the help of Merlin The Magician to defeat the Devil in his plans to ruin Christmas.  K. Gordon Murray presented this as a “children’s classic” for nearly two decades and made a bundle of money every time.  A bizarre, yet colorful, romp that was also featured on the cable show “Mystery Science Theatre 3000.”

KROGER BABB

Child Bride (1938)
Director: Harry Reiver
Running time: 62 minutes
Stars: Shirley Mills, Bob Bollinger, Warner Richman, Diana Darrell, Dorothy Carrol, George Humphries, Angello Rossito (as Don Barrett)

An idealistic schoolteacher in the Ozarks is determined to stop the practice of child marriage in which older men marry teen or preteen girls.  Meanwhile, one man sees a young girl swimming and uses this to blackmail her mother into letting him marry her.  This was one of director Harry Reiver’s last pictures.  Prior to this, he directed low budget features and the serial “The Lost City” (1935).  Kroger Babb distributed and toured with this picture under the title “Dust to Dust.”  He also met his wife Mildred while he was distributing it.  She called it “the most atrocious thing I ever saw.”  Today, it’s considered a camp classic.

Monika Story of a Bad Girl (1953)
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Running time: 62 minutes (USA edited version)

Kroger Babb took this early effort from famed Swedish director Ingmar Bergman about two bored teenagers who fall in love and decide to spend the summer together and cut a third of its 96-minute running time.  Then he cut the film to emphasize the nudity and presented the film to exploitation audiences.  The things America’s Master Showman” would do.