Over the years, Balladeer’s Blog has reviewed several of Jorg Buttgereit’s envelope-pushing, taboo-breaking horror films. Because I review everything from the extreme fringes like Buttgereit (at left) to mild, even family-friendly items let me offer a warning for readers who don’t like extreme violence or extreme concepts. If you fall into that category, please DO NOT look up my long-ago reviews of Jorg’s most notorious films and then blast me because the subject matter appalls you. I am giving fair warning about what they’re like.
On the other hand, all readers might enjoy THIS look at some of Buttgereit’s much lighter – but still bizarre – productions, many from his days of guerilla film-making in West Berlin, covertly pulling off some footage on both sides of the Berlin Wall.
CAPTAIN BERLIN: RETTER DER WELT (1982) – Buttgereit was only 18 when he made this 10-minute short film. He wrote, directed and played the title superhero with Bela B. from the German punk band Die Ärzte co-starring as Mister Synth. This work about West Berlin’s only superhero fighting a monster from outer space is of interest only because of Buttgereit’s and Bela’s involvement.
Jorg’s youth and inexperience show in this fun, anarchic but amateurish effort. Back when this flick was first made, its satirical combination of Adam West’s Batman series with the low-budget charm of Ray Dennis Steckler’s Rat Pfink a Boo Boo and a “piss off” punk sensibility earned it a cult following. Here in 2023, such intentional camp has been done to death.
Decades later, Buttgereit would revive the Captain Berlin character in one of his stage show-radio show hybrids, titled Captain Berlin versus Hitler. That production – which I will review at some point in the future – was eventually filmed and released to theaters and on dvd.
HORROR HEAVEN (1984) – Jorg starred as an old-fashioned Horror Movie Host introducing several horror shorts of his own making in this 24-minute project. Buttgereit structured it as a salute to Boris Karloff but with some gore thrown in.
This production at last showed the flashes of genius in the future auteur with shorts about mummies, Frankenstein, a cannibal girl and Gazorra, a stop-motion item sending up Godzilla movies and starring Daktari Lorenz. Continue reading
THE FOURTH REICH (1990) – This film’s greatest obstacle to greater renown is its own title. Anyone coming across the title The Fourth Reich will quite reasonably assume it’s a B-movie about Nazi war criminals in hiding trying to resurrect their rightfully defeated cause. 
THE FOURTH REICH deals with South African boxer Robey Leibbrandt, who participated in the 1936 Olympics where he met and shook the hand of Adolf Hitler. Leibbrandt was strangely impressed with Hitler and his philosophy of hatred, and after becoming South Africa’s Heavyweight Boxing Champion in 1937 he returned to Germany in 1938. 
PLEASE DON’T TOUCH ME (Filmed in 1959, released in 1963) – Buy this for the Lash La Rue fan in your life, but mostly for the Ron and June Ormond fan in your life. For people outside of us lovers of Bad Movies I’ll point out that Ron and June Ormond were the famous husband and wife team of low-low-low budget filmmakers. 
Though Please Don’t Touch Me sounds like it would be a sexploitation flick, lurid assault film or Nudie Cutie, rest assured there’s nothing in this 67-minute oddity that your grandmother couldn’t handle. Well, maybe your mother, instead of grandma. 
MYRA BRECKINRIDGE (1970) – This film is based on the novel by Gore Vidal, who once called director John Waters “the pope of trash.” Well, Gore, Waters never had anything to do with Myra Breckinridge in any of its forms, so you have no room to talk. 
First up, a summary of the plot – Myron Breckinridge, played by THE Rex Reed, the famed film critic, is fascinated with Hollywood and is conflicted about his sexuality AND about societal notions of masculinity. Myron believes that the film industry has distorted and perverted masculinity into what would today be called by certain people a “toxic” stew of rabid machismo. 
Next, as Myra Breckinridge instead of Myron, the character goes to Hollywood to work at the acting school run by her uncle – former cowboy star Buck Loner … played by JOHN FREAKING HUSTON! Myra’s plan is to change the way male thespians behave and how men are portrayed in film so that she can destroy the very concept of traditional macho movie heroes forever. 
A MODERN MUSKETEER (1917) – This 68-minute film was released on December 30th, 1917, when Douglas Fairbanks was known for his comedies rather than for his later success as cinema’s first swashbuckling superstar. 
I’m not exaggerating when I say that that opening segment provides almost as many thrills and spectacular stunts as the entirety of Doug’s 1921 serious turn as D’Artagnan in 
THOMASINE & BUSHROD (1974) – The Frontierado Holiday is Friday, August 4th this year, so here is another seasonal post – a review of the black western Thomasine & Bushrod. This tale of a pair of outlaw lovers is a nice change of pace since it is set in the fading Wild West of 1911-1915. Automobiles are beginning to show up here and there, making Thomasine & Bushrod a fascinating fusion of “Robin Hood Outlaw” tales bridging both the old west and the later Pretty Boy Floyd era. 
While collecting the money from her most recent success, Thomasine sees a fresh Wanted poster for her old boyfriend J.P. Bushrod, a gunslinging bank robber and rustler portrayed by Max Julien from the previous year’s blaxploitation hit The Mack. 
THE CLONES (1973) – This neglected sci-fi item from the 70s was directed by Lamar Card & Paul Hunt, based on Hunt’s story. The Clones falls into that category of films that I always refer to as “X-Movies” because of the way they put one in mind of the paranoid and conspiratorial air of the best X-Files episodes. 
Gregory Sierra, best known to trivia buffs as “And Gregory Sierra” for the number of times he was credited like that in various television shows and movies, plays Nemo, a government agent tasked to keep the clone project a secret and bring in the escapee. 
THE MAN FROM PAINTED POST (1917) – Here is another Douglas Fairbanks movie from the years before he became the film world’s premier swashbuckler. Unlike the pure comedy of Fairbanks’ 
THE MYSTERY OF THE LEAPING FISH (1916) – Regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog may remember that I’m a geek for Silent Movies. Last week’s look at 
The short’s comedic approach to cocaine, opium and more demonstrates the “anything goes” attitude before film codes were implemented to ban certain content from the big screen. In the pre-internet years, The Mystery of the Leaping Fish was a film that people refused to believe existed until you had them sit down and watch it with you.
THE MARK OF ZORRO (1920) – Douglas Fairbanks digs into his comedic AND acrobatic skills in this first screen adaptation of Johnston McCully’s masked hero of 1820s California (The Curse of Capistrano had just been published the year before and Fairbanks bought the film rights for United Artists.) 
Excellent fight choreography, heroic opposition to tyranny and the rousing, marathon chase and fight scene near the film’s finale make The Mark of Zorro an absolute must-see for anyone curious about silent movies. Nearly every frame of the film is a portrait.
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