Search - Graveyard Tramps on DVD

"Just think about it boys...coming and going at the same tim

cookieman108 | Inside the jar... | 12/01/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Graveyard Tramps (1973) aka Invasion of the Bee Girls...I have no idea where the alternate title `Graveyard Tramps' came from, but it's pretty awful in terms of not being relatable to the film since it implies something completely different than what the feature actually is, a really goofy mad scientist type movie (Graveyard Tramps implies to me zombie prostitutes). I will say there is a bit in a graveyard (a short funeral sequence) and plenty of seemingly trampy female characters, but the original title is much more applicable. Directed by Denis Sanders (Shock Treatment), the film stars Anitra Ford (The Big Bird Cage), an original `The Price is Right' model, and William Smith (Any Which Way You Can, Hell Comes to Frogtown), probably best known for his late 1960s/early 1970s motorcycle drive-in flicks Run, Angel, Run (1969), Nam's Angels (1970), and Chrome and Hot Leather (1971). Also appearing is former Playmate of the Year (1968) Victoria Vetri (When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth), Cliff Osmond (Sweet Sugar), Anna Aries (The Omega Man), and Jack Perkins (Night Shift).

Something odd is going down in the small town of Peckham, California, specifically seemingly healthy men are turning up dead due to heart attacks induced by too much copulating (of all the ways to bite it, death between the sheets don't sound all that bad...). Anyway, one of the corpses is a scientist who works at a gooberment funded research facility, so in the name of national security, some uppity ups in Washington send along special agent Neil Agar (Smith) to see what's what. Upon arriving Neil checks in with the local sheriff named Captain Jim Peters (Osmond) before heading out to the research facility and hooking up with a top-heavy blonde scientist named Julie Zorn (Vetri). More bodies begin turning up, and Neil learns most of the scientists entertain themselves during the off hours by swapping wives and such...it's a groovy scene, man...anyway, Neil, unsure if the recent spate of unexplained deaths are due to some form of virulent venereal disease, decides to quarantine the town (the military shows up to block the roads), and one scientist suggests those still among the living practice abstinence until the root cause is determined, which doesn't go down well with the local yokels (apparently the town offers little in the way of leisure activities). The bodies continue to pile up and Neil eventually gets a lead on a leggy scientist named Dr. Susan Harris (Ford), whose work involves something to do with bees. As it turns out, she's been busy creating a legion of comely automaton creatures, complete with black eyeballs, for reasons as yet undisclosed, who have a penchant for shacking up with the local male population and sexing them up to death. The good news is they don't seem all that picky about whom they bed, the downside being whomever they hook up with ends up taking a dirt nap (there's always a catch). Eventually Neil gets the goods on Harris and her Foster Grant sunglasses wearing, honeybee cabal, but it may be too late as Harris and her minions continue their `pollinating' ways...

While this film suffers in a number of different ways (goofy plot, low production values, intermittent storyline), it excels generally in being just a whole lot of fun, especially if you dig on bargain basement science fiction...oh yeah, it also has a whole lot of female nekkidness, something which I wasn't really expecting, but it certainly helped in terms of keeping my attention. Every main female character (along with quite a few minor ones) gets nekkid at some point or other, offering up a generous helping of sleaze, something I can appreciate especially given some of the women appearing in the film. Perhaps the most delectable was Anitra Ford (check out them gams) as at one point she performs a striptease prior to putting it to one lucky, soon to be deceased, male character. There's another scene, one involving the Bee women transforming a recent widow into one of their own, and after the process a number of them start opening their shirts and fondling themselves in almost ritualistic fashion. Whoever cast William Smith in this film deserves some credit as he brings along a lot of experience given his extensive work within the world of low budget films. The man has undeniable appeal and a definite screen presence, enough so to make me wonder why he never really moved into the realm super stardom. Perhaps it was for the best, as talents helped in adding a certain amount of credibility towards any number of low budget features that would have suffered in his absence. As far as the rest of the performers, they were good enough given the material, perhaps a couple who stood out more than most for me being character actor Cliff Osmond (who played the sheriff) and Anitra Ford, who's incredibly beautiful. The latter may have not won any awards for her abilities (in terms of acting), but I did feel there was more to her than just a pretty face and a smoking body. I think another thing that helped this movie a lot was it felt like the filmmakers never really took anything too seriously. The production seems pretty loose, which actually works here, at least in my opinion. And I'll say this, some of the science aspects of the story actually sounded realistic, even if the transformation process was hokey as hell. I did feel the feature could have used a little more action, especially given the fact William Smith was the main, male character, but whatever...

It appears there are a few, different DVD releases by a few, different companies, out there of this film, but the one I have is the one released by Brentwood Home Video. The picture, presented in fullscreen (1.33:1), is shoddy and murky, especially during the scenes that occur at night. The audio, on the other hand, comes across well. There aren't any extras, but there are all of about six chapter stops. I noticed one of the other DVD releases lists prominently on the cover that Claudia Jennings stars in the film, but that's a mistake as she doesn't appear anywhere in the film, as far as I can tell.

Cookieman108

By the way, I really enjoyed end credit sequence, as displayed are visuals of bees flying about some flowers, all to the tune of Also Sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spake Zarathustra), the theme featured in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). It felt fitting in a way I'm unable to describe.
"

Great movie, so-so print.

Nostalgic for the '50s | 04/29/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Originally released in most locations under the title INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS (which is certainly much more appropriate to the storyline), this has always been one of my favorite science-fiction "skin flicks" of the 1970s' (with a fun and raunchy plot). Unfortunately, the print on this DVD is fairly grainy and quite dark, making many of the night scenes almost indecipherable (were those "[...]" I saw or not?), but, then again, what should I expect for less than four bucks? 5 stars for the movie, 1 star for the print = 3 stars."