Linda and Abilene

In the 19th century, siblings Abilene and Tod, orphaned on their western farm, become attracted to each other, sexually. The confused Tod fleas to a nearby town where he meets Linda, a local bar girl, and begins a sexual relationship with her, while a rough cowboy, named Rawhide, sexually assaults Abilene.

This odd little movie was filmed at the Spahn Movie Ranch and stars the Manson family associate, Bill Vance. This makes it memorable, as does the directing of H. G. Lewis. Now, had anyone else shot it, this would be completely disposable, smutty fluff. But Lewis fans will want to see what other projects the "godfather of gore" was involved in.

As for Spahn Ranch, that is a whole other story entirely.

Linda and Abilene (1969)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

After the death of their parents, brother and sister Todd (Kip Marsh) and Abilene (Sharon Matt) begin to have sexual feelings for one another. After about 39-minutes running time they two find themselves in bed, on the farm, in the creek and various other places as their sexual desires are finally fulfilled. The only problem is that Todd goes to town one day leaving his sister behind and when she's raped the big brother goes for revenge. Herschell Gordon Lewis directed this softcore Western and it's a pretty forgettable affair outside the subject matter, a rather hot lesbian scene and a bit of history it has. This film was shot on the Spahn Ranch right around the same time as all the Manson stuff so people might be interested in seeing what the ranch looked like back then. These locations actually give the film an authentic Western look, which is certainly one of the better things in the picture. As the title gives away, Abilene eventually finds more sex through a relationship with Linda and this sequence here is certainly the highlight of the picture. Performances are pretty much what you'd expect from a film like this but Matt is cute enough to help carry the film up to a point. It is rather funny to see her struggle trying to get out of all those old-fashioned dresses. There are a couple times where it appears she's having trouble getting them off! What really keeps this movie from being better is its incredibly slow pacing, which just keeps the film dragging on and on. At 93-minutes the film really could have been cut down by a good fifteen-minutes and especially since so much time is just leading up to the brother and sister finally getting it on.

This flick was supposed to be lost until early 2013 when it was discovered together with two other sexploitations made by Herschell Gordon Lewis. He used a synonym to direct and produce those flicks but finally they are out for the geeks of the genre, they are even out on Blu Ray.

Were as Ecstasies Of Women from the same year was entertaining this was rather a slow moving flick. And the acting was rather laughable and stiff. The story itself is about a brother Todd (Kip Marsch) and his sister Abilene (Sharon Matt) living orphaned on a farm. When Abilene goes for a walk and come across some water she undresses and enjoys the water but her brother is peeping tom and start to get feelings for her. Abilene is aware of him looking and is also getting feelings for him and one evening when she's naked she screams and Todd enters. From there on they have love. But after a while Todd wants to get to know other women, and so he's off to a bar were Linda (Bambi Allen) seduces him and they have sex after a while. Funny to see how hard it was for Bambi to get undressed. The next day Linda goes to the farm to have sex with Todd but she comes across Abilene just being raped. You could see it coming miles away, a lesbian sex scene.

I was searching for Lewis lost flicks and especially this one for only one reason. It was shot at the Spahn Ranch, just in the period that Charles Manson was hiring the ranch to commit his Tate-Labianca murders on August 9th and 10th, 1969. In 1970 the ranch was destroyed by a fire.

A rather tame sexploitation and really boring acting especially in the beginning. And it also contains a lot of flew shots and bad sound (the hsoot out at the end)There's nudity to spot of course here and there but i found Ecstasies better. But this is notorious due the Spahn ranch fact. And have a close look at the close-up of Bambi's breasts, it's clear to see that they were fake.

Gore 0/5 Nudity 2,5/5 Effects 0/5 Story 1/5 Comedy 0/5