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Chris Robinson, best known as Dr. Rick Webber on the ABC soap opera “General Hospital,” died in his sleep on June 9 at his home near Sedona, Ariz., actor Mj Allen announced in a Facebook post, writing, “He had been in heart failure for some time, and is his official cause of death.” Robinson was 86.

“General Hospital’s enduring legacy owes a debt of gratitude to Chris Robinson and his portrayal of Dr. Rick Webber. Our hearts go out to his family and friends as they mourn their loss. May he rest in peace,” the show posted on X.

The Florida native began his career in the late 1950s as a stunt actor in such films as “Diary of a High School Bride” from teen cult film producer/director Burt Topper and the horror crime film “Beast From Haunted Cave.” He spent the ‘60s making guest appearances on many TV series,...

Wally Campo, the Roger Corman regular who did his best Det. Joe Friday impersonation as Sgt. Joe Fink — and also served as the narrator — in the original The Little Shop of Horrors, has died. He was 99.

Campo died Jan. 14 of natural causes in Studio City, his son, musician Tony Campodonico, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Campo also played a goofball in Monte Hellman‘s Beast From Haunted Cave (1959) and appeared for director Burt Topper in Hell Squad (1958), Tank Commandos (1959) — where he was top-billed — and the Victor Buono-starring The Strangler (1964).

Campo showed up in the Corman-directed Machine-Gun Kelly (1958), Ski Troop Attack (1960) and Tales of Terror (1962) and in the Corman-produced Devil’s Angels (1967). Many of his movies were made at the filmmaker’s low-budget American International Pictures.

His acting credits also included Edward Dmytryk’s Warlock (1959), the Vincent Price-starring Master of the World (1961) and Shock Corridor (1963), directed by Sam Fuller.

Born...

By Lee Pfeiffer

Kino Lorber continues its alliance with niche market video label Scorpion Releasing with a Blu-ray edition of the largely forgotten 1969 action/adventure flick "The Devil's 8". The film typifies the kind of movie that simply doesn't exist any more: a low-budget production designed for fast playoff and modest profits. Back in the day, studios depended on movies such as these to be important to their bottom line. It's in stark contrast to today's film industry where seemingly every release is intended to be a blockbuster with production costs so high that some flicks have to gross close to a billion dollars to be considered financially successful. "The Devil's 8" is pretty much what you might expect simply by examining the sleeve. Typical of these types of movies, it presents a cast of reputable character actors who get meatier roles than they usually did in more prestigious productions. The script...

Psycho and Peeping Tom (both 1960) scorched the horror landscape and proffered new skin for the ceremony; these films looked at the monster within, the one unaffected by nuclear power yet obliterated by the implosion of the nuclear family. In their wake came numerous “tributes” including The Strangler (1964), a lurid tale given wings by a knockout performance from Victor Buono as the titular villain; you simply can’t avert your eyes from him. Even if you dare to.

Released April 1st by Allied Artists Pictures, The Strangler did receive a notice from Variety that reads in part, “There’s always a place on the screen for a fat man who can act”. Oh ‘64, you really weren’t that long ago, were you? Obnoxious, tone-deaf reviews aside, it is a compact little thriller that doesn’t necessarily deepen the discussion around mental illness, but offers a longer look for the viewer invested...

Lili Rosson, an actress from a notable Hollywood family who had small parts in North by Northwest, Some Came Running and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, has died. She was 87.

Rosson died June 27 at a nursing facility in Los Altos, California, her daughter, Christa, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Her lone credit listed on IMDb is as a character named Lydia in the low-budget drama The Diary of a High School Bride (1959), directed by Burt Topper for American International Pictures.

However, her daughter said Rosson was on the scene as a bystander when Cary Grant's Roger Thornhill is "...

Lili Rosson, an actress from a notable Hollywood family who had small parts in North by Northwest, Some Came Running and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, has died. She was 87.

Rosson died June 27 at a nursing facility in Los Altos, California, her daughter, Christa, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Her lone credit listed on IMDb is as a character named Lydia in the low-budget drama The Diary of a High School Bride (1959), directed by Burt Topper for American International Pictures.

However, her daughter said Rosson was on the scene as a bystander when Cary Grant's Roger Thornhill is "...

Shelley Winters, Christopher Jones and Diane Varsi star in American-International's most successful 'youth rebellion' epic -- a political sci-fi satire about a rock star whose opportunistic political movement overthrows the government and puts everyone over 35 into concentration camps... to be force-fed LSD. Wild in the Streets Blu-ray Olive Films 1968 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 97 min. / Street Date August 16, 2016 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98 Starring Shelley Winters, Christopher Jones, Diane Varsi, Hal Holbrook, Millie Perkins, Richard Pryor, Bert Freed, Kevin Coughlin, Larry Bishop, Michael Margotta, Ed Begley, May Ishihara. Cinematography Richard Moore Film Editor Fred Feitshans Jr., Eve Newman Original Music Les Baxter Written by Robert Thom from his short story "The Day it All Happened, Baby" Produced by Burt Topper Directed by Barry Shear

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Back around 1965 - 1966 we endured this stupid buzzword concept called The Generation Gap, a notion that there was a natural divide between old people and their kids.

Lock your doors! Hulking menace Victor Buono gets the full-on psycho treatment, based (very) roughly on early reports of The Boston Strangler. The 'baby doll' killer also prefigures the fiendish Richard Speck. Burt Topper's film is routine but ex- Baby Jane star Victor Buono's performance is decidedly not. The Strangler DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1964 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 89 min. / Street Date November 10, 2015 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Victor Buono, Diane Sayer, Davey Davison, Jeanne Bates, Ellen Corby, Mimi Dillard, Selette Cole, David McLean, Baynes Barron, Michael Ryan, Russ Bender, Wally Campo, Byron Morrow, John Yates, James Sikking, Robert Cranford. Cinematography Jacques R. Marquette Film Editor Robert S. Eisen Original Music Martin Skiles Written by Bill S. Ballinger Produced by Samuel Bischoff, David Diamond Directed by Burt Topper

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The old-time independent producer Edward Small gravitated to United Artists in the 1950s, while his counterpart...

Mandingo, a 1975 movie based on the best-selling period potboiler by Kyle Onstott about sexual shenanigans between masters and slaves on the Falconhurst slave-breeding plantation, was savaged by critics who saw it as nothing but degrading, big-budget exploitation. Roger Ebert called it “racist trash”, a “piece of manure”, and “excruciating to sit through”. Mandingo certainly had it all; brutal violence, interracial sex, rape, infanticide, lynchings, and abundant nudity including full-frontal shots of it’s male star, boxer Ken Norton. But of course it was a huge hit and inspired a brief run of “slaverysploitation” films such as Passion Plantation (1975 aka Black Emmanuelle, White Emmanuelle ) and the cleverly titled Mandiga (1976). Mandingo was overwrought melodrama to be sure, but it’s a model of subtlety compared to its official sequel, the more lascivious Drum, a mean-spirited trash epic from 1976 that would never fly in today’s politically correct climate. Despite its spaghetti western trappings,...

All The Critics Love You In [Name Of European City Here]:

"It is just a little bit weird that if I appear in Europe, anywhere, and I go often—to teach, to festivals, when and where there are retrospectives of my work (I’ll go almost anywhere I’ve never been before, because I like to travel)—that I find a great deal of interest in my work. On the other hand these pictures are never discussed, never shown, nor are the other filmmakers involved in them...in America. Which led me to develop a kind of 'Fuck America' attitude. They don’t want to have anything to do with me, I won’t have anything to do with them."

—Director Bob Rafelson, in conversation with the author, 4/9/10

"[Henri] Langlois had been struck with admiration for Hawks in 1928—in the silent days, the antiquity of film—when, at the age of 15, he saw Louise Brooks...