iplkamlaagro

[loveboatinsanity]

[oldshowbiz]

April 1964.

General Motors tried to kill an episode of Bonanza that dealt with racism.

[grandmastv]

Bonanza, Enter Thomas Bowers (1964).

[mademoiselleclipon]

Ena Hartman / Jet Magazine

[cultfaction]

Preview- Terminal Island (Bluray)

Preview- Terminal Island (Bluray)

Directed by Stephanie Rothman, Terminal Island stars Phyllis Davis, Tom Selleck, Marta Kristen, Ena Hartman, Roger E. Mosley, and Don Marshall. In the movie Carmen Simms has just been sentenced to death; that is, life imprisonment on Terminal Island – an island located miles off the mainland of California, which was created to house murderers and vicious criminals in the wake of prison…

[detroitlib]

Happy Birthday Ena Hartman! (April 1, 1935)

Portrait of actress Ena Hartman in the television show, "Dan August." Label on back: "CBS, exclusive to you in your city. Dan August. Ena Hartman stars as homicide bureau secretary Kay Grant, in 'Dan August,' the action-filled series to be presented Wednesdays (8:00-9:00 PM, EDT) on the CBS Television Network, beginning May 23. Subject: Ena Hartman. Program: Dan August. On air: Wednesday, May 23, 8:00-9:00 PM, EDT. Photo Division, CBS Television Network Press Information, 51 West 52 Street, New York, New York 10019. 5/4/73." 

Courtesy of the E. Azalia Hackley Collection of African Americans in the Performing Arts, Detroit Public Library

[mrfat-wvideo-blog]

Ena Hartman, Sean Kenney, and Phyllis Davis on the set of "Terminal Island" (1973) directed by Stephanie Rothman * * * * * Terminal Island is now available in our Facebook store! (http://bit.ly/2rgRFKZ)

[redshirtgal]

Who is this lady? Do you remember the story about the movie The Velvet Vampire and the connection to the three TOS guest stars? This is a photo of the director who was mentioned, Stephanie Rothman.  Ms. Rothman possessed above average talent as a student of film at the University of Southern California. Despite being mentored by Bernard Cantor, the chairman of the cinema department at USC and being the first female awarded a Directors Guild of America fellowship, she could not find work in Hollywood until Roger Corman gave her a job as his assistant. From there, she began writing and directing films for him. Corman’s films are filled with violence, blood, and lots of nudity, semi-nudity, and sexual suggestiveness. However, Stephanie managed to put her own stamp on the films she made while in his film studio. Many of her main characters are strong women who make their own way and become leaders instead of just being there as sex objects. Certainly we saw that in The Velvet Vampire. And we are going to continue her story by discussing two more movies she directed, one while she was still employed by Roger Corman and one done by a film production company she helped create herself. And of course they are only being brought up because their main stars also appeared as guest stars or extras on The Original Series.

Actually, The Student Nurses was Stephanie Rothman’s directorial debut (remember The Velvet Vampire was her second). This also could be considered an exploitation film, but Rothman did manage to turn it into  a coming of age story about four young women who each find a different path while maintaining their friendships. And there is one particular student nurse we are interested in.

This young lady. In The Student Nurses, her name is Lynn. Her character becomes radicalized after working in a Chicano neighborhood. But we know her better as Tula, the daughter of Reger in “The Return of the Archons” who becomes traumatized during the events of “The Red Hour.” Both characters were played by Brioni Farrell, an actress who achieved minor success in television and film. But hold on… we’re not done with Stephanie Rothman. There is one more movie she directed in 1973 that had two former TOS actors. (Three if you want to count an almost star)

Terminal Island was the first movie Ms. Rothman directed that was not financed by Roger Corman. Instead, it was made by Dimension Pictures, in which Stephanie Rothman and her husband had a minority share. Its formula did not vary much from the ones used in her previous films. Terminal Island is also very much an exploitation film, even with its modicum of a story line. And it’s got all the trademark violence of most prison movies. But as usual in Rothman’s movies, the female characters wind up being much more likeable than the males and more than hold their own. So where are our Star Trek connections?

  As it so happens, they are both males - and coincidentally, leaders of the two opposing groups in this film. Sean Kenney appears as Bobby, the tyrannical ruler of Terminal Island, where hardened and violent prisoners wind up now that there is no death penalty in California (according to the story). Along with his enforcer, a muscleman named Monk ( a pre-Magnum P.I.Roger Mosley), Bobby forces the males to work as slave labor and the women to serve the sexual needs of his own men as well as himself. Under that hardened exterior lies a young man we knew in The Original Series as Lt. DePaul in several episodes and as the disfigured Captain Pike in the two part “The Menagerie.” Could the two parts be any more polar opposites than they are?

Don Marshall plays A.J., the leader of a small band of less violent inmates who manage to sneak the newest arrivals (mainly female, it appears) over to their side of the island. They all plot to undermine and eventually defeat Bobby and Monk for good.  Even under all that facial hair and a well-groomed Afro, observant Star Trek fans should recognize him as Lt. Boma. Boma was the obnoxious member of the landing party in “The Galileo Seven” who was constantly questioning Spock’s decisions in an insubordinate manner. Maybe Boma wasn’t exactly a bad guy and A. J. isn’t entirely a good guy (just in this situation), but again, it seems Don Marshall certainly played two entirely different personalities.

Two other somewhat interesting side notes here : A) one of the female leads in this movie was a young black actress named Ena Hartman who was one of the finalists for the part of Uhura. She has already been the basis of an article written when this blog first started.

B) this was one of the first Hollywood roles for Tom Selleck who played a doctor working for the good guys in Terminal Island. Seven years later he and Mosley (who was the bad guy Monk in this film) would go on to star together in Magnum, P.I. Once a good guy, always a good guy in this case. Now it is not entirely unusual for a director to wind up with several TOS actors in a single non-related film despite never having worked with them before. But how often did you ever see a fairly unknown female director working with at least seven TOS actors over the course of three different films? Bet the odds are long

[lifejustgotawkward]

365 Day Movie Challenge (2017) - #21: Terminal Island (1973) - dir. Stephanie Rothman (52 Films by Women 2017: #3)

Terminal Island is one of those movies that I both love and loathe in equal measure. Stephanie Rothman, a protégée of independent cinema master Roger Corman, directed seven films between 1966 and 1974, with such enticing titles as It’s a Bikini World, The Student Nurses, The Velvet Vampire and Group Marriage. (I’ve seen The Velvet Vampire, and while I don’t remember much except that it was really silly and not particularly scary for a horror B-movie, star Celeste Yarnall - Star Trek TOS fans would recognize her as Yeoman Martha Landon from the episode “The Apple” - was effective as the film’s beautiful and immortal seductress.) Stephanie Rothman was not an auteur on the level of Doris Wishman, but not every weird director can be a mad genius, right?

Terminal Island is standard exploitation fare, concerning the struggle for warring factions of male and female prisoners to stay alive on the island where they are imprisoned and left to their own devices. (In case you wondered whether Stephanie Rothman used her screenplay, which she co-wrote with then-husband Charles S. Swartz and with Jim Barnett, to make any important statements about the criminal justice system - nope, not really.) Still, the somewhat decent cast includes Tom Selleck as a doctor who gets high on powdered wild mimosa, plus Star Trek TOS alums Sean Kenney and Don Marshall, as well as Ena Hartman in the role of our primary protagonist. Oh, and since this is a women-in-prison flick from the 70s, it should come as no great shock that there are plenty of breasts on display. In the end, maybe you just can’t say no to a film in which a baddie is blown up (don’t ask me to explain how) while doing his business in an outhouse - this is an island without a plumbing system, but I digress - and one of the good guys comments on the blazing remains with a shake of the head and an anti-zinger worthy of David Caruso: “That dude just took his last crap.”

[loveboatinsanity]

[oldshowbiz]

Ena Hartman broke the color line in 1964 to become the first Black actor with a regular lead in a network series. She was a prolific television presence during Hollywood’s mini-Black renaissance from 1964 through 1974.

[mademoiselleclipon]

Ena Hartman

[mdsc951]

“Ena Hartman is an unsung trailblazer of Hollywood whose smaller roles in 1960s media productions helped create a path for African Americans in film and television." "African-American actresses working in the 1970s benefited from the trail Hartman helped blaze.” (at Black Hollywood BCI) https://www.instagram.com/p/CeObe8vLbBm/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[zombiesdontrundotnet]

Terminal Island (1973) (DVD Review)

Terminal Island (1973) (DVD Review)

Terminal Island (1973) (DVD Review) Directed By: Stephanie Rothman Starring: Don Marshall, Phyllis Davis, Ena Hartman Rated: R 18+/Region: 4( Will play on US player)/Widescreen/Number of Discs: 1 Available From Umbrella Entertainment

America in the near future, the Supreme Court drops the death penalty in favour of an initiative that designates San Bruno island as a dumping spot for first-degree…

[detroitlib]

Portrait of actress Ena Hartman in the television show, "Prudence Crandall." Label on back: "NBC Color Television, exclusive to you in your city. Student. Ena Hartman co-stars in 'Prudence Crandall,' story of a school teacher who defied a New England town's intolerance in 1833 to integrate her private school, on NBC-TV's 'Profiles in courage,' Sunday, Feb. 21 (6:30-7:30 p.m. EST). Miss Hartman portrays Ann Eliza Hammond, one of several Negro students whom Miss Crandall enrolls in her school, with the result that she faces the loss of her other students and outrages the town's citizens. (2/8/65). NBC-TV caption. Subject: Ena Hartman. Program: 'Prudence Crandall' drama on 'Profiles in courage.' Time: NBC-TV Sunday, Feb. 21 (6:30-7:30 p.m. EST)." 1965.  

Courtesy of the E. Azalia Hackley Collection of African Americans in the Performing Arts, Detroit Public Library

[mrfat-wvideo-blog]

Tom Selleck in Terminal Island

****

Four women convicted of first-degree murder are condemned to a government-designated dumping ground on San Bruno Island. They are free to do anything: except leave. With no laws and killers all around, they are forced to commit extreme acts of violence and depravity.

Witness it here! http://amzn.to/2k5664j