Hell’s Highway: The True Story of Highway Safety Films

Thanks to Mystery Science Theater 3,000, thousands of viewers gained a weird new appreciation of educational films, from their riffing on Jam Handy shorts. However, when it comes to traffic safety films, Jam Handy’s clean-cut dabbling compare to the films produced by the Highway Safety Foundation as Ed Wood’s corny Bela Lugosi movies do to the explicit Saw and Hostel franchises in the horror genre. Yet, despite the Foundation’s gorier approach, their cautionary films were widely screened in classrooms. Decades later, some former viewers still claim they were traumatized by what they saw, while others collect their films out of eccentric nostalgia. Filmmaker Bret Wood chronicles the non-profit and their blood-splattered output in Hell’s Highway: The True Story of Highway Safety Films, which screens this Wednesday night in theaters across the nation, freshly restored in 2K.

Richard Wayman was the brains behind the Foundation, working closely with Phyllis Vaughn. In fact, the Foundation was headquartered in her house. They usually contracted the production to others, including Mansfield Ohio reporter John R. Domer, who often moonlighted shooting video at the grisly auto accidents that he covered for his official outlet.

Even at the time, the Foundation gained a reputation for the disturbing video and audio they incorporated into their films. However, a whole lot of drivers ed teachers clearly approved, assuming they would have a “scared straight” impact. Ironically, their productions outside their core genre eventually led to trouble. Apparently, their film exposing “sexual predators” in a Mansfield public men’s room (the nature of which you can probably guess) led to rumors the Foundation was secretly producing adult films. There was also a disastrous telethon hosted by Sammy Davis Jr.

This is a pretty crazy story that features several unlikely cameos. For instance, Sonny Bono hosted their anti-marijuana film. Also, John P. Butler, the former Mansfield police chief, who became a Foundation VP, recalls the meeting he booked with Jimmy Hoffa to pitch their long-haul trucking safety film, Carrier Killer.

Of course, a film like this has to be driven by the visuals that made the Foundation’s reputation. Viewers should be either assured or forewarned that there are an awful lot bloody and mangled bodies in Hell’s Highway. Wood is never coy with regards to the subject matter and he certainly can’t be accused of over-promising and under-delivering. There is more than enough to judge the Foundation’s films, ethically and psychologically.

Inside Iran: The Fight for Freedom

Recently, the State Department forced the Mamdani administration to cancel a planned meeting with Iran’s UN ambassador. Although the Mayor disavowed any prior knowledge, the City Journal reported the commissioner responsible was acting on a directive to reach out to national government’s “in political alignment/leftist.” A reasonable person might wonder why the mayor would consider himself to be “in alignment” with the oppressive Revolutionary Islamic regime. The dissident Iranians appearing in this film would also wonder. They were part of the “Women. Life. Freedom” movement that launched in protest of Mahsa Jina Amini, but morphed into a full-scale revolt against the mandatory Chador. At the time of its UK premiere in 2023, Gesbeen Mohammad’s Inside Iran: The Figjht for Freedom was one of the few documentaries independently chronicling the protests from within Iran. It remains required viewing when it premieres today on Tubi.

Mohammad starts with a damning examination of Amini’s death, while in the custody of the morals police, following a widely witnessed (but officially denied) beating of customary viciousness. Her murder hit home hard for Rozhina, who shared many mutual friends with Amini in their Kurdish Iranian town, Saqqez. Indeed, the “Women. Life. Freedom” protests essentially launched during Amini’s funeral.

Mindful of precedent, the regime often added insult to injury by blockading and harassing the services for the protesters they murdered, like Fatemeh’s brother Javad. Like Rozhina, she also eventually found sanctuary abroad. The censorship their fellow Iranians face is not merely politically and artistically stifling. Its net effect is the complete erasure of the fallen loved ones. That is why activists like Mina and Hafez (seen only in shadows or in disguise) remained in Iran to secretly record demonstrations and the oral testimony of victims.

Those stories are often shocking and devastating. Frankly, our “mayor” should hear Maryam explain how the so-called “morals” police sexually assaulted her with what she assumed was a baton. When eventually released, she made an emergency trip to her GYN specialist, who confided they were currently treating dozens of such injuries.

Wham! 10 Days in China

They were like the Richard Nixon of pop acts. When they went to China, it was a bold career. In fact, the notoriety launched the American publicity campaign for George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, the British duo billed as Wham! It was an expensive and hectic tour, but it accomplished it objective, breaking the band into the American market. Footage shot for the little-seen documentary covering their historic gigs have now been restored and repurposed into Mike Christie’s Wham! 10 Days in China, which releases tomorrow in theaters.

The group’s former manager makes it clear right from the start their Chinese concerts were all about the American publicity. It is important to understand how different China was in 1985. The notoriously closed nation was starting to open up. Glasnost had been proclaimed in the USSR one month prior. Optimism was breaking out internationally and would steadily build until the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989. Wham! performing in China was seen as a sign of the changing (for the better) times.

Michael and Ridgeley got the concept of using China as an international fame slingshot, but they did not enjoy it, judging from the tour footage. It probably did not help that they chose the wrong director to helm the behind-the-scenes documentary. “Angry Young Man” filmmaker Lindsay Anderson (who directed If… and O Lucky Man) broke his leg soon after arriving in China and took an even quicker disliking to the Wham! lads.

You can also see early tension within the duo when Michael bails on press events, leaving Ridgeley (who had far more contentious relations with the press at that stage of their careers) holding the bag. However, the 1985 Ridgeley seems to show genuine interest in the young Chinese fans who were only just discovering Western pop through special distributions of their current album (mostly on cassette, even though players were then scarce in the Peoples Republic).

For obvious reasons, only Ridgeley was available to add his recent commentary. However, he comes across quite graciously. Perhaps even more intriguing are the segments featuring young Chinese fans, who were inspired to pursue careers in popular music.

In fact, listening to them makes it blindingly obvious that Christie refused to connect some rather important dots. By and large, the majority of patrons for the Wham! concerts were roughly high school aged. That would put them in college when University students took the lead protesting Chinese Communist Party corruption and oppression during the 1989 Tiananmen Square Demonstrations. This age group essentially became China’s lost generation, when they were either killed or forced into exile as a result of the Party’s crackdown. Consequently, it seems reasonable to assume that in addition to future Chinese pop stars, many of those who attended the 1985 shows are now dead or permanently cut off from their families and homes.

40 Watts from Nowhere: The KBLT Story

They were part of an unlicensed pirate radio station that was shutdown by William Kennard, Clinton’s FCC chief, so you’d think they would be more skeptical of government regulation. Instead, they only whine about corporations. Frankly, they were maybe ahead of their time, because the freeform format of KBLT in LA’s Silver Lake neighborhood sounds quite aesthetically compatible with Spotify and boutique satellite radio. The media landscape changed drastically, but KBLT listeners and alumni still recall the station’s short tenure with fondness in director-producer-subject Sue Carpenter’s documentary, 40 Watts from Nowhere, which opens tomorrow in New York.

Today, it is a lot easier to start a podcast than it was to launch a pirate radio station in the 1990s, because of all the gear it required. Nevertheless, Carpenter, a former office drone, jury-rigged her own neighborhood-focused pirate radio station, which she operated out of her personal apartment. Initially based in the Bay Area, she relocated to Silver Lake, where the rising hipster alternative music scene quickly embraced KBLT.

It wasn’t just proto-punk. KBLT also programmed jazz, blues, traditional country, 1960s French pop, and eccentric spoken word selections. Musically, KBLT was more inclusive than the current and recently demised network nightly talk shows. In terms of content, they weren’t that much different from New York’s [only slightly] more established WFMU.

Predictably, there is much complaining about corporate this and that. However, Carpenter’s experiences managing KBLT (while using her Paige Jarrett pseudonym) directly contradict the film’s obvious ideology. Time and again, the DJs and their guests constantly ate her food, drank her beer, and pilfered CDs from the station’s library.

Mockbuster: The Asylum Doc

Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novel The Land that Time Forgot featured British and German sailors during WWI. The latest adaptation from The Asylum features modern-day Australians and Russians. That is more than close enough for scrapy, intentionally unpretentious B-movie studio. Calling their movies B-level might be generous. They regularly churn out cheesy rip-offs of big budget releases and dubious adaptations of public domain books, while their greatest hits were the Sharknado movies. For some reason, they wanted their second take on the aforementioned Burroughs novel to be their first Australian production. The film will also be Australian Anthony Frith’s first full-length directing gig. Essentially, they hired him because he was crazy enough to ask. However, he has no idea what he is getting into, as he shows us, warts and all, in his own documentary, Mockbuster, which releases in theaters and on digital this Friday.

Basically, The Asylum trolls for viewers who either mistake their knock-offs (like The Transmorphers) for the real thing or figure they look so stupid they must be funny. They contain formulaic elements, most importantly including one recognizable name in the cast. Why they wanted to make The Land Time Forgot again is never really clear, but they did and they received Frith’s resume at an opportune time.

Frith made some short films as a student, but all of his work since then were commercial training films. He is more surprised than anyone when they offer him a film, but it soon becomes clear his producer has all the real power and his creative input is strictly discouraged. Frankly, Frith can’t get too creative, even if he wanted to, because he won’t get the script until a few days before shooting starts.

Along the way, he gets some sage advice from Eric Roberts, a veteran of many Asylum productions. He mostly tells Frith to have fun with it, which seems to be his approach to the interview and his own Asylum work. As a bonus, Frith appears as an extra with Michael Pare, who is like the King of the Asylum lot, if they were big enough to have a lot.

Of course, the shoot is chaotic and The Asylum is far more controlling than you might expect. Nevertheless, Frith must complete it in six days. It’s almost like watching the Little Rascals trying to put on a show.

Coroner to the Stars: Dr. Thomas Noguchi’s Doc

It is a shame Dr. Thomas Noguchi was no longer LA County’s Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner during the O.J. Simpson murder investigation, because probably no other pathologist had as much experience dealing with journalists and celebrities. In fact, he was a familiar media presence before such transparency was considered necessary. Unfortunately, many in Hollywood did not appreciate his candor. Now in his 99^th year, Noguchi looks back on his life, career, and controversies in Ben Hethcoat & Keita Ideno’s documentary, Coroner to the Stars, which opens Tuesday in Los Angeles.

Dr. Noguchi was born in Japan, but emigrated to America to serve his residency in LA.  However, he truly found opportunity in the LA Medical Examiner’s office. That would be LA County, rather than the city. Regardless, Noguchi’s expertise and experience, including performing the autopsy on Marilyn Monroe, convinced the Board of Supervisors to appoint him the Chief of the office.

Noguchi rose to unprecedented fame by conducting the autopsies of Sharon Tate, Robert F. Kennedy Sr., William Holden, Natalie Wood, and John Belushi—and talking about them after the fact. In fact, various talking heads suggest he initially better understood ritual cult nature of the Manson Family murders than the police, who started with the dubious assumption that the Tate and Lo Bianco massacres were drug trafficking-related.

Without question, Noguchi helped investigate some of the most notorious cases of his era. Yet, weirdly, the doc overlooks the death of actor-politician Albert Dekker, even though the circumstances of his demise were somewhat provocative. Regardless, Noguchi autopsied plenty of celebrities, earning the ire of Hollywood powerbrokers for openly discussing subjects like blood alcohol levels and other potentially embarrassing information. Of course, when Hollywood had trouble with Noguchi, that meant the Board of Supervisors had trouble with Noguchi.

In retrospect, it seems ironic that Noguchi took such heat, given the proliferation of so-called “celebrity autopsy” shows now available from true crime programmers. Noguchi was simply ahead of his time. Regardless, Hethcoat & Ideno are just dishy enough to satisfy the core audience for a true crime-related film, while still clinging to the political and sociological high ground.

The Clash of Nations: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling, on History

Today, boxing has two competing heavy weight champions, holding various different belts, but a lot of sports fans couldn’t name either of them. In contrast, in the 1930s, nobody followed basketball or soccer, but everyone knew who was heavy weight champ. Consequently, it meant something whether that pugilist paragon was American or German. The so-called “Rumble in the Jungle” was certainly a huge media event in 1974, but the Louis-Schmeling rematch was truly the fight of the century, which boxing historians and (Louis) Barrow family members remember and explain throughout The Clash of Nations: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling, directed by Nikki Spetseris, which premieres this Friday on History Channel.

Even adjusted for inflation, professional athletes never scored million-dollar contracts in the 1930s. However, a son of share-cropping former slaves like Joe Louis Barrow quickly discovered he could make good money in the ring once his family moved north. It was not easy for black fighter to move up the rankings during the post-Jack Johnson era, but not impossible. Indeed, Louis quickly became a leading contender.

Fittingly, Spetseris and company devote a good deal of time to the fight that cemented Louis’s reputation and offered a preview of the Louis-Schmeling match-ups. The American fighter faced Primo Carnera, who served as Mussolini’s proxy champion in much the same way Schmeling would (perhaps somewhat reluctantly) for Hitler. Black Americans already identified with Louis, but they also resented Italian military adventurism in Ethiopia, during the months leading up to the full-scale invasion. Consequently, the Louis-Carnera fight aroused great passions.

Likewise, non-religious Jewish champion Max Baer made no secret of what he thought of National Socialist Germany during his victory over Schmeling—another historically significant bu largely forgotten bout also covered during the History program. On the other hand, Louis’s first fight against Schmeling is well-documented, because it did not go as he hoped, but it set-up a rematch of Rocky IV dimensions.

Every boxing fan agrees Louis deserved better. After representing the free world in the ring against Schmeling and serving in uniform during WWII, he was hounded into bankruptcy by the shameful IRS. (If ever there was an agency to abolish, that would be it.) As you would expect, Spetseris and company duly decry Southern segregation, which was initially facilitated by Woodrow Wilson—perhaps one reason why Louis often supported Republicans—a fact Clash of Nations ignores.

Tribeca ’26: Stealing Magic

Ironically, in a few years, this documentary will probably be pirated on bit-torrent sites, just like any other movie. Yet, it vividly illustrates the damage piracy does to creative everyday people, who work for a living. In this case, it is illusion designers and magic book authors whose livelihoods were jeopardized by a large predatory magic piracy site. With help from the international magic community, creator and performer Andi Gladwin hoped to pull off the biggest trick of his career: making the piracy site disappear. Matthew Testa follows his investigation in the documentary Stealing Magic, which screens again this afternoon as part of the 2026 Tribeca Film Festival.

Like film, books, and music, magic design has largely shifted to digital downloads. Of course, that made Gladwin’s business much more vulnerable to piracy. He and his partner, Joshua Jay invent and market new illusions, which magicians buy and adapt for their acts. For obvious reasons, their products carry high prices, while turning much lower volume as compared to standard trade publishing releases, so piracy really cuts into their revenue and profitability.

One pirate site in particular always seemed to have every designer’s latest releases. In a particularly heart-breaking example, this site crushed the market for the late Leo Behnke’s Taylor-Made Magic: The Life of Merv Taylor, a labor-of-love study of the pioneering celebrity magician, which deserved its $100 price-point.

As more and more colleagues quit in frustration, Gladwin decided to track down his prime suspect, based on suspicious emails he had received. Initially, the trail led to Serbia, but the man in question was most likely just a supplier. Eventually, they use GPS trackers, following a shipment they believe the pirate site ordered through proxies, all across Europe and eventually to Egypt.

This really is an incredible story that will challenge many viewers’ preconceptions. It directly contradicts the notion that piracy is a “victimless” crime. Instead, it shows the financial and emotional pain piracy caused within the magic community. These are creative people, but they or neither wealthy or privileged. Remember this film if extremist provocateur Hasan Piker endorses a candidate in your state. In addition to spewing antisemitism, Piker also declared: “I’m pro-piracy all the way.”

HAAPI FEST ’26: Y Van, The Lost Sounds of Saigon

Nothing destroys culture as quickly and as thoroughly as Communism. For instance, only thirty films survived the Marxist Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror. Cambodian pop received similar treatment from the Communist regime, but, even though most of the musicians were killed, somewhat more music survives, thanks record collections in other Southeast Asian nations. While the regime in Vietnam did not censor non-socialist pop culture with the same vehemence, it did not make life easy for its former stars, like Khoa Ha’s grandfather Y Van, who spent a short time in a re-education camp. Several of his family members endured considerably longer sentences. Consequently, the family in America had absolutely none of his music. Ha set out to find and preserve her grandfather’s lost legacy, documenting the journey with her co-director Victor Velle in Y Van: The Lost Sounds of Saigon, which screens tonight as the closing selection of the Houston Asian American Pacific Islander Film Festival.

Aptly, one of Ha’s friends describes Y Van as the Vietnamese Quincy Jones. He was a performer in his own right, but he truly composed and arranged all of the biggest stars’ biggest hits. Unfortunately, he did not live to meet his granddaughter or to immigrate with her and her family to America. Indeed, his final years were incredibly hard.

Once back in Vietnam, Ha scours music stores, but pre-1975 records just aren’t there to be found. Eventually, she and mother, executive producer Tuyen Tran, take a page out of the old record-hunters’ book, calling their family’s old friends, who refer them to other friends, and so on. Eventually, she is referred to a super-collector who truly deserves to be called an archivist.

Open Roads ’26: Roberto Rossellini Living Without a Script

Most people know Roberto Rossellini from his classic Italian Neo-Realist films and his scandalous love affairs. This documentary is about neither. Okay, maybe there is a little of the latter. Nevertheless, he had already severed his relationship with Anna Magnani and Ingrid Bergman has one foot out the door when directors Ilaria de Laurentiis, Rafaele Brunetti, and Andrea Paolo Massara pick-up the story of his life in the documentary Roberto Rossellini: Living Without a Script, which screens tomorrow as part of Open Roads: New Italian Cinema 2026.

Throughout the film, Rossellini sounds much like Miles Davis, repeatedly telling admirers that of they like his 1950s Neo-Realist classics, they should just re-watch those old films—but they no longer interested him. Instead, he developed a fascination with India, which he hoped to document in a non-fiction film. The filmmakers and commentators clearly imply Bergman dismissed such ambitions as a pipe dream (especially given their increasingly dire financial straits), until Nehru greased the wheels for the production of what became India: Matri Bhumi.

It was a slow production, because Rossellini spent so much time wooing his future wife Sonali Senroy DasGupta, his ostensive co-screenwriter. Yes, he was still technically married at the time they met, but to be fair, so was DasGupta. See, there’s still plenty of good stuff left to cover in Living Without a Script. In fact, it almost functions as a sequel to Francesco Patierno’s The War of the Volcanoes, which reveled in the gossip surrounding the start of his relationship with Bergman.

Yet, despite the considerable time devoted to Rossellini’s romance with DasGupta, the discussion of the filmmaker’s nonfiction television output will be new to a lot of viewers. Most of it remains hard to find outside Italy, perhaps with good reason, because a good deal of what we see in Living Without a Script looks rather dated.

Spacewoman: The Eileen Collins Documentary

This documentary almost didn’t exist. Had Trump appointed retired astronaut NASA Administrator after she addressed the 2016 RNC Convention, as some speculated he might, there is no way this film would have been made. Nevertheless, she remains and will always be the first woman to both pilot and command Space Shuttle missions. Yet, former NASA flight director Paul Hill argues Collins’contributions to the American space program were far more important than her famous “firsts” in Hannah Berryman’s documentary, Spacewoman, which opens tomorrow in LA.

Nothing was ever handed to Eileen Collins. She grew up in a working-class Upstate New York household, constantly dealing with her family’s issues of addiction, mental health, and abuse. Yet, by working multiple jobs, she paid for her initial flying lessons. Graduating into the U.S. Air Force through the ROTC, she aspired to join the astronaut program. To gain the necessary flight expertise and hours, she became an Air Force test pilot. Along the way, she met and married her husband, Pat Youngs, who left the Air Force to become a commercial airline pilot. It allowed him to support her career, but still relate to some of her aeronautical challenges.

It was a lot harder for their daughter Bridgit Youngs, who was just old enough to understand the Challenger disaster. Indeed, the memory of the explosion was still fresh when Collins was selected for her first mission—her first “first,” piloting the Discovery and docking with the Russian Mir (way back in 1995, before Russia reverted to authoritarianism).

In 1999, she also became the first woman to command a Shuttle mission. Yet, as Hill compellingly argues, her most important command was not her first. It was STS-114, the so-called “Return to Space,” after the Columbia tragedy. Despite all the scrutiny, the mission developed potentially fatal complications, which Collins and her colleagues, primarily Hill and former Shuttle program manager Wayne Hale, thoroughly explain in dramatic but lucid and easily understood terms.

What’s the Story, Wishbone? On PBS

The mid 1990s were a golden era for Jack Russell Terriers. There was Eddie (played by Moose) on Fraser and Milo (played by Max) in the movie The Mask. However, Wishbone (played by Soccer) was the star of his own show. As a bonus, it was also educational. Frankly, it was exactly the sort of programing PBS was supposed to produce, but they mismanaged it. Nevertheless, Wishbone and the late, great Soccer remain beloved by cast, crew, and fans, who fondly remember the dog and his show in Joey Stewart’s documentary What’s the Story, Wishbone, which starts airing tomorrow on participating PBS stations.

Rick Duffield started with a vague notion to produce an educational TV program in the Dallas area that evolved into a pitch-kit that PBS greenlighted for a five-episode trial, much to everyone’s surprise. Yet, being a crew outside of LA, they could quickly adapt. Somehow, they started turning out their initial order, which were so well received, PBS came back with a full season order of 40 episodes. Again, they were shocked, but again, the cast and crew knuckled down and cranked out episodes.

It helped that everyone believed in the show and generally loved Wishbone/Soccer. In fact, it seems like there were almost no personality conflicts, judging from the extensive interviews Stewart incorporates throughout the film. Consequently, anyone hoping to learn about Wishbone’s dirty secrets will be bitterly disappointed.

Of course, everyone loves Wishbone. To prove the point, Stewart opens with tributes from Pres. George W. Bush and his sworn enemy, Dan Rather. It is easy to see why. Soccer was enormously photogenic and cinematic. He was also surprisingly easy to work with. According to the series cinematographer, Soccer consistently hit his marks (perhaps with better reliability than some human actors we could think of). The canine performer was also unusually cooperative when it came to wearing his period costumes.

Watching Stewart’s doc gives viewers a fuller understanding of the craftsmanship that went into each episode, including the special effects supervised by ILM alumnus Caris Palm Turpen. However, PBS was determined to “a strip it,” but that required a constant flow of new daily Monday-Friday episodes, which the economics of the show simply could not accommodate. However, Showtime helped finance the show’s big send-off, Wishbone’s Dog Days of the West.

Suzzanna: The Queen of Black Magic

As Suzanna Martha Frederika Van Osch embraced the horror genre, she added the additional “Z.” It was a shrewd decision, whereas opinions vary quite drastically regarding her second marriage. Regardless, “Suzzanna,” as she was affectionately known and billed (like Cher and Madonna) remains the face of 1980s Indonesia horror for fans both foreign and domestic. David Gregory chronicles her life and career in the documentary The Queen of Black Magic, which is included in the Severin Film Suzzanna boxset releasing tomorrow on BluRay.

Early in her career, Suzanna (with one “Z”) was practically Indonesia’s sweetheart. She appeared in sentimental dramas and even recorded sugary pop records with her first husband, fellow thesp and frequent co-star Dicky Suprapto. During the 1970s, she started making more exploitative genre movies for less formal “Layar Tancap” cinemas, often projected on bedsheets for neighborhoods without brick-and-mortar theaters. Of course, they loved her.

Suzzanna (with two Z’s) only made one horror in the 1970’s, but it became a sort of prototype for her 80’s output. In 1983, she also made an exploitation film about a mother’s lurid relationship with her estranged son, played by teenaged Clift Sangra, who in real-life became her second husband. Weirdly, he also portrayed her son in her final film.

To make things even more awkward, many of Suzzanna’s friends and family members clearly suspected him of complicity in her death. Some even accused him of trying to contract her murder. While Sangra sat for extensive interviews, he emerges as his own worst advocate. Sangra never legally compromises himself, but he just radiates bad vibes.

Hammer: Heroes, Legends and Monsters

Its first IP deals were relatively modest, licensing British radio shows like Dick Barton and The Man in Black for extremely B-level movie treatments. However, it most famously relaunched popular franchises with the very same monsters that made Universal the home for horror in the 1930s and 1940s. Despite periods of decline and dormancy, the Hammer name still means something to fans. Director Benjamin Field and an all-star cast of genre filmmakers chronicle the studio’s history and celebrate its eccentricities in Hammer: Heroes, Legends and Monsters (oddly, no Oxford comma), which releases today on BluRay from UK specialty retailers.

Will Hinds (who performed vaudeville under his stage name, Hammer) and Enriques Carreras founded Hammer Film Productions, but they never really got filmmaking the way their sons, Tony Hinds and Michael Carreras, did. For the record, most of the oddball genre detours were Michael’s doing (fault). However, the elder Carreras definitely understood business, negotiating better American deals than were available for more prestigious British productions.

Hammer’s big opportunity came in licensing a film version of The Quatermass Experiment, which had been a surprise hit for the BBC. They were subsequently pitched a Frankenstein screenplay that probably would have prompted a lawsuit from Universal, but they liked the idea enough to commission The Curse of Frankenstein, which was a huge hit, making stars of Peter Cushing and Chriostopher Lee. They followed it up with Horror of Dracula, featuring the same co-stars, garnering the same box office success.

Unlike many cinema history docs, Heroes, Legends and Monsters focuses more on the behind-the-scenes business trends and the contributions of below-the-line contributors, like makeup artist Phil Leakey and art director Bernard Robinson, who had a thrifty knack for reusing and repurposing old props and sets. Thanks to Robinson, Hammer could really stretch their budget, while maintaining their signature lush, gothic look.

Of course, most of the great stars of Hammer, such as Cushing, Lee, Andre Morrell, Shane Briant, and Oliver Reed are no longer with us. However, Martine Beswick (One Million Years B.C.), Caroline Munro (Dracula AD 1972), and Madeline Smith (The Vampire Lovers) discuss their work at Hammer (and the degree of nudity that was expected of them, during the late period of decline).

Indeed, the collected experts convincingly argue the turn towards cultural permissiveness was Hammer’s undoing, because they had developed such a knack for arguing, negotiating, and generally sneaking in suggestive material, which suddenly appeared tame compared to the genuinely explicit releases from their competitors.

The understanding of the economics of Hammer’s decisions helps differentiate Heroes, Legends and Monsters from its many predecessors. It also features many experts with serious genre cred, including John Carpenter, Tim Burton, John Landis, and Joe Dante (the latter two seem to mostly work as documentary talking heads these days, which is sort of a shame, but their enthusiasm for Hammer sounds genuine).

JxJ ’26: Raoul Wallenberg Missing Inaction

The United States made him an honorary citizen, after the Soviet Union made him disappear. The Swedish diplomat in question had saved thousands of Hungarian Jews by issuing them Swedish papers and providing shelter in diplomatically protected buildings. He became one of the most prominent men in Hungary (thereby making him a threat to the Soviets’ plans to dominate the nation). Decades later, his fate remains shrouded in secrecy. Filmmakers Brian Mait & Brad Rothschild largely settle that question, but as viewers might expect, it is not an especially uplifting answer that they reveal in their documentary, Raoul Wallenberg: Missing Inaction, which screens during this year’s JxJ Washington Jewish Film and Music Festival.

As viewers ought to know from watching the Richard Chamberlain mini-series and prior documentaries, like Alexander Rodnyaskiy’s The Mission of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish humanitarian tried to save as many Hungarian Jews as possible. He even pulled dozens of Jews off a transport bound for Auschwitz, openly defying the Arrow Cross.

The part of the story that isn’t as well publicized involves the rest of the Wallenberg family. Although Wallenberg was adored by his distinguished grandfather Gustav, Wallenberg and his mother (who married into the family) were the poor relations, after his father’s untimely death. His uncles, Jacob and Marcus, who controlled the family banking empire, declined to hire their nephew. Instead, they referred him to Klarman Lauer’s trading company.

Wallenberg became Lauer’s right-hand man, because he could travel more easily than the Jewish Hungarian. Similarly, he became the on-the-ground point-person for the humanitarian mission to Hungary organized by Lauer and Iver C. Olsen of the OSS, who emerges as another admirable figure in Mait & Rothschild’s doc.

However, the activities of Wallenberg’s uncles were not so edifying. In fact, their extensive dealings with the National Socialists earned them Treasury Department sanctions, which continued after the War. Unable to do business with America, they started brokering deals with the Soviets, the other great totalitarian regime of the 20^th Century. However, they cut ties with the USSR, in exchange for their removal from the blacklist.

The filmmakers and their on-camera experts suggest, with good reason, the noble Wallenberg became a pawn in his uncles’ game with the Soviets. Once they cancelled their financial arrangements, Raoul Wallenberg was probably as good as dead. Regardless of their reasons, Wallenberg was most likely executed around this time. That theory is supported, rather candidly, by Sergey Stepashin, the former Russian Prime Minister and director of the FSB (then known as the FSK), under Yeltsin—a sit-down interview even the filmmakers were shocked to score.

Unlike previous Wallenberg films, Missing Inaction (not a great title) also documents how much it emotionally exhausted his branch of the family to fight for the truth. Tragically, some of those closest to him eventually committed suicide.

A Poem for Little People, on OVID.tv

Not every Ukrainian who serves their country wears a uniform. However, the volunteer evacuation teams still very definitely risk their lives. They travel into neighborhoods under bombardment to rescue the elderly and infirm—and their pets too. Filmmaker Ivan Sautkin was one of them. He made this documentary while desperately shuttling his most vulnerable countrymen to relative safety. American paramedic Pete Reed was also part of the team, but he didn’t live to see Sautkin’s film, A Poem for Little People, which is now streaming on OVID.tv.

This is a terrible title, but it comes from a terrific scene, focusing on the elderly Taisia as she reads the blistering poem she wrote (in Russian) for the Russian soldiers committing Putin’s war crimes. She allows them no illusions regarding their illegal dirty business in Ukraine.

Taisia probably isn’t going anywhere because her downstairs crony Zinaida is definitely staying put. She watches the motorway outside her window, calling in every Russian vehicle that passes to the Ukrainian defense force. They are the exceptions to the rule. In most cases, Anton, the team leader, uses grimly accurate language to convince the elderly to leave their homes.

Regardless of the title, Sautkin’s film puts a human face on Putin’s war crimes, over and over and over again. Frankly, the suffering and destruction it documents ought to be more shocking, yet such images have been disseminated quite widely—but people of bad faith keep ignoring them.

Hot Docs ’26: A War on Women

Here is an incovenient but telling truth for your consideration. When the Islamist Ruhollah Khomeini first launched his revolution against the Shah in 1963, he wasn’t motivated by corruption or the SAVAK secret police. He was outraged by the Shah’s decision to grant women the right to vote. Yet, Jimmy Carter believed Iran would better served with Khomeini as its ruler. Most Iranian women knew better. By now, most of the Iranian men agree. However, for decades, women were in the vanguard of the Iranian resistance movement. Iranian filmmaker Raha Shirazi and several leading Iranian women dissidents take stock of the rights they lost after the Islamic Revolution and their long continuing campaign to win them back in her documentary A War on Women, which screens again after its premiere at this year’s Hot Docs festival.

During the Shah’s reign, women’s rights were steadily improving. They could dress however they pleased and could pursue their education as far as their talents allowed. They could also sing and dance in public and show their hair, without fear of acid attacks. Mahnaz Afkhami knows this better than anyone, because she was Minister for Women’s Affairs in the 1978 government. As she explains, she was in New York forming a United Nation’s subsidiary devoted to women’s rights when the Shah fell. For her own safety, she never returned home.

Indeed, Shirazi assembled a small but powerful cast of expert witnesses, who testify first-hand regarding the systematic oppression of women by the current Iranian regime. Several have paid dearly for their free-thinking, such as Elahe Tavakolian, who was blinded in one eye when the Iranian “Morality Police” shot her during a “Woman, Life, Freedom” protest.

Likewise, Shaparak Shajarizadeh became an international online cause celeb after she was arrested for removing her headscarf. Journalist Masih Alinejad and actress Golshifteh Farhani (formerly considered the rough equivalent of Iran’s “sweetheart”) movingly discuss the pain of exile and the deep, gnawing fear for loved ones left behind.

After watching the women’s harrowing and heartbreaking testimony elicited by Shirazi, any morally tone-deaf ideologue who protested on behalf of the Iranian regime should feel profound shame and stomach-churning embarrassment. Regardless, of your opinions of Trump’s management of the military conflict, it is clear the Iranian people would be much better off without their current oppressors.

Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror

Funny Girl, The Other Side of the Mountain, and Shampoo were among the top 10 highest grossing movies of 1975, but nobody today would want to watch a feature length doc about any of them. In contrast, The Rocky Horror Picture Picture Show was not in the top ten by the time the year ended, but it subsequently rose to become 1975’s third highest grossing picture, because it never left theaters.  For decades, it has been recognized as a phenomenon and it remains so, despite the availability of BluRays and streaming. Filmmaker Linus O’Brien chronicles the film’s history and takes stock of its legacy with its creator, his father Richard O’Brien, in the documentary Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror, which returns to theaters this Friday.

It started as a stage show in a proper theater’s experimental side stage, where blokes like writer-composer O’Brien and director Jim Sharman could do whatever they wanted, because nobody would be watching. However, right from the start, the show was a smash hit, earning extensions and a transfer to a larger theater.

Eventually, the show was imported to Los Angeles, where it had equal or greater success at the Roxy, an appropriately hipster venue. It still wouldn’t necessarily be an obvious fit for Hollywood, but producer Lou Adler saw the commercial potential (as it happens, he also produced Cheech & Chong’ Up in Smoke). Indeed, Adler worked closely with the only sympathetic Fox exec to develop the film’s midnight screening strategy, after its initial release bombed.

Obviously, O’Brien had guaranteed access to his father. His connections also secured interviews with Sharman, Adler, and just about every other living cast-member, including Tim Curry, Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon. It is a little creepy seeing Sarandon, considering her recent history, including retweeting a “woke-right” extremist consprcy theeorist claiming the October 7^th massacre was an Israeli false flag operation, but there is no denying she is a big part of the film’s history, so she should be there.

Fortunately, the scenes featuring the O’Brien, father and son, are quite endearing. Clearly, the film director grew-up amid the “strangeness” of the Rocky Horror world and quickly acclimated to it. He gets a lot of good stuff from his dad, including highly candid responses and some impromptu musical performances. This might sacrilegious to the Rocky faithful, but some might consider his solo acoustic renditions superior to the big, blaring stage orchestrations.

ND/NF ’26: Two Mountains Weighing Down My Chest

What is it like to come out as non-binary in today’s China? Artist-filmmaker Viv Li is reluctant to find out. To a large degree, she has adopted the norms and values of the Grman hipster art-world, but she still wants to identify as Chinese. Through her very personal lens, the audience gets an unvarnished perspective on both worlds in Li’s Two Mountains Weighing Down on My Chest, which screens during this year’s New Directors/New Films.

Weirdly, there just might be something to annoy everyone in Li’s film, which is absolutely a point in its favor. Through her German friends she engages in various forms of nudist “decadence” (as the Maoists back home might say). Indeed, a great deal of the pretentious art produced by her circle will truly underwhelm the average working-class stiff, from either China or the West.

Yet, when Li returns home, she is clearly put off by her relatives’ idolization of Mao and Xi. She tries to hold her tongue and avoid politics, but she has to scoff when they claim the majority of American homes lack basic necessities, like electrified power. Indeed, regardless, of your take on the art produced by Li’s friends, her film vividly documents the dubious nature of CCP propaganda and just how desperately older Chinese generations want to believe it.

Roger Corman: The Pope of Pop Cinema, on TCM

Arguably, Alfred Hitchcock and Roger Corman most indelibly personify filmmaking for several generations of American genre film fans, thanks to their droll media appearances. And so they should, because their lasting influence matches their wit. Sure, Corman made a lot of Z-grade exploitation films, but many of them, like Little Shop of Horrors, blossomed into a weird, unlikely immortality. Plus, nobody had better “making of” stories than Roger Corman. The venerable master regales viewers with some of them in Bertrand Tessier’s Roger Corman: The Pope of Pop Cinema, which airs tonight on TCM.

Who couldn’t listen to Roger Corman stories all night? Many of the famous directors he mentored could also tell Corman stories all night, as well. Once again, Ron Howard, Joe Dante, Allann Arkush, and Peter Bogdanovich reminisce about the man who gave them their start directing, as they had in Alex Stapleton’s Corman’s World, which is admittedly longer and more comprehensive.

Sadly, Corman alumnus Jonathan Demme had already passed away by the time Pope of Pop was produced. Nevertheless, Tessier’s short fiftysome minute film covers some new material, addressing some of Corman’s late career triumphs, such as the money he made from the straight-to-VOD sequels to the Death Race 2000 remake and the sale of the title to his1950s hot-rod movie, The Fast and the Furious, to Universal. In fact, Death Race (2008) director Paul W.S. Anderson also offers his memories of the Hollywood icon.