The Big Zapper (The Sex Life of a Private Eye) 1973




Lindsay Shonteff and Linda Marlowe: Obscure brittish 1970's exploitation ...... or ?

Yes, even British 1970's exploitation movies has a cult following today, and trashy B directors as Pete Walker, Norman J. Warren,
Alan Birkinshaw, Peter Collinson, James Kenelm Clarke, Piers Haggard and .... Lindsay Shonteff can be enjoyed on new restored
DVD or Bluray editions from film companies specializing in these fun and entertaining genre movies, horror, thrillers and sleaze.

So, also British 1970's trash movies has gained a cult following, and with directors as Pete Walker and Norman J. Warren among the
more notable one's. But if those directors are considered B movie makers, what about the C grade movie makers, will their films
also be available on DVD or Bluray ? I'm thinking about the films of Lindsay Shonteff then. Shonteff (1935-2006) and maybe not a
brit as IMDB says he's born in Canada, but he made his film in England.
He specialized in exploitation trash movies and often with a comic slant to them and one film i really want to see again is his demented
1973 Sexploitation Comics Action Comedy - The Big Zapper (The Sex Life of a Female Private Eye)

It's so gloriously BAD that it's GOOD and with beautiful aussie Linda Marlowe (born 1940) as a super tough private detective.
Based on a popular British Comic and bizarre but true with a sequel the following year - "Zapper's Blade of Vengeance" (alternate
title: The Swordsman). The Big Zapper - Unbelievable Trash you must see - if you are a sick puppy. I want to see it !

I remember seing this trash epic on a worn out Swedish rental VHS sometime around the middle of the 1980's, and even though
it was bad and sleazy it was somewhat entertaining in a hard to describe Psychotronic way, and i very much would like to watch
this unhinged film again on a DVD or a Bluray. I'm writing this in December 2020 and by now this film should be available, a
film that has been very obscure. Hey! Glorious trash as these Zapper movies that's what the DVD or Bluray format were made for.

IMDB says that Linda Marlowe took part in some exploitation films before she went over to Television in the 1980's.
Linda also had a role in Lindsay Shonteff's obscure but nowadays somewhat talked about attempt to make a British Giallo -

The 1969 "Night after Night (He Kills Night after Night after Night / Night Slasher, 1969)

About a knife wielding killer on the loose in London on the hunt after young swinging 60's women in miniskirts. Surely, as it's
British, a heavy-handedly done copy of the Italian thrillers, but still enjoyable to watch i've read somewhere. I haven't seen it,
haven't found it yet, but as i write this in December 2020 there must surely be some company that has released it on DVD or on a
Bluray by now ? Linda Marlowe plays the role of the police wife Jenny Rowan.

Shonteff directed the film under an alias, Lewis J. Force and Phil Hardy is wildly enthusiastic in his Encyclopedia of Horror - Not!
"direction is crude, the script silly and the picture tedious", but i still want to see it. Lindsay Shonteff has also directed films as the
1963 "Devil Doll" and the, according to Hardy racist 1964 "Curse of Simba".

In 1967 he directed the Eurospy spoof "The Million Eyes of Su-Muru" and that film may be inept but it is nicely shot with fine
colors and lots of beautiful women, and with Klaus Kinski and maria Rohm in it. Also it is shot in Shaw Brothers Studio in HK.
It is stupid but entertaining and it must be the best film he has made among the one's mentioned here.
(Read more about this film higher up on the Cult & Classics Film Page 1).


Lindsay Shonteff seems to be something of Great Britain's Ed Wood, Jr.

 

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