Sweet Savior was made around the time of the Charles Manson murders and the main charcter (played by a shaggy haired Troy Donahue) is basically, a Charles Manson-like guru who brings his flock to the home of a wealthy couple where a party is going on. The film has a lot of scenes that are pretty sick. The X rating is not unwarranted. Still, one can't help but notice an important sub-theme: the magnetic allure and influence a charismatic figure may have on a simple minded person especially when that charismatic figure supplies drugs to the person. The film also shows the potentially fatal dangers of blindly following a leader, thus it has some significance. However, it's unlikely that the film makers had any social conscience in mind when they made this due to the film's exploitational nature and the mean spirit which pervades throughout.
8 Reviews
Exploitation with unusual perspective on Manson
andrew2-61 August 2007
Warning: Spoilers
What I like about this film, and what puts it above other Manson-based exploitation works such as "The Helter Skelter Murders" for instance, is the "sympathy" the film makers clearly have towards the cult, and the point of view that the "straight" cult victims who are depicted as complete degenerates are as parasitic towards the freaks as the freaks are on straight society.
The film ends with a montage of Moon, who escapes the police, giving the finger to various symbols of Americana. It's hard not to join in. Not a great film, but an interesting perspective. Has great early 70's shots of St. Marks Place for New Yorkers.
The film ends with a montage of Moon, who escapes the police, giving the finger to various symbols of Americana. It's hard not to join in. Not a great film, but an interesting perspective. Has great early 70's shots of St. Marks Place for New Yorkers.
Made for me
BandSAboutMovies17 January 2020
Warning: Spoilers
The man named Matt Cavanaugh who wrote this doesn't exist. It's really Willie Gilbert, the author and playwright. Once he left Cleveland for New York City, he discovered that his physician Jack Weinstock shared his dream of being a writer. They wrote for nightclub performers, Broadway reviews, on early TV shows like Howdy Doody and Tom Corbett, Space Cadet and shared two Tony Awards for 1962's How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying.
The team also wrote the plays Hot Spot, Catch Me If You Can and were working on The Candy Store when Weinstock died. Gilbert went on to work for Hanna-Barbera, where he worked on The New Scooby-Doo Movies, The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, Super Friends, The Flintstones Meet Rockula and Frankenstone and Yogi's First Christmas. He died in 1980.
Somewhere along there - let's say 1971 - he wrote this movie, which is about the kids of today. You know, in 1971.
Also known as The Idiotic Couple, Frenetic Party and The Love-Thrill Murders, this movie has some awesome poster copy: "Six states wanted them jailed. Eight torture victims wanted them dead. All the blood freaks wanted was one more night... of the most brutal orgy in history!"
Director Robert L. Roberts doesn't have many credits, other than Michele and the Device, The Big Man and Patty, a movie in which doctors and experts sit around and discuss the Patty Hearst case. That movie was released in hard-X, soft-X and R-rated versions and starred Jamie Gillis. If you don't think I'm on the hunt for this movie right now, you don't know me.
Sandra Barlow (Renay Granville, who is also in the aforementioned Patty) is looking for kicks. Sex and drugs, baby. Balling! Yes, this is another movie that uses balling, a word that I am desperately trying to bring back into vogue; please help me!
She hires Moon (Troy Donahue, a 50's and 60's matinee icon who was in Man of a Thousand Faces, the TV series Surfside 6, Imitation of Life and then dropped out, appearing in movies like this and Seizure. Perhaps you've also seen him in Dr. Alien, Shock 'Em Dead or Cry-Baby, where he played Mona "Hatchet-Face" Malnorowski's dad), a Manson-like drug leader who has more on his mind than sex and drugs for the big party.
Donahue said some amazing things in the press about this movie. "I play Moon, a religious creep who murders a lot of people, a real heavy trip. But I don't want anyone to think I'm playing it in some phony exploitation flick that takes advantage of the Manson case to make a fast buck. I don't like many things, man, but I dig this picture... We're trying to show both sides of the problem. The Hollywood glamor society is as guilty as the depraved hippy cults. They pick up people on the Sunset Boulevard and tease them. When they made fun of Manson they picked on the wrong guy. I was up at the Tate house. It was a freaky scene. Sure I met Manson at the beach playing volleyball."
He also predicted that this movie would be as bigger as Love Story.
Tallie Cochrane, who plays Ruth in this movie, shows up in all manner of 1970's sexploitation, like Girls for Rent, The Centerfold Girls, The Candy Tangerine Man, If You Don't Stop It... You'll Go Blind!!!, Track of the Moonbeast (which she also did make-up on), Hollywood High and Frightmare. She also did voiceover work and ran a casting agency for the New York City adult film industry in the early 1970's.
There's also a scene where Fritzi gets ready to have sex with a male member of Moon's gang, exclaiming, "Haven't you ever heard of science? I'm a woman and I loved cock so much I just had to have one for myself. I went to Sweden and got this off a sailor who is now a woman. Get with the times."
This is the kind of movie where a famous actress has an apartment that looks like it's somewhere out in the suburbs and has a swinging party that looks like the kind of potlucks that my parent's church social club used to throw and I'd hide in the basement so I didn't have to hang out with any other kids, when all I wanted was to sit in my house and watch Hammer movies on a Saturday afternoon.
I love this movie. It's pure scum and invites the thought that the people that the Manson Family killed were just as invested in the sex and drugs scene as the Creepy Crawlers who started the Year of the Fork. Quentin Tarantino screened this at the New Beverly before Once Upon a Time In...Hollywood came out and it makes a scuzzy companion piece to that film.
Unfortunately, this movie has never been released on DVD. I blame Troma, who has the rights, but then at least I didn't have to watch a Lloyd Kaufman introduction to this movie.
1971 I love you. You are at the end of the hippies, hiding inside your home, freaked out by the acid you once took, releasing movies like The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave, Daughters of Darkness, Simon King of the Witches, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, Don't Deliver Us From Evil, Vampyros Lesbos, The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, A Lizard In a Woman's Skin and so many more astounding films.
Troy Donahue giving speeches about God not being dead to suburbanites fried on acid who are due to be killed at his hand? This movie was made just for me.
The team also wrote the plays Hot Spot, Catch Me If You Can and were working on The Candy Store when Weinstock died. Gilbert went on to work for Hanna-Barbera, where he worked on The New Scooby-Doo Movies, The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, Super Friends, The Flintstones Meet Rockula and Frankenstone and Yogi's First Christmas. He died in 1980.
Somewhere along there - let's say 1971 - he wrote this movie, which is about the kids of today. You know, in 1971.
Also known as The Idiotic Couple, Frenetic Party and The Love-Thrill Murders, this movie has some awesome poster copy: "Six states wanted them jailed. Eight torture victims wanted them dead. All the blood freaks wanted was one more night... of the most brutal orgy in history!"
Director Robert L. Roberts doesn't have many credits, other than Michele and the Device, The Big Man and Patty, a movie in which doctors and experts sit around and discuss the Patty Hearst case. That movie was released in hard-X, soft-X and R-rated versions and starred Jamie Gillis. If you don't think I'm on the hunt for this movie right now, you don't know me.
Sandra Barlow (Renay Granville, who is also in the aforementioned Patty) is looking for kicks. Sex and drugs, baby. Balling! Yes, this is another movie that uses balling, a word that I am desperately trying to bring back into vogue; please help me!
She hires Moon (Troy Donahue, a 50's and 60's matinee icon who was in Man of a Thousand Faces, the TV series Surfside 6, Imitation of Life and then dropped out, appearing in movies like this and Seizure. Perhaps you've also seen him in Dr. Alien, Shock 'Em Dead or Cry-Baby, where he played Mona "Hatchet-Face" Malnorowski's dad), a Manson-like drug leader who has more on his mind than sex and drugs for the big party.
Donahue said some amazing things in the press about this movie. "I play Moon, a religious creep who murders a lot of people, a real heavy trip. But I don't want anyone to think I'm playing it in some phony exploitation flick that takes advantage of the Manson case to make a fast buck. I don't like many things, man, but I dig this picture... We're trying to show both sides of the problem. The Hollywood glamor society is as guilty as the depraved hippy cults. They pick up people on the Sunset Boulevard and tease them. When they made fun of Manson they picked on the wrong guy. I was up at the Tate house. It was a freaky scene. Sure I met Manson at the beach playing volleyball."
He also predicted that this movie would be as bigger as Love Story.
Tallie Cochrane, who plays Ruth in this movie, shows up in all manner of 1970's sexploitation, like Girls for Rent, The Centerfold Girls, The Candy Tangerine Man, If You Don't Stop It... You'll Go Blind!!!, Track of the Moonbeast (which she also did make-up on), Hollywood High and Frightmare. She also did voiceover work and ran a casting agency for the New York City adult film industry in the early 1970's.
There's also a scene where Fritzi gets ready to have sex with a male member of Moon's gang, exclaiming, "Haven't you ever heard of science? I'm a woman and I loved cock so much I just had to have one for myself. I went to Sweden and got this off a sailor who is now a woman. Get with the times."
This is the kind of movie where a famous actress has an apartment that looks like it's somewhere out in the suburbs and has a swinging party that looks like the kind of potlucks that my parent's church social club used to throw and I'd hide in the basement so I didn't have to hang out with any other kids, when all I wanted was to sit in my house and watch Hammer movies on a Saturday afternoon.
I love this movie. It's pure scum and invites the thought that the people that the Manson Family killed were just as invested in the sex and drugs scene as the Creepy Crawlers who started the Year of the Fork. Quentin Tarantino screened this at the New Beverly before Once Upon a Time In...Hollywood came out and it makes a scuzzy companion piece to that film.
Unfortunately, this movie has never been released on DVD. I blame Troma, who has the rights, but then at least I didn't have to watch a Lloyd Kaufman introduction to this movie.
1971 I love you. You are at the end of the hippies, hiding inside your home, freaked out by the acid you once took, releasing movies like The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave, Daughters of Darkness, Simon King of the Witches, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, Don't Deliver Us From Evil, Vampyros Lesbos, The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, A Lizard In a Woman's Skin and so many more astounding films.
Troy Donahue giving speeches about God not being dead to suburbanites fried on acid who are due to be killed at his hand? This movie was made just for me.
Sex, Drugs, Murder & Troy Donahue
ascheland20 August 2004
Perhaps the initial draw of 'The Love Thrill Murders' is the novelty of seeing late-'50s teen heartthrob Troy Donahue play a Manson-like cult leader, but the movie holds up beyond this bit of stunt casting. With shoulder-length blond hair, a full beard and wearing a leather jacket, it's hard to believe is the same Troy Donahue who starred in "A Summer Place." In this New York re-telling of the "Manson family" murders of Sharon Tate and her house guests, Donahue is Moon, leader of a commune where sex, drugs, religious/flower child psychobabble and overwrought acoustic guitar songs are the order of the day (and pretty much in that order). In the movie's second act, Moon and a select few of his followers attend a party thrown by an actress who's supposed to be so famous she has to dodge tabloid reporters, yet she lives in a middle class suburban house and serves a spread that looks like church potluck. The actress' friends include a middle-aged playwright and his vapid girlfriend, a predatory lesbian and Fritzi, a gay man so effeminate he makes RuPaul seem butch. It's here that the movie becomes a cheesy soft core sex film (it's been diluted slightly from its initial release to get an R rating). After snacking on cheese puffs and smoking pot, the guests pair up. Oddly, to be members of a cult that espouses freedom from hang-ups, a couple of Moon's followers sure are whiny when assigned partners of the same sex. (Then again I wouldn't want to be paired with Fritzi, even if we are on the same team.) While the lesbian has her way with her pet hippie (who plays dead for the experience) and Fritzi dresses up in drag (the ploy wins over his jittery stud, even if Fritzi's get-up makes him look like Betty Thomas impersonating Tammy Wynette), the incomparable Talie Cochrane does a sexy dance for Moon. Then, after a subliminal flash of some orgy action, the killing starts.
'The Love Thrill Murders' is a sleazy, exploitive exercise (more so when it was first released, as 'Sweet Savior,' a mere two years following the Manson murders), but it's a fascinating movie nonetheless. Donahue gives an effective, understated performance, and Cochrane evokes a rough-trade sexiness that enables her to easily steal scenes from her more demure co-stars. Aside from the laughably unconvincing portrayal of upscale living, the production values are above average for this sort of film. This movie even has a fairly decent soundtrack, a cult-member's heavy-handed folk song notwithstanding. Director Robert L. Roberts was not one to let taste get in the way of his 'artistic vision.' After exploiting the Manson murders, Roberts sunk even lower in 1976 by writing and directing 'Patty,' a retelling of the Patty Hearst kidnapping laced with hardcore sex scenes. Both the movie and Roberts appeared to have faded into obscurity since.
'The Love Thrill Murders' is a sleazy, exploitive exercise (more so when it was first released, as 'Sweet Savior,' a mere two years following the Manson murders), but it's a fascinating movie nonetheless. Donahue gives an effective, understated performance, and Cochrane evokes a rough-trade sexiness that enables her to easily steal scenes from her more demure co-stars. Aside from the laughably unconvincing portrayal of upscale living, the production values are above average for this sort of film. This movie even has a fairly decent soundtrack, a cult-member's heavy-handed folk song notwithstanding. Director Robert L. Roberts was not one to let taste get in the way of his 'artistic vision.' After exploiting the Manson murders, Roberts sunk even lower in 1976 by writing and directing 'Patty,' a retelling of the Patty Hearst kidnapping laced with hardcore sex scenes. Both the movie and Roberts appeared to have faded into obscurity since.
I just watched this today!
gainsbarre1312 March 2004
I won't front, I'm interested in Manson, but I also dig 60's & 70's exploitation movies. If yr like myself, then you might enjoy this.
It's not a direct reference to the Manson story but the whole religious drug/sex cult/family deal is in effect. Lotsa cheesy hippy babble, drug taking and many naked breasts follow. Troy Donahue makes a good Manson-esque character and the music is good. (By Jeff Barry no less!) Definitely worth checking out!
It's not a direct reference to the Manson story but the whole religious drug/sex cult/family deal is in effect. Lotsa cheesy hippy babble, drug taking and many naked breasts follow. Troy Donahue makes a good Manson-esque character and the music is good. (By Jeff Barry no less!) Definitely worth checking out!
LoveThrillMurders
gavcrimson23 September 2020
A sleaze classic that was still haunting the VHS shops around Times Square when I visited NYC in the late 1990s, but has never made the jump to DVD or Blu-Ray. Former teen idol Troy Donahue does a remarkably against type turn as Moon, a bearded cult leader who leads his freaky followers to a sex and drugs party hosted by a heavily pregnant redhead actress whose famous film director husband is away abroad (subtle it ain't). Naturally things quickly get out of hand, with the actress and her decadent bourgeoisie friends finding themselves at the mercy of their hippie guests, who have bloodlust on their minds. It's a take on the Manson story, filmed with a Hollywood Babylon level of tabloid luridness, complete with cross dressing, lots of undressing, lesbianism, often side splitingly funny dialogue ("I was young, just a slip of a girl, and I loved cock, I loved it so much, I wanted one of my own") and a catchy, top drawer soundtrack by brill building legend Jeff Barry. Any resemblance to real-life figures is purely intensional. "I have a feeling it's going to be bigger than Love Story" -Troy Donahue.
Dig That Wild Background Music!
kennywest118 September 2001
As you may have read, it is indeed a very cheesy drama based on the Manson Killings. Actually, it's a "statement" film that doesn't "cop out". The film introduces our pseudo-Manson character,"Moon",who arranges sex parties for rich people and in his spare time introduces his friends to the last chapter of the bible while tripping. In the meantime the music is quite pleasing, and the whole film rolls by like an old record. If you enjoy Manson films, I think you'll be let down. The story is non-existent, but some swingers getting ready for an orgy nonchalantly as if going to a luncheon might be worth examining again. The characters are reduced to idiot strippers and goons. I loved that wild background score, so I can't say I didn't think it was a good movie, despite the desperate attempt to imitate what happened to Sharon Tate and others in August of '69.
The first Troma movie is a good one
bozotheripper28 May 2001
I love most Troma movies and most Charles Manson based movies, so this was a real treat for me. Most of the movie is sort of a softcore porn, but twist to a massacre. Troy Donahue made a pretty good Charles Manson based character. Lyoyd Kauffman even makes a brief appearence as squeegee, but is very brief and he looks much different. I recommend this movie for sick people like me.
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