The Big Cube * (1969, Lana Turner, George Chakiris, Dan O’Herlihy, Richard Egan, Karin Mossberg) – Classic Movie Review 11,439

Director Tito Davison’s 1969 psychological thriller drama The Big Cube stars Lana Turner, in real life freshly married for the seventh time, who went to Mexico for this tedious, laughable piece about a newly-wed, ageing actress called Adriana Roman whose greedy, jealous hippy stepdaughter (Karin Mossberg) is plotting with her drug-pushing lover (George Chakiris) to try to murder Turner with LSD drugs to obtain her fortune.

Dan O’Herlihy, Richard Egan, Pamela Rogers, Carlos East and Augusto Benedico are the other actors down on their luck in a poorly conceived, highly resistible melodrama, written by William Douglas Lansford, with a mission to try to show LSD use and youth counterculture as evils.

The film is based on a story by Tito Davison and Edmundo Báez. Motion Pictures International made a co-production agreement in January 1968 with the Mexico-based Producciones Anco to produce the film, which was shot for eight weeks in cost-saving Mexico, mainly at the Studios Churbusco in Mexico City but also on location on the coastal island of Cozumel with a budget of $560,000.

It premiered on 30 April 1969 in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The Big Cube was released on DVD in 2007 as part of Volume 2 of Warner Brothers’ Cult Camp Classic’s Women in Peril series, a three-part series along with Caged (1950) and Trog (1970).

The cast are Lana Turner as Adriana Roman, George Chakiris as Johnny Allen, Richard Egan as Frederick Lansdale, Daniel O’Herlihy as Charles Winthrop, Karin Mossberg as Lisa Winthrop, Pamela Rodgers as Bibi, Carlos East as Lalo, Augusto Benedico as Dr Lorenz, Victor Junco as Delacroix, Norma Herrera as Stella, Pedro Galván as University Dean, and Regina Torne as Queen Bee.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,439

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