197 - The Astrologer

Your Stupid Minds releases a bonus second episode in two weeks to make up for being a week late last week. In any case, now we’re caught up. This time around we review a movie that was basically lost until 2013 when it turned up in a batch of 1,000 pornographic 35mm prints donated to the American Genre Film Archive. It’s 1976’s (or 1975, depending on who you ask) The Astrologer!

Alexander (played by writer, director, and producer Craig Denney) is a con man at a carnival who goes to Kenya to steal some diamonds with an oil baron and his wife. He gets captured and imprisoned (possibly more than once, it isn’t clear), gets out and steals some cursed diamonds.

Eventually he’s able to sell them in Tahiti and heads back to Southern California to find his fortune the traditional way: by starting an entertainment empire of a hit movie and six hit television shows all about astrology. Everything starts to unravel eventually and it ends with a quote from King Lear. Also starring Denney’s cousin Darrien Earle (named Darrien in the movie), who was also Lee Iacocca’s third wife.