Musings of a Cinematic Obsessive

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: The Girl Hunters (1963)

2012-03-13T00:10:00.000-04:00

When Mickey Spillane's first Mike Hammer novel, I, THE JURY, was released in 1947 it became an instant success, selling over six million copies. Spillane's novels continued to resonate with the public, eventually selling over 200 million copies worldwide. It was inevitable that Mike Hammer would make the jump to motion pictures, which he did in 1953 with I, THE JURY starring Biff Elliot as Hammer. After three films starring three different actors playing Hammer (Elliot, Ralph Meeker and Robert Bray) and a television series starring Darren McGavin, director Roy Rowland decided to go right to the source for his newest Hammer film, THE GIRL HUNTERS: who better to play the iconic detective than Spillane himself?

THE GIRL HUNTERS, based on Spillane's 1962 novel and written by Spillane, Rowland and Robert Fellows, doesn't waste any time with character introductions, assuming (probably rightly) that any audience for the film would already know all they need to about the main players. The film begins with Hammer literally hammered, having gone on an apparently years-long bender brought on by the disappearance and probable murder of the love of his life, his secretary Velda. When Hammer hears a deathbed confession by a murder victim that hints that Velda may still be alive, Hammer sobers up with the intention of rescuing Velda and dispensing justice on anyone who harmed her. Hammer follows a trail of bodies to the beautiful widow of a anti-Communist crusading senator (Shirley Eaton, who of course is unable to resist Hammer's charms) and an elusive band of Communist agents with plans to take over the world. Hammer soon finds himself the target of master assassin The Dragon, who he must defeat in order to save Velda and make the world safe from those dirty commies once and for all.

The plot is pretty ridiculous, engaging in equal parts sex, violence and red baiting, but that turns out to be the film's biggest strength. The loonier the story gets the more it diverts attention from the problem at the center of the film: the gimmick casting of Mickey Spillane as Mike Hammer. Spillane gets the tough guy attitude down but he's just not a professional actor and it shows. Many of his line readings are flat (especially the voice overs) and he's quite deficient in the screen presence department. It's pretty funny to see this overweight, heavy drinking (Hammer is referred to several times as being a recovered alcoholic but he always seems to have a beer in his hand) middle aged man be irresistible to women, especially Eaton, who is several times out of his league. Luckily, the film surrounds Spillane with some real pros, most notably Lloyd Nolan as an FBI agent who pretty much just sits around and drinks while waiting for Hammer to crack the case. And before you get your hopes up, the long awaited reunion with Velda never comes. The film seems to forget all about her in favor of an exciting, violent (at least for 1963) climax. Maybe in the next film.

There were plans to film Spillane's next Hammer novel, THE SNAKE, again with Spillane as Hammer but perhaps wisely those plans fell through. THE GIRL HUNTERS would prove to be the last on-screen Mike Hammer adventure until 1981 when Kevin Dobson played him in the TV movie MARGIN FOR MURDER. There would be one more big screen Hammer feature, 1982's I, THE JURY starring Armand Assante, before Hammer returned to television played by Stacey Keach beginning in 1984. Today THE GIRL HUNTERS is thought of, if at all, as a curiosity. It deserves a slightly better reputation than that. It's a fun, oddball little movie and the casting of Spillane gives it some novelty. Incidentally, this wasn't Spillane's first movie appearance. In 1954 he starred as himself alongside circus owner Clyde Beatty in the bigtop mystery RING OF FEAR, also for producer Robert Fellows. I haven't caught up with that one yet but I plan to soon.

For more overlooked film and a/v visit Todd Mason's blog.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Nothing Lasts Forever (1984)

2012-03-06T00:29:00.000-05:00

Tom Schiller was part of the original writing team for SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE and stayed with the show for eleven years. During that time as part of his occasional "Schiller's Reel" segment he was given free reign to write and direct short films starring the SNL cast which became famous in their own right, most notably "Don't Look Back in Anger," featuring an elderly John Belushi dancing on the graves of his castmates (ironically made just four years before Belushi became the first SNL cast member to die). In 1984 Schiller was given the opportunity to make the leap to features with NOTHING LASTS FOREVER, a bizarre mix of comedy and fantasy which also serves as an homage to the type of classic Hollywood films that Schiller often paid tribute to in his SNL shorts.

NOTHING LASTS FOREVER takes place in an alternate reality New York City designed to evoke the 1930s (although it's set in the present day) where, after a crippling transportation strike, the Port Authority has taken control of the city, installing a totalitarian government complete with strict immigration laws and P.A. announcements signaling the beginning and end of each work day. Into this insanity comes Adam Beckett (a pre-GREMLINS Zach Galligan), a wanna-be artist who after failing a Port Authority issued art aptitude test is given a dead end job as a sentry at the Holland Tunnel. Because of his acts of kindness towards the city's street people, Adam is adopted by an Illuminati-like cabal of homeless folk who live under the city. The leader of the group (played by veteran character actor Sam Jaffe in his last role) explains that they control every aspect of people's lives everywhere except one place - the moon, which has been turned into a shopping destination for senior citizens under the control of the U.S. government. So Adam boards the next bus to the moon (complete with complementary Lunartinis and on-board entertainment by Eddie Fisher) in order to free the people of the moon, find his purpose in life and meet Eloy, the moon girl of his dreams (Lauren Tom).

NOTHING LASTS FOREVER is every bit as quirky as it sounds and while quirky can also mean irritating in this case it means inventive. The film is so imaginative from the very beginning that by the time Adam boards a bus to a moon populated by hula dancing moon ladies it really doesn't seem like that much of a leap. I get the feeling that Schiller must have thought he wouldn't get the chance to make a second feature (at least with as much creative freedom) so he'd better cram all of his ideas into this one. It also helps that the film is cast with lots of well known actors (Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Imogene Coca, Mort Sahl) that help to make the surroundings less strange. The film is shot is beautiful black and white (which turns to color during the Illuminati and moon sequences) and Schiller makes the most of a meager budget by incorporating stock footage from silent and early talkie films in place of building expensive sets. It's all topped of by a wonderful Howard Shore score that evokes B films of the 1930s.

As can probably be expected for a film of this nature, it's had its share of distribution troubles. The film went unreleased by its distributor, MGM, perhaps not surprising given their financial problems at the time and the utterly noncommercial nature of the film. However, it has also never had a release on any home video format due to elusive "legal issues." It's surfaced occasionally over the years at special screenings and it had at least on European TV broadcast. Bill Murray in particular has been a vocal cheerleader for the film and has shown up to help publicize screenings of it whenever possible. Hopefully the film will eventually be able to clear its legal hurdles so it can find a wider audience. It's a fun, lively little film and one that could never get financing from a major studio today. It's a shame that the only convenient way to see this film is via a cruddy bootleg and it would be wonderful if a quality, legal version were to finally be made available.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Yor, Hunter from the Future (1983)

2012-02-21T00:09:00.000-05:00

Part prehistoric adventure movie and part futuristic science fiction, the creative team of YOR, THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE decided to merge two fantasy genres in order to see if they were indeed two great tastes that taste great together. The result, directed by Italian exploitation veteran Antonio Margheriti (using his American pseudonym Anthony M. Dawson) is truly one of the loopiest and enjoyable bad movies ever made.

Fresh from his stint in two Captain America telemovies, Reb Brown plays Yor, a bleach blonde caveman with designer fur booties who enjoys wandering aimlessly around the prehistoric landscape accompanied by his own heroic theme song (sung by Oliver Onions). After saving the beautiful Ka-Laa from a rampaging triceratops Yor is adopted into her tribe and invited to a victory feast. No sooner is Yor wowed by Ka-Laa's impromptu victory dance (think QUEST FOR FIRE meets FLASHDANCE) that she proves herself to be very high maintenance by being kidnapped by a tribe of nasty ape people. This leads to the best scene in the movie where Yor uses a dead pterodactyl as a hang glider i order to fly to the rescue. All would be well except for Yor's nagging feeling that he's not really from around these parts. As it turns out (and as hinted at by the film's title) our story is not really taking place in Earth's prehistoric past but instead its post-nuke future. You see, Yor's parents were killed while trying to escape from the one island left untouched by the bomb, which is now ruled by a tyrannical overlord named, um, Overlord. Now it's up to Yor to defeat Overlord and his android army and restore democracy to the planet.

As you can probably tell by the synopsis, YOR is quite a film. Apparently the 88 minute film released to US theaters was edited down from a 200 minute version that aired as a miniseries on Italian TV. I'd love to see that version to see if it answers any of the several hundred questions left unaddressed by the theatrical cut, such as how a nuclear war could result in the return of the dinosaurs. It probably doesn't and that's okay. Anyone watching this movie looking for logic is completely missing the point. The pleasure of this movie comes from watching it start off weird and crazy and then watching it become progressively crazier as it goes along. It has so many things to satisfy the bad movie connoisseur, from Ka-Laa's decidedly unprehistoric hairstyle to the unconvincing dinosaur puppets to Overlord's android henchmen who look like they're wearing modified Darth Vader helmets. And then there's that theme song. YOR is tons of fun and I defy anyone to watch it without laughing out loud at least once. To put it in culinary terms, YOR may not be a full course meal but if all you're looking for is a cheesy appetizer you really can't go wrong.

For more overlooked film and a/v visit Todd Mason's blog.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Daisy Town (1971)

2012-02-07T00:01:00.000-05:00

Virtually unknown in the United States, Lucky Luke has been a popular cartoon character in Europe since his first 1946 comic book appearance. Designed to be an affectionate parody of American westerns, Luke is a self-described "lonesome cowboy," traveling the west with his faithful horse, Jolly Jumper, defending innocent settlers against evildoers. Although quick with a gun, Luke tends to prefer to outwit his adversaries rather than kill them. DAISY TOWN, an animated feature produced in France in 1971, was the first attempt to bring the character to the screen.

The film follows Luke as he rides into the city of Daisy Town, once a peaceful community but now under constant siege by criminal elements. After running the undesirables out of town, Luke becomes the new sheriff. He's then faced with his biggest challenge in the form of the Dalton Gang (recurring villains in the comic and made up of brothers Joe, William, Jack and Averell). The Daltons convince a neighboring Native American tribe to declare war on Daisy Town (by telling them if the settlement were allowed to developed they would eventually be forced off their own land, which of course turned out to be completely correct) but Luke is able to quickly negotiate a truce, foiling the Dalton's plans.

The animation rarely rises above the level of Saturday morning TV but the film still manages to succeed based on the affection the filmmakers obviously had for the genre they were satirizing. There are countless sight gags based on well known western tropes such as the bartender sliding a beer to a customer at the other end of the bar to the townspeople locking themselves indoors as outlaws ride into town. There is also a terrific, almost silent sequence near the beginning of the film showing the development of Daisy Town from a dusty settlement to a crime-ridden center of industry. For the English dubbed version that I saw the filmmakers made the odd decision to hire celebrity impersonator Rich Little to voice every role. thus we have the surreal experience of hearing Little's version of well known voices acting out major roles such as the film's narrator (James Stewart, and for some reason spoken completely in rhyme), Luke (Gary Cooper), the town undertaker (Boris Karloff) and Joe Dalton (James Cagney). Luckily, the film tries to get by without dialogue whenever possible so this doesn't get too annoying.

Although DAISY TOWN was the first cinematic Lucky Luke adventure it was by no means the last. There were two more animated features, a few animated shorts and a cartoon TV series. In the 1990s these were followed by two live action films and a TV series starring iconic spaghetti western actor Terence Hill. The most recent Lucky Luke film was made in 2009 with THE ARTIST star and flavor of the moment Jean Dujardin. However since that film committed the unpardonable sin of being shot in a language other than English the chances of seeing it in an American movie theater are practically nil. Maybe we'll have better luck with the inevitable US remake.

For more overlooked film and a/v visit Todd Mason's blog.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em (1988)

2012-01-31T00:05:00.000-05:00

Somewhat unsurprisingly, most post-apocalypse themed movies tend to focus on the downside of the event. After all, it's hard to depict nuclear war without spending at least some time on radiation sickness, starvation and nuclear winter, making most of these films something of a downer. Not so Ray Boseley's SMOKE 'EM IF YOU GOT 'EM, an energetic piece of ozzploitation which tries to look at the positive side of armegeddon, namely that it's the perfect excuse for one last kickass party.

This short (48 minutes), nearly plotless film focuses on three survivors of a nuclear strike on Melbourne, Australia. One day, while scavenging the blasted countryside for supplies they stumble across a bomb shelter containing some forty survivors and a year's supply of food and alcohol. The group decide to forgo any attempt at adapting to the nuclear wasteland. Instead they'll throw a farewell bash, blowing through their supplies in a few days (after which most of them will be dead from radiation poisoning anyway) and then go out with a literal blast. They even somehow acquire a live band (the Aussie band Blue Ruin) in order to help make the party memorable, even though no one is expected to survive. The majority of the film shows the party in progress, with the revelers drinking to excess and basically just partying like it's 1999.

The most surprising thing about the film is how poignant it manages to be despite it's anarchic tone. Relationships are made, goodbyes are expressed and a good time is had by all, yet the promise of death is never far from anyone's minds. Maybe the reason why the film manages to ultimately be so touching is because their fates are treated in such a matter of fact manner. These characters are doomed from the very first frame of the film and they all know it. Their determination to at least go out on their own terms increases their likability quotient a good bit and gives them an advantage over more pretentious post-nuke movies such as THE DAY AFTER. SMOKE 'EM IF YOU GOT 'EM is a pleasant surprise, both funny and touching, while at the same time prodding the viewer into examining how he or she would act under the same circumstances.

For more overlooked films and a/v visit Todd Mason's blog.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Du-beat-e-o (1984)

2012-01-17T00:09:00.000-05:00

In 1979 the pioneering rock band The Runaways planned to make their movie debut in a film titled WE'RE ALL CRAZY NOW, a Beatles-esque romp about a typical (and fictional) day in the life of The Runaways. Plans changed when the notoriously contentious band imploded and parted ways for the last time, leaving the producers with no band to make a movie about. Founding Runaways member Joan Jett stayed with the project however and with the help of three actresses hired to play "fake" Runaways (including '70s cult movie goddess Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith as the band's drummer), production continued. About fifty minutes of usable footage were shot before the project ran out of money and was abandoned. Flash forward to 1984 when the mostly forgotten footage suddenly became a hot commodity due to Jett's successful solo career. Alan Sacks (best known for producing the sitcoms CHICO AND THE MAN and WELCOME BACK KOTTER) along with actor turned sitcom writer Marc Sheffler (the doomed, herion-addicted son in Wes Craven's LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT) were hired to come up with a film that could be used around the Jett footage, making it feature length. That production also ran into financing problems and the finished film had to be fleshed out using newsreel footage and Polaroid stills of everything from family members to pornography to roadkill. This, ladies and gentlemen, is DU-BEAT-E-O.

The story that Sacks came up with revolves around a strung-out film director named Du-beat-e-o (real name: Alan Shapiro), whose greedy financier gives him a deadline of thirty one hours to finish editing his movie about Joan Jett. So for the rest of the film we follow Du-beat-e-o as he holes up in his apartment with his cough syrup-addicted editor (Derf Scratch, bassist for the punk band Fear) and a random woman who just happened to walk through the wrong doorway (Nora Gaye) as he struggles to put his film together. Along the way we're treated to stream of consciousness ramblings and panic attacks while the Jett footage plays on monitors in the background. In addition, Sacks and some buddies can be heard on the soundtrack throughout the film, making inane comments as they watch the finished product. It's like a DVD commentary track that can't be turned off.

As is usually the case with this kind of patchwork moviemaking, DU-BEAT-E-O is an incomprehensible mess of a film but it's also fascinating to see the lengths that Sacks and crew have gone in order to salvage a few minutes of commercially viable footage. The Joan Jett footage is great but it's too bad it's been relegated to the background of so many scenes (often with Sacks and company making disparaging comments at Jett's expense while she's onscreen). After all, that footage is the reason why the movie exists in the first place. The same can be said of Sharkey's performance. Sharkey was an actor who never did anything halfway and it's obvious that's he's at least trying to do something worthwhile here. I would have loved to see his reaction when he discovered that much of his performance had been rendered unintelligible by his own director. Sacks has since admitted that he was going through a particularly nihilistic period in his life while DU-BEAT-E-O was being made and it shows since it's the film's sense of meanspiritness that makes it a chore to watch more than anything else. DU-BEAT-E-O played at film festivals worldwide but has received only very limited distribution since, which may be why Jett never sued over the insulting way she's treated here. As it stands, DU-BEAT-E-O will never be confused with a good film but it's still essential viewing for Jett completists and weird movie aficionados. It truly is a one of a kind experience.

For more forgotten film and a/v visit Todd Mason's blog.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: SPY*S (1974)

2012-01-10T00:01:00.000-05:00

In 1974 Donald Sutherland and Elliot Gould, hoping to recapture their success two years previously in M*A*S*H, reunited for director Irvin Kershner's S*P*Y*S. The result was a counterculture spy spoof that tunes the counterculture elements way down to the point where it most closely resembles a Hope/Crosby ROAD movie with more car chases and explosions.

Sutherland and Gould play Bruland and Griff, two not very bright CIA field agents. When they botch the defection of a Russian gymnast, resulting in the deaths of two Russian operatives, it instigates a new international agreement among the world's intelligence agencies demanding "a corpse for a corpse." Finding themselves marked for death by the CIA as well as the KGB, Griff and Bruland, along with a beautiful French anarchist (Zouzou), flee through Europe to escape their former employers.

It's easy to see why audiences didn't respond to this film when it was released in 1974. When inevitably compared to M*A*S*H it becomes obvious that S*P*Y*S is a much lesser film. It's cartoonish and relies much too heavily on slapstick. In fact, the whole thing feels rather like a television sitcom, which isn't surprising since its screenwriters, Lawrence Cohen and Fred Freeman, are both sitcom veterans who returned to TV shortly after writing this film. However, the film has one thing that saves it from being a waste of time: the chemistry between Sutherland and Gould. The actors are obviously friends and clearing are enjoying riffing off each other and that enjoyment is contagious. If they had wanted to, they could have been a great comedy team and it's a shame that the critical reaction to this film probably discouraged them from teaming up again.

Anyone who rents the DVD of S*P*Y*S would do well to check out the supplements on the disc including an informative featurette on the making of the film. Gould especially is very candid about his dislike of the script and how Sutherland talked him into doing the film. Producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff discuss the genesis of the project, originally titled WET STUFF (intelligence agency slang for blood, apparently) and their difficulties getting the project financed even after the two stars became attached. They then talk about selling the film to 20th Century Fox who, against the wishes of everyone involved in the making of the film, changed the title and marketed the film to more directly play up the connection to M*A*S*H.

Time has been kind to S*P*Y*S. Without the specter of M*A*S*H looming over it, S*P*Y*S has a lot less to live up to. Also the absence of a lot of political content has kept the film from becoming too dated. It may fail as political satire but it's good-natured enough to be a pleasant way to spend 87 minutes and sometimes that's enough.

For more overlooked films and a/v visit Todd Mason's blog.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: APE (1976)

2011-12-20T00:01:00.000-05:00

When I was a kid one on my most anticipated movies was the Dino De Laurentiis remake of KING KONG. I had heard the rumors - that there weren't going to be any dinosaurs in the film and that the much hyped forty foot tall mechanical Kong didn't work and would be replaced by a man in a suit. I didn't care. The 1933 original got regular rotation on one of our local UHF channels and I was a big fan. I couldn't wait to see what modern filmmaking technology could add to this great story. So great was my anticipation that when the South Korean KONG knockoff A*P*E came to my local theater a few months ahead of the remake I was the first in line. After all, it had two thing that even KING KONG didn't have: the giant gorilla fights a shark (cool!) and it was in 3D, back when it was a fun gimmick and not just an excuse to raise ticket prices.

The film doesn't waste any time getting to the ape action. At the film's start the thirty six foot gorilla has already been captured and thrown into the cargo hold of a ship en route to Disneyland (!) where's he's to be put on display. Within minutes he breaks free of his prison, has his wrestling match with the shark and makes his way towards a rural area outside of Seoul. The amiable ape then proceeds to try and make friends with everyone he meets, from a group of school children to a hang glider to the least convincing cow ever committed to film. All are terrified of his great size and he's about to take his toys and go home when he literally stumbles onto a film set where he crosses paths with American film goddess Marilyn Baker (Joanna DeVarona, aka Joanna Kerns of GROWING PAINS infamy). It's love at first sight and it looks like a happy ending for at least half of our star crossed couple until the army gives the order to shoot to kill, leading to a protracted (and surprisingly bloody) standoff between our hero and the military.

Obviously, the story doesn't stray too far from the KING KONG formula. Where it differs, however, is in the execution. While all three versions of KONG used the leading technology of the time to tell its story, A*P*E looks like a version of KONG filmed by children in their backyard in Super 8. The ape suit looks like it was made out of someone's old wool coat, saved from the garbage can by this production.An overwhelming aura of cheapness pervades the entire production. the scenes of "terrified" villages fleeing their homes feature literally dozens of people, many of them visibly giggling, and the toy cow that the ape interacts with has to be seen to be believed. For some reason, the ape is constantly swinging his arms over his head, like he's auditioning for an all gorilla production of Swan Lake. And then there's the 3D. As I (barely) remember, the 3D used in A*P*E's theatrical engagements wasn't any better or worse than other 3D films of the time. However, while watching it on television in 2D the attempts to simulate three dimensions are every bit as obvious and silly as you'd expect. No opportunity is spared to throw objects at the camera in order to make the little kids in the theater duck. On shot of the ape throwing a boulder at the screen is repeated at least four times. Still, you haven't truly lived until you've seen a giant gorilla flip the bird at a crashed helicopter in 3D.

Yet, for all its faults I still love this movie. The moron plotting, the nonexistent production values and the barely even trying direction all add up to something special, to me at least. Sure I'm laughing at the movie and not with it. I'm sure that the people who made this movie were laughing at it too. After all, the thing wouldn't even exist except for the opportunity to cash in on the big budget remake. When it was originally released, Paramount forced A*P*E's distributor to put a disclaimer on the poster stating that it wasn't to be confused with KING KONG. I seriously doubt that anyone was confused. For all its similarities, A*P*E is its own thing. It's a perfect movie to watch with a few friends, have a few beers and stare in awestruck wonder at the ineptitude before you.

For more overlooked films and a/v visit Todd Mason's blog.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Stop Me Before I Kill! (1960)

2011-12-13T00:02:00.000-05:00

Besides the gothic horror films that made them famous, Hammer Films dabbled in other genres with varying degrees of success including a series of psychological thrillers designed to capitalize on the success of PSYCHO in 1960. Titles such as SCREAM OF FEAR, PARANOIAC, MANIAC and NIGHTMARE were all designed to exploit the memory of Hitchcock's film. Val Guest's STOP ME BEFORE I KILL!, the first of these films, was released only four months after PSYCHO's premiere in the US so it may be more a beneficiary of good timing rather than a conscious effort to exploit the earlier film.

The film begins with professional race car driver Alan Colby (Ronald Lewis) showing he may want to rethink his chosen profession by barely surviving a head-on collision en route to his honeymoon. A year later Alan's still not quite over his brush with death so he and his wife Denise (Diane Cilento) decide to take a vacation in the South of France as a means of getting Alan to relax. It turns out that Alan is afraid to have sex with Denise because of an overwhelming compulsion to strangle her to death afterwards. Luckily, the couple meet a dedicated, cat-loving psychiatrist, Dr. Prade (Claude Dauphin), who is willing to work with Alan to rid him of his compulsion. All goes well until the morning when Denise disappears amid signs of a struggle and a box full of bloody surgical tools.

PSYCHO worked because Anthony Perkins was able to create audience sympathy for Norman Bates. Unfortunately Ronald Lewis is unable to make Alan Colby, as tortured as he is, into a halfway sympathetic character. As written, not only is he a potential murderer but he's also an arrogant hothead, constantly flying off the handle at whoever he's interacting with at the moment and accusing them of thinking he's insane (which he certainly appears to be). This film could just as easily been called STOP ME BEFORE I ACT LIKE A JERK! Also it doesn't help that the plot revolves around him being an abusive husband (intentionally or not). After all, he doesn't want to kill anyone else, just Denise.

Still, the film does have its pleasures, chief among them the performance of Claude Dauphin as Dr. Prade. It's not to guess that his motives in the film might not be entirely altruistic but he still exudes a trustworthy, paternal quality that makes it a pleasure whenever he's onscreen. I also found the film depiction of psychiatry to be interesting. I was very amused when Prade lists lobotomy as a treatment option in his first session with Colby. Also very intense was the scene where Prade forces Colby to breath carbon dioxide in order to literally choke repressed memories out of him.

Val Guest contributed several classics to the Hammer Films canon both as a writer and director, including QUATERMASS 2 and THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE. STOP ME BEFORE I KILL! may be minor Guest but it's still interesting enough to be recommended. It's dated somewhat and its twists aren't terribly difficult to see coming but it's still able to entertain as an example of a competently made B movie of the period. Just keep away from the carbon dioxide.

For more overlooked films and a/v visit Todd Mason's blog.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Lisztomania (1975)

2011-12-06T00:01:00.000-05:00

Throughout his long career Ken Russell, who passed away on November 27 at age 84, showed a desire to elicit visceral reactions from his audience through his use of outrageous imagery, whether it be sexual, religious or surreal. LISZTOMANIA is easily Russell's most visually extravagant film and to this day remains one of his most polarizing for viewers.

Advertised by its studio as the film that "Out Tommys TOMMY," LISZTOMANIA was Russell's followup to that box office hit. It features TOMMY's very English leading man, The Who's Roger Daltrey, in a biopic of Hungarian composer Franz Liszt. Russell uses Daltrey to reimagine Liszt as the world's first pop star, complete with perm and outfits emblazoned with giant keyboards. The film follows Liszt's dealings with his various mistresses and groupies, his romance with Princess Carolyn of Russia (Sara Kestelman) and his struggles to create great music. However, the main focus of the film is Liszt's relationship with Richard Wagner (Paul Nicholas) which begins as a friendly professional rivalry and ends much more seriously when Wagner marries Liszt's daughter and his music begins to be used as propaganda espousing pro-German superiority.

Throughout the film Russell outdoes himself in terms of crazy visuals, most of which are informed by his love of pop culture. For instance, Wagner's nationalism eventually causes him to to transformed into a Nazi uniform wearing Frankenstein's monster, complete with a machine gun guitar. The film's sweetest sequence shows Liszt in domestic bliss with his wife, shown as a parody of THE GOLD RUSH complete with Liszt as the Little Tramp. And I would dearly have loved to be in the room when Russell explained to Warner Brothers executives the rationale behind the scene where Liszt returns from Heaven in a music-powered spaceship in order to defeat the Nazis.

Daltrey has since proven to be a capable enough actor in the right role but he's pretty much out of his element here. Like in TOMMY, he pretty much acts with his hair, tilting his head so it sways in the breeze at a tempo that corresponds to whatever emotion he's supposed to be feeling at the time. At least he's better than Ringo Starr, who cameos as the pope, complete with a eyepatch with a rhinestone cross sewn on it.

Obviously this kind of thing isn't going to be everyone's cup of classical tea. I'm not sure what value, if any, this film has as a biography. I didn't learn a whole lot about Franz Liszt and I'm even hard pressed to remember any of his music from the film (the score is credited to Rick Wakeman "with assistance from Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner"). In the film defense I'll say that I was never bored and was constantly amused at how Russell constantly managed to top himself with one insane sequence after another. Today's film industry simply won't allow another maverick like Ken Russell an that's really too bad. Like it or loath it, there's never been another film like LISZTOMANIA and there's not likely to be again.

For more overlooked film and a/v visit Todd Mason's blog.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1994)

2011-11-29T00:06:00.000-05:00

1974's THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE is one of my favorite films and I've always been amused by Hollywood's repeated attempts to turn it into a franchise. The original film is perfectly contained and doesn't lend itself to being part of a series, yet we've had three sequels, a remake, a prequel to the remake and next year we're promised yet another remake, this time in 3D. And we've had this odd beast, written and directed by Kim Henkel, the co-writer of the 1974 original.

This film, like most of the films in the series, positions itself as a direct sequel to the original and then proceeds to play like a combination of sequel and remake. the plot involves Jenny (Renee Zellweger) who, along with a group of friends, gets stranded on the way home from the senior prom. They then run afoul of the first film's cannibal family, led by Vilmer (Matthew McConaughey). From there, Henkel gives us variations on famous scenes from the original film including one of the victims being hung on a meathook, the family dinner scene and of course Jenny being chased by the murderous Leatherface, armed with his chainsaw. Henkel manages to put some strange spins on things, including having Leatherface be a crossdresser, something that was hinted at in the original and wisely discarded. There's also a headscratcher of a third act where Henkel introduces the idea of an Illuminati-like organization that has been controlling the family's activities for centuries. Really.

Shot independently as RETURN OF THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, this film sat on the shelf for several years due to its inability to secure a distributor and it became a popular item on the bootleg circuit. In the late 1990s the film suddenly became marketable after the rise to stardom of both Zellweger and McConaughey. It was purchased by Sony, edited slightly and released via home video to a confused public. Actually, despite its penchant for going off the deep end, the movie is not bad. It's well made and the leads are really quite good. There are rumors that Zellweger and/or McConaughey tried to halt the film's release but they have nothing to be ashamed of here. The problem with the film is its unsatisfyingly weird conclusion.

If you've never seen any of the CHAINSAW films and you're curious, well, see the original. But if you've seen the others you may owe it to yourself to check this one out as well. After all, most of the other films in this franchise aren't exactly classics and this one's not as bad as its reputation suggests, at least for most of the way. Did I mention that it gets weird?

For more overlooked films and a/v visit Todd Mason's blog.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: I Don't Know Jack (2002)

2011-11-22T00:26:00.000-05:00

Chris Leavens' I DON'T KNOW JACK is a warts and all documentay about the life of character actor and David Lynch regular Jack Nance. Told through the eyes of his family and friends, it is a portrait of a man who allowed his talent to be consumed by his inner demons.

The film begins by showing Nance as a promising young actor in the late 1960s (when he almost nabbed leads in films such as IN COLD BLOOD and THE GRADUATE), to his big break in ERASERHEAD and finally his later years as a character actor in such project as TWIN PEAKS, MOTORAMA and, of course, MEATBALLS 4. However, most of the documentary's running time is devoted to exploring Nance's alocholism, which surfaced early in his life and not only affected his career but also his personal relationships, such as his combative first marriage to Catherine Coulson (later a TWIN PEAKS co-star). Through the interviews, an image emerges of Nance as an almost Jekyll and Hyde personality: warm and kind while sober but an absolute terror with a loud mouth and quick temper when he was drinking.

Some great stories emerge in the interviews, such as Nance not wanting to do ERASERHEAD until bonding with Lynch over a wooden roof rack that Lynch had built. Dennis Hopper tells how he tried to trick Nance into rehab during the filming of BLUE VELVET by telling him that they would slowly wean him off alcohol instead of forcing him to go cold turkey. A casting director tells how Nance turned down a role in the film MIRACLE MILE because he had just gotten a job as a security guard and the film would conflict with his work schedule. the most touching part of the film deals with the suicide of Nance's second wife, Kelly Van Dyke while he was on location shooting MEATBALLS 4. Nance's belief that he had at least partly caused her to take her own life (they were talking on the phone when the line went dead due to an electrical storm) led him to resume drinking after several years of sobriety, a state of mind which probably led to his mysterious death in 1996, supposedly the result of a late night altercation outside a Los Angeles doughnut shop.

I DON'T KNOW JACK provides a revealing look at a tortured human being. I give the film a lot of credit for not shying away from Nance's dark side. It would have been very easy for this film to be nothing more than a whitewashed tribute to a fallen friend. By acknowledging his faults, Jack Nance emerges as a full blooded human being, one that is very obviously loved and missed by those he left behind.

For more overlooked films and a/v visit Todd Mason's blog.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Trancers (1985)

2011-11-15T01:25:00.000-05:00

"Dry hair's for squids."

-- Jack Deth

Back in the 1980s, when VHS rentals were just beginning to take off, the direct to video shelf of your local video store earned a well deserved reputation as a place to avoid. It quickly became a stop of last resort for all but the most adventurous renters, a dumping ground for unwatchable foreign horror movies, laugh-free comedies and Lorenzo Lamas action flicks. However, every so often a movie would show up on the DTV shelf that actually had some entertainment value. One of these was Charles Band's TRANCERS, a low budget riff on the previous year's THE TERMINATOR that managed to hide its lack of big action set pieces by substituting a clever script, good acting and quite a bit of humor.

Tim Thomerson stars as Jack Deth, a cop in 23rd century Lost Angeles, on the trail of arch villain Whistler (Michael Stefani). Not only is Whistler one tough dude to catch, but he also has the ability to control the minds of weak willed people, creating an army of minions called Trancers who do his bidding. In order to evade capture, Whistler transports his consciousness back to 1985 Los Angeles where he plans to murder the ancestors of the council that controls the city in the 23rd century. Deth chases after him, embedding his consciousness in the body of his ancestor, conveniently also a cop who looks just like Jack. Aided by Leena (Helen Hunt) Jack chases Whistler while avoiding Trancer attacks and being forced to cope with life in 1985 L.A., not necessarily in that order.

The film's biggest asset is Thomerson, who had the good sense to play Jack Deth straight and let the comedy come from his interaction with the strange characters around him. Whether dealing with surfer dudes, sports cars or a great scene in a punk nightclub (which features an awesome hardcore version of "Jingle Bells"), Thomerson creates a terrific fish out of water character. Helen Hunt is also very likeable as Leena and I still think that this is some of the best work she's ever done. They're aided by a smarter than usual script which takes the time to include some character development that normally would have been left out of a film like this. The script's attention to detail go a long way towards masking the film's non-existent budget and bad (even by 1980s direct to video standards) special effects.

It's probably not going to change your life but there are certainly worse ways to spend 76 minutes than with this likeable little sci-fi flick. Unfortunately, Charles Band was never one to let a good idea go to waste so he ran the concept into the ground with no less than five sequels (Hunt bailed after the third film, Thomerson lasted until the fifth). the sequels get progressively worse and, if possible, even cheaper looking. Thomerson even makes a late career appearance as Jack Deth in Band's 2006 EVIL BONG, which is something that just makes me cry. Ignore them and stick with the original.

For more overlooked film and a/v visit Todd Mason's blog.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Trick or Treat (1986)

2011-11-01T00:03:00.000-04:00

Remember back in the 1980s when various fundamentalist groups and the PMRC were warning us about the evils of rock music? Specifically, that it was possible to embed satanic messages into the music that would only be audible if the record were to be played backwards? And remember how most of us thought how stupid that idea was and how we laughed at the folks who ruined their turntables trying to find hidden meanings in their Milli Vanilli records? Well, it turns out that the joke was on us because TRICK OR TREAT is the movie that proves that the rumors were ALL TRUE.

Marc Price stars as Eddie Weinbauer, aka Ragman, a bullied teen whose one comfort in life is his devotion to heavy metal music, particularly the music of Sammi Curr (Tony Fields), who had previously escaped Eddies dead end hometown to become a rock god. When Sammi dies in a hotel fire, a devastated Eddie is given an advance copy of Sammi's final album, charmingly titled Songs in the Key of Death. However, when Eddie plays the album he not only hears some of the worst heavy metal ever produced but also personal messages from Sammi instructing Eddie to take deadly revenge on the classmates torturing him (including a pre-MELROSE PLACE Doug Savant as a mean jock). Soon Sammi goes from possessing Eddie's stereo to inhabiting any electrical appliance, from drills to TVs to cars (I think he controls them through the radio). It's all part of Sammi's master plan which is set to culminate with a radio broadcast of the album at midnight on Halloween. At that time Sammi's going to do...something really bad. It's never made very clear but it'll be pretty unpleasant, I'm sure. In any case, it's up to Eddie to stop the broadcast before all hell breaks loose.

You may have noticed that the plot to this film doesn't make a lick of sense. I'd even go so far as to say that there isn't one logical event that happens in the course of the film. Normally, this would be an impediment to one's enjoyment of the film but in the case of TRICK OR TREAT just the opposite is true. As boneheaded as this film is most of the time it's never less than enjoyable, even though the audience is usually laughing at the film instead of with it. It's impossible not to love scenes such as Eddie smashing his possessed stereo with a baseball bat, explaining to his befuddled mother that he "wanted a new one." And in case there was any doubt that this movie is a fantasy, the script has the cutest girl in school inexplicably fall for our dork hero in possibly the least convincing romantic subplot of all time. To cap it off, there are brief cameos by Gene Simmons and Ozzy Osbourne to appease the heavy metal fanbase this film was supposedly appealing to. In Ozzy's case, his roughly two minutes of screen time playing a fundamentalist minister amply shows why he never managed to have a movie career.

It might have been possible to make an effective horror film around the phenomenon of backwards masking but this isn't it. I have to think that the producers always intended this film to be tongue in cheek rather than a serious horror film. Otherwise, why hire Skippy from FAMILY TIES as the world's least threatening metalhead and then give the film to AMERICAN GRAFFITI's own Terry the Toad, Charles Martin Smith, as his directorial debut? Plus, Sammi Curr is really nothing more than Freddy Krueger with leather and eyeliner. Still, despite the bad casting, the unsure direction and complete lack of logic, this movie is great fun. Lower your expectations and enjoy the film on its own terms and you're sure to have a good time.

Interesting casting note: Eddie's best friend is played by Glen Morgan, who would soon give up acting and find greater success as a producer on such shows as THE X-FILES as well as films like FINAL DESTINATION and the WILLARD remake.

For more overlooked films and TV visit Todd Mason's blog.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: The Candy Tangerine Man (1975)

2011-10-25T00:05:00.000-04:00

Ron Lewis (John Daniels) is a pillar of the African American community, a mild mannered businessman with a nice house in the San Fernando Valley, a beautiful wife and two loving kids. But at night Ron travels to downtown L.A. and adopts his alter ego of the Baron, the most feared pimp on the Sunset Strip. However, as Three Six Mafia was to teach us more than thirty years later, it's hard out there for a pimp. His ladies are holding out on him, the mob doesn't want him trespassing on their turf, and he's being hounded by two racist cops who want him put out of commission for good. It's up to Ron to engineer one last big score so he can put his Baron persona to rest permanently.

Thus begins Matt Cimber's THE CANDY TANGERINE MAN, one of the wildest and most entertaining of the short-lived blaxploitation genre. Logic and believability were never essential components of blaxploitation films bu they were popular because they gave black audiences a chance to see themselves on screen in positions of power while they brought The Man to his knees (even though most of these films were made by white filmmakers, like this one). However, by the mid 1970s the genre was running on fumes and many of the remaining films descended to the level of self parody. CANDY TANGERINE MAN manages to straddle a very fine line between drama and comedy. While Cimber throws in a few touches that clue the audience in to the ridiculousness of the premise (such as the Baron's car, which is equipped with retractable machine guns to more effectively dispose of his enemies), most of the film is played straight so we end up genuinely involved in the Baron's plight.

Most of the credit for the success of the film has to go to the committed, sympathetic performance of John Daniels. The script doesn't do the film any favors in that is almost completely sidesteps the question of why a normal guy like Ron would choose to live a double life as a pimp. However, Daniels manages to silently convey during his scenes at home that while he loves his family he feels stifled by suburban life and needs to live a more exciting existence. Still, he chooses to become a pimp, a career choice not every audience member is going to be able to get behind. The character does manage to show his moral center in a nicely played early scene where he attempts to buy an underage runaway from another pimp in order to put her on a bus back home. As far as pimps go, he's one of the nicer ones. He even gives his hookers the weekends off.

Cimber keeps the film moving at a good clip, never allowing it to overstay its welcome and giving it a genuine sense of period flavor. This is surely helped by the "hookers and blades of the Sunset Strip," who are credited as playing themselves in the film, as well as a terrific score by the funk band Smoke. CANDY TANGERINE MAN was a sizable hit in 1975 but has fallen into almost total obscurity since then. A shame, since it's a classic of the genre and deserves to be discussed along with better remembered entries like SHAFT and SUPERFLY. Of course those films had major studios behind them while CANDY TANGERINE MAN was released by the now defunct Moonstone Entertainment. It had a brief release on VHS in the mid 1980s but has since become very hard to see. If you're at all interested in checking out a wild example of 1970s exploitation it's worth the effort to track down a copy.

For more overlooked films and TV visit Todd Mason's blog.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Forbidden World (1982)

2011-10-18T01:46:00.001-04:00

"If it is intelligent, have you thought about trying to communicate with it?"
That's about the stupidest damn idea I've heard all day. No offense, Barb."

Let;s get one thing straight right way: Allan Holzman's FORBIDDEN WORLD is a work of pure genius. One of my fondest moviegoing memories is going to see this mangy mutt of a science fiction thriller with a good friend back in 1982 in a theater along with five or six other unsuspecting moviegoers (on a double bill with Paul Schrader's CAT PEOPLE remake, of all things). We knew we were in for a special experience right from the pre-credits sequence which consists of a flashforward montage of almost every bit of nudity and gore in the film followed by a space battle made up almost entirely of stock footage from BATTLE BEYOND THE EARTH. It was at this point that one of my fellow theatergoers, a gentleman sitting a few rows away from us, yelled in his loudest voice, "No wonder it's forbidden, it sucks!"

The film follows interstellar troubleshooter Mike Colby (b-movie veteran Jesse Vint), who is awakened from suspended animation along with his faithful droid companion SAM 104 to investigate some strange goings on at a scientific research station on the plant Xarbia. It seems that one of their test subjects, Subject 20, has mutated into something angry and hungry. It seems that Colby's unique view of interspecies relations ("If it moves and it's not one of ours, shoot it") is just the ticket to save the day before the station's crew becomes lunch.

FORBIDDEN WORLD was one of the last of producer Roger Corman's attempts to cash in on the success of STAR WARS and ALIEN and in my opinion it's clearly the best. It's missing the saccharin qualities of BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS and the pacing issues that plagued GALAXY OF TERROR. FORBIDDEN WORLD is a lean mean little movie that realizes exactly how ridiculous and unoriginal it is without ever succumbing to the level of parody. This may not have been intentional since reportedly Corman was unhappy with the amount of humor in the film and forced Holzman to remove almost all of it, the result being that scenes that may have once been played for laughs are now played completely straight, making them even funnier.

There's much to love in this movie including a genuinely good performance by the late Fox Harris as the station's chain-smoking, cancer-ridden head scientist. Harris specialized in playing oddballs and would later turn up in another '80s classic, REPO MAN, playing the irradiated driver of the car that everyone in the film is chasing after. Also of note is the final method of disposing of the monster. I won't spoil it here but suffice it to say that you probably haven't seen anything quite like it before. From it's nonsensical opening to the philosophical ramblings of SAM 104 ("They switch you off when life is good and switch you back on when they're up to their noses in life's bitter droppings") to the jaw-dropping, bloodsoaked finale, FORBIDDEN WORLD is a joy from start to finish. I've seen this film more times than can possibly be healthy since that evening at the much missed College Theater in Swarthmore, PA. I never get tired of it and it always puts a smile on my face when I'm up to my nose in life's bitter droppings.

For more overlooked films and video visit Todd Mason's blog.

Tuesday'a Overlooked Films: Race With the Devil (1975)

2011-09-20T00:11:00.000-04:00

One of the most popular tropes of 1970s action cinema was the fear of leaving home and venturing into some of the more rural parts of the United States. It seemed that there was trouble just waiting to happen in every part of the country that wasn't lucky enough to be covered in concrete. In DELIVERANCE (1972) the vacationers no sooner get to their destination when they meet up with homicidal inbred hillbillies. In TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974) it's homicidal inbred cannibal hillbillies. Jack Starrett's RACE WITH THE DEVIL tries to go them one better: The naive city folk leave town and are pursued by homicidal Satanists. They'll not only take your life but they'll have your soul, too!

Best friends and business partners Roger and Frank (Peter Fonda and Warren Oates) pack into a giant RV with their wives Kelly and Alice (Lara Parker and Loretta Swit) en route to a skiing vacation in Aspen. Of course to get there they need to travel through rural Texas. As always happens in this type of film, things go south as soon as they turn off the main road in favor of a shortcut. It's a shortcut, all right....a shortcut to Hell! While parked for the night, Roger and Frank witness a Satanic ritual a short distance away which culminates in a human sacrifice. When they realize that they've been seen, the cultists give chase to the the vacationers in order to silence them.

As is also typical of this genre, the film tries to ratchet up the paranoia level by having everyone the innocent outsiders meet be part of the Satanic conspiracy. As a result everyone in a several hundred mile stretch of rural Texas is tied into a vast Satanic network. Yeah, okay, I can buy that. What I can't quite accept is that the cultists didn't see a huge RV parked right next to their ritual site. I guess chronic myopia is a side effect of selling your soul to Satan. Anyway, the film does a decent enough job of giving the impression that someone is always looking over our heroe's shoulders. Fonda does a surprisingly good job of playing someone who's involved with something that's out of his depth (in a Dustin Hoffman in STRAW DOGS kind of way, except it's still Peter Fonda so lower your expectations a bit) but Warren Oates simply could not portray a wimpy outsider if his life depended on it. That's not a criticism. Oates is always a delight to watch but I still think that if he wanted he could have sent those pesky cultists straight to hell with a flick of his wrist.

RACE WITH THE DEVIL is an entertaining film but kind of a slow burn, with not a lot happening in the first half of the film. However, the second half is loaded with some amazing stunt work, the likes of which would probably all be done with CGI today. One of the things I really love about movies from this era is trying to figure out how the various gags were achieved in a pre-CGI world. This film was a staple on TV in the late '70s and early '80s and it's perfect fare for a lazy Sunday afternoon. And the best part is that you can watch it while you're safe at home.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Bonnie's Kids (1973)

2011-09-13T01:09:00.000-04:00

One of the better drive-in features of the early 1970s, Arthur Mark's BONNIE'S KIDS shows that a decent script, professional actors and a sure hand behind the camera can result in a film that, while a disposable piece of exploitation at heart, can also be a solid piece of entertainment that holds up very well nearly forty years after it was made.

Ellie (Tiffany Bolling) and Myra (Robin Mattson) are two sisters living in a sleepy little town with their abusive stepfather, Charlie, after the death of their mother two years earlier. When Ellie catches Charlie assaulting Myra she kills him, hides his body and the two sisters head off to the Big City in search of their Uncle Ben, who runs a modeling agency which is really a front for the mob. At this point, the film separates the two sisters, giving them their own distinct storyline. Myra becomes the object of affection for Ben's latent lesbian wife, Diana, while Ben recruits Ellie as an unknowing courier of a suitcase full of mob money. When she realizes what she's carrying she splits with the money, only to be pursued by two enforcers (Alex Rocco and Tim Brown). Needless to say, this is an exploitation film from the 1970s so it's unlikely that either plotline will end happily.

Every step of the way BONNIE'S KIDS feels like it's a cut above the usual grindhouse fare of the period. In fact, it really doesn't feel like a grindhouse film at all. While Marks never passes up an opportunity for gratuitous nudity and bloodshed (including surprising nudity from Mattson, who was 16 when this film was made) the story is strong enough that it never feels like just a string of exploitation set pieces. Marks, who previously had been know mainly as a director for the PERRY MASON TV series, shows a flair for action. the film is well paced and never drags throughout its 105 minutes. This is helped by its excellent cast which besides B-movie queen Bolling and future soap star Mattson includes solid performances by Rocco (whose connection to the previous years THE GODFATHER is played up in the film's trailer), Max Showalter and Sharon Gless in her film debut.

When people talk about the good old days of the 1970s exploitation film this is the kind of movie their talking about. As much as I love exploitation from that period I'll be the first to admit that more often than not the movies were just not very good. BONNIE'S KIDS is an exception (along with Bolling's other classic from 1973, THE CANDY SNATCHERS). It's a terrific movie for anyone looking for a fast paced crime thriller with just a pinch of sleaze thrown in for good measure. Check it out.

For more overlooked films go to Todd Mason's blog

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Wolfguy (1975)

2011-08-09T00:55:00.000-04:00

One of the most enjoyable things about seeking out obscure movies is the pleasure of finding a film so totally crazy that it couldn't possibly exist, yet does. Such is the case with WOLFGUY, a berserk mix of action, horror and martial arts, and without a doubt one of the strangest (and rarest) films of Japanese cinema superstar Sonny Chiba's long career.

Chiba play "Wolf" Inugami, one of those only in the movies reporters where the stories come to him and very little reporting actually goes on. One night Inugami is minding his own business when he stumbles across a man being hacked to death on a Tokyo street by what the police implausibly yet correctly call a "spectral slasher." ("It seems to be the only explanation."). It turns out that the man is a member of a rock group hired by his management to gang rape Miki, another of the management's acts, in order to derail her engagement to to the son of a conservative politician. Understandably, this leaves Miki angry, to say nothing of drug-addicted, infected with syphilis and working as a singer in a geisha-themed strip club (her songs about how she is destined to die insane don't exactly go over well with the clientele). It seems that Miki, in her rage, has learned to channel her inner animal (a tiger) and have it astrally attack those who have wronged her.Can Inugami help bring her peace and stop the killing?

It turns out he can because (wait for it) Inugami is the last of a pack of wolf people, the rest of whom were wiped out by a gang of villagers years before. While Chiba never turns into a werewolf per se (something that would have instantly elevated this movie to classic status), he is gifted with heightened senses and the ability to jump really high. However, before he can deal with Miki, Inugami will have to deal with a clandestine government agency (the JCIA, of course) who want to use his blood to create super soldiers. Oh, and there are yakuzas too.

As far as I can tell, WOLFGUY has never been officially released on any home video format anywhere in the world. Information about it on the Internet is extremely scarce and I have no idea what the public's reaction to it was upon its release but Chiba looks noticeably uncomfortable throughout the film, like he's a bit embarrassed to to be there. That may say a bit about why the film is so rare and why there was never a WOLFGUY 2. That's a shame, since the movie is a lot of fun and I would have like to have seen the further adventures of Inugami. I would even have been happy to see an American remake of the material, starring, say, Jo Don Baker as Wolfguy. As it is, the film is only available on the gray market as a VHS recording taken from a 1993 Japanese TV broadcast. Still, any fan of Japanese exploitation cinema would be wise to seek it out. It's fast paced, bloody and has enough craziness it it for four movies. See it, if you can, and be amazed.

For more forgotten films visit Todd Mason's blog.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Damnation Alley (1977)

2011-07-26T00:33:00.001-04:00

I last saw Jack Smight's DAMNATION ALLEY when I was about fourteen years old when my parents took me to see it at the local drive-in (I believe it was the bottom half of a double bill with JAWS 2). I remember kind of liking it but my memory of the night is a bit hazy. Besides, I was fourteen and I pretty much liked everything I saw. It's even possible that I didn't even stay awake through the whole thing. So when Shout! Factory recently released the film on Blu-Ray and DVD (its first legit home video release since the VHS days) I figured it would be as good a time as any to revisit this mostly forgotten piece of my childhood.

The movie doesn't waste any time getting started. at a military outpost in New Mexico we're introduced to George Peppard and Jan Michael Vincent, two Air Force officers who's job it is to launch nukes at the enemy in case of war. And wouldn't you know it - within minutes of the start of their shift a full fledged nuclear war breaks out. That's what happens when you trust Jan Michael Vincent with the bomb. Flash forward two years and America is a desolate wasteland. Radiation has caused the sky to turn a different color every five minutes and Vincent is forced to outrun packs of giant scorpions on his motorcycle. When the military base is destroyed due to someone smoking a bit too close to some dangerous chemicals, Peppard, Vincent and Paul Winfield decide to hit the road in a totally rad military RV decked out with all the options, including a missile launcher on the roof. The decide to head for Albany, possibly the last city in America, but first they'll have to drive through the war ravaged remains of the US highway system, otherwise know as Damnation Alley. Along the way they stop and pick up Dominique Sanda as a Las Vegas lounge singer whose career was rudely interrupted by the apocalypse and Jackie Earle Haley, as the kind of streetwise yet lovable kid that only exists in movies. Together they face killer cockroaches, hordes of mutated mountain men (if six people can be considered a horde) and unpredictable weather patterns as they head for an uncertain future in Albany.

The thing that struck me about DAMNATION ALLEY this time around is how retro it feels. Not 1970s retro, which would make sense, but 1950s retro. It's very easy to imagine this film with Leslie Nielsen in the George Peppard role and Ricky Nelson subbing for Jan Michael Vincent. Everything about it screams 1950s Sci-Fi movie from the stoic performances and cheap looking special effects to the plot which shows a total disregard for logic or science. This is a world where radiation mutates animals but pretty much leaves humans alone. Speaking of radiation, no one has radiation sickness and there's no evidence of a nuclear winter. Not that any of this is necessarily a bad thing. It's obvious that the makers of this film were trying to make an exciting action film, not a docudrama about the horrors of nuclear war. Still, Roger Zelazny, whose novel this was based on, went on record as being very unhappy with this adaptation of his work and maybe this is part of the reason why.

DAMNATION ALLEY was shot in 1976 and was supposed to be 20th Century Fox's big holiday movie for that year. Due to problems related to completing the special effects it missed its release date and by the time it was finally released in October of 1977 it had been overshadowed by another Fox science fiction release, a little film called STAR WARS. This film has taken a lot of heat over the years from critics and audiences alike but I think its flaws are part of what gives it its charm. I found it to be an enjoyable (if very silly) little film. As long as your expectations are adjusted accordingly this perfectly fine escapist entertainment, perfect for a lazy Sunday afternoon.

For more overlooked films visit Todd Mason's blog.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Where the Buffalo Roam (1980)

2011-07-12T00:31:00.000-04:00

In 1977 Gonzo journalist Hunter Thompson sold the film rights to his article "The Banshee Screams for Buffalo Meat," a eulogy of sorts for his longtime attorney and friend Oscar Acosta, who disappeared and was presumed dead in 1974. Since his much more famous FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS had had several aborted attempts at being filmed, Thompson was sure the movie would never be made and saw selling the rights as a way to get some quick cash. However, much to Thompson's displeasure, the film, which as its subtitle states, is "based on the twisted legend of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson," was finally made in 1980 as the directorial debut of veteran producer Art Linson and starring Bill Murray as Thompson.

The film that finally got made is a highly fictionallized and exaggerated version of Thompson's life and career. It's virtually plotless, more a collection of scenes than a movie with a beginning, middle and end, yet the film's disjointed nature seems right considering its subject. The movie seems almost as stream of consciousness as Thompson's writing tended to be. Still, the film manages to hit most of the high points (if you'll pardon the pun) of Thompson's life. We start in 1968 with Thompson and Acosta (here named Carl Lazlo for legal reasons and played by Peter Boyle) covering the Super Bowl while making a shambles of their hotel and not bothering to stick around to actually watch the game. From there we move into a brief dramatization of some of the events from FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS before finishing up with Thompson covering Richard Nixon's 1972 Presidential campaign, end with a restroom confrontation with the candidate himself. Through it all Thompson is seen swilling bottles of Wild Turkey, swallowing handfuls of pills (apparently the blue ones are the most potent) and generally acting like a maniac to everyone who has the misfortune to cross his path.

Since the film has barely any structure the only thing holding it together is the performances of its stars. Murray spent quite a bit of time with Thompson researching his role and it shows. He crawls into Thompson's skin and gives a spot on impression of the doctor in his younger, madder days. Boyle gives an equally committed performance as Acosta/Lazlo, especially in a courtroom scene where he defends some kids arrested on a pot bust. As it's written, this role could easily have been played as a loudmouthed buffoon but Boyle gives him a genuine personality. The supporting performances are good as well, if a bit more thankless, especially Bruno Kirby as Thompson's long suffering editor at Blast magazine (subbing for Rolling Stone) and Rene Auberjonois, who has a funny cameo near the end of the film as "Harris from The Post."

Since this is a movie about the legend of Hunter Thompson (a legend he created and encouraged right up to his death) it doesn't tell the viewer a whole lot about the man. In fact, viewers without at least some background regarding who Thompson was will likely be totally confused as to why this guy merits having a movie made about him in the first place. We just see him do crazy things and sometimes he writes about them. There's never any sense of the impact that his writing had on people. Mostly we just wonder why he's not dead, what with all the drugs and alcohol constantly being poured into his system.

When Universal released WHERE THE BUFFALO ROAM in 1980 it was a financial disaster and was quickly exiled to endless showings on pay cable. Apparently not one to learn a lesson, Universal tried again in 1998 when they finally produced the long gestating film version of FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS which also failed to gain any traction at the box office. If they stick to their established timetable Universal should give it another shot sometime in 2016. I hope so. There's still a great film to be made based on Hunter Thompson's life. Until it gets made Thompson junkies like myself will have to content ourselves with this near miss.

For more overlooked films visit Todd Mason's blog.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: ...All the Marbles (1981)

2011-06-28T06:22:00.000-04:00

With the recent passing of Peter Falk I decided to take a second look at this Robert Aldrich comedy about female tag team wrestlers, which I haven't seen since it made the rounds on cable in the early 1980s. The result was less of a rowdy comedy than I remembered and more of a character study of three desperate people.

The film doesn't try to reinvent the wheel with its plot. Harry Sears (Falk) is manager of the small time wrestling team known as the California Dolls, made up of Molly (Laurene Landon) and Harry's former lover, Iris (Vicki Frederick). We follow the Dolls as they travel from town to town, getting physically punished on a nightly basis while Harry struggles to get their meager pay from sleazy promoters. Eventually the Dolls are featured in a national wrestling magazine which leads them to an opportunity to take part in a nationally televised championship bout against their arch rivals, the Toledo Tigers.

What I suspect this film gets right is the unglamorous portrayal of life on the road. Traveling from one small town to the next, living in motel rooms, eating nothing but fast food and getting beaten up for a living all for the sake of a $250 payday (which has to be split three ways) is very strongly conveyed. Also the humiliation the Dolls feel when they are contracted to wrestle in mud at a small town fair seems very real. These are obviously people with nowhere else to go. The wrestling scenes are brutal, especially the final match. Landon and Frederick went through intensive training for the film and it looks like some very real punishment was being inflicted in these scenes.

According to an IMDB message board post, Aldrich had the film taken away from him during post-production by MGM who recut it to emphasize the comedy. The original cut supposedly included several subplots that were either dropped or heavily modified including Molly's lesbianism and Harry and Iris' violent history. Looking at the film it's pretty easy to see where material was cut. For example, almost every character mentions what a terrible person Harry is but in the film he's pretty much the lovable scoundrel that became Falk's stock character in his post Columbo years. There are only two scenes that hint of a darker side to his character. One of those is played for laughs and the second (which I won't spoil) is pretty shocking considering that the film had been a fairly light comedy drama up to that point.

As it stands, this is an enjoyable film with a bit more substance than you'd expect. However, it's too bad if this is a compromised version of the film. This was Aldrich's last film and he deserved better for his swan song. Also, it sounds like the original cut added more layers to Falk's character which is probably what attracted him to the project in the first place. Still, there are worse ways to spend two hours. Watch it and be pleasantly surprised.

For more overlooked films visit Todd Mason's blog.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Grizzly II: The Predator (1983)

2011-06-21T02:28:00.000-04:00

"So, you got a problem with a little grizzly, huh?"

"It's not a little grizzly. It's a big grizzly."

David Sheldon's GRIZZLY II: THE PREDATOR, alternately known as GRIZZLY II: THE CONCERT and of course PREDATOR: THE CONCERT was a belated, in name only sequel to the 1976 film GRIZZLY, which was itself a blatant ripoff of JAWS. GRIZZLY II manages to be a ripoff of a ripoff, with another giant grizzly rampaging through another national park, only this time with thousands of people attending a large outdoor concert within the park acting as bear bait. This film would be completely forgotten today except for the fact that is was never fully finished and also provided early acting jobs for George Clooney, Laura Dern and Charlie Sheen, making it a highly sought after collectable for fans of cinematic skeletons in the closet.

Park Ranger Nick Hollister (Steve Inwood) has his hands full when not only does he have to oversee the preparations for a massive outdoor rock concert designed to raise funds for the park. He finds himself further inconvenienced when a twenty foot tall grizzly decides to start eating the tourists. He gets little help from Director of Bear Management Samantha Owens (Deborah Raffin) who seems awfully reluctant to stop an innocent bear who, after all, is only following its instincts. He gets even less help from Park Superintendent Eileene Draygon (played by Louise Fletcher in what has to be the steepest career slide for an Oscar winner ever), who in true evil bureaucrat fashion tells him to deal with the problem quietly and without jeopardizing the revenue from the concert. Hollister hires Bouchard (John Rhys-Davies), a Quint-like hunter and together they head into the woods to track the "devil bear." Can Hollister destroy the bear before it crashes the concert as well as protect the virtue of his daughter (a pre-VALLEY GIRL Deborah Foreman) who is involved in a budding romance with the narcissistic, not entirely masculine concert headliner? No, probably not.

GRIZZLY II exists only in a workprint version, with incomplete scenes, a temp music track and only partially dubbed dialogue. The film was shot in Hungary in 1983 and most of principal photography was completed before the production was shut down due to lack of funds. Judging by what's onscreen it looks like most (but not all) of the scenes involving the principal actors were completed but except for some quick footage of a bear puppet during the climatic attack none of the bear footage was shot. As can be expected, this is an issue for a film calling itself GRIZZLY II as there are many scenes where characters are shown screaming and running from nothing and every attack scene ends prematurely while roars from a nonexistent bear play on the soundtrack. Instead of the bear, we're treated to many (many) scenes featuring the new wave musical acts playing at the concert. These acts are so bad you'll walk away from this film eternally grateful that the 1980s are over. In fact, early in the film Sheen, playing a hiker who is soon to become bear chow, mentions that he is on the way to a "great concert," proving that even in 1983 he was clinically insane.

While GRIZZLY II is by no means a good film, getting to finally see it is a real treat. For years this film was only rumored to exist and so it's great to at least be able to verify its existence. Plus, the movie is actually fun to watch. If this film had been released in 1983 it would barely rate a footnote today but, because of its rarity and the presence of so many name actors slumming their way through it, this movie has a camp value that's almost irresistable. I love it when supposedly lost films surface without warning and GRIZZLY II gives me hope that others are out there waiting to be found.If a movie like GRIZZLY II can show up out of nowhere after sitting in the back of someone's closet for a couple of decades maybe some of the more sought after missing tititle, such as Jerry Lewis' notorious THE DAY THE CLOWN CRIED, will be next.

Visit Todd Mason's blog for more overlooked films.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: The Love-Ins (1967)

2011-06-14T01:35:00.000-04:00

Produced by prolific exploitation master Sam Katzman (ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK), THE LOVE-INS was one of the few films of its era to take a distinctly negative view of the hippie subculture. The 66 year old Katzman, his director, 59 year old Arthur Dreifuss, and 47 year old writer Hal Collins combined to make a movie about a subject that none of them understood, resulting in the REEFER MADNESS of 1960s cinema.

Jonathan Barnett (Richard Todd) is a Timothy Leary-esque university professor who resigns his position in protest when publication of the school underground newspaper is halted by the Dean and its publishers Larry (James MacArthur) and Patrica (Susan Oliver), are expelled. He appears on conservative broadcaster Joe Pyne's television program where he is grilled over his belief in the consciousness-raising properties of LSD. Pyne suggests that Barnett move to Haight Street where he can be closer to the freaks he so obviously loves. Barnett moves in with Larry, Patricia and about ten other people in a Haight Street apartment also housing Elliot (Mark Goddard), an in-name-only hippie who makes money by selling banana peels to the kids for five dollars and ounce and likes to make jokes about the stock market. He suggests to Barnett that there would be money to be made selling Barnett to the hippies as a new age guru. Soon Barnett is dressing in white robes and preaching his mantra of "Be More, Sense More, Love More." One night Patricia has a bad LSD trip where she becomes convinced that she is Alice in Wonderland, leading to a rediculous musical production number, the likes of which have absolutely no place in a movie like this. When Larry confronts Barnett over Patricia's somewhat dangerous yet totally embarassing trip, Barnett refuses to renounce the use of LSD which creates a schizm in the once-happy group.

The hippies in this film are treated like a separate species despite being the main characters in the film. There's an early scene where sightseers on a tour bus snap photos of the hippies on Haight Street like they were monkeys in a zoo. It's remarkably similar to a scene in John Water's MULTIPLE MANIACS (1970) where tourists pay to gawk at members of the counterculture, but where Waters was satirizing the attitudes of society towards those they perceive as different, Katzman and company are playing it completely straight. Also suspect is the film's depiction of drug use. LSD is the drug of choice and not only are the hippies high on it all the time but one hit and the characters in the film are either flailing about wildly on the lawn, jumping out of windows or becoming convinced that they've become Alice in Wonderland (I'm honestly not sure which is worse).

For a film that only runs 85 minutes there's a remarkable amount of padding. The scene where Barnett first arrives in town and observes the hippies doing their thing while obviously all stoned out of their minds seems to go on longer than the entire Summer of Love. And then there's that Alice in Wonderland sequence. I give the filmmakers credit for wanting to do something different than the usual light show representing an LSD trip but this was a really crazy idea that should have never made it past the first draft of the screenplay. It stands as a classic "What were they thinking" moment and is easily the most memorable part of the film, although I'm sure not in the way anyone intended.

For all its faults (and they are legion) I still think the film should be seen not as a snapshot of the time it was made, but a snapshot of the attitudes of those that made it. It's a classic case of an established producer and a major studio (Columbia) teaming up to pander to and criticize its audience at the same time. The result may be somewhat offensive but it's never boring. It's like HAIR as written by Glenn Beck. Groovy.

See Todd Mason's blog for more overlooked films.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Vice Squad (1982)

2011-06-07T00:22:00.000-04:00

Made during the last days of exploitation's golden age, Gary Sherman's VICE SQUAD is a strange animal. On one hand, it's easily as sleazy and disreputable as any of the exploitation classics that preceded it. This is a movie that doesn't let its plot get in the way of its need to wallow in sex, violence, car chases and just about any other type of antisocial behavior you can name. It was considered fairly strong stuff in 1982 and for good reason. But on the other hand, all that depravity is covered in a gloss that its predecessors from the 1970s never had. It has some recognizable actors giving good performances, professional camerawork and actual production values, all serving to help make the sleaze go down easier. In fact, it's so slick that by the time it's over you'll hardly notice that you've been wallowing in the mud for the past 97 minutes.

The plot is paper thin. Vice squad detective Tom Walsh (Gary Swanson) coerces Hollywood hooker Princess (Season Hubley) into taking a part in a sting operation to take down sadistic pimp Ramrod (Wings Hauser) after Ramrod beats one of Princess' fellow call girls to death. Of course things don't go as planned and the cops spend the rest of the film chasing Ramrod before he can catch up with Princess and kill her as well. That's about it, really. Most of the film is spent watching Ramrod stalk his prey up and down Hollywood Boulevard, with the cops in hot pursuit. Director Gary Sherman keeps things moving at a good clip, allowing just enough character beats that we feel like we're watching real people instead of cardboard cutouts.

The real star of the show, however, is Wings Hauser. His portrayal of Ramrod, the Killer Pimp has become the stuff of legend and it's easy to see why. Hauser's maniacal method performance is really something to see. He's always had a penchant for overacting if not reigned in but he's let completely off the leash here and the results are truly scary. He's alternately charming and sadistic. In his first scene he beats a hooker (his "main lady," played by original MTV VJ Nina Blackwood) to the edge of death so we see what he's capable of. From that point on we understand why everyone else is afraid of him. It's a terrifying performance and in a just world Hauser would have received awards and lead roles instead of a career filled with parts in direct to video erotic thrillers. Season Hubley is also quite good as Princess, giving life to a part that could easily have been a cipher. She played a similar part three years earlier in Paul Schrader's HARDCORE and it's easy to see this as a continuation of that character.

Anyone drawn to the subject matter will find a lot to like in VICE SQUAD. It's fast paced, exciting and shot with a professional polish that wasn't the norm for films of this ilk at the time. Plus, it not only has Wings Hauser in his best role but he sings the film's theme song, "Neon Slime," as well. What's not to love? It's interesting to note that one of this film's screenwriters was Robert Vincent O'Neill, who would go on to write and direct his own Hollywood hooker epic, ANGEL, two years later.

For more overlooked films go here.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Wild in the Streets

2011-05-24T02:20:00.000-04:00

For more overlooked films go here.

For most of the 1950s and all of the 1960s American International Pictures served the needs of its youthful audience, giving them a steady diet of beach parties, bikers and monsters. By the late 60s AIP was ready to move beyond these fantasies and address the very real social change happening in the world at that time in films such as THE TRIP (1967), PSYCH-OUT (1968) and Barry Shear's WILD IN THE STREETS (1968), based on Robert Thom's short story, "The Day It All Happened, Baby."

Congressman John Fergus (Hal Holbrook), in an effort to capture the youth vote, enlists Max Frost (Christopher Jones), the most popular rock star in the world, to appear at a fundraiser. While there, Frost tells his youthful audience that fifty two percent of the population is under the age of 25 and that if Fergus is serious about serving the interests of youth he will enact legislation to lower the voting age to fourteen. Frost organizes a massive demonstration which basically shuts down Los Angeles, leaving Fergus little choice but to give in to Frost's demands. Once the voting age is changed, Frost uses a member of his entourage (Diane Varsi) to run for Congress and change the age requirements for Congress and the Presidency to fourteen. When Frost is elected President (as a Republican) his first official act is to neutralize everyone over the age of 35 by dosing them with LSD and holding them in concentration camps, starting with his shrewish mother (Shelley Winters).

While at first viewing this seems like a wish fulfilment fantasy for its teenage audience (which is how I read it when I first saw it as a teen), this time around I was struck by how the film stacks the deck against Frost and his cause right from the beginning. He's a spoiled, antisocial jerk from his first scene and so are the people he surrounds himself with. It's clear that they don't deserve the rights that they're asking for and I found myself feeling sorry for Fergus and the unwinnable position he's put in. Clearly, that has something to do with the fact that I'm now closer to Fergus' generation than Frost's but I still think the film is meant to be critical of Frost's actions. I haven't read the source story but I'd be curious to see if this conservatism was present in the original story or was the result of studio changes. After all, this is from the studio that forced Roger Corman to give THE TRIP a downbeat ending so it wouldn't be seen as encouraging drug use.

Still, I'd recommend the film. It's entertaining, moves along at a good clip and Shelley Winter's performance in particular is something to see. It's also got some great music and it's interesting to note that the film's theme song, "The Shape of Things to Come," was resurrected nearly forty years later for a series of commercials for Target stores. Max Frost certainly would not approve.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Winter Kills (1979)

2011-05-17T00:34:00.000-04:00

For more overlooked films go here.

I love a good conspiracy thriller and one of the best and most underrated is 1979's WINTER KILLS, based on Richard Condon's novel. Beset with production difficulties (the film was shut down several times due to lack of funds and was partially financed, in cash, by a producer with organized crime connections), the film was met with audience indifference when initially released and was soon pulled altogether by its distributor, Avco Embassy Pictures. Perhaps this is because unlike earlier conspiracy thrillers like Alan Pakula's THE PARALLAX VIEW (1974), WINTER KILLS doesn't just use the still relatively fresh Kennedy assassination as a jumping off point for its own fictional story. Instead, WINTER KILLS is designed to deliberately evoke the assassination at every turn, with events and names disguised thinly enough so that anyone even remotely familiar with the case will have no trouble knowing who real players are. To add insult to injury the film is played as a pitch black comedy, something that audiences might not have been ready for just sixteen years after the actual event.

Jeff Bridges play Nick Kegan, who brother, President Timothy Kegan, was assassinated nineteen years earlier during a motorcade in Philadelphia. When he hears the deathbed confession of a man who claims to have been involved in the murder, Nick travels to Philadelphia and discovers the murder weapon. With the aid of his billionaire father (John Huston) Nick sets about uncovering the facts and exposing the players in the conspiracy. In his search for the truth, Nick encounters dead witnesses, organized crime bosses and crazed intelligence agents. He ultimately finds that the truth may lie closer to home than he thought.

Like I said, I doubt that people were prepared for such a cynical picture of the Kennedy family in 1979. According to the director commentary on the DVD John Huston was no fan of Joe Kennedy and he plays him like evil personified, terrorizing both his family and politicians in equal measure and enjoying himself every step of the way. Also, the film not only confirms the presence of a conspiracy but suggests that those closest to the President may have been complicit in his murder. Richard Condon later wrote an article suggesting that the reason Avco Embassy buried the film despite strong reviews was because they had money tied up in defense contracts that the Kennedys were also involved in. It's a conspiracy about a film about a conspiracy.

In any case, now that over thirty years have passed and the film is once again easily available on home video hopefully people will catch up to it. It's thought provoking, a lot of fun and has an amazing supporting cast, including Richard Boone, Anthony Perkins, Eli Wallach, Sterling Hayden, Dorothy Malone, Ralph Meeker, Toshiro Mifune and Elizabeth Taylor. It holds up remarkably well and folks looking for something a little offbeat would do well to seek it out.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: The Face With Two Left Feet (1979)

2011-05-10T00:55:00.000-04:00

For more overlooked films go here.

Last weekend, while attending Exhumed Films' (hopefully) first annual eX-Fest exploitation film marathon, I was exposed to this little mindbender of a film that I had no idea even existed. The folks at Exhumed referred to it as Travoltaploitation and indeed that seems to be an accurate representation of its genre. While it's a comedy, there's little, if anything, in it that's intentionally funny. There's lots of music but it's not a musical and the romance in the film is dealt with so quickly as to seem like an afterthought. Yes, this is a movie that got made simply because its star just happens to bear an uncanny resemblance to a certain 1970s film icon.

The story, such as it is, revolves around Johnny, a nebbishy cook in a luxury Italian hotel who spends his spare time at the local disco (subtly named John's Fever) drinking oversized glasses of wine and staring from afar at the club's lovely DJ, Illona (Ilona Staller, aka future porn star and politician Cicciolina). His disco-obsessed friends want Johnny to stop being such a downer and introduce himself to Ilona but his shyness and complete inadequacy on the dancefloor put a stop to this. At about the film's thirty minute mark Johnny's friends discover what the audience realized after about thirty seconds: that if Johnny shaved his moustache and took off his glasses he'd be a dead ringer for John Travolta. They give Johnny a makeover, buy him a white leisure suit and concoct a story about how Johnny doesn't actually sound like Travolta due to a case of laryngtis (although the actor who performs in the film's English dub does sound quite a bit like him). Soon Johnny is not only strutting his way around John's Fever (complete with faux Bee-Gees music on the soundtrack), but his channeling of the Power of Travolta gives him the confidence to become a disco fiend, thereby allowing him to win if not the heart at least the attention of Ilona.

As I mentioned to a friend during the screening this is a movie that plays like a feature length Mentos commercial. Characters break into dance for absolutely no reason, play unfunny practical jokes on each other and make stupid faces at the camera. Still, for a one-joke film it has a certain charm. Giuseppe Spezia, in his only film role, certainly looks like a young Travolta even though his performance is a bit wooden. Staller is charming in a relatively small role and the supporting cast tries hard. I wonder if Travolta or his people were aware of this film and if so what their reaction was. While I can't say that this is a good film, it's definitely unique. And while its music and fashions may cause SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER to appear dated today, one only has to look at this film to see an example of its cultural importance. Seeing this film with a large crowd was a lot of fun, certainly more enjoyable than watching it at home on television would be. Many thanks to the great folks at Exhumed Films for resurrecting this cultural artifact and presenting it in the best possible light.

This is the only YouTube clip I could find from the film. It's missing the big reveal at the end but it does give a good idea of what the film is like.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Never Too Young To Die (1986)

2011-05-03T00:48:00.000-04:00

For more overlooked films go here.

When evil hermaphroditic supervillain Velvet Von Ragnar (Gene Simmons) comes up with a plan to poison the water supply of Southern California he doesn't count on the interference of the one man who can stop him: secret agent extraordinaire Drew Stargrove (a cameo from the Forgotten Bond, George Lazenby). Stargrove steals a floppy disc containing the computer codes needed to put his plan into action and in quickly executed by Ragnar for his trouble. Luckily for the world, Stargrove had the foresight to send the disc to the only other man capable of stopping Ragnar: His son Lance (John Stamos), currently a college student on a gymnastics scholarship who knows nothing of his father's secret life. Lance is soon drawn into the hunt for Ragnar, aided by his college roommate (Peter Kwong), a techno-geek genius who supplies him with the gadgets to get the job done, and Danja Deering (Vanity), Stargrove's former partner who's out to avenge his death.

While Stamos and Vanity attack their roles earnestly and both look suitably pretty on screen, neither is much of a actor. This leaves Gene Simmons to walk away with the movie, which he does effortlessly. He seems to realize that he doesn't really need to depend on this acting thing to survive so he may as well just have fun with it. Dressed up like a roadshow Dr. Frank N. Furter he overacts shamelessly, thereby infusing the movie with the energy level it needs to remain fun to watch. It's a hoot watching him command his minions (who drive dune buggies and are all dressed like ROAD WARRIOR rejects), visibly chewing the scenery and spitting it out all over John Stamos.

For a change it's actually the script's plot holes that make NEVER TOO YOUNG TO DIE a fun watch and separate it from a hundred over generic '80s action films. When we're first introduced to Lance he's got his own catchy theme song playing over the film's soundtrack even though he hasn't done anything heroic yet (and won't for quite some time). Also, Ragnar states that his plan is to hold the government for ransom so he won't release the deadly toxins in the water supply but he never does this. As soon as he regains control of the computer codes he starts to release the poison. Since Ragnar also lives nearby this might be a bad idea since he never mentions having his own water supply. Likewise, since everyone in the government knows who Ragnar is and that he's behind the plot it couldn't be that hard to find him, especially since he lives in a huge desert compound with hundreds of followers as well as having a job as a singer in a downtown heavy metal bar.

So to sum up: It's stupid, the leads are dull and you could probably write a better script in your sleep. Yet NEVER TOO YOUNG TO DIE remains a fast paced 93 minutes thanks mostly to the go for broke performance by Gene Simmons. This film has never had a DVD release, probably due to the efforts of its stars to keep it buried. Still, if you can find a copy and are in the mood for some silly fun you could do much worse.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Let's Scare Jessica To Death

2011-04-26T00:34:00.000-04:00

For more overlooked films go here.

When I was a kid I used to flip through the entertainment section of my local paper and ogle the lurid ads for movies that I wasn't anywhere near old enough to see. Thanks to the magic of home video I've since been able to track down most of those films that I thought would be forever out of my reach, with the result being that most of the time the movie I imagined in my head turned out to be more exciting than the real thing. I can only thank the movie gods that they made me wait thirty years before finally seeing LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH (1971) because if I had seen this movie as a child I'm sure I would have hated it. First of all, the movie doesn't feature any skeletons crawling out of lakes. There aren't any memorable set pieces and the horror depends entirely on the character's perceptions of what is happening to them. These things would have combined to make my childhood head explode. Yet despite all this JESSICA manages to be quite frightening, albeit not for those with short attention spans.

Jessica, recently release from a psychiatric hospital after suffering a breakdown, is looking to make a fresh start with her husband Duncan and friend/hanger-on Woody. They move to an isolated country farmhouse and when they arrive they find the house is already being inhabited by Emily, who apparently has been squatting there for some time. Since she seems nice enough and Woody seems to dig her they ask her to stay and join their extended family. It's not long before Jessica starts hearing voices and seeing people following her. Not wanting to be thought crazy she keeps it to herself. Of course the farmhouse has a tragic history. Nearly one hundred years before a young girl living in the house drowned in a nearby lake shortly before her wedding day. Jessica soon finds herself drawn to a photograph of the girl and her family that she finds in the attic. Hmmm, that dead girl sure looks a lot like Emily....

This movie is the very definition of a slow burn. Very little actually happens yet director John Hancock is very good at building a sense of dread that increases throughout the film's running time. the film also avoids giving easy answers. Is Jessica being driven mad? Is Emily a ghost? Or is Jessica just imagining everything? In any case, it's hard to imagine things turning out well for Jessica, which brings me to the other nice thing about this film: The characters are likable and you actually root for them. In an age when horror movie characters are usually just set up to be killed it's nice to see a movie where you hope the main character will escape alive and in one piece. A lot of the film's running time is invested in building character development and it pays off. Slow but never boring, LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH is a movie to seek out. For me, it was worth the wait.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Raw Force (1982)

2011-04-19T00:10:00.000-04:00

For more overlooked films go here.

Simply put, RAW FORCE is one of the most entertaining films of all time. It doesn't have great acting or beautiful cinematography or a nuanced screenplay. What is does have is the perfect combination of weird and stupid, which should be enough to keep anyone from checking their watch for this film's entire action-packed 83 minutes.

The film involves a group of instructors from the Burbank School of Karate who book a bargain cruise around the Phillipines in the least seaworthy-looking ship since Gilligan took his three hour cruise. The ship, captained by Cameron "No Paycheck Too Small" Mitchell, is headed for a new destination: Warrior Island, which the brochure refers to as the home of disgraced martial artists. This doesn't sit well with crooked jade trader Thomas Speer (Ralph Lombardi, made up to look exactly like Adolph Hitler for no discernable reason). You see, he has a business arrangement with the monks of Warrior Island. He supplies them with women kidnapped from local brothels and in return they give him all the jade he wants. But like everything else in this movie, all is not what it appears to be. The monks don't want the women for sex, but for food. It turns out that human flesh gives the monks the power to raise the dead and command an army of (disgraced) zombie martial artists.

When Speer learns of the ship's destination he hires a squad of goons to dispose of all the passengers, leading to the priceless piece of dialogue over the ship's PA, "Maniacs have boarded the ship. Go back to your cabins." However, Speer and the goons have underestimated the martial arts prowess of the karate instructors as well as the ship's cook, who is also a martial arts master, and a female passenger, Cookie, who just happens to be a vacationing member of the LAPD SWAT team. The goons succeed in destroying the ship, causing our heroes to become shipwrecked on Warrior Island. However, the monks aren't too happy about intruders invading their home so they force them to battle to the death against their (disgraced) kung fu zombie army.

The above description doesn't even begin to convey how crazy this movie is, and I mean that as a complement. Everything in this movie, from the dialogue to the sets and costumes, is just insane. Just when you think it can't get any nuttier, it does. It also helps that it's really well paced and doesn't overstay its welcome. Maybe I'm just a sucker for a good cannibal monk movie but in my opinion RAW FORCE really hits the spot if you're looking for some no brainer fun.

The trailer may not be work safe, btw.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: I Need That Record! (2008)

2011-04-12T00:02:00.002-04:00

For more overlooked films go here.

Anyone who has browsed the shelves of a big box retailer such as Best Buy in the past few years will surely have noticed that the shelf space devoted to music and video media has drastically shrunk. In addition, the selection of titles being offered for in-store purchase has also dwindled. When this is taken into account along with the disappearance of local "mom and pop" stores it creates a cause for concern for those who want to be offered something other than the latest releases from the major labels. I NEED THAT RECORD! is a documentary that examines the reasons why local retailers have vanished and how the closing of these stores have created a void in the lives of collectors and possibly the culture itself.

The film begins with a history of the record industry, including the payola scandals of the 1950s and the rise of formatted radio. It then looks at the emergence of corporations like Clear Channel, with their rigidly enforced playlists and emphasis on advertising dollars over music. The film then turns to its true subject, the independent record store, run by fans and seen as a place where like-minded collectors could gather, meet and turn each other on to music to music they wouldn't ordinarily be exposed to. Store owners and customers are interviewed, each explaining how these stores have created a sense of community among their customers.

Unfortunately, by the mid to late 1990s many of these stores had begun to close their doors. The film examines several reasons for this including the buying power of the big box stores, who were willing to sell music at a loss in order to increase store traffic, and especially the rise of Internet file sharing, which caused an industry wide slide in record sales that continues to this day. The film also looks at the greed of the major labels, who continue to try to charge almost $20 for a product that costs less than a dollar to produce, as well as the rise of Internet stores like Amazon, which is able to sell music at a much lower price point than the indie stores.

While the film doesn't make many points that haven't been made elsewhere regarding why people are shunning the record industry, it does make a convincing case regarding the loss of a place for fans to gather and socialize. While much of this socialization has moved to online bulletin boards, it's not the same as being able to meet people face to face. Likewise, while just about every album is readily available on Amazon, the thrill of the hunt is gone. A large part of the fun of collecting is sifting through countless bins full of junk, looking for buried treasure. That's one experience that the Internet just can't replicate.

My Cinematic Alphabet

2011-03-31T19:38:00.000-04:00

Taking my cue from a post at the terrific Rupert Pupkin Speaks blog (who in turn got the idea from the equally great Citizenrobot.com), I've decided to put together a list of 26 favorite films, each beginning with a unique letter of the alphabet. This is by no means a list of what I consider the best films, more a list of favorites which have impacted me personally over the years. Even so, this was a tougher list to put together than I originally thought it would be. I found myself kicking so many great films to the curb in favor of sentimental favorites that I may find myself making another list sometime soon so I can include some the greats that I left off this time.

A is for Annie Hall

B is for Breathless

C is for Caligula

D is for Diner

E is for The Exorcist

F is for A Fistful of Dollars

G is for Godzilla

H is for Hair

I is for Invasion of the Body Snatchers

J is for Jaws

K is for King Kong

L is for The Last Temptation of Christ

M is for Mulholland Drive

N is for Nashville

O is for Once Upon a Time in the West

P is for Pink Flamingos

Q is for Q

R is for Repo Man

S is for Suspiria

T is for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

U is for Under the Volcano

V is for Vertigo

W is for War of the Worlds

X is for X: The Man With the X-Ray Eyes

Y is for Young Frankenstein

Z is for Zulu

I'd love to see other folks try their hands at such a list. If you feel up to making one of your own please let me know so I can check it out.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: The Sorcerers (1967)

2011-03-29T00:43:00.001-04:00

The tragically short career of director Michael Reeves consisted of only three films. THE SORCERERS was the second and the first to examine the theme of the addiction of power and the effect that power has on those it is used against.

Boris Karloff play Professor Marcus Monserrat, an elderly medical hypnotist living in near poverty with his wife, Estelle. Monserrat has been making a meager living since being stigmatized by the press as a fraud. He hopes to make his comeback by introducing his latest invention to the world: a machine that will allow a subject to be controlled remotely while enabling his or her experiences to be experienced by others. To test the device Monserrat lures young man about town Mike (Ian Ogilvy) to his apartment with the promise of a new and exciting experience. Mike is hypnotized, told to forget ever meeting Monserrat and given the suggestion to go for a late night swim with his girlfriend, Nicole (Elizabeth Ercy). The experiment is a success and Monserrat and Estelle are thrilled to be able to see and feel Mike's swim as if it were happening to them. Monserrat want to go public with the device, thinking it will be a boon invalids by allowing them to live richer lives. Estelle, however, sees it as a way to attain the luxuries she has been denied all these years. She forces Mike to steal a fur coat and becomes addicted to the thrill of him almost being caught by the police. She becomes immersed in a battle of wills with her husband, who realizes how dangerous her thirst for power has made her. She continues to place Mike in ever more dangerous situations, eventually forcing him to become a serial killer, until Moserrat is forced to take drastic measures to stop her.

THE SORCERERS is an exciting, unique film. It's probably the first film to deal with the concept of virtual reality, beating the at least superficially similar STRANGE DAYS to the punch be almost thirty years. It's also relentlessly downbeat. Once Estelle is given her first taste of control over Mike she is not only unable to stop, but unwilling. She never for a moment takes into account the effect her actions are having on Mike, who is suffering blackouts and doesn't understand why he is feeling the compulsion to do terrible things. Her hunger for control over Mike leads to an inevitable bad end not only for herself, Monserrat and Mike but also for everyone around them. This is a theme that Michael Reeves would return to in his next film, THE WITCHFINDER GENERAL (1968), starring Vincent Price as an inquisitor who holds the power of life and death over those he comes into contact with.

This film also provides Boris Karloff with one of his last great roles. Even at the age of eighty he manages to be a commanding presence on screen. It's a shame his character has very little to do in the second half of the film. Karloff would make one more great film, Peter Bogdanovich's TARGETS (1968), before heading to Mexico to make grade-Z dreck until his death in 1969. Ogilvy is also very good in a role that requires him to go from someone who is in absolute control of every situation to someone who becomes convinced he is no longer in control of his behavior. The film also features an early appearance by Susan George as an ex-girlfriend of Ogilvy's.

As mentioned, director Michael Reeves would go on make one more film, THE WITCHFINDER GENERAL, which is generally regarded as a masterpiece. He would be found dead of a barbiturate overdose in 1969 at the age of 25 while in pre-production on his fourth film. It was a untimely end to a most promising career.

For more overlooked films go here.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Americathon (1979)

2011-03-22T00:05:00.000-04:00

For more overlooked films go here.

There are two types of overlooked film. One is the small gem which perhaps didn't have a huge marketing push and fell through the cracks, waiting to be discovered by an appreciative public. The other is the type of film that never had a chance at an appreciative audience, misfires that can only be thought of fondly by the families of the people that made them. This, my friends, is AMERICATHON. directed by Neal Israel and based on a play by the Firesign Theatre's Phil Proctor and Peter Bergman, this is a movie that should have been a whole let funnier than it is.

Set in the far-flung future world of 1998, an out of control energy crisis has left the US bankrupt, leaving people to live in their park cars instead of driving them and forcing the US government to borrow $400 billion from the country's wealthiest citizen (played by Chief Dan George) in order to keep the country afloat. When the government is given thirty days to repay the debt, President Chet Roosevelt (John Ritter) puts on hold his plans to raffle the tomb of the Unknown Soldier to the highest bidder in order to televise a national telethon (an Americathon, if you will) in order to raise the money.

This premise should have been a launching point for the kind of ensemble sketch comedy that Israel showed some talent with in his previous film, TUNNEL VISION. Instead, we get subplots involving the telethon's hapless producer (Peter Reigert) and a sabotage attempt by a coalition of Arab states and Israel (called the United Herab Republic) who want to own the US once it's foreclosed upon.

Israel fumbles the ball here at every opportunity. The cast tries hard but it has no chance when fighting against the leaden pacing and obvious jokes. The one bright spot is Zane Buzby as Mouling Jackson, a Vietnamese punk rocker with whom the President becomes infatuated. Her performance has an energy and excitement the rest of the film lacks. It's a shame the movie is such a dud since the subject matter is certainly topical. It could have had a new lease on life if it were just, you know, funny.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: The Mysterious Monsters (1976)

2011-03-15T00:19:00.001-04:00

For more overlooked films go here.

Going to the movies as a child in the mid to late 1970s it was impossible to avoid the documentaries of Sunn Classic Pictures. They would sweep into town, saturating the TV with ads the convinced every kid in town that they HAD to see the film, only to disappear by the next weekend. Sunn specialized in documentaries about fringe subjects: The Bermuda Triangle, UFOs, ancient astronauts, ghosts and even conspiracy theories surrounding Abraham Lincoln's assassination were typical fare. I saw them all and I was a true believer. However my favorite Sunn doc was THE MYSTERIOUS MONSTERS, which exploited the at the time fascination with Bigfoot. I remember talking my brother into taking me to see and he hasn't let me forget it to this day. When I was given the opportunity to see this again after 35 years I thought it'd be fun to see how it holds up.

The film begins with a post-MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE/pre-AIRPLANE Peter Graves somberly looking into the camera and telling the audience that MYSTERIOUS MONSTERS could very well be "the most startling film you will ever see." Yikes. We're then shown an unfortunate actor in a ratty Bigfoot suit walking through the woods. Graves then gives us the history of Bigfoot and informs us that science is discovering new species of animals all the time. Just because we haven't seen one up close doesn't mean it's not out there, close by. Maybe in the theater seat right behind you?

We then get a short detour to Scotland, where Graves tells us about the Loch Ness Monster. We see all the usual still photos and motion picture footage of Nessie. We see a team of scientists explore the loch before coming back with the motherload: an underwater photo of what looks like a giant fin! Graves mentions this as proof positive of the monster's existence and if Nessie is real then so is Bigfoot, right? Makes sense to me.

Back in the Pacific Northwest we get to see lots of reenactments of people's encounters with Bigfoot. For a creature who is supposedly wary of humans it sure does seem to enjoy wandering into folk's yards, smashing their living room windows and at one point even knocking on the front door. We're then treated to the scientific portion of the film, where audio recordings of the film are analyzed and determined to not come from any known animal. "It's probably Bigfoot," Graves concludes. People are subjected to hypnosis and polygraph tests to make sure they're not lying. Of course they wouldn't lie! After all, all of those giant footprints have to have come from somewhere. The film ends with Graves surmising that Bigfoot may be a distant cousin of man or maybe even the missing link. He suggests that since they appear to be peaceful, solitary creatures (apart from all the window smashing) we should just all learn to get along.

So is MYSTERIOUS MONSTERS worth a watch? It really depends on your feelings towards the Bigfoot phenomenon, since I don't think this movie is going to change anyone's mind either way. When we saw it back in '76 my brother was convinced he had wasted several dollars as well as two hours of his life. I was convinced that Bigfoot was living in our yard. All in all I felt the movie held up well based on what I can remember of that first viewing. Parts of it are pretty silly and it's conclusions may be suspect but it's an entertaining documentary which at least pays lip service to providing scientific proof regarding the subject. After all, it must be true. Peter Graves would never lie to me.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: The Great Silence (1968)

2011-03-08T00:04:00.001-05:00

For more overlooked films go here.

Director Sergio Corbucci was a master of the spaghetti western craze that swept through Italy and Spain in the 1960s and '70s. He directed several classic westerns during this period including MINNESOTA CLAY 1964), COMPANEROS (1970) and most famously DJANGO (1966), which became an international hit, spawning one official sequel and dozens of in name only imitators. In 1968 he made THE GREAT SILENCE, one of the grimmest of the spaghetti western cycle and also one of the best.

In 1898 Snow Hill, Utah a blizzard is raging that is causing the townsfolk to turn to crime in order to feed their families. This turns out to be a blessing for a gang of bounty hunters led by the sadistic Loco (Klaus Kinski), who are becoming rich murdering the outlaws and cashing in the bounty. Enter Silence (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a mute gunslinger who is willing to avenge the deaths of the townspeople - for a price. When Pauline (Vonetta McGee, in her first film) hires Silence to kill Loco in retaliation for the death of her husband a game of cat and mouse is set into motion culminating in a shootout from which only one man will walk away.

Corbucci goes to great pains to point out the similarities between Silence and Loco: they both kill for money ($1,000 to be exact) and neither is willing to shoot first. Their motivations, however, couldn't be more different. Silence is avenging an injustice performed on his family as a child while Loco is shown to enjoy the pain he inflicts, using his position as a legal bounty hunter to get way with killing while getting paid for it at the same time. Since Silence never speaks and therefore is something of a blank slate through much of the film it's the character of Loco that propels the dark mood of the film. We see from the beginning that he's a bad guy and, of course, a little crazy (hence his name) but it's not until late in the film that we get to see just how psychotic he really is, leading to one of the darkest and most disturbing climaxes in western history. It's also a very chilly film, with the blizzard itself becoming a major character. You'll shiver along with the characters in the film. Much credit goes to Corbucci for this since the film was shot outside Rome during the summer months.

THE GREAT SILENCE was never released theatrically in the US. Instead, an American remake was planned but was never produced. It took until 2001 for the film to finally receive a home video release in the States.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Memories of Matsuko (2006)

2011-02-22T00:04:00.001-05:00

Go here for more overlooked films.

When twenty-something slacker Sho (Eita) is informed that his aunt Matsuko, long estranged from his family, has been murdered, he travels to her home to clean out her apartment and recover her personal belongings. When he arrives, he finds that she has been living as a recluse in a rundown, garbage-strewn riverside apartment. Her neighbors call her an outcast and her own brother calls her life meaningless. However, through a series of flashbacks we see that Matsuko's life was anything but meaningless as we follow her downward spiral, from an idealistic young girl to a disgraced school teacher to her tragic final days. We get to see Matsuko's life as it's affected by bad choices and bad luck, from abusive boyfriends to prostitution and a prison stay. Through it all Matsuko tries to stay optimistic, seeing the events of her life as a series of cheerful, colorful fantasy musical numbers.

While many of Matsuko's misfortunes can be chalked up to some truly terrible life choices, the viewer is always on her side, due in no small part to the amazing performance of Miki Nakatani. As Matsuko she is so totally likable that we can't help but root for her even as we see her dig herself deeper into a pit she can't possibly hope to get out of. It's a tour de force performance, going from light comedy to tragedy and even some singing and dancing. It's also a beautiful film to look at. Director Tetsuya Naskashima has filled the film with pastels and bright colors, allowing us to get inside Matsuko's head and to see the world through her optimistic point of view.

MEMORIES OF MATSUKO was never given a proper theatrical or home video release in the US, only playing in select film festivals. Right now the best option for English speaking viewers is the recently release Blu-ray from the UK by Third Window films. It's affordable, is not region locked and most importantly, shows the film off in it's most impressive light. In the meantime here's hoping that some adventurous company steps up and gives this wonderful film a much deserved release in the States. I urge everyone to see this film however you have to go about it. It's dark in spots but manages to never be depressing. It's a terrific, life-affirming piece of work that will make you think twice about the people who manage to fall through the cracks of our society.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Drive

2011-02-15T00:44:00.001-05:00

For more overlooked films go here.

It's a sad fact that dozens of terrific films fall through the cracks each year, receiving only screenings through film festivals or getting only the most basic direct to video releases. Such was the case with Steve Wang's DRIVE (1997), one of the best action films almost no one has seen.

DRIVE features Mark Dacascos as Toby Wong, a Chinese soldier implanted with a device that increases his stamina and reaction time (in order to create the perfect assassin, of course). Wong wants none of this assassin business and hightails it to the USA in order to sell the device to an American corporation and live a normal life. Along the way he hijacks a failed songwriter (Kadeem Hardison) to drive him from San Francisco to Los Angeles, all the while being chased by hitmen who have instructions to recover the implant.

The plot of DRIVE is completely beside the point. Director Steve Wang doesn't take any of it seriously and the film exists only to move from one action scene to the next as well as to show why Mark Dacascos was once considered to be the Next Big Thing in action cinema. He moves with the grace of a young Jackie Chan and even more importantly he can act. For once the character-driven moments are just as much fun as the action set pieces because Dacascos and Hardison interact so well, both together and with Brittany Murphy, who plays the manager of a motel they visit on their travels. They all look like they're having a great time and their enjoyment is infectious.

DRIVE wasn't done any favors by Simitar Home Video who gave the film it's US direct to video premier in 1998 via an ugly, full-frame transfer which cut its Panavision framing almost in half. In addition, they cut the film by sixteen minutes, excising just about all the character driven moments that make the film special, including most of Murphy's role. The result was a film that looked like every other direct to video action film of the era: lots of car crashes and explosions but very little in the way of character or logic. The only was to properly appreciate this film is through the British DVD from Medusa, which not only restores the film's proper framing but also all the missing character beats.

DRIVE is a wonderful movie, a near-perfect combination of action and comedy. It has no pretensions toward being anything important. It just wants to keep you entertained and amused for two hours, which is really all you can ask of this type of film. It's a crime that inferior films like RUSH HOUR, which this film superficially resembles, are able to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue while DRIVE is collecting dust on your video store shelf. How can you not love a film that has a recurring joke about a TV show called WALTER THE EINSTEIN FROG ("That's one smart frog!")? Check it out if you can. I love this film and chances are you will too.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Skidoo

2011-02-08T00:26:00.001-05:00

I have been invited by Todd Mason of the Sweet Freedom blog to participate in this weekly blog ring celebrating films and television that have been unjustly forgotten or in some cases rightly buried. Special thanks to him. Visit his blog here for a full list of participating blogs.

Ah, Hollywood in the late 1960s. Like everything else in the country at that time the movie industry was in a state of flux. Costs were up and attendance was down. Stars and directors were in danger of losing their relevance. In desperation, the studios turned to the one demographic they hadn't already exploited to death: the youth market. The decision of these studio executives to exploit the freedom suddenly afforded to them by the disbanding of the Hayes Code as well as make movies targeted to a segment of the audience that most of them knew nothing about resulted in some of the most fascinating cinematic train wrecks in film history.

Which brings us to Otto Preminger's SKIDOO (1968). It must have looked great, or at least profitable, on paper. You've got established stars like Jackie Gleason, Carol Channing, Groucho Marx and Mickey Rooney for the grownups. Frankie Avalon was there for the kids and Preminger even got his BATMAN co-villains Burgess Meredith, Cesar Romero and Frank Gorshin to show up in cameos. Add a healthy dose of hippie and drug humor to make it topical and you've got a sure-fire recipe for success, right? Well, not really. It's clear that Paramount had absolutely no clue how to sell the resulting fiasco, as can be seen from the trailer hosted by none other than Dr Timothy Leary.

Jackie Gleason is Tony Banks, a retired mob enforcer living the suburban good life with his annoying wife Channing and their hippie loving daughter, played by Alexandra Hay. However, just when Tony thought he was out he gets pulled back in when he's recruited by mob boss Groucho Marx (playing a character named God) to kill his old pal Mickey Rooney, who's currently in jail and planning to turn state's evidence. Tony gets himself sent to the slammer where he bunks with draft dodger and occasional chemist, Fred (Austin Pendleton). When Tony borrows some of Fred's stationary to write a letter to his family he finds that the envelopes have been laced with LSD. Tony's trip turns him into a peacenik so he plans a prison break which involves dosing the entire prison with acid and escaping via hot air balloon. Soon Tony and his daughter's hippie friends, led by John Phillip Law (looking very Manson-esque) are en route to God's yacht for the "hilarious" finale. By the time Carol Channing shows up doing an impersonation of George Washington crossing the Delaware while singing the film's horrible theme song you'll either be praying for death or mildly amused by the sheer audacity of it all.

Truth be told, it's not all bad. There's a certain amount of entertainment to be had by watching some of the most idiotic acid trip sequences ever committed to film (Gleason hallucinates being attacked by giant metal screws with Groucho's head attached to them). Some of the Harry Nilsson songs peppered throughout the movie are kind of catchy and Nilsson has a goofy cameo as a tripping prison guard. The movie's rarely boring and for fans of cinematic misfires it's certainly an interesting watch. It's no surprise that just about everyone involved with this film would like to see it buried but honestly, most of them have probably done worse. I'll sign off with the most interesting part of the movie, the end credits, which are completely sung.

RIP Tura Satana 1938-2011

2011-02-06T18:27:00.006-05:00

As much as I hate to begin this blog on a down note it would be remiss of me not to mention the passing of one of the legends of exploitation cinema, Tura Satana on February 4, 2011 at the age of 72. Although her cinematic output was light (only 10 films in a 47 year career plus a handful of TV appearances) she left an indelible mark on anyone who encountered her work.

Born in 1938 in Hokkaido, Japan to parents of Japanese/Filipino and Cheyenne/Scots-Irish descent, her family soon emigrated to the US. Her early years were filled with racism and violence, including spending World War II in a California internment camp and a brutal rape by a gang of neighborhood boys. Satana soon found herself in Los Angeles where she parlayed her exotic looks into a career as a dancer and model. She managed to score bit parts in IRMA LA DOUCE and WHO'S BEEN SLEEPING IN MY BED? but in 1965 she made the film for which she would be known for the rest of her life, Russ Meyer's FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! As Varla, the karate-chopping, back-breaking she devil she's both frightening and sexy, seductive one minute but able to turn deadly in an instant.

Satana next teamed up with filmmaker Ted V. Mikels for the ultra low budget THE ASTRO-ZOMBIES (1968), notable mainly for being co-written and financed by future MASH star Wayne Rogers. She teamed up with Mikels again in 1973 for THE DOLL SQUAD which was ripped off a few years later by Aaron Spelling as CHARLIE'S ANGELS. Satana then retired from showbiz to pursue a career as a nurse only to be lured back by Mikels in 2002 for the sequel MARK OF THE ASTRO-ZOMBIES. Satana spent most of her later years making personal appearances on the convention circuit but in 2010 she did manage to film the third (!) in the ASTRO-ZOMBIES trilogy.

I only met Tura Satana once, very briefly, at a horror convention in the late 1990s. From a distance she was very intimidating. It looked like even in her 60s she would have no problem kicking my ass. However, up close she was as charming and friendly as she could possibly be, the complete opposite of her tough as nails persona. She will be missed.

Musings of a Cinematic Obsessive

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: The Girl Hunters (1963)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Nothing Lasts Forever (1984)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Yor, Hunter from the Future (1983)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Daisy Town (1971)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em (1988)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Du-beat-e-o (1984)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: S*P*Y*S (1974)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: A*P*E (1976)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Stop Me Before I Kill! (1960)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Lisztomania (1975)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1994)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: I Don't Know Jack (2002)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Trancers (1985)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Trick or Treat (1986)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: The Candy Tangerine Man (1975)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Forbidden World (1982)

Tuesday'a Overlooked Films: Race With the Devil (1975)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Bonnie's Kids (1973)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Wolfguy (1975)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Damnation Alley (1977)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Where the Buffalo Roam (1980)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: ...All the Marbles (1981)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Grizzly II: The Predator (1983)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: The Love-Ins (1967)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Vice Squad (1982)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Wild in the Streets

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Winter Kills (1979)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: The Face With Two Left Feet (1979)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Never Too Young To Die (1986)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Let's Scare Jessica To Death

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Raw Force (1982)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: I Need That Record! (2008)

My Cinematic Alphabet

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: The Sorcerers (1967)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Americathon (1979)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: The Mysterious Monsters (1976)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: The Great Silence (1968)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Memories of Matsuko (2006)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Drive

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Skidoo

RIP Tura Satana 1938-2011

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: SPY*S (1974)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: APE (1976)