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

"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.

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

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)

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. 

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Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Wild in the Streets

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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.