Huk, 1956...  With post-war profiteering in the Philippines (Huk= Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan, Peoples Anti-Japanese Army) as a backdrop, the Huks are a fairly-organized group of armed thugs, running amok.  George Montgomery is playboy; Greg Dickson, returning to the Philippines to sell his father's sugarcane-plantation after the Huks killed him.  This film is nonstop action, highlighted by a firefight on a train as it weaves through 'canyons' of dried cane, and a rip-roaring rifle clash on a crippled ship, surrounded by dozens of outrigger-canoes.  Superb Stirling Silliphant (Nightfall, The Enforcer, etc.) script, adapted from his own novel.  Montgomery should've been inducted into the 'Tight T-Shirt Hall Of Fame' after this gem.


King Of The Texas Rangers, 1941, starring American-football quarterback, Sammy Baugh, as Ranger Tom King.  He does a pretty-good job.  It's all about Nazi-agents in a giant stealth-blimp hovering over South Texas, puppeteering groups of saboteurs on the ground.  The film was released before war with Germany was declared, so 'Germany' is never mentioned.  Instead of a 'heil hilter', they salute by saying 'for the cause'.

Yeah, it's a western with vehicles.  There's plenty of horse-action though.  The film creates its-own universe of believability.  Flaws of distance are dismissed easily... the Mexican-border is minutes away from the oilfields, a boat-chase in the Gulf Of Mexico is minutes away from the hill country, etc.  Characters switch-between horses and vehicles without explanation.  Duncan Renaldo co-stars as Lieutenant Pedro Garcia, of the Mexican Rurales... but is often lounge-lizarding across the border in the Ranger HQ, making coffee and answering phones.  -Not really sure what Republic Studios was going-for there.  Baugh does his-own fist-fighting and riding, which is impressive; with stunt-master, Tom Steele doing all the leaps and jumps.  Steele isn't listed in the cast, but plays a gasoline-truck driver.  All-in-all, a film with a slightly above-average re-watch quality.   

I met Duncan Renaldo (in full drag as The Cisco Kid) at a nostalgia convention back about 1975, and formally interviewed him for a couple of places. Absolutely splendid company on all fronts, and he gave me a superb observation about U.S. entertainment: more people have died on radio, television, the movies, and every single one of the 1800s-era "pulp" magazines, than actually inhabited the Old West.

As a writer, I have cherished that remark. It's my bunch that made it all a true statement.

Quote from: quiller on April 29, 2014, 02:23:52 AM
I met Duncan Renaldo (in full drag as The Cisco Kid) at a nostalgia convention back about 1975, and formally interviewed him for a couple of places. Absolutely splendid company on all fronts, and he gave me a superb observation about U.S. entertainment: more people have died on radio, television, the movies, and every single one of the 1800s-era "pulp" magazines, than actually inhabited the Old West.

As a writer, I have cherished that remark. It's my bunch that made it all a true statement.

Good observation.  I liked his portrayal, though he didn't have the script-quality to work from as Cesar Romero's Cisco did.  The character of Pancho didn't really debut till later.  His original sidekick was Gordito.

Sword Of Sherwood Forest... 1960, Hammer Studios...  Richard Greene is the definitive Robin Hood, thanks to the 50's TV-show and his uniquely commanding voice.  Greene produced this film, maybe to put an exclamation-point on his series after it was cancelled.

His attention to the flight and sound of an arrow is its passion-point.  The arrows are painted white, so they're easily seen.  The sound is death, unleashed.  Oh, there's a token sword-fight in a monastery at the end, so the film's title fits.  -But it's all about bows-and-arrows.  The other great thing about Greene is his self-deprecation.  There's no parlor-prattle or wafty explanations of why Hood and his gang are hiding from the law.   They just are.  His charisma is unmistakeably 'goodly intentioned'.  Peter Cushing is a ruthlessly-realistic Sheriff Of Nottingham, basically interested in seizing the Locksley estate.  -Not in an all-encompassing power-grab for the Throne Of England, like the other Robin Hood films try to foist at us.  The TV-show was like that too.  30-minute stories about simple kidnapping, blackmail, robbery, murder-schemes featuring the weekly fist-fight, horse-chase, and arrow-barrage.  And romance every-so-often...  with a Maid Marian that graces the episodes like a mercenary-princess.  -In this case: Sarah Branch.  Mmmmmmm... can you say 'hourglass-figure'?

The Philadelphia Experiment... pretty-much a wasted-effort.  The cyclonic portal-cloud roving aimlessly just didn't work.  And all the military scurrying-about seemed formulaic, as the script's 1943 dialogue-nuances were too self-aware.  One bafflingly bad scene featured a helicopter chasing the Eldridge-sailors at night, as they ran into an electrified fence.  The entire fence erupted into an explosive syzygy of arcing electricity... and one of the bolts forked upward, completely obliterating the helicopter.  Ridiculous.  The very next scene has the 2 walking across a desert basin... so the fence meant they'd been on the outside, rather than inside.  But they're walking in the same direction they'd been running in.  Sloppy.  Executive-producer John Carpenter, must've just thrown a wad of money at the film-makers, because his touch was virtually absent.  Thrills are present, but predictable.  Oh well, someday somebody may do an intelligently slam-bang version of the famous 'Experiment'.


1975, Dersu Uzala...  captivating wilderness romp in Siberia.  Russian Army surveyors are camping, but are suddenly spooked by what-they-think-is a bear.  It's Maksim Manzuk as a crafty forest-hermit, who sits at their fire and begins to espouse nuanced narratives about their rugged surroundings.  Yuri Solomin, one of the captains, is completely enchanted by Uzala (Manzuk).  The characters embark on a sequence of woodland-adventures, made dimensionally vivid by well-planned camera-shots and a script that stays in the moment.  Beyond situational-humor, there's no need for the characters to talk.  The cinematography does.  It's a nice change-of-pace for director, Akira Kurosawa.  I really got a feel for the steppes as-well-as the woods... biting wind, scudding clouds, low suns.       

1955, Dig That Uranium...  Pretty predictable Bowery Boys adventure-comedy.  There's a few inventive moments, but the filmmakers 'forgot' to bring the BB's signature New Yawk-ism to rural Nevada.  That was the point of The Bowery Boys' appeal.  I was expecting more showgirls and less geiger-counters, but the action's relatively nifty.  -Especially the cut-scene jeep-explosion, which seemed violently out-of-place in Satch's universe.  And then there's his obligatory politically-incorrect interaction with a hot, leggy, Native-American chick...  The film was aimed-at teen audiences (the word; 'dig', becoming a 1950's teen-euphemism), but Slip 'n the guys were getting too old for the Beat Generation and its "comedy is squaresville" viewing-niches.

   

Bootleggers, the police, the mob, Kate Jackson, Dave Carradine... Thunder And Lightning; 1977.   All action, with some stunning car-crashes.  And probably the best-filmed airboat-chase I've ever seen.  I only noticed one matte-scene in the car/boat pursuits, showing cops-talking-on-their-radio.  The rest of cam-shots were stationary, or on-board.   -Meaning that director, Corey Allen put some thoughtful-passion into their staging.  Charles Napier, Roger C. Carmel, George Murdock;  all impeccably nefarious.  Sensational.  -Makes Smokey & The Bandit look over-produced and under-paced.




When I was growing-up, The Girl-Hunters seemed a muddled claustrophobic mess.  And it hasn't really improved with age, though I suppose it has 'the right kind of muddle' for a detective-story.  -Creating the illusion that the plot is multi-dimensional.  -Nah... it's just muddy.  I'm not sure why Spillane decided to portray his-own Mike Hammer character.  And what Hy Gardner is doing in it, I'll never know.  Might as well've thrown-in Bennett Cerf, Kitty Carlyle, and Arlene Francis.  Spillane is convincing as the story gathers momentum, counterpointed by excellent location-settings.  Overall, a mild re-watchability factor.

     

Watch Out... We're Mad... 1974, starring Terence Hill and Bud Spencer in a rollicking testosterone-fest of sun, fun, and witty one-liners. I saw it under the subtitled tag of 'Dune Buggy'.

When Spencer pounds on the door of a private club and is refused admittance, the bouncer says-to-him: " I suppose that makes you mad... "

Spencer replies: " We're already mad. " ... a 'title'-line which probably didn't transfer over to english marquees with sufficient impact. -Unlike the next scene when Spencer-and-Hill's car 'impacts' the door, and they drive up a staircase onto an elegant balcony, which collapses.

They play rogue-ish roustabouts in Madrid, who share ownership of a dune-buggy, won at a roadrace. Next to their garage is an amusement-park, which a local mobster is squeezing for cash. Gangsters destroy the park's offices and bistro... as well as the buggy. The film morphs into a masterwork of stunt-sequences and more self-depreciating chase-vignettes than you can shake a carrot-'n-stick at. Absolutely superb. One of Hill and Spencer's best.




Air Force One, 1997...  Excruciatingly unwatchable these days.  -Hollywood 'preaching' that America (and presumably 'the rest of the world', as the U.S. President; Harrison Ford is in Russia, lecturing Europe I guess) shall henceforth invade any country that violates human-rights.  He's alluding to the strife in Bosnia Herzegovina I think, but the film's format deals with Kazakhstani renegades of some sort.  The country declared independence in '91, so I'm not sure what the big deal is in freeing an imprisoned military leader.  Gary Oldman plays the leader's apprentice who takes control of the US President's jet, with the help of some appallingly stereotyped Russian malcontents.  Director Wolfgang Peterson does an adequate job as-usual, but Andrew Marlowe's script, playing-to a mishmash of Leftist producers (Bill Clinton was President at the time), is sublimely awful.  The supposed Rightists are the Generals and staffers, plodding around Vice-President Glenn Close's (hmmm, a woman) office all ponderous and reactionary.  The script's 'action' is simply non-credible.  Considering the atrocities happening in today's real-time Syria, Hollywood (still pushing a Leftist agenda) would rather preach about corporations and cartoon-imperialism.  A film like this will never be made again.  It shouldn't have been made in the first place.

Flipper... average Chuck Connors vehicle set against an unrealistic Caribbean Island backdrop that looks more like a New England fishing-colony, filled with white Americans.  Flipper, a dolphin, doesn't show-up till the halfway-point, which might've been a script-edit glitch. -Connors' kid rescues it from a speargun-attack, and his wife nurses it back to health.  Most of the film is just swimming and snorkeling scenes, and a side-drama about a hurricane driving the fish away.




The Tiffany Memorandum, 1967...  If you ignore the trainwreck-scene, the film is highly rewarding... with girls and fists and plot-twists.  Ken Clark is magnificent as a 'journalist' (I was never convinced he wasn't an agent till the end, maybe) on the trail of plotters involved in a shady El Salvadorian oil-ring, in France and Germany.  Equally magnificent is Irina Demick, as the mysterious woman helping Clark... when she's not setting-him-up.  The film flows nicely and it's not dark, even though most of it is filmed at night and in barely-lit rooms.  The trainwreck was merely a cut to 2 model-trains colliding.  Director Sergio Grieco (as Terrence Hathaway) should be ashamed of himself.  My fave odd scene was in a German nightclub, whose floorshow was simply a masked woman who made 'volunteers' vanish inside a trunk.  Of course, Clark vanishes... and when the trunk is finally opened, the masked woman is dead inside.  I'd rate the film as 7.5-out-of-10.