WAR OF THE WILD, WILD PLANETS

Within the last week, TCM has run two of the four "Gamma-One" Italian science fiction films. These low-budget monstrosities were produced in the mid '60s, utilizing the same production company, cast members, sets and recycled special effects sequences. The films, in order are WILD, WILD PLANET (1966), WAR OF THE PLANETS (1966), WAR BETWEEN THE PLANETS (1966) and SNOW DEVILS (1967). It's not necessary to watch these films in their order of release but I include this information for anyone who feels compelled to do so. The two films that TCM ran (and which I've had the dubious pleasure to watch) are WILD, WILD PLANET and WAR OF THE PLANETS. They're both truly dreadful, craptastic exercises in bad genre filmmaking. But that's besides the point of this post. 

Watching these films took me back to my high school days when I would often spend the night at my buddy Blake Brown's house. It was always a blast to spend a night there because Blake had "cable television." In Austin, Texas in the early '70s, "cable television" meant that for a monthly price you could receive all of the Austin broadcast channels as well as the stations in San Antonio (the closest big city). That's it. Remember, there really was no true "cable television" until the early 1980s so getting to watch television stations from another city (and with good reception) was really a big deal for us. Especially on Friday nights. 

That was when KSAT, the San Antonio ABC affiliate, would broadcast "Project Terror", their late night package of horror/science fiction films. The show was always a double feature, with the first film starting at 10:30. "Project Terror" billed itself as being where "the scientific and the terrifying meet" and to prove it, the opening focused on a blinking green oscilloscope (oh, scary!). No matter how cheesy these films were, Blake and I were determined to stay awake as long as possible and try desperately to make it to the end of the second feature. 

Our marathon movie watching was fortified by snacks provided by his mother and when I say "snacks", I mean SNACKS! Whenever I was over there on a Friday night, Mrs. Brown would provide both of us with homemade bowls of both guacamole dip and queso, along with giant size bags of Fritos. These were no ordinary bowls. These were mixing bowls full of home made goodness. 

We'd polish off the bowls of dip during the first feature of "Project Terror" and during the commercial break before the second film started, we'd raid the kitchen for more food, this time consisting of incredibly thick peanut butter and strawberry preserves sandwiches (on white bread) and ice cold milk in the biggest glasses we could find. Thus restocked, we'd head back to the den for more sf/horror wonderment. 

I bring all of this up because while I don't recall ever actually seeing WAR OF THE PLANETS or WILD, WILD PLANET on "Project Terror", these are exactly the kinds of films that would have aired on that program. The fact that they were (and remain), horrible movies, is beside the point. Watching these two films over the last several days served as the best kind of time machine, taking me back to an earlier, more innocent age when watching badly dubbed Italian science fiction films with a good buddy and stuffing myself with dip, chips and sandwiches was nothing short of pure bliss. 

SHE

 

There's a lot of good to be said about Hammer Studios 1965 production of SHE. Filmed in CinemaScope, with exteriors lensed in Israel, the film is handsomely mounted and extremely ambitious for a studio known for it's lower budgeted Gothic horror films. 

Chief among the good things about SHE is the star of the film, the top billed Ursula Andress. Andress, one of the great screen beauties of the '60s, became a cinematic icon due to her appearance in the first James Bond film, DR. NO (1962). By the time Andress made SHE, she was a major international film star and Hammer knew they had a good thing with her as Ayesha ("She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed") in the lead. 

The supporting cast includes Hammer stalwarts Peter Cushing (as one of the heroes) and Christopher Lee as the villain. John Richardson, sporting a blond dye job and spray on tan, is Leo Vincey, the man who appears to be the reincarnation of Ayesha's long lost love, Kallikrates. Richardson co-starred with another '60s sex symbol, Raquel Welch, in ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. (1966). 

The bulk of the action takes place in the lost city of Kuma, somewhere in Africa. Allegedly founded by a tribe of Egyptian outcasts, Kuma displays a diverse culture, seemingly made up of equal parts Roman and Egyptian influences, with few women to be seen. The Kumans have enslaved the native tribe, the Amahagger, but the oppressed people revolt in the action packed third act. 

Veteran director Robert Day orchestrates all of the action well enough but the film suffers from a tediously paced second act that's heavy on expository dialogue and the burgeoning romance between Ayesha and Leo (Andress and Richardson share little if any real onscreen chemistry). While native girl Ustane (Rosenda Monteros) truly loves Leo for himself, not for whom he may have been centuries before, but the plucky girl meets an unfortunate end. 

Director Day made several genre films in his career including THE HAUNTED STRANGLER (1958), CORRIDORS OF BLOOD (1958), FIRST MAN INTO SPACE (1959), TARZAN THE MAGNIFICENT (1960), TARZAN'S THREE CHALLENGES (1963), TARZAN AND THE VALLEY OF GOLD (1966) and TARZAN AND THE GREAT RIVER (1967). 

Based on the classic adventure novel by H. Rider Haggard, first published in 1887, SHE was previously filmed in 1935. Produced by Merian (KING KONG) C. Cooper, the film stars Randolph Scott as Leo and Helen Gahagan as Ayesha. Some aficionados prefer this version of the material with it's pulp adventure atmosphere. 

SHE proved to be the box office success that Hammer hoped it would be and a sequel, THE VENGEANCE OF SHE was released in 1968 with Olinka Berova in the title role. 

Counting only the good on location cinematography by Harry Waxman, impressive sets, nice matte work and decent for the time special effects, SHE is enjoyable film. But with the always solid Cushing and Lee in the cast and the incandescent beauty of Ursula Andress, SHE becomes a touchstone '60s genre film that falls just short of greatness.

"WHEN THE MONSTER'S DEAD..."

The team of good guys is headed by genre stalwart Kenneth Tobey. He's aided by Jack Kruschen, Barney Phillips and William Schallert and others in their battle against the bad guys.

The bad guys are led by the bow tied, glasses wearing (and scenery chewing) Rod Steiger. The members of his team include the beautiful but deadly Angie Dickinson, Jack Klugman and the benny popping rapist Neville Brand.

In the middle are the innocent pawns James Mason and Inger Stevens.

With a cast like that, CRY TERROR! (1958), has to be good.

And it is.

Directed in a matter-of-fact, semi-documentary style in various New York area locations by Andrew Stone (who co-wrote the screenplay along with his wife, Virginia), CRY is a suspenseful crime thriller in which criminal mastermind Steiger plots to extort half a million dollars from an airline by threatening the use of explosive devices. Those devices were manufactured by Mason, who was duped by Steiger into believing they were for military use. 

  Once Steiger makes his initial demands, various law enforcement agencies spring into action in a race against time to find the gang without endangering the lives of Mason and Stevens (and their young daughter), who are being held hostage and forced to participate in the extortion scene.

Highlights of the film include a nail-biting sequence in a for real elevator shaft and a dangerous climax in a likewise real subway tunnel.

The cast is uniformly excellent but I couldn't help but laugh at Steiger a couple of times. What a ham he was! Mason is one of my favorite actors, Stevens and Dickinson are both lovely, Klugman is good as a bad guy and was there ever a better psycho thug (Stevens calls him a "degenerate") than Brand?

CRY TERROR! is a first rate albeit not widely know little thriller that is well worth seeing.

Thumbs up.

 

BANANAS

"You've heard it with your own eyes"

BANANAS (1971), Woody Allen's second film as writer, director and actor opens and closes with two bits of absolutely inspired insanity. In the opening, Allen stages an assassination in San Marcos, a small Latin America country, as an event worthy of coverage by ABC's WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS. He has the legendary Howard Cosell provide the play by play and then, an interview with the dying dictator.

The gag is repeated at the end of the film but instead of an assassination, it's coverage of the wedding night of Fielding Mellish (Allen) and Nancy (Louise Lasser). Once again, Cosell is there in the couple's bedroom (along with rooting fans), to provide play by play and post coital interviews.

Those scenes are indicative of the type of madcap, scattershot humor that fills every frame of BANANAS. Allen and co-writer Mickey Rose, load the screenplay with sight gags, one liners, fake television commercials, film references and just plain craziness all punctuated by a bouncy Marvin Hamlisch score. If one joke doesn't land, don't worry, there's another one coming, and one after that, and one after that..

For me, all of the jokes land. I had seen Woody Allen's first feature film, TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN when it was released in 1969 so when BANANAS came out a couple of years later, I was ready to see another film by the guy I thought was a comic genius. I believed that then and I believe it now.  

The story of a New York nebbish, Fielding Mellish, who inadvertently gets involved in a banana republic revolution for the sake of love, BANANAS is the kind of film that Allen would dismiss later in his career as being "one of his early, funny ones". It is that and even though I've seen the film several times over the years, I still laugh uproariously at most of the gags. Just ask Judy.

Originally intended as a vehicle for British actor Robert Morse, with Allen serving only as writer and director, the project was shelved when Morse reportedly read and hated the script. Following the tremendous success of TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN, United Artist was quick to sign Allen to a contract and gave him the green light for BANANAS as a 100% Allen project.

A very young Sylvester Stallone appears, uncredited, as one of two subway thugs that Allen encounters early in the film.

BANANAS is a textbook laugh riot showing a young filmmaker learning and growing before our eyes, figuring out what works and what doesn't all while building one of the great bodies of cinematic comedy in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Highly recommended. 

 

GIRL MOST LIKELY

I've read a ton of books so far during this unprecedented year of 2020. But I haven't reviewed many of them here on the ol' blog. Chalk that up to laziness on my part. So, let's do something about that right now.

Max Allan Collins is one of my all-time favorite mystery writers. Don't believe me? According to my Goodreads page (https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/8553032?ref=nav_mybooks) I've read 23 Collins books so far and I'm starting my 24th one today. So, yeah, I like this guy and the books he writes. While some are better than others, I've yet to read a Collins novel that I didn't like.

My buddy Jon Levesque, whom I worked with at Barnes & Noble for many years, knows about my appreciation and admiration for Collins. When he and his lovely fiancé Jeanine attended Bouchercon in Dallas last year, Max Allan Collins was one of the featured authors. Jon was kind enough to get Mr. Collins to sign a copy of the book pictured above for me. It was an extremely thoughtful gesture and I really appreciate it.

By the way, I recall rubbing shoulders with both Collins and Lawrence Block (another one of my faves) at a Mystery Convention in Austin back in the early '90s. I had a press pass (I was freelancing for THE WEST AUSTIN NEWS at the time) and I spent the afternoon combing the dealer's room for vintage John D. MacDonald (my hands down all-time favorite crime writer)  paperbacks. So were Collins and Block! We exchanged pleasantries but at the time, I had yet to read anything by either author so I didn't take the opportunity to get something signed.

GIRL MOST LIKELY (Thomas & Mercer 2019) is a good old fashioned murder mystery that also serves as a starting point for yet another Collins produced series. The star here is twenty-eight-year old Krista Larson, the Chief of Police in Galena, Illinois. She worked her way up through the ranks and does an admirable job of fighting what little crime there is in the riverside community. 

Her ten-year high school reunion is coming up and all of the chatter is about the appearance of the stunning Astrid Lund, a classmate who has become a television reporter in Chicago. The breathtaking beauty had several flings with some of the boys in the class but someone she fooled around with wants her dead. 

Another female classmate is murdered in the opening chapter of the book in a narrative that is told from the killer's point of view. Collins does a good job of never giving away anything that would identify the killer's age or sex. 

The reunion takes place with Astrid in attendance. When she's murdered at her parent's home after the reunion, Chief Larson realizes she's got a serial killer on her hands. She calls in her retired police detective dad, Keith, to serve as a consultant and together the father and daughter team of sleuths start putting the pieces together in a riveting whodunit.

 Collins knows how to tell a traditional murder mystery right down to assembling all of the suspects (of which there are plenty along with some juicy red herrings) at the lodge where the reunion takes place. Another young woman is killed (making the body count three) before things come to a climax with a nighttime chase and confrontation with the killer in the snowy woods.

If I could make a movie out of this material and cast any actors living or dead in the leads, I'd get a young Diane Lane to play Krista and Brian Dennehy to play her father. 

 

I thoroughly enjoyed GIRL MOST LIKELY even though I didn't guess the identity of the killer. Collins plays fair throughout and I'd gladly read another adventure of Krista and Keith Larson.

Thanks Mr. Collins. And thanks Jon. I appreciate both of you.

RED SUN

I remember when RED SUN came out in 1971 but somehow I missed seeing it then and in all of the years since. TCM ran it the other day, I recorded it and watched it this afternoon. Loved it!

At this point in his career, Charles Bronson was beginning to headline films rather than just be part of the supporting cast and RED SUN is a perfect example of this. He gets top billing and it's clearly his film from beginning to end although he does have one helluva supporting cast.

His main co-star is Japanese film legend Toshiro Mifune and the idea (courtesy of screenwriters Denne Bart Petitclerc, William Roberts and Lawrence Roman) of teaming up a gunfighter/train robber with a samurai in the American West was absolutely inspired. These two men represented two of the most macho men to be found in the cinema at the time and they both bring their A games.

Of course, any good western has to have a good villain and RED SUN has one in the form of French heartthrob Alain Delon. He plays Bronson's former train robbing partner who double crosses Bronson and makes off with a fortune in gold and a prized samurai sword, intended as a gift from the Emperor of Japan to the American president.

Bronson and Mifune make an unlikely pair of heroes as the two set out to recover the loot and the sword. They hate each other at first but come to understand and appreciate each man's code of honor. 

Along the way, Bronson and Mifune pick up the beautiful prostitute Cristina (Ursula Andress). She's in love with Delon and the two men plan to use her as a bargaining chip with the outlaw. 

But when all of the parties are finally gathered in the third act, the greatest threat facing them is a tribe of savage Comanches who are determined to kill them all. 
 
RED SUN is a rousing Western adventure with four appealing stars, a nice score by Maurice Jarre and Spanish on-location cinematography by Henri Alekan and a plethora of vertical wipes thanks to editor Johnny Dwyre. I swear, at times I thought I was watching STAR WARS (1977). Director Terence Young, Ursula Andress and Anthony Dawson (who plays one of Delon's henchmen) had all previously worked together on the first James Bond film adventure, DR. NO. Young also directed FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (1963) and THUNDERBALL (1965). 

It's worth noting that Mifune became an international star thanks to his starring role in Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece, THE SEVEN SAMURAI (1954). When an American version of that film, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, was made in 1960, Charles Bronson was one of the seven along with Steve McQueen, Yul Brynner, Robert Vaughn, James Coburn, Brad Dexter and Horst Buchholz. 

RED SUN combines the best elements of American western films with Japanese samurai movies for an extremely entertaining slice of pulp adventure.

 Thumbs up.

 

THE T.A.M.I. SHOW

 

The weakest act in the otherwise superlative 1964 rock concert film, THE T.A.M.I. SHOW is The Barbarians, a garage band that plays only one song, "Hey Little Bird." Ever heard of 'em? Me neither.

Otherwise there's a ton of vintage rock material to enjoy in this groundbreaking, landmark film. Surfer boys Jan and Dean serve as the emcee's (and even skateboard!) for a star studded lineup that includes Motown acts The Miracles (with Smokey Robinson), Marvin Gaye and The Supremes (with Diana Ross), British invasion bands Gerry and the Pacemakers and Billy J. Kramer and The Dakotas, girl singer Lesley Gore, rock godfather Chuck Berry and surf music kings The Beach Boys. All of these acts perform several of their biggest hits but it's the final two acts of the film that stand out.

James Brown shows why he was named "the hardest working man in show business" in an electrifying penultimate set in which he and The Famous Flames bring the house down with an absolutely incredible performance that left Brown, the audience (and me) drained. I have had surgery on both of my knees and they still give me problems now and then. So I could only wince in astonishment when Brown, still clutching the microphone stand and singing, fell to his knees repeatedly during "Prisoner of Love". You can see the stains on the knees of his pants as this man continually pushed his body to the breaking point only to recover practically instantaneously and keep going. 

Unfortunately, The Rolling Stones had to follow Brown as the closing act, a move that Keith Richards has called the biggest mistake of their careers. They deliver a killer set and Mick Jagger does a great job of strutting, spinning and dancing but his gyrations and acrobatics are nothing compared to those of Brown.

I flat out loved this movie. It was a gas to see all of those acts performing live in front of a wildly screaming audience at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium (home of the Academy Awards broadcast for several years). The performers are backed by an energetic team of young go-go dancers, both black and white, male and female (one of whom was Teri Garr). They prance and "Frug" with wild abandon but never upstage the featured acts. 

The whole affair is a cross between an episode of AMERICAN BANDSTAND and the performance segments of A HARD DAY'S NIGHT (also released in 1964). THE T.A.M.I. SHOW prefigured two network television series, HULLABALOO which ran on NBC from 1965 to 1966 and SHINDIG! which aired on ABC from 1964-1966. 

I listened to all of this music when I was young. I heard these songs (and many more) broadcast daily on radio station KNOW-1490 AM here in Austin, Texas. I never had any albums by these performers until later in life although my sister did have a few Beach Boys records that I listened to. Years later I saw both The Beach Boys and Diana Ross in concert.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, T.A.M.I stands for Teenage Awards Music International, which is kind of a misnomer as no awards of any kind are mentioned.

That's a minor quibble though because this is one hell of a blast from the past. If you're a child of the sixties like me, you'll love every minute of this terrific film. Other performance films would follow but THE T.A.M.I SHOW stands as the Rosetta Stone of rock and roll concert movies.

Highly recommended.

THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED

Three screenwriters, Fred Coe, Edith Sommer and, believe it or not, Francis Ford Coppola, expanded Tennessee Williams' one act play from 1946, THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED, into a feature length film in 1966.

Like many films based on material originally written for the stage, PROPERTY has several scenes that play as "stagy", consisting of characters in one room (or set), trading long passages of expository dialogue. But credit must be given to the screenwriters and director Sydney Pollack for opening up the action (especially in the New Orleans set third act) as much as possible.

Still, that suffocating, stagy feel to much of the narrative actually serves the film well as the main character, Alva (Natalie Wood), yearns desperately to escape the dead-end environs of small, Mississippi railroad town Dodson circa nineteen-thirty-something. Alva and her younger sister, Willlie (Mary (TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD) Badham), live with their domineering mother (Kate Reid), who runs a boarding house in which many railroad workers live.

Alva, has one foot in the clouds, dreaming of running away to someplace, any place else, where magic might be found. Her other foot (and the rest of her body), is rooted in the bedrooms of the boarding house where it's clear she's been sleeping with most of the workers including J.J. (Charles Bronson) and Sidney (Robert Blake). Dirty old man Mr. Johnson (John Harding), wants to take the three women out of Dodson to Memphis where it's clear Alva would be obliged to perform sexual favors for the man, who's wife is alleged to be infirm.

Into this slowly simmering pot of sex and dreams of escape, comes a handsome young stranger, Owen Legate (Robert Redford). He's clearly no railroad worker but he does have work to do in the town. He's there to lay people off from the railroad, this being the middle of the Depression and all, and the railroad is not carrying as many harvest loads as in the past. Owen is hated by everyone except Alva who sees the blond outsider as her ticket out of town.

The third act, filmed on location in New Orleans' French Quarter, offers hope that Owen and Alva will finally achieve true happiness but this being Tennessee Williams, things do not end well.

Wood, never more beautiful, plays Alva as a spiritual cousin of Williams' other great soiled Southern Belle, Blanche DuBois. Alva's not as slap dab crazy as DuBois, but the two share a fantasy outlook on life while being perpetually used by brutish men who only want the women for their bodies.

Originally intended to star Elizabeth Taylor, that deal fell through when Taylor insisted that her husband, Richard Burton, direct the film. The producers balked at that. Natalie Wood was a big enough star at the time to call her own shots and she insisted on casting Robert Redford (whom she had co-starred with in INSIDE DAISY CLOVER (1965). Redford then suggested to Wood that Sydney Pollack be hired as director. THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED was only Pollack's second film as a director, following THE SLENDER THREAD (1965). He and Redford went on to work together on a string of extremely successful films including JEREMIAH JOHNSON (1972), THE WAY WE WERE (1973), THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR (1975), THE ELECTRIC HORSEMAN (1979), Best Picture Oscar winner OUT OF AFRICA (1985) and HAVANA (1990).

The supporting cast is solid with Bronson playing a non-action role for once in his career and young Jon (LASSIE) Provost appearing in the framing sequence that opens and closes the film. PROPERTY was only the second feature film of young Mary Badham after her star turn as Scout in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962). But THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED belongs to Natalie Wood who gives a bravura performance as the damaged and doomed Alva. 

Recommended.