zardoz-13 Reviews

They Drive by Night (1940)

Hard Luck Truckers

[7/10 · 26 May 2024]

" High Sierra" helmer Raoul Walsh's "They Drive By Night" chronicles the trials and tribulations of the rough and tumble Fabrini brothers, Joe (George Raft of "Scarface") and Paul (Humphrey Bogart of "Casablanca"), who drive trucks for a living and deliver produce in California. Eventually, they find themselves in trouble with their creditors because they have fallen behind on their vehicular installment payments. Fortunately enough, Joe and Paul land a load on their own for themselves rather than a trucking outfit, and they pay off the debt on their vehicle. No sooner do things appear rosy for them than Joe makes the mistake of asking Paul to share the chore of driving because Joe is feeling drowsy. Unfortunately, Paul hasn't gotten nearly enough snooze time. Earlier, Walsh showed what happens when a truck falls asleep at the wheel and it isn't pretty. Not surprisingly, Paul drifts off asleep at the wheel, and he plunges their paid for truck with its valuable load off the road, tumbling the vehicle into a ravine. Miraculously, Joe bails out at the last second, but Paul rides the truck into the dirt. Happily, Paul survives the crash intact and none the worse for wear. However, Paul isn't as fortunate. Physicians must amputate his right arm. Paul's wife Pearl (Gale Page of "Crime School") has been worrying herself constantly about the uncertain fate of her husband. She hates that he can never spend time at home with her and must constantly be on the road working for peanuts. She wants a baby to keep her company while he is away. Paul argues they cannot afford another mouth to feed. Scenarists Jerry Wald of "The Roaring Twenties") and Richard Macaulay of "Across the Pacific" have adapted novelist A. I. Bezzerides' novel "Thieves' Market." Their snappy dialogue provides both wit and spontaneity to the action. Joe and Paul swap some fast words with a counter waitress, Cassie Hartley (Ann Sheridan of "King's Row") at a roadside dinner. Later, she quit working at the diner because the owner mauls her with arms like an octopus. She decides to try her luck in Los Angeles, and Joe takes her to L. A., where she hopes to land a job.

At the turning point of the action, Joe looks for a job working for an old friend, Ed Carlsen (Alan Hale of "Desperate Journey") who owns a trucking firm. Ed watches from his second story office while Joe and another irate truck get into a fight to see who will land a load from Ed to drive to market. Ed remembers Joe and asks him to come up and chat with him. Ed is a guy with a big heart and a naturally happy disposition. The dramatic content of "They Drive By Night" throttles into high gear because Ed's trophy wife, Lana (Ida Lupino of "High Sierra") who spends his money before it goes out of style, has the hots for Joe. She convinces Ed to hire Joe, but not as a trucker. Instead, she believes he can do a better job for Ed if Ed keeps him in the office. Repeatedly, Lana makes passes at Joe, but he isn't interested. First, he isn't going to horn in on Ed wife because Ed is his good friend. Second, Joe has his eyes on Cassie. He provides her with room and board. He is so tired from the long ride to L. A. that he passes out in Cassie's bed. Cassie spends the night sleeping in a chair. Remember, the Production Code Administration forbade showing a man and a wife in the same bed. Eventually, Joe hires Paul, and things begin to turn around for the Fabrini brothers. During a party at Ed's new estate, he shows Joe and some others one of his newest gadgets. He has installed an electric eye device in his garage, so we he parks his car, the car triggers the light as it crosses in front of it and the door will close over the garage. Walsh and his writers make a big deal out of this scene. Later, after a time on the town getting sloshed, Ed needs Lana to drive him home. When she parks the car in the garage, she notices how drunk her husband is, and she leaves the car running, so Ed dies from asphyxiation. Once again, the Production Code ruled that nobody could get away with a crime. Lana approaches the District Attorney and convinces him Joe threatened to kill her if she didn't kill her husband. Yes, she takes the blame for killing him, but the D. A. arrests Joe for his involvement of the murder. Reportedly, according to film guru Leonard Maltin, the filmmakers stole this plot machination from the 1935 Paul Muni & Bette Davis thriller "Border Town." Although Lana has convinced the D. A. about the truth of her story that Joe drove her to kill Ed, she cannot handle the guilt of her homicidal past. The electric eye technology haunts her. She discovers the jail where she is being held is equipped with this technology. Every time she encounters an electric eye, she feels her guilt riding roughshod over her. During the trial to convict Joe as the man who instigated the murder, Lana breaks down and the judge dismisses the murder charges against Joe. At this point, after Ed has died, Lana tries in a desperate last-ditch effort to get Joe in her arms. She offers to go into business with Joe, a fifty-fifty split, and he can handle the business while she squanders the profits. The tacked-on murder and trial seems rather contrived but inevitable.

The cast is first-rate as is Walsh's no-nonsense direction. Lupino is amazing as Lana, who shares the same problem that Lady McBeth faced. Humphrey Bogart was still playing second-string roles, while Raft starred as the level headed brother. At times, "They Drive By Night" appears contrived. "They Drive By Night" qualifies as an above average Walsh effort.

Road House (1989)

A Brawling Classic with Swayze in Top Form

[9/10 · 21 May 2024]

Altogether, Rowdy Herrington's superficial but slam-bang, knuckle-smashing fracas of a film "Road House" qualifies as predictable but entertaining guilty pleasure from fade-in to fadeout. Nevertheless, this crowd-pleasing saga with fisticuffs galore is one hundred percent satisfying. Cast as a legendary bar bouncer with a Ph. D. from NYU in philosophy, a lean, mean Patrick Swayze plays James Dalton, a fluffy-haired hardcase with a grim past who winds up contending with a genuinely larger-than-life, sadistic villain who lords it over a small town where he demands fealty from everybody. Basically, Wesley takes a tenth of their profits and deploys several persuasive hooligans who have no qualms about how they take that ten percent. Brad Wesley is the unscrupulous town boss, and he has the local constabulary on his payroll, so he can do as he pleases without fear of arrest. Wesley has an incredible trophy room in his river side estate with virtually every animal known to man decorating both walls and floors. As Dalton's despicable nemesis, Ben Gazzara radiates so much evil that his comeuppance comes as the ultimate catharsis. For example, when the owner of the local Ford dealership shows Wesley some spine, the latter dispatches his goons in a monster truck, and they drive it headlong into auto showroom, crunching several new cars as if they were Miller Lite beer cans!

Meantime, Frank Tilghman (Kevin Tighe of "Another 48 HRS") owns the Double Deuce bar, but so many fights break out and wreck the joint that customers are leery of partying there. Tilghman hires Dalton to clean up his establishment. Our hero summarizes his philosophy to his fellow bouncers: "All you have to do is follow three simple rules. One, never underestimate your opponent. Expect the unexpected. Two, take it outside. Never start anything inside the bar unless it's absolutely necessary. And three, be nice." Dalton drives out those insiders on Tilghman's payroll who have skimming off Tilghman and selling narcotics in the bar. Predictably, Dalton isn't the most popular guy afterward, and the showdown between Dalton and Wesley is inevitable. No sooner has Dalton been slashed by some of Wesley's hoods in a bar fight than he winds up in the Emergency Room at the local hospital. The statuesque Dr. Elizabeth Clay (Kelly Lynch of "Drugstore Cowboy") attends to his wounds, and she takes a liking to him. Later, these two wallow in the sack much at Dalton's house much to Wesley's chagrin. Wesley once had a thing for Elizabeth, but she walked away from him. If things weren't dire enough, Dalton summons his older but none the wiser mentor, Wade Garrett (Sam Elliot of "Tombstone"), to help him bust heads. Not only does Elliot steal the show right out from under Swayze, but he also serves as the sacrifice goat that prompts our hero to take down Wesley.

Meantime, "Out for Justice" scenarist David Lee Henry, aka R. Lance Hill, brings the plot to a boil when Dalton tangles with obnoxious Jimmy (Marshall Teague of "Armageddon") Wesley's chief henchman, who boasts lustily about how he has raped convicts in prison. Battered and badly beaten himself, Dalton triumphs over this braggart when rips out Jimmy's throat. This knockdown drag out fight between these two titans ranks as the highlight of the action. "Die Hard" stunt coordinator Charles Picerni surpasses himself with his combat choreography as well as other acrobatic stunts. During the finale, everybody who suffered under Wesley's thumb assembles at his estate for the explosive finish. Although Dalton has all but beaten Wesley to a pulp, the crafty villain surprises him with yet another gun. Before this maniacal menace can put a bullet into our unsuspecting hero, several businessmen who have suffered grievously under Wesley's Draconian despotism blast Wesley repeatedly with their shotguns and send him to kingdom come! "Road House" has been compared to venerable old Hollywood westerns because our heroic outsider enters another setting where his antagonist has ruled without fear of contradiction.

To the Ends of the Earth (1948)

The Scourge of Opium Smuggling

[10/10 · 18 May 2024]

Before he helmed harmless Disney movies like "The Absent-Minded Professor" and "Son of Flubber," director Robert Stevenson made one of the earliest, semi-documentary, anti-narcotics epics. Initially, the Production Code Administration (PCA) not amused at the prospect of Hollywood depicting opium smuggling. According to the third commandment of the Code: No movie could deal with "the illegal traffic in drugs." Presumably, the film was made and produced because it focused on the ultimate efforts of the police to thwart the smuggler and destroy their opium. Furthermore, the filmmakers adhered to the rules that the criminals could not profit from their dishonest endeavors. Oddly enough, the Code also usually rules against anyone committing suicide. Virtually every one of the narcotics criminals took their own lives once they were exposed as criminals.

The first-rate, white-knuckled, noir-themed thriller "To The Ends of the Earth" is as captivating a saga from start to finish now as it was when it came out. This exciting, eye-opening, 109-minute, black & white, Columbia Pictures' classic spans the globe. Moreover, it provides audiences with a primer about not only the evils of opium but also the way organized crime has sought to use this infamous flower to enslave mankind.

Stevenson and scenarist Jay Richard Kennedy of "I'll Cry Tomorrow" chronicle the unflagging efforts of a Federal Bureau of Narcotics agent, Commissioner Michael Barrows (Dick Powell of "Murder My Sweet"), to track down the opium and arrest the smugglers. Everything gets off to a hair-raising start when Barrows, attached to the San Francisco Treasury office, learns about a suspicious Japanese freighter, the Kira Maru out of Shanghai, that has attracted considerable attention since it appeared off the coast of Peru. Barrows summons the Coast Guard when the tramp is sighted off the California coast. As they pursue it, Barrows stares at it intently with a pair of binoculars. He watches as the Kira Maru plies into international waters, beyond the twelve-mile jurisdiction of the Coast Guard.

Imagine Barrows' shock when he witnesses the villainous captain jettisons100 or more Chinese slaves, shackled to a chain, sending these ill-fated souls plunging to their collective deaths in the ocean with a chance of rescue. Clearly this constituted an early example of human trafficking since these unfortunate people were going to be used to harvest the poppy plants. This devastating act of homicide burns itself indelibly into Barrows' brain cells and prompts him to launch an investigation. He travels to Shanghai to contact the Japanese and complain about the captain. Indeed, a court convenes and the captain, who isn't in attendance, is tried and convicted and given 30 days detention if or when the authorities manage to catch him. Naturally, Barrows is upset about this travesty of justice. He argues that such a light sentence is what is typically given to a person convicted of reckless driving. As he is leaving the courthouse, he encounters Commissioner Lum Chi Chow (Vladimir Sokoloff of "The Magnificent Seven") who asks Barrows if he can meet with him at his office. He hands Barrows his business card; Chi Chow sells rugs. When he shows up at Chi Chow's business, Barrows learns Chow is a Chinese Commissioner of Narcotics and he plays a recording about a man who died recently. This individual had told the British and Egyptian narcotics authorities in Cairo about a place where slaves were taken to harvest poppies.

As it turns out, the fields where the poppy flowers were grown were rose fields. The Egyptian authorities were unable to investigate the property, but Barrows and his two opposite numbers in British and Egyptian narcotics enforcement visit the farm after dark. Barrows unearths a poppy from dirt by the rose bushes. The roses had been grown to prevent the authorities, who had scheduled flights over the fields, from spotting the opium plants. The Egyptian narcotics chief sets out to stop the caravans of camels transporting the opium to a slaughter house. Barrows and the British Narco chief steal like phantoms around the farm. They notice the telltale indications that poppies were harvested and cooked. Stains on the forefingers of the workers, who were sleeping when our heroes caught glimpses of them, provide proof. Before they can get away, the land owner stops them. When he learns our heroes not only have proof but also agents to back them up, he leaps to his death from the cliff our heroes had scaled earlier to get a look at the rose fields without attracting attention to themselves. Repeatedly, every time Barrows and company confront members of this worldwide opium ring, these fiends commit suicide. Barrows and company learn the camels and going to be driven to a slaughterhouse. Later, when the unsuspecting camel driver halts the camels for the night, our heroes slip in and the use portable but primitive X-ray technology to scan the bellies of the camels. Presto, they find containers in the bellies of the camels! Barrows and company. Once the camels have been slaughtered, the opium is shipped off to Havana, Cuba, where Barrows convinces the Narcotics Bureau chief to let the shipment go through. Predictably, the Bureau Chief isn't happy, but he obliges Barrows.

Altogether, Stevenson doesn't wear out his welcome, and "To The Ends of the Earth" qualifies as a snappy little black & white saga with a slam-bang finale you won't forget!

The Fall Guy (2024)

Fallen Way Below The TV Version!!!

[4/10 · 14 May 2024]

Basically, "The Fall Guy" amounts to an exercise in slick, glossy, predictable pablum. The film lacks both heart and soul, and the stunts were second-rate. I was hoping for something with greater energy and stamina, like "Atomic Blonde," but from a stunt guy's perspective. After all, David Leitch helmed "Atomic Blonde" and then "Bullet Train." This stunt-laden saga suffered from a superficial sense of humor, and the stunts lacked a sense of spectacle and spontaneity. Mind you, Jonathan Sela's widescreen cinematography looked great, and this 'blockbuster' boasted a wet dream of a cast and a budget, but Drew Pearce's writing was consistently underwhelming. The relationship between our good old boy hero Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling of "Drive") and the despicable villain, Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson of "Kick Ass") that he doubled never pulled me into the action. "The Fall Guy" never generated the devil may charisma of the venerable Burt Reynolds movie "Hooper." What should have been an adrenaline-fueled, white-knuckled, high octane escapade boiled down to an ineptly made, incoherent, wannabe blockbuster. Universal should have gotten a franchise out of it. Remember, the Glen A. Larson television series lasted several years, but this gutter-ball of movie missed its mark. It reminded me a horse that stalled getting out of the gate and ran at the tail end of the pack. I felt sorry for poor Ryan Gosling.

Rampage (1963)

A Superficial Safari Saga

[6/10 · 4 May 2024]

A sterling cast, strong direction, atmospheric scenery but a dire shortage of adrenaline rushes underwhelms Phil Karlson's "Rampage," superficial safari saga about big game hunting versus big game trapping. Droopy-eyed Robert Mitchum stars as Harry Stanton, a professional wildlife trapper who catches exotic animals for the Wilhelm Zoo in Germany. As the film unfolds, the zoo curator informs Stanton that great big game hunter Otto Abbot will organize the safari and arranges for the American to meet this world-renowned big-game German hunter at his palatial residence. Confident and supremely self-assured as always, Mitchum appears perfectly natural as Stanton. He advocates capturing rather than killing wildlife. Long before animal conservation and political correctitude gained traction, Mitchum's Stanton displayed respect not only for jungle beasts but also for the customs of the Malaysian tribe that participate in the hunt. Indeed, the filmmakers embrace the theme of animal conservation that John Huston's "The Roots of Heaven" (1958), an arthouse epic about the slaughter of African elephants drummed up. Later, once our protagonists reach Malaysia, we watch the elaborate traps Stanton uses to ensnare two big cats. Basically, Stanton hides his sprawling nets inconspicuously in the foliage, then signals squads of marching natives raising an uproar to drive the frightened cats into the nets. Sometimes, the animals escape Stanton's best laid efforts. For example, the climax of the action occurs during a chaotic incident when Stanton traps not only himself but also his infuriated prey in the same net. Unlike the two tigers he trapped earlier, this beast is reputed to be half-leopard and half-tiger and nicknamed "the Enchantress."

Meantime, Anna (Elsa Martinelli of "Hatari!"), Abbot's statuesque mistress, a gorgeous girl far younger than he, accompanies them to Maylasia. She embraces Abbot's big game hunting lifestyle. Moreover, she knows how to shoot a rifle and riddle the bullseye every time. Actually, she surpasses Abbot in the accuracy of her marksmanship. For the time, the story behind their provocative relationship must have seemed risqué. While many a May-December relationships occurred in private life, the controversy of such a relationship on screen for the public sphere in a 1960s era film is curious. According to Anna, Otto took her from her mother, raised her, and later seduced her! Eventually, Stanton raises the issue in a playful way when he vows to take Anna away from Otto. Surprisingly, Otto encourages Stanton's amorous designs to seduce Anna. However, he assures Stanton that Anna will abandon him! Anna and Otto both deliberately dare Stanton to do take his best shot. Meanwhile, Stanton finds himself stunned by the traditions of his native guide, Talib (Sabu Dastagir of "The Elephant Boy"), who notices Stanton sleeps alone in his tent. Imagine Stanton's surprise and shock when Talib graciously offers to share his wife with him! Appearing genuinely embarrassed by such as prospect, Mitchum shows some genuine spontaneity when Talib's wife agrees to bed down with him. This is the one of only moments when our hero loses his cool. The second one is when his helicopter shuts down in flight.

When Stanton isn't alienating Anna, he clashes with the egotistical Abbot. These two titans circle each other politely enough but champion their primary differences. Stanton traps animals because he thinks they look better alive. Abbot shoots them because he prefers to display them as trophies in his game room. Predictably, once they have arrived in Malaysia, the riff between Stanton and Abbot deepens, until Abbot's self-loathing generates suicidal sentiments on his part after his failure to kill a rhino with his first shot. The moment that Otto realizes he is no other the great white hunter occurs when he brings down the beast with his second shot. Compared with Harry and Anna, Otto Abbot emerges as a more interesting character because he undergoes change over time during the safari. Essentially, Stanton remains the same man he was from the start, and little in "Rampage" ruffles his feathers. Nothing about Harry changes throughout the action.

Nevertheless, "Rampage" has other problems. You can tell when the stuntman steps in for Mitchum to tangle with the "the Enchantress." The helicopter ride out to the safari rendezvous doesn't make your blood simmer. Briefly, the chopper's engine conks out, and Stanton starts praying. Moments later the pilot solves the problem. Black projection is used for the shot of our heroes in the chopper. The incident doesn't raise your blood pressure. Clever editing in the confrontation with the "Enchantress" makes it appear like Mitchum is in the thick of it, lunging with a flaming torch at a big cat in a cave. The giveaway is you never see Mitchum in the same shot with the snarling beast.

Elmer Bernstein's blustering orchestral soundtrack punches up the film, but a tight budget didn't give Karlson the same coverage that Howard Hawks enjoyed in "Hatari!" Scenarists Robert I. Holt of "White Comanche" and Marguerite Roberts of "True Grit" based their screenplay on Alan Caillou. "Hell Is For Heroes" lenser Harold Lipstein photographs the action against some grand scenery, but all too often it seems the producers were trying the pull the budget out from under Phil Karlson, since some scenes come off half-hearted. Sometimes, when a film founders for lack of clout, the phrase 'feed the tiger' comes to mind. The plane should have crashed but not killed anybody. Otto should have died. The rubber snake that Stanton shoots is phony. A close up of a real snake inserted with Mitchum blasting it along with screams from Martinelli would have amped up a dull safari hiking scene. Altogether, "Rampage" qualifies as above-average, but it suffers from not enough white-knuckled action scenes.

Iron Eagle (1986)

An Aerial, Feel Good, Jet Fighter Saga

[8/10 · 28 April 2024]

Director & co-scripter Sidney J. Furie's "Iron Eagle" qualifies as the ultimate example of teen wish fulfillment. After his aviator father Colonel Ted Masters (Tim Thomerson of "Uncommon Valor") is shot down over enemy airspace, imprisoned by an anonymous Arab nation situated on the Mediterranean, and then sentenced to die, his dynamic son Doug Masters (Jason Gedrick of "The Heavenly Kid") appropriates an U. S. A. F. F-16 fighter and single-handedly delivers his father from the jaws of death. Okay, nothing about "Iron Eagle" is remotely credible when you consider how incredibly preposterous this aerial dogfight epic is. Colonel Masters and another pilot were flying when they encountered enemy aircraft that warned Masters that he had violated their airspace. The other pilot managed to escape without injury, but Colonel Masters bailed out and was captured. When Doug learns about his father's misfortune, he rushes to a base intelligence officer and learns to his chagrin nothing is going to be done to bring him home. Now, Doug is a pilot himself and he can do wonders with a single-engine Cessna aircraft. He earns his aviator's wing after he hooks up with an Air Force Reserve officer, Charles 'Chappy' Sinclair (Louis Gossett of "An Officer and A Gentleman"), and persuades a reluctant 'Chappy' to help him rescue his dad while the U. S. Government is weighing the situation but doing nothing. Doug activates his young friends, both male and female, to gain access to flight plans and other mission necessary information for him. Chappy takes Doug aloft and teaches him how to handle an F-16. Of course, only in a movie like "Iron Eagle" could a high school senior and his friends have the run of the airbase and access to classified information about Colonel Masters and the country detaining him. In real life, nothing like "Iron Eagle" could every happen. Nevertheless, the magic of movies usurps the lack of logic. Furie with co-scribe Kevin Alyn Elders of "Iron Eagle 2" provide a rip snorting but reckless actioneer that neither slows down nor wears out its welcome. Interestingly enough, "Iron Eagle" was released in January 1986, long before Tony Scott's "Top Gun" with Tom Cruise came out in May! The soundtrack boasts some great vocals. For the record, the Israel Air Force repainted their F-16s and let the filmmakers use them for some stimulating aerial maneuvers.

Two Faces of the Dollar (1967)

An Above-Average Spaghetti Western About A Gold Heist

[8/10 · 27 April 2024]

Most Spaghetti westerns are derivative, imitating the genre's box office champs, specifically Sergio Leone's "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" and Sergio Corbucci's "Django," and then later the "Trinity" horse operas. "Man from Oklahoma" director Roberto Bianchi Montero's "Two Faces of the Dollar" borrows marginally from Leone's classic, but contains more plot and morality than those superficial, straightforward, gunnery range Spaghetti westerns. Mind you, "Two Faces of the Dollar" has no shortage of violent shootouts in the grand Spaghetti western tradition. Moreover, the filmmakers observe some of the now defunct Production Code rules. The film depicts cold blooded murder, premediated larceny, and reflects the venerable Production Code edict: crime doesn't pay. Meantime, this 95-minute sagebrusher also crowds out gunplay with the logistics of an elaborately planned gold heist. Think "Mission Impossible." Kudos to lenser Stelvio Massi. His first-rate, widescreen cinematography along with his novel use of zooms and pans enhances the film's spectacle. Later, Massi would ascend to the director's chair and distinguish himself with various poliziotteschi crime thrillers, notably "Convoy Busters" and "Emergency Squad." At the same time, Giosy and Mario Capuano's flavorful orchestral score evokes memories of Leone's "For A Few Dollars More." What our anti-heroes set out to accomplish mirrors John Huston's revered crime classic "The Asphalt Jungle" (1950). Surprisingly, the Italians embrace a 'crime doesn't pay' note, in the context of "The Asphalt Jungle!"

Story and screenplay scribes Alberto Silvestri of "Nick the Sting" and Franco Verucci of "No Way Out" conjure up a vivid gallery of characters. Furthermore, they pose stiff obstacles our thieves must contend with before they get away with the gold. First, they introduce us to a bespectacled professor, Matthew (Jacques Herlin of "Secret Agent Super Dragon"), who idolizes clocks. He has devised an audacious plan to steal a fortune in gold stored at Fort Henderson. Although it remains under lock and guard in a separate room, Matthew orchestrates the theft in broad daylight inside the fort during a camp inspection. He has recruited three accomplices, two men and a woman. First, he convinces a sharp-shooting gunslinger, Django (Maurice Poli of "Battle of the Damned," aka Monty Greenwood), who prizes the qualities of a Navy Colt revolver, to join him. Second, he enlists the aid of a disgraced army officer, the treacherous Blackgrave (Gérard Herter of "Adios, Sabata"), who shares Django's relish for Navy Colts. Blackgrave must impersonate the colonel scheduled to inspect the fort. Once they enter the fort, Blackgrave and Django perform all the heavy lifting and later the ensuing gunplay when they cross the border. Third, he solicits the help of a buxom babe, Jane (Gabriella Giorgelli of "Moving Target"), who relies of her charms to seduce lusty males. This turns out to be the first flaw in Matthew's plan. He chose Jane because she knew the former quartermaster. After her arrival at the stockade, the current quartermaster informs her about Felix's death. Initially, the new quartermaster insists she leave. Naturally, she appeals to him and hangs around long enough to carry out her part in the robbery. Moreover, Matthew has painstakingly created a persona for himself that will enable them escape with the gold, even under the noses of a fort bristling with soldiers! Earlier, at the local bank, Matthew tried without success to cash in bags of dirt he had mistaken for gold. He has done it so often everybody considers him a fool. Indeed, Matthew grooms this persona until the thieves possess the gold. Earlier, Blackgrave had turned his horse loose in the desert, so he flag down the stagecoach transporting Colonel Talbert (Andrea Bosic of "Sandokan the Great") to Fort Henderson for his camp inspection. During their conversation, Blackgrave assembles his Navy Colt. He guns down the officer traveling with Talbert without a qualm. Afterward, he faces off with Talbert in an old-fashioned duel and kills the colonel. Fortunately, during their conversation, Blackgrave had learned from Talbert that the latter had never visited Fort Henderson, so nobody would be able to challenge his identity. Indeed, after he kills the colonel in a duel, Blackgrave dons Talbert's uniform and masquerades as him. At the fort, he informs the commandant that he plans to rest before he launches his inspection. Meantime, posing as a drunken Mexican, Django charges recklessly into the fort and picks a fight with a brawny sergeant. Promptly, the soldiers lock him up in the guardhouse. Later, Django tempts a guard to enter his cell when he catches the soldier admiring his watch. Django overpowers the guard and prepares to play his part in helping Blackgrave steal the gold.

Basically, Blackgrave and Django work inside the fort to remove the gold. Blackgrave dodges an inquisitive officer, Lt. Benjamin Sinclair (Andrea Scotti of "Operation Poker"), who may have recognized him from his shady past. Meantime, Django struggles with another sergeant who tries to thwart his efforts to steal the gold. Later, when a soldier discovers Jane and tries to alert the post about her, Blackgrave gunned him down in front of everybody. Blackgrave justifies shooting the soldier because he recognized the man as an arsonist. Meantime, to facilitate loading the sacks of gold onto Matthew's wagon, Blackgrave orders the fort commander to dispatch troopers to help Matthew load up. Montero and his writers rarely let Matthew and his accomplices off the hook. Once they have left the fort, greed prompts them to double-cross each other. Later, after they reach the border, they discover Lt. Sinclair has hired a gang of desperados to help him seize the gold. A nighttime gunfight in an abandoned border town ensues, with our protagonists mowing down the villains. Nevertheless, unexpected trouble lies ahead for Django, Blackgrave, and Matthew. "Two Faces of the Dollar" ends on an ironic note for a Spaghetti western: crime doesn't pay.

The Battle of the Damned (1969)

Suicidal Military Manuevers in the North African Desert in W.W. II

[6/10 · 25 April 2024]

"The Rangers" director Roberto Bianchi Montero fared much better with "The Battle of the Damned," his sophomore entry into World War II men on a mission genre than he did with his initial actioneer "The Rangers." Fewer problems crop up with his North African combat epic that borrows liberally from Armando Crispino's "Commando" (1968), starring Lee Van Cleef and Jack Kelly and Andre de Toth's "Play Dirty" (1969) with Michael Caine and Nigel Davenport. According to IMDB. COM, the release dates for "Battle of the Damned" are inconsistent. First, it was released as early as April 1969 in Italy, and then later showed up on screens in the Netherlands in April 1970, then in France May 1970, and finally in West Germany during September 1972. Later, this movie was re-released in Spain in December 1973.

In "The Battle of the Damned," an experienced, combat savvy U. S. Army officer, Captain Bruce Clay (Dale Cummings of "Samurai Cop"), receives orders to deploy with a squad of soldiers into the scorching North African desert to destroy a remote Nazi fuel dump for enemy tanks. Basically, Captain Clay is reminiscent of the officer in "Commandos" that Jack Kelly played who is ridiculed by his sergeant for being a glory seeking leader willing to sacrifice men so he can win a medal. One of Clay's team, Corporal Marwell (Maurice Poli of "Two Faces of a Dollar") complains about his commanding officer's willingness to sacrifice his men so he can attain higher rank. Derivative as it is, "The Battle of the Damned" qualifies as one of those nihilistic military epics where everybody winds up dead at fade out in the grand tradition of suicidal mission movies such as the Oscar-winning "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957) "633 Squadron" (1964) and "Play Dirty." Interestingly, Montero lensed his movie in Egypt. According to IMDB. COM, the Egyptians loaned the filmmakers surplus British Archer tank destroyers to substitute for German Panzers. As many as six of these massive vehicles are seen in the big battle sequence. Basically, the Americans plunge into the desert during the day rather than under the cover of nightfall, which would make made better sense. However, had they gone in under cover of darkness, the eagle-eyed aviators in a two-seater 'Messerschmitt' aircraft roaming the desert would never have spotted them. The suspense grows initially out of the clash between the Americans on the ground and the Germans in the air. A similar crisis confronted Richard Burton and his commandos in Henry Hathaway's "Raid on Rommel" (1971) when an Allied fighter attacked his men in the desert during the day. Although our heroes knock the Messerschmitt out of the sky, they fail to kill these two pilots. These two tenacious souls follow them doggedly on foot to an oasis and later manage to reach the same objective that our heroes have been sent to destroy. Colonel Kleist (Gérard Herter of "Hornet's Nest"), the lead officer in the Messerschmitt, doggedly pursues the commandos. Eventually, Kleist shows up at the fuel dump and warns his fellow Germans about these saboteurs, but even this early warning comes tragically too late. At one point, however, the Germans look like they had a chance to thwart the Americans, particularly when Sergeant Dean (Luciano Catenacci of "The Biggest Battle") must die to repair the damage done to his explosives. Among the cast, future Spaghetti western and crime star Fabio Testi plays Private Terry Wilson, the soldier responsible for maintaining radio contact with their home base.

"The Battle of the Damned" won't go down in history as an especially memorable entry in the annuals of World War II actioneers, but it is tolerable enough to watch once. Completists in the European World War II movie genre will appreciate this adventure more than most spectators.

Maria (II) (2019)

This Babe Is Bad to the Bone!!!

[10/10 · 9 April 2024]

Filipino film director Pedring A. Lopez's fearsome but formulaic female revenge thriller "Maria," headlining Christina Reyes, makes the gun-toting, blade-wielding, karate chopping dames in "La Femme Nitika," "Peppermint," "Atomic Blonde," and "Anya" look like Girl Scouts soliciting for their annual cookie drive. Clocking in at a nimble 90 minutes, "Maria" never wears out its welcome, though it relies primarily on an inventory of cliches to propel its ballistic yarn. Several factors distinguish this low budget actioneer and enhance its spectacle, principally a persuasive cast, acrobatic combat choreography, atmospheric settings, a sympathetic heroine, thoroughly despicable villains, and some extreme violence in its depiction of its unsavory subject matter. Sensitive souls who abhor graphic violence should skip this bloodthirsty carnage in this martial-arts action thriller.

"Maria" follows the unfortunate fate of a Filipino assassin formerly known as the Black Rose assassin Lily. Our courageous heroine staged her own death, so she could quit the cartel, disappear into obscurity, and start a family. Guess her hormones were crying out to her. Now, after seven years, things are looking pretty rosy for our protagonist. Maria has married Bert (Guji Lorenzana of "Silong") who is a decent guy. They have a rambunctious daughter, Min-Min (Johanna Rish Tongcua of "Once Before") and they indulge her every whim. Predictably, Lopez presents a portrait of domestic family bliss fuzzy with sentiment. Meantime, the Black Rose cartel that Maria deserted is monitoring a controversial gubernatorial race. They don't like the way things is shaping up and they send their henchmen out to cover it. Maria's old lover Kaleb (Germaine De Leon of "Here Comes the Boom") from her Black Rose days reacts with understandable shock when he spots her in a picture at a rally taken by one of his henchmen. Immediately, Kaleb informs his father, the chieftain of the Black Rose cartel, Ricardo (Freddy Webb of "Etiquette for Mistresses"), about his alarming discovery. Although Kaleb vows to liquidate the dame himself for her treachery, Victor (KC Montero of "Kubot: The Aswang Chronicles 2") has nothing but contempt for Ricardo's son. Nevertheless, Kaleb and his gunmen crash Maria's house without warning and gun down not only Bert but also kill Min-Min! Now, there is no going backwards. Maria vows to rub out her enemies with extreme prejudice, no matter how long it takes her. She convinces her mentor, Greg (Ronnie Lazaro of "Gospel of the Beast"), to provide her with not only sanctuary but also furnish her with an arsenal of weapons to wage her own private war. The only thing keeping Greg from suffering reprisals for aiding and abetting Maria is a gentleman's agreement with the Black Rose cartel. Imagine that: honor among these thieves.

You've seen this kind of high body count thriller dozens of time. What "Maria" lacks in originality, Lopez more than compensates with blood, gore, and more. Moreover, this predictable but exciting yarn never runs out of steam. Of course, Maria whips everybody's butts! No surprises there! Nevertheless, the violence in the cartel scenes is pretty toxic. Ricardo loves to torture those whom he suspects are traitors within his ranks. Moreover, he is prepared to do some rather vile things. We see two hefty fellows strung up like beef in a slaughter house who have been beaten half to death. The cartel chieftain is chewing them out before he has two cute little babes with automatic pistols clean the wax out of their ears with lead! The CGI splashes of blood are brief but punctual! Later, the cartel torture a naked man strewn on a table. After beating the poor soul to a pulp but not enough to loosen his tongue, they resort to a mechanical enema, thrusting a rod up his anus. Yes, the guy screams like a stuck hog. Indeed, if you've ever endured a prostrate biopsy, you can sympathize with this fellow's plight. Granted, these scenes are excessive, but they prove that the Black Rose cartel is not a Sunday School outfit. Their indifference to murder in all forms is clearly sociopathic. Sensitive souls may shrink from these scenes. If ever a mob needed massacring, the Black Rose does and it gets its just comeuppance. As the alpha female, Christina Reyes lives up to her reputation and thwarts her old employers. Word is a sequel is in the works, too.

The Wages of Fear (2024)

An Exciting Remake of a Classic Yarn

[8/10 · 7 April 2024]

No, "Earth and Blood" director Julien Leclercq's remake of "The Wages of Fear" doesn't eclipse the black & white, 1953 Henri-Georges Clouzot's original starring Yves Montand. Nevertheless, Leclercq generates more than enough thrills and chills to keep spectators poised on the edge of their collective seats during its brisk 104-minute runtime. This taut tale chronicles the Herculean efforts of a group of desperate men and one-woman driving trucks laden with Nitroglycerin across virtually impassable terrain to snuff out a calamitous oil well fire started when terrorists attacked the site. Meantime, Leclercq's version should not be dismissed entirely as disposable. Television scenarist Hamid Hlioua and he have reimagined this classic Man versus Nature showdown with similar but different predicaments. Shrewdly, they have altered elements of Clouzot's masterpiece without tampering with the basic premise. This sprawling spectacle of men against insurmountable odds accomplishing a well-nigh incredible mission amounts to a tribute to the original yarn.

One major difference is the setting. Unlike the South American locales for both Clouzot's classic and William Friedkin's dazzling remake "Sorcerer" (1977), Leclercq and Hlioua shift the setting to an anonymous Middle Eastern country bristling with armed rebels, corrupt soldiers, and lethal minefields. Specifically, Leclercq lensed this nerve-racking epic in Morocco with its sprawling desert wastelands and craggy mountains. Our heroes and heroine must brave an obstacle course consisting not only of an arid desert with mountainous terrain but also trigger-happy gunmen manning roadblocks or gimlet-eyed female snipers who kill without a qualm. Were it not harrowing enough, the drivers must cover about 500 miles in under 20 hours to deliver a sufficient amount of deadly nitro to extinguish the blaze. Two trucks transporting enough nitro to blast in the countryside in another Grand Canyon constitute part of this small convoy. Several armed guards accompany these intrepid truckers, but at least one of them is untrustworthy. Everybody flashes credentials that identify them as medical relief personnel. Similarly, they plaster their vehicles with medical relief insignia. Appropriately enough, Leclercq and Hlioua whittle down the number of characters from the get-go until only a couple survive this white-knuckled odyssey with its nail-biting timetable. Essentially, the premise hasn't changed completely since the 1953 original. An oil well fire rages out of control in the middle of the desert. Leclercq and Hlioua up the ante. Now not only will the well eventually explode, the explosion will obliterate an entire village of innocent souls. The clock is literally ticking as our heroes and heroine embark on their mission of mercy.

The heroes in Leclercq's version differ considerably. In Clouzot's original as well as the 1977 Friedkin remake, the protagonists were destitute individuals. Owing to their extreme character flaws and the hand of fate, these men turned their backs on civilized society and fled to a sanctuary deep in the South American jungles. They gambled that neither the authorities nor any other adversaries looking for payback would follow them to the ends of the earth. In the Netflix remake, the protagonists are siblings in slightly better circumstances. Fred (Franck Gastambide of "Restless") and Alex (Alban Lenoir of "AKA") have reconciled themselves after a tragic incident that landed Alex in prison after he killed several soldiers. Initially, a wealthy client had paid Fred to get him aboard a flight out of a country teetering on the brink of a revolution. Before they could leave, the military gunned down Fred's client. Earlier, before this man of affluence died, he had paid Fred for his services. When his client wasn't looking, Fred caught a glimpse of the huge stacks of currency cached in the safe. Since the military knew nothing about this loot, Fred wasn't about to leave it behind for them to discover.

After the soldiers shot his client, Fred told Alex about the loot. He convinced his reluctant brother to blow the safe. With this fortune, Fred assured Alex they could return to Paris and live like kings. Incidentally, Alex has a wife and child to consider. Fred had posted himself outside the building as a guard and had watched in mute horror when the soldiers stormed it. Alex had commenced the countdown to blow the safe when the soldiers surprised him. This part of the plot appears in a flashback to explain why the brothers were separated. Afterward, the military arrested and imprisoned Alex in a barbaric prison where he was forced to fight to survive. Since he is an explosives expert, the corrupt oil company bribed prison officials to release Alex. The brothers resolved their differences and embarked on this journey of hardship. Basically, the relationship between Fred and Alex amounts to this remake's weakest element because it is contrived. Another big difference between Leclercq's film and the earlier versions is a woman, Clara (Ana Girardot of "Saint Amour"), accompanies them on this road trip through Hell. Clara is Fred's girlfriend, and she comes along for the ride as one of the medical assistants.

Of course, Leclercq's "Wages of Fear" suffers from other contrivances. At one point, a bandit with a machine gun mounted atop a pick-up truck careens after the convoy. The gunner pours a hail of lead into one of the trucks. Miraculously, none of his ill-aimed bullets hit nitro in either of the two trucks. Had either truck been hit, the entire convoy would have been atomized in a fiery cloud of smoke. Predictably, the villains could not destroy the convoy, otherwise the movie would concluded on an anticlimactic note. Later, the brothers must clear a road of land mines using a web of chains to find the mines. Although it has its share of weaknesses, Netflix's "Wages of Fear" qualifies as an entertaining epic with a first-class cast and several genuinely harrowing moments.

The Wages of Fear (2024)

A Modern Day Update of a Classic Tale

[8/10 · 7 April 2024]

No, "Earth and Blood" director Julien Leclercq's remake of "The Wages of Fear" doesn't eclipse the grim, black & white, Henri-Georges Clouzot original made in 1953, starring Yves Montand. Nevertheless, Leclercq generates more than enough thrills and chills to keep spectators poised on the edge of their collective seats during its brisk 104-minute runtime. This taut tale chronicles the Herculean efforts of a group of desperate men and a woman driving trucks laden with Nitroglycerin across treacherous terrain to snuff out a calamitous oil well fire. Earlier, terrorists had sparked this blaze when they attacked the site to keep it from being resupplied. Mind you, Leclercq's version should not be dismissed entirely as disposable. "Cannabis" scenarist Hamid Hlioua and he have reimagined this classic Man versus Nature showdown with similar but different predicaments. Shrewdly, they have altered elements of Clouzot's masterpiece without tampering with the basic premise. This sprawling spectacle of men against insurmountable odds accomplishing a virtually impossible mission amounts to a tribute to Clouzot's masterpiece.

The chief difference between this version and previous ones is the setting. Unlike the South American locales in both Clouzot's classic and William Friedkin's dazzling remake "Sorcerer" (1977), Leclercq and Hlioua shift the setting to an anonymous Middle Eastern nation bristling with heavily armed rebels, corrupt military officials, and lethal minefields. Specifically, Leclercq lensed this epic in Morocco with its sprawling desert wastelands and towering mountains. Our gritty heroes and heroine must brave an obstacle course consisting not only of an arid desert with mountainous terrain but also trigger-happy gunmen at roadblocks and gimlet-eyed female snipers who kill without a qualm. Were it not harrowing enough, the drivers must cover about 500 miles in under 20 hours to deliver a sufficient amount of nitro to quench the blaze! Two trucks transporting more than enough nitro to excavate another Grand Canyon constitute part of this small convoy. Several armed guards accompany these intrepid truckers, but at least one of them is untrustworthy. Everybody displays credentials that identify them as medical relief personnel. Similarly, they plaster their vehicles with medical relief emblems.

Appropriately enough, Leclercq and Hlioua whittle down the number of characters gradually from the get-go until only a couple survive this white-knuckled odyssey with its nail-biting timetable. Basically, the premise hasn't changed much since the 1953 original. An oil well inferno rages out of control in the middle of the desert. Leclercq and Hlioua have upped the ante considerably. Now not only will the well eventually explode, but also the explosion will obliterate an entire village of innocent souls. The clock is literally ticking as our heroes and heroine embark on their mission of mercy. The heroes in Leclercq's version differ considerably. In both, Clouzot's original and Friedkin's remake, the protagonists were destitute individuals. Owing to their extreme character flaws and the hand of fate, these men turned their backs on civilized society and fled to a sanctuary deep in the South American jungles. They gambled that neither the authorities nor any other adversaries looking for payback would follow them to the ends of the earth.

In the Netflix remake, our protagonists are siblings caught up in slightly better circumstances. Fred (Franck Gastambide of "Restless") and Alex (Alban Lenoir of "AKA") have reconciled after a tragic incident that landed his brother in prison. Initially, a wealthy client had paid Fred to get him aboard a flight out of a country teetering on the brink of a revolution. Before they could leave, the military gunned down Fred's client. Earlier, before this man of affluence died, he had paid Fred for his services. When his client wasn't looking, Fred caught a glimpse of huge stacks of currency which were crammed in the safe. Since the military knew nothing about this loot, Fred wasn't about to leave this payday behind for them to discover.

After the soldiers shot his client, Fred told Alex about the cache. With this fortune, Fred assured Alex they could return to Paris and live like kings. Moreover, he convinced his reluctant brother to blow the safe because the risks were minimal. Unlike Fred, Alex has a wife and child to consider. Fred had posted himself outside the building as a guard and had watched in mute horror when the soldiers stormed it. Alex had commenced the countdown to blow the safe when the soldiers surprised him. This part of the plot appears in two flashbacks that explain why the brothers were separated. Afterward, the military arrested and imprisoned Alex in a barbaric prison where he was forced to fight his fellow prisoners to survive. Since he is an explosives expert, the corrupt oil company bribed prison officials to release Alex. The brothers resolved their differences and embarked on this journey of hardship. Basically, the relationship between Fred and Alex amounts to this remake's weakest element because it is rather contrived. Another major departure from Leclercq's film and the earlier versions is a woman, Clara (Ana Girardot of "Saint Amour"), who accompanies them on this road trip through Hell. Clara is Fred's girlfriend, and she comes along for the ride as one of the medical assistants.

Of course, Leclercq's "Wages of Fear" suffers from other contrivances. At one point, a bandit with a machine gun mounted atop a pick-up truck careens after the convoy along a switchback road. The gunner pours a hail of lead into one of the trucks. Miraculously, none of his ill-aimed bullets strike the nitro in either of the vehicles! Had either truck been hit, the entire convoy would have been atomized in a fiery cloud of smoke. Now, the villains could not have destroyed the convoy, otherwise the movie would concluded on an anticlimactic note. Later, the brothers must clear a road sewn with land mines using a spider web of chains to find the mines. Although it suffers from its share of weaknesses, Netflix's "Wages of Fear" qualifies as an entertaining epic with a stalwart cast and several genuinely traumatic moments.

Where Danger Lives (1950)

One of Robert Mitchum's Best Film Noirs

[10/10 · 7 April 2024]

"West of Shanghai" director John Farrow's psychological melodrama "Where Danger Lives" ranks as one of the best all-time film noir thrillers. Furthermore, "Out of the Past" tough guy Robert Mitchum plays a different kind of noir protagonist. Instead of a blue-collar, gun-toting hardnose, Mitchum is cast as a professional, a doctor with a pleasant bedside manner, who neither brandishes a pistol nor beats anybody to a pulp with brass knuckles. Indeed, the first time we lay eyes on him, he is telling an adolescent girl encased in an iron lung a bedtime story about Elmer the Elephant. Nevertheless, like a quintessential noir male, Mitchum swallows every lie this duplicitous dame, Margo (Faith Domergue of "This Island Earth"), conjures up. Mitchum delivers one of his finest performances as Dr. Jeff Cameron, a caring, compassionate, human being who epitomizes the essence of the Hippocratic Oath. His first encounter with the treacherous Margo occurs when this suicidal siren, looking absolutely stunning, is brought in a hospital examination suite. Margo bewitches Jeff, enough that he forfeits all interest in his current girlfriend, nurse Julie Dorn (Maureen O'Sullivan of "Tarzan"), who he had been planning to wed. Comparably, unlike Margo, Julie is neither mysterious nor deceitful.

Unfortunately, Jeff is helpless when he comes under the spell cast on him by his leading lady. Domergue gives an equally stalwart performance as the addled dame who leads the clueless Mitchum astray. Later, Margo decides to ditch Jeff to board a plane with her father, Frederick Lannington (Claude Rains of "Casablanca"), and leave Jeff behind. The good doctor refuses to let Margo out of his sight. Boldly, he hires a Yellow Cab to take him out to Margo's elegant estate. While he visits there, our protagonist learns to his chagrin that Lannington isn't Margo's father as she has told him. Instead, Lannington is her husband! Jeff is thunderstruck by this dramatic reversal. She tells Jeff that she married Lannington for his money, and he reciprocates and admits he married Margo for her youth. Lannington ushers Jeff in for drinks. A brief but savage fight erupts between these two with Margo watching the two men clash over her. Frederick seizes a fireplace poker and wields it like a madman, clobbering our hero repeatedly. Finally, Jeff knocks Frederick flat on his back with a fistful of knuckles to chin. The older man staggers backwards from the impact and collapses unconscious by the fireplace.

Frederick's violent blows to Jeff's head mark a turning point. "39 Steps" scenarist Charles Bennett and "All Through the Night" writer Leo Rosten send Jeff into a bathroom. Farrow stages this scene so we see not only Jeff but also his reflection in a huge mirror while he is bathing his head wounds. For the rest of "Where Danger Lives," Jeff suffers miserably from the adverse effects of a concussion. Later, he warns Margo that his condition will progressively deteriorate. Eventually, he might not be able to walk. Indeed, Jeff's prediction comes true, as he steadily go downhill until he pales by comparison to his former self. Actually, this scene serves a pivotal function. Never again is Jeff the same person after his fracas with Frederick. When he comes back to examine Margo's husband, she informs him that her jealous husband is dead. Initially, Jeff is incredulous. Frederick was still breathing when Jeff left him to bathe his own wounds. Together, Jeff and Margo become a fugitive couple on the lam. They set their sights on the Mexican border, but they must sell Margo's Cadillac for a vehicle less conspicuous because the police know about it. Ironically, Jeff and Margo never cross the border.

"Where Danger Lives" slackens its own suspense when a radio newscaster reveals the cause of Frederick's death. No, he did not die from a blow to the head. Instead, he died from being smothered under a pillow. Later, Margo in a fit of desperation tries to smother Jeff with a pillow. She doesn't has enough time to asphyxiate him, because she wants to catch a ride across the border with a theatrical troupe. Despite being nearly suffocated to death, Jeff survives the ordeal and pursues Margo. Now, our misguided hero is in deplorable condition. Wanting nothing more to do with Jeff after she has sold a prized bracelet to get a ride across the line, Margo is shocked to see him staggering after her. Palming a small caliber handgun from her purse, Margo fires several shots at him. An observant lawman nearby blazes away at her with his revolver and Margo goes down. "Where Danger Lives" winds up with a happy ending. Not only is Jeff cleared of Frederick's murder, but also he rekindles his romance with Julie. John Farrow never lets the momentum slacken in this tense, 82-minute film noir thriller.

Station West (1948)

A Western With Film Noir Dialogue

[8/10 · 1 April 2024]

"Hound of the Baskerville" director Sidney Lanfield's black & white horse opera "Station West," starring Dick Powell, Jane Greer, Agnes Moorehead, and Raymond Burr, looks like a dusty little western, but otherwise it sounds like a gritty film noir thriller. Indeed, this 83-minute movie qualifies as a traditional oater, derived as it was from Luke Short's novel of the same name. Nevertheless, despite all the usual trappings of a standard issue western, "Station West" featured smart aleck dialogue seasoned with irony straight out of an urban film noir movie. Stars Dick Powell and Jane Greer had appeared in several film noir outings. Indeed, when he latter produced his 1950s TV series "Zane Grey Theater," Powell had made a name for himself in paranoid crime movies. Ultimately, "Station West" would constitute the only western Powell made during his career. Meantime, when his own theatrical career ran out of steam, Lanfield wound up helming several major television westerns, including "Rango," "Pistols and Petticoats," "Whispering Smith," "The Tall Man," "Tales of Wells Fargo," and "The Deputy." Indeed, "Station West" was Lanfield's only oater. Greer appeared in noirs such as "Out of the Past," "The Big Steal," and "They Won't Believe Me." Two years before she made "Station West," Greer had starred in "Sunset" (1946). Later, she would appear in a "Bonanza" episode, a "Stagecoach West" episode, and three episodes of Powell's "Zane Grey Theatre." Interestingly enough, Raymond Burr was cast as a corrupt attorney, too. However, this was long before he would headline the CBS-TV series "Perry Mason." A U. S. Army lieutenant named Haven (Dick Powell of "Murder My Sweet") has been dispatched to track down several missing cavalry uniforms as well as solve the murders of two soldiers who were escorting a wagon laden with bullion. Nobody has a clue about who robbed and killed the soldiers. Haven arrives as an undercover agent to unravel the mystery. Anybody who has perused the novel "Station West" may be surprised when they watch the cinematic adaptation. First, the chief villain has undergone a gender change. Instead of Charlie being a tough guy, Charlie (Jane Greer of "The Big Steal") is now a duplicitous dame. In film noir thrillers, the duplicitous dame often topples the flawed hero because he cannot control himself around her. This was not the case with Haven. Second, scenarist Frank Fenton, who wrote a classic film noir "Out of the Past" and Winston Miller who penned "My Darling Clementine" teamed up for this sagebrusher. Each brought a different set of sensibilities to the film. Third, the novel took place in a western setting covered with ice, whereas the film is set in a scenic western landscape of Sedona, Arizona, under a blazing sun. Some characters have been deleted, and some aren't the same as they were in the novel. As Mrs. Caslon, Anges Moorehead is a mine owner, yet another female addition to the narrative who was not present in the novel. As a competing mine owner, she is in cahoots with Haven's superior officer, Captain Iles (Tom Powers of "Double Indemnity"), and Iles doesn't trust Haven. Haven sets out to blow the lid off the town when he baits Charlie's toughest hardcase, Mick (Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams of "Dodge City") in a knockdown, drag-out bout of fisticuffs. Everybody had expected Mick to whip him, but Haven surprised everybody.

Charlie decides to hire Haven to run her stagecoach line, and our hero learns how lawless the town is when he tries to smuggle some of Mrs. Caslon's bullion out. The villains are waiting for him when he fords a stream and rob the coach. Furthermore, they murder Haven's shotgun guard, James Goddard (Regis Toomey of "Guns of the Timberland"), who was a Wells Fargo agent. You can tell the Production Code was in force when "Station West" was produced. When the villains kill Goddard, you see the bad guy holding him at gunpoint. The camera shifts from a medium two-shot of the villain and the shotgun guard to just the shotgun guard, and then the guard is gunned down. Basically, you don't see the outlaw standing in the same frame with the doomed shotgun guard. Similarly, the opening shot of the movie has the camera prowling over the corpses of the two slain soldiers. We don't see them die.

Interestingly enough, the fight between Mick and Haven is quite violent for 1948, and it is surprising the filmmakers got away with it. Altogether, despite some changes from the novel, "Station West" qualifies as an offbeat but entertaining shoot'em up with sturdy cast, scenic exteriors, and lots of intrigue.

Bring Me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman (2012)

Lackluster Latino Action Comedy

[4/10 · 30 March 2024]

An action comedy with a Peckinpah inspired title, Chilean writer & director Ernesto Diaz Espionoza's "Bring Me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman" qualified as half-baked hokum from fade-in to fade out. You know a movie is in trouble when the eponymous heroine spends more time off screen rather than on it. Our DJ protagonist, Santiago (Matías Oviedo), is a weenie who lives with his mom. He is seated on a toilet in a stall one day when he eavesdrops accidentally on a private conversation among some intimidating Argentine thugs. They are hatching a plot to kill the eponymous character. The hoodlums discover that Santiago has been listening to them, and the chief thug Che Longana gives him an ultimatum. He has 24 hours to learn the whereabouts of the Machine Gun woman and report back to him or die. Bumbling, stumbling, and fumbling everything miserably, our clueless hero doesn't stand a chance against these homicidal mobsters. When he approaches a gun store dealer about buying a gun, he doesn't have any preference about models and betrays his ignorance about firearms in general. Hilariously, the gun store dealer refuses to sell our lame-brained hero a genuine gun. Instead, he trusts Santiago just enough to sell him an obvious BB-pistol! Who would tote any gun if it didn't work adequately?

Meantime, the titular babe aka The Machine Gun Woman (Fernanda Urrejola) looks absolutely stunning. She is decked out in a provocative S & M black leather outfit that emphasizes her cleavage. She wears calf-length boots with spiked heels. Basically, she doesn't have a qualm about blasting away with her weaponry. Red blooded males will drool like babies prior to breast feeding over this wet dream pin-up in stiletto heels. It is a shame she doesn't mow down more bad guys in sight! She is an accurate shooter who never wastes bullets. Initially, she has little use for Santiago until later after she catches lead in a rodeo yard shootout. A thug catches her by surprise and shoots her in the leg. Our pusillanimous protagonist tries to fake Longana off with his BB pistol, but the villain sees right through this pathetic ruse. During the rodeo scene, Santiago slips up behind Longana (Jorge Alis), the ruffian who plugged the Machine Gun Woman, and fears for his life if Longana catches him sneaking up. Alas,afree our heroine has brandished one of her pistols, lead flies in a swarm. By a strange set of circumstances, she shoos the ill-fated Longana in the calf of his leg and he stumbles momentarily and blows his face off accidentally with his own weapon! The wounded Machine Gun Lady insists Santiago remove the bullet before she bleeds to death.

As action comedies go, "Bring Me The Head of the Machine Gun Woman" has all the characteristics of a bottom of the barrel B-movie. It's too bad Epinoza didn't give the eponymous heroine a bigger role in this otherwise lackluster saga, low body count saga. Slow-moving at times, this low-budget nonsense had a lot of potential but the comic angle undermines what might have been a better actioneer. Don't let the title fool you!

Damsel (2024)

"Damsel" Lives Up To Its Distress

[7/10 · 24 March 2024]

"Stranger Things" heroine Milly Bobby Brown emerges as a pretty pugnacious warrior princess in "28 Weeks Later" director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's above-average medieval fantasy "Damsel." Although she spends almost every minute in distress, she never requires the services of a man to deliver her from adversity. Our beautiful heroine finds herself in a position that foreshadows wealth, affluence, and love until the dark truth reveals itself. Indeed, she is poised to die an ignominious death in a sizzling wreath of flames from jaws of a vengeful dragon! Initially, "Damsel" unfolds like a predictable fairy tale. She is a beautiful young thing poised to become the wife of a handsome young prince. She hopes he will be kind. Not surprisingly, "Wrath of the Titans" scenarist Dan Mazeau appropriates all the usual cliches of the genre, but he stands them on their collective heads. Lord Bayford (Ray Winstone of "Beowulf") has negotiated a marriage of convenience for his adorable daughter, Elodie (Milly Bobby Brown), to a sovereign. Prince Henry (Nick Robinson of "Silk Road") will wed her in his distant kingdom under the icy eyes of his mother, Queen Isabelle (Robin Wright of "Forrest Gump"), who amounts to a Janus-faced witch. Basically, the twin ravages of starvation and ecological ruin have virtually destroyed Bayford's kingdom. His decision to give his daughter's hand to a strange prince, so his subjects will flourish is not in Elodie's best interests. No sooner has our heroine exchanged vows than the Prince ushers her up a winding path into a mountain cave.

After a brief ceremony concludes in the cave, Prince Henry gathers an unsuspecting Elodie gracefully in his arms and then without warning hurls her off a bridge into a shadowy abyss. What poor Elodie doesn't realize is a humongous dragon with a ravenous appetite awaits her when she lands with a thud. This ferocious flying reptile is herself a scorned mother, and Queen Isabelle has served her human sacrifices as part of a debt because her army slew the dragon's three offspring in the nest. The King and his army skewered the demons with their swords, and the dragon swept in and roasted in a blaze of fury. Afterward, this talkative dragon toys with Elodie. Thus ends the first half of this tolerable 110-minute fantasy. One of the features that solidifies "Damsel" as a fantasy is its loquacious dragon. Iranian actress Shohreh Aghdashloo of "Star Trek Beyond" provides the voice and gives the CGI dragon a faintly menacing personality. Elodie and the Dragon start out as antagonists but once their minds meet they become sisters.

The first half of the action chronicles the hopes and dreams of our fair heroine as Lord Bayford and Elodie's stepmom, Bayford's Queen Lady Bayford (Angela Bassett of "Black Panther") inform her of her impending nuptials. They set sail in a wooden ship for a distant kingdom. Elodie dreads her future. Nevertheless, dutiful daughter that she is, she accommodates her Lord despite her apparent misgivings. Imagine her surprise when she finds herself flung into a gloomy cavern to face a smoldering female dragon with the power of speech. Elodie survives a variety trials and tribulations in her efforts to elude death. While she wanders desperately through an inhospitable maze of caves, she encounters some exotic creatures. After her first brush with the dragon, Elodie discovers that some glow worms, slightly similar to maggots, are useful in restoring charred flesh. Eventually, her father and several men enter the cave to save her but they struggle to survive themselves. The incensed reptile dragon sets them ablaze and crushes Lord Bayford under its claw before it resumes her hunt for Elodie.

However, Elodie improvises and turns the tables on her enemy. Although she out-smarts the evil dragon, Elodie takes pity on it. She understands how the bereaved creature has been mistreated and told lies. In a reversal of fortune, Elodie saves the dragon's life, using those glow worm maggots to restore the dragon's health. Indeed, the fiendish flying flamethrower had cornered Elodie, but our heroine survived by her wits. Cleverly, she stood with her back to a huge curved rock structure. Nimbly, she sidestepped the burst of the dragon's sulfurous breath so the flames blew back onto the beast, singing it into submission! Meanwhile, since Elodie has managed to survive thus far, the evil Queen abducts Elodie's younger sister, Floria (newcomer Brooke Carter ), to serve as a substitute. The act of treachery cements Isabelle's heinous villainy.

Meantime, once Elodie befriends the dragon. She explains the circumstances of her predicament and wins the sympathy of the hideous creature. Together, they team up and take on the evil Queen. Perhaps the Queen's impending comeuppance is a little too obvious, but it is entirely satisfying. The computer-generated scenery of a fanciful kingdom looks spectacular enough, even though it is obviously synthetic. The detail in the depths of the cave during Elodie's journey of hardship looks good. The CGI of the dragon stands up to scrutiny for the purposes of this revisionist fantasy. Sadly, despite its twists and turns, nothing about the shallow characters makes them remotely memorable. Indeed, characterization is kept to a minimum. Despite the horrendous obstacle course over which our heroine triumph, we know in the end she will win out. As a Young Adult fantasy, "Damsel" qualifies as worth watching once.

The Mother (2023)

The Dame With No Name!!!

[8/10 · 16 March 2024]

Jennifer Lopez goes full metal Rambo as the dame with no name in "Whale Rider" director Nicky Caro's ballistic, high-octane, white-knuckled, action thriller "The Mother." This tale sizzles with suspenseful excitement as well as formulaic contrivance about the daughter our heroine never knew who lands in the hands of homicidal hellions with no qualms about killing. A weapons savvy lady, our protagonist had turned herself in as an anonymous informant for the FBI. Basically, she has been walking on the wild side after she served her tour of duty as an elite U. S. military sniper in Iraqi and Afghanistan with 46 kills. While she was there, she met a British soldier, Adrian Lovell (Joseph Fiennes of "Enemy at the Gates") and attraction blossomed. With nowhere to go after her enlistment, she followed Lovell to the dark side. Now, this intrepid dame lives by the skin of her teeth with danger as close as her shadow. Initially, she had been loyal to Lovell until she uncovered his evil ugly truth. He participated in a human trafficking ring. This prompted her to approach the Feds.

By this time, Adrian had also acquired a notorious reputation as an arms dealer. Naturally, Lovell wasn't amused when he learned she had holed up in an FBI safe house in suburban Indiana. She was there spilling her guts about him. Launching a surprise attack, Adrian and his henchmen wipe out almost everybody in the safehouse. Fortunately, our heroine helped Agent William Cruise (Omari Hardwick of "Kick Ass") survive this massacre. Sadly, the rest of the Feds fell in a hail of gunfire. At the time, our heroine was pregnant, but she didn't escape without a scratch. Cornering her in a shower stall, Lovell stabbed her in the stomach. Indeed, this insidious dastard nearly killed the unborn child. Nevertheless, Lovell got a taste of our heroine's fiery wrath. She improvised a homemade explosive that broiled him like a steak on a grille. Happily, not only does our indestructible villain elude the Grim Reaper here, but he also shows up again for the bullet blazing finale. As the villain, Fiennes makes a formidable villain. He is definitely no slouch.

Anyway, the FBI rush our heroine to the ER in time for her to give birth to a girl. However, they refuse to let her raise her own child. Instead, they insist she is a "death sentence" to her daughter because her life hang s in perpetual jeopardy. Now, Lovell must find her and kill her. Since she saved his life during the massacre, Cruise agrees to keep her informed about any threats to her daughter's welfare. The FBI sets our heroine's little girl up with a mixed racial couple (white hubby and black wife), and Zoe (Lucy Paez of "Silencio") grows up to be a cute but naive little darling. She likes to coast around on sneakers equipped with small wheels in the heels. Twelve years elapse in a flash, and Adrian learns Zoe's whereabouts, he dispatches a crew to abduct her. Brawny Agent Cruise alerts Zoe's birth mom about this threat. Low and behold, Adrian and his henchmen materialize in broad daylight, wound the foster mom in the arm, and kidnap Zoe. Cue the familiar action heroine tropes. Eventually, mom rescues her daughter, and they plunge into hiding in a remote section of snow-swept woods. While their await the inevitable appearance of Adrian and his gunmen, our heroine teaches Zoe how to load a bolt-action hunting rifle and trains her to be an expert marksman. Zoe acquires proficiency in perforating compact discs dangling from strings with the aid of a sniper scope.

If you're a J-Lo fan, "The Mother" is like nothing you've seen her in since the days of "Money Train" and "Out of Sight" back in the late 1990s. Nothing about "The Mother" is neither romantic nor frivolous. J-Lo is all about business here in an effort to alter her cinematic image. She looks like she could handle the hardware. The violence is harrowing, and the body count exceeds anything in any J-Lo movie. At one point, our enraged heroine water boards a contemptible cartel gunman to extract information from him about Zoe's whereabouts. Afterward, she knocks him down with enough force that he falls onto a shattered glass bottle. The bottle penetrates his neck like a skewer, and he dies! Caro maintains more than enough urgency throughout the first half-hour to hold attention. Mind you, everything about these melodramatic shenanigans is thoroughly formulaic but nevertheless satisfying. The action choreography is brisk. Indeed, action junkies may savor this shoot-em up, especially when J-Lo is pumping lead into her unsavory adversaries.

Death Walks in Laredo (1967)

Bizzare and Surreal Spaghetti Western

[8/10 · 2 March 2024]

Writer & director Enzo Peri's "Death Walks in Laredo" qualifies as one the most bizarre as well as surreal Spaghetti westerns ever made. The opening scene in a saloon where our protagonist, Whity Selby (Thomas Hunter of "The Hills Run Red") has just made a killing at the poker table, but the players he took money from don't want him to quit until they've had a chance to recoup their losses. He ignores them and ambles over to the bar. They whip out their pistols and order him to stop. At once, Whity turns and shoots all four of them dead. If you look at the gun, you'll notice that the barrels have sprung out sideways. Never seen a revolver like this, but since it's an action comedy, why let reality sour the saga. After he exits the saloon, a well-dressed elderly gentleman accosts him and explains he his a lawyer. Moreover, he has a letter for Whity. It seems that it took the letter ten years to reach the lawyer and he has been searching for Whity. Basically, Whity learns he has inherited a gold mine in Laredo, Texas. Whity will encounter an agile Japanese Kung-fu expert, Lester Kato (James Shigeta of "The Crimson Kimono") and a well-dressed, French gunslinger, Etienne Devereaux (Nadir Moretti of "Hercules Against the Mongols") who has a knack for mentally paralyzing his opponents. Eventually, these three will join forces against the villain. This isn't a slap happy, laugh out loud horse opera, but it has its tongue firmly in its cheek, without acting downright silly.

Fortunes of War (2024)

The Spoils of War

[6/10 · 29 February 2024]

After a surprise raid on a German convoy goes sideways and their imperious C. O., Lieutenant Quayle (Mark Kitto of "The War Below") is killed, the survivors of an ill-fated British commando unit find themselves cut off in Nazi-occupied France. Sergeant Mason (James Oliver Wheatley of "One Ranger") and a mixed batch of Tommies, black as well as white, along with two pugnacious female French Resistance fighters take refuge in an apparently deserted farm. Alas, they learn the farm is not completely deserted. Now, between the blotched mission and the forced march to the deserted farm house, co-writer & director Bill Thomas indulges in moments reminiscent of Louis Milestone's classic World War II movie "A Walk in the Sun" as the Tommies reflect on their predicament. One of the blacks doesn't trust the French girls, while one of the whites, a smart aleck named Leech (Daniel Thrace of "Book of Monsters"), causes no end of trouble. His precipitant action when he whipped back the rear flap of the flatbed revealed a nasty Kraut holding a flame-thrower. Although Leech eludes death, the Tommy who had accompanied him is incinerated. Now, this incendiary death is probably the most violent scene. Meantime, "Fortunes of War" never tries to rival the grit, grime, and gore of "Saving Private Ryan." Nevertheless, everything about this infantry epic looks entirely plausible. Thomas generates considerable urgency from the get-go with our heroes exchanging gunfire with the enemy. Meaning, less talk and more action! Sadly, the filmmakers reveal next to nothing about that raid gone wrong. Lieutenant Quayle claimed his plan would succeed like clockwork.

Afterward, Mason, his men, and the French dames must fight the Nazis in a baptism of bullets. Essentially, this modest military melodrama could be classified as a single setting actioneer. Eventually, Thomas and co-scribe Ian Thomas came up with a title that foreshadows the chief surprise in this men on a mission movie. As war weary Sergeant Mason, James Oliver Wheatley radiates a gruff virile charm as he chews the scenery. This slap happy combat non-com keeps reminding his men he isn't their "mum." The French Resistance girls know which end of their weapons to aim at the enemy. Annette (Sophie Craig of "The Adventures of Maid Marian") cradles a machine gun like a baby, while her fellow French compatriot, Ines (newcomer Meg Forgan), lugs around a sniper's rifle. Ines rarely misses what she fires at in a fracas. These dames have no qualms about loosening a hail of lead into a passel of Jerries. Would that the filmmakers had developed their characters in greater depth so they would be more memorable. No sooner have our heroes taken up residence at the farm than they encounter some suspicious characters. Turns out one of them is a Belgium guy who has a screwy story to tell them about bricks. Eventually, our outnumbered and outgunned chaps find themselves surrounded by more Germans than they can shower with a hand grenades. It comes as something of a shock when German General Horseler (Bob Cryer of "The Undertaker"), immaculate in his trench coat and cap, wants to negotiate with them. He worries more about what our heroes may reveal when they surrender as well as what his men will think when they discover his underlying motives. Turns out Horseler had been melting down precious Jewish contraband, that is, golden ornaments and glittering jewelry into ingots! The sooner Horseler can get these infernal Brits out of the way, the less attention he will face about his ulterior motives. Mind you, the Brits chop up a fair number of the enemy before this happens. Shrewdly, Horseler uses this moment of silence to wave the white flag of peace. To all outward concerns, Horseler justifies it as time for his troops to remove the wounded and the dead.

Thomas relies heavily on the charisma of his capable cast, since their budget couldn't accommodate the kind of fireworks display we're accustomed to in million-dollar military melodramas. This stiff upper lip saga about the aftermath of a blown mission clocks in at a meager 85 minutes. Happily, Thomas makes certain the air is swarming with bullets, and our heroes are whittled down one by one until only a handful are alive. Some of the German soldiers look like they are wearing American helmets, but everybody appears to tote period-accurate firearms. Sergeant Mason brandishes a .30 calibered Thompson submachine gun, while the most of the German soldiers carry the familiar MP 40 "Schmeissers." Beware of the DVD cover art for "Fortunes of War," because a flaming B-17 flies above our heroes. No aircraft are ever seen in this movie. Apart from highlighting the little-known fact blacks served in the British Army during World War II, "Fortunes of War" is a fair to middling potboiler. If racially integrated World War II epics are your cup of tea, you should watch "Come Out Fighting" (2022) about African American tankers in Patton's army!

Johnny Hamlet (1968)

To Shoot Or Not to Shoot!!!

[10/10 · 26 February 2024]

"Any Gun Can Play" writer & director Enzo G. Castellari's derivative Spaghetti western "Johnny Hamlet," headlining Andrea Giordana, Gilbert Roland, and Horst Frank, qualifies as a surreal adaptation of the English Bard's classic revenge play "Hamlet." If you think about it, the standard issue revenge theme Castellari and co-scenarists Sergio Corbucci and Tito Capi have concocted here aligns itself with the revenge theme in "Hamlet." Most Spaghetti westerns focused on revenge so it was inevitable someone must draw parallels with Shakespeare. Confederate veteran Johnny Hamilton (Andrea Giordana of "The Dirty Outlaws") returns home from the Civil War to find his father murdered and his mother remarried to his uncle. Inevitably, casual moviegoers as well as snooty Shakespeare scholars may either cringe or sneer at this western riff on "Hamlet." Nevertheless, some of Hollywood's greatest post-war horse operas drew on elements of Shakespeare. Who can forget the deeply moving "Hamlet" soliloquy a drunken thespian (Alan Mowbray) delivered in a frontier saloon in John Ford's classic 1946 western "My Darling Clementine" (1946), with Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp, Victor Mature as Doc Holliday, and Walter Brennan as Old Man Clanton? William A. Wellman's 1948 western "Yellow Sky" successfully re-imagined the underlying themes of the Shakespeare play "The Tempest" and integrated them with the tropes of the Western. Gregory Peck and Richard Widmark were bank robbers who hole up in a ghost town that served as home to a defiant dame (Anne Baxter) and her prospector grandpa (James Barton), the equivalent of the wizard Prospero. Delmar Daves's 1956 soap opera on the range "Jubal," with Glenn Ford, Ernest Borgnine, Rod Steiger, and Felicia Farr, drew on themes prevalent in "Othello." Like those classic westerns, Castellari has invoked Shakespeare here in imaginative ways. Before he shows up at the family ranch, Hamilton sojourns with a traveling troupe of actors rehearsing "Hamlet." Portions of "Johnny Hamlet" duplicate Shakespeare's story. Who killed Johnny's father? Why was he murdered? Johnny's sinister Uncle Claude (Horst Frank of "Django, Prepare a Coffin") up and marries Johnny's grieving mother Gertrude (Françoise Prévost of "The Enemy General"). Interestingly, Spaghetti western guru Sergio Corbucci provided the story for "Johnny Hamlet." Italian western buffs cannot help but notice the finale pitting Johnny against his Uncle Claude in a gunfight that borrows heavily from Corbucci's own landmark western "Django." Literally, Johnny must tie a revolver in his shattered hand when he goes gunning for sinister Uncle Claude! Just as Sergio Leone relied on Ennio Morricone's musical genius to enhance his westerns, Enzo G. Castellari depended on composer Francesco De Masi and his stirring musical cues for virtually all of his westerns. "Johnny Hamlet" bristles with shootouts. Unlike most of Castellari's other westerns, this one is surreal not only in its choice of exotic locations with mushroom shaped rock formation as well as a sprawling graveyard in a vast underground cavern but also "Seven Magnificent Guns" lenser Angelo Filippini's artsy fartsy widescreen cinematography. Filippini's camerawork is incredible for his picturesque compositions as well as his interesting rack focus shots in the graveyard. None of Castellari's other westerns resembles "Johnny Hamlet." Castellari gives all his primary characters memorable entrances into the story. For example, Uncle Claude is shown displaying his superb marksmanship skills. He shoots into lengths of pipes so his bullets will fly through them and perforate water bags behind them. Frank makes an exceptional villain. He is aided and abetted by his two dastardly henchmen, the derby clad Guild (Pedro Sanchez of "Sabata") and Ross (Ennio Girolami of "Escape from the Bronx") who constantly hound Johnny. Charismatic Hollywood silent movie star Gilbert Roland who had made his share of horse operas and played the Cisco Kid before he migrated to Europe for a fistful of Spaghetti westerns is cast as Horace, Johnny's swift-shooting mentor who always shows up when Johnny finds himself harassed by the evil likes of Guild and Ross. These two villains are homicidal hellions. Well into his 60s when he made his Spaghetti westerns, Roland with his Errol Flynn mustache performed many of his own stunts, too.

Castellari juggles his references to "Hamlet." First, he has a troupe of actors cavorting about on the periphery rehearsing their play and then his writers and he shape the plot so it imitates the tragic play. For example, the name of Johnny's father's ranch is Ranch Elsenor. Clearly, this is a riff on castle Elsinore in Shakespeare's play. Most of "Johnny Hamlet" follows our protagonist's efforts to solve the mystery of his father's demise. Everybody attributes the death of Johnny's dad to a stereotypical Mexican bandit named Santana (Manuel Serrano of "Beat the Devil") who appears to be dead himself, but as we learn later is alive and killing, allied as he is with treacherous Uncle Claude. Interestingly enough, Castellari's "Johnny Hamlet" came out the same year as Franco Zeffirelli's "Romeo and Juliet." For the record, "Johnny Hamlet" was released in Italy in March of 1968, while Zeffirelli's masterpiece came out later in October. Whether you're a Shakespeare fan or not, Castellari never lets the action bog down in lofty dialogue. Gunfights galore occur in "Johnny Hamlet" and Castellari orchestrates them with his superb staging. If it boils down to watch or not to watch "Johnny Hamlet," Spaghetti westerns completists will opt to watch it!

Madame Web (2024)

Madame Web Is Nothing Marvelous

[4/10 · 20 February 2024]

Dakota Johnson can foretell the future in freshman director S. J. Clarkson's sophomoric "Spider-Man" spinoff prequel "Madame Web," but she struggles to understand and make the best use of her unusual supernatural gifts. Cassie's mom Constance (Kerry Bishé of "Argo") gave birth to her daughter while she was scouring the jungles of Peru in 1973 for a rare but exotic spider whose venom has incredible healing powers. Constance's treacherous guide who has accompanied her during her research, Ezekiel Sims ( Tatar Rahim of "Napoleon"), steals her research along with one of these unique spiders. He guns down Constance's three lab assistants and when she refuses to hand over the spider, Ezekiel shoots her. Predictably, ill-fated Constance is dying when an enigmatic tribe of tree people known only as Las Arañas or "mythical spider people who run across the treetops" keep Constance alive long enough to give birth to Cassie. Later, we learn the Aranas guys used one of those spiders on Constance that would save Cassie's life. Constance discovered the healing properties of these mysterious spiders and sought them out to save her daughter who had been diagnosed with a rare, incurable disease.

Fast forwarding to 2003, our pretty, dark-haired heroine Cassie lives alone in an apartment in Queens in New York City with a stray cat and maintains a low profile. Guess who else in the Marvel Universe grew up in Queens? Anyway, she works as a paramedic alongside none other than Ben Parker (Adam Scott of "Leap Year") and his sister is Mary Parker (Emma Roberts of "Scream 4"). One day Cassie has a near death experience that unlocks her power. Accidentally trapped in a wrecked car that plunges into the East River, Cassie awakens those powers long dormant in her DNA. She survives the plunge because Ben rescued her from the river. Now, she starts having baffling episodes of what she imagines is déjà vu. Actually, she realizes she can predict the future because she can see things happen literally before they occur.

The shamelessly contrived screenplay, penned by "Morbius" scribes Matt Sazama & Burk Sharpless with rewriters courtesy of Claire Parker and Clarkson, features banal dialogue, cardboard characters, and lackluster spectacle. Mind you, Johnson lends a modicum gravity to these preposterous shenanigans which have her running interference for three cute teens, Julia (Sydney Sweeney of "Anyone But You"), Anya (Isabela Merced of "Instant Family"), and Mattie (Celeste O'Connor of "Freaky") who have been earmarked for death by the creepy villain. The parents of these girls had no use for them, have abandoned them, and left them to their own fates. Eventually, this threesome will emerge as a crime busting trio.

Every superhero saga must have a dastardly villain. The nefarious Ezekiel, who runs around the Big Apple in his bare feet, has been haunted by the specter of these three girls decked out in Spider-man outfits in his recurring nightmares. Like Cassie, Ezekiel can see into the future, and these dames represent a clear and present danger to his future. He decides to kill them before they mature into crime busting superheroines, so he acquires some devastating NSA cyber gear that enables an accomplice to locate these three girls before they embark on their own superheroine crusade. Basically, Ezekiel's video equipment can scan every face in New York City and locate these gals if a video camera captures and records them. When Cassie experiences her first bout of foreseeing the future, she is riding on the same subway train that Julia, Anya, and Mattie have boarded. Cassie sees Ezekiel kill them individually and hustles the reluctant teens off the train. They cannot explain Ezekiel's surreal ability to climb upside down on ceilings and leap from one car to another car on heavily trafficked city streets. According to Cassie, Ezekiel has superhuman powers that enable him to kill humans by merely touching them.

Columbia Pictures, owned by Sony, has the rights to Marvel's "Spider-man" franchise, and they are exploiting anything and everything that lies within Spidey's universe. Earlier, they came up Tom Hardy as "Venom," but "Madame Web" lacks the charisma of the "Venom" movies. Comparatively speaking, the half dozen or more déjà vu episodes in "Madame Web" are reminiscent of white-knuckled thrillers like "Groundhog Day," "Final Destination" and both "Happy Death Day" movies. This 116-minute melodrama shoves so much down your throat that you may miss some of the allusions of "Spider-Man." Spider webs are designed to trap their prey, but what little spectacle that "Madame Web" spins doesn't strand a chance in the long run.

Revolt at Fort Laramie (1957)

A Civil War Cavalry Western

[7/10 · 19 February 2024]

Trouble erupts for the U. S. Cavalry in director Lesley Selander "Revolt at Fort Laramie" when the troopers therein learn the American Civil War has begun and half of the garrison's soldiers quit the cavalry for the long ride home to the Southern Confederacy. Matters are aggravated considerably because Chief Red Cloud (Eddie Little Sky of "Apache Warrior") and his Sioux tribe are expecting to receive a gold payment from the government to the tribe. Fort Commandant Major Seth Bradner (John Dehner of "The "Chapman Report") has been worrying about the imminent outbreak of civil war while trying to maintain the peace in a remote cavalry outpost surrounded by a tribe of pugnacious Native Americans who are demanding their tribute from the government. Indeed, the major has suppressed news of the rebellion, but an inquisitive Cavalry Scout Jean Salignac (Don Gordon of "Bullitt") leaks the news of the war to the Confederate sympathizers. Once they learn about the impending rebellion, they plan to launch their attack on the fort and appropriate arms and ammunition. Before this happens, the Southern sympathizers send a three-man legation to Major Bradner at Headquarters and inform the Virginia-born West Point officer about their plans. Later, about the same time this happens, one of the Southern sympathizers sneaks away to warn Capt. James 'Jamie' Tenslip (Gregg Palmer of "Big Jake") about the conspiracy and Bradner's role in it. Predictably, Tenslip is incredulous, but he realizes his worst fears later after Bradner receives a message from the War Department authorizing any soldier who wishes to resign to join the Confederacy may do so without retribution. Naturally, Tenslip is alarmed when he learns Bradner has allied himself with the Southerners. Mind you, these revelations throw a wringer into Tenslip's plans to marry Bradner's Melissa daughter, (Frances Helm of "The Ugly American"), who wants to marry him.

Initially, the Confederates wanted to steal the gold that had recently arrived at the fort, but Bradner refuses to take it with the Southerners and they leave the fort to embark on their journey. Predictably, they cross paths with Red Cloud and his bloodthirsty warriors. When Salignac explains to Red Cloud that the men with Bradner are no longer Union cavalrymen and are leaving the territory, the chief refuses to believe him. Instead, he asks Bradner to surrender to him and the Sioux will take him as a hostage in good faith until Tenslip is prepared to exchange the major for the gold slated for the Sioux. The hostiles trap Bradner and his men in the middle of nowhere, but the major and his troopers drive them off after two attacks. Bradner dispatches Salignac to ride back to the fort and warn Tenslip. At first, Tenslip suspects Salignac is up to no good. Nevertheless, he organizes a patrol, and the ride out to rendezvous with Bradner. The Native Americans launch another attack on the troopers, but Tenslip and his men arrive in time to save the day. Sadly, Major Bradner doesn't fare as lucky as some of the other men in his command. Tenslip finds his former superior officer dead from wounds incurred by the Sioux during a second attack.

Clocking in at 73-minutes, this lean and mean military western doesn't beat around the boulder. There is one exceptional scene when the cavalrymen are forced to float down a stream on rafts while the Native Americans hurls lances and shoot arrows from the banks. Selander and scenarist Robert C. Dennis of "Crime Against Joe") have created a fairly routine cavalry versus the Native Americans on a low budget. "Revolt in the Big House" lenser William Margulies captures the gritty action in blazing color. Those blue uniforms stand out against the brown background of the mountains. Although it is a B-grade western, "Revolt at Fort Laramie" was shot on location in Kanab, Utah, where John Ford shot some of his classic westerns. However, despite its intriguing premise, "Revolt at For Laramie" qualifies as strictly average and does little with its provocative premise. Incidentally, Tenslip never gets to marry the Major's daughter.

The Outside Man (1972)

The Outside Man and The Inside Job

[7/10 · 15 February 2024]

"Borsalino" director Jacques Deray's grim French mobster melodrama "The Outside Man," starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Ann-Margret, and Roy Scheider, chronicles the trials and tribulations of a Frenchman flown to Los Angeles to kill a wealthy crime czar, Victor Kovacs (Ted de Corsia of "Gunfight at the O. K. Corral"), in his palatial Beverly Hills mansion. Lucien Bellon (Jean-Louis Trintignant of "The Great Silence") isn't a professional contract killer. Instead, plagued by a gambling addiction, he must find a way to pay off his enormous debts. Unfortunately, the only way he can raise enough loot to liquidate his debts is to fly from Paris to Los Angeles and ice a notorious crime lord.

After landing in Los Angeles, Lucien checks into the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. The desk clerk hands him a mysterious attaché case along with his room key. In his room, Lucien finds a loaded snub-nosed revolver and an envelope stuffed with cash in the case. Renting a car, Lucien drives out to the Kovacs mansion. The doorman admits him without frisking him for firearms. Victor surprises Lucien then realizes Lucien isn't the man he was expecting. Lucien brandishes his revolver and shoots him dead on the spot with one shot. Earlier, Lucien had emptied the gun in his hotel room and replaced only one bullet instead of the full six. No sooner has Lucien fled the scene of the homicide than an alert circulates about Kovacs's murder. The description of the shooter, however, furnished by Victor's wife Jackie (Angie Dickinson of "Ocean's Eleven") and Victor's son Alex (Umberto Orsini of "La Dolce Vita") doesn't fit Lucien!

While the LAPD struggles to catch the killer, Lucien discovers the Detroit mob has sent an assassin to rub him out. Lenny (Roy Scheider of "Jaws") arrives in town eager to kill Lucien. Fate has a quirky way of intervening on behalf of our protagonist, and Lucien survives three of Lenny's desperate attempts on his life. Meantime, the Frenchman catches up with a bosomy topless bartender, Nancy Robson (Ann-Margret of "Viva Las Vegas"), who agrees to help him get a passport. The dastards who hired Lucien stole both his passport and his plane ticket, so he cannot leave the country. He confers with his Parisian pal Antoine (Michel Constantin of "Violent City") about his predicament over a long-distance phone call. Antoine advises Lucien to look up one of his old girlfriends, Nancy. She arranges for Lucien to buy a forged passport from a cabbie, Karl (Carlo De Mejo of "Teorema"), who can get him one.

Eventually, a naïve Lucien figures out the contract was an inside job, and he served as a mere pawn. Victor's treacherous son Alex had orchestrated Victor's demise. Poised as our protagonist is to leave the country, Lucien has second thoughts and prefers to remain in L. A., so he can discover who set him up. Meantime, Antoine and his bodyguard fly in from Paris to attend Victor's funeral. Probably the most offbeat thing about "The Outside Man" is the funeral itself. When everybody pays their respects to Victor, they find his corpse sitting upright in a chair with a cigar in one hand. What a bizarre way to display an embalmed corpse!

An impromptu gunfight erupts during the funeral when one of Alex's gunsels, Miller (Alex Rocco of "The Godfather") tries to kill Antoine. Instead, Antoine guns down Miller and corners a cowardly Alex playing possum in the casket, finishing Alex off for good. Meantime, Lucien hijacks a hearse. Antoine dies during the getaway from the funeral home but urges Lucien to leave him behind. During the initial gunfire, Lucien himself was wounded, too. As "The Outside Man" concludes, Lucien is sitting behind the steering wheel of the hearse with blood-soaked hands.

This uneven but entertaining crime thriller has its moments. Initially, when Lucien goes on the run, he carjacks a single-mom, Mrs. Barnes (Georgia Engel of "Grown Ups 2"), and forces her at gunpoint to take him to her apartment. Lucien cools his heels there. Mrs. Barnes cooks him supper and her young son, Eric (Jackie Earle Haley of "Watchmen"), wants to know more about him. During a private phone call, Lucien catches the nosy adolescent listening in on his call and slaps him. Meanwhile, every step of the way, Lenny shadows Lucien but fails repeatedly to kill him. At one point, Lucien picks up a hitchhiker who rhapsodizes about Jesus. Cruising up alongside them, Lenny shoots from his car into Lucien's. Miraculously, he misses Lucien but blasts the Jesus freak.

During the rest of the film, Lenny pursues Lucien. He kills the cabbie that provided Lucien with a passport and finally tracks him down to a hotel where he is holed up with Nancy. Their adversarial relationship changes when Lenny decides to team up with Lucien and go to the Kovacs estate. At the last second before they enter the estate, Lenny tries to double-cross the Frenchman, but Lucien kills him with a single shot.

Deray and writers Jean-Claude Carrière and Ian McLellan Hunter complicate matters considerably throughout this brisk, 105-minute thriller. Actually, the filmmakers had not scheduled to shoot "The Outside Man." Unfortunately, the other movie they were going to produce fell apart. Deray's scenarists whipped up this tale in twelve days, and he lensed it before their work permits expired. Composer Michel Legrand garnishes this fish-out-of-water yarn with an interesting orchestral soundtrack that accentuates the action. The abrupt ending with our protagonist parked in the Los Angles river basin with blood on his hands and nowhere to run leaves too many plot threads hanging. Basically, this was 'an inside job' organized by Alex to liquidate his dad Victor using an "Outside Man" from Paris who knew no better.

The Shadow Riders (1982 TV Movie)

Those Traven Boys!!!

[7/10 · 12 February 2024]

Tom Selleck, Sam Elliot, and Jeff Osterhage are appropriately cast as the charismatic Traven brothers in "Something Big" director Andrew V. McLaglen's "The Shadow Riders," an amiable, above-average, television adaptation of Louis L'Amour's venerable western novel. No, neither "Gunsmoke" writer Jim Byrnes nor co-scribe Verne Nobles have been entirely faithful to L'Amour's source material. Those who've read the novel should prepare themselves for some major and minor deviations. They have also fleshed out the feisty character of Uncle Jack Traven (Ben Johnson of "Rio Grande") in greater detail. In the novel, Jack joins Mac and Dal when they embark on their quest after the renegade Confederates who have kidnapped Kate Connery (Katherine Ross of "The Graduate") and company. The movie makes Jack into an amorous cowpoke wanted by Sheriff Gillette (R. G. Armstrong of "Ride the High Country"), because the latter's wife has been pursuing Jack! Basically, Byrnes and Nobles have enhanced the visual and dramatic setting of these events. Furthermore, the writers have whittled down the novel's abundant gallery of characters. In the book, the Travens rescue a little girl whose mother had been abducted by Major Ashbury (Geoffrey Lewis of "High Plains Drifter") along with Kate. One prominent character in the novel conspicuously absent from the movie is wealthy cattleman Martin Connery. Meantime, the movie introduced a new character not found in L'Amour's novel: cuckolded Sheriff Miles Gillette.

The Civil War has ended with General Lee's surrender at Appomattox to General Grant. Gray-clad sergeant Dal Traven is facing a Union firing squad when Major Ashbury's Confederate marauders disperse the blue bellies and rescue him. Turns out the man who saved Dal would later emerge as his archenemy. In the novel, action unfolds when some Unionists objected to Dal Traven (Sam Elliot of "Tombstone") and his Confederate uniform enough to lynch him in a shack. Comparatively, in the movie, the circumstances surrounding Dal's predicament differs. He is shoved atop a horse about to be strung up from a tree rather than hanged inside a shack. Happily, Mac Traven (a pre-"Magnum, P. I." Tom Selleck) intervenes to save his older brother's neck. In the movie, Dal had slain two of the Unionists' relatives, and this prompted them to string him up. Afterward, the two brothers hightail it home to Texas to find chaos awaiting them. Seems renegade Confederate Major Ashbury, who rescued Dal earlier from a firing squad, has abducted not only Dal's future bride but also another Traven brother, Jesse (Jeff Osterhage of "Masque of the Red Death"), along with two younger Traven sisters. Although Kate promised to await Dal's return, when she learned he had died in battle, she changed her mind and took up with another man.

No sooner have the Traven brothers lit out after these rebels than the third Traven brother Jesse, who had been taken hostage, escapes captivity. Ashbury's soldiers had bivouacked on the beach by the Gulf of Mexico. Ashbury had arranged a rendezvous with an infamous gunrunner. Jesse escaped while the rebs were otherwise occupied. Although he plunged into the surf, Ashbury's riflemen wounded him as he swam out into the gulf. Predictably, Jesse survived his minor flesh wound. Later, Mac and Dal rescued Jesse from two vagabonds who tried to steal his clothes. Jesse briefs them about Ashbury and the hostages. After arms smuggling gunrunner Colonel Holiday Hammond (Gene Evans of "The Steel Helmet") and Ashbury have conferred, they set sail on Hammond's ship bound for Mexico with Kate. Since neither Mac nor Dal are acquainted with Mexico, they spring cantankerous Uncle Jack from Sheriff Gillette's jail. Now, Jack serves as their Mexican tour guide. Our heroes track down Ashbury and Hammond to another shoreline camp near a railroad line as Hammond finalizes an arms and ammo sale with Ashbury. The three Traven brothers attack Hammond's camp. Frantically, Holiday scrambles onto his train with Kate, but our heroes foil his escape attempt and rescue her. As the action winds down, Sheriff Gillette and his posse arrive to arrest Uncle Jack. Mac and Dal negotiate a prisoner exchange. Gillette concedes and swaps Uncle Jack for the notorious Hammond. As a parting shot, Mac reminds Gillette he will beat him in the forthcoming sheriff's election!

Director Andrew V. McLaglen never lets the action malinger. Selleck, Elliot, and Osterhage are just as captivating here as they were in "The Sacketts." Ex-rodeo rider Ben Johnson steals the show with his display of horsemanship. The biggest dramatic mistake concerns Geoffrey Lewis's Major Ashbury. Once the heroes crush Hammond's crusade, Dal turns Ashbury loose, repaying the dastard for having saved his skin. The grand finale when the Travens surprise Hammond and Ashbury, and the careening train chase afterwards are venerable Hollywood tropes. According to noted playwright Anton Chekhov, if you put a gun on stage in the first act, somebody must use it in the third act. The presence of the train foreshadows the chase. For the record, the Union firing squad scene never appeared in L'Amour's yarn. Essentially, McLaglen lets Ashbury off the hook since the major's Southern uprising has been dashed. L'Amour was just as guilty. He let Ashbury fade out into obscurity with impunity! The book fails to duplicate the spectacle of the movie's sprawling action. Quibbles aside, my biggest pet peeve about "The Shadow Riders" is composer Jerrold Immel's lamentable soundtrack. Immel's corny, hillbilly music would have been more appropriate for a "Green Acres" episode than the brawny, shoot'em up shenanigans of "The Shadow Riders." Altogether, "The Shadow Riders" should not disappoint any armchair cowboys.

The Sacketts (1979)

Predictable But Entertaining Horse Opera

[7/10 · 11 February 2024]

Tom Selleck, Sam Elliot, and Jeff Osterhage are cast appropriately as the rough and ready but charismatic Sackett brothers in this above-average, serio-comic television adaptation of Louis L'Amour's frontier novel "The Sacketts. The Civil War has ended with Confederate General Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. Sam Elliot is a Confederate officer on his way home to Texas when he is waylaid and finds his head in a noose. Fortunately, Tell Sackett saves him from being hanged and they ride home together to find misfortune awaiting them. Seems a renegade Confederate Major has taken not only Elliot's wife (Katherine Ross) hostage but also another Sackett ( Jeff Osterhage) along with several other women. Seems Ross has been remarried because she thought Sackett had been killed in the war. Not sooner have the two Sacketts lit out after these villainous rebels than the other Sackett taken hostage manages to escape. He makes his break while the unreconstructed rebs are occupied. These rebs have set up camp on the beach when Osterhage escapes. The major's men wound him as he plunges into the surf during his escape. Not surprisingly, Osterhage manages to survive his wound, and the Sackett brothers stumble onto him. He fills them in about the hostages taken by the nefarious Major and joins them. He leads them back to the shoreline camp where the Major has made a rendezvous with a gun runner (R. G. Armstrong of "Ride the High County") and shoots it their camp. Our heroes manage to rescue Ross. Later, the Sacketts enlist Uncle Jack (Ben Johnson of "Rio Grande") as a tracker because he knows his way around Mexico with predictable but entertaining results.

Santo vs. the Evil Brain (1961)

Introducing the Crime Fighting Mexican Hero Santo

[5/10 · 4 February 2024]

Joselito Rodríguez's black & white, undercover crime thriller "Santo Vs The Evil Brain" (Santo contra cerebro del mal, 1961) heralded the cinematic debut of one of Mexico's most beloved folk heroes outside of his usual arena-the wrestling ring-in a rather inauspicious debut that belied the future success of the franchise. It should come as no surprise that the history of the production of this modest B-movie assumes greater magnitude than its amateurish artistry. Sadly, Rodriguez's film qualifies as incoherent because the writers furnish little or no exposition about the events or the characters. Clearly, the filmmakers got themselves as well as the audience tangled up in the film's messy web of intrigue. Nevertheless, despite its bewildering storyline and B-movie production values, "Santo Vs The Evil Brain" would not only spawn a franchise of over forty sequels but also awaken the rest of the world to this celebrated Mexican folk hero. Santo is an undercover crime fighter decked out in a silver mask to conceal his identity. Inexplicably, he dresses like a wrestler and runs around bare chest exposed. No, Santo packs neither a pistol nor a knife. He relies on his wits, his fists, and his feet for everything required. Inexplicably, in his first outing, he winds up playing second banana to rival wrestling figure, El Incognito (Fernando Osés) and serving as a witless pawn of the chief villain, Dr. Campos (Joaquín Cordero), a mad scientist with delusions of grandeur. Campos has developed a serum combined with the application of electrodes and light rays that enables him to control Santo like a robot while he defies the law.

It seems puzzling why Rodríguez and his writers didn't provide the eponymous hero with a proper introduction and reveal his law enforcement background. Later, the Police Chief says without mentioning names that the missing man or "The Masked Man" as he refers to him is one of his top men. The Enrique Zambrano & Fernando Osés' screenplay suffers from gaps in narrative exposition. Santo is sidelined far too early as a peripheral character. The first time we see him, three sadistic gangsters have him cornered in a blind alley. Unarmed, Santo struggles to evade a flying coil of chain, deflects a nasty switchblade knife, and dodges a fistful of brass knuckles. Although he swaps blows, kicks butt, and cracks chins, these three thugs subdue him. Santo's assailants dump his unconscious carcass like a sack of groceries in their car. At this point, our hero blends into the background. After Campos zombifies him with his serum, Santo behaves like an automaton. "With this injection," Campos boasts, "I will control his mind." Afterward, Santo lurches around in a drunken stupor with little of his former poise. Later, he helps Campos' henchmen abduct a scientist. A subplot about kidnapped scientists lurks in the background but is never fully explained. Campos' henchmen abduct an affluent banker. Our mad doctor injects him with the same serum given to Santo. After returning to his office, the banker dismisses his security guard and loots the vault. Meanwhile, another masked crime fighter seen earlier prowling atop Campos' roof, El Incognito breaks into Campos' laboratory via a skylight. After he spots Santo, Incognito knows the exact antidote which will release Santo from Campos' mind control serum.

Something is wrong when the hero doesn't perform the lion's share of the action. El Incognito creates more trouble for Campos than Santo. After he administers an antidote to Santo, Incognito cautions him to play dumb without arousing suspicion until the appropriate moment to strike. Doesn't this seem like a co-star giving the star his marching orders? The hero should be front and center. He should be aggressive. He should strike fear into the villain's heart. Strangely, Santo does none. Remember, the first time we see him, Santo is fleeing from a confrontation like a cornered rat! Near the end of this 72-minute thriller, the police raid a distillery where Campos' henchmen hide. At this point, Santo snaps out of his reverie and hammers the bad guys. During the tense finale in a standoff at his apartment, Campos wounds El Incognito and threatens to kill his secretary after the authorities have surrounded his apartment. Finally, Rodríguez and his writers give Santo another chance to behave like a hero and redeem himself. Sneaking into Campos' apartment, Santo surprises the mad scientist and frees the secretary. Moments later Campos dies when the Police Chief bursts inside and guns him down!

The events surrounding the production of the initial "Santo" saga and its sequel "Santo Vs Infernal Men" (Santo contra Hombres infernales, 1961) overshadow the dire lack of artistry in these films. Apparently, owing to its low production costs, the Mexican producers were attracted to sunny Havana, Cuba. Now, this choice of locations might not seem important. However, Rodríguez and his company were lensing the film about the same time Fidel Castro was creating headaches for the corrupt regime of Cuban dictator General Batista. Apparently, the city was in turmoil. Later, the producers would exploit this chaos to liberate film footage that a lab had padlocked for unpaid bills! If you watch carefully, you can spot how Rodríguez grabbed exterior rooftop shots of Havana without getting filming permits. You can tell filming occurred on actual streets since we're watching the actors cruise those boulevards! It is difficult to imagine the potential for disaster these filmmakers faced during these historic moments in a revolution. Nevertheless, Rodríguez, his cast, and his crew completed filming with incident and left Cuba unharmed to assemble the footage back in Mexico City.

Mediocre filmmaking from start to finish, "Santo Vs The Evil Brain" doesn't amount to much. Everything resembles a Depression Era Poverty Row quickie. Nobody identifies Santo by his name, and Incognito displays greater gallantry. How Santo recovered from this early setback to win over not only Mexican audiences but also worldwide audiences testifies to his charismatic presence.