The Scoop: Maybe it’s because I was raised on them, but the juvenile comedies of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s are a lot more entertaining than those that came before or after. The masters of the genre were Ivan Reitman, John Landis, Harold Ramis and the alums of the original “Saturday Night Live” cast. You can see their best work in “Animal House,” “Caddyshack” or “The Jerk” but, sadly, not in “Meatballs.”
Directed by Reitman (and written by Ramis, Len Blum, Dan Goldberg and Janis Allen), “Meatballs” is the episodic, disjointed story of a summer among the misfits at Camp North Star. Bill Murray stars as activities director Tripper alongside a bunch of folks you’ve probably never heard of. Murray sleepwalks through this, his first film role, but as he’s proved repeatedly in his 30+ year career, he can still do that and be entertaining. The rest of the film is fun too, although pretty insubstantial; there’s no plot to speak of and many of the jokes fall flat. Despite some nice moments between Tripper and Rudy (Chris Makepeace), “Meatballs” really isn’t essential viewing.
Best Bit: Tripper explains the perks of rival Camp Mohawk.
Side Note: This was filmed at Camp White Pine in Haliburton, Ontario, during summer camp season. The real life campers were used as extras in several scenes.
Companion Viewing: "Stripes" (1979) and "Caddyshack" (1980).
The Scoop: Starring Stuart Whitman, Janet Leigh, DeForest Kelley, Rory Calhoun and some of the deadliest rabbits outside of Monty Python, “Night of the Lepus” is one of the pioneering films in the ‘70s wave of eco-horror films and, needless to say, probably the silliest.
When Arizona rancher Cole Hillman’s (Calhoun) land is overrun with rabbits, he gets his university president pal Elgin Clark (Kelley) to call in heroic wildlife researchers Roy and Gerry Bennett (Whitman and Leigh) to find a nonpoisonous, environmentally friendly way to control the population. Unfortunately, the couple’s daughter Amanda (Melanie Fullerton) switches around some of the rabbits her parents are experimenting on, resulting in a plague of giant man-eating bunnies terrorizing the desert Southwest.
Director William F. Claxton and writers Don Holliday and Gene R. Kearney (working from what must be an absurd novel by Russell Braddon) throw in just about every genre cliché available, and while there is the occasional good moment, it’s just not enough. The fairly talented cast just sleepwalks through every scene and the script lets a lot of important pieces of plot happen offscreen. And no matter how much the breathless introduction tries to convince us how threatening rabbits can be, it’s all undercut by the ridiculous premise and bad slow motion effects.
“Night of the Lepus” is definitely a must-watch, but for all the wrong reasons.
Best Bit: The bunny attack inside the miner’s shack.
Side Note: The studio was afraid that if the audience knew the movie was about killer rabbits, they wouldn't watch it. So the novel's title ("The Year of the Angry Rabbit") was changed and no rabbits appeared on the original theater posters.
Companion Viewing: "Kingdom of the Spiders" (1977).
The Scoop: With Beatles Rockband coming out tomorrow, we're in the midst of another one of those periodic waves that flood our culture celebrating the Beatles' legacy. It is most definitely a legacy that deserves celebrating, but sometimes it's worth remembering that not every appropriation of the Beatles is a work of genius.
Take, for instance, this... thing. How was this ever a good idea? Pop stars of the '70s (including the Bee Gees, Peter Frampton and Earth, Wind & Fire) gather to cover Beatles songs and participate in some sort of plot cobbled together from references to Beatles lyrics. And the resulting film is even worse than the description sounds.
It was directed by Michael Schultz (who was also responsible for "Car Wash" and "Carbon Copy"), written by Henry Edwards (who had no other film credits after this) and the non-musical cast includes George Burns, Donald Pleasance, Sandy Farina and Steve Martin.
Despite an interesting touch or two (such as the inspired casting of Aerosmith as the evil enemy band), this is only good for unintentional laughs and not much else. Provided you can stomach the desecration of such great music.
Best Line: "Could Billy survive 10,000 volts? It was a lot more than normally came through his guitar. Frankly, he was shocked. Stunned and unconscious, only the power of true love could revive the injured Billy."
Side Note: The "Guests of Heartland" read like a who's who of the mid-1970s pop charts, including Leif Garrett, Jose Feliciano, Donovan, Yvonne Elliman, Rick Derringer, Seals and Crofts, Dr. John and dozens of others. Hidden in the crowd - and carefully omitted from the end credits - are George Harrison and Paul and Linda McCartney.
Companion Viewing: "Xanadu" (1980) and "Across the Universe" (2007).
The busy minions at Desuko World HQ are taking a well-deserved summer vacation, so in the meantime, enjoy these favorite posts from the past. [Originally published Nov. 27, 2007]
The Scoop: Orson Welles was the consummate trickster. Already a successful theater director, he burst into the public eye in 1939 with his infamous "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast, a pioneering piece of pseudo-documentary hucksterism. From there it was onto the capital of illusion, Hollywood, where he began a film career in which he repeatedly played with the audience's notions of the boundaries reality and imagination, and celebrated the power of magic.
In the documentary "F For Fake," which would ultimately prove to be his final directorial effort, he turns his lifelong fascination with trickery and illusion toward investigating the case of notorious art forger Elmyr de Hory and his equally notorious biographer (and Howard Hughes diary forger) Clifford Irving. As they tell their stories for his camera, Welles interweaves his own philosophizing on the power of fraud and the nature of art. Plus, as if that weren't enough, the careers of Hughes and Welles himself get mixed in for good measure.
And then there's the final 20 minutes or so, in which Welles detours into telling the story of Oja Kodar, which transcends all the indulgence and trickery that came before.
The result is an essay, really, more than a film -- but one that is sprawling and fascinating.
In the end, "F For Fake" becomes a fitting tribute to his career -- both thought-provoking and self-serving, dishing out equal parts brilliance and self-indulgence. And utterly ignored by the mainstream.
Best Bit: There's lots of good, quotable stuff here, but the discourse on the cathedral at Chartes stands out.
Side Note: The excerpt of "War of the Worlds" that Welles includes is actually a recreation, not the original broadcast, and even includes some rewritten lines.
Companion Listening/Viewing: Welles' original "War of the Worlds" (1939) and "The Blair Witch Project" (1999).
The busy minions at Desuko World HQ are taking a well-deserved summer vacation, so in the meantime, enjoy these favorite posts from the past. [Originally published Jan. 6, 2009]
The Scoop: Part rock opera, part tour exposé, part vanity project, part absurdist theater, part experiemental music video -- Frank Zappa's "200 Motels" can be a tough nut to crack.
Zappa and the early-1970s version of his band, the Mothers of Invention, had an ongoing fascination with the life of a touring rock band. This fascination found its way into their music, and their shows became increasingly elaborate musical theater pieces full of songs, skits and jokes centered around sex, drugs and other outrageous behavior. It was all based on things they had done themselves, or on the stories that made the rounds among other groups. This exploration of the lifestyle finally culminated in "200 Motels."
Beneath all the madness and surrealism of the film, there is a plot of sorts -- Zappa (played by Ringo Starr) and the Mothers (who all play themselves) roll into the generic American town of Centerville looking for a good time. There, they cross paths with a pair of groupies (Janet Ferguson and Lucy Offerall), the devil (Theodore Bikel), a nun (Keith Moon) and a host of other strange characters.
Many of the situations come right from the Mothers' tour experiences, and much of the dialogue is based on transcripts of conversations captured by Zappa and his cassette recorder during downtime on the road. The result is surprisingly genuine, despited the intentionally stilted delivery of the troupe of non-actors and Zappa's notorious ironic detachment from his material.
Musically, the work here comes from one of Zappa's most fertile periods, and it finds following two different creative strands. With the Mothers, he creates some straight-ahead, powerful blues rock that would not sound out of place alongside the Allman Brothers, Zeppelin or even Sabbath. These songs are interspersed with FZ's more experimental compositions, performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. These pieces represent a turning point in his avant garde career, both looking back to the studio-bound "sound sculptures" of his early albums and also foreshadowing the orchestral work he would do in earnest a decade later.
For Zappa neophytes, "200 Motels" (both the film and the soundtrack album) is probably not the best introduction to the man's work. But for fans it is essential and rewards close, repeated viewings.
Best Line: "The fuckin' devil's got an English accent. I seen him three weeks ago on TV. So you know, you can just take this big needle here and hang it in your ass as far as I'm concerned!"
Side Note: Offerall and Pamela Miller (who plays the Interviewer) were members of the GTO's (Girls Together Outrageously), a groupie collective/performance art troupe/singing group whose music was produced by Zappa. Miller would go on to become Pamela Des Barres, author of the infamous memoir "I'm With the Band."
The Scoop: This entry in the late-'70s wave of evil spider movies is pretty much just like all the others -- except this one has William Shatner, which really puts it over the top.
The Shat plays a studly cowboy veterinarian with the soap opera ready name of Rack Hansen who goes to a small Arizona town to investigate a rash of unexplained livestock deaths. It turns out, of course, that the deaths are caused by a gang of angry tarantulas who eventually take over the town, give everyone the willies and deliver an Important Ecological Lesson along the way. Basically, it starts out like "Jaws" and ends up like "The Birds."
Veteran Z-grade exploitation star John "Bud" Cardos directed this and does a technically credible job. But the script from Alan Caillou and Richard Robinson is a turd, the supporting cast (including Woody Strode, Tiffany Bolling and Altovise Davis) is overwrought and Shatner has the smarm set on overdrive. Plus just about every '70s ecological disaster film cliché is crammed onto the screen.
In other words, it's a hoot. But if you have issues with spiders and couldn't stomach the other spider movies, you won't be able to stomach this one, either.
Best Line: "I don't think DDT's gonna kill 'em."
Side Note: Cardos worked a lot of jobs behind the camera during his career on the fringes of Hollywood. But of most relevance here was his experience as a bird wrangler for Hitchcock on "The Birds."
Companion Viewing: "The Giant Spider Invasion" (1975) and "Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo" (1977).
Check out opening. It has everything you need -- an awesome theme song, star quality bovine acting and sexually charged banter about animal vaccinations. And, believe it or not, the movie's just getting warmed up:
The Scoop: This (mercifully) final installment in the "Airport" series reaches a zenith of silliness -- surpassing even the jumbo-jet-on-the-ocean-floor of "Airport '77" -- and provides most of the fodder for the hilarious "Airplane!"
A goodwill flight from Washington to Moscow is interrupted by missles, fighter planes, Charo's chihuahua and other intrigue. Along the way, the French pilot (Alain Delon) has lots of sex, Jimmie Walker gets high and plays the saxophone, Martha Raye gets tossed around the bathroom, Avery Schreiber makes funny faces and, best of all, George Kennedy dogfights with a pair of F-15s armed only with a flare gun. But wait, there's more! The seemingly endless cast list also includes Robert Wagner, Sylvia Kristel, Susan Blakely, David Warner, John Davidson, Eddie Albert, Cicely Tyson and a host of others.
It's all total trash. But it's highly entertaining trash. There's not a whole lot more to say about it except, damn, what a turkey. (But I mean that in the nicest possible way.)
Best Line: "Well, it's called the 'cockpit' for a reason..."
Side Note: The concorde used in the film was sold to Air France after the production, and it is the same plane that crashed on takeoff from Paris in July 2000, becoming France's worst air disaster.
Companion Viewing: "Airplane!" (1980) and the other films in the "Airport" series.
The Scoop: Indie horror maestro George A. Romero takes a low-key approach in this meditative, nontraditional addition to vampire lore, before reaching a genuinely shocking conclusion.
John Amplas is the sympathetic, sexually dysfunctional Martin, who may or may not be an 84-year-old bloodsucker stuck in permanent pubescence. However, in Romero's world, none of the usual vampire trappings are real -- Martin doesn't even have fangs. Instead, Martin subdues his young female victims with a hypodermic needle, then has sex with them while cutting them and draining their blood.
There are some suspenseful sequences, although the majority of the film centers on Martin's brooding over his sexuality and the religious mania of his elderly cousin who wants to "cure" him. The film's sole weak spot is the poor performances by the still-unknown cast (except for long-time Romero collaborator Tom Savini, who has a small supporting role and created the makeup effects.)
"Martin" is very much a product of its time, focusing on thought-provoking themes of sex, religion and identity rather thrills, jolts or gore. These strengths are the strengths of the best 1970s films. The film is also one of the high points of Romero's body of work, although it is largely forgotten today in favor of his zombie series.
Best Line: "First I will save your soul. Then I will destroy you!"
Side Note: Amplas is a Romero regular, appearing in five of the director's films, as well as serving as casting director for "Dawn of the Dead" (1978).
Companion Viewing: "Nadja" (1994) and "The Addiction" (1995).
The Scoop: At last, the final first-wave Gamera movie!
Environmental concerns get a little spotlight here when an alien race flying a shark-shaped spaceship comes to Earth to conquer our oceans. The catch is that the aliens want us to clean up all our pollution first so that their new home is nice and pristine. There's lots of silliness with the obligatory child characters trying to outsmart the aliens, then Gamera finally shows up to lay the smack down. Zigra, the alien leader, transforms himself into a giant land shark to battle our turtle hero. Good triumphs over evil in the end, as always, presumably freeing up humankind to keep polluting all it wants.
Whatever. At this point, the seventh in the series, everyone seems to have stopped caring. This is strictly bottom of the barrel Gamera, which is really saying something.
From here, Gamera went dormant, only to be resurrected in 1980 for "Gamera Super Monster," which was assembled seemingly almost entirely from clips of the previous films. The series was brought back in a more formal way in 1995 with "Gamera: The Guardian of the Universe." Much like its first incarnation, this revival was simply following the path of the Godzilla revival of the '90s. There were two sequels before it petered out again.
So, there you have Gamera in a (very long) nutshell. Now let's get back to some non-flying turtle movies, shall we?
Best Line: "This will be the greatest earthquake ever!"
Side Note: This is the film that finally bankrupted Daiei Studios, which is the only reason the original film series stopped.
Companion Viewing: "Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster" (1971).
The Scoop: We're in the home stretch now, nearly done with the first series of Gamera films. This one -- variously called "Gamera vs. Jiger," "Gamera vs. Monster X" or "War of the Monsters" -- was among the hardest to find for a number of years, until the advent of bargain bin DVDs.
In preparing for the 1970 World's Fair in Tokyo, someone disturbs an ancient statue, releasing Jiger/Monster X upon the world. Things get stomped up a bit, then Gamera flies in to save the day. It's all pretty standard kaiju stuff for the period... Until the monster injects its larvae into Gamera, which prompts the kids to take a ship, "Fantastic Voyage" style, inside Gamera to fish them out. That little bit of weirdness is refreshing after seeing the Gamera formula run into the ground over the past few films.
And guess what? No stock footage! (Amazing, I know.) However, on the negative side, the rubber suits look especially ludicrous this time around. So, you can't win them all.
Best Bit: Gamera's fallen and can't get up. D'oh!
Side Note: If there are any auteurs behind the Gamera series, they are writer Nisan Takahashi (who scripted all seven of the original films, along with the 1980 rehash) and director Noriaki Yuasa (who directed seven of those eight films, plus served as special effects director for "Gamera vs. Barugon").
Companion Viewing: Sick of flying turtle movies yet?
The Scoop: "Celebration at Big Sur" is another one of those rock festival documentaries that came in waves in the late 1960s and early 1970s. But it is one of the better ones, and definitely worth a look.
This film, much like the concert it chronicles, is a sort of mini-Woodstock. The bill featured a lot of the same music (although strictly focused on folk rock this time around), many of the same performers, and the same peace-and-love vibe. The film, too, carries a similar aesthetic as the "Woodstock" film. There are also several moments in the Big Sur festival (and film) that are conscious, or maybe not-so-conscious, looks back at that weekend at Yasgur's farm.
From 1964 to 1971, the Esalen Institute at Big Sur hosted an annual music festival, which drew the luminaries of the folk rock world. This film chronicles the sixth festival, held on Sept. 13-14, 1969, just a month after Woodstock. There are great performances from the likes of Joan Baez, John Sebastian, Crosby Stills & Nash, and Joni Mitchell, as well as scenic shots of the beautiful Northern California coast.
The relatively small size of the crowd, coupled with the fact that the musicians all perform next to a swimming pool, gives the concert the feel of a backyard party. It is this intimacy in particular that sets "Celebration at Big Sur" apart from the other hippie festival flicks, which all feature the performers onstage towering above crowds of thousands of kids.
This rarity, still sadly unavailable on DVD, is worth the effort of tracking down.
Best Bit: Neil Young dropping in on his buddies Crosby Stills & Nash for a show-stopping version of "Down By the River."
Side Note: This concert featured Joni Mitchell's public debut of her song "Woodstock," which was later popularized by Crosby Stills & Nash.
The Scoop: A critic once said that watching Pete Townshend play the opening notes of "Pinball Wizard" was like watching John Hancock sign his name. But forget a simple autograph -- with this performance, Townshend and his bandmates wrote their manifesto.
The Who made the rounds of all the big rock festivals of the late '60s and early '70s, even turning up elsewhere on film with memorable performances in "Woodstock" and "Monterey Pop." But it's at the Isle of Wight where Townshend, Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle and Keith Moon hit their collective peak. Caught between the epic reach of 1969's "Tommy" and the power of 1971's "Who's Next," the band rips through a muscular set of early material, covers of '50s rockers and a mostly-full rendition of "Tommy."
It is brilliant, powerful, melodic stuff that could be used as a how-to guide on being a rock band.
What's more, producer/director Murray Lerner and his crew do the music justice by capturing the spirit of the performance without imposing themselves on the material. You just get The Who, unfiltered, which is what a good concert film should be.
Best Bit: "Shakin' All Over" (originally by Johnny Kidd and the Pirates) is a barnburner to begin with, and it gets a fierce treatment here.
Side Note: Lerner's filmography is kind of thin outside of various Isle of Wight Festival movies, but he did win an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature for "From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China" (1981).
Companion Viewing: "Woodstock:" (1969) and "Jimi Hendrix at the Isle of Wight" (1991).
The Scoop: This student film (and believe me, it shows) has gone on to become an underground classic. A group of stupid college students go into the woods and uncover a book of spells that brings about all sorts of supernatural trouble. Sound familiar?
Despite the extreme technical ineptitude, the story is excellent (borrowed liberally by Sam Raimi and put to better use for "The Evil Dead" and "The Evil Dead 2"), the special effects are good and some successful careers were launched here. Most notable among them is special effects supervisor Dennis Muren, who has gone on to win nine Oscars designing the effects for James Cameron's "Terminator 2" (1991) and George Lucas' "Star Wars" movies. Also, the assistant cameraman is future actor Ed Begley, Jr., and one of the stars is Frank Bonner, who later starred in "WKRP in Cincinnati."
Shot in 1967 by writer/director Jack Woods, this sat on the shelf for three years until it was purchased by producer Jack Harris, who reshot some scenes and released it.
There's some primo bad movie shenanigans going on with this one. Check it out.
Best Line: "Your book! You have to take it!"
Side Note: The sound effect for the transitions was lifted from "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers." Also, Forrest J. Ackerman turns up in a cameo as the voice on the tape recorder.
Companion Viewing: The "Evil Dead" trilogy and "The Blair Witch Project" (1999).
The Scoop: Part rock opera, part tour exposé, part vanity project, part absurdist theater, part experiemental music video -- Frank Zappa's "200 Motels" can be a tough nut to crack.
Zappa and the early-1970s version of his band, the Mothers of Invention, had an ongoing fascination with the life of a touring rock band. This fascination found its way into their music, and their shows became increasingly elaborate musical theater pieces full of songs, skits and jokes centered around sex, drugs and other outrageous behavior. It was all based on things they had done themselves, or on the stories that made the rounds among other groups. This exploration of the lifestyle finally culminated in "200 Motels."
Beneath all the madness and surrealism of the film, there is a plot of sorts -- Zappa (played by Ringo Starr) and the Mothers (who all play themselves) roll into the generic American town of Centerville looking for a good time. There, they cross paths with a pair of groupies (Janet Ferguson and Lucy Offerall), the devil (Theodore Bikel), a nun (Keith Moon) and a host of other strange characters.
Many of the situations come right from the Mothers' tour experiences, and much of the dialogue is based on transcripts of conversations captured by Zappa and his cassette recorder during downtime on the road. The result is surprisingly genuine, despited the intentionally stilted delivery of the troupe of non-actors and Zappa's notorious ironic detachment from his material.
Musically, the work here comes from one of Zappa's most fertile periods, and it finds following two different creative strands. With the Mothers, he creates some straight-ahead, powerful blues rock that would not sound out of place alongside the Allman Brothers, Zeppelin or even Sabbath. These songs are interspersed with FZ's more experimental compositions, performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. These pieces represent a turning point in his avant garde career, both looking back to the studio-bound "sound sculptures" of his early albums and also foreshadowing the orchestral work he would do in earnest a decade later.
For Zappa neophytes, "200 Motels" (both the film and the soundtrack album) is probably not the best introduction to the man's work. But for fans it is essential and rewards close, repeated viewings.
Best Line: "The fuckin' devil's got an English accent. I seen him three weeks ago on TV. So you know, you can just take this big needle here and hang it in your ass as far as I'm concerned!"
Side Note: Offerall and Pamela Miller (who plays the Interviewer) were members of the GTO's (Girls Together Outrageously), a groupie collective/performance art troupe/singing group whose music was produced by Zappa. Miller would go on to become Pamela Des Barres, author of the infamous memoir "I'm With the Band."
The Scoop: It's a vampire movie! It's a kung fu flick! It's two bad '70s films in one!
What a shame it is when great movie franchises die -- and even a greater shame when the movies keep getting released after all the creative breath goes out of the franchise. This was the last film in Hammer Studios' great Dracula series (which started with "The Horror of Dracula" in 1958). In an attempt to come up with new ideas, the studio teamed up with legendary Hong Kong producers the Shaw Brothers and moved the action to China, where Dracula hooks up with an ancient band of ninjas. So, Van Helsing hires his own band of fearless kung fu fighters to oppose them.
The legendary Christopher Lee wisely opted out of playing Dracula this one last time (John Forbes-Robertson does the dishonors instead), but his long-time screen nemesis Peter Cushing wasn't so lucky.
While this may be a co-production of two legendary genre studios, the problem with "Legend of the Seven Golden Vampries" is that it doesn't even approximate the best work of either one of them. The combination of half-hearted Gothic horror and cheesy kung fu theatrics (complete with poor dubbing!) make this one of the strangest movies you'll ever see.
Best Line: "In Europe the vampire walks in dread of the crucifix. Here it will be the image of the Lord Buddha."
Side Note: The film was heavily re-edited and released to the American grindhouse circuit under the title "The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula." Many Hammer purists swear that this ruined the pristine artistic vision of the original, but really, this thing was doomed creatively from the start.
Companion Viewing: "The Horror of Dracula" (1958) and just about any Hong Kong film you can find that has "Shaolin" in the title.
The Scoop: Nathanael West's 1939 novel about ambition and alienation in the golden age of Hollywood makes an excellent jump to the screen, thanks to director John Schlesinger and screenwriter Waldo Salt, who imbue the glamour of Tinseltown with the weight of biblical prophecy.
William Atherton and Karen Black are two hopefuls trying to make it in the movie business while pursuing a doomed romance -- Atherton's Tod Hackett is a set painter while Black's Faye Greener hopes to be an actress. Along the way they cross paths with the eccentric and doomed denizens who inhabit the periphery of stardom and pursue their shallow dreams. All this alienation, desperation and repression finally erupt in a harrowing, apocalyptic climax.
The performances are uniformly great, and among the supporting cast are such able veterans as Burgess Meredith, Donald Sutherland, Geraldine Page, Billy Barty, William Castle and others. The story's deliberate pace requires close attention at times, but it is amply rewarded. A stunning film. You'll never listen to "Jeepers Creepers" in the same way again.
Best Bit: The final sequence at the movie premiere, still one of the most shocking and effective scenes put on film.
Side Note: Sutherland's unbalanced simpleton is a memorable character, in more ways than one. The character's name is Homer Simpson, which is has become forever linked with Matt Groening's "The Simpsons."
The final scene. (Warning, spoilers abound! Seriously, don't watch this unless you've already seen the rest of the movie. I can't stress this enough.):
The Scoop: Ah yes, the 1970s disaster film -- where old actors go to die. This time around (the third of the four "Airport" films), the old Hollywood warhorses making fools of themselves are James Stewart, Olivia de Haviland and Joseph Cotten, all with their glory days far behind them.
The plot involves a huge airliner full of important people that sinks to the bottom of the Bermuda Triangle thanks to a botched hijacking attempt. Also along for the ride with the aging vets are a host of younger stars such as Jack Lemmon, Brenda Vaccaro, Christopher Lee, Monte Markham, Lee Grant (in an absolutely insane performance) and, of course, "Airport" series stalwart George Kennedy.
All the clichés (not to mention plot absurdities) are on parade. This film is very '70s -- intensely '70s, painfully '70s. It's cream puffs like this that the Zucker/Abrams/Zucker team were able to hit out of the park in "Airplane!" (1980). Becuase of them, it's so hard now to watch these movies with a straight face anymore. In short, this is an unintentional comedy classic.
Best Bit: Son: "Who's that, Mommy?" Mother: "That's your grandpa." Son: "Have I ever met him?" Mother: "Oh, once or twice."
Side Note: The costumes were designed by old Hollywood warhorse Edith Head, also rapidly reaching the end of her career.
Companion Viewing: "The Poseidon Adventure" (1972) and "Airport" (1970).
The Scoop: T.N.T. Jackson (former Playboy Playmate Jeanne Bell) is a high-kickin', trash-talkin' sistah from the 'hood who travels to the Far East to seek her lost brother, only to get caught up in the international drug trade. But don't try to understand any more of the story beyond that -- it's hopeless.
This kung fu/blaxploitation hybrid tries to jump on the bandwagon that combined the era's two hottest grindhouse trends, but it just wound up with the worst of both worlds -- wooden acting, incomprehensible plot, bad dialogue, spastic editing, poor lighting, the works. Wu-Tang would be ashamed.
The one good thing it has going for it, though, is the wardrobe. Some of the finest, funkiest '70s fashions are on display here and provide the best reason to keep watching.
Best Line: "Yo' too fine for all this fightin'."
Side Note: The script was co-written by a pair of actors -- Roger Corman stalwart Dick Miller (best known for his roles in AIP cheapies like "The Little Shop of Horrors," "Bucket of Blood" and "Piranha") and Ken Metcalfe (a mainstay of '70s and '80s martial arts cinema, in films like "Enter the Ninja" and "Bamboo Gods and Iron Men").
Companion Viewing: The far superior "Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold" (1975).
The Scoop: Thie original adaptation of Vincent Bugliosi's book about prosecuting members of the Manson Family for the Tate-LaBianca murders of 1969 goes light on the crime and heavy on the investigation.
Originally a TV miniseries, part one details the gathering of evidence in the wake of the murders, and part two covers the trial. Not only is it incredibly self-serving to Bugliosi (played by George DiCenzo), but the voice-over narration of passages from the book make this sound as stiff as an episode of "Dragnet." And, even worse, second rate cover versions (by the band Silverspoon) are used instead of the original Beatles songs that fueled Manson's bizarre philosophy.
But on the plus side, Steve Railsbeck gives a definitive performance as Charles Manson. That alone makes it still worth a look after all these years.
Best Bit: During a courtroom sidebar, Bugliosi stops the proceedings to remind the defense attorney how to pronounce his name: "No, the 'G' is silent. It's pronounced 'Boo-lee-oh-see.'"
Side Note: The LaBianca murder sequence was shot on location at the crime scene, in the actual LaBianca house.
The Scoop: This early directorial effort by Dario Argento is the final film of his so-called "animal trilogy" that started with "Cat o' Nine Tails" and "The Bird With the Crystal Plumage." It is also pretty much indistinguishable from his other early films -- same Hitchcockian aspirations, same plot themes, same visual artistry. The man practically invented the "giallo" subgenre of Italian thrillers, but he just seems to be on cruise control here.
The story concerns a rock drummer (played by Michael Brandon) who kills a man in self-defense, only to be blackmailed my someone who witnessed the killing. Anyone who has seen any other Argento murder mystery will already be familiar with the plot's twists and turns, and probably even guess the blackmailer's identity well before the end.
The film is great to look at and the attention to bloody detail is a gorehound's delight, but the uninvolving story, lifeless acting and oddly misplaced bits of humor conspire to make this one of the Italian master's lesser films. Which is probably just as well, since it's very difficult to find anymore, with no current commercial release in the United States. Unless you're a completist, do yourself a favor and stick to his better and more readily available work.
Best Line: "Oh, you heterosexuals!"
Side Note: Brandon, who does a merely marginal job portraying the drumming hero, was far from Argento's first choice for the role. Among those who couldn't do it for one reason or another were Michael York, Terence Stamp, singer/songwriter James Taylor and even two Beatles -- John Lennon and Ringo Starr.
Companion Viewing: "The Bird With the Crystal Plumage" (1970) and "Cat o' Nine Tails" (1971).
The whole film is available on YouTube in installments, but the audio and video quality is pretty poor. But if you want to stick it out, more power to you. It begins here:
