"THE BIKERIDERS" (2023) ** OUT OF ****

Danny Lyon's 1968 photojournalistic book about a Chicago biker club inspired "Mud" writer & director Jeff Nichols to make "The Bikeriders," starring Austin Butler, Jody Comer, and Tom Hardy. This nostalgic but lackluster, 116-minute epic chronicles the evolution of the fictitious Vandal's Motorcycle Club from its origins in the 1960s to the 1980s. Nicholas pays tribute to Martin Scorsese's classic Mafia crime thriller "Goodfellas" (1990) with the pervasive use of flashbacks, a gabby narrator, and patch work of character interviews to forge an ethnographic portrait of early biker subculture. Although Nicholas humanizes these counter-culture ruffians, letting then chew the scenery about themselves, the film seems to start and stall out and it never maintains sufficient headlong momentum. "Midnight Special" cinematographer Adam Stone, who has shot many of Nichols' films, lenses scenic long shots of these bikers as they cruise through sun-drenched, mid-western America. You can savor the spirit of freedom they bask in on these open roads. Nevertheless, the spectacle of these steel horses cannot compensate for the dire lack of drama. Mind you, gearheads and car-geeks will drool over vintage bikes and cars. Several bikers die tragically. Like Wyatt (Peter Fonda) and Billy (Dennis Hopper), the cross-country heroes exploring America in "Easy Rider," the Vandals suffer fates nobody could foresee. One biker who swears he would die first rather than shed his colors capitulates at fadeout. Nobody is really happy long in this journey from one era to another.

"The Bikeriders" shares little in common with those genre-flavored exploitation biker pictures that followed the 1969 success of "Easy Rider." Primarily, Nicholas illustrates the origins of this Chicag0-based club. While watching the iconic black & white biker saga "The Wild One" (1951) on a small television in his family living room, trucker Johnny (Tom Hardy of "Venom") decides to launch his own bike riding club. Whenever anybody wants to challenge his leadership, Johnny promises to give them a chance to topple him. Eventually, Johnny buys a bar and holds meetings there with suds flowing. He installs a phone so anybody who gets arrested or injured in a fight can contact club members. Occasionally, we see Johnny and his followers rumbling through Chicago's concrete canyons in an impressive display of bikers riding in formation. The sight of these noisy choppers growling like mechanical lions captures the heart of a discontented twentysomething who shares Johnny's aspirations.

Meantime, the second protagonist is Benny (Austin Butler of "Elvis"), a quiet loner who would rather die than shed his colors. The opening scene in "Bikeriders" depicts the danger of wearing colors in a hostile setting. Benny suffers grievously at the hands of two obnoxious blue-collar thugs. The scene is brutal, perhaps the most visceral in the film, and Nichols reprises this gripping scene later. Watching that scene unfold when Benny refuses to forsake his colors looks like something in "Easy Rider." This is the show-stopping scene in a film that lacks narrative focus. Basically, Benny, Kathy, and Johnny amount to triangular protagonists. Benny and Kathy are an amorous couple, while Johnny is Benny's best friend. Meantime, a gallery of fascinating characters jabber about their exploits, but we rarely see them doing anything more than drinking and boasting. Occasionally, fights break out, but Johnny doesn't line up any kind of genre style enterprise, such as selling narcotics or robbing businesses.

"The Bikeriders" amounts to an inventory of scenes that resemble excerpts from a photo album. The chief drama here is Johnny's fateful decision to turn over the club to someone else since he lacks the vision to take it beyond a social group. The Vandals neither stick up convenience stores nor banks. They don't molest citizens, etc. Benny's worse crime is evading the police during a high-speed chase. They capture him because he runs out of gas! The early Vandals reminded me of Boy Scouts compared to those psychotic cretins that followed in their footsteps. Nicholas indulges in a peripheral kitchen drama when he introduces the chief villain, the Kid (Toby Wallace of "Dark Frontier"), who hails from a broken inner-city home. His father beats his wife without mercy. Repeatedly, the frustrated Kid approaches Johnny about joining the Vandals. Johnny rejects him twice. Eventually, the Kid challenges Johnny. Meantime, Nichols explores the lopsided romance between Benny and Kathy (Jody Comer of "The Free Guy"), with Kathy talking about them during her interviews. Largely speaking, "The Bikeriders" is filtered through Kathy's eyes. Most traditional biker movies are told from a male perspective, but everything here has a feminine slant. More often than not, these interviews feel like repetitive commercials that interfere with the flow of the action.

Mind you, the cast is impressive. As the Vandals' head honcho, Tom Hardy rules his riding club with a passion. Indeed, Hardy gives a marvelous, Marlon Brando-infused performance. After Benny is beaten down at a bar, Johnny and his riders destroy. Spectators stand in a crowd around the bar with firefighters and watch it go up in smoke. Benny emerges as Johnny's closest confidante, but he refuses to replace Johnny as the Vandals' leader. Most of the picnics that the Vandals have amount to garrulous, booze-fueled, gripe sessions. Michael Shannon has a wonderful scene where he explains how he was rejected for military service because he was branded "an undesirable." Ultimately, little about "The Bikeriders" qualifies as either nostalgic or dramatic. Not only does Benny refuse to be the leader, but he also lets Johnny and the Vandals down by not punishing the Kid. Altogether, "The Bikeriders" leaves you feeling indifferent about the fate of these hellions.

"THE GLADIATOR" (1986) MADE FOR TELEVISION *** OUT OF ****

 Any movie veteran director Abel Ferrara of "Bad Lieutenant” fame helms is worth watching at least once, and his competently made-for-TV revenge melodrama, "The Gladiator" proves no exception to this rule. "Wiseguy" star Ken Wahl plays the hard-bitten protagonist, and he delivers a sturdy performance. As older brother Rick Benton, Wahl struggles to raise his younger brother, Jeff (Brian Robbins of "C. H. U. D. II: Bud the Chud") without their parents. He decides to coach Jeff about how to drive since the lad has landed his learner’s permit. Buckling up and cruising out into Los Angeles traffic, Rick reminds the fifteen-year-old to obey the rules of the road. Suddenly, out of nowhere, for no apparent reason, a sleek, black, 1969, Dodge Charger, looking souped up and sinister as a phantom, careens in behind them. After the aggressive Charger rams Jeff twice, the youth accelerates in a desperate effort to elude the homicidal driver. Sadly, Jeff speeds through an intersection, and a semi-truck smashes into him. Not surprisingly, Jeff dies, while Rick wakes up a couple of days later from a coma. Now, our embittered protagonist embarks on a self-appointed mission to track down this anonymous felon known only as “The Skull.” With the help of his long-time buddy Joe Barker (Stan Shaw of "Daylight"), Rick relies on his genius as a custom car designer to modify his two-door, pick-up truck, installing stronger suspension and heavier bumpers as well as equipping it with a police band radio. He searches for the murderous motorist who wheels around town deploying savage “Ben-Hur” blades that telescope from his front hubs during his death dealing escapades. Sometimes, this madman terrorizes other drivers for nothing more than either accidentally bumping his car or he careens up behind them and plows into them, running them off the road.

Meanwhile, an overworked detective, Lieutenant Frank Mason (Robert Culp of "Hickey and Boggs"), has little success with the case. After he recovers from the accident, Rick sits in on a support group of people who lost family members to drunk drivers. Initially, Rick suspected the dastard who brought about the death of his brother was a drunk. Later, he comes to the realization that this isn't the case. Here's the deal, however, the genuine  culprit of this above-average, television quickie doesn't abuse alcohol! Instead, he is a hopeless psycho who preys at random on innocent, unsuspecting victims. By this time, Rick has begun a relationship with a late-night, radio talk show host, Susan Neville (gorgeous Nancy Allen of "RoboCop"), who juggles phone calls from a variety of listeners that are split along the lines of whether the self-professed "Gladiator" as Rick dubs himself is either a vigilante or a menace to society. Inevitably, he emerges as a celebrity in the sense that he patrols the roads to dissuade  drunken drivers from swerving across lanes and killing people. Finally, Rick manages to thwart this madman during a climatic, slam-bang, demolition derby in an automobile junkyard. Moments before this showdown, Rick had phoned Detective Mason and identified himself as the "Gladiator." Like Michael Winner's "Death Wish" starring Charles Bronson, Rick takes it on himself to find his brother's killer. Unlike Bronson, Rick succeeds in bringing the lawbreaker to justice. Unfortunately, not only do we never get a glimpse of this fiend, played by professional stunt car driver Jim Wilkey, but also we never learn what fueled his road rage. For the record, Wilkey drove some of the vehicles in "Mad Max: Fury Road!" This is the only flaw in an otherwise white-knuckled thriller. Although it is a made-for-TV movie, Ferrara never lets the momentum stall in this gripping 94-minute tire shredder of an epic. Interestingly, Ferrara’s film was initially supposed to unspool on the big screen instead of television.

"THE SICILIAN CONNECTION" (1972) *** OUT OF ****

“Blindman” director Ferdinando Baldi’s violent, mafia-themed, narcotics-trafficking thriller “The Sicilian Connection,” starring Ben Gazzara, Steffen Zacharias, and Fausto Tozzi, qualifies as a slam-bang, action-packed saga. Gazzara plays Joe Coppola, an audacious New Yorker who flies to Sicily to establish an opium/morphine/heroin pipeline from Turkey via Sicily, with the Big Apple as the final destination for his contraband. Gazzara is ideally cast as a smiling, thick-skinned criminal of considerable resource who has been engaged in the illicit drug trade for years. Now, Coppola sets out to make a big splash. Nevertheless, in the tradition of all mafia-themed, Euro crime stories, treachery is rampant, since nobody can trust anybody, and surprises constantly keep both criminals and the authorities on a tightrope. The shocking opening essentially foreshadows the shocking finale!

When Baldi helmed this exciting little actioneer, he stuck to the venerable Hollywood edict that ‘crime cannot pay.’ In other words, nobody succeeds in this complicated, multi-million-dollar venture which could serve as a companion piece to Robert Stevenson’s “To The Ends of the Earth” (1946) with Dick Powell, a Treasury Agent who follows the trail of opium from China to Egypt and finally New York. Baldi collaborated on the script with “Hell Raiders of the Deep” scenarist Duilio Coletti, and they keep the surprises coming in this 100-minute gangland opera but never wears out their welcome.

The opening scene of “The Sicilian Connection” is a genuine showstopper. Indeed, this gruesome encounter serves as a template for everything that ensues. An intrepid police inspector interrupts the funeral of a respected high-ranking mafia figure. He demands to examine the funeral permits without considering the plight of the grieving mourners. Not surprisingly, the mafia soldiers and the family attending the funeral are not amused. Nevertheless, they endure his painstaking interference without protest. Just when they think this suspicious cop is going to let them proceed with their funeral, he demands to eyeball the corpse. It seems the corpse was embalmed in Turkey, so now the inspector insists they strip the body. According to the dead man’s papers, he died of a respiratory ailment. Imagine the cop’s curiosity when they open the funeral shroud and discover the pale corpse has a gash running from his throat to his navel. Whoever stitched the dead man’s chest together did a shoddy job. You can see through the crevice in the corpse’s torso to something inside his chest cavity. As it turns out, the inspector was correct in assuming that packets of cocaine were stashed in the corpse. By this time, the mafia lieutenants overseeing the funeral have had enough of their nosey cop. Just as the inspector is congratulating himself on his discovery, he seems to have forgotten that he is alone, by himself, surrounded by the mafia. Suddenly, the mafia soldiers seize him and thrust his protesting arms and legs atop the dead man. Despite his cries of protest, the fear-stricken man struggles in horror as the mafia thugs screw the nails down on the coffin lid and bury their soldier with the crying inspector in the ground.

The next thing we know, we are introduced to Joe Coppola in a Sicilian restaurant. He asks for some coke, and the owner of the restaurant slips him a couple of packets of coke in a folded napkin. Coppola inquires about the whereabouts of a mafia kingpin with whom he can conduct business. Everything treats Coppola with considerable suspicion until they establish his credentials and then they educate him about not only the difficulties of selling him the large quantities that he wants but also the extreme cost and the various people to whom he must ingratiate himself. No, “The Sicilian Connection” is not without some shooting and killing, but it covers the logistics of smuggling the narcotics from Europe into New York.

This is truly an insightful thriller with an ending that you won’t expect.

TRIGGER WARNING (2024) ** OUT OF ****

Jessica Alba goes full metal jacket in Indonesian director Mouly Surya’s Hispanic-themed action thriller “Trigger Warning” and shows she is no slouch when it comes to fighting. Our resourceful heroine disarms a chainsaw wielding madman when he tries to carve up her. Later, she tangles with ruthless domestic terrorists selling high-tech, military-grade weapons from a nearby Army Depot! As a U.S. Special Forces commando with combat experience galore, Parker (Jessica Alba of “Sin City”) takes a leave of absence to go home and attend her father’s funeral. During a bullet-riddled shootout in the scorching sands of Syria’s Badiyat al-Sham Desert, she had received the phone call from her former high school sweetheart, Sheriff Jesse Swann (Mark Webber of “Green Room”), about her dad’s tragic death. When she meets with him at the Swann County Sheriff’s Department, Jesse hands her the suicide note her father Harry (Alejandro De Hoyos of “The Contractor”) left behind on his bedside nightstand. According to Jesse, Parker’s father killed himself with a live hand grenade in a mine shaft he had been excavating when he wasn’t operating his own bar. Reservations notwithstanding, Parker concedes her father’s death as accidental. 

Later, after she discovers weapons have gone missing from the local U.S. Army armory, she changes her mind about her dad’s death. Meantime, she encounters Jesse’s father, incumbent conservative Senator Ezekiel Swann (Anthony Michael Hall of “The Breakfast Club”), on the campaign trail. Eventually, she learns the senator has a gunnery range on his estate and allows his house guests to blow holes in the targets in his backyard. Not surprisingly, the weapons are government-issue! Earlier, she had seen Senator Swann’s obnoxious younger son, Elvis (Jake Weary of “Animal Kingdom”), obliterate a Mexican taco wagon with a shoulder-fired, rocket-propelled grenade (RPG). Now, Parker has second thoughts about her dad’s demise. She learns Senator Swann is up to his eyeballs in a conspiracy to sell million-dollar, high-tech weaponry because he needs the dough his illegal arms sales generate to fund his re-election campaign. Meantime, Elvis has stashed some of those weapons in Harry’s cave. When Harry discovered them, Elvis murdered him and covered up his death as a suicide. By this time, Parker has notified a shady colleague at the CIA, code-named ‘Spider’ (Tone Bell of “Dog Days”), look into this treachery. 

The villains try to kill Parker and they burn down Harry’s tavern. Parker tosses one miscreant off a second story balcony into the writhing inferno. Jesse arrests Parker for attempting to kill Elvis and cuffs her to a jail cell. A standard-issue ritual torture scene ensues with Ezekiel and his sons roughing Parker up until she reveals she has video evidence connecting them not only to her father’s murder but also to the theft of those Army weapons. Apparently, Elvis thought Harry’s surveillance cameras were not documenting his skullduggery. As it turns out, those cameras recorded evidence of their nefarious deeds and dumped them off-site for safekeeping! Now, Parker must break out of jail before they kill her. Worse, she is appalled to learn Jesse looked the other way when Ezekiel and Elvis were smuggling military ordinance. When Jesse tried earlier to convince her to agree to a cover-up, Parker had refused.

Mind you, there’s plenty of rough and tumble gymnastic action with Alba reliving her “Dark Angel” days when she takes down guys twice her size. Scenarists John Brancato of “The Game” and Josh Olson of “A History of Violence” penned the by-the-numbers screenplay which “Babysitters” scribe Halley Wegryn Gross rewrote. Altogether, they have churned out a predictable but entertaining boilerplate actioneer that gives Alba a chance to play rough. She wields a machete with considerable flourish as it if were a steel tipped fan. Of course, nothing is easy for our redoubtable heroine as she struggles to get to the bottom of her father’s death. Jesse finds himself caught in the middle between his arrogant brother Elvis and his unsavory father. Elvis has brokered a deal with people who are on the classified FBI’s terrorist list. Once our heroine realizes her father was murdered, she sets out to exact vengeance. At one point, she confronts Jesse and urges him to turn himself, the senator, and his younger brother into the authorities. Predictably, family ties outweigh the law, and Jesse goes along with his father. Earlier, he had tried to bribe Parker by buying her property. Mind you, Parker was no more going to sell than Jesse was going to make it simple for her to do. 

“Trigger Warning” had such a troubled production history, and Netflix kept it on the shelf for three years. Meantime, Alba had been absent from the screen for five years. Her 2019 thriller “Killers Anonymous” (2019) was her last theatrical film. Now, she looks far more mature. The action choreography of the close-quarter combat scenes looks plausible. Parker’s willingness to hurl herself into breech and fight the Swann family says a lot about her tenacity. She is like a mongoose when she goes after them. As a murder mystery revenge thriller, “Trigger Warning” makes the grade. Comparably, it is not as violent as “Peppermint” (2018) with Jennifer Garner. Happily, Surya doesn’t waste time with comic relief, and she maintains enough momentum so the action doesn’t dawdle. The basic plot is no great shakes. The death of a loved one that prompts the hero or heroine from afar to say goodbye is standard-issue narrative convention. Of course, we know no matter how stiff the odds are, Parker will survive and her adversaries will grovel. The villains—the entire Swann family—both father and sons—lack the savagery of genuinely despicable villains. Indeed, they beat the living daylights out of Parker, but they don’t kill innocent men or women who stumble into the line of fire. Our heroine is fearless even when she has her back to the wall while taking a beating. Altogether, “Trigger Warning” qualifies best as ‘a guilty pleasure.’

"BRIMSTONE" (1949) ***OUT OF ****

 "Undersea Kingdom" director Joseph Kane's "Brimstone" ranks as an above-average, but formulaic western with plenty of a knock down, drag out fistfights, shootouts, and intrigue. Rod Cameron is cast as an undercover marshal after a gang of thieves. The movie draws its title from the cunning patriarchal 'Pop' Courteen that Walter Brennan plays who presides over a family of ruthless, no-account outlaws who have a legitimate cattle spread. Just to give you an idea how villainous Brennan is, his two eldest sons are played by a pair of seasoned Hollywood heavies, i.e., Jack Lambert and Jim Davis. Mind you, this is a plum role for Lambert because he survives about three-fourths of the film before he bites the dust. After a number of unexplained robberies occur, Johnny Tremaine shows up, and Sheriff Henry McIntyre (Forrest Tucker of "Ride the Man Down") deputizes him despite his better instincts that Tremaine may be the outlaw roaming the territory. The town elders have their eye on McIntyre because he cannot seem to round up the bandit and threaten to depose him if he doesn't solve the crimes and apprehend the criminals before Marshal Walter Greenslide (Jack Holt of "The Littlest Rebel") arrives. When the marshal shows up, he is promptly wounded during a stagecoach robbery in the middle of a stream by a hooded bandit. Fortunately, the lawman is merely winged and comes out of it wearing a sling. Meantime, Pop is up to no-good not only struggling to keep his sons in line, especially one (James Brown of "Red River") who wants to marry a settler, and stealing money holding up a bank.

"Brimstone" features an all-star cast. Cameron makes a stalwart hero, while Brennan steals the show as the treacherous father. Indeed, Brennan's performance here reminded me of his superb characterization as Ike Clanton in John Ford's classic oater "My Darling Clementine." One big twist occurs near the end that Kane and "Escape Me Never" scenarist Thames Williamson concoct and let simmer beneath the surface for the length of his vigorous western. Look for Will Wright as the fiery editor and publisher of a newspaper. Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams has a strong part as Sheriff McIntyre's deputy. My only complaint is some of the special effects, particularly the painted backdrops look might obvious. Prolific helmer Joseph Kane, who directed two John Wayne escapades entitled "Flame of the Barbary Coast" and "Dakota," keeps the action moving and never allows the pace to slacken in this nimble 90-minute frontier tale. This is one of those rare action-packed westerns where the hero doesn't have a love interest. Nevertheless, western fans will appreciate this rugged horse opera and the sturdy cast that highlights it. My favorite line from this oater is "Save your breath to cool your coffee."

THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT (1940) *** out of ****

 “High Sierra” helmer Raoul Walsh’s “They Drive By Night” chronicles the trials and tribulations of the hard-luck Fabrini brothers, Joe (George Raft of “Scarface”) and Paul (Humphrey Bogart of “Casablanca”), who drive around the clock to deliver merchandise around California. Eventually, since they have fallen behind on their vehicular loan payments, they must now dodge their creditors. Fortunately, Joe and Paul buy a load on their own dime rather than contracting themselves out for peanuts to a trucking firm. The profits enable them to pay off their truck. No sooner do things appear rosy than disaster strikes. Joe makes the mistake of asking Paul to take over the wheel from him because he is feeling drowsy. Mind you, Paul himself cannot seem to get enough shuteye. Earlier, Walsh showed the fate of a trucker who nodded off at the wheel. Predictably, Drifting off asleep Paul plunges their paid-for truck with its valuable into a ravine. Joe bails out at the last moment, while Paul rides the load into the ground. Miraculously, Joe survives the crash none the worse for wear. Sadly, Paul isn’t as fortunate. Doctors take off his right arm. Paul’s wife Pearl (Gale Page of “Crime School”) had been worrying herself constantly about her husband’s uncertain fate. She hates that he cannot spend more time at home with her. She dreams of them having a baby to comfort her in her loneliness. Paul argues they cannot afford a child.

Scenarists Jerry Wald of “The Roaring Twenties” and Richard Macaulay of “Across the Pacific” adapted A.I. Bezzerides’ novel "Thieves' Market." The wit and spontaneity of their snappy dialogue energizes the action. Joe and Paul swap loaded words with Cassie Hartley (Ann Sheridan of “King’s Row”), a waitress slinging bacon and eggs at a roadside dinner. Later, she quits because the owner cannot keep his hands to himself when he is around her. She hopes she will get lucky in Los Angeles. Happily, Joe obliges her, giving her a lift to L.A. with him where he looks for loads to buy. Eventually, Joe lands a job working for an old friend, Ed Carlsen (Alan Hale of “Desperate Journey”), who owns a trucking outfit. Initially, Ed saw Joe and another irate trucker tangle over who would land a load from Ed. Remembering his old friend, Ed invites Joe up to his second story office. Carlsen’s big heart is matched only by his eternally happy outlook. Ed’s trophy wife, Lana (Ida Lupino of “High Sierra”), squandering his cash like confetti, throttles the drama into high gear in “They Drive By Night.” She yearns to sprawl in Joe’s arms. She convinces Ed to hire Joe, but not as a trucker. Instead, she convinces Ed that Joe can do more for them in the office than out on the asphalt.

Afterward, Lana drives Joe crazy with her passes at him. He shuns her like poison. First, he refuses Lana’s advances because Ed is his good friend. Second, Joe has eyes only for Cassie. He furnishes her with room and board. After he drove her to L.A., Joe passed out in Cassie’s bed. Instead, Cassie had to bed down for the night in a chair. Now, the Production Code Administration forbade showing a couple sleeping in the same bed. Eventually, Joe hires Paul, and business begin to boom. During a party at Ed’s new estate, Ed boasts about one of his novel gadgets. He has installed a photo-electric eye in his garage. When he approaches the garage, the vehicle breaks the light beam of the mechanism. This prompts the garage door to retract, allowing the motorist to enter and park their vehicle. Walsh and his writers go out of their way to emphasize this novelty. Later, after he is so sloshed he cannot drive, Ed has Lana drive them home. When she parks in the garage, she realizes Ed has passed out. Lana lacks the strength to remove him from the vehicle. Instead, she leaves him in the car with the engine running. Ultimately, Ed dies from carbon monoxide, and Lana knew exactly what she was doing when she let him die.

The Production Code stipulated nobody was above the law. Lana confesses her guilt to the District Attorney. Initially, the D.A. rules it as a case of accidental death. Later, after Joe continues to ignore her advances, Lana convinces the D.A. that Joe threatened to kill her if she didn’t kill her husband. The D.A. swallows this lie without blinking and has Joe arrested allegedly for his part in the murder. Clearly, Walsh and company appropriated the complicated murder subplot from another WB film, Archie Mayo’s Latino thriller “Border Town” (1935) with Paul Muni and Bette Davis. Nevertheless, Walsh makes more comprehensive use of it. Although Lana insists to the D.A. that Joe drove her to kill Ed, she cannot cope with her own sense of guilt. The electric eye technology haunts her. She discovers the facility where she is being held boasts such technology. Every time she encounters an electric eye, she feels overwhelmed by her guilt, like Shakespeare’s Lady MacBeth. During Joe’s trial for his complicity in Ed’s murder, Lana melts down in court. The judge dismisses the murder charges against Joe.

The cast is first-rate, and Walsh’s fast-paced, no-frills direction maintains momentum. Lupino is riveting in her portrayal as Lana. The tacked-on murder and trial seems rather contrived but inevitable. Humphrey Bogart was still confined to thankless second-string roles at this point in his career. Meanwhile Raft played the level headed big brother who used his brains to get ahead. This ranks as one of the Raft’s more sympathetic roles. Alan Hale steals the show with his antics. Altogether, “They Drive By Night” qualifies as an above average Walsh effort.

PIRANHA (1972) *1/2 OUT OF ****

 William Gibson’s one and only film “Piranha,” reuniting “Laredo” co-stars William Smith and Peter Brown, qualifies as a half-baked spin on the venerable survivalist saga “The Most Dangerous Game.” Brother and sister, Art Greene (Tom Simcox of “Shenandoah”) and Terry Greene (Ahna Capri of “Enter the Dragon”), hire a local, Jim Pendrake (Peter Brown of “Lawman”), to serve as their tour guide in the jungles of Venezuela. Terry is a wildlife photographer with an antipathy toward firearms. Later in the story, her brother Art fills Jim about her sour attitude. Apparently, their mother shot their father in cold blood. Mind you, he had cheated on his wife, so in a fit of rage, she blew his head off. Tragically, Terry witnessed the murder. Since then the sight of guns evokes those painful memories. They encounter Caribe (William Smith of “Any Which Way You Can”), a seasoned hunter who sums up his love of hunting, "I can taste the very soul of every animal I hunt... what I hunt becomes a part of me... and lives on in me. Someday I'll be outhunted. And everything that I will become part of that hunter..."

By the time, this slow-burn, but tedious 95-minute melodrama has worn out its welcome. Caribe loves to kill animals much to Terry’s chagrin. Near the end, Caribe kills Terry’s brother and beats poor Pendrake half to death. Predictably, Terry adapts to this horrific predicament. Earlier, she complained to Jim about packing a pistol. Nevertheless, he saved not only Terry’s life but also her brother when she shot a venomous snake poised to strike them. Now, she has gotten hold of Caribe’s rifle, and she blasts him into eternity. Although the location photography and the stock footage of wildlife provide considerable atmosphere, Richard Finder’s screenplay is light on drama until the final quarter hour. The use of stock footage pads out the action and provides a sense of atmosphere. Incredibly, we never see any piranha. What a letdown! Apparently, neither Gibson nor his writer lacked the resources to stage a piranha feeding scene. As it turns out, Piranha is Caribe’s nickname. Smith is appropriately maniacal as the hunter gone mad. Gibson could easily have whittled twenty minutes out of this lethargic saga. Whether he knew it or not, Gibson paved the way for those grisly Italian-produced horror movies, like Sergio Martino’s “Slave of the Cannibal God,” which featured live footage of animals eating animals. Although it doesn’t redeem the film, the wildlife unit shot film of an incredibly monstrous anaconda. No, this anaconda is much larger than those Jennifer Lopez tangled with in “Anaconda.” This reptile resembles a felled tree slithering through the underbrush. Presumably, the cast got a vacation out of this on-location shoot when they weren’t sweating it out in the jungle. Save your curiosity for something else if you feel the urge to watch this abysmal adventure.