FILM REVIEW OF ''THE A-TEAM'' (2010)

Anybody who enjoyed the landmark NBC-TV action series “The A-Team” will probably want to see new big-screen adaptation. “Smokin’ Aces” director Joe Carnahan and scenarists Skip Woods and Brian Bloom have adhered to both the spirit and formula of the George Peppard classic. Our original heroes were elusive, but wrongly-convicted government fugitives on the lam, one jump ahead of military authorities, and the film “The A-Team” sticks to that premise like glue. Although the series that co-starred Mr. T was set against Vietnam, Carnahan and his scribes have updated the storyline so the action occurs in Iraq. Since more than twenty years has elapsed since the series left the air, Twentieth Century Fox must have decided that the movie do double-duty as an origins outing rather than a sequel. After all, contemporary audiences probably weren’t watching television when the original series aired from 1983 to 1987. Liam Neeson of “Taken” quite capably takes over the role that George Peppard originated. Bradley Cooper of “The Hangover” steps easily into Dirk Benedict’s shoes as ‘Faceman.’ Newbie Sharlto Copley of “District 9” is every bit as loony tunes as Dwight Schultz was as the harebrained Murdock. Finally, Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson plays ghetto-tough B.A. Baracus, the role that made Laurence Tureaud into an overnight sensation as Mr. T. Essentially, “The A-Team” (**** out of ****) qualifies as a prequel to the television series. The filmmakers show how the eponymous foursome met and wound up in the dire predicament that led to their weekly exploits.

“The A-Team” concerns honor, deception, betrayal, lies, and revenge. Colonel Hannibal Smith, a U.S. Army Ranger, is getting the pulp smashed out of him as the action unfolds in gritty Mexico. A corrupt Mexican policeman laughs at Hannibal because our hero handed over a bundle of greenbacks to a dirty cop. They cannot get Hannibal to cough up anything but blood, so they decide to ice him. They try to kill him with his own pistol, but Hannibal has removed the firing pin, and the corrupt cop doesn’t want his henchman to shoot him with his own gun because he fears that U.S. authorities will trace the killing back to them. They leave Hannibal with his impaired firearm and turn two vicious dogs loose on him. Before the dogs can reach him, Hannibal reassembles his weapon and his waiting for the mutts. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Templeton ‘Faceman’ Peck is tied up and stuck in the middle of several tires while a higher corrupt cop, General Javier Tuco (Yul Vazquez of "American Gangster") wants to know who the pretty boy is working for. They plan to strung Peck up, and General Tuco is furious because Faceman had sex with his wife. B.A. Baracus is cruising through the countryside in his signature black mini-van when he happens upon an escaped Hannibal. They share U.S. Ranger tattoos and bond, after Hannibal pumps a slug into him. Just as the villains are about to hang Peck, Hannibal and B.A. arrive like the cavalry in the nick of time. Afterward, our heroes grip each other’s hands and set off to a hospital to pick up Murdock. The angry Tuco masses his forces and retaliates with greater firepower. Our protagonists spring Murdock from the hospital, and he flies them out in a Red Cross helicopter, only to discover that another chopper armed with missiles is pursuing them. Murdock performs some aerodynamically impossible stunts to elude the missiles. This entire, prolonged, bullet-riddled, action-packed sequence with the main credit titles popping up occasionally against the scenery and the gunfire resembles the pre-credit sequence from a James Bond escapade. Carnahan never lets the action stall for a moment and he adopts a storytelling strategy that keeps audiences up to snuff with the “A-Team’s” shenanigans. Basically, Carnahan lets the characters explain what they plan to do and shows them carrying out the plan as they explain it. The recent "Sherlock Holmes" movie did the same thing.

The story lunges ahead eight years into the future after our heroes have completed 80 missions. The setting is Iraq after the war has concluded. Hannibal and his men are considered the best special operations unit in the U.S. military. Hannibal has caught wind of a hush-hush, top-secret operation that he feels only his elite quartet can handle. It seems that terrorists in Baghdad have obtained stolen U.S. Mint printing plates and have run off over $1 billion worth of $100 bills. The bigger diplomatic picture prohibits Hannibal’s oldest friend, General Morrison (Gerald McRaney of CBS-TV’s “Simon & Simon”), from issuing Hannibal official orders to recover both the plates and the money. Instead, Morrison appears to have struck a deal with a ruthless band of mercenaries called Black Forest, led by Pike (Brian Bloom of “Terminal”), who have no qualms about murder as long as they are paid in full. Meantime, our heroes go in, snatch the plates and a trailer-load of counterfeit currency. All too suddenly, everything goes south for Hannibal and his team. An explosion obliterates the trailer, and Morrison dies in another explosion himself. Our heroes are arrested for disobeying orders. Everybody, including one of Peck’s ex-girlfriends, Captain Charisa Sosa (sexy Jessica Biel of “Stealth”), believes that Hannibal’s team and Pike’s gunmen collaborated on the mission. The Army court-martials the quartet and sends them off to serve stretches in different prisons. Hannibal refuses to accept this miscarriage of justice and finds himself an ally in Lynch (Patrick Wilson of "Watchmen") a mysterious C.I.A. agent. Although he is incarcerated in a top military lock-up, Hannibal has been cooking up a plan when he meets with Lynch. In no time at all, our heroes escape from prison and go after Pike.

Hollywood has struggled without success to resurrect other televisions series, but they have failed more often than not and failed miserably. “Starsky and Hutch,” “Wild Wild West,” “I Spy,” “The Avengers,” and “The Mod Squad” were catastrophes. Happily, “The A-Team” is a straightforward, larger-than-life, high-octane, action movie that never wears out its welcome. Moreover, “The A-Team” is better than its predecessor. Predictable for the most part, it is nevertheless an amusing as well as absorbing, with terrific performances, snappy dialogue, and a sense of audacity. The biggest differences between the PG-13 rated “A-Team” and the original series is that people die, and the big-screen adaptation adopts a grittier approach. Of course, “The A-Team” is just another big, noisy, slam-bang actioneers, but these Carnahan and company know how to slam and bang! They haven’t overlooked anything in terms of hardware so “The A-Team” looks as slick and sophisticated as a James Bond extravaganza. They have also jammed in enough intrigue for a Jason Bourne thriller. This explosive adventure opus has crowd pleaser branded on it with its international locations, high voltage action sequences, and murderous villains.

FILM REVIEW OF "SHAFT" (1971)

The NAACP gave up trying to persuade Hollywood to cast more African-Americans in films and television shows in 1963 and resorted to legal measures and economic sanctions. Consequently, blacks began to appear in both major and minor roles in greater numbers. Actor Sidney Poitier emerged in the late 1960s as the first truly popular African-American actor and qualified as an example of "the model
integrationist hero." By the 1970s, African-Americans had turned up not only in ghetto-themed movies but also every other film genre and television show. Meanwhile, the discrimination that black actresses encountered simply mirrored the shortage of roles white actresses had contended with in Hollywood since time immemorial. Former Cleveland Browns football star Jim Brown rose to prominence in the wake of Sidney
Poitier as the new African-American hero. Poitier and Brown served as precursors for Blaxploitation.

Eventually, the pendulum swung from one extreme with the racist depiction of blacks as subservient Sambo characters before the 1960s to the newest extreme with blacks portrayed as Superspades in what later constituted a cinematic phenomenon called Blaxploitation. Essentially, the golden age of Blaxploitation movies occurred between 1970 and 1975 and these movie targeted primarily black audiences. Blaxploitation heroes and heroines displayed a social and political consciousness, and they were not confined to single roles. They were cast as private eyes,
policemen, vigilantes, troubleshooters, pimps, etc. In each instance, these characters worked within the system, but they did so as they saw fit and sought to improve the African-American community. Not surprisingly, blaxploitation heroes often clashed with whites, but they refused to depict whites in strictly monolithic terms. Good whites and bad whites jockeyed for prominence in the films. Although one NAACP official described blaxploitation as just "another form of cultural genocide," African-American audiences flocked to see them. Blaxploitation movies knew no boundaries and encompassed comedies, musicals, westerns, coming-of-age dramas, slave plantation films, and horror movies.

Director Ossie Davis' urban crime thriller "Cotton Comes to Harlem" (1970), about two African-American N.Y.P.D. cops, Coffin Ed Johnson (Raymond St. Jacques) and Gravedigger Jones (Godfrey Cambridge), based on the Chester Himes novel, paved the way for the movement. When the film premiered, critics did not categorize Cotton as blaxploitation. Interestingly, the term "black exploitation" first appeared in print in the August 16, 1972, issue of the show business newspaper "Variety" when the NAACP Beverly Hills-Hollywood branch president, Junius Griffin, coined the term in a speech about the derogatory impact of the genre on African-Americans. Later, black exploitation was abbreviated as blaxploitation. The two films that historians have classified as "germinal" were independent filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles' "Sweet
Sweetback's Baadasssss Song" (1971) and mainstream director Gordon Parks' "Shaft" (1971). Peebles's film supplemented the content of Davis' film with sex and violence, and Sweetback's success with black audiences triggered the blaxploitation craze, one of the most profitable in cinematic history. Major Hollywood film studios rushed similar films into production. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer followed Sweetback's
success with their private eye thriller "Shaft" (1971) starring model-turned-actor Richard Roundtree as the equivalent of Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade gumshoe character in "The Maltese Falcon." Some critics complained that movies like Shaft simply substituted blacks in roles that were traditionally played by whites. Initially, MGM thought about of rewriting the African-American lead in Shaft, based on Ernst
Tidyman's novel as a Caucasian.

As a detective movie, Shaft observed all the conventions of the genre. The action opens with the trench coat-clad protagonist wearing out shoe leather in Manhattan to the tune of Isaac Hayes' iconic, Oscar-winning theme music. The lyrics provide a thumbnail sketch of the hero's persona. Private detective John Shaft lives up to those lyrics as "the cat who won't cop out when there's danger all about." At this point in the action, Shaft makes his rounds and checks in with his people and learns that some people are looking for him. Mind you, not only are some hoods looking for our protagonist, but also the N.Y.P.D., in the person of Lieutenant Vic Androzzi, is looking for Shaft. Androzzi has been hearing some bad things and wants to check up with Shaft of what's happening. Meanwtime,an infamous Harlem crime lord, Bumpy Jonas (Moses Gunn), loosely based on real-life criminal Bumpy Johnson, hires Shaft to locate his missing daughter Marcy. Shaft goes out looking for an old friend who has gotten into the revolution frame of mind, Ben Buford and he finds him at Amsterdam, 710. The villains stage a raid on Ben's building and only Shaft and Ben survive a massacre. Eventually, Shaft discovers that the Italian mafia has abducted her and he assembles a motley crew of black militants called The La Mumbas to help him rescue Marcy. Ben Buford (Christopher St. John of "For Love of Ivy")is the man in charge of The La Mumbas who helps Shaft out during the rescue in a blazing, shoot'em up finale in the last scene. Shaft and Buford have a face-to-face confrontation when the latter accuses the former of being a "Judas." The success of Shaft spawned two sequels "Shaft's Big Score" (1972) and "Shaft in Africa" (1973) and later a short-lived television series. Many blaxploitation movies gained notoriety for negative portrayals of African-Americans trapped in the ghettos that resorted to crime and
vice to triumph over their hostile surroundings and oppressive white
landlords.

FILM REVIEW OF ''PAYMENT IN BLOOD'' (ITALIAN-1967)

“Payment in Blood” qualifies as a violent, above-average Spaghetti western shoot’em up with a high body count. Like director Sergio Leone’s bigger budgeted “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” the lower budgeted “Payment in Blood” (**1/2 out of ****) concerns the quest for buried treasure. The outlaw villains embark on a search for a fabled fortune, approximately $200-thousand, stashed at an undisclosed location by Confederate General Beauregard. Of course, anybody who knows anything about Civil War history knows Beauregard had no such loot. Typically, most westerns that appropriate this plot attribute the lost Confederate gold to President Jefferson Davis. Ironically, during the opening credits sequence, which contains a montage of Civil War photographs, Beauregard’s portrait is conspicuous by its absence, while pictures of Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, and Ulysses S. Grant proliferate. The protagonist, Stuart (Edd Byrnes), has a grudge to settle with the head villain (Guy Madison) and his gang of bloodthirsty gunmen.

Primarily known overseas as “Seven Winchesters for a Massacre,” “Payment in Blood” was writer & director Enzo G. Castellari’s third western. Castellari’s first western as a director was "Few Dollars for Django" for which he received no credit, and “Any Gun Can Play” was his second oater, with a bigger, better cast. “Payment in Blood” isn’t as good as either “Any Gun Can Play” or a later Castellari Civil War western “Kill Them All and Come Back Alone” with Chuck Connors. Long-time screenwriting collaborator Tito Carpi of "Few Dollars for Django" and "Bullets and the Flesh" scribe Marino Girolami penned the formulaic plot with Castellari for “Payment in Blood.” The difference between “Payment in Blood” and “Any Gun Can Play” is the latter is more elaborate than the former. “Payment in Blood” amounts to a rather contrived western that uses the venerable plot about an individual who goes undercover to infiltrate a gang of homicidal criminals and thwart them. The dialogue is neither as amusing as “Any Gun Can Play,” but “Payment in Blood” boasts a surprise ending. Although it seems like scores of men wind up with bullet holes during the numerous shoot-outs, “Payment in Blood” lacks the titular element that became such a fixture in later westerns like “The Wild Bunch.”

The action takes place in Texas in 1867 after the conclusion of the American Civil War. A renegade Confederate officer, Colonel Thomas Blake (Guy Madison of “Drums in the Deep South”), refuses to give up the cause. During the opening moments of “Payment in Blood,” writer & director Enzo G. Castellari introduces us to not only the pugnacious Blake but also the hellspawn riding with him. Included in this notorious gang are Chamaco Gonzales (Ennio Girolami of "The Hellbenders"), knife-throwing Rios (Aysanoa Runachagua of “El Cisco”), Fred Calhoun (Federico Boido of "Planet of the Vampires"), bullwhip wielding Zeb Russel , and Mesa Alvarez (Attilio Severini of “Massacre at Grand Canyon”) who likes to kill with his spurs. Blake and his marauders carry out indiscriminate raids. They steal horses, loot homes; kill men, women and children without a qualm. Nameless supporting players standing around wanted posters of Blake’s men impart most of this information when they aren’t complaining about Blake’s depredations. The reward on Blake’s head has risen to $5-thousand. Chamaco rides into a town one day and eavesdrops on a conversation between a crippled, former Confederate soldier and a cowboy. “What can you expect from a rotten war like ours? Brother against brother. When you teach a man it’s right to kill, how can you unteach him?” The other man observes about Blake’s killers: “They have learned to like being heroes. They’ve learned to like killing.” Chamaco confronts the crippled Southerner, Jeremy, because the latter had ridden with General Beauregard and may know the location of the lost treasure. Before he can learn anything from Jeremy, Chamaco has to kill him. A military tribunal sentences Chamaco to die in front of an army firing squad. Stuart surprises the military and rescues Chamaco just as the soldiers are about to execute him. You see, Stuart is driving a covered wagon past the firing squad when he delivers his ultimatum to the army. He shoots the tip off the officer’s sword and several Winchester rifles spring out from the wagon, suggesting that several riflemen are aiming those repeaters. As it turns out, nobody has their shoulders against these long guns, and Stuart has packed a crate of dynamite in the wagon bed so when one of the soldiers opens fire on the vehicle, the wagon vanishes in an explosion.

Chamaco takes Stuart to Blake’s camp after they sneak across the Rio Grande. The place is like a natural fortress and Blake has a Gatling gun covering the entrance. Chamaco and Stuart pass inspection by the various sentries. It seems that Stuart rode with Beauregard, too, and served as one of the general’s chiefs of staff. The scenes where Stuart meets each of Blake’s gang and matches them at their own expertise are entertaining. The filming and editing of Zeb snatching the revolver out of Stuart’s holster with a bullwhip is exciting. Interesting, Mesa doesn’t perform one of his trademark flips using his spurs as deadly weapons. Each of Blake’s men has something distinctive about them from their look, heritage, and choice of weapon. After he arrives in Blake’s camp, Stuart refuses to divulge the whereabouts of the loot to the cunning colonel. Instead, Blake and his men leave the sanctuary of Mexico, cross the Rio Grande again, but with inevitable bloodshed, and ride into Texas. Along the way, they run into their first surprise and her name is Manuela (Luisa Baratto of “"Bloody Pit of Horror"). She keeps them pinned down with gunfire in one scene before they get the better of her. Feisty women are not a convention of the Spaghetti western. Before Blake’s men do anything else, they orchestrate the massacre of all the men in Durango. Castellari does a good job of staging this massive gundown. What makes the gunfight memorable is that one of Blake's men bites the dust. Eventually, Stuart does reveal the location, but only after Blake has turned his men loose on him and beaten Stuart to the point of unconsciousness. Stuart mutters the words ‘White Eagle’ and they set fire to the room and leave Stuart to burn alive. Blake’s men find a strong box buried in an Indian cemetery. Blake’s men are poised to take the loot when their commander kills Zeb for insubordination. When they finally open the strong box, Blake and his men are disgusted to learn that the $200-thousand was in worthless Confederate bank notes. Meantime, the survivors of the Durango come after Blake for killing their husbands.

Edd Byrnes appears out of place with his clean-shaven features among a cast who sport some form of facial hair. The off-beat casting of heroic Guy Madison as the murderous, tight-lipped villain isn’t as delectable as Henry Fonda’s dastardly turn in “Once Upon a Time in the West,” but it represents a considerable change of pace for Madison. The first time that we see Madison as Colonel Blake, Blake rides out of a cloud of gunfire in a town that his men and he are shooting up. Blake’s favorite words are “kill them.” As savage as this western strives to be with its high body count, there are moments such as when Blake’s men tickle their prisoner’s feet with a feather that really stand out in this above-average oater. "Few Dollars for Django" lenser Aldo Pinelli creates several interesting shots of riders-on-the-skyline with his widescreen, color cinematography. Composer Francesco De Masi provides a charismatic orchestral score that perks up this western. Once you’ve heard De Masi’s flavorful score, you won’t forget it.

You need to get the Wild East DVD copy of this movie, because all other copies are going to be defective.

FILM REVIEW OF ''ADIOS, SABATA" (Italian-1971)

Gianfranco Parolini’s “Adios, Sabata” (**** out of ****) ranks as one of the top 10 Spaghetti westerns of all time. Melodramatic scripting, scenic photography, clever dialogue, marvelously choreographed gunfights, flavorful music, and harsh rugged scenery make this outlandish Yul Brynner horse opera worth watching. No, it has nothing to do with the Lee Van Cleef movies oaters “Sabata” (1969) and “Return of Sabata” (1971). The original title for this exhilarating Yul Brynner shoot’em up was “Indio Black.” Like most successful Spaghetti westerns, it adopted the name of a profitable screen hero. Scores of westerns were named after “Django,” “Sartana,” and “Trinity.” Indeed, where Lee Van Cleef’s Sabata is elegant and well-dressed, Indio adopts the garb of a cavalry scout. He wears a fringed buckskin outfit. Unlike Sabata, who relied primarily on a derringer, Indio wields a sawed-off, lever-action, repeating carbine with a sideways ammunition magazine. He reserves the last chamber in each magazine for a cheroot. After he dispatches his adversaries, he takes the time to enjoy his tobacco. Black brandishes a derringer, too, but rarely uses it to kill. In fact, “Indio Black” remains the only Spaghetti western that Brynner made, but it qualifies as a superior sagebrusher with provocative, offbeat characters, a larger-than-life, six-fisted plot with loads of narrative foreshadowing, and one of composer Bruno Nicolai’s liveliest orchestral scores. Parolini lacks the baroque visual artistry of Sergio Leone. However, he knew how to tell a good story and he could stage interesting set-pieces. Parolini co-authored the screenplay with Renato Izzo who had penned “Kill and Pray” and “A Man Called Amen.”

Oscar-winning actor Yul Brynner plays a sympathetic, sharp-shooting, American soldier-of-fortune in black. He supports the Mexican revolutionaries in their cause to expel the Austrians from their country during the post American Civil War period. Hollywood hasn’t made that many memorable westerns about Emperor Maximilian’s reign over Mexico. The best of the bunch is Robert Aldrich’s “Vera Cruz,” rivaled only by Don Siegel’s “Two Mules for Sister Sara.” As the villain, Austrian Colonel Skimmel dresses as elegantly as he shoots straight, and he behaves like an egotist. Indeed, he has commissioned a portrait of himself. Skimmel has no qualms about killing and makes a splendid villain. He detests informers, exploits their information, and then kills them. Half-way between Sabata and Skimmel is Ballantine. This soldier-of-fortune (Dean Reed of “God Made Them... I Kill Them") is an opportunist who throws his lot in with Sabata. Actually, he has no qualms about getting whatever there is for himself and nobody else. “Three Crosses of Death” lenser Sandro Mancori captures the arid Spanish landscape in all its eternal grandeur and the vistas are beautiful. Mancori and Parolini hail from the school of filmmaking that relied heavily on zoom shots. “Indio Black” has more than its share of zoom shots. “Indio Black” emerges as a hugely entertaining western epic with the usual ritualistic conventions, such as duels and gunfights, intrigue, plot reversals, and outright surprises.

The action opens at a Catholic mission as the priest Father Mike addresses a young Mexican village boy, Juanito (Luciano Casamonica of “Tepepa”) laments the descent of mankind into savagery. “There is too much violence in the world.” Juanito reminds him the Murdock brothers deserve punishment because they stole everything from them. Ever gentle Father Mike replies, “You must try to forgive. Not sink into revenge.” Colonel Skimmel, a monocled, bewhiskered, autocrat in a dress uniform. He likes to demonstrate his marksmanship with a rifle. Skimmel’s favorite practice is to turn loose prisoners below on the parade grounds and let them see if they can outrun him without being shot down. Colonel Skimmel never misses. Meanwhile, in Texas, the Murdock brothers show up at the County Hunter Agency and slap leather with Sabata. Sabata wipes them out without a scratch. Parolini does an excellent job staging this initial shoot-out. The three Murdocks ride into the dusty station. One drives a wagon with a coffin on it. “We’re all set for you to go out in style,” the oldest Murdock boasts.” A weather vane stands motionless in front of the station. Before they exchange gunfire, Sabata and the oldest Murdock display their lethal marksmanship. Their bullets turn the vane into a blur. Once the vane stops turning, they are told that they can blast away at each other. Even after Sabata has killed them, he fires more shots. A Murdock corpse clinging to a corral fence falls when Sabata’s bullets obliterate the railing. Sabata shoots the coffin lid so it falls shut on the dead Murdock.

After the gunfight, Señor Ocaño (Franco Fantasia of "The Lion of St. Mark") enlists Sabata to help them discover when the gold shipment leaves the fort at Guadalupe and what road it will travel. He is also to make arrangements with the men who will sell the revolution firearms. Ocaño informs his ally, Escudo (Pedro Sanchez of "Any Gun Can Play"), about Sabata, but Escudo hates that the revolution must stoop to a foreign soldier-of-fortune. Meanwhile, Colonel Skimmel has cooked up his own scheme about the getting the gold out of the fort at Guadalupe. He sends out a detachment with the gold wagon, and his own men gun down the detachment. Sabata intervenes and Escudo and he commandeer the gold wagon. Sabata rides to Kingsville, Texas, where he discovers Colonel Skimmel’s cohort Folgen (Gianni Rizzo of “Mission to Hell”) has wiped out the gunrunners. Sabata decides that they need to take the gold back to Ocaño. A small army of plainclothes Austrians ambush them, but Sabata turns the odds against them with his skillful shooting.

Later, they discover that the bags contain dirt not gold and that Skimmel has the gold back at the fort. Our heroes attack the fort, but they are captured and disarmed by Skimmel, except for Ballantine’s diary. Sabata has stashed two vials of nitro in the book and Ballantine throws the book at the firing squad due to execute them. They escape death and Sabata confronts Skimmel. Skimmel has him covered with two single-shot pistols and acknowledges that Sabata is the only man who has even beaten him at shooting. Apparently unarmed, Sabata waits for the right moment and hurls a deadly knife that skewers Skimmel through his portrait. Ballantine fakes his death to steal the gold wagon and our heroes pursue him toward the border bridge at Guadalupe. Sabata blows holes in the rear of the wagon and the gold pours out as Ballantine lashes the horses for the border. He crosses the bridge and hurriedly detonates the charges that demolish it. At this point, he discovers that the gold lies in trails on the other side of the bridge and he is out of luck.

Writer & director Parolini does an excellent job of setting up and paying off several situations. Colonel Skimmel’s model of a sailing vessel perched atop a dresser is wired to the highest drawer so when an unsuspecting fool opens the drawer, the movement triggers a deadly broadside from the canon protruding from the side of the ship. If you love Spaghetti westerns, you owe it to yourself to watch “Adios, Sabata.”

FILM REVIEW OF "HORROR OF DRACULA" (BRITISH-1958)

The worldwide success that Hammer Films reaped with its widescreen, Technicolor release of director Terence Fisher's “Curse of Frankenstein” prompted the small independent British film company to plunder another sacred Universal monster franchise “Dracula.” Peter Cushing, who had impersonated the insane Baron in “Curse of Frankenstein,” played Doctor Van Helsing, the good guy, opposite his monstrous “Curse of Frankenstein” co-star Christopher Lee who bared his incisors as the undead Count. Remakes and sequels are often damned for altering or updating the original narrative. Indeed, “The Curse of Frankenstein” scenarist Jimmy Sangster tampered with the legendary Stoker novel, but his changes provide a greater sense of momentum and chills. Christopher Lee is cast as an aristocratic vampire who wears evening apparel beneath a long, black, flowing cape that he sports with a flourish. Unlike Lugosi who stood six foot one, Lee imposed his presence on others with this six foot five statue. He is quite a civil fellow in the early scenes, but his civility vanishes for the remainder of this brisk 82-minute melodrama after an expendable supporting character deprives him of his voluptuous vampire companion. The shot of Harker hammering a stake into the heart of the vampire woman looks really cool because Fisher shoots the reflection of Harker's shadow on a wall.

Most of the story survives in “Horror of Dracula” (***1/2 out of ****), but Sangster and director Terence Fisher have eliminated the sea voyage that appeared in “Nosferatu” to a Germanic port and in “Dracula” to Whitby Harbor. Meaning, there is no ship’s captain who ties himself to the wheel and dies in route to dock. Mind you, Harker (John Van Eyssen of “Murder in the Cathedral “) still travels to Transylvania by horse-drawn carriage, but he doesn’t arrive at the inn at sunset. Since he cannot convince a coachman to convey him to Castle Dracula, he hikes to the castle during daylight, so the scene with an incognito Dracula perched atop a stagecoach ready to conduct him to his castle has been eliminated. Harker feels a change in temperature as he crosses a stream in front of Castle Dracula. In this version, Harker finds a handwritten message awaiting him instead of Dracula; his gracious host has left him some food and an explanation that he will not be there to greet him on his arrival. Furthermore, Harker doesn’t present himself in the capacity of a real estate agent as his predecessors. Instead, he is a librarian. Harker finishes his meal and prepares to peruse some papers when he knocks a plate of bread onto the floor. As he retrieves the bread, cutlery, and plate from the floor, somebody slips up behind him. Dracula’s nymphomanical bride approaches him. She begs him to help her escape from Dracula. Dracula appears and she flees. Eventually, she attacks him and Dracula doesn’t intervene in time save Harker. Consequently, the scene where the visitor cuts himself in front of Dracula as well as the voyage to a major city has been omitted. Furthermore, Dr. Seward's importance has been reduced to two scenes, and there is no sanitarium.

Altogether, three major changes have occurred in “Horror of Dracula” that differentiate it from Tod Browning’s “Dracula.” These changes are (1) Jack Asher’s brilliant Technicolor cinematography, (2) composer James Bernard’s sensational atmospheric score, (3) Sangster’s unbridled screenplay brimming with lurid action, sexy female vampires, and Christopher Lee’s disintegration scene. In other words, unlike Bela Lugosi’s Dracula, Lee could actually bare his fangs and the blood flows in bright red colors. The scene where Harker is bitten presents Dracula in his full glory with bloodshot eyes and blood on his jowls. Meantime, none of Lugosi’s wives displayed cleavage, but Dracula’s wife in "Horror of Dracula" literally thrusts her breasts at us. Christopher Lee makes a fantastic Dracula, and Peter Cushing’s Dr. Van Helsing is a good rival who gets quite athletic before everything concludes. Future “Batman” butler Michael Gough co-stars as Arthur, Lucy’s brother, with Lee and Cushing. Arthur participates more in the action during the latter half of the narrative when he assists Van Helsing. Sangster doesn’t dawdle like most vampire movies. He cranks up the action rather quickly when we learn that Harker is only posing as a librarian so that he can kill Dracula. Unfortunately, Dracula’s lusty wife thwarts his efforts, infects him, and he winds up killing her first when he had a splendid opportunity to stake the count. Of course, the filmmakers could not let Dracula perish too early in the action. Dracula gets Harker and remembers the beautiful pictures that Harker brought with him of his girlfriend Lucy. Later, when Van Helsing arrives at Castle Dracula, he is nearly run over by a rampaging hearse tearing off the premises with a white coffin in the back. Van Helsing discovers the dead vampire siren and his old friend Harker.

Fisher doesn’t let the action slow down and exposition is inserted palatalably into the dialogue scene. One difference here is that Van Helsing refutes the theory that vampires can shape-shift into either bats or wolves. Indeed, Fisher and Sangster have put a small scene where Van Helsing goes over vampire essentials. This scene lays down the rules. Van Helsing plays back his finds on a primitive recording device that relies on a tube as a recording device. "Research on vampires. There are certain basic facts established. One: light. The vampire is allegic to light. Never ventures forth in the daytime. Sunlight fatal. Repeat, fatal. It would destroy them. (Obviously, this serves to foreshadow the final showdown between Van Helsing and Dracula.) Two: garlic. Three: crucifix. Symbolizes the power of good over evil. The power of the crucifix in these cases is two-fold. It protects the normal human being but reveals the vampire or victim of this vile contagion whenin advanced stages. It is established that the victim consciously detest being dominated by vampirism, but are unable to relinquish the practice similar to addiction to drugs. Ultimately death results from loss of blood. But unlike normal death, no peace manifests itself for they enter into the fearful state of the undead." The Hammer Films franchise sticks rather closely to this dictum.

In a later scene, after Arthur Holmwood has perused Jonathan's diary, he discusses the incredible attributes of a vampire with Van Helsing. "Vampires are known to have gone on from century to century. Records show that Dracula could be 500 to 600 years old," Van Helsing assures Holmwood. When Arthur brings up the issue of shape-shifting into bats and wolves, Van Helsing dismisses this out of hand. "That's a common fallacy. The study of these creatures has been my life's work. I carried out research with some of the greatest authorities in Europe. And yet we've only just scratched the surface. You see, a great deal is known about the vampire bat. But details of these re-animated bodies of the dead, the "undead," as we call them ... are so obscure that many biologists will not believe they exist." Van Helsing convinces Holmwood to agree to help him. He adds, "We also know that during the day the vampire must rest in his native soil."

Lee’s Dracula remains as he is through the action. The two women, Lucy and Mina, constitute a major part of the story. Lucy (Carol Marsh of the 1951 “Scrooge”) is Harker’s girlfriend who has been stricken by illness. After Van Helsing discovers Harker’s body, he refrains from sharing his gruesome knowledge with both Arthur (Michael Gough) and his wife Mina (Melissa Stribling of “Ghost Ship”) because he fears that they won’t believe him. Meanwhile, Dr. Seward (Charles Lloyd Pack of “The Safecracker”) suggests to Mina to get a second opinion about Lucy, and Mina consults with Dr. Van Helsing. Van Helsing examines Lucy and stipulates that the windows to Lucy’s room must remain closed and garlic must be placed in her room. Van Helsing is quite emphatic that he can save Lucy’s life, but he reminds Mina that she must abide by his orders. No sooner does Lucy have a bad reaction to the garlic than she convinces Mina’s servant Gerda (Olga Dickie of “The Kiss of the Vampire “) to disobey Mina’s strict orders and remove not only the objectionable garlic but also throw open the doors.

Predictably, Lucy perishes, but then Arthur hears strange stories, the strangest from Gerda’s daughter that she has seen Lucy walking. Finally, Arthur learns the awful truth about Harker’s demise and peruses Harker’s diary that reveals the quest to kill Dracula. Dracula doesn’t waste time after he dispatches Lucy to go after Mina. Meanwhile, Van Helsing puts Lucy to the stake and her corpse doesn’t disintegrate or grow old as Dracula’s wife’s body. When Arthur and Van Helsing realize that Mina is now Dracula’s new target, they maintain surveillance over the house, but Dracula strikes anyway and nearly kills Mina. Van Helsing discovers the Dracula has placed his coffin in the basement. By this time, Dracula knows his game is up and flees back to Transylvania with Mina in the back of a hearse. Dracula breaks down the barrier at the border and the border official turns into a comic character that reacts with a combination of outrage and anxiety when Van Helsing and Arthur appear not long after Dracula.

The ending of “Horror of Dracula” is very athletic. Van Helsing confronts Dracula and the count nearly defeats him, but Van Helsing fools him and tears down a curtain over a window to let in enough sunlight to turn Dracula into dust. Of course, Dracula would not remain inert for long because Hammer cranked out six sequels to the “Horror of Dracula.”

FILM REVIEW OF "HERCULES" (Italian-1958)

Anybody who enjoyed this larger-than-life mythological adventure should know that “Attila” director Pietro Francisci’s “Hercules” (***1/2 out of ****) spawned the sword and sandal genre. These films constituted a sub-genre of the Hollywood historical epic, and the stories occurred either during classical antiquity in Greece and Rome or Biblical times in other Mediterranean locales. Basically, these European produced films featured a brawny, footloose warrior as the protagonist who performs incredible feats of strength that enabled him to destroy supernatural monsters, topple evil tyrants and free enslaved peoples. Sometimes, the hero was a gladiator like the Kirk Douglas hero in “Spartacus.” Often, the hero’s name varied when these films arrived in America. The muscular champion was called Hercules, Samson, Goliath or he was a son of Hercules with an entirely different name. In Italy, however, the strongman hero was always known as Maciste.

Although “Hercules” was the first of some 300 sword and sandal sagas to follow until the Spaghetti western eclipsed the genre around 1964, the Italians had been producing sword and sandal movies long before “Hercules.” One of the first major silent films, director Giovanni Pastrone’s “Cabiria” appeared in 1914 and concerned the abduction of the eponymous little girl that pirates kidnapped during an eruption of Mount Etna during the third century B.C. A Roman spy and his mesomorphic muscle-bound slave Maciste rescued Cabiria. Aside from revitalizing a moribund genre, Francisci’s “Hercules” is notable not only for its star, bodybuilder Steve Reeves of “Mr. Universe” fame, but also for lenser Mario Bava and his splendid widescreen pictorial compositions as well as his atmospheric lightning. Bava’s photography is nothing short of brilliant. His cameras are always in the best place to capture the action. Reeves went on to star in several more pepla, and Bava later helmed “Hercules in the Haunted World.” “Hercules Unchained” with Reeves and co-star Sylva Koscina followed “Hercules.”

Aesthetically, “Hercules” qualifies as an above-average effort for the genre. Francisci and his scenarists derived their screenplay from Apollonius of Rhodes’ Greek epic poem "Argonautica" that dealt with Jason and his quest for the Golden Fleece. In this film, Hercules literally usurps Jason as the hero when in reality the son of Jupiter played a peripheral role in the exploit. British director Don Chaffey helmed the best cinematic version of the Golden Fleece myth in 1963 with his exciting “Jason and the Argonauts” that boasted the superb stop-motion animation of Ray Harryhausen. One of the problems with “Hercules” is that Jason recovers the fleece rather too easily from a giant reptile that sleeps near the tree where the fleece hangs. Reeves has a few uncomfortable moments when he goes on the rampage, literally blowing his cool, and sounds a mite unbelievable. Mind you, this was the bodybuilder’s first starring role so he can be forgiven. Francisci plays everything straight down the line, except for the campy monster guarding the Golden Fleece that Jason tries to retrieve. Of course, some of the hand-to-hand combat scenes where Hercules tangles with livestock such as a lion and a bison looks staged. Typically, the animal trainer would substitute for the star or the director would orchestrate the fights so ersatz animal heads and paws could be used. Consequently, while it is an entertaining escapism, “Hercules” isn’t as much hokum as later strong man sagas. Indeed, "Hercules" concerns murder in the palace; a princess who fears the truth about her father

"Hercules" became a blockbuster during its North American release and the success of the film in the United States can be attributed to Joseph E Levine. According to A.T. McKenna in his thesis “Joseph E. Levine: Showmanship, Reputation and Industrial Practice 1945 - 1977,” “Hercules” made Levine an “industry big shot.” After every Hollywood studio passed on Francisci's film, Levine bought the film for a modest $120,000, dubbed in English dialogue, and changed the title from "The Labors of Hercules" to simply "Hercules." Levine's folly wound up raking in a fortune from its U.S. release and sequels that followed. Levine pioneered 'saturation' booking and opened "Hercules" in 600 theaters. According to the Turner Classic Movies website, this method of opening a movie was "unheard of" in the 1950s. Levine relied on radio and television advertising to arouse the public's curiosity and he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. “I had no misgivings about Hercules,” Levine explained to the media. “It had something for everybody. It had a dragon for kids, musclemen for growing boys, a shipwreck scene for waiters and clerks. Who doesn’t dream of getting stuck on an island with some broads? And the picture had Steve Reeves. He appealed to women.” Gordon Scott, Gordon Mitchell, Ed Fury, Dan Vadis, Mark Forest, Reg Park and other American bodybuilders went to Europe to star in these films. Inevitably, continental bodybuilders took umbrage because of the reliance by their own producers and directors on Americans when just as many suitable muscle-bound specimens resided in Italy, the foremost being Alan Steel.

“Hercules” unfolds with a venerable scene straight out of an old western. A beautiful woman, Princess Iole (Sylva Koscina of "Michael Strogoff"), shatters the afternoon calm when we loses control of a pair of horses hauling her chariot. She scatters a herd of goats. Francisci cuts to a close-up of tree roots being torn out of the ground and shows Hercules (Steve Reeves of “Jailbait”) hurl the tree it into the path of the runaway horses. “I thank the gods for providing me such a strong man when I needed him,” Iole says. Hercules carries her from the chariot and sets her on a rock. “I’ll admit that the sight of those runaway horses had me worried about you.” Hercules suspects Iole is royalty from the standard on her chariot. As it turns out, Iola is the daughter of King Pelias of Iolcus (Ivo Garrani of "Roland the Mighty"), and our hero is in route to train Pelias’ son Prince Iphitus (Mimmo Palmara of “Attila”) in the art of warfare. Iole furnishes Hercules with a brief history of her father’s suspicious rise to power, the death of his brother the king, and the thief of the Golden Fleece. Afterward, Hercules accompanies Iola back to the palace. An impulsive, arrogant young man, Iphitus hates Hercules. When a lion terrorizes the land, Hercules slays the beast. Iphitus interferes with Hercules, and the lion kills Iphitus before Hercules can kill it. A grief-stricken Pelias tells Hercules the only way that he can redeem himself is to kill the Cretan bull.

Hercules believes that Pelias has treated him unfairly and he goes to the temple of The Sybil (Lidia Alfonsi of “"Hercules vs. the Hydra") to demand an explanation. During the conversation, Hercules reveals that he wants to shed his immortality and be like mortal men so that he can love Iola and have a family. The gods release Hercules from his immortality and he praises them. Before he can kill the bull, Hercules spots a young man crouched over the body of a dying man. Hercules kills the bull after a brief struggle; essentially, he slams two lethal blows with his fist into the bull’s head. Later, he follows the young man to a cave and discovers his old friend Chironi (Afro Poli of “Tosca”) has been gored by the bull and lies dying. Chironi brings Hercules up to date about the disappearance of the Golden Fleece and how Jason and he left the country with it but lost it. Chironi hid the Golden Fleece in an oak tree before they sailed back home. Before Chironi dies, he explains that the mystery of the king’s death can be solved by reading an inscription written in the Golden Fleece. The dying Chironi entrusts Jason (Fabrizio Mioni of “"Roland the Mighty") to Hercules’ care. During their journey back to the palace, Hercules and Jason encounter a woman trying to cross a river with her three daughters. She doesn’t want them to get wet and she entreats our heroes to help her. While Jason is helping two daughters across the river, he loses a sandal. Hercules remembers that a man with one sandal will take Pelias’ kingdom away from him. Jason treats the loss of the sandal as no big deal.

Pelias gives Hercules three months to bring back the Golden Fleece to prove that Jason is the rightful heir to the throne. Ulysses (Gabriele Antonini of “"Head of a Tyrant") and his father Laertes (Andrea Fantasia of “War and Peace”), the shipbuilder Argos (Aldo Fiorelli of "The Barbarians"), the twins Castor (Fulvio Carrara of “"Hercules Unchained") and Pollux (Willi Colombini of "Odessa in Flames"), the lyre-strumming Orpheus (Gino Mattera of "Faust and the Devil"), the physician Aesculapius (Gian Paolo Rosmino of “Il fanciullo del West”) and others accompany Jason and Hercules on a long, rough sea voyage on the ship Argos. One of those others is the treacherous Eurysteus who is King Pelias’ spy and troublemaker. After a storm that frightens the men enough to prompt Eurysteus to lead a mutiny, our heroes land on an island of gorgeous Amazon women. Initially, the women are helpful to the starving sailors and allow them to replenish their store of supplies. Later, however, the women try to kill them with poisoned wine, but the men outsmart them. Eventually, our heroes make it to the island of Colchis and fight with a tribe of hairy ape-men. Meantime, Jason reclaims the Golden Fleece after an encounter with a dragon. Just as Chironi had told them, the answer to the mystery of the king’s death is revealed. When the Argos docks in Pelias killed his brother. Jason becomes the rightful ruler of Iolcus, Pelias’s henchman Eurysteus (Arturo Dominici of "Yvonne of the Night") snatches the Golden Fleece so that Jason has no evidence to present to the King. Pelias imprisons Hercules, but the strong man escapes after ripping the chains out of the wall meant to restrain him. Hercules wraps the chains around Eurysteus’ neck and kills him. Afterward, he stops Pelias' cavalry by looping the chains around the palace portico and bringing it down upon them like Samson did to the Philistines. The vanquished Pelias swallows poison and Jason wins the throne back. “Hercules” ends with Iole and he walking away arm in arm.

FILM REVIEW OF "BLAZING SADDLES" (1974)

"The Producers" director Mel Brooks took the traditional white Hollywood western down an entirely different trail with this audacious 93-minute slapstick horse opera. "Blazing Saddles" (**** out of ****) stands every convention and cliché in the corral on their respective heads and then gives the genre a boot in the butt. Were you to start watching this western satire and not realize that it was a crude, rude, lowbrow comedy with lots of one-liners, vaudeville routines, campy shticks, sight gags, dopey imitations and comic anachronisms, you might either be appalled or outraged by the intolerance toward African-Americans, minorities in general, and homosexuality. Indeed, when "Blazing Saddles" came out in 1974, during the heyday of blaxploitation cinema--you know "Shaft" and "Super Fly"--use of the derogatory epithet N-word still wasn't considered as politically insensitive as in our current multi-cultural society. Moreover, the epithet "faggot" was used, too.

Brooks has said that his lowest common denominator western spoof "truly broke ground, and it broke wind." Mind you, the administrative suits at the studios cringed at the racial degradations as well as the wind-breaking campfire scene where cowboy consume copious quantities of baked beans and break wind. One studio executive wanted Brooks to eliminate this scene and the scene where Alex Karras knocks the horse down, but Brooks refused. Initially, even Brooks had some misgivings about the campfire scene and approach studio executive John Calley who advised him to ‘ring the bell.’ The campfire scene didn’t alienate audiences, and "Blazing Saddles" emerged as one of the top cinematic box office hits of 1974. Basically, a quintet of scribes, including Brooks and future comic superstar Richard Pryor, appropriate the empire building plot about the evil railroad out to destroy a town in its way. The railroad runs into quicksand and their nefarious boss Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman of “The April Fools”) decides to destroy the town of Rock Ridge to obtain the right-of-way without paying a dime. Hedley dreams up a surefire scheme, “If I could find a sheriff who so offends the citizens of Rock Ridge that his very appearance would drive them out of town.” He persuades the incredulous Governor William J. Lepetomane (Mel Brooks) to appoint an African-American railroad laborer Bart (Cleavon Little of “Vanishing Point”) as an all white town’s new sheriff. Brooks and company couldn’t have made this oater at a better time!

One of the railway laborers, Bart, gets into trouble when Taggart (Slim Pickens of “Dr. Strangelove”) dispatches him and his friend Charlie (Charles McGregor of “Super Fly”) to take a hand car down the line to investigate the presence of quicksand. Indeed, the rails have been laid in quicksand because Bart and his friend sink into the stuff. The railroad foreman pulls the hand car out of the quicksand and leaves Bart and his buddy to die. Bart climbs out of the quagmire and wraps a shovel around Taggart’s head. This insolence lands Bart in jail with a date for the executioner, until Hedley decides that he has a better use for him. Indeed, Hedley realizes that he is breaking the fourth wall and addressing the audience when he comes up with his scheme. “Why am I asking you?” He turns away from the camera and heads off to see Governor Lepetomane. As upset as Lepetomane is about Bart becoming the new sheriff of Rock Ridge, Hedley spins the situation so that it appeals to the governor. “Yes,” he assures Lepetomane about the egalitarian message it will send to one and all about his liberality, “the first man ever to appoint a black sheriff.” Of course, Lepetomane believes that he can only reap the worst of a bad situation. Hedley struggles to convince him that Lepetomane will win a place in history alongside Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln with his appointment of Bart as the Rock Ridge lawman.

A pimped-out looking Bart dressed in a leather outfit rides a horse with Gucci saddle bags. He rides by Count Basie and his orchestra on the plains as he heads to Rock Ridge. Meanwhile, the dutiful citizens of Rock Ridge have prepared a reception for the arrival of their new sheriff. No, they do not know that he is black. Gabby Johnson (Jack Starrett of “Kid Blue”), a send-up of perennial western character actor Gabby Hayes, spots Bart riding into town and tries to warn his fellow citizens that Bart is an African-American. A bell cuts Gabby off every time that he says the N-word, and everybody believes Gabby is saying, “The sheriff is near.” The townspeople are appalled when they see Bart. Bart ascends the platform and states, “By the power invested in me by the honorable William J. Lepetomane, I hereby assume the duties of the office of sheriff in and for the township of Rock Ridge.” Not surprisingly, everybody pulls a gun on Bart and Bart imitates them by pulling his own gun on himself. The whites put down this revolvers and Bart admires his talent. Later, at a town meeting, the citizens complain about Bart. Harriett Johnson (Carol Arthur of “Making It”) sums up the sentiments of everybody, “The white, God-fearing citizens of Rock Ridge wish to express our extreme displeasure with your choice of sheriff. Please remove him immediately!”

Indeed, the only friend that Bart has in Rock Ridge is a prisoner hanging upside down his jail cell. Jim (Gene Wilder of “Bonnie and Clyde”) surprises Bart when he identifies himself as ‘the Waco Kid.’ “He had the fastest hands in the west,” an incredulous Bart observes. Jim adds, “. . . the world.” Jim demonstrates his swift hands when he grabs a chess piece off the board before Bart can snatch it. “Well, it got so that every piss-ant prairie punk who thought he could shoot a gun would ride into town to try out the Waco Kid. I must have killed more men than Cecil B. DeMille. It got pretty gritty. I started to hear the word "draw" in my sleep. Then one day, I was just walking down the street when I heard a voice behind me say, "Reach for it, mister!" I spun around... and there I was, face-to-face with a six-year old kid. Well, I just threw my guns down and walked away. Little bastard shot me in the ass. So I limped to the nearest saloon, crawled inside a whiskey bottle, and I've been there ever since.” Jim gazes at Bart and inquires, “What’s a dazzling urbanite like you doing in a rustic setting like this?” Bart explains that his family came west as part of a wagon train. They encountered a Jewish Indian chief (Mel Brooks) and the Native Americans allowed them to settle because they were darker.

Taggart suggests that Hedley send Mongo (Alex Karras) to Rock Ridge to kill Sheriff Bart. Mongo rides into Rock Ridge on a bull, but he doesn’t stay out of jail long. “You can’t shoot him,” Jim warns Bart. “You’ll only make him mad.” Bart dresses up like a delivery boy and hands Mongo a candy gram that blows up in the big guy’s face. The next time that we see Mongo, he is tried up to the barred doors of the jail cell. Miraculously, Bart’s sneaky way of trapping Mongo impresses the strong man so much that he becomes Bart’s friend. Mongo points out that Bart is the only man who has ever whipped him. Eventually, Bart and Jim learn the truth about Hedley Lamarr and the railroad when they question Mongo. All Mongo will admit is that he is “only pawn in the game of life.” Meantime, Hedley decides to send in the voluptuous Lili Von Shtupp (Madeline Kahn of “High Anxiety”) to seduce Bart and lead him to his demise. Lili is the epitome of the female vamp. She invites Bart back stage to visit her in her dressing room after her big number. She sidles up to Bart and inquires if it is true what they say about African-American men. The next morning finds Lili fallen under Bart’s spell. She cannot live without him and behaves hysterically when he leaves. “What a nice guy,” she oozes. Hedley has one last idea. He tells Taggart: “I want rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists.” Our heroes—Bart and Jim—knock out a couple of Ku Klux Klanners and masquerade as them.

Just when everything seems lost, Bart proposes a plan to save Rock Ridge. When the townspeople refuse to listen to him, he observes, “You’d do it for Randolph Scott.” They let Bart speak and Bart’s plan is to build a replica of Rock Ridge that Taggart and his army of desperados can burn down. This is exactly what the townspeople and the railroad workers get together and construct. They build a false-fronted town like Rock Ridge. Jim and Bart slow down the approach gunmen by setting up a toll booth. When Taggart and his men storm into the fake Rock Ridge, they are almost fooled until Taggart kicks down a building that turns out to be a false front. A huge donnybrook erupts in town and suddenly Brooks drops any pretense to realism and we find ourselves on the Warner Brothers backlot. Hedley tries to escape from Bart and Jim and momentarily takes refuge in a movie theater. At the same time, the fight on the western set spills over to another set when Buddy Bizarre (Dom DeLuise of “The End”) is having trouble orchestrating a huge dance number with men dressed up in top hats and tails. The cowboys and the homosexuals tie into each other with hilarious results. Eventually, Bart tracks down Hedley in modern day Hollywood and guns the chief villain dead. Sheriff Bart bids everybody farewell, “Keep the faith, brothers,” and rides off with Jim. They pause at one point and dismount to climb into an El Dorado Cadillac and cruise away.

Incongruity generates the best comedy and Brooks directs “Blazing Saddles” like a profane situation comedy. The idea of a black sheriff sent to save a white western town is a stroke of genius. The Waco Kid is a parody of every reformed gunfighter and the joke is that he is so fast that you never see his guns leave his holsters. Gene Wilder is a revelation as Waco. The biggest surprise occurs near the end when a fleeing Hedley winds up on the set of a movie musical with queer guys galore struggling to perform a dance number. Alex Karras is hilarious as Mongo, a thug who knocks a horse down with his fist.