“Six-Gun Music” director Nate Watt’s mediocre drugsploitation melodrama “Fiend of Dope Island” (** out of ****) amounts to little more than a tawdry, lowbrow, B-movie thriller toplining ex-“Tarzan” thespian Bruce Bennett and former Miss Yugoslavia Tania Velia. Mind you, “Fiend of Dope Island” lives up to its bizarre title. The protagonist is the eponymous fiend, and he believes that he is invincible. One sympathetic character notes in regard to Charlie that “there is a thin line between human and beast.” At another one, the same character observes in reference to Charlie: “If this guy is human, nature made a terrible boo-boo.” Just as there is a beast in “Fiend of Dope Island,” there is also a beauty. Miss Yugoslavia looks very sexy shaking goodies on the dance floor, especially when she undulates in a cute little black outfit. Late in the last quarter-hour, she appears nude from the waist up briefly when she emerges from the water with her breasts bared. No, “Fiend of Dope Island” doesn’t qualify as a ‘so-bad-it’s-good’ movie because Watt helms it with some competence. Primarily, it constitutes a portrait of a lunatic who has jettisoned his sense of morality in an island climate where he lets his desires run rampant.
Basically, “Fiend” concerns a sleazy, sadistic landowner, Charlie Davis (Bruce Bennett of “Tarzan and the Green Goddess”), who has been ruling over an anonymous Caribbean island like an maniacal autocrat for five years. Charlie suffers from an acute anger management affliction. He relies on a bullwhip as his weapon of choice, and he loves to display his wizardry with its coils. If lashing harmless natives into submission with a bullwhip weren’t odious enough, Charlie grows not only marijuana, but he also participates in an arms smuggling racket. Predictably, Charlie is nobody’s friend, and the locals loathe his antics. As the film unfolds, he bullwhips a poor native without mercy. “Look,” he summarizes his philosophy, “nobody touches nothing on this island unless I say so. Everything here belongs to me. You got to understand that.” Charlie treats everybody like slaves. Charlie’s right hand man, David (Robert Bray of “A Gathering of Eagles”), supervises the laborers. Charlie tries to spice up his mundane existence by importing a dancer, Glory La Verne (Tania Velia of “Queen of Outer Space”), to perform for him. Glory took $500 from Charlie up front. No sooner has she arrived at the island than Glory finds fault with her surroundings. Moreover, she hates Charlie for luring her to the island under the false pretense that she would perform for a hundred of the most important individuals in America and Europe. Charlie tries to ameliorate Glory’s feelings by offering her cigarettes laced with marijuana, but she refuses to smoke them.
Eventually, David organizes the opposition against Charlie. First, he blows up an arms supply of mortars, machine guns, and rifles. Second, he disarms all of Charlie’s henchmen and turns the firearms over to the oppressed island natives. David and the natives keep Charlie holed up in his cantina. When he tries to venture outside, they shoot at him and drive him back inside the cantina. Later, their evil adversary strikes at David’s relief crew who were warned not to fall asleep. Charlie strangles one with a bullwhip and takes his rifle. Meanwhile, David explains to the doctor that Charlie is involved in something bigger than even he realizes. David elaborates that there are twenty other small islands like Charlie’s island where guns, ammunition, and explosives are being stockpiled. Remember, the Caribbean was a powder keg during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Consequently, scenarists Mark Carabel and Bruce Bennett appropriated the volatile attitude that surrounded the Caribbean with all the uprisings that occurred in that part of the world during the Cold War. Essentially, Charlie is a low-grade “Dr. No” type. Towards the end, Glory and David fall in love. A jealous Charlie sneaks up on in the jungle as they hold each other in their arms. He lashes out with his bullwhip, coils it around the defenseless couple, and forces them to dance while he discharges a high-powered rifle at their feet. By this point, Charlie has gone completely insane. David manages to remove the whip and the two men engage in close-quarters combat while Glory flees in terror.
Glory rushes back to the village and alerts them that Charlie is loose and trying to kill David. She sends out a native boy, Naru (Ralph A. Rodriguez of “Nightforce”), and he seizes Charlie’s whip when the villain has the hero in his clutches. Earlier, Naru was shown practicing with a fake whip. Now, Naru goes to work on Charlie with the whip, and Watt and editor James Gaffney cross-cut between Naru lashing Charlie to images of lightning crackling against the night skies and waves angrily crashing on the beach. This generates a modicum of suspense and terror. Our heroes subdue Charlie. When his accomplice, Captain Fred (Miguel Ángel Álvarez of “Counterplot”), arrives at the island the next day. Our heroes try to hand Charlie over to him. Captain Fred’s men brandish firearms, and David and Charlie fall into the water and tangle. Naru and others overpower disarm Captain Fred, but the latter escapes while Charlie and David thrash about in the water. Sharks cruise into the waters where they are fighting each other. The sharks look like they were lifted from a documentary, but these shots serve their purpose. David escapes their lethal jaws, but Charlie fares less fortunate in the end.
The biggest surprise in this gritty, 76-minute, black & white epic is the revelation in the last minute during an expository scene between two supporting characters that David holds the rank of Inspector with the Bureau of Narcotics. The performances are adequate, with former Warner Brothers’ contract player Bruce Bennett chewing the scenery a little when he isn’t doing his Lash La Rue imitation. Robert Bray is appropriately restrained as the taciturn hero. “Fiend of Dope Island” ends with Glory and David in each other’s arms on the beach as the natives sing the Ken Darby song "Forever Hold Me" that opened the picture.
CINEMATIC REVELATIONS allows me the luxury of writing, editing and archiving my film and television reviews. Some reviews appeared initially in "The Commercial Dispatch" and "The Planet Weekly" and then later in the comment archives at the Internet Movie Database. IMDB.COM, however, imposes a limit on both the number of words and the number of times that an author may revise their comments. I hope that anybody who peruses these expanded reviews will find them useful.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
FILM REVIEW OF "THE TEXANS" (1938)
Although "The Texans" (*** out of ****) beat Howard Hawks' "Red River" to the draw by at least a decade, "Arizona Raiders" director James P. Hogan's 92-minute, black & white saga about the first cattle drive to Abilene lacks both the cinematic polish and the passion of the Hawks' classic. Nevertheless, this above-average but predictable oater boasts a solid cast, sympathetic characters, several surprises, and some factual history. Reconstruction did take place in Texas and throughout the South, but historians differ on whether it constituted a scourge on the land. Traditionally, Reconstruction has been interpreted as merciless payback for the South. The bristling frontier action unfolds after the end of the American Civil War as Reconstruction becomes the order of the day in Texas, and the carpetbaggers haul their freight into the state to tax the poor citizens into poverty. Some of these scenes foreshadow the John Wayne & Rock Hudson western "The Undefeated" about Southerners heading to Mexico. The economic conditions are so dire that nobody has any money to buy anything, and the avaricious carpetbaggers are stripping citizens of the land because they have no money to pay taxes. Randolph Scott makes an appropriately stalwart hero who fears neither nobody nor nothing. He is a former Confederate private who has endured his trials and tribulations, while Joan Bennett is every inch the heroine but rather narrow-minded in her attitude. Not only did she support the Confederacy during the war, but she also is prepared to support any hopeless effort to resurrect the Confederacy with the use of foreign troops under the command of the Mexican emperor Maximilian. Bennett has fallen in love with an idealist Confederate captain who epitomizes the South's refusal to grovel in any set of circumstances. Moreover, our heroine wants nothing to do with the scheming carpetbaggers. Indeed, she wants nothing to do with America and prefers to throw all her support to the Austrian monarch. Scott detests this crazy scheme. According to our heroine, the French and Austrian troops along with Joe Shelby's Southern cavalry will join forces. "We'll fight for him (Maximilian), and he'll fight for us. He'll cross the Rio Grande, and the whole South will rally around him."
Meanwhile, Texans suffer grievously under Reconstruction. The Scott character is the only individual who isn't reluctant to forget about the war and embark on a new life. At one point, the Scott hero states that he knew some good Yankees during the war and has decided to let bygones be bygones. The theme of change and how these former Confederates struggle to change with the times lies at the heart of action. When they aren't herding cattle, contending with carpetbaggers, and battling Comanche Indians, Scott and Bennett are battling with each other. As a carpetbagger who isn't easily dispensed with until he meets his match, Robert Barrat plays greedy Isaiah Middlebrack. He pursues the Confederates when they smuggles guns into the region and later goes after them with a troop of U.S. Cavalry when they try to take ten-thousand cattle to Mexico. "Ebb Tide" scenarists Bertram Millhauser, "Geronimo" scribe Paul Sloane, and "Black Legion" writer William Wiser Haines adapted author Emerson Hough's novel "North of '36." Mind you, these characters are every bit as desperate as John Wayne and company were in "Red River," but Scott doesn't have somebody like Montgomery Cliff to contend with and a secondary character dispatches the chief villain before Scott can finish him.
"The Texans" opens at a river landing in Indianola, Texas, in 1865, where paddler wheelers are unloading cargo and supplies. The defeated Confederate soldiers are informed that they are still classified as the enemy until they shed their southern uniforms. In fact, the Union authorities refuse to let the men in gray pass the toll gate until they change clothing. Meanwhile, Ivy Preston (Joan Bennett of "The Woman in the Window") is driving a wagon laden with boxes of farm implements when a Union sergeant halts her so he can inspect her cargo. Kirk Jordan (Randolph Scott of "The Last of the Mohicans") spots the cargo and knows that the boxes contain weapons instead of tools. He helps Ivy get out of town before the Union authorities can poke around in those boxes. While Ivy delivers the weapons to Confederate Captain Alan Sanford (Robert Cummings of "Saboteur"), Kirk has to fork over ten acres of land to buy an ill-fitting suit of clothes. Ivy returns to Indianola to pick up her grandmother, Granna (May Robson of "Bringing Up Baby"), and Granna's ranch foreman Chuckawalla (Walter Brennan of "Red River"), so they can all return to their sprawling ranch Boca Grande on the border.
Everybody else seems pretty tame until these two show up, and Robson and Brennan steal the show. Brennan's character is intrigued with locomotives because he has never seen a train and wonders where they put the engines after dark. Granna is a headstrong woman with pioneering blood who refuses to buckle under any adversary. The two characters provide most of the comic relief in "The Texans," but the comedy doesn't overwhelm the drama. Kirk has to save Ivy's bacon again when the Union authorities, principally Middlebrack (Robert Barrat of "Baby Face"), arrests her and questions her not only about the stolen firearms but also a renegade Confederate officer Sanford. Granna has no use for Middlebrack. "There wouldn't be no enemy if there were scum of the earth like you. You with your plundering, murderous reconstruction." A riot enables our hero and heroine to escape from Indianola, and they ride back to Ivy's Boca Grande Ranch. The Preston women own ten-thousand cattle, and Ivy wants to drive the herd to Mexico to feed Southern troops working with Maximilian. Things, however, don't work out for Sanford. He eludes death in Mexico only to find himself back in Texas where the authorities want him for treason. Ivy upsets Kirk to no end when she announces that Sanford and she are engaged to be married.
The scheming Middlebrack decides to let bygones be bygones with regard to the stolen rifles. Nevertheless, he saddles up with a detachment of Union cavalry and rides out to Boca Grande. He informs the Prestons about the new head tax on cattle at a dollar per steer. While they are plying Middlebrack with liquor and food, Ivy strums a guitar and sings a coded song to Granna about taking the cattle away. Middlebrack plans to count the steers the following morning, but Granna drinks him under the table, and Kirk leads the herd out. Initially, Ivy still wants to head the herd south for Mexico, but Kirk persuades her to turn north to Abilene. "The North's been short of beef ever since the war. They'll pay $15 to $20 a head for steers," he tells Chuckawalla and Granna. Kirk adds that this new market for cattle will mean a brighter future for Texas. Reluctantly, Ivy gives in to Kirk. Middlebrack wastes no time when he recovers and chases them. The Union officer with Middlebrack, Lt. David Nichols (Harvey Stephens of "Baby Face Harrington") doesn't like the way that the civilian official is treating the former Confederates. Ironically enough, Nichols and his cavalry ride to the rescue when the Comanches try to destroy the Southerners and steal their cattle. The irony here is interesting. Our heroes and heroine are saved but at the cost of being disarms and put under arrest. Middlebrack dies during an Indian attack when Kirk's cohort, Cal Tuttle (Raymond Hatton of "Undersea Kingdom"), kills him with his tomahawk. Of course, we don't see Middlebrack bit the dust. Not only does this diminish the statue of his villain, but also it undercuts "The Texans." Ironically, when our heroes arrive in Abilene, they find the citizens wearing long faces because the Kansas Pacific Railroad plans to halt construction of the railroad. Cane-toting Kansas Pacific Railroad President Jessup (William B. Davidson of "Each Dawn I Die")announces,"This country of Kansas remains unsettled and unproductive. We find it no longer possible to feed the army of workmen necessary to extend our lines across the plains and over the mountains to California." Interestingly, among the crowd of on-lookers is a wagon filled with well-dressed ladies. The lady who drives the wagon tells the women that they will have to return to St. Louis. It is amazing that the Production Code Administration allowed the filmmakers to keep this scene when it is entirely obvious that these girls are prostitutes. Kirk turns a crisis into a celebration when he offers to sell ten-thousand cattle. Of course, Kirk wants to make Ivy his wife, but Sanford hasn't given up on retaliating against the Yankees. Nevertheless, Ivy has had enough of his pipe dreams to last her a life-time. He struggles to convince her that the new organization that he has joined with help drive the Yankees out of Texas. The organization is the KKK and they plan to make midnight rides in hooded robes to run out the Northerners. Ivy thinks that this mob justice is not fitting for the South.
Altogether, "The Texans" is a good little western.
Meanwhile, Texans suffer grievously under Reconstruction. The Scott character is the only individual who isn't reluctant to forget about the war and embark on a new life. At one point, the Scott hero states that he knew some good Yankees during the war and has decided to let bygones be bygones. The theme of change and how these former Confederates struggle to change with the times lies at the heart of action. When they aren't herding cattle, contending with carpetbaggers, and battling Comanche Indians, Scott and Bennett are battling with each other. As a carpetbagger who isn't easily dispensed with until he meets his match, Robert Barrat plays greedy Isaiah Middlebrack. He pursues the Confederates when they smuggles guns into the region and later goes after them with a troop of U.S. Cavalry when they try to take ten-thousand cattle to Mexico. "Ebb Tide" scenarists Bertram Millhauser, "Geronimo" scribe Paul Sloane, and "Black Legion" writer William Wiser Haines adapted author Emerson Hough's novel "North of '36." Mind you, these characters are every bit as desperate as John Wayne and company were in "Red River," but Scott doesn't have somebody like Montgomery Cliff to contend with and a secondary character dispatches the chief villain before Scott can finish him.
"The Texans" opens at a river landing in Indianola, Texas, in 1865, where paddler wheelers are unloading cargo and supplies. The defeated Confederate soldiers are informed that they are still classified as the enemy until they shed their southern uniforms. In fact, the Union authorities refuse to let the men in gray pass the toll gate until they change clothing. Meanwhile, Ivy Preston (Joan Bennett of "The Woman in the Window") is driving a wagon laden with boxes of farm implements when a Union sergeant halts her so he can inspect her cargo. Kirk Jordan (Randolph Scott of "The Last of the Mohicans") spots the cargo and knows that the boxes contain weapons instead of tools. He helps Ivy get out of town before the Union authorities can poke around in those boxes. While Ivy delivers the weapons to Confederate Captain Alan Sanford (Robert Cummings of "Saboteur"), Kirk has to fork over ten acres of land to buy an ill-fitting suit of clothes. Ivy returns to Indianola to pick up her grandmother, Granna (May Robson of "Bringing Up Baby"), and Granna's ranch foreman Chuckawalla (Walter Brennan of "Red River"), so they can all return to their sprawling ranch Boca Grande on the border.
Everybody else seems pretty tame until these two show up, and Robson and Brennan steal the show. Brennan's character is intrigued with locomotives because he has never seen a train and wonders where they put the engines after dark. Granna is a headstrong woman with pioneering blood who refuses to buckle under any adversary. The two characters provide most of the comic relief in "The Texans," but the comedy doesn't overwhelm the drama. Kirk has to save Ivy's bacon again when the Union authorities, principally Middlebrack (Robert Barrat of "Baby Face"), arrests her and questions her not only about the stolen firearms but also a renegade Confederate officer Sanford. Granna has no use for Middlebrack. "There wouldn't be no enemy if there were scum of the earth like you. You with your plundering, murderous reconstruction." A riot enables our hero and heroine to escape from Indianola, and they ride back to Ivy's Boca Grande Ranch. The Preston women own ten-thousand cattle, and Ivy wants to drive the herd to Mexico to feed Southern troops working with Maximilian. Things, however, don't work out for Sanford. He eludes death in Mexico only to find himself back in Texas where the authorities want him for treason. Ivy upsets Kirk to no end when she announces that Sanford and she are engaged to be married.
The scheming Middlebrack decides to let bygones be bygones with regard to the stolen rifles. Nevertheless, he saddles up with a detachment of Union cavalry and rides out to Boca Grande. He informs the Prestons about the new head tax on cattle at a dollar per steer. While they are plying Middlebrack with liquor and food, Ivy strums a guitar and sings a coded song to Granna about taking the cattle away. Middlebrack plans to count the steers the following morning, but Granna drinks him under the table, and Kirk leads the herd out. Initially, Ivy still wants to head the herd south for Mexico, but Kirk persuades her to turn north to Abilene. "The North's been short of beef ever since the war. They'll pay $15 to $20 a head for steers," he tells Chuckawalla and Granna. Kirk adds that this new market for cattle will mean a brighter future for Texas. Reluctantly, Ivy gives in to Kirk. Middlebrack wastes no time when he recovers and chases them. The Union officer with Middlebrack, Lt. David Nichols (Harvey Stephens of "Baby Face Harrington") doesn't like the way that the civilian official is treating the former Confederates. Ironically enough, Nichols and his cavalry ride to the rescue when the Comanches try to destroy the Southerners and steal their cattle. The irony here is interesting. Our heroes and heroine are saved but at the cost of being disarms and put under arrest. Middlebrack dies during an Indian attack when Kirk's cohort, Cal Tuttle (Raymond Hatton of "Undersea Kingdom"), kills him with his tomahawk. Of course, we don't see Middlebrack bit the dust. Not only does this diminish the statue of his villain, but also it undercuts "The Texans." Ironically, when our heroes arrive in Abilene, they find the citizens wearing long faces because the Kansas Pacific Railroad plans to halt construction of the railroad. Cane-toting Kansas Pacific Railroad President Jessup (William B. Davidson of "Each Dawn I Die")announces,"This country of Kansas remains unsettled and unproductive. We find it no longer possible to feed the army of workmen necessary to extend our lines across the plains and over the mountains to California." Interestingly, among the crowd of on-lookers is a wagon filled with well-dressed ladies. The lady who drives the wagon tells the women that they will have to return to St. Louis. It is amazing that the Production Code Administration allowed the filmmakers to keep this scene when it is entirely obvious that these girls are prostitutes. Kirk turns a crisis into a celebration when he offers to sell ten-thousand cattle. Of course, Kirk wants to make Ivy his wife, but Sanford hasn't given up on retaliating against the Yankees. Nevertheless, Ivy has had enough of his pipe dreams to last her a life-time. He struggles to convince her that the new organization that he has joined with help drive the Yankees out of Texas. The organization is the KKK and they plan to make midnight rides in hooded robes to run out the Northerners. Ivy thinks that this mob justice is not fitting for the South.
Altogether, "The Texans" is a good little western.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
FILM REVIEW OF "SCARFACE" (1983)
Brian De Palma's contribution to modern crime movies, "Scarface" (**** out of ****), amounts to a splendid but extended remake of the 1932, black & white, Howard Hawks classic that starred Paul Muni and George Raft. In this lavish remake, Al Pacino of "The Godfather" trilogy plays the eponymous criminal as a Cuban refugee. He entered America by sea when Castro emptied his jails and asylums in May 1980 as part of the infamous Mariel boatlift. Some 125-thousand refugees fled Cuba, and about 25-thousand had criminal records. This extremely profane but engrossing drama depicts how the protagonist made it to the zenith of the crime world. When Universal Pictures produced this movie in 1983, they had no idea about either the controversy that would erupt during the south Florida lensing or the ultimate cult status that this corrosive, anti-narcotics, tragedy would generate, particularly with African-Americans. Eventually, the film aroused so much ill feeling that Universal had to complete the shooting in California. De Palma and scenarist Oliver Stone took one of the three greatest crime movies of the early 20th century and changed it more than either Hawks or his own scenarist Ben Hecht might have imagined. The original "Scarface" clocked in at a lean 94 minutes, while the "Scarface" remake stretches out to an indulgent 170 minutes. Nevertheless, DePalma and Stone have exploited a historical event to make their gangsters reminiscent of the immigrant gangsters during the era of the first "Scarface" movie. Indeed, at one point, Tony Montana explains to customs officials that he learned English because his American father took him to see Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney movies. He tells them that he worked in construction in Cuba, but they don't believe him and the pitchfork tattoo on Tony's hand makes him suspicious of him. They think that the tattoo is an assassin's tattoo. Considering that the film runs just shy of three hours, the filmmakers do a good job of balancing the violent empire building scenes with Tony's domestic life with his mother, sister, and later his wife. "Midnight Express" composer Giorgio Moroder's disco soundtrack ranks as one of the classics. Moroder does a superb job with the night club scenes and his moody music in the dramatic scenes is just as good. Lenser John A. Alonzo's widescreen color photography is elegant and his cameras have a way of roaming through a scene, especially before the shoot-out in the Babylon Club. DePalma likes to cross cut between different scenes, such as at the Babylon Club where Tony is about to be shot at to the interior of the car with his young sister Gina and his partner Manny as they drive away and discuss her brother. The best filmmakers cross-cut between scenes so as to break up the action, relieve boredom and deliver the plot piecemeal with the fewest complications.
Our underdog protagonist rises from the streets literally after he performs a murder at Freedomtown. Immigration officials have confined all the Cuban refugees, including Tony and his compadres, to a fenced in enclosure under a Florida freeway. Manny finds a way of out Freedomtown. Our protagonist kills a former confidante of Castro, Emilio Rebenga (Roberto Contreras of "Black Samurai"), for Miami drug dealer Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia of "Prizzi's Honor") because Rebenga tortured his brother in a Cuba prison. Tony and his compadres orchestrate the murder as a part of a riot on August 11, 1980, and they stalk Rebenga chanting the word "Libertad!" As a result of this murder, Lopez provides Tony Montana and his closest pal Manny (Steven Bauer of "Raising Cain") as well as some others with green cards. They start out as lowly dishwashers at a food stand called the El Paraiso. Nevertheless, it doesn't take them long to put on their suits and ties and then they never look back. Indeed, Lopez henchman Omar Suarez (F. Murray Abraham of "Amadeus") offers Tony and Manny $500 to unload a marijuana boat. Tony thinks the deal stinks because he has heard that the going price for unloading a boat was $1000. Omar winds up offering them a bigger paycheck. If they can pick up two keys of cocaine from a gang of Colombians arriving in Miami on Friday, Tony and Manny stand to earn $5000. Tony and Manny along with a couple of their Cuban buddies cruise over to the Sun Ray Motel and life is never the same after Tony enters the room. Everything looks okay. A man and a woman occupy the room and the movie "Earthquake" (1974) is playing on the television. The Colombian chieftain, Hector (Al Israel of "The Soldier"), tries to play a cat and mouse game with Tony. Things change drastically when Hector demands to know the whereabouts of Tony's money. Actually, Tony stashed the dough in the trunk of their convertible outside on the street with Manny and company. The Colombians seize Tony's back-up man Angel Fernandez (Pepe Serna of "American Me")at the door when Manny isn't watching, and Hector cuts him up with the chainsaw. Eventually, Manny shoots his way into the motel room with a machine gun in his fists blasting away at everybody in sight. He takes out the woman Marta (one-time only actress Barbra Perez), stitching her across the chest with flying lead. During the shoot-out, one of the Colombians that Manny thought that he had killed shoots him in the right side. The evil Hector who wielded the chainsaw flees in terror, but Tony chases him down in the middle of the street. In front of everybody, Tony perforates Hector's forehead with a bullet. Not only does Tony bring Lopez the coke but also the money.
Lopez takes an immediate liking to Tony. "Hey, I need a guy with steel in his balls. A guy like you. And I need him around me all the time," Lopez says. Meanwhile, Tony sets his sights on Lopez's slinky but gorgeous squeeze, Elvira Hancock (Michelle Pfeiffer of "The Hollywood Knights"), but she seems more intent on snorting cocaine. Incidentally, Tony learns her last name on the dance floor and that she hails from Baltimore, Maryland. Anyway, Lopez assures Tony that if he flies straight with him that he will enjoy a long, happy life. He tells him that the biggest problem that Tony will face is what to do with all the stinking money. Lopez's words ring true but at a grim price.
Lopez sends Omar and Tony to Cochoabamba, Bolivia, to talk with a major druglord Alejandro Sosa (Paul Shenar of "The End of August") about cocaine. During their negotiations, Sosa smells a rat and has Omar taken up in a helicopter and thrown out with a noose around his throat. According to Sosa, Omar had served as a police informant several years ago and his information about Vito Duval and the Ramos Brothers--Nello and Gino--netted them both life sentences. Tony watches as Omar wiggles at the end of the rope. Predictably, Lopez is furious when Tony comes back with Omar and has a deal of a lifetime for Lopez that the crime kingpin cannot afford to buy. Tony assures Lopez that he can make up any difference in the lack of money by going out and hitting the streets. When Lopez argues that the Diaz brothers won't take kindly to Tony's ambitious movie, Tony erupts in a rage at Lopez. He is prepared to kill anybody that gets in his way. "Remember I told youwhen you started, the guys who last in this business are the guys who fly straight, low-key, quiet," Lopez reminds Tony. "And the guys who who want it all--chicas, champagne, flash--they don't last." Lopez is all but telegraphing his next move.
Meantime, Tony makes two new discoveries that heighten the tension in his life. He enters the Bablyon Club and spots his younger sister Gina (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio of "The Perfect Storm")dancing with a thug. Tony goes ballistic with controlled rage and Moroder's music reflects this attitude change on the soundtrack. No sooner has Tony seen this than he finds himself talking to a cop. The cop mentions the Rebenga killing and the slaughter at the Sun Ray Motel to get Tony's attention. Corrupt detective MeL Bernstein (Harris Yulin of "Doc")informs Tony that Thony is no longer a small-time punk. "You're public property now. Supreme Court says your privacy can be invaded." Mel makes Tony a steep monthly offer. The offer includes the cops letting Tony know who is moving against him and shaking down anybody that Tony wants shaken done." Not-surprisingly, Lopez puts a contract out on Tony and two killers try to mow him down at the Babylon Club. Tony and his men kill both Lopez and Tony takes Elvira as his wife. He buys an estate, sets up a real estate business, and lives large, installing a 24-hour security monitoring system at his home. Ironically, Tony's affection for children bring him down along with his ferocious coke habit. When the cartel finds itself in the spotlight because of an anti-narcotic activist, Sosa appeals to Tony to help them. Tony is facing a stretch in prison, but Sosa assures him that he will come out clean if he helps his non-English speaking killer, Alberto (Mark Margolis of "Eddie Macon's Run"), murder the activist with a car bomb. Tony betrays Sosa and kills Alberto when the man tries to blow up the activist's car with the man's wife and two children. As tough as Tony is, he lacks the stomach to kill innocent bystanders, perhaps his only redeeming factor and what sets him apart from his criminal conspirators. Predictably, Sosa strikes back with a gang of gunmen who descend on Tony's estate, slashing, gashing, shooting, and killing without a qualm. They hit Tony's place like Indians on a night raid. Ironically, none of the surveillance cameras are useful for our protagonist, though they keep up posted on where the villains are.
Tony has other problems by now. He cannot find Manny and his mother, Mama Montana (Miriam Colon of "One-Eyed Jacks"), has been calling ever since Tony left for New York City about Gina. Gina has vanished but Mama Montana knows where she is; she followed Gina to a palatial estate at 409 Citrus Drive. If Tony were not keyed up enough after the debacle in the Big Apple with Alberto, his brotherly rage asserts itself and he heads to the estate. Manny appears at the door and Gina looks down at her new husband and her brother from a balcony, but it is too late. Tony's rage explodes and he shoots Manny twice before he learns from Gina that they have been married and wanted to surprise Tony. Talk about a surprise that shatters somebody's life, Tony realizes what he has done and his staggered by killing his oldest friend. When his bodyguards drive Gina and he back to the house, Tony looks terrible.
The themes of trust, greed, betrayal and cocaine abuse permeate Oliver Stone's elaborate screenplay and he has written some memorable lines of dialogue. "Nothing exceeds like excess," Elvira observes as she snorts some coke. Stone, who later became a notable film director himself with "Platoon" and "JFK," wrote "Scarface" after he wrote "Conan the Barbarian" for director John Milius and before he wrote "Year of the Dragon" for director Michael Cimino. If you watch "Scarface" enough, you'll notice that the film contains a wealth of irony. The scene at Lopez Motors when Lopez begs Tony not to kill him is a perfect example. Tony doesn't kill Lopez, he has Manny knock him off. The film is not without its moments of humor--few and far between--as when Manny tries his tongue action on a bikini-clad Caucasian female. At one point, Tony puts on a woman's hat to make Elvira laugh at him. The performances are all excellent, especially Loggia. De Palma and Stone carefully groom their protagonist Tony Montana who seems like an okay but abrasive guy until he shows a genuinely nasty side of his personality that involves being a little more than protective of his younger sister Gina. Tony doesn't want anybody to lay a hand on his sister. Squeamish people should probably avoid this trigger-happy, shoot'em up saga, especially the rather gruesome chainsaw scene in the bathroom of a motel with the Colombian drug smugglers.The finale at the Scarface residence is terrific!
Our underdog protagonist rises from the streets literally after he performs a murder at Freedomtown. Immigration officials have confined all the Cuban refugees, including Tony and his compadres, to a fenced in enclosure under a Florida freeway. Manny finds a way of out Freedomtown. Our protagonist kills a former confidante of Castro, Emilio Rebenga (Roberto Contreras of "Black Samurai"), for Miami drug dealer Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia of "Prizzi's Honor") because Rebenga tortured his brother in a Cuba prison. Tony and his compadres orchestrate the murder as a part of a riot on August 11, 1980, and they stalk Rebenga chanting the word "Libertad!" As a result of this murder, Lopez provides Tony Montana and his closest pal Manny (Steven Bauer of "Raising Cain") as well as some others with green cards. They start out as lowly dishwashers at a food stand called the El Paraiso. Nevertheless, it doesn't take them long to put on their suits and ties and then they never look back. Indeed, Lopez henchman Omar Suarez (F. Murray Abraham of "Amadeus") offers Tony and Manny $500 to unload a marijuana boat. Tony thinks the deal stinks because he has heard that the going price for unloading a boat was $1000. Omar winds up offering them a bigger paycheck. If they can pick up two keys of cocaine from a gang of Colombians arriving in Miami on Friday, Tony and Manny stand to earn $5000. Tony and Manny along with a couple of their Cuban buddies cruise over to the Sun Ray Motel and life is never the same after Tony enters the room. Everything looks okay. A man and a woman occupy the room and the movie "Earthquake" (1974) is playing on the television. The Colombian chieftain, Hector (Al Israel of "The Soldier"), tries to play a cat and mouse game with Tony. Things change drastically when Hector demands to know the whereabouts of Tony's money. Actually, Tony stashed the dough in the trunk of their convertible outside on the street with Manny and company. The Colombians seize Tony's back-up man Angel Fernandez (Pepe Serna of "American Me")at the door when Manny isn't watching, and Hector cuts him up with the chainsaw. Eventually, Manny shoots his way into the motel room with a machine gun in his fists blasting away at everybody in sight. He takes out the woman Marta (one-time only actress Barbra Perez), stitching her across the chest with flying lead. During the shoot-out, one of the Colombians that Manny thought that he had killed shoots him in the right side. The evil Hector who wielded the chainsaw flees in terror, but Tony chases him down in the middle of the street. In front of everybody, Tony perforates Hector's forehead with a bullet. Not only does Tony bring Lopez the coke but also the money.
Lopez takes an immediate liking to Tony. "Hey, I need a guy with steel in his balls. A guy like you. And I need him around me all the time," Lopez says. Meanwhile, Tony sets his sights on Lopez's slinky but gorgeous squeeze, Elvira Hancock (Michelle Pfeiffer of "The Hollywood Knights"), but she seems more intent on snorting cocaine. Incidentally, Tony learns her last name on the dance floor and that she hails from Baltimore, Maryland. Anyway, Lopez assures Tony that if he flies straight with him that he will enjoy a long, happy life. He tells him that the biggest problem that Tony will face is what to do with all the stinking money. Lopez's words ring true but at a grim price.
Lopez sends Omar and Tony to Cochoabamba, Bolivia, to talk with a major druglord Alejandro Sosa (Paul Shenar of "The End of August") about cocaine. During their negotiations, Sosa smells a rat and has Omar taken up in a helicopter and thrown out with a noose around his throat. According to Sosa, Omar had served as a police informant several years ago and his information about Vito Duval and the Ramos Brothers--Nello and Gino--netted them both life sentences. Tony watches as Omar wiggles at the end of the rope. Predictably, Lopez is furious when Tony comes back with Omar and has a deal of a lifetime for Lopez that the crime kingpin cannot afford to buy. Tony assures Lopez that he can make up any difference in the lack of money by going out and hitting the streets. When Lopez argues that the Diaz brothers won't take kindly to Tony's ambitious movie, Tony erupts in a rage at Lopez. He is prepared to kill anybody that gets in his way. "Remember I told youwhen you started, the guys who last in this business are the guys who fly straight, low-key, quiet," Lopez reminds Tony. "And the guys who who want it all--chicas, champagne, flash--they don't last." Lopez is all but telegraphing his next move.
Meantime, Tony makes two new discoveries that heighten the tension in his life. He enters the Bablyon Club and spots his younger sister Gina (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio of "The Perfect Storm")dancing with a thug. Tony goes ballistic with controlled rage and Moroder's music reflects this attitude change on the soundtrack. No sooner has Tony seen this than he finds himself talking to a cop. The cop mentions the Rebenga killing and the slaughter at the Sun Ray Motel to get Tony's attention. Corrupt detective MeL Bernstein (Harris Yulin of "Doc")informs Tony that Thony is no longer a small-time punk. "You're public property now. Supreme Court says your privacy can be invaded." Mel makes Tony a steep monthly offer. The offer includes the cops letting Tony know who is moving against him and shaking down anybody that Tony wants shaken done." Not-surprisingly, Lopez puts a contract out on Tony and two killers try to mow him down at the Babylon Club. Tony and his men kill both Lopez and Tony takes Elvira as his wife. He buys an estate, sets up a real estate business, and lives large, installing a 24-hour security monitoring system at his home. Ironically, Tony's affection for children bring him down along with his ferocious coke habit. When the cartel finds itself in the spotlight because of an anti-narcotic activist, Sosa appeals to Tony to help them. Tony is facing a stretch in prison, but Sosa assures him that he will come out clean if he helps his non-English speaking killer, Alberto (Mark Margolis of "Eddie Macon's Run"), murder the activist with a car bomb. Tony betrays Sosa and kills Alberto when the man tries to blow up the activist's car with the man's wife and two children. As tough as Tony is, he lacks the stomach to kill innocent bystanders, perhaps his only redeeming factor and what sets him apart from his criminal conspirators. Predictably, Sosa strikes back with a gang of gunmen who descend on Tony's estate, slashing, gashing, shooting, and killing without a qualm. They hit Tony's place like Indians on a night raid. Ironically, none of the surveillance cameras are useful for our protagonist, though they keep up posted on where the villains are.
Tony has other problems by now. He cannot find Manny and his mother, Mama Montana (Miriam Colon of "One-Eyed Jacks"), has been calling ever since Tony left for New York City about Gina. Gina has vanished but Mama Montana knows where she is; she followed Gina to a palatial estate at 409 Citrus Drive. If Tony were not keyed up enough after the debacle in the Big Apple with Alberto, his brotherly rage asserts itself and he heads to the estate. Manny appears at the door and Gina looks down at her new husband and her brother from a balcony, but it is too late. Tony's rage explodes and he shoots Manny twice before he learns from Gina that they have been married and wanted to surprise Tony. Talk about a surprise that shatters somebody's life, Tony realizes what he has done and his staggered by killing his oldest friend. When his bodyguards drive Gina and he back to the house, Tony looks terrible.
The themes of trust, greed, betrayal and cocaine abuse permeate Oliver Stone's elaborate screenplay and he has written some memorable lines of dialogue. "Nothing exceeds like excess," Elvira observes as she snorts some coke. Stone, who later became a notable film director himself with "Platoon" and "JFK," wrote "Scarface" after he wrote "Conan the Barbarian" for director John Milius and before he wrote "Year of the Dragon" for director Michael Cimino. If you watch "Scarface" enough, you'll notice that the film contains a wealth of irony. The scene at Lopez Motors when Lopez begs Tony not to kill him is a perfect example. Tony doesn't kill Lopez, he has Manny knock him off. The film is not without its moments of humor--few and far between--as when Manny tries his tongue action on a bikini-clad Caucasian female. At one point, Tony puts on a woman's hat to make Elvira laugh at him. The performances are all excellent, especially Loggia. De Palma and Stone carefully groom their protagonist Tony Montana who seems like an okay but abrasive guy until he shows a genuinely nasty side of his personality that involves being a little more than protective of his younger sister Gina. Tony doesn't want anybody to lay a hand on his sister. Squeamish people should probably avoid this trigger-happy, shoot'em up saga, especially the rather gruesome chainsaw scene in the bathroom of a motel with the Colombian drug smugglers.The finale at the Scarface residence is terrific!
Monday, June 14, 2010
FILM REVIEW OF "THE RETURN OF DRACULA" (1958)
No,"Square Dance Jubilee" director Paul Landres' "The Return of Dracula" (*** out ****) has nothing to do with either the Universal Pictures franchise or the Hammer Film series. Instead, United Artists distributed this Gramercy Pictures theatrical release, and "The Return of Dracula" qualifies as an imaginative but minor chiller on a low budget. Landres and scenarist Pat Fielder, who collaborated earlier on the lackluster movie "The Vampire," have taken liberties with the formulaic Bram Stoker story while channeling the Alfred Hitchcock serial killer thriller "Shadow of a Doubt" as an American family opens their doors to the infamous Count who is masquerading as their immigrant cousin. Surprisingly, the filmmakers do not acknowledge Stoker during the opening credits, though the name of Stoker’s memorable vampire is mentioned three times. Dracula rides in a contemporary train at one point and later crosses the Atlantic Ocean on a luxury liner. This is the kind of vampire movie where the undead one can freely enter any rooms without an invitation. Some vampire lore dictates that the vampire cannot enter a room without the permission of its host. One of the neatest things about this micro-budget effort is the use of dry ice inside the coffins when we gaze upon the vampires.
“The Return of Dracula” opens with the following narration as two cars cruise through the countryside in route to a cemetery: “It is a known fact that there existed in Central Europe a Count Dracula. Though human in appearance and cultured in manner, he was, in truth, a thing undead, a force of evil, a vampire feeding on the blood of innocent people, he turned them into his own kind, thus spreading his evil domination even wider. The attempts to find and destroy this evil were never proven completely successful. And so the search continues to this very day.” Like Bram Stoker’s novel, “The Return of Dracula” finds our undead protagonist looking for somewhere different to stalk his prey. Several men led by John Merriman (John Wengraf of “The Pride and the Passion”) climb out of the two cars, drape pedants with crosses at their throats, and enter Dracula’s tomb to kill him. Imagine their surprise when they find an empty coffin! The action shifts to a railway station as Bellac Gordal (Norbert Schiller of “Sign of the Pagan”) explains that living in the Balkans stifles his artistic freedom, so he bids his immediate family farewell to board a train to America. Bellac plans to stay with his cousin, Cora Mayberry (Greta Granstedt of “Nocturne”), and her family in Carleton, California. Fortunately for Dracula, Cora hasn’t laid eyes on her Bellac since he was a little boy. When Bellac enters his coach, the artist meets a mysterious gentleman perusing a Berlin newspaper. Not long after he puts his luggage in an upper berth, Bellac turns to the other passenger. A look of horror suffuses Bellac’s face the man assaults him. Director Paul Landres edits Bellac’s death scene so when Bellac screams, the action cuts to an exterior shot of the locomotive as its eldritch whistle pierces the night with a hair-raising shriek, the perfect visual and aural metaphor for Bellac’s terror. What makes this set-up so interesting is that Dracula later confides to Cora’s daughter Rachel (Norma Eberhardt of “Live Fast, Die Young”) that he left Central Europe because he felt that “My life has been confined. That’s why I came here . . . for freedom. I must have it.” These lines of dialogue make “The Return of Dracula” a Cold War era vampire chiller. Unmistakably, the Count is bailing out of the Balkans because of Communism.
Of course, the Mayberry family is anxious to welcome cousin Bellac and make him as comfortable as possible. Nobody is more excited to see her cousin than Rachel. Rachel wants to be an artist like Bellac, but she fears that she will end up working as a nurse. She spends time already in a nearby religious facility that takes care of sick people. She tends a blind girl, Jennie Blake (Virginia Vincent of “Tony Rome”), at the parish house and reads to her. Initially, the Mayberry’s aren’t sure how to treat their cousin. He rarely comes out of his room during the day and he detests mirrors. Dracula goes after Jennie and makes her his bride. Before she goes to school the next day, Rachel is summoned to parish house and watches in horror as Jennie dies. Jennie slips her the crucifix before she dies. A U.S. Department of Immigration official, Mack Bryant (Charles Tannen of “The Rack”), shows up at the Mayberry house and makes inquiries about Bellac. He explains that a man was thrown from a train in Europe when a group of immigrants were making their way to America. Dracula appears to answer Bryant’s questions. Bryant wields a cleverly concealed camera in a flip-top cigarette lighter. He ignites his cigarette as he snaps a photo.
Bryant is cooperating with Merriman, and Dracula suspects as much so he kills Bryant after Jennie Blake lures the poor fellow into the woods. The cool thing about this Dracula movie is that nobody actually kills the evil Count. Dracula lures Rachel to the secluded cave where he has concealed his coffin. This is the same cave that Rachel’s little brother Tim followed his cat Nugget. Eventually, the cat died in the cave. Meanwhile Merriman has mobilized the town authorities to kill Jennie. Everybody is flabbergasted when they see Jennie sneak back into her crypt at sunrise. Merriman and company open the coffin and drive the stake into her. The close-up of the stake going into Jennie’s body was photographed in color. No sooner has the stake penetrated her evil heart and killed her than Dracula feels the impact of the stake itself and staggers against his own coffin. Rachel makes a break for it and encounters her boyfriend Tim (Ray Stricklyn of “The Last Wagon”) who takes her crucifix and holds it up at Dracula. He forces the Count to back away from Rachel. Dracula concentrates so much on Tim and the crucifix that he forgets about a pit behind and falls into it, and skewers himself on a stake. He turns into a skeleton and perishes.
Francis Lederer makes an effectively villainous Dracula with a conspicuous foreign accent, but he cannot bare his fangs any more than his predecessors could. Indeed, nobody ever addresses him as Dracula to his face, and he has no crazy mad assistant. He hails from the Balkans area of eastern Europe. He doesn't dress as fashionably as either Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee, but he is not a derelict. He likes to materialize out of a cloud of mist and the same is true of the poor girl that he transforms into his vampire bride. This Dracula is also shape-shifter, and he appears as a white wolf but there is no transformation scene. Although “Isle of the Dead” lenser Jack Mackenzie photographed the film predominantly in black and white, Landres inserts an interesting shot that is in color when our heroes stake a vampire. The last-minute ending is quite ironic, too! Not long after the May 1958 release of "The Return of Dracula," Hammer Film Studios released their "Horror of Dracula" the following May that took the infamous vampire to a new level of excitement. Christopher Lee was allowed to bare his fangs!
“The Return of Dracula” opens with the following narration as two cars cruise through the countryside in route to a cemetery: “It is a known fact that there existed in Central Europe a Count Dracula. Though human in appearance and cultured in manner, he was, in truth, a thing undead, a force of evil, a vampire feeding on the blood of innocent people, he turned them into his own kind, thus spreading his evil domination even wider. The attempts to find and destroy this evil were never proven completely successful. And so the search continues to this very day.” Like Bram Stoker’s novel, “The Return of Dracula” finds our undead protagonist looking for somewhere different to stalk his prey. Several men led by John Merriman (John Wengraf of “The Pride and the Passion”) climb out of the two cars, drape pedants with crosses at their throats, and enter Dracula’s tomb to kill him. Imagine their surprise when they find an empty coffin! The action shifts to a railway station as Bellac Gordal (Norbert Schiller of “Sign of the Pagan”) explains that living in the Balkans stifles his artistic freedom, so he bids his immediate family farewell to board a train to America. Bellac plans to stay with his cousin, Cora Mayberry (Greta Granstedt of “Nocturne”), and her family in Carleton, California. Fortunately for Dracula, Cora hasn’t laid eyes on her Bellac since he was a little boy. When Bellac enters his coach, the artist meets a mysterious gentleman perusing a Berlin newspaper. Not long after he puts his luggage in an upper berth, Bellac turns to the other passenger. A look of horror suffuses Bellac’s face the man assaults him. Director Paul Landres edits Bellac’s death scene so when Bellac screams, the action cuts to an exterior shot of the locomotive as its eldritch whistle pierces the night with a hair-raising shriek, the perfect visual and aural metaphor for Bellac’s terror. What makes this set-up so interesting is that Dracula later confides to Cora’s daughter Rachel (Norma Eberhardt of “Live Fast, Die Young”) that he left Central Europe because he felt that “My life has been confined. That’s why I came here . . . for freedom. I must have it.” These lines of dialogue make “The Return of Dracula” a Cold War era vampire chiller. Unmistakably, the Count is bailing out of the Balkans because of Communism.
Of course, the Mayberry family is anxious to welcome cousin Bellac and make him as comfortable as possible. Nobody is more excited to see her cousin than Rachel. Rachel wants to be an artist like Bellac, but she fears that she will end up working as a nurse. She spends time already in a nearby religious facility that takes care of sick people. She tends a blind girl, Jennie Blake (Virginia Vincent of “Tony Rome”), at the parish house and reads to her. Initially, the Mayberry’s aren’t sure how to treat their cousin. He rarely comes out of his room during the day and he detests mirrors. Dracula goes after Jennie and makes her his bride. Before she goes to school the next day, Rachel is summoned to parish house and watches in horror as Jennie dies. Jennie slips her the crucifix before she dies. A U.S. Department of Immigration official, Mack Bryant (Charles Tannen of “The Rack”), shows up at the Mayberry house and makes inquiries about Bellac. He explains that a man was thrown from a train in Europe when a group of immigrants were making their way to America. Dracula appears to answer Bryant’s questions. Bryant wields a cleverly concealed camera in a flip-top cigarette lighter. He ignites his cigarette as he snaps a photo.
Bryant is cooperating with Merriman, and Dracula suspects as much so he kills Bryant after Jennie Blake lures the poor fellow into the woods. The cool thing about this Dracula movie is that nobody actually kills the evil Count. Dracula lures Rachel to the secluded cave where he has concealed his coffin. This is the same cave that Rachel’s little brother Tim followed his cat Nugget. Eventually, the cat died in the cave. Meanwhile Merriman has mobilized the town authorities to kill Jennie. Everybody is flabbergasted when they see Jennie sneak back into her crypt at sunrise. Merriman and company open the coffin and drive the stake into her. The close-up of the stake going into Jennie’s body was photographed in color. No sooner has the stake penetrated her evil heart and killed her than Dracula feels the impact of the stake itself and staggers against his own coffin. Rachel makes a break for it and encounters her boyfriend Tim (Ray Stricklyn of “The Last Wagon”) who takes her crucifix and holds it up at Dracula. He forces the Count to back away from Rachel. Dracula concentrates so much on Tim and the crucifix that he forgets about a pit behind and falls into it, and skewers himself on a stake. He turns into a skeleton and perishes.
Francis Lederer makes an effectively villainous Dracula with a conspicuous foreign accent, but he cannot bare his fangs any more than his predecessors could. Indeed, nobody ever addresses him as Dracula to his face, and he has no crazy mad assistant. He hails from the Balkans area of eastern Europe. He doesn't dress as fashionably as either Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee, but he is not a derelict. He likes to materialize out of a cloud of mist and the same is true of the poor girl that he transforms into his vampire bride. This Dracula is also shape-shifter, and he appears as a white wolf but there is no transformation scene. Although “Isle of the Dead” lenser Jack Mackenzie photographed the film predominantly in black and white, Landres inserts an interesting shot that is in color when our heroes stake a vampire. The last-minute ending is quite ironic, too! Not long after the May 1958 release of "The Return of Dracula," Hammer Film Studios released their "Horror of Dracula" the following May that took the infamous vampire to a new level of excitement. Christopher Lee was allowed to bare his fangs!
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.
“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.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)