Foster on Film – Page 86 – The Film Criticism of Matthew M. Foster

Damnation Alley (1977)

Oct 051977

After a nuclear war, the survivors at a missile base, Major Denton (George Peppard), Tanner (Jan-Michael Vincent), Keegan (Paul Winfield), and Airman Perry (Kip Niven), set off in an armored RV to reach the paradise known as Albany. Along the way, they encounter tornadoes, floods, killer cockroaches, gun-toting rednecks, and pick up a woman (Dominique Sanda) and a teenager (Jackie Earle Haley).

Acclaimed science fiction writer Roger Zelazny produced some of the most insightful and thought-provoking novels of the ’60s and ’70s. Damnation Alley was not one of them. It was a fun read for a simple adventure story. I suppose it could have been made into a passable, popcorn movie. This isn’t that movie.

Poor George Peppard. While making this, did he ever sneak away and find an abandoned spot, take a few quick shots of Jack Daniels, and dwell on the past, when he was in The Blue Max and Breakfast at Tiffany’s? In the trade, those are known as “good movies,” where Damnation Alley is known as a “soul sucking, career-destroying joke.” It is useful for actors to have these official designations. I’m guessing money must have been getting pretty tight over at the Peppard household for him to sign on to one of the soul suckers. It does explain his mono-expression throughout the film, with his jaw muscles tense and his eyes wide. He looks angry. That isn’t Major Denton looking angry, but Peppard, angry over what he had been forced to do to make a buck. Is it any wonder that he ended up on The A-Team? It was the only thing even lower. Still, it feels strange watching a production where the man who created Paul ‘Fred’ Varjak appears to be the talentless one compared to Jan-Michael “Airwolf” Vincent.

The film starts in a missile complex before a nuclear war, for no reason I can fathom. Major Denton points out that he doesn’t like Tanner, though this isn’t explained now, or later. Then enemy nukes are reported and Denton and Tanner turn their keys and launch a retaliatory strike, after which, they go upstairs and hang out in the situation room. I guess this is one of those laid back military bases where people can go where they like. Once there, they join everyone else in showing no concern, no emotion whatsoever, about blowing up the world. Then it jumps ahead two years to the new post-apocalyptic world. Why did we have to sit through that fifteen minute opening? I’d like to say it would have been better to start the film in the future wasteland, but that would mean getting to the obviously superimposed, giant blue scorpions sooner, and no one wants that. However, for a laugh, there’s nothing like Jan-Michael Vincent on a motorcycle, kicking at scorpions who obviously aren’t there.

What follows is some pretty unexciting action, as Denton and Tanner drive their special RV through a windstorm (ooooooh!), over some rocks (oooooh), on some sand (ummmmm), and down a road (OK, enough with the driving already!). Of course they have to find a girl, because this is a Hollywood movie. She’s living in a Vegas casino that still has electricity. Every other building has been leveled, but this one has power. Yup, that makes sense. They also stop to get attacked by normal-looking, and completely non-threatening bugs, which gives rise to Denton’s now infamous line, “This entire city is infested with killer cockroaches. I repeat: killer cockroaches!”

Director Jack Smight manages to saturate the film with that cheap made-for-TV look, which he was well acquainted with. But I shouldn’t label him an ineffectual TV director; he was also responsible for the feeble big screen The Illustrated Man, based on Ray Bradbury’s superb book. So, he had experience mutilating the work of science fiction writers. He put that experience to good work here.

But I am being too hard on such an informative film. I learned important scientific principles. I learned that should we set off a nuclear holocaust, radiation won’t be a problem afterwards. The only thing to fear is that the Earth might tip over on its axis. Yup, the Earth might flop on its side. I’m not sure why it would do this, particularly as the blast would leave the continents pretty much in one piece. But anyway, this will cause the sky to change from red to green each day and have little white balls fly around. Yes, white balls in the sky. But what is really interesting is that the Earth might just tip back up again someday, returning everything to normal. What would cause this? Nothing. It just might do it. And afterwards, the world will once again be green and beautiful. Oh, and all this tipping won’t upset the tectonic plates. All will be well, especially in Albany, always known as a garden.

They just don’t make movies like this any more.

Post-Apocalyptic, Reviews Tagged with: Toxic

The Omen (1976)

Oct 061976

Ambassador Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck) secretly adopts a baby to replace his wife’s (Lee Remick) stillborn child. Five years later, people begin to die around the child and Thorn teams with photographer Keith Jennings (David Warner) to discover who the child really is.

It’s been copied in so many ways over the years that it feels jam-packed with clichés, but in 1976, before the Antichrist showed up on most sitcoms, The Omen changed horror. Its references to evil and the devil are straight out of the Bible. The Book of Revelations prophecies the coming of the Antichrist, and The Omen produced him. It took its subject very seriously, something I usually argue against, but with the weight of the Bible for the story (more or less), and Gregory Peck for respectability, a solemn approach had far more power.

Director Richard Donner and writer David Seltzer cleverly shift the action from the universal to the personal. Yes, it’s about the coming apocalypse, but it is seen through one man and what this means to him, his wife, and what he’s hoped to be his family. The only misstep is the babbling priest who could explain everything early on, but instead speaks in vague prophecies and riddles. Why are priests always doing that in horror films?

Due to its somber tone, The Omen may not be a film you’ll want to watch over and over, but horror fans and Christians should see it at least once.

Christian Mythos, Reviews

Robin and Marian (1976)

Oct 041976

After the pointless death of King Richard (Richard Harris), that culminated many pointless years of crusades, an old and tired Robin Hood (Sean Connery) and Little John return to England to find Marian (Audrey Hepburn) a nun, Friar Tuck (Ronnie Barker) and Will Scarlett (Denholm Elliott) thieves in Sherwood forest, the Sheriff (Robert Shaw) still in control of Nottingham, and things no better for the peasants.

Watching the classic Adventures of Robin Hood, or any of the numerous lesser tellings of the legend, is a little like watching many of the old westerns in that there is always a little prick in the back of my mind that something is wrong. In the case of the westerns, it is that the Indians were not cruel savages that were stopped from their evil deeds by noble soldiers, but were the victims of genocide by racists. For Robin, it is that King Richard was not a great king that cared about the people, but a violent thug that spent almost no time in England and used it only as a source of capital. He led barbaric crusades that are best described as a collection of atrocities. And that in the end, it didn’t matter that Robin beat Prince John, because John got the throne anyway (and was a better king than Richard, which is not a ringing endorsement).

The brilliant, tragic, and sometimes funny Robin and Marian does address that reality. But it isn’t a true-life rewrite of the legend. In general terms, it follows the old stories (as a majority of the films do), but it deals with the latter half of them that the others have ignored. The legend of Robin Hood does not stop when he faces down the Sheriff of Nottingham as a young man; it continues till his death. But Robin and Marian is also not just a completion of the myth. It is a story of loss and mortality, and of men never being able to live up to legends. And more than anything else, it is about age.

The moving and witty script by James Goldman, author of The Lion in Winter, needed the best actors in the business, and it got them. Sean Connery, with depth he had not previously been called upon to display, is the perfect tired and aging Robin. He is joined by Nicol Williamson, an actor whose roles rarely match his talent, as a loyal and simplistic Little John. The two are blessed with the best voices in cinema. It is a joy just to hear them speak. The third anchor is Audrey Hepburn, who returned to acting after a nine year absence. She is as lovely as ever, but conveys both wisdom and pain in her face.

In case it wasn’t clear, this is a love story. It is not a Swashbuckler except that it tells a story of characters who normally fit the genre. But here they aren’t the super-human charming rogues that are required for the genre; here they are human, a little too human. They are strong, brave, and very foolish. Exactly the people who could have inspired a legend, without ever being the larger-than-life entities that a legend requires. They are also too proud, a little stupid, and very uncertain. Half the time the characters don’t know why they did the things that they did and have no clue what they should be doing now.

As this is a story of people, not icons, the villains are almost as interesting as the heroes. The Sheriff is not a fountain of pure evil. He’s a sympathetic character who is much like Robin, and has no more future than he does. The Sheriff knows Robin better than Robin does, and is more literate than his colleagues, but he is no great mastermind in control of his emotions either. Like his old foe, he can be goaded into action by inconsequential jabs.

While time has been good to Robin and Marian, particularly because it has slowly reached its target audience (the studio’s initial ad campaign pushed it as a lighthearted romp of flashing swords, which led to a good deal of disappointment), and it is normally rated as one of the great romantic dramas, it still has its detractors. Most of those are simply unhappy that it isn’t an old-style Swashbuckler, with a surprising number not knowing that the legend of Robin does not end happily. Those with more knowledge tend to complain about the humor, thinking that it should be all melodrama. But that misses the point. Neither aging, nor the realization that you can never be what you have dreamed, is fully tragic or comedic, but a mix of the two. When you comprehend that the greatest portion of your life is past, that death is far closer than birth, and that you will never again do the things you once did, it isn’t a time for unending grief (if you think so, your latter years are going to be very sad). Sometimes, it is a time to laugh.

Stranger, I’ve heard people complain about the ending, claiming that no one would act the way Robin and Marian do in the final frames. Such statements miss the impact of love, at least on many of us. If these critics don’t see themselves in the film, let me assure them that it perfectly reflects how many of us would behave. That is one of the strengths of it.

The score is the film’s only weakness. Composer John Barry was chosen against director Richard Lester’s will, and had only a few weeks to complete his work. The result, when not too saccharine, sounds like it would fit a ’70s TV cop drama.

Robin and Marian is one of the great films of the ’70s. It is complex, with multilayered characters and serious themes. It also has laughs and emotional extremes, and it may pull a tear from those of you so inclined to cry at the movies.

Other Robin Hood Swashbucklers I’ve reviewed: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), The Bandit of Sherwood Forest (1946), Rogues of Sherwood Forest (1950), Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960), Robin Hood (1991), and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991).

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Reviews, Swashbucklers Tagged with: Four Reels

Burnt Offerings (1976)

Feb 081976

Ben and Marian Rolf (Oliver Reed, Karen Black), along with their son and Aunt Elizabeth (Bette Davis), move into a worn mansion for the summer. The one hitch is that an old, and never seen woman will be staying in one of the rooms. Once in the house, the family members begin to have hallucinations and dangerous compulsions.

I’m not the fan of Bette Davis that so many are, but still I think that the woman who starred in All About Eve deserved something better in the last third of her career. It’s sad that her final film was the inexcusable Wicked Stepmother, but it is equally depressing that more than ten years earlier, long before her stroke, she was marooned in dreck like this.

Looking like a TV movie with the pace of a six part miniseries, Burnt Offering is one of those films where you know everything an hour before the characters, but in this case, it’s an hour and forty-five minutes before them. The house is evil (haunted or possessed or an evil alien, it’s never explained). Yup. Kind of obvious. Once a few mysterious things happen (sooo slowly), I was ready for the end, but Burnt Offering crawls its way along, supplying all the terror of an attacking killer snail.

The cast looks far more impressive than I would expect for a C-level horror film, at least when I’m reading their names, but their performances are another matter. Overacting is the norm (when Ben sees the chauffeur from his childhood, his reaction inspires laughs, not fear), except for Black, who switches between overacting and barely acting at all.

The vampiric nature of the house is interesting enough to have made this a fine fifteen minute segment of The Night Gallery.

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Ghost Stories, Reviews Tagged with: One Reel

The Land That Time Forgot (1975)

Oct 081975

The surviving crew and passengers from a British ship, including the captain (Keith Barron), an American adventurer and submarine expert (Doug McClure), and a female biologist (Susan Penhaligon), take over the German sub that attacked them. Multiple events conspire to strand all of the occupants on a lost continent where dinosaurs and cavemen coexist. The Germans, led by Captain Von Schoenvorts (John McEnery, voice dubbed by Anton Diffring), and the Brits decide to work together, under the Yank, to find fuel and escape.

The ’70s was not a good decade for Giant Monster flicks. The great stop-motion animators were slowing down, the atomic monster fad was dead, the campy creatures were getting dull, and CGI was years off. No one was putting money into films about critters that could eat you and your sister simultaneously, and talent was even harder to find than cash. Into this environment came the low budget, horror, production house, Amicus, producer John Dark, director Kevin Connor, and American actor Doug McClure, with a string of movies based on the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs. I hope you weren’t expecting me to say how they bucked the trend. Nope, these are the guys who solidified it. Acting, effects, and plot—all fail to entertain or interest. The Land That Time Forgot was the first of their four collaborations, and while it is not a complete disaster, it is a ho-hum affair that is easy to forget.

Doug McClure plays Bowen Tyler, a tough, know-everything hero, that is followed by the nagging question: Why is he in this movie? You’ve got a German captain (the only multidimensional character) and a British captain, and they need to get their subordinates to work together or they’re all dead. Makes sense. Looks like a story with some potential for conflict. So what was the point of the American? In order to focus on the pointless Yank, the Brit is made into a weak-willed fool (although we’re supposed to like him and see his decisions as reasonable), who cedes command to the civilian at every opportunity. I don’t want to be picky, but aren’t military officers required to lead their forces? Of course since Tyler can do everything, including fight with guns better than soldiers and with primitive weapons better than cavemen, I guess I can see why everyone is ready to step aside when he walks into a room. I could have accepted it, in a Big Boys Book of Adventure Tales kind of way, if McClure had even a sickly echo of charisma about him, but he comes off as a drab shop steward, not Indiana Jones.

The plot is no help. There isn’t one; at least not a single arcing one. Instead were given an half hour of U-boat military combat, followed by a mishmash of oil prospecting and random encounters with dinosaurs and hostile troglodytes. The back-and-forth battles for command of the submarine are laughable, which is unfortunate as the characters take them in earnest. Since the only consequence is the ship becoming lost at sea, I can’t see the need for the Germans to retake their boat only to have it taken back. I suppose it was cheaper to shoot the footage of men on a small set finding yet another pistol than anything from the “primitive world,” and this is a movie that knows cheap. The caveman melees are more fitting for the genre, but are no more interesting than the sub footage. Weak fight choreography is accented with an over reliance on close-ups (rarely effective in an action scene). Hint to talent-low cinematographers: If you are filming a character running through a jungle, with a villain in hot pursuit, a face-on shot showing only the top of his head to mid-chest does not instill a sense of excitement.

Not that anyone would care about the human vs. human warfare if the dinosaurs looked good. No luck. The effects are uneven, ranging from moderate to something your kid brother could do with his plastic toys in the garage. The monsters are a combination of sad, stiff, full models and sock puppets, but the real problems come when they interact with humans. The monsters change scale, sometimes shifting size by ten times. That’s the stuff of comedy, not action/adventure.

Of course the science is wacky, and the characters’ understanding of how to react to what they learn is even odder (if the water is filled with microbes, why not boil it?), but those are minor criticisms. When the characters, plot, and effects are this bad, a little bit of nonsense makes no difference.

The other Dark/Connor/McClure productions are At the Earth’s Core (1976), The People That Time Forgot (1977), and Warlords of Atlantis (1978).

Giant Monsters, Reviews Tagged with: One Reel

Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)

Oct 081975

The surviving aliens from the 3rd Planet rebuild Mechagodzilla. With the aid of a bitter scientist and his android daughter, they gain control of the giant dinosaur, Titanosaurus, and send both creatures to destroy Tokyo. Godzilla, in his last appearance as a hero, stomps into town to defeat the bad guys.

A direct sequel to the previous year’s Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, this is the final entry in the initial series of Godzilla films. Nine years would pass before the big lizard would appear again, and then it would be in a film that ignored all but the original Gojira/Godzilla, King of The Monsters. As the end of an era, they could have done worse. The franchise had dipped to spectacular lows with Godzilla’s Revenge, Godzilla vs. Gigan, and Godzilla vs. Megalon—all children’s films that assumed kids were mentally deficient chimps. Terror of Mechagodzilla isn’t meaningful or innovative, but it isn’t a bad way to spend some time on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

Of course, this is a rubber suit movie, and the suits are pretty sad. Titanosaurus is a man in a stretched-out chicken costume, with a broken neck (the man’s or the chicken’s, it is hard to tell) and a piece of wood nailed where its beak should be. Godzilla has looked worse, but he would have benefited from a lot more shadows. This is a suit where seeing less is much, much more. Mechagodzilla is the only critter that doesn’t look silly, but then robots are a lot easier to fake than living beings.

The story is typical spy and alien stuff—pretty old hat for Japanese monster films of the ’60s and ’70s. But the characters are more interesting than usual (perhaps not a strong recommendation). The scientist and his daughter add much needed drama, and the relationship between android girl and hero is almost touching. Almost. I might have been able to take it seriously if the aliens didn’t wear big jacks on their heads.

The giant monster melees (and that is what we are here for) are considerably better than what’s seen in most early Godzilla films. While there are plenty of silly wrestling and boxing moves, and even some gut-holding laughing by Titanosaurus, it is played as straight as Toho could manage at the time.

What takes this film a step up from other ’70s Godzilla films is the return of director Ishirō Honda. Honda’s name on a film is no indication that it will be a good movie as he was a company man who would do the job, no matter how bad the material. But a Honda film is always better than it would be if Honda wasn’t involved. The improvement from Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla in basic film-making is dramatic. Shots just look better.

Terror of Mechagodzilla is a middling entry in the Godzilla series. If you’re a fan, you’ll want to catch it when convenient. If not, this isn’t going to convert you.

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Aliens, Foreign Language, Giant Monsters, Godzilla, Mad Scientists, Mad Scientists, Reviews Tagged with: Two Reels

Logan’s Run (1975)

Oct 051975

In 2274, humans live decadent lives in an enclosed city. To keep the population consistent, everyone is killed at age thirty in an elaborate ceremony called Carousel. The few who try to escape this death, by “running,” are hunted down by executioners known as sandmen. Logan (Michael York) is a sandman with four more years to live. The computer that controls the city sets him on a mission to infiltrate the underground that helps runners, and find the mythical Sanctuary. To make his status believable, his “life clock” is changed to thirty so that it appears he is a runner. Finding Jessica (Jenny Agutter), a girl who wears the secret symbol of the dissenters, Logan teams with her in the search for Sanctuary, but his ex-partner (Richard Jordan), believing he is a traitor, pursues them both.

One of the last films in the political science fiction movement of the ’60s and ’70s, Logan’s Run is the conservative answer to the youth movement of the ’60s, so is less relevant today than most of its siblings. When watching, you can almost hear an old man shaking his cane as he yells, “You lazy kids, you never take responsibility for anything! Why don’t you get a job!”

Logan’s Run is both dystopian and post-apocalyptic, in equal parts. For the first half, we’re shown a future society where everyone lives in a big mall and most have a great time, although many of them appear to spend their days walking around on the hard tile floors (much like in Star Trek: The Next Generation where there’s a constant stream of people in the halls). Everyone is young and beautiful and few have responsibilities (why a few have jobs, such as plastic surgeons, while a majority do not, is never explained). They have sex with whomever they please without jealousy or guilt, take drugs without addiction or consequence, and appear to have no sickness. The downside to all this is that everyone dies at thirty. However, the film does a poor job of making that seem problematic. Until the post-apocalyptic portion, it is taken for granted that the viewer will see this as bad. But, from watching the society, the short lifespan of its citizens doesn’t make this a dystopia. Rather, the problems lie in the inequality of the classes. The sandmen are violent thugs, who enjoy killing and who intimidate everyone. Then there are the outlying slums for the disobedient children. Again, there is little explanation except that some children end up in a Lord of the Flies world, locked away from the rest of the city.

While in the city, the film moves along at a satisfying clip. Between the well-executed effects of the Carousel, the hunts for runners, the scantily-clad and occasionally nude citizens enjoying their hedonistic lifestyle, and the dangerous lasers of the plastic surgeon, there is always something worth seeing on the screen. Plus, the confused philosophizing of Logan and Francis and the mystery of Sanctuary keep the story moving.

But the movie doesn’t fare so well once it enters the post-apocalyptic half. After a laughable special effect explosion (laughable even by 1975 standards, or 1945 standards for that matter), the activity slows. Logan and Jessica walk through some trees. Then they walk through some more trees. Then they take a nap. There’s some more walking, and then a swim. And none of it is as exciting as I’m making it sound.

Eventually, they reach Washington DC, which is represented by amusing map paintings (who doesn’t like to see the seat of our government trashed?). Unfortunately, there is then an endless segment filled with chatting to a babbling Peter Ustinov. For some reason, the filmmakers thought it would be entertaining to see Logan and Jessica notice things we already know, then have Ustinov, playing a comedy version of a 100-year-old, make silly comments. They get to see cats, where Logan gets brilliant lines like “You call those cats?” Ustinov then adds, “What else would you call them?” Things continue in this uninteresting vein until an unsatisfying conclusion that uses a sad Star Trek cliché to wrap things up.

The march through the ruins is supposed to finally present a reason why you want old people around, but once again, it fails. Logan looks at some paintings and realizes that the past civilization was ruled by old white guys. Thus, it must be good to have old white guys around. I’d have thought the sight of the civilization in ruins, destroyed by the decisions of those same old white guys, would imply the opposite message. Add in the annoying, senile, old man and what we have is an argument for exterminating the elderly.

Not content with its unsupported rant against ’60s youth, Logan’s Run goes the whole conservative route. It turns out none of the citizens of the city can feel love because they aren’t in committed, monogamist relationships and aren’t naturally birthing babies. This, like so many assertions, is stated with no support.

Oh well. The first part of the movie looks cool.

Post-Apocalyptic, Reviews Tagged with: Two & 1/2 Reels

Rollerball (1975)

Oct 041975

In the near future, where corporations rule, the populous is kept docile with comfortable surroundings and the diversion of the brutal sport, rollerball. Jonathan E. (James Caan) is the greatest player the game has ever had, but before the playoffs, Bartholomew (John Houseman) of the Energy Corporation, tells him to retire. Not understanding why and bitter over an executive taking his wife, Jonathan does the unthinkable and refuses.

Every dystopian film runs into a problem: how do you make an exciting movie about a drab, unexciting future? Rollerball solves it by interspersing the lifeless everyday with violent, exhilarating games of rollerball. It works. This is a smart drama that gets your blood pumping with sport, and then makes you consider if there isn’t something seriously wrong with that. The film is split into five segments, the three rollerball matches and two sections of plot and character development.

Rollerball is roller derby on steroids. Skaters with studded gloves and their motorcyclist teammates fight their way around a circular track in an attempt to put a heavy metal ball into a goal. It’s not easy; it’s very dangerous; and it is surprisingly compelling for a made-up sport. The basics of the game are simple, and after a few minutes I understood the strategies involved and a good number of the rules. If you are the type to cheer at a hockey game, the rollerball matches should have you out of your seat.

The film starts with the normal trappings of a televised sports competition, and nothing appears out of place until players and fans are asked to stand for their corporate anthem. A major theme of Rollerball is the danger of escalating violence in sports and this is shown so well, with each match more violent and compelling than its predecessor, that many critics missed it. The last game ends in an insane bloodbath that left some, wrapped up in the mayhem, thinking the film was glorifying violence. But the absurdity of it, the sheer scope of the slaughter, nullifies that conclusion.

When not in the rink, the story follows Jonathan E., wonderfully underplayed by Caan, who feels something is wrong, but can’t grasp what. He is a product of his environment: docile, obedient, poorly educated, and respectful to his corporate masters. It takes a lot to make him rebel, and even then, it’s a soft-spoken revolution. Only while playing rollerball does he feel secure enough to confront the problems directly. And those problems, and the second theme of the film, have to do with the place of the individual in society and the ability to act freely. Jonathan’s ex-wife voices the corporate line, “Comfort is freedom.” Rollerball does an excellent job of refuting that point of view.

Ralph Richardson puts in a cameo as a comic relief librarian, but he is part of a message as well (this is a theme heavy film). In a world where the individual is nothing and everything comes from large faceless organizations, information can slip away. The main computer system (which has replaced all books) recently misplaced the 13th century, but the librarian explains that isn’t much of a loss as there was nothing besides Dante and a few corrupt popes.

This exciting, thought-provoking, emotional, dystopian, Sci-Fi film was remade in 2002 into a dull, mindless, detached, modern-day, action flick. Skip it and see the original.

Dystopia, Reviews Tagged with: Four Reels

Death Race 2000 (1975)

Oct 041975

In the far future year 2000, twenty-one years after the crash of ’79, the annual cross-country race is about to begin. The competitors include fan favorite, Frankenstein (David Carradine), gangster, “Machine Gun” Joe (Sylvester Stallone), Matilda the Hun (Roberta Collins), and Calamity Jane (Mary Woronov). To win, all they have to do is cross the finish line first; that and mow down as many pedestrians as they can.

Produced by the king of low budgets, Roger Corman, and directed by the always bizarre Paul Bartel, Death Race 2000 is a dystopian comedy that takes jabs at modern culture, but then tosses away any meaning in favor of the pure joy of cars running over people. And it is a lot of fun.

What surprises me is that there are so few films about flattening slow individuals under the wheels of hotrods. Has anyone ever gotten into a car without thinking, “Hey, I could take out that kid over there.” It’s universal humor (among those with cars).

When played for laughs, this is topflight drive-in entertainment. There are announcers cheerfully giving color commentary and reading off the points for babies verses old men. There are pedestrians who run in front of the cars as a game, and invalids who are wheeled onto the road for “Euthanasia Day.”

Even with its small budget, the race action is fast and exciting, several notches up from most big budget car chases. Too bad it all looks washed out. Plus, there’s a fist fight between Carradine and Stallone, which is not the height of choreography, but amused me as Stallone was beaten to a pulp. If only that could have happened more often in his later films.

The pauses at the end of race-days gives an excuse for a few gratuitous breast shots. There’s not much flesh, but enough for a mindless 1975 flick.

Unfortunately, the end is played seriously, with good, moral folks working to change the corrupt government and end the killing. Who wants to see that? Bodies made into pancakes, that’s where the kicks are.

Sure it’s violent, but that’s the way we like it.

Dystopia, Reviews Tagged with: Three Reels

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas (1974)

Oct 091974

After a rude letter in the paper angers Santa Claus, a clockmaker (voice: Joel Grey) suggests to the mayor (voice: John McGiver) and town council that they build a giant clock in honor of Santa. Meanwhile a father mouse (voice: George Gobel) attempts to find out who wrote the letter. 22 min.

Tripe for uneducated children, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas is another dose of unwatchable gibberish from producers Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr. Already responsible for Frosty the Snowman, I’d have thought the duo would have the good graces to hide away from society, perhaps in some fanatical monastery, and carry out a daily ritual of self flagellation until that sin had been worked off by suffering.

Sadly, they didn’t.

Instead they made ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, with simple, unattractive animation and a ludicrous script (Santa’s mad so the town decides to construct a giant clock… A giant clock! Wouldn’t an apology be a better plan?). Added to the unimpressive dialog are bland, poorly performed songs (Even a Miracle Needs a Hand was put to more suitable use and actually sounded better in South Park: A Very Crappy Christmas.) To top it off, this entertainment for the young has a strong anti-intellectual, anti-education bent. Thinking and reading are the flaws that cause all the problems. Swell. There’s a message we need to get out to the kids.

Christmas Shorts, Christmas Shorts, Reviews Tagged with: Toxic

Scream of the Wolf (1974)

Oct 061974

When people are savagely killed by an unidentifiable wolf-like animal, Sheriff Bell (Philip Carey) asks John Wetherby (Peter Graves) for help. Unable to catch the beast, Wetherby tries to get his old friend and hunting companion, Byron Douglas (Clint Walker), involved, but Walker is only interested in Wetherby, not in helping on the case.

Producer/director Dan Curtis was responsible for a string of uninspired, genre TV movies (and the laughable theatrical release, Burnt Offerings). The mediocre The Night Stalker was his masterpiece. Scream of the Wolf was not.

Simplistically filmed, and covered in machine-generated fog, the film at least has Peter Graves, who is at least slightly better than everyone else. It also has a story that suggests one outcome early on, and then strolls directly toward it.

However, as an artifact of hidden homosexual filmmaking in the 1970s, it is amusing. Wetherby used to spend a lot of time alone with Douglas, “hunting.” At Douglas’s urging, they also enjoyed arm wrestling. However, Weatherby has turned from his hunting ways, and begun dating a girl. She is nervous around Douglas and doesn’t want Wetherby spending time with him. Douglas has a live-in employee that he met in a bar and then hired after some arm wrestling, but he really wants Wetherby to take up hunting again, and go off with him to South America. He tells Wetherby that he’ll help him track the creature, but only if he arm wrestles him for over a minute, asking him, “Can’t you even hold me for a minute now?”

Presented as straight cinema to a straight world, I wonder who even noticed what is so obvious now.

Reviews, Werewolves Tagged with: One Reel

The Mark of Zorro (1974)

Oct 031974

Spanish dueling champion Don Diego Vega (Frank Langella) returns to California to find that his father has been forced out as governor, replaced by the corrupt Luis Quintero (Robert Middleton) who has the peasants whipped, over-taxed, and generally abused. Realizing that he can help best in secret, he acts bored and effeminate in public, behaving like a hero of the people only when masked and using the name Zorro. All he has to do is force Quintero out of office, kill his muscle, Captain Esteban (Ricardo Montalban), and, since it is a Swashbuckler, win the heart of the beautiful Teresa (Anne Archer).

How did I miss this TV movie in 1974? There were far fewer channels then and I devoured anything with the slightest touch of Swashbuckling about it. But I did miss it and that’s just as well. It isn’t excruciating, if viewed in a vacuumed, but hardly something that would have fanned a boys love of a genre into a life-long obsession (I should note I like being obsessed). Of course, it can’t be seen in a vacuum. It is a remake of the 1940 Tyrone Power classic The Mark of Zorro, and that vastly superior version hovers over every mediocre frame.

While not falling into the pit of shot-for-shot remakes like The Prisoner of Zenda and Psycho, The Mark of Zorro ’74 doesn’t dance far a-field. It reuses Alfred Newman’s brassy score (a good choice) as well as the script from the 1940 movie with only a few added heroic speeches. While little is added, much has been cut. This version is sixteen minutes shorter, and that’s sixteen minutes of necessary story; the original had no fat. Several plot twists are gone, as is much of the character development (we hardly know Inez, Luis Quintero’s vain and greedy wife, and miss entirely Teresa falling in love with Zorro). But the film is different in more than just being briefer. Naturally it is in color—bright and pronounced, unfortunately used with drab, TV cinematography. The real difference, however, is in tone. 1940’s The Mark of Zorro was the most humorous classic Swashbuckler, but this version is devoid of laughs. It takes itself seriously, as if a man putting on a black mask and running around the countryside righting wrongs (and never being identified) is the most realistic thing in the world. As the fop, Langella plays it with restraint while he’s in deadly earnest as Zorro. Swashbuckling heroes are charming rogues, but this Zorro is closer to Dirty Harry. “Do you feel lucky Captain Esteban? Well do’ya?”

Everyone else joins in on the sincerity. Don Diego’s father was all bluster in 1940 and both the friar and Don Luis Quintero were comic relief. Here they are either determined politicians or straight-laced businessmen (this Luis Quintero could be dropped in the middle of a 1990s corporate corruption film).

Could this darker tone have worked? Perhaps, but only in the hands of geniuses. The heart of Zorro is the humor. The whole concept is silly, but the story knows it, and gets you laughing with it before you can laugh at it. Without that, you’re just left with a silly story.

Tone isn’t the only problem. The swordfights are few and far from impressive. The same is true of the chases. Worse, the romance is gone. Anne Archer is far too old for the role of an under-aged girl dreaming of what life could be like. When she pronounces that she’s “a woman, fully grown,” it isn’t as a girl who hopes that it is true, but as a woman who’s known it for ten years. (They’ve smartly cut the line about her upcoming eighteenth birthday.) She has little screen time with Don Diego (and even less without him) so any “courting” must have happened while the camera was somewhere else.

At least Ricardo Montalban understood the type of movie he was in. He’s sinister and larger-than-life, with a sparkle in his eye as the deranged ex-fencing instructor. But the poor man is competing with the memory of Basil Rathbone in that role, and he just can’t win.

It is fascinating to watch this and the 1940 version back-to-back. It proves that there is much more to a classic than the script. Skip this, and go for the classic.

Other Foster on Film Zorro reviews: The Mark of Zorro, The Legend of Zorro.

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