Night Patrol

An unfunny comedy is the worst type of film, and NIGHT PATROL is the worst of that type of film. Tasteless, idiotic, foul, and witless, this R-rated abomination spins gags about urination, defecation, sperm banks, dope, homosexuality, blackface, rape, and “The Dyke Van Dick Show” that are so bad, even 12-year-olds will be offended. When you see a sign announcing a cockfight, you know you’re about to see two naked guys in an alley pounding their torsos together. Thank your lucky stars it’s only 85 minutes long.

Convicted of writing the screenplay are star Murray Langston, better known as THE GONG SHOW’s Unknown Comic (he wore a paper bag over his head and told deliberately awful jokes); William A. Levey, director of the execrable BLACKENSTEIN; pornographer Bill Osco (the X-rated ALICE IN WONDERLAND); and Jackie Kong, Osco’s wife who also produced NIGHT PATROL with Osco and directed it. To her credit, Kong is one of a handful of Asian-American women to direct mainstream Hollywood features. That she was so bad at directing (THE BEING and BLOOD DINER are other Kong films) perhaps shouldn’t be held against her, but then again, she directed NIGHT PATROL.

The ostensible plot finds bumbling patrolman Melvin White (Langston) struggling to balance working the night shift and breaking into show business with his Unknown Comic standup act. Linda Blair (SAVAGE STREETS) grabs top billing as Melvin’s romantic interest Sue Perman (groan), GONG SHOW panelist Jaye P. Morgan is Melvin’s new agent, Pat Paulsen (THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS COMEDY HOUR) is Melvin’s womanizing new partner, Jack Riley (THE BOB NEWHART SHOW) is Melvin’s shrink, and Billy Barty (UNDER THE RAINBOW) craps his dignity right down the bowl playing Melvin’s flatulent boss.

NIGHT PATROL’s strangest obsession is dubbing characters with incongruent voices, such as Pat Morita’s rape victim with a little girl’s voice. Oddly, Langston is dubbed by a different actor when wearing the Unknown Comic bag. The clumsy post-production shenanigans (some actors’ names are misspelled in the credits) and the (tame) bloopers that play at the end lead one to wonder if NIGHT PATROL was originally an Unknown Comic movie that was retooled as an ensemble piece that would rip off POLICE ACADEMY. It’s weird that anyone believed Langston and Paulsen posing as black pimps would be funnier.

Jungle Moon Men (1955)

When producer Sam Katzman no longer owned the film rights to King Features’ Jungle Jim character, he just changed the name of the leading character played by Johnny Weissmuller to “Johnny Weissmuller” and kept churning out the movies. It didn’t affect Weissmuller’s performance at all nor probably Columbia’s box office profits. Katzman and serial director Charles S. Gould (THE GREAT ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN KIDD) shot JUNGLE MOON MEN in a week, and after thirteen Jungle Jim pictures (and one “Johnny Weissmuller”), the template was firmly established.

JUNGLE MOON MEN is as much H. Rider Haggard than it is Alex Raymond. Johnny (Weissmuller) agrees to guide Ellen Marsten (Jean Byron, later the mom on THE PATTY DUKE SHOW), an Egyptologist, deep into the jungle to find a native tribe called the Baku. It just so happens that Nolimo (Michael Granger) approaches Johnny the same day to help him find his son Marro (Ben Chapman, one of the Creatures from the Black Lagoon), who has been kidnapped by the so-called “Moon Men,” who just happen to live in — wait for it — the Baku.

Ellen’s boyfriend Bob Prentice (Bill Henry) joins the expedition, while unscrupulous guide Santo (Myron Healey), whom Johnny hates, tags along behind in an effort to find diamonds he believes the Moon Men have. The Moon Men are pygmies, including Billy Curtis in not one of his most dignified roles (Weissmuller repels the whole tribe simply by lifting the kicking Curtis off the ground), and worship the sun-worshipping Oma (Helen Stanton), who captures the team and demands that Bob marry her and become her high priest.

People loved Johnny Weissmuller, which is the only reason the Jungle Jim series (which JUNGLE MOON MEN should be considered a part of) ran as long as it did. In fact, at the same time he was doing the “Johnny Weissmuller” films, he was also starring as Jungle Jim in a syndicated television series. I doubt the kids were confused. Nor will you be by JUNGLE MOON MEN’s simple story, which weaves elements of SHE into the jungle B-picture template. Performed and produced adequately enough for kiddie matinees, this was Johnny’s next-to-last feature before retiring.

Random Comic Book Splash Page: Four Color #819

Mickey Mouse took center stage in the 819th issue of Dell's perennial FOUR COLOR comic book. Cover-dated July 1957, the first story in WALT DISNEY'S MICKEY MOUSE IN MAGIC LAND was written by George Crenshaw and drawn by Jack Bradbury, who does a nice job on this page.

Charley Varrick

Part of Walter Matthau’s unofficial trilogy of crime dramas, which also includes THE LAUGHING POLICEMAN and THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE, CHARLEY VARRICK is terrific. Matthau’s Varrick is a murderer and bank robber who sets up his partner to be tortured and killed by the Mafia and bangs a mobster’s secretary (Felicia Farr) two days after his wife (Jacqueline Scott) is shot to death in front of him. But I’ll be damned if you don’t like the guy anyway and root for him to successfully fake his death and escape with $765,000 in mob money.

Not that Charley expected such a haul. Knocking off a small-town New Mexico bank with his wife, their partner Harman (Andy Robinson, just off DIRTY HARRY), and another man who is killed at the scene, Charley expects a windfall of a few thousand dollars — not three-quarters of a million. He immediately figures out the bank must be a drop for dirty Syndicate money, and sure enough, Reno hood Maynard Boyle (the great John Vernon) arrives at the bank to find out what happened and enlist pipe-smoking assassin Molly (Joe Don Baker) to retrieve the cash. Norman Fell (BULLITT), Sheree North (THE SHOOTIST), William Schallert (THE PATTY DUKE SHOW), and Benson Fong (OUR MAN FLINT) imbue their characters with the proper authority or pathos necessary to give them a history.

Matthau is the star, but Vernon is also wonderful in the way he dominates his scenes. One standout, set in a cow pasture, is a conversation in which Vernon explains to bank manager Woodrow Parfrey (also in DIRTY HARRY, as was Vernon) how their bosses will likely come after Parfrey “with pliers and a blowtorch.” It’s captured in a single take by director Don Siegel, who may have improvised another wonderful moment with Vernon pushing a little girl on a swing, basking for a few moments in the innocence of youth he lost long ago when he turned to a life of crime.

Don Siegel, the director of DIRTY HARRY (ah), also helmed CHARLEY VARRICK in his characteristic lean style with nary a wasted frame or movement. He and Michael Butler (JAWS 2), making his debut as a director of photography, capture the practical Nevada locations, sometimes with a sweeping crane to grab every detail. The taut script by Howard Rodman (COOGAN’S BLUFF) and Dean Riesner (DIRTY HARRY) is based on a novel by western author John Henry Reese, and the evocative score is composed by Lalo Schifrin (DIRTY HARRY).

Ocean's Eleven (1960)

One of the coolest movies ever made, this all-star home movie was the first film to star the Rat Pack, Frank Sinatra’s posse who spent more time drinking, singing, carousing, and playing golf than they did acting. The thin story is credited to four writers, including science fiction legend George Clayton Johnson (TWILIGHT ZONE) and KISS OF DEATH’s Charles Lederer, and was directed by Lewis Milestone, who won two Oscars during Hollywood’s Golden Age.

OCEAN’S ELEVEN is a caper flick about a plan to rob five Las Vegas casinos simultaneously on New Year’s Eve. Danny Ocean (Sinatra) recruits ten members of his World War II paratroop unit to pull the caper, including just-in-from-Hawaii singer Sam Harmon (Dean Martin), garbage man Josh Howard (Sammy Davis Jr.), and wealthy mama’s boy Jimmy Foster (Peter Lawford). Pace is not this movie’s greatest asset, and its first hour is basically just Ocean getting the whole gang together.

Danny is visited by his estranged wife (Angie Dickinson), who is cool to the idea of their reconciliation. Foster is dismayed by his mother’s impending sixth marriage to hood Duke Santos (Cesar Romero). Tony Bergdorf (Richard Conte), upon learning he’s got “the Big Casino,” needs the loot from the caper to make sure his son is provided for after his death. Meanwhile, Martin and Davis sing, Sinatra and Lawford get messages, everyone wears V-neck sweaters, and characters stand around a lot just drinking Scotch and smoking cigarettes patiently while waiting for their next line.

No question about it—OCEAN’S ELEVEN is as empty as Dino’s liquor cabinet on New Year’s Day, but it’s hard not to be seduced by the insouciant charms of the stars. After performing onstage in the evenings and partying ‘til the wee hours of the morning, the Pack wasn’t in the mood for much complexity in their film, so Milestone basically stands them in front of the set, points his camera in their direction, and gets it all in one—heck, maybe occasionally two—takes. Much of the dialogue seems gleaned from their nightclub act.

Strangely, the film doesn’t feel as freewheeling as other vanity shows—like, say, CANNONBALL RUN, which is loose and sloppy between car stunts and face-slappings. In contrast, OCEAN’S ELEVEN emits a laidback quality — fitting, considering its stars — but its technical proficiency works against it. A film this bright, colorful, and well-staged ought to have more to its core than boozy indifference.

However, OCEAN’S ELEVEN is difficult to dislike. The stars are almost always fun, especially when they’re screwing around together, and look at who’s backing them up: Joey Bishop, Shirley MacLaine, Red Skelton, George Raft, Norman Fell, Akim Tamiroff, Buddy Lester, Joan Staley, Pinky Lee, Hoot Gibson, even Henry Silva. The songs, like Davis’ “E-O-Eleven,” by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen are catchy, and Dean’s “Ain’t That A Kick in the Head” is a jaunty classic (Steven Soderbergh, who directed the 2001 remake, used it in his ultracool crime flick OUT OF SIGHT). It all closes on a surprisingly downbeat twist, which, combined with a clever final shot, manages to leave you with a weightier taste than the movie probably earns. Ring-a-ding-ding.

The Mask Of Fu Manchu

Boris Karloff may seem miscast to today’s eyes as Sax Rohmer’s Chinese supervillain, who first appeared in 1912’s THE MYSTERY OF DR. FU-MANCHU, but this marvelously campy (and sleazy) slice of pulp fiction is a terrific movie.

MGM spared little expense on this “A-picture,” showering THE MASK OF FU MANCHU with lavish sets, props, special effects, and production values. And because it was produced before studios paid much attention to the dreaded Motion PIcture Production Code, MASK rings with brutality, racism, jingoism, and overtones of sadomasochism. What a terrific adventure.

Karloff and Myrna Loy as Fu’s horny daughter Fah Lo See are so delightfully evil that MASK tends to suffer a bit when director Charles Brabin cuts away from their lair. Fu Manchu’s glee while torturing archaeologist Barton (Lawrence Grant) under a giant bell, rubbing grapes across the starved man’s lips and pouring salt water down his throat, ranks among Karloff’s best moments. And Loy’s sensual reaction to the hero, tied up, helpless, and shirtless, is quite unlike her fast-talking debutante in THE THIN MAN.

Fu kidnaps Barton to find out where Genghis Khan is buried. Legend has it that Genghis Khan’s golden mask and scimitar, when charged with electricity, will enable Fu Manchu to lead an army that will conquer the world. Out to find the tomb on the edge of the Gobi Desert before Fu can are Nayland Smith (Lewis Stone), archaeologist Von Berg (Jean Hersholt — yes, the guy with the Oscar named after him), Barton’s daughter Sheila (Karen Morley), and her fiance Terry Granville (Charles Starrett, soon to be the Durango Kid).

Kenneth Strickfaden, who created the impressive futuristic electrical gizmos for FRANKENSTEIN, does the same here and even doubles Karloff in some shots. Much of the incendiary dialogue was censored for television broadcasts, but was later restored for home video. Unless you’re really squeamish, MASK’s mixture of hidden caves, secret doors, ripe dialogue, kinky torture, subversive sex, spiders and snakes, awesome death traps, and exotic locale should delight the adventure lover in you.

Heavy Metal

Influenced as much by Second City and National Lampoon as the comic magazine that bears its name, HEAVY METAL is a crude, loud, misogynist, and violent animated film for adults that is a rollicking good time. Yes, in the case of HEAVY METAL, those adjectives are positives.

Seemingly designed for midnight crowds under the influence, the R-rated science fiction fantasy boasts a rockin’ soundtrack that includes Devo, Journey, Blue Oyster Cult, Cheap Trick, Nazareth, Grand Funk, Black Sabbath, and Sammy Hagar, who performs the title song. MEATBALLS writers Dan Goldberg and Len Blum scripted an anthology based on HEAVY METAL stories and built around a deadly green orb called the Loc-Nar and voiced by a curiously Percy Rodriguez (PEYTON PLACE), who was voicing virtually every horror movie trailer at the time.

Segments include “Harry Canyon” with Richard Romanus (MEAN STREETS) as a futuristic noir cabbie, “Den” with John Candy (SPLASH) as a teenage nerd who is transformed into a muscular hero in an alternate universe (reminiscent of Jeffrey Lord’s Blade novels), “Captain Sternn” with Eugene Levy (AMERICAN PIE) as a lantern-jawed space jockey standing trial on a space station, “B-17” pitting World War II bombers against zombies, “”So Beautiful and So Dangerous” about a Pentagon secretary abducted by cokehead aliens Levy, Candy, and Harold Ramis (STRIPES), and the terrific “Taarna” (possibly an influence on AEON FLUX) about a beautiful Amazon who fights barbarians astride a flying dinosaur.

Comic book artist/writers Richard Corben, Angus McKie, Dan O’Bannon, and Berni Wrightson contributed some of the HEAVY METAL stories adapted by Goldberg and Blum. Ivan Reitman (GHOSTBUSTERS) produced the Columbia release in Montreal on a budget reported between $7.5 million and $10 million, and National Lampoon art director Michael Gross was the production designer. In addition to the hard rock songs, the thrilling score is composed by THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN’s Elmer Bernstein, giving the outrageous horror, sci-fi, and fantasy sequences — particularly “Taarna,” which has little dialogue — a rich soundscape to match. A limp sequel, HEAVY METAL 2000, built around pinup model Julie Strain, was produced years later.

Storm Trooper

Carol Alt once wore a bikini on the cover of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED. She graduated to an undistinguished career in independent movies, both in Hollywood and in Italy, including this direct-to-video action movie directed by Jim Wynorski. And there’s no doubting it’s a Wynorski movie when the first scene is guys with guns running into L.A.’s Department of Water and Power — a Wynorski staple location.

Another way to identify STORM TROOPER as a Wynorski joint: the cast. Many of the director’s repertory company is here: John Terlesky (DEATHSTALKER II) as Guy With Shotgun, Ross Hagen (HARD BOUNTY) as Goon Driving Semi, Arthur Roberts (NOT OF THIS EARTH) as Evil General, Tim Abell (RAPTOR) as Douchebag Cop, Melissa Brasselle (RANGERS) as Butch Soldier, Jay Richardson (MUNCHIE) as Other Evil General. And the plot is similar to Wynorski’s THE ASSAULT (which Brasselle wrote).

Alt is an abused wife who kills afore-mentioned Douchebag Cop husband at exactly the same time an amnesiac arrives on her doorstep. Pursuing him are Roberts’ soldiers, which include Zach Galligan (GREMLINS), Rick Hill (DEATHSTALKER), and Corey Feldman (THE GOONIES) in an eyepatch. Alt and the amnesiac (John Laughlin) fight back while the dead husband lounges in the bathtub. It takes forever for Wynorski to reveal the big twist, which is that Laughlin is a robot.

Whatever. That Laughlin is a robot has no bearing on the story, which would have played out the same way if he were a whole man. This sloppiness runs throughout the production. Characters crash through windows with no glass in them. The ground shows no signs of a recent thunderstorm. Alt is saddled with memories of a dead son that have no impact on the plot or her arc. STORM TROOPER is unexceptional, though some will get a kick out of the cult actors, even the ones who are miscast.

Girl On The Run (1953)

This very cheap independent production gets off to a discouraging start, as the opening titles play over a still of a creepy clown while generic school-band music plays. However, if you stick with GIRL ON THE RUN, its weirder elements start to take effect, leading to an unusual, almost dream-like narrative that barely sustains its 64-minute running time. And Steve McQueen is in it.

The whole film takes place over one night in a single location: a small-town carnival. Traveling carnies may not have been as skeevy as GIRL ON THE RUN indicates, but it’s an appropriately grim setting for Joseph Lee and Arthur Beckhard’s murder tale. Richard Coogan, best known at the time as TV’s Captain Video on the DuMont network, stars as Bill Martin, a newspaper reporter accused to killing his editor, a man named Marsh, who was investigating allegations of vice at the carnival.

In keeping with normal B-movie pacing, Martin’s backstory is dispensed through early dialogue. Our first glimpse of the film’s hero is inside a dark tent, where he and his girlfriend Janet (Jacqueline Pettit) are hiding from both the cops and a local councilman named Reeves (Harry Bannister). Martin suspects Reeves and the carnival’s owner, a midget (!) named Blake (Charles Bollender), of pimping and, of course, Marsh’s murder.

So with the story already in motion when the film opens, it moves along pretty rapidly while still leaving room for local color — namely tantalizing views of the forbidden pleasures awaiting inside the adults-only tent. Whether the result of the low budget, desperate casting, or the filmmaker’s attention to realism, the hotsy-totsy burlesque dancers are a long way from Vegas showgirls. Dumpy, weary, hard-edged, and certainly not the girls next door, they’re alluring enough to entice the rubes, but with no question Blake’s rundown show is as far as they’ll ever get.

As for McQueen, he can be seen early in the picture testing his strength with a mallet, and then again a few minutes later squiring his date to the fortune teller’s tent as Coogan walks into frame.

The Klansman

Paramount released this notoriously tasteless, inept, and unintentionally hilarious racial melodrama, but not proudly. Richard Burton, whose performance is terrible (producer Bill Shiffrin said Burton didn’t deserve to be paid), was so drunk during shooting that, years later, he had no memory of meeting co-star Lee Marvin, with whom he shares many scenes. Best of all is the stolid Burton’s clumsy karate fight with equally uncoordinated Cameron Mitchell, which remains funny no matter how many times you see it.

As with Paramount’s later release MANDINGO, THE KLANSMAN is based on a novel (this one by William Bradford Huie) and features major stars humiliating themselves in an overwrought stew of sleazy sex, violence, and racial epithets. The slurring Burton (CLEOPATRA) plays Breck Stancill, a rich liberal landowner who allows poor African-Americans to squat rent-free on his Alabama mountain. This pisses off the locals, many of whom, including the mayor (THE BIG LEBOWSKI’s David Huddleston), are members of the Ku Klux Klan. Trying to stay neutral in the heated confrontation between blacks fighting for their voting rights and whites trying to block them is local sheriff “Big Track” Bascomb (Marvin, who claimed he and Burton never received their full salary), who is kinda racist, but is willing to live and let live.

Samuel Fuller (VERBOTEN!) was the original writer and director before being replaced by Millard Kaufman (BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK) and Terence Young (FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE), respectively, in those roles. It’s difficult to know who to blame for THE KLANSMAN’s most sordid moments, which include the castration of a black man wrongly accused of raping white Linda Evans (MITCHELL), Bascomb covering up racist deputy Butt Cut Cates’ (Mitchell) rape of black virgin Lola Falana (LADY COCOA), and O.J. Simpson (!) sneaking around and shooting the white men responsible for his friend’s murder. By the time Marvin has smeared the blood from Falana’s busted hymen across Mitchell’s face, you may be in the mood for a Silkwood shower.

One thing’s for sure: once you’ve seen THE KLANSMAN, you’ll never forget it. No movie with Lee Marvin mowing down the Ku Klux Klan with a machine gun can be all bad. The Staples Singers perform the opening song, and Shiffrin somehow convinced name actors to wallow in this mire, including THUNDERBALL’s Luciana Paluzzi (dubbed by Joanna Moore) laughably miscast as a small town police clerk named Trixie. She’s at least as convincing as Oroville, California’s performance as Atoka County, Alabama.

Pink Cadillac

Any discussion about the worst film of Clint Eastwood’s career has to begin with PINK CADILLAC, Malpaso’s attempt at a comedy about white supremacy. Opening the same weekend as INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE certainly didn’t help at the box office, but PINK CADILLAC was deservedly a dud, debuting in fifth place and pretty much out of theaters a month later.

As mentioned above, PINK CADILLAC is a comedy about neo-Nazis, a tough feat for accomplished filmmakers, much less screenwriter John Eskow (AIR AMERICA) and director Buddy Van Horn (THE DEAD POOL), Eastwood’s longtime stunt double. Playing to his Philo Beddoe fan base, Eastwood plays Tommy Nowak, a bounty hunter who wears wacky disguises in pursuit of bail jumpers. His new assignment is dingey Lou Ann (Bernadette Peters, of all people), who steals her jerk ex-husband Roy’s (miscast Timothy Carhart) pink Cadillac, unaware that it contains dirty money belonging to Roy’s white supremacy group.

It would come to no surprise to learn Tommy Nowak was one of Eastwood’s favorite roles. The macho actor gets to pose as wacky morning zoo DJ, lisping redneck (pretty funny actually), and rodeo clown in pursuit of prey, never mind there must be ninety easier and less costly methods. No doubt he had more fun making PINK CADILLAC than anyone has watching it. The preppy-looking Carhart (THELMA & LOUISE) is the least convincing trailer-park-living redneck racist of all time, and Jim Carrey (also in Eastwood and Van Horn’s THE DEAD POOL) appears briefly as an Elvis impersonator. Unfunny, tasteless, and insanely long at 121 minutes, PINK CADILLAC runs out of gas early in its first act and sputters out quickly thereafter.

Count Yorga, Vampire aka The Loves Of Count Iorga, Vampire

The career of 44-year-old journeyman Robert Quarry received a major boost from COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE, which led to a sequel and an AIP contract as the studio’s next big horror star. What was originally intended as a softcore sex flick by writer/director Bob Kelljan (RAPE SQUAD) and producer Michael Macready (TERROR AT THE RED WOLF INN) was re-edited and released as straight horror based on the belief that Quarry’s regal, sexy performance as a charismatic vampire would make the film a success. Some prints still bear the original title, THE LOVES OF COUNT IORGA, VAMPIRE, but the film is strictly PG fare.

After performing a seance for Donna (Donna Anders) and her friends, Count Yorga (Quarry) is driven home by Paul (Michael Murphy, later in Robert Altman films) and Erica (Judith Lang) in Paul’s van. After dropping off Yorga, the couple is stranded in the count’s driveway and spend the night there, where they are attacked. We see the assailant is Yorga, now pale and bearing fangs, but Paul doesn’t get a glimpse at him and Erica doesn’t remember anything. All she knows is that she has lost a lot of blood and bears two strange puncture wounds on her neck. Nobody apparently having heard of vampires, Erica’s physician, Dr. Jim Hayes (Roger Perry), advises her to eat a lot of steaks.

Only after Paul and his friend Mike (Macready, whose character actor father George contributed the opening narration) walk in on Erica chowing down on her pet cat instead of a juicy steak do they start to believe a vampire may be in their midst. Yorga, who has already taken Erica’s late mother (softcore actress Marsha Jordan) as one of his undead brides, kidnaps the weakened Erica as another, leaving it up to Mike and Jim to storm the Bulgarian count’s mansion on a rescue mission.

Quarry is excellent as Count Yorga — perhaps too good, as the bland but likable Perry, a reliable television actor, and his co-stars are not believable as formidable opponents, either physically or mentally. Placing an old-fashioned vampire story, usually told in a Gothic setting, in modern-day Los Angeles was a novelty at the time COUNT YORGA was released, and Quarry does a nice job straddling the contemporary and the Old World.

Spurred by the success of COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE, AIP not only commissioned a quick sequel, THE RETURN OF COUNT YORGA, but also a pair of films about Blacula, an African vampire played by William Marshall. Quarry also played a vampire in DEATHMASTER, and co-starred with AIP star Vincent Price (the two actors disliked one another) in two horror movies. Quarry died in 2009.

Sudden Impact

The only Dirty Harry movie directed by Clint Eastwood, SUDDEN IMPACT is the one in which Clint says “Go ahead...make my day” — a catchphrase that went so viral even President Reagan used it in a speech two years after the film came out. The film was a hit — it opened at number one at the box office, out-grossing the premiering SCARFACE (!) and CHRISTINE — and audiences openly cheered the violence.

Eastwood’s San Francisco police inspector, “Dirty Harry” Callahan, kills so many people in SUDDEN IMPACT that he is first suspended and then sent to a small California town to investigate a series of vigilante murders. The killer is a sympathetic one: Jennifer Spencer (Sondra Locke), the victim of a gang rape years earlier that left her sister a catatonic and Jennifer out for revenge. A sympathetic villain, perhaps, but a weak one, as Locke isn’t a strong enough actress to project the proper represssed rage and, despite their long romantic relationship, she and Eastwood never had much on-screen chemistry.

The weak central plot in the screenplay by Joseph C. Stinson (STICK) actually works to SUDDEN IMPACT’s advantage. As a series of unrelated action setpieces, Eastwood’s film is a lot of fun. Bad guys with guns seem to pop up everywhere Harry goes, and he can’t even take vacation days without stumbling into a crime scene. Eastwood directs the chases and shootouts for maximum excitement, and Stinson (and possibly uncredited script polisher Dean Reisner) ensures Harry always has the perfect bon mot to punctuate each confrontation.

Scored by Lalo Schifrin (DIRTY HARRY), who lays down a killer cue to announce Harry’s arrival in the climax, SUDDEN IMPACT was the last Eastwood hit for almost a decade until UNFORGIVEN revitalized his career. Even the fifth and final Dirty Harry movie, THE DEAD POOL, despite featured roles for unknowns Jim Carrey (THE TRUMAN SHOW) and Liam Neeson (TAKEN), was a 1989 bomb.

Fire Maidens Of Outer Space

There’s something quaint about Cy Roth’s obvious pride concerning FIRE MAIDENS OF OUTER SPACE. Credited as the film’s director, producer, and writer (story and screenplay!), Roth’s name is given an ostentatious signature font in the opening titles, as if to mark the film definitively as Un Film De Cy Roth. What makes it so quaint is that FIRE MAIDENS OF OUTER SPACE is quite bad, mainly because of Roth’s direction, which is leaden, unimaginative, and devoid of adequate pacing. Roth directed two other films — military-themed B-pictures — that are forgotten today. Thanks to loyal science fiction fans, FIRE MAIDENS OF OUTER SPACE will always exist. Some of them don’t even mind that a “stone” wall wobbles when a tree branch is propped against it.

Anthony Dexter, the lead in Columbia’s VALENTINO, stars in this British production as an American scientist in charge of Expedition 13: a space flight to the newly discovered 13th moon of Jupiter, which amazingly looks like Earth. Like those classics MISSILE TO THE MOON and CAT-WOMEN OF THE MOON, Dexter and his men find a civilization of sexy women and one old dude (Owen Berry), the last of the original inhabitants of Atlantis, who left Earth to colonize space many years earlier. The so-called Fire Maidens, er, spend all day dancing near a flaming hearth. The only maidens we get to know are Berry’s daughter (Susan Shaw) and head dancer Jacqueline Curtis.

Oh, there’s also a creature, referred to only as “the creature.” Hammer makeup man Roy Ashton (THE MUMMY) created the creature’s look, which isn’t wildly convincing, but since Roth really only shows the creature in long shots (and it serves no purpose in the story, along with everything else), the makeup is okay. Despite the premise of astronauts meeting dancing girls and a monster in outer space, auteur Roth only has about 20 minutes of material in an 80-minute movie, so three out of every four scenes are padded with shots of people walking, sitting, dancing, staring, smoking — god, all the smoking — anything but telling a story.

Most of the visual effects are swiped from earlier films, including KING DINOSAUR and ROCKETSHIP X-M. No attempt is made to present its science with any degree of verisimilitude (“their gravitational laws and magnetic poles are contrary to ours” sounds like bullshit to me), and Roth’s direction is so sloppy that you can see British motorcars driving in the background of “the 13th moon.” Outside of Dexter — hardly a household name — the actors are obscure and were likely chosen for their low asking prices rather than their screen presence. Roth was no director, but judging from the massive product placement (TWA, Chesterfield, Coca-Cola, Longines…), he must have been a heck of a salesman.

Any Which Way You Can

Of course, Warner Brothers demanded a sequel when EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE became Clint Eastwood’s biggest box office smash to date, so here we are with ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN. To this day, the two films are Eastwood’s all-time most successful as an actor when grosses are adjusted for inflation, which is something when you think about the brilliant films in which he has starred. Also, I suspect it may hold the record for acts of violence in a PG film.

The screenplay by Stanford Sherman (KRULL) is not exactly outside the box nor should it be, I suppose. Bare-knuckles brawler Philo Beddoe (Clint) is back with most of the cast of the first film, including but not limited to scene-stealing Clyde the orangutan. Nazi bikers are still giving Philo a hard time, his pal Orville (Geoffrey Lewis) and Orville’s cantankerous mother (Ruth Gordon) still has his back, and even the country singer who jilted him (Sondra Locke) is back (it’s easy to forget the first film ended on kind of a bummer). Hell, even the main titles are the same, except instead of Eddie Rabbitt, it’s Clint warbling a song with Ray Charles about being in Vietnam. And, of course, it all ends with another knockdown dragout punchfest between Clint and Tank Murdock surrogate Jack Wilson, played by ubiquitous movie badass William Smith (CONAN THE BARBARIAN).

This sequel has more of a story — something about gangsters kidnapping Philo’s lady friend to coerce him into one last fight — but what makes it really interesting is the relationship between Philo and Jack Wilson. Smith doesn’t play Wilson as a standard heavy, but a man with a strong moral code who respects and maybe likes his opponent. Their fight, directed by stuntman Buddy Van Horn (THE DEAD POOL) making his debut, is a real corker that doesn’t stop just because of Philo’s broken arm. ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN is smuttier than the first film with more Clyde and more low-hanging boob jokes (literally). It’s also dumber and weirdly compelling most of the time.

Every Which Way But Loose

Clint Eastwood was one of the world’s biggest movie stars and at the height of his fame when he made EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE against the advice of his Malpaso team. Clint’s first comedy, EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE shocked critics to not only become his biggest box office hit to date, but his biggest hit ever when grosses are adjusted for inflation. It ain’t exactly Noel Coward, but the blue-collar antics of Clint’s bare-knuckles brawler Philo Beddoe and beer-swilling, bird-flipping orangutan Clyde struck gold in America’s heartland.

Writer Jeremy Joe Kronsberg (GOING APE!) sort of concocts a plot leading up to a match between Philo and the legendary Tank Murdock (Walter Barnes), but there’s a lot of cursing, infantile slapstick, weak double entendres, chases, drinking and driving, destruction of property, and punching of Nazi faces first. A surprising amount of screen time is given to Philo and his friends on a road trip where they camp out, get into fights, and sneak into a zoo to get Clyde laid.

Beddoe and Clyde live in Los Angeles next door to Philo’s best pal Orville (Geoffrey Lewis) and Orville’s senile mother (Ruth Gordon). Philo, who can lift a car, makes extra money fighting in underground bare-knuckles bouts. He picks up country singer Lynn Halsey-Taylor (Sondra Locke, who bowls in tiny shorts) in a bar and makes out with her in his old Chevy pickup. He also beats up a Pacoima Nazi biker gang called the Black Widows, played by the ugliest character actors Clint could find. Basically, Philo Beddoe is awesome.

With Eastwood’s ace crew, including editors Ferris Webster and Joel Cox, assisting director James Fargo (THE ENFORCER), EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE looks and sounds more professional than its ragged storyline deserves. Gregory Walcott (PRIME CUT) and James McEachin (FUZZ) play corrupt cops on Philo’s tail, and Beverly D’Angelo (NATIONAL LAMPOON’S VACATION) gives Lewis a romance. Mel Tillis sings a couple of his big hits, and Eddie Rabbit’s title song went to number one on the country charts. Believe it or not, the sequel, ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN, is Eastwood’s second-biggest inflation-adjusted box office hit of all time.

The Ghost And Mr. Chicken

Don Knotts is at his wound-up finest in THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN, his first film after leaving THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW. He’s a cornucopia of fidgets and shakes that pushes his physical comedy skills to the limit. Even when he isn’t saying anything, Knotts is a delight to watch.

As written by GRIFFITH vets Jim Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum and directed by the Griffith show’s Alan Rafkin, THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN is one of the most quotable comedies of its era: “Bang! Right on the head!”, “Mister Boob. That’s me. B-Double-O-B. Boob!”, “When you work with words, words are your work,” and, of course, “Attaboy, Luther!” Set in rural Rachel, Kansas, Knotts plays Luther Heggs, a meek, excitable typesetter at the local newspaper with dreams of becoming a reporter. Neither his editor (Dick Sargent, later the Fake Darrin on BEWITCHED) nor his reporter rival (Skip Homeier) takes him seriously, and Homeier isn‘t even particularly friendly, cutting Luther down like a grade school bully.

Luther’s big chance comes when he accepts a dare to spend the night in the creepy Simmons mansion, an abandoned old house rumored to be haunted since Old Man Simmons murdered his wife there 20 years previously and then committed suicide. Simmons’ nephew (Phil Ober) has returned to Rachel to demolish the place, but those plans are put on hold after Luther’s scoop the next day in which he describes encounters with hidden staircases, a pipe organ that plays by itself, and a portrait of the late Mrs. Simmons with bloody shears protruding from it.

Since you and I don’t believe in ghosts, it’s easy to guess that human hands might be behind Luther’s apparitions. The journey to the mystery’s solution is a pleasing one, particularly because of the delightful supporting cast Rafkin assembled. TV Land fanatics will undoubtedly smile at Reta Shaw, Charles Lane, Ellen (“Grandma Walton“) Corby, Robert Cornthwaite, Cliff Norton, and Burt Mustin, just to name a few. However, the movie's secret weapon is the amazing jazz score by Vic Mizzy, whose jaunty main theme is later rearranged as a spooky organ tune Luther hears in the mansion. It's hard to get the tune out of your head once you've heard it, and it‘s one of the finest comedic scores of the 1960s.

Attack Of The Puppet People

Bert I. Gordon’s specialty, if it can be called that, was making movies about animate objects that were either very large or very small. Hence, titles in Gordon’s filmography like VILLAGE OF THE GIANTS, THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN, KING DINOSAUR, BEGINNING OF THE END (giant grasshoppers), EMPIRE OF THE ANTS (giant ants), FOOD OF THE GODS (giant chicken). And ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE, which is not about puppets, but people shrunken to about six inches in height.

A kindly old dollmaker played by John Hoyt (WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE) owns a three-room doll factory on the fifth floor of an office building. He’s the only employee of Dolls, Inc., except for new secretary June Kenney (EARTH VS. THE SPIDER), who is replacing the old secretary, who just disappeared. So did Hoyt’s mailman and several other people in Hoyt’s outer circle, not that the authorities ever noticed. Well, the title gives it away — Hoyt has learned how to shrink people and soon adds Kenney and doll salesman John Agar (TARANTULA) to his repertory company.

Of course, it’s typically silly “Mr. B.I.G.” shenanigans, though Hoyt works hard to create a sympathetic villain. Hilariously, based on absolutely no evidence whatsoever, Kenney deduces her boss turned Agar into a doll just because the doll looks like him. The fact that she’s right makes this plot point no less ridiculous. Gordon takes credit as director, producer, story writer (IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA’s George Worthing Yates wrote the screenplay), and technical effects supervisor.

Befitting a film at this budget level, the quality of the effects varies. Sometimes the simplest are the best — some shots of miniaturized people in glass tubes are actually 2D photographs, rather than actors and photographic effects. Agar and Kenney make out during THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN at a drive-in, and AIP released ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE on a double bill with Gordon’s sequel, WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST.

Venom (1981)

I’m just going to jump in and proclaim VENOM the greatest killer-snake movie of all time (I would not be surprised to learn about some crazy Asian snake flick that makes VENOM look as sedate as a Mitch Miller concert). Much of its value comes from its cast, which includes some of the acting profession’s most notorious troublemakers. You’d have to be nuts to cast Klaus Kinski (SCHIZOID), Oliver Reed (SITTING TARGET), Sterling Hayden (THE LONG GOODBYE), and Nicol Williamson (THE EXORCIST III) in the same movie. When original director Tobe Hooper (THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE) was fired a few days into production, it may have saved his sanity.

Piers Haggard (THE FIENDISH PLOT OF DR. FU MANCHU) was a rapid replacement for Hooper, but to his credit, none of VENOM’s backstage shenanigans show up on the screen. It’s a neat little thriller with a unsettling premise that should affect you whether you’re afraid of garter snakes or let your pet python crawl freely around your home. Kinski leads a band of kidnappers after the asthmatic grandson of wealthy hunter Hayden. Kinski’s conspirators include family chauffeur Reed and the boy’s nanny Susan George (MANDINGO), Kinski’s lover who uses her wiles to keep muscle-headed Reed toeing the line.

It goes to show no matter how intricate your plan, you can’t think of everything. Such as a black mamba, the world’s most vicious and poisonous snake, getting loose in the house. Hey, it could happen. With Williamson’s laconic police inspector and his men surrounding the house, the kidnappers, Hayden, snake expert Sarah Miles (RYAN’S DAUGHTER), and the boy are trapped inside with a killer that could literally be almost anywhere — inside the air vents, behind a curtain, hiding in a dark corner. Yikes.

For a last-minute director pulled from the ranks of British television, Haggard does a remarkable job keeping the suspense high and your rear end on the edge of your seat. VENOM is a very good thriller, thanks to its wily direction, stellar cast, and creepy cinematography by Gilbert Taylor (STAR WARS), who keeps the camera close to accentuate the claustrophobia that enhances the characters’ fear.

Untamed Youth/Born Reckless

Howard W. Koch, a very busy producer and director of B-movies (including FRANKENSTEIN 1970, VOODOO ISLAND, HOT CARS, and BIG HOUSE U.S.A.), signed megablonde Mamie Van Doren to a personal two-picture contract after being impressed by her work wearing a bathing suit in THE GIRL IN BLACK STOCKINGS. Both UNTAMED YOUTH and its followup, BORN RECKLESS, gave Van Doren top billing for the first time and allowed her to do what she did best, which was wriggle around in a tight dress while singing Les Baxter songs that sort of sounded like rock-and-roll.

To be fair, Van Doren may have been minimally talented, but what she did, she did extremely well, and it’s difficult to pull your eyes away from her. So pity poor Lori Nelson (DAY THE WORLD ENDED), who acquits herself just fine in UNTAMED YOUTH, but unfortunately barely registers standing next to the bullet-braed Van Doren. The two blondes play sisters who are busted by corrupt sheriff Robert Foulk (who played a nicer sheriff on LASSIE) on hitchhiking charges and sentenced by judge Lurene Tuttle (TV’s JULIA) to thirty days slave labor on a cotton plantation owned by LAWMAN’s John Russell (who turned up years later in Clint Eastwood’s PALE RIDER).

What we have is cinema’s first women-in-prison musical, as Van Doren or Eddie Cochran (“Summertime Blues”) as a prisoner named Bong bursts into family-friendly rock tunes on a moment’s notice. Even after a long, hard day picking cotton under a sweltering sun, these beatniks still have the energy after work to turn their dorm into a swinging dance party. Writer John C. Higgins (BORDER INCIDENT) does his best to make all this nonsense, including the revelation of Russell’s secret marriage to the much-older Tuttle, play as if it could actually happen, and fans of 1950s bombshells will also enjoy Yvonne Lime (I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF) and nudie model Jeanne Carmen (THE MONSTER OF PIEDRAS BLANCAS) in the cast.

The busy Van Doren was married to bandleader Ray Anthony and doing a song-and-dance act in Las Vegas during her two-picture deal with director Koch. Unlike UNTAMED YOUTH, BORN RECKLESS plays straight — unfortunate, because drama is not what either Van Doren or co-star Jeff Richards does best.

Richard Landau’s repetitive horse-and-bull story follows saloon crooner Van Doren (with tight shirts and a cowboy hat perched precariously upon her peroxide hairdo) and cowboys Richards (who went from this to his own television series, JEFFERSON DRUM) and Arthur Hunnicutt (THE BIG SKY) from county to county competing in local rodeos. Like a living Bill Ward drawing, Van Doren draws catcalls just stepping into a room, which inevitably leads to some masher molesting her, Richards getting beaten up defending her honor, and Hunnicutt missing another steak dinner to retrieve the truck for a fast getaway.

Aside from the usually entertaining Hunnicutt, Koch’s film offers little of note. The drama isn’t interesting, the rodeo action is mostly stock footage, and the strident comic relief is over-scored by Buddy Bregman. Carol Ohmart (SPIDER BABY) shows up as Mamie’s competitor for the stiff Richards, but she doesn’t seem like the villain the film depicts her as. After BORN RECKLESS, Van Doren stopped working for Koch (for whom she made three pictures) and moved on to directors Edward L. Cahn and Albert Zugsmith to varying success.