movie review – Page 2 – The Magnificent 60s

The Driver (1978) ***

Blasphemy I know but I went to see this back in the day not because of director Walter Hill, certainly not for star Ryan O’Neal, but for the wonderfully edgy Bruce Dern (Smile, 1975). You never knew what Dern would do next. Even his hairstyles tended to be offkey. Without having the choleric demeanor of, say, Trevor Howard, he was never far short of exploding. Although he had a couple of top-billed roles, his position as an out-and-out leading man never took off and he was relegated to second male lead. But having him in your cast could transform a picture, especially if you let him off the lead.

My guess is that Walter Hill was aiming for the monosyllabic essence of a Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen or Charles Bronson in casting the main role. But no matter how often Ryan O’Neal screws up his eyes or issues dialog through a sullen mouth he lacks the edginess his existential character requires, like those French guys Alain Delon or Jean-Paul Belmondo who were kings of edginess.

Instead, we’re stuck with O’Neal, and I don’t entirely blame the actor, he’s not always sappy, look at his work in The Thief Who Came to Dinner (1973). But the director does him no favors by failing to provide him not only with a background but any sense of a contemporary life – no partner, no kids – apart from a fondness for country music. Whatever he’s salting away his hefty earnings as a getaway driver for we never find out. So, unfortunately, bearing in mind O’Neal’s screen presence limitations, what we’re left with is a cipher.

All we know about the unnamed driver (Ryan O’Neal) is that he doesn’t like guns – and that proves to be a bit of a clever red herring. The unnamed detective (Bruce Dern) is much better value. Theoretically, he’s the good guy but back in the day cops had carte blanche to play the bad guy and this one decides to trap the driver by setting up his own bank robbery, planning to enrol the driver.

Into this mix comes “the player” (Isabelle Adjani – an actress who has a definite Gallic edge), a poker player, a kept woman, who happens to catch sight of the driver during a robbery at a small-time casino and then demands payment for not picking him out of a line-up. There is a smattering of burgeoning romance but you wouldn’t trust her not just to be after you for your wallet.

I’ve not mentioned the car chases, of which there are several. I’ve not mentioned them because they are all the same and except for ripping off a Lee Marvin scene from Point Blank (1967) lack the edginess and invention of the famous predecessors Bullitt (1968), The French Connection (1971), Fear Is the Key (1972) and any James Bond picture you care to mention. All the chases take place on the flat and maybe duke into the occasional alley but mostly stick to the main roads where tires can screech and let off sparks. And that’s it really. Once in a while someone has to duck to avoid bullets, but after the first chase, it’s basically repetition. Okay for the petrol-heads but a tad boring for the rest of us.

So back to the clever dick cop. Even by the standards of the rogue cop, the plot point seems imminently ridiculous. The detective is hiring a gang of robbers known to like using their guns to scare off any innocent bystanders. So what are the chances of that going wrong and some poor bank customer or employee being knocked off. Explain that to your employers, Mr. Detective. Trying to catch a getaway guy is not going to wash as the excuse.

Plus, of course, your clever plan relies on being able to get back the stolen dough. In those days, of course, you didn’t have to worry about the PTSD of anyone caught up in a violent robbery or think of compensating a bank for damage to property and some such and since this is Hollywood where all dreams come true, even one as barmy that that hatched by Walter Hill (he’s the screenwriter, too), you can just carry on regardless.

The best part of the picture is the non-vehicle getaway. The driver has to use a fence to get rid of the hot cash and is willing to trade it in at a substantial loss. This involves left luggage, keys, double crossing, the detective chasing down two sets of cash, the player, and a final stand-off.

Talking Pictures TV which has a habit of finding gold in old pictures out of circulation for a long time has this to view for free. I had wanted to check it out to correct my earlier estimation and for the pleasure of seeing Bruce Dern in one of his best roles. But I didn’t end up altering my opinion.

Bruce Dern steals the show. It’s worth comparing what little Isabelle Adjani (The Story of Adele H, 1975) does to what little Ryan O’Neal does. She wins hands down.

Walter Hill would go onto to win a certain regard among critics. But the only pictures of his I like undeservedly are Streets of Fire (1984) with another monosyllabic main character and 48 Hrs (1982) but the latter mainly because Eddie Murphy knocks spots off the monosyllabic sour Nick Nolte.

Worth a watch for all the wrong reasons. Not Walter Hill or car chases, but Bruce Dern and Isabelle Adjani.

By the way, Bruce Dern is a guest at this year’s Edinburgh Film Festival so we might get a showing of Silent Running (1972) or Smile (1975).

Supernova (2000) ***

Under-rated for sure but still light years ahead of such sci fi nonsense as The End of Oak St (2026). Doesn’t hang around either, story told in 82 minutes flat. And instead of wasting time and stretching credibility just comes straight out and says the crew on this space ship and the audience for that matter aren’t smart enough to understand even in pure mathematical terms what is going on in the ninth dimension, which is where the narrative threat comes from.

Plays around with the Alien series conceit of alien aboard a space ship but doesn’t require a toothy monster and doesn’t fall for that old canard of dropping what you’re doing and responding to a distress signal from outer space. For the simple reason that this is medivac operation, its purpose to rescue people in distress.

There’s some interesting stuff about evolution and quite a nice line about the human race being effectively composed of stardust gathered from the previous millions of years. And it’s gone truly hyper in terms of the threat – I mean Project Hail Mary (2026) level of threat. We’re not talking about invading Earth or blowing it up, what’s at stake from this item from the ninth dimension is our solar system as a blue giant (sun) or supernova intends to wipe out anything it perceives as a rival.

Given that our brains, as noted, are too small to conceive of such a concept, the main narrative concentrates on dealing with a refugee from a mining planet and his “treasure” worth billions, plus an “11-minute window” at the end of the tale for the crew to escape. The Nightingale space ship has performed what’s termed a “dimension-jump” which permits it in pure lightspeed style to cover 3,000 light years in a flash.

However, the ship’s captain dies during the jump and recovering drug addict Nick (James Spader) takes command. On board we’ve got Dr Kaela (Angela Bassett), lovers Danika (Robin Tunney) and Yerzy (Lou Diamond Phillips), and Benji (Wilson Cruz) who plays chess with computer control Sweetie. First hint of impending trouble is that Karl (Peter Facinelli), the fellow being rescued, was the abusive partner of Kaela. Then it turns out he’s Karl’s son. Then it turns out he’s actually Karl, grown younger and somewhat superhuman, a charmer, who manages to seduce Danika, though her lover doesn’t seem to mind, too entranced by the “treasure”, a spherical artefact containing the aforesaid ninth dimensional matter.

Nick wants to dump the treasure out the window. The ship’s got enough problems, having lost most of its fuel during the jump and liable to be incinerated in 17 hours by the blue giant which is sucking it into its high-gravity atmosphere.

Nick returns to the mining planet to find extra fuel supplies, not realizing this is a trap of Karl’s devising, allowing the invader to weaponize all manner of equipment against Nick. Meanwhile, Karl gets rid of Danika and Yerzy by the simple measure of ejecting them into space. He gets the better of Kaela and Benji. The best scene is Benji pleading with the computer to override its controls to deal with Karl, on the grounds that she’s done this once before to wake him up to play chess.

Naturally, Nick has a few tricks up his sleeve or the ending would be pre-ordained. Although you probably wouldn’t expect to see Nick and Kaela stuck in the same pod, buck naked, for the journey home. Whether they then exchange bodily fluids is unclear, but they do swap eye color.

There’s also an interesting kicker. If the artifact reacts with the blue giant, it will create a supernova which will reach Earth in 51 years and either destroy it or lead it into a new form of evolution.

This doesn’t have a good rep, mostly on account of the shenanigans relating to its shooting – more about that tomorrow – but I found it to be pretty serviceable. James Spader (Secretary, 2002) was always better when he could exude menace of sexual creepiness so playing the hero just doesn’t seem right. Peter Facinelli (Viper, 2026) exudes a Spader kind of menace – with a smile. Oscar-nominated Angela Basset (What’s Love Got To Do With It, 1993) ensured there was at least one class act aboard. Robin Tunney (End of Days, 1999) is landed with the overly-emotional scenes. Lou Diamond Philips (La Bamba, 1987) and Wilson Cruz, better known for television, are effective.

There was a whole hoohah surrounding the direction so I’m dealing with that tomorrow in a Behind the Scenes.

Much better than I expected.

The End of Oak St (2026) ** – Seen at the Cinema

Truly terrible. When your standout scene is two dinosaurs humping each other or having their snouts covered in ice cream or a slithosaurus slithering through a house your picture is in dire trouble. Basically, it’s like a random selection of Steven Spielberg offcuts – the dazzling overhead light from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), the kids cycling in E.T (1982), the heaps of dinosaur pooh from Jurassic Park (1993). Plus being trapped in a car and feral threats in the kitchen, also from Jurassic Park.

This feels like a sci fi B-movie from the 1950s when the plot comprises preposterous nonsense. I laughed out loud when I listened to the stars, clearly barely able to contain themselves when they had to do the exposition. A wormhole or a ripple in the universe had either transported a small town back 200 million years to the prehistoric period or the reverse, transported the prehistoric period complete with jungle and swamps to 1982.

And someone’s being trimming the budget. Once the dinosaurs go on the attack there’s barely a dozen people around for them to prey on, you’d have expected an entire feast awaiting them on the streets.

The cast are required to do little more than run and scream and the screenwriter little more than find ways of the cast getting in the way of the dinosaurs rather than doing their level best to hide. And there’s one of those dumb twists at the end to provide us with a happy ending, so that one of the stars, whose been munched by a dinosaur, can be reunited with his family.

The wormhole bounces around a bit, from house to house, garden to garden, for some reason. It’s this big wobbly ball and minus any of the sensible mumbo-jumbo analysis or assessment of other big-budget sci fi pictures this relies on someone deducing that if they jump into this big wobbly ball they’ll end up back where they came from.

Anne Hathaway has blown all the esteem she’s earned from this year’s The Devil Wears Prada 2 and The Odyssey and unless it was her heart’s desire to make the kind of picture that is cannon fodder for Netflix or Amazon rather than 20^th Century Fox it’s an awful decision. This is Ewan McGregor’s first picture since the low-budget Mother Couch (2023) and it’s not done him any favors unless a casting director is looking for someone who can run and scream and both at the same time.

Trying to fill out the story we have dissatisfied couple Denise (Anne Hathaway) and Greg (Ewan McGregor). She’s a budding writer, but her novel reveals that she’s desperate to leave husband and two kids. He’s lost his job but hasn’t told his wife, making ends meet by making pizza deliveries and he’s prone to secret nips of whisky.

Daughter Audrey (Maisy Stella) is a big fan of Carl Sagan and astronomy and can chip in with nonsensical mumbo-jumbo should the need arrive. Son Brian (Christian Convery) is being bullied by a bigger boy, but that’s because he broke the arm of the bigger boy’s younger brother, so not quite as straight-on a victim as he appears. And there’s a dog, improbably called Starbucks, which both goes missing and turns up as the narrative requires.

Apart from the slithosaurus and the dinosaurs shagging each other there’s nothing new here. The premise is as barmy as One Night Only (2026), so maybe studios believe they’ve dumbed down the movies sufficiently for audiences to accept the dumbest of plots.

Nobody comes out of this well, least of all uber-producer J.J. Abrams (Star Wars – Episode VII: The Force Awakens, 2015). Lazy rip-offs did not seem to fit into his portfolio.

Writer-director David Robert Mitchell made a splash with It Follows (2014) but doesn’t carry this off.

The best you can say is that maybe it will be candidate for the So-Bad-It’s-good subgenre.

Laughable.

The Vampire Lovers (1970) ***

Should have a lot more going for it. Female empowerment for a start. This would also, in today’s terms, be called a reboot of the Dracula legend, though it does originate from a different source than Bram Stoker. Or you could look at the bold exploration of lesbianism, none of the angst of The Killing of Sister George (1968) or the lyricism of The Fox (1967). Or you could fall back on that old chestnut – a camp reinterpretation of the vampire world, where female breasts rather than necks are the prime target. At the very least, it should have set up Ingrid Pitt (Where Eagles Dare, 1968) for stardom.

And while all these hold true, it lacks the key ingredient of the horror picture, any kind of tension or imminent threat. Nor does it carry the emotional weight of Countess Dracula (1971) – also starring Pitt – a twist on Dorian Gray, of a woman trying to hold age at bay with infusions of virgin blood.

So, in the end, it comes off as little more than a commercial decision to revive a fading genre with lashings of nudity, sex and lesbianism. Director Roy Ward Baker (Moon Zero Two, 1969) brings significant style to the proceedings even though the backdrops look as if they’ve been picked from a cast-off bin.

The tale is based on a story Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu, that predated Bram Stoker. On the production side, Hammer and its American rival AIP teamed up, with the latter blamed for insisting on the sexual overdose. Although on that score you could as easily point the finger at the British censor known for his liberal approach to such shenanigans.

While it’s true that Dracula, especially as interpreted by Christopher Lee in Hammer offerings, carried a sexual frisson, there was never anything more than that, allowing the audience to determine whether the vampire was ever interested in a woman except for the purpose of sucking blood from her neck. Previously, diaphanous gowns and cleavage had been the extent of the sexual element. To switch the target from the neck to the breasts is a determined commercial move.

So, basically, with a gender twist, we’re following the old story – vampire stalks victims, finds acolytes, and falls victim to a vampire hunter. In the 19^th century, the beautiful Carmilla (Ingrid Pitt), traveling with her mother, a countess (Dawn Adams), is adept at inveigling herself into high-class households where she seduces the daughters and staff of the rich. Her first victim Laura is niece to General Spielsdorf (Peter Cushing) who subsequently enlists the help of vampire hunter Baron Hartog (David Wilmer), who mistakenly believes he had rid the world of the female vampire clan.

Next for the bloody breast treatment is a Mademoiselle Perrodot (Kate O’Mara), governess to Emma (Madeleine Smith). Perrodot becomes her lover and accomplice. Carmilla is an inclusive kind of vampire and if need be will seduce any male obstacle such as Morton’s suspicious butler Renton (Harvey Hall) while sucking the blood out of any passing male of more modest means.

Carmilla has the same get-out-of-jail-free as any male of the species and can take refuge in her grave until the heat passes. However, this time she’s intent on taking Emma with her. By now Baron Hartog has filled the general in on the threat, explaining that the Karnstein clan go back to the sixteenth century, and that he has dispatched many of the breed in traditional fashion, decapitation or stake through the heart, but he had been unable to find the night-time resting place of Carmilla.

So when Carmilla heads off to Karnstein Castle with Emma, she’s not expecting vampire hunters lying in wait. This time it’s the general who does the killing, making doubly sure by both cutting off her head and driving a stake through her heart. Emma recovers.

Given that any version of Dracula was essentially a franchise, Hammer/AIP managed to keep the Karnsteins going for another two episodes, Lust for a Vampire (1971) – which gave Yutte Stensgaard a shot a stardom – and Twins of Evil (1972) starring Playboy Playmates the Collinson twins.

While The Vampire Lovers was a launching pad for Ingrid Pitt as a new top-billed femme fatale, her marquee attraction didn’t last beyond the superior Countess Dracula. However, Pitt certainly brings gusto to the part and there’s an argument that the contemporary world deserved more explicit expression of that previously restrained sexual frisson. The counter-argument is that it’s blatant sexploitation.

Kate O’Mara (The Horror of Frankenstein, 1970), a future Scream Queen, would have been an obvious contender for the main role rather than a supporting one except that she refused to take off her clothes. Madeleine Smith (Taste the Blood of Dracula, 1970) became another future Scream Queen.

With Ingrid Pitt’s physical allure to the fore that limited the involvement of Peter Cushing (Frankenstein Created Woman, 1967). The more prominent of the wannabes was Jon Finch (Macbeth, 1971).

Written by Tudor Gates (Danger: Diabolik, 1968).

Still the argument continues – groundbreaking approach to the genre or mere sexploitation.

You decide – Amazon Prime currently has this.

Borderlines / The Caretakers (1963) ****

Two sequences set this apart from the mini-cycle of films Hollywood was temporarily producing on the theme of mental illness and the institutions set up to treat it such as the Frank Perry’s empathetic and occasionally lyrical David and Lisa (1962), Robert Rossen’s Lilith (1964) – both essentially romances – and Sam Fuller’s more brutal The Naked Kiss (1964).

Both sequences come early in the picture, setting, visually, the tone. In the first, crusading psychiatrist Dr Donovan MacLeod (Robert Stack) goes onto a ward to see a patient. It’s old-fashioned in the way of hospitals back then, patients in metal-framed beds. But as the camera pulls back, we see it’s not just a ward, it’s so big it’s a warehouse crammed full of sedated mental patients.

In the second scene, chief nurse Lucretia Terry (Joan Crawford) has her female staff in a room kitted out in leotards. And such attire is not for the titillation of the audience, equivalent to the kind of changing room sequence in later films designed to provide glimpses of female flesh. Instead, it’s a judo class. Terry is teaching the nurses how to defend themselves against attack.

The narrative focuses on MacLeod trying to change treatment of mental illness away from sticking patients full of sedatives or submitting them to the ubiquitous electroshock and locking them in a giant warehouse, keeping them well out of sight of the rest of the world who can’t understand why a loved one has gone mad. Terry wants to stick to the current method.

MacLeod crosses verbal swords all the way through with Terry and despite his persuasive tones no sign that she’s going to agree with his new idea of group therapy to attempt to cure those patients who have not yet fully succumbed to their illness, those who are still on the “borderline.”

There’s certainly plenty evidence to back up Terry’s fears that any slacking in security will result in harm to both nurses and patients given that among the group given substantial leeway by MacLeod are those who will try to stab people, set fire to the ward and break the golden rule of entering a male ward.

While the arguments are going on about the need to take a new approach to dealing with mental illness, the main focus is on the ragbag of patients in group therapy, people with much the same bunch of problems – although highly exacerbated – as you’d find within a group on a sinking ship or going to war. Issues with parents, children, sex and alcohol have brought these patients in the national care.

While there are moving moments, as you’d expect, there is no resolution at the end, and nothing in the way of miraculous cure. The best that can be hoped for is that if huge steps forward are made in patient’s understanding of their illness then perhaps they can be shifted from this appalling warehouse to a day center, spending nights at home, being treated during the day, much of their rehabilitation depending on reconnecting with the world rather than being shut off from it.

Lorna (Polly Bergen) hasn’t recovered from the death of her child, sees every consoling move from husband Jim (Robert Vaughn) as an attempt to instigate sex. Sex worker Marion (Janis Paige) is intent on getting drunk, from cocktails of any item that could contain alcohol, Edna (Barbara Barrie) is mute. New nurse Alison (Diane McBain), coming up against the old school Nurse Bracken (Constance Ford), is given a savage reality check.

Much of the tale is just about permitting the patients humanity, to see each other not as terminal victims of their illness, but to have human contact and interaction with others in the same boat. Naturally, feelings run high and the incidents I have mentioned recognize the dangers inherent in exploring new methods and the freedom that involves.

Joan Crawford (Berserk, 1967), permed within an inch of her life, has a ball as the tough cookie, the Nurse Ratched of her day, and would steal the show except for the sympathetic playing of Robert Stack (The Corrupt Ones/The Peking Medallion, 1967) and for the fact that Janis Paige (Welcome to Hard Times, 1967) is hellbent on stealing the show. It’s left to Polly Bergen (Kisses for My President, 1964) to put in the hard yards of showing the bewilderment and confusion that affects anyone struck down by mental illness.

Hall Bartlett (All the Young Men, 1960) is triple hyphenate here – writer, producer and director – and does a swell job of putting forth the argument without giving in to sentimentality.

Worth a watch.

Two Gentlemen Sharing (1969) ***

Shelved was a polite term for what happened to this picture. It was funded by Paramount but they didn’t like the look of the finished article. It could have gone straight into the bin, but it was reprieved, sold onto AIP which was looking to shift away from horror and biker movies into mainstream productions. But though it was made in Britain and therefore would qualify for both the Levy tax credit and the quota system, AIP couldn’t find a British distributor to take it on, not even after being selected as the official UK entry to the Venice Film Festival and impressing New York critics. It wasn’t shown on a British screen until 2017.

So what the heck was wrong with it? I had wrongly assumed that the title was a hint that the two gentlemen were gay, but that isn’t the case.

We open with a fellow with a plummy voice called Andrew Mackenzie (Hal Frederick) calling round London landlords looking for digs. He’s a solicitor, wears a bowler hat, was educated at Oxford University, even famously scored a century in a cricket match – and you can’t fit in any more than being a top-class cricketer. But doors which would open for anyone else with such a pedigree are closed to him.

Problem is – he’s Black. He’s of Jamaican descent. He’s not homeless, he’s got digs in Brixton, a noted Black community. Eventually, he finds accommodation in very posh Knightsbridge with ad man Roddy (Robin Philips).

Racism had been tackled in the movie world primarily through the aegis of Sidney Poitier. His three 1967 films – To Sir, With Love, In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, had all concluded on the upbeat. The Black man was accorded acceptance and respect.

That doesn’t happen here. The N-word is in common use. Andrew ends up being tossed out of the apartment by his landlady for essentially conforming to the cliché of being a “sexual degenerate,” i.e. for making too much noise while having sex. Eventually, he decides he’ll never fit in in Britain and returns to Jamaica.

But while the film deals bluntly with issues of endemic racism in British culture, it also tackles the problems facing the more socially aware, who tie themselves in knots trying to prove they are not racists. Although on the face of it accepting his flatmate’s color, Roddy has problems with his own beliefs. He’s certainly jealous of Andrew’s supposed sexual prowess, to the point of clearly believing he will enjoy more sexual freedom should he hitch up with a Black woman, and at various points exhibits inappropriate behavior towards them.

He also can’t come to terms with the fact that his girlfriend Jane (Judy Geeson) is not only very popular with Black men but has been brought up by a Black man after her own White father died when she was very young. To prove his liberal credentials once and for all, Andrew hosts a massive party in the apartment, inviting a crowd of Blacks, but when his drunken overtures to Black women are rejected, the party ends in disaster.

The characters are well drawn. Andrew is no saint. He’s misogynistic for a start, determining that his girlfriend Caroline (Esther Anderson) should do all the cooking and household chores. He’s arrogant and selfish, often grumpy. In other words, as human as the next guy.

Roddy is insecure. His job has none of the glamor we associate with advertising. His biggest decisions concern how many chips to have on a plate being photographed for an advertisement. Although coming from a wealthy background, his parents are now so impoverished they live in the squalid basement of a stately home. He has no understanding of women, tending to make too many of the wrong assumptions. So, just another young fella having problems growing up.

You’d think – and Roddy certainly thinks – that in the ad world he’d have a bevy of young women at his beck and call as does his colleague Phil (Norman Rossington) who, despite clearly taking advantage of his position in terms of seduction opportunities, is more enlightened – he has a Black girlfriend.

The movie’s very fair in determining when characters feel out of place. While Andrew struggles in the White world, Roddy and to a certain extent Phil struggle in the Black social world, bounding about awkwardly at a “jump-up”, the name given to a dance featuring Black music.

Given the actors are all primarily newcomers, showing promise is the extent of the acting. Reportedly Hal Frederick’s (Sandokan, 1964) plummy British accent was dubbed, but it is adequate for the task in hand which is to explore the minefield of the often unexplored aspects of British racism at a time when large-scale immigration was limited to certain cities and when the country still believed in “fair play” or convinced itself it did.

Robin Phillips (Decline and Fall…of a Birdwatcher, 1968) has a more complex part, needy, weak, his unformed unappealing character turning up at the edges. Judy Geeson (Three into Two Won’t Go, 1969) is better and Norman Rossington (Tobruk, 1967) throws himself into a peach of a part. Esther Anderson (The Touchables, 1968) is appreciated.

Canadian director Ted Kotcheff (Life at the Top, 1965) pulls no punches and certainly there is no sign of sentimentality or that, somehow, everything will all come good in the end. Screenplay by debutant David Stuart Leslie from the bestseller by Evan Jones.

Worth seeing if only to ask why we were kept from seeing it for so long. You can catch it on Amazon Prime at the moment.

The Wicked Die Slow (1968) *

Companion piece to Hot Spur. Not excused fitting into same one-star sleaze western category as Hot Spur (1969) even with some elements that appear at odds with the tale, such as playing around with the time signatures. The best bit is the credits, or as they’re dubbed here the “visual effects,” a series of paintings that send a message of a woman clawing her face. Quite why the movie involves so many extreme close-ups and a heck of lot of birds tweeting in the background.

There’s an outrageously clever sequence involving a young woman brushing down her horse and an approaching rider. The way the man sneaks around hidden by trees and foliage makes you think he’s up to no good. The woman certainly thinks so, she whips out a shotgun. Then the fellow produces an apple. So you change your mind. He’s a good guy. He’s going to feed the horse. Except he tosses the apple into bushes some distance away and she shoots at it. He does the same with another apple. She gets off a shot at that, too.

Then he steps out of the trees as most certainly a bad guy. She’s not reloaded her shotgun. She’s out of bullets. As he points out her predicament. While he’s a man with a pistol. Except he means her no harm. Which is just as well because she’s extremely vulnerable – she’s already been raped by her father.

It’s only now we actually get down to some narrative – the visitor, name of Steve (Bart Lenoir) is hunting for his brother Luke aka “The Kid” (Gary Allen) with whom this girl temporarily hooked up with.

Then we’ve got a preacher man, addicted to snuff, who saunters into a town and starts giving it hellfire and brimstone on the back of a wagon. He’s actually a bounty hunter and when he catches up with his prey teaches them – as in repeat after me – how to pray before he puts a bullet through their head.

But after this unusual start it’s quickly down to the lowest common denominator – rapes, nudity, violence, torture – the same elements as dominated Hot Spur. Sexploitation, or as it was known back in the day, apparently, a “roughie.”

*This image comes from the credit sequence.*

So now we’re also ducking around with time. Four Native Americans have raped gunfighter The Kid’s girlfriend (Susannah Campbell) and he wants revenge. He’s not so vengeful that he doesn’t have time to stop off for a bit of consensual sex with a complaint women, cue naked breasts, while he has to avoid, for reasons unknown, some kind of lynch party. Naturally, when he’s not naked, he’s given to wearing a poncho.

This isn’t some torture yarn, as you might expect from the title (that’s a reference to the Biblical Hell) nor, as I expected, a spaghetti western, since Amazon Prime directed me to this as a reward for watching Django (1966). Nobody’s planning on giving the bad guys a lingering death. Just death.

And, given the opening section, that might well have provided sufficient ingredients for a decent revenge western and we’ve had plenty of those where extraneous sexuality has not been called for. But that’s not the case here. The story is just an excuse for rampant nudity and brutality directed at women.

In due course, The Kid teams up with Mexican bandit Armadillo (Jeff Kanew).

Then it really gets nasty in the Hot Spur vein.

There’s another curiosity here. The film is attributed to Cannon, the production outfit most association with Israeli double act Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, but this was made long before the pair got into the Death Wish franchise business or ponying up $15 million to Sylvester Stallone for Over the Top (1987). And in fact, Golan-Globus had nothing to do with The Wicked Die Slow. They didn’t buy Cannon until much later. This was made by Cannon when it was owned by Christopher Dewey and Dennis Friedland while they were in the exploitation business.

Directed by William K. Henniger (See How They Come, 1968) and it’s generally assumed someone else did the first 30 minutes or so. Written by stars Gary Allen and Jeff Kanew.

Nobody comes out of this with any kudos except for Swede artist Maria Nordenson who created the credit sequence and whoever directed the first section.

Hot Spur fans should head for Amazon Prime.

The Devil’s Mouth (2026) **

What you have to remember is that the streamers are stuck with the same problem as the big movie studios back in the day when Hollywood was broken up into majors (MGM, Fox, , Paramount, Columbia etc) and mini-majors (United Artists, Disney, Embassy etc). The bigger the studio the more movies – in the 1950s/1960s, for example – you were expected to churn out. You had to feed the exhibitor system and if you cut back on production, exhibitors would stop favoring your product.

But there was no way every film you made was a big-budget production helmed by a top-name director and headlined by a top male and female star. For a start, there were not enough stars to go round, though certainly far more than the paltry handful who have any marquee attraction today, and studios could not afford to turn out so many films with big budgets.

But at least they were initially fair to exhibitors and the public. The lesser productions were tabbed B-pictures and they didn’t carry the marketing weight of the bigger movies.

And when the B-picture per se disappeared, the movies that came in at the lower end of the budget scale were called “programmers.” They were movies that filled a slot, heading out into distribution as the supporting feature, or going out on a wave of advertising in the knowledge that they would not last more than one week anywhere, once word-of-mouth came out.

So the problem for the streamers is that they can’t differentiate. They don’t own up to the fact that there’s just no way they can produce a substantial number of original content features a year so that subscribers feel they’re getting a good deal. So every new film is given the same big-push treatment.

This is just a programmer and misses the shark mark by a big margin. Not only is there no attempt to beef up the narrative – if not Paris, find a way for sharks to invade New York or London, why doncha – it’s nearly half the picture before the marauder appears and unlike others in the mini-genre nobody’s taken the trouble to come up with some scientific mumbo-jumbo to explain its unlikely presence in the a bunch freshwater Thailand caves.

And none of the characters are remotely interesting or jar with each other in an interesting fashion. There’s so much whooping of delight going on that it’s about as loud as the later screams.

And I’m not sure that the cheesecake/beefcake element can sustain the picture for 100 minutes, not when the buffed bodies are, with one exception, so empty-headed. You’re waiting for the shark – c’mon already – to start whittling down their number because they’re just so annoying.

The best scene has nothing to do with sharks. Sara (Kathryn Newton) – the only character of any interest – is attacked by a swarm of jellyfish and when the camera pulls back to reveal that she’s not just being stung by one of the creatures but has swum into a whole nest of them, that strikes a sharp note. Of course, one minute she’s wailing for her life, twisting this way and that, and the next she’s safe on the boat.

You might be tempted to keep going because you want to see easily the most annoying character, the big-mouth know-it-all Max (Lana Condor), get hers. But no such luck, because she’s whining all the way to the end. When their guide does a runner, there should be tension as they have to find a way out from the maze of caves but unfortunately, they don’t appear to have a single brain cell between them. Scooby Doo would have had a better chance of solving the puzzle.

And the shark ain’t much to write home about either although he’s pretty good on the threshing front and inclined, for reasons that are soon revealed as narrative necessity, to batter his head off the cave walls. This picture is so lacking in common sense that even though one of the group has a knife they don’t think to rip out the creature’s eyes when it’s trapped in a hole in the cave.

This started life as an acclaimed screenplay called Apex so who knows what happened to it along the way. It’s perfectly possibly that one of the trapped quintet could make it big in the movie business in the future and can look and laugh at this turkey and laugh.

Kathryn Newton (Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, 2026) can’t hold this together and director Jeff Wadlow (Imaginary, 2024) should have known better than to try. Debut screenwriting gig for Aja Gabel (Five Star Weekend series, 2026) and Myung Joh Wesner (Skeleton Crew series, 2024).

You know how big a fan I am of shark movies, so I don’t need much to whet my appetite. This doesn’t come close

Another dud from Amazon Prime.

Django (1966) ****

You’re not going to get a more iconic opening than a cowboy dragging a coffin up a muddy hill. But just in case you think director Sergio Corbucci is trying to make some high-falutin’ statement, the next few minutes contain nine deaths and a woman whipped and then threatened with being burned to death. What followed resulted in deserved cult status, helped along by a ban from the British censor. Outside Sergio Leone 1960s western quartet, this is generally considered to be the best spaghetti western of the period.

You’ll be familiar with the story, because basically it’s a rehash of A Fistful of Dollars, which in itself was an uncredited rehash of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (1961).

On the Mexican-U.S. border, two groups vie for control of a tiny town (population: six – one bartender and five whores), one led by ex-Confederate Major Jackson (Eduardo Fajardo) who would be dressed in the red shirts of revolutionaries except that the opposing bunch led by General Rodriguez’s (Jose Badalo) has chosen that color.

Django (Franco Nero) arrives in the town accompanied by the whipped woman Maria (Loredana Nusciak) and the coffin, which contains a machine gun. Django wants revenge on Jackson who killed his lover. But that’s as much a MacGuffin as you need because, really, slaughter is the name of the game, not to mention a gold heist, then a heist of the stolen gold, which is stashed safely in Django’s coffin until it ends up in the quicksand.

This being a spaghetti western naturally there’s mutilation, Django’s hands crushed for the audacity of his theft, someone else forced to eat his own ear, and there’s attempted rape. Mostly, there’s massacre. A humungous heap of bodies provide the entertainment. Jackson and the General are equally intent on killing as many people as possible, Rodriguez having the moral edge because he’s the legitimate revolutionary but it’s a close run thing.

But the good guys are always a hefty massacre away from safety.

For reasons known only to mythmakers, the final shoot-out takes place in a cemetery in Tombstone, which is a heck of a long way (a mere 500 miles) from the Mexican border, but never mind. But there’s a clever ending, especially when you consider how difficult it is to shoot a revolver with a mangled hand.

This zips along with a ton of brio. Franco Nero (Camelot, 1967) resists the temptation to play up those baby blues. He’s virtually deadpan thoughout, quite an achievement in a movie where everyone else overacts. His character is even more down’n’dirty than The Man with No Name and comes across more as a man of the soil than a gunslinger. For such a violent movie, there’s an acknowledgement of politics that’s akin to the skewered morality of The Wild Bunch (1969). The plot takes us all over the place, but it’s so much fun who the heck cares.

The bloodshed (“excessive and nauseating” was the view of the British censor) was way ahead of its time, representing the reality of war and rebellion far more than the cartoonish killing of Leone’s spaghetti trilogy.

Director Sergio Corbucci (The Great Silence, 1968) isn’t trying to sell us a traditional western with sweeping vistas and terrific camerawork. This falls into the nihilistic vein. The huge tranches of mud at the outset set the tone, the land is barren and bleak, a desert of mud. There’s nothing opportunistic or greedy about Django. He’s not intent on playing off two sides for profit. His motive is personal. Where The Man With No Name was fleshed out with a certain amount of charm, there’s no recourse to that here. In a pitiless world, there’s no use for charm. Written by Sergio Corbucci and his brother Bruno.

This spawned as many rip-offs as the Leone versions.

Crossplot (1969) ***

Roger Moore – in his first movie in seven years – almost auditioning for James Bond with his lothario instinct, light touch for dialog, a nice side-line in double takes, and enough action to show that even in his early 40s he was still nimble enough. Not in the Charade (1963) or Arabesque (1966) league and over-reliant on the Swinging Sixties and other “Tourist Britain” clichés and a plot that takes far too long to get going, it takes all the actor’s charm to make it watchable.

After one of his staff Warren (Dudley Sutton) switches the photo of a model in his portfolio, ad-man Gary (Roger Moore) finds himself on the trail of Marla (Claudia Lange), a sometime fugitive hiding out on a houseboat. Meet-cute is prompted when she pushes him into the Thames. On leaving he is knocked out and framed on a dope charge and once he manages to get her into the photographic studio Warren attempts to throw her off the roof, the would-be killer himself eliminated by his boss Ruddock (Francis Matthews) who in a marvelous piece of quick-thinking throws his gun to Gary who instinctively catches it, further implicating himself.

After going all round the houses (including a stately home), evading pursuit via an antique car race and a wedding, Gary finally gets to the bottom of why Marla is in such danger – she overheard a conversation between her aunt Joe (Martha Hyer) and Ruddock. Only problem is – she can’t remember it. And it takes even more time for Gary to figure it out, (not realizing, how could he, that the clue is in the title, in fact two clues in a crossword puzzle). You can imagine how it goes from then.

*This poster takes the easy route by trying to sell the picture on the back of “The Saint.”*

On the plus side is mostly Roger Moore. “I come from a long line of hippopotamuses,” isn’t the sort of line you can deliver without some skill. But Moore’s performance lifts what is for the most part a shaggy dog story, and he’s game enough to do all the running and fighting required, even the heavy lifting (of his eyebrows), to keep the story moving. It’s far from as funny as it thinks and not as funny as it needs to be, but there are still some good stabs at humor, a pistol held to Gary’s head discovered to be a toy gun, Gary turning the tables in a shower on Marla, telling the bride that her groom is a bigamist, and a running joke about the Marla being perennially hungry.

The politics barely touches on the conspiracy aspects that Hollywood would have pounced upon and made a better fist of, although the idea that Britain could be undermined by civil strife was not far off the mark for the times. It needed some smarter thinking, though, for that element to work.

*A much better attempt at selling a thriller with scenes from the film,*
*including the toy pistol pointed at Roger Moore’s head.*

The rest of the cast are game enough. Claudie Lang (The Gatling Gun, 1968) is no Sophia Loren or Audrey Hepburn but nobody is pretending she is and she just about gets away with the dumb model approach. Martha Hyer (The Chase, 1966) delivers a glamorous villain and the suave Francis Matthews (Rasputin: The Mad Monk, 1966) her ideal match.

There’s quite a supporting cast: Veronica Carlsen (Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, 1968), Gabrielle Drake (Suburban Wives, 1972), Dave Prowse (Star Wars, 1977), Bernard Lee (You Only Live Twice, 1967), Alexis Tanner (The Ernie Game, 1967), Ursula Howells (BBC’s The Forsyte Saga, 1967) and Dudley Sutton (Rotten to the Core, 1965).

If Alvin Rakoff (The Comedy Man, 1964) is in charge of the material he doesn’t have enough material to work with. He does enough to keep it on course but would have benefitted from a a tighter screenplay from Leigh Vance (The Frightened City, 1961). Both had done better in the past, but it is easy to be seduced by the romantic thriller format, almost a mini-genre in itself, assuming it is easier to pull off than it looks. The likes of Alfred Hitchcock (North by Northwest, 1959) and Stanley Donen (Charade) made it look easy but they had the advantage of big stars in Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn who possessed the ability to make the lightest confection work.