Callan (1974)

Director:  Don Sharp

Writer:  James Mitchell

Composer:  Wilfred Josephs

Starring:  Edward Woodward, Eric Porter, Carl Mohner, Catherine Schell, Peter Egan, Russell Hunter, Kenneth Griffinth, Michael Da Costa, Veronica Lang, Clifford Rose, David Prowse, Don Henderson, Nadim Sawalha

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  Callan... doesn't make friends - and all his enemies are dead!

Plot:  Greg Callan's cousin David Callan top agent/assassin for the S.I.S., was forced to retire because he had lost his nerve. Now, Callan is called back into service to handle the assassination of Schneider, a German businessman. His former boss promises Callan that he'll be returned to active status if he follows orders, but as always Callan refuses to act until he knows why Schneider has been marked for death.

My rating:   8/10

Will I watch it again?  Yes.

A long while ago I watched the last of the Callan movies, WET JOB (1981), and I liked it.  Now that I've seen the first, I'm full-on ready to tackle the TV series that started it all.  This movie is great.  Woodward is great as top assassin, David Callan.  He's really good at his job.  The rest of the cast do a wonderful job, too.  Eric Porter is Hunger, Callan's old boss, Peter Egan kills it as Toby Meres, Hunter's right hand man and Callan's replacement, Carl Mohner as Schneider, Callan's target, Catherine Schell as Schneider's girlfriend, Jenny and Russell Hunter as Lonely, an old contact of Callan's who gets him what he needs and takes Callan's shit when there's no one around to beat on.  It's swell cast and they all step up to James Mitchell's tight and sharp script.  

This has got two very good action sequences; one is a fight between Callan and Meres and the other is the excellent car chase in the video above.  This is some good shit!  I did not expect them to be this good.  Because this is a movie I expect the show didn't live up to this kind of quality often but I sure hope it did.  The story moves along nicely without any fat needing to be trimmed.  It's satisfying throughout but there were only two things that bothered me.  One is the odd harmonica-heavy score.  It's just damn strange and felt weird from the first few seconds of the film.  I thought it would disappear after the opening but it didn't.  The other is Callan the man and the ending.  He indicates that he knows he's being set up and he goes through with it anyway.  Now, one would assume that he's prepared something special off camera for the viewer so that we be be surprised and be impressed by his cunning.  But he doesn't have anything planned.  If he did, we don't see what it is because something unexpected happens and Callan improvises.  What he does with his improvisation is brilliant in its own right.  Sadly, what happens next with his (unbeknownst to Callan) re-classification at the hands of Hunter we'll never know what happens next.  It's a neat little suspenseful set-up for a sequel ala JOHN WICK (2014).   Having not seen the preceding series, I feel like this movie as a stand alone story is a great watch and highly recommended. 

TNT Jackson (1974)

Director:  Cirio H. Santiago

Writers:  Dick Miller, Ken Metcalfe

Composer:  Tito Sotto

Starring:  Jeannie Bell, Stan Shaw, Pat Anderson, Ken Metcalfe, Max Alvarado, Chiquito, Percy Gordon, Imelda Ilanan, Chris Cruz, Leo Martinez, Joonee Gamboa

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  Spine Shattering. Bone Blasting. She's a One Mama Massacre Squad!

Plot:  A young karate expert searches for her brother's killer in Hong Kong.

My rating:   6.5/10

Will I watch it again?   Maybe.

This Blaxploitation flick, co-written by Dick Miller (!), has some clumsy but fun fights, bad acting, nudity and a short enough run time (72 minutes) that it's a no-brainer when looking for a cheesy double feature to watch with your friends.  This movie isn't made by slouches.  The crew behind the camera are professionals and, at the very least, the director and cinematographer had dozens of credits under their belt before taking this assignment.  Even with this being a mid-level B movie, there are moments where it looks better than it should.  The standout scene for me is when Diana (Bell) is watching an exotic dancer at the club and the camera slowly moves closer to her, cutting in between what her eyes are fixed upon.  It was so nice of a shot that it took me out of the picture for a moment, which was not a bad thing.

The color of the room plus the slow pull-in was a really nice touch.  

 

Stan Shaw (as Charlie), who I recognized from HARLEM NIGHTS (1989), was the only actor I knew until I saw this guy 

who played one of the main villains from the Filipino classic, FOR Y'UR HEIGHT ONLY (1980).  It's no surprise that you're not going to get anyone earning an MVP for acting in this picture.  It's largely below average but that's not necessarily a bad thing.  Most of the lead actors' acting is just bad enough that you can enjoy it.  It also helps that the pacing in this movie is pretty fast.  There's barely a dull moment.

The fighting is clumsy and you can tell the actors are fighting with little-to-no knowledge of martial arts or they're being too careful and slow to look like they do.  The camera only sometimes finds proper angles to hide that fact and it does most cleverly in the final showdown between Diana and Charlie.  There's a batshit funny scene where the bad guys show up to put the beat down on Ms. TNT.   She says something like

"You can't see black!"

and then she turns out the light, throws her robe off

and proceeds to kick everybody's ass in the room nearly naked!  

Except the bad guys get the idea to turn the light on...

until she turns it off again (rinse and repeat).

One thing I really liked is the technique of the slight speeding up of  certain bits of the fights as well as removing a frame here and there to give the hits more impact.  Most people probably think those things are dumb and clumsy but I love 'em when they're used well.  I'm pretty sure that Jeannie Bell had a stunt double for most of her more difficult work.  She goes from amateur kung fu to some kick ass flips and flying kicks and the difference in skill is stark.  But that's just one more thing that adds to the fun.  It's an odd combination of competence and amateurishness that works well together to form a fun movie for a Saturday night with friends and liquor.

 

Beyond Atlantis (1973)

Director:  Eddie Romero

Writers:  Charles Eric Johnson, Stephanie Rothman

Composer:  Ed. Norton

Starring:  Patrick Wayne, John Ashley, Leigh Christian, Sid Haig, Lenore Stevens, George Nader, Vic Diaz, Andres Centenera, Eddie Garcia, Kenneth J. Warren, Gil Arceo, Kim Ramos, Angelo Ventura

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  Forgotten by nature... invaded by modern man... half human... half fish!

Plot:  A band of adventurers invade a native island determined to grab a reported fortune in buried treasure. The islanders are just as determined to keep their sacred treasure. Complications ensue.

My rating:   5.5/10

Will I watch it again?   No.

It didn't take too long into this to realize I'd seen this before but it seemed to have promise plus, with Sid Haig and Vic Diaz, I couldn't say no.  As the picture wore on I started to remember more and more until it was too late; the movie was over.  This wouldn't have been that bad of a movie to see in the drive-in back in the day but it would've been better if there had been a little nudity and some bloody action.  The IMDb trivia says that star Patrick Wayne (son of The Duke) said the only way he'd sign on is if it were PG and without nudity, something the family could enjoy.  I think we'd have been better off with someone else in the lead if that's the sacrifice.  There were dozens of actors who could've easily filled that role.  Sid Haig plays a scoundrel pimp, East Eddie.  He's an asshole to just about everyone that is until he's assembled his team.  Once they're all on the island looking for the valuable pearls, he's a straight up nice guy.  His complete tonal shift can be justified by a man who's operating a business deal and does what's needed to get the job done but it is a striking, quick change in character.  I really dug the score but it's wildly different enough in places that I wonder if all of it was written specifically for this picture.  It does have some nice moments.  The story is easy to get through with few, if any, surprises.  I must say the ending was dumb and a cheap way of getting out of one last action sequence.  With a few exploitation touches, this could've been a fun night at the movies but with it being as tame as it is, it's a mild time-waster on a lazy afternoon.

Hell's Angels '69 (1969)

 

Director:  Lee Madden

Writers:  Don Tait, Tom Stern, Jeremy Slate

Composer:  Tony Bruno

Starring:  Tom Stern, Jeremy Slate, Conny Van Dyke, G.D. Spradlin, Bobby Hall, Steve Sandor, Sonny Barger, Terry the Tramp, Clifford Workman, Tiny Walters, Charles Tinsley, and the Oakland Hell's Angels

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  This was the RUMBLE that ROCKED Las Vegas!

Plot:  Chuck and his brother Wes are wealthy siblings who plan to rob Caesar's Palace more for fun than profit.  Oh, yeah, they're going to use the unsuspecting Hell's Angels to pull it off!

My rating:   7.5/10

Will I watch it again?   Yes.

 

Well goddamn this was different!  Biker flicks are nearly always predictable and they follow a similar pattern.  This one's very different.  The fact that a couple of wealthy brothers use the Hell's Angels (without the knowledge of the gang) to help them knock off Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas is a very unusual idea.  It's not hard to see how this got made by any studio.  Sure, it's AIP, a studio known for it's low budget drive-in movie fare, but it's still a studio with budget and a crew and not some max out your credit cards to get it made kind of a deal.  Hell, they even got a soundtrack album released on Capitol Records!  Nice going, fellas!!!

The premise is great although I knew nothing of the plot going in so the heist caught my completely by surprise.  The acting serves the film well enough and the lead actors (the brothers) do a very nice job.  Take a look at their credits, they are impressive.  Usually in a biker flick there'd be a ton of padding with the gang riding around everywhere and while that's here, it's just enough and it doesn't feel like it's there to eat up some time.  There's a variety of camera angles and other things you just don't expect to find with this genre.  And this is from a first-time director!!!  I'm going to have to see what else Lee Madden has done.  This picture is 96 minutes and I was left wanting more.   And HOLY FUCKING SHIT!  That ending!!! 

 

 

The Revolt of the Pretorians (1964)

Original title:  La Rivolta dei Pretoriani

Director:  Alfonso Brescia

Writer:  Gian Paolo Callegari

Composer:  Carlo Franci

Starring:  Richard Harrison, Moira Orfei, Piero Lulli, Giuliano Gemma, Paola Pitti, Ivy Holzer, Fedele Gentile, Amedeo Trilli, Mirko Ellis, Renato Montalbano, Salvatore Furnari, Massimo Carocci, Aldo Cecconi

More info:  IMDb

Plot:  Rome chafes under the rule of the Emperor Domitian and his Egyptian mistress, Artamne. A mysterious champion arises to fight against the Emperor -- a masked man known as the Red Wolf. In fact, the Red Wolf is Valerius Rufus, one of the Emperor's trusted centurions who's aided by none other than the Emperor's court jester, the diminutive Elpidion. Rebels in league with Valerius kidnap Artamne, planning to exchange her for two of their imprisoned colleagues, but Artamne escapes and soon both Valerius, (now exposed as the Red Wolf), and his fiancee, Lucilla, are sentenced to be immersed in a cauldron of molten lead. Valerius's friends, however, rise up to rescue him and to liberate Rome.

My rating:   6/10

Will I watch it again?  Nah.

 

This is one of better lower-tiere Sword & Sandal pictures the Italians churned out in the 1960s so I'd say that's not a bad recommendation.  It's not bad and it's not great but it has a comfortable seat at the S&S table.  They were able to take the simple story and not pad it with a bunch of boring nonsense.  There's a good deal of action and it's pretty liberally sprinkled throughout.  The group fighting suffers from the typical lazy choreography of the time, but you see that in even the biggest of budgeted pictures.  If you change your focus off the main fighting and look at the background fighters, you'll see what I mean.  But then when you get to where it's just Richard Harrison fighting, that's almost an entirely different sport.  This guy is very physical and he the the actor/stuntman against him really put on a show.  It also helps that the camera gets a lot of shots of the entire mano-a-mano fight in the frame.  It's not without quick closeup cutaways that look fake as hell but it's a treat just to see chunks of a fight in glorious widescreen and mostly without one note of music (nice!).  

 

 

 

This picture must've had a better budget than most because the sets look better and more lavish.  The acting is better, too, although it's hard to tell sometimes when it's dubbed in English and most of the cast are Italian.  If you're into this genre then it's worth a look.  If not, then go for the big budget Hollywood S&S flicks like SPARTACUS (1960) and BEN-HUR (1959). 

Sailor of the King (1953)

Director:  Roy Boulting

Writers:  C.S. Forester, Valentine Davies

Composer:  Clifton Parker

Starring:  Jeffrey Hunter, Michael Rennie, Wendy Hiller, Bernard Lee, Peter van Eyck, Victor Maddern, John Horsley, Patrick Barr, Robin Bailey

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  The greatest story of the sea by today's greatest storyteller!

Plot:  In 1940, Canadian sailor Andrew Brown is prisoner on a battle damaged German raider and he plans to delay the raider's at-sea repairs until a British naval task-force can destroy it.

My rating:   7.5/10

Will I watch it again?   YES!

SNIPIN' SPOILERS AHEAD!!!  YARRRRRRR!!!

The film starts out during WWI with a sappy romance when a soldier (Rennie as Richard Saville) meets a girl (Hiller as Lucinda Bentley) before going abroad with the two falling in love in the hours/days before his departure.  They speak of marriage but it never happens.  Did they do the nasty?  It's possible but not all that hinted at.  This happens in the first fifteen minutes and it's pretty by the numbers lovey-dovey stuff of its time.  Cut to more than twenty years later and Saville is an admiral commanding a fleet in WWII.  This is where the film kicks into gear and gets interesting.  Saville is hell-bent on sinking a German warship, the Essen, and he makes the call for one of his ships to hold their position until the fleet arrives.  That ship is destroyed, leaving only two survivors that end up as prisoners on the Essen in sick bay, Earnshaw (Maddern) and Brown (Hunter).  The Essen is damaged and seeks shelter in a small cove, hidden from the sea and Brown gets the crazy idea to steal a rifle and an inflatable boat and secure himself on the cliff overlooking the Essen, shooting those who attempt at repairing the ship in an effort to delay them long enough for the rest of the fleet to find them.  THIS is pretty damn intense and makes for one hell of a show!  

The first, short, act is by the numbers romantic BS.  Get past that and you've got yourself a pretty damn good action thriller.  The performances are very good, especially from Hunter (who goes shirtless and hunky from the time he ditches the German vessel).  

 

 

The direction during the standoff is tight and tense.  This is some really good shit and well worth a watch.  It is weird, though, with the first act feeling tacked on considering the rest of the movie ALMOST has nothing to do with it.  The ending is upbeat and only slightly hints at something possibly relating to Hiller as it's said by Brown that he has a mother and Hiller was in the beginning of the film which are the only two time a woman is either shown or spoken of.  Are we supposed to draw the conclusion that Brown is Saville's son?  Yeah, I think so.  It's really driven home (and emotionally so) when you watch the alternate ending found on the DVD which changes Brown's fate.  Yeah, I choked up a bit.  The alternate ending at least ties her to the story in such a way that more so justifies the first fifteen minutes.  Without it, you're left scratching your head a little bit wondering what the point was except either it was bad writing, filler or studio intervention.  All of those things are still possible but it makes more sense that there's a bigger, more intimate story here.  Regardless, the action/standoff portion is well-handled and worth watching.   Drop the opening BS and this is easily an 8/10.

 

 

Action of the Tiger (1957)

Director:  Terence Young

Writers:  Robert Carson, James Wellard, Peter Myers

Composer:  Humphrey Searle

Starring:  Van Johnson, Martine Carol, Herbert Lom, Gustavo Rojo, Jose Nieto, Helen Haye, Anna Gerber, Anthony Dawson, Sean Connery, Yvonne Romain, Norman MacOwan, Brian Sunners, Helen Goss

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  How a beautiful blonde and a tough smuggler escape the net of Continental conspiracy!

Plot:  Carson is an American contraband runner approached by Tracy, a French woman who wants him to help rescue her brother from Albania where he is being held as a political prisoner.

My rating:  5.5/10

Will I watch it again?   No.

With the exception of maybe BATTLEGROUND (1949), I don't think I've seen any Van Johnson movie where he was the lead.  Even if I had, judging by his performance in this film, I don't think I would've remembered.  Here, he's bland and his voice is often monotone or close to it.  I mostly watched this for an early Sean Connery performance and for Herbert Lom.  Lom has a pivotal role and has about fifteen minutes of screen time while Connery has about a minute each in the beginning and at the very end so if you blink, you'll miss him.  Connery has a lot to do in those couple of minutes but it's nothing much to speak of.  The film itself suffers from a lackluster male lead and a screenplay with some poor dialogue for Carson (Johnson).  The movie has some action but it's also got that family kind of action drama as Carson has to travel several miles on foot with Tracy (Carol), her blind brother and several children.  Carson is supposed to be a hardened and impossible man but he puts up with this lot as if it were an eye-rolling family film.  And partly because of that, you just know that Carson and Tracy are going to end up together at the end.  Ugh.

Wet Job (1981)

Director:  Shaun O'Riordan

Writer:  James Mitchell

Composer:  Cyril Ornadel

Starring:  Edward Woodward, Russell Hunter, George Sewell, Angela Browne, Helen Bourne, Hugh Walters, Anthony Smee, Milos Kerek

More info:  IMDb

Plot:  Ten years after leaving the S.I.S., former agent/assassin David Callan is living a quiet life as the owner/operator of a militaria shop. He is forced out of retirement to participate in one final assignment.

My rating:  6.5/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

For the most part, this is pretty good.  The story and dialogue, acting, direction and editing are well done.  It's the music that is all over the place from awful to suitable.  And being how this is a British TV movie, it was shot on video which is a drag since the quality isn't on par with the quality of the product.  Woodward is excellent as the former spy, Callan, and Callan is a beast of a professional.  The way he handles the Ruskies at the end when he's got the drop on him is so good that filmmakers need to watch this brief scene to see how a pro handles a gun.  There's not over-talking the situation and dragging out the moment.  He's efficient and understands not to fuck around and to quickly turn the situation in his favor.  Anyway, this has only whetted my appetite for more Callan adventures.  WET JOB was the last of three projects Woodward did as the character, preceeded by the film, CALLAN (1974) and the series of the same name which ran for 43 episodes from 1967-1972.

Our Man in Jamaica (1965)

Original title: A 001: Operazione Giamaica

Directors:  Ernst Ritter von Theumer, Peter Jacob

Writers:  Kurt Vogelmann, Antonio del Amo

Composer:  Marcello Giombini

Starring:  Larry Pennell, Margitta Scherr, Roberto Camardiel, Barbara Valentin, Linda Sini, John Bartha, Raf Badassarre, Nando Angelini, Wolfgang Kieling, Brad Harris

More info:  IMDb

Plot:  The FBI sends agents to Jamaica to investigate arms smuggling to revolutionaries in Santo Domingo.

My rating:   6/10

Will I watch it again?   Nah.

Well, it's another middle of the road Eurospy picture and, like so many others, the main character (the James Bond type) has a wisecrack for EVERYTHING.  I hate that shit.  Ken (Pennell) is so flippant that's it's refreshing when he drops the bullshit and gets down to kicking some ass.  The story is just an excuse to move Ken from location to location and to give the picture some action scenes.  It's not a bad flick but it's marred by aloofness of Ken.  By the end of the film I was growing rather fond of actor Larry Pennell.  I still didn't like how light in tone his character was (which may not have been his fault).  He's got a striking physique which is a shame they didn't show it off more.

That's Hercules/Samson/Goliath actor Brad Harris in the shirt.  That man is equally buff.  When this came out in '65, the Bond craze was at its peak and a lot of imitators tried riding those coat tails and a lot of them fell by the wayside.  This was likely one of them.  The locations are lovely, as are the numerous hot Euro-broads, and Marcello Giombini's score has a Bond feel to it at times so there's enough ear and eye candy to keep you occupied but there's no escaping that this doesn't come close to the seriousness of a Connery Bond flick (yeah, I know the Bond pictures got sillier as they went on but this was in '65 when there were only four of them).  The print I saw was a lousy fullscreen one.  I definitely won't see this again but I probably would if a nice widescreen copy turned up someday.