The Burglars (1971)

Original title:  Le Casse

Director:  Henri Verneuil

Writer:  Henry Verneuil, Vahe Katcha, David Goodis

Composer:  Ennio Morricone

Starring:  Jean-Paul Belmondo, Omar Sharif, Dyan Cannon, Robert Hossein, Nicole Calfan, Myraim Feune de Colombi, Raoul Delfosse, Jose Luis de Vilallonga, Renato Salvatori

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  Catch the burglars!

Plot:  A group of professional burglars plan an emerald heist from the home of a gem collector but the corrupt Greek police inspector Abel Zacharia is on their trail.

My rating:  7.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Yeah.

Nice!  I've yet to see anything but a great performance out of Jean-Paul Belmondo (the Steve McQueen of France).  The camera loves him.  He's got such a natural charisma that makes it hard not to like this guy.  He plays Azad, the leader of the 4-person burglary team.  The picture starts out with them at the outset of robbing a house of it's emerald collection.  So far so good until Azad busts out this big case with an elaborate electronic kit that is able to make a custom key for the safe as well as figure out the combination.  That's fine and dandy, too, except this scene DRAGS on for 9 freakin' minutes!  That's not a good way to start your two hour movie.  That's when Omar Sharif shows up as Inspector Zacharia.  You can tell Zacharia is really good at his job as he plays with Azad who goes outside to meet him.  Here are two very smart, charming characters who begin their adversarial relationship that continues to the end.

The performances from these two are fantastic.  Zacharia does what it takes to solve the case but he's also crooked and greedy.  Is he telling Azad a tale in order to get the emeralds back?  You'll have to watch it to find out.  Belmondo does most of his own stunts and he doesn't hold back.  It really makes a difference when you can tell it's the actor performing them versus a stuntman.  What he doesn't do (as he was in the US working on another movie) is drive in this very long and entertaining car chase.

It's a nail-biter.  The tension is there alongside the adrenaline-pumping action.  It's another example of how similar these two characters are (Azad being chased by Zacharia).  Like the time waster of the safe opening scene, this is also 9 minutes long except that it packs a wallop.  It's worth seeing the film just for this scene and it helps to see it in context.  There's another great extended action scene when Azad (on foot and jumping onto and off of moving busses and cars) is again being chased by Zacharia (in a car).  Ennio Morricone's fun score is a welcome addition to the picture.   For a while I was skeptical of the inclusion of a romantic sub-plot but by the end of the picture it paid off.  The conclusion was satisfactory enough but the murder left me a little shocked.  It's nice to be shocked by movies.  That doesn't happen often enough.  Speaking of that, there was an odd scene when Azad shows up a Lena's (Cannon) apartment hoping for some sexy time.  She claps her hand once and the light goes off.  Clapping two times turns it on.  I didn't realize that invention was a thing in 1971.  Anyway, it turns ugly pretty quick and Azad is slapping her face from side to side which activates the light on and off.  On one hand, it's harsh seeing her brutalized like that but on the other hand, it's darkly funny with the light gag.  I'm sure it got tons of laughs 50 years ago but not so much now.

The print I saw looked marvelous and it was in its original French language with English subtitles.  You can watch the flick on YouTube in widescreen but English dubbed only some of the time (according to someone commenting on it).  I would suggest the French dub if you can find it.  It's a fun movie with the unfortunately overlong safe cracking scene in the beginning but the rest of the film moves quickly and it's got some great moments along the way.

The Vampire of Dusseldorf (1965)

Original title:  Le Vampire de Dusseldorf

AKA:  The Secret Killer

Director:  Robert Hossein

Writer:  Claude Desailly, Georges Tabet, Andre Tabet, Robert Hossein

Composer:  Andre Hossein

Starring:  Robert Hossein, Marie-France Pisier, Roger Dutoit, Annie Anderson, Michel Dacquin, Anne Carrere, Norma Dugo

More info:  IMDb


Plot:  Based on the true story of Peter Kurten, a serial killer who committed nine murders and many other offenses in Dusseldorf during the Great Depression era.

My rating:  7/10

Will I watch it again?  Maybe.

I've never heard of serial killer Peter Kurten, and now I won't soon forget him.  This guy was brutal.  He likely killed dozens and attempted to kill many more.  His Wikipedia page makes for a horrific read.  He was a monster.  This film very loosely tells the final days of Kurten (subtly played by director/star Hossein) before he's captured.  Just what he did in the film was bad enough, but reading what he did after the movie ended is just shocking.  In hindsight, I wish I had read his Wikipedia page before I watched the film. 

 
Despite the sometimes hard to believe murders he commits in the movie, it's framed in a way that you get a taste of what was going on in Germany at the time, when hate was on the rise.  The policing authority representing law and order is about to be overtaken with vengeance and violence.  We see examples of that with a convertible with four young Brownshirt men inflicting violence with impunity.  Kurten is witness to this and it probably gives him a sense of validation.  The only hint at his motives are given in a couple of lines from Kurten about his cruelty toward animals as a child. 

The cinematography looks fantastic and it's beautifully shot in B&W.  The pacing works well and it's a nice watch.  The only real issue I have is that Kurten doesn't seem all that careful when committing his crimes.  He's very impulsive and most of what we see him do is late at night and out in the open.  He doesn't come across as someone with the skills needed to avoid detection, although he is sometimes seen by others and cleans up afterward like when he finds out a young female witness gave his description to the police and the next day he visits her to shut her up for good.  He's got that going but not the in-the-moment smarts.  It's only a movie and maybe I shouldn't expect so much but Hossein's performance, wile good, falls short of showing that kind of skill or complexity that someone like him should have.  I'm not looking for Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter-level of skill but something more akin to a craftsman who is very good at their job.  The record shows that Kurten was prolific and it would be neat to see how someone who committed so many atrocities could've survived as long as he did before he lost his head.

Dirty Duck (1974)

Original title:  Cheap

AKA:  The Down and Dirty Duck

Director:  Charles Swenson

Writers:  Howard Kaylan, Robert Ridgely, Charles Swenson, Mark Voman

Composers:  Howard Kaylan, Mark Volman

Starring:  Howard Kaylan, Mark Volmen, Robert Ridgely, Cynthia Adler, Walker Edmiston, Joelle Le Quement, Laurene Tuttle, Jerry D. Good, Aynsley Dunbar

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  Madder Than Daffy Dumber Than Donald More Existential Than Howard!

Plot:  Mild-mannered insurance-adjuster Willard teams up with a foul-mouthed fowl who takes him on a surreal quest to become less uptight--and possibly get laid.

My rating:  6/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

Two words:  cartoon boobs. 

Well this was a weird-ass movie.  I'm not sure what writer/director Swenson had to say with this picture but it probably views better when you're wasted.  It's trippy and smacks of mid-70s political/subversion/sexual animation.  The "X" rating was reportedly self-ascribed by the studio which was another way to sex up the picture and make it more of a "must see" for adults looking for 'adult' animation.  It's got some funny moments, some subtle and some broad.  I laughed out loud a couple of times.  The animation is crude and cheap but the style fits the production in a way where you don't get the idea that this could've (or should've) looked much better with a larger budget.  The voice work is good and the songs are fun but the lack of funny drags the picture a bit.  Just being mildly amusing wasn't enough for me to hold my interest.  Now, if I had seen this 35 years ago in a theater, I would've most certainly enjoyed it more.  It's a soft recommend for those who like crudely animated nudity.

The Land Unknown (1957)

Director:  Virgil W. Vogel

Writer:  Laszlo Gorog, William N. Robson, Charles Palmer

Composer:  Henry Mancini, Heinz Roemheld, Hans J. Salter, Herman Stein

Starring:  Jock Mahoney, Shirley Patterson, William Reynolds, Henry Brandon, Douglas Kennedy, Phil Harvey

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  Lost and Terrorized in Prehistoric Time.

Plot:  Three men and a woman crash-land in a deep crater in Antarctica, where they find a prehistoric world.

My rating: 5.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Nope.

This simple and mildly entertaining adventure flick checks all the right boxes for a reasonable 78-minute romp for some brainless time killing.  That's hardly a winning endorsement but it's not trying to be anything else.  The cast do a fine job with everyone filling their roles nicely.  The plot is straightforward and the dialogue serves it well enough.  See the trailer to get an idea how much money and effort were spent, although I thought the integration of the giant lizard footage was handled better than usual.  The man-in-suit T-Rex is laughable.  I was pleasantly surprised by the ending but, overall, the picture is by the numbers, goofy entertainment.  The word on the street is this was originally going to be given a much better and bigger treatment until it got downgraded to a B-level production, including being shot in color.  I do, however, like that it was shot in B&W.

Outside the Law (1930)

Director:  Tod Browning

Writer: Tod Browning, Garret Fort

Composer:  Cecil Arnold, Sam Perry, Heinz Roemheld

Starring:  Mary Nolan, Edward G. Robinson, Owen Moore, Rockliffe Fellowes, Delmar Watson, Eddie Sturgis, John George

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  The most powerfully thrilling underworld melodrama of all!

Plot:  Fingers (Moore) is planning a half-million-dollar bank robbery in gang boss Cobra Collins' (Robinson) territory. Fingers and his gal, Connie (Nolan), try to bluff Cobra into thinking otherwise.  Once the job is done, Fingers and Connie stay holed-up while Cobra, and the police, try to find them.

My rating:  6/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

Oh, boy!  It's an Edward G. Robinson picture I haven't seen before.  Oh, no, he's hardly in it.  I love that man's work but his earliest performances can be tough to watch sometimes.  But I think that a lot of it can be contributed to the early days of talkies and how rough they can be.  OUTSIDE THE LAW is a great example.  Tod Browning's camera doesn't move, the dialogue sometimes doesn't move smoothly between character exchanges and there's a noticable lack of music (except for the final act) is sorely missed, leaving scenes dragging.  Robinson is fine and my favorite moment of his is right at the start when he sees Fingers in a bank window.  His look is cold and menacing.

Now I'm intrigued!  What follows is a weak first act that gets too complicated for its own good.  Now that Fingers knows that Cobra is onto him, he gets his girlfriend, Connie, to join a sleazy sideshow-like job posing scantily in life-like recreations of famous sexy paintings for the horny male public just so she can get noticed by Cobra so she can seduce him or something to get him off the scent of Fingers.  Now that's a stretch!  What's great is Cobra is the fucking man and he's two steps ahead of them but they keep trying and failing.  Another neat thing about Cobra is you find out his mother is Chinese and the two speak to each other in Chinese.  It's a brief scene and it's a nice touch even though Cobra isn't referenced as being Chinese at any other point. 

After the robbery, the movie belongs to Fingers and Connie for most of the rest of the picture, holed-up in a small apartment.  That's where the dull stuff comes in.  Up to this point, actress Mary Nolan's been doing the standard tough girl act but now she's just a downright asshole to Fingers.  Part of it's because she's stuck with the stir crazy and happy Fingers.  But Nolan does this poorly and between her performance in these scenes plus the static camera, framing and slow dialogue exchanges, it's not interesting and drags the picture down.  Owen Moore, on the other hand, outshines Nolan and he's fun to watch, especially every time the kid (Watson) shows up.  He and the kid are great together. 

 

 

See?  She even makes kids cry!  Fortunately, things pick up considerably in the final act when the shit hits the fan when Cobra shows up and throws a massive monkey wrench into the works.  This is easily the best part of the picture.  A lot happens in a short period of time and one of them is Connie having to be nice for a change.  Suddenly Nolan shows some good acting chops and she's killing it!  After the tense build-up to the finish line, the ending is satisfactory and surprising.  It benefits from being made before the Hayes Code set in. 

It's worth a look for fans of Eddie G. but that second half hour in the apartment can by trying yet rewarding in a way.

Queen of the Amazons (1947)

Director:  Edward Finney

Writer:  Roger Merton

Composer:  STOCK MUSIC

Starring:  Robert Lowery, Patricia Morison, J. Edward Bromberg, John Miljan, Amira Moustafa, Keith Richards, Bruce Edwards

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  White Goddess of the Dark Jungle... She offered ECSTASY and DEATH!

Plot:  A woman's husband has disappeared on an expedition into the jungle. She hires a guide to take her into the jungle to find him. However, they discover that he has been captured by a savage female tribe.

My rating:  6.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Nah.


For an hour long, low budget jungle adventure picture, this one's not bad.  There's enough jungle action to keep you entertained, the actors do a better job than you'd expect, there's a little bit of humor sprinkled in (although I didn't find any of it all that funny), there's a small monkey doing small trained monkey things (big plus) and the final fight is high energy and exciting.  This film isn't trying to be anything more than entertaining for, probably, the younger audiences and I think it succeeds better than it should have.  It makes for a fun time killer on a lazy afternoon.  Watch the whole thing above.

The Secret Invasion (1964)

Director:  Roger Corman

Writer:  R. Wright Campbell

Composer:  Hugo Friedhofer

Starring:  Stewart Granger, Raf Vallone, Mickey Rooney, Edd Byrnes, Henry Silva, Spela Rozin, William Campbell

More info: IMDb

Tagline:  A Mad Major! A Master Criminal! A Demolition Demon! A Forger! An Assassin! Yet All Became Heroes When They Launched...

Plot:  In 1943, a group of hardened criminals is pardoned on the condition it accepts a mission to free a captive Italian general from the clutches of the Nazis.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

I digs me those 1960s WWII action pictures and I was so ready for this one...that is until I saw Roger Corman's name in the opening credits.  He's the opposite of big budget all-star action movies.  But still, I'm open to new things.  The story gets right to the point from the get-go by assembling the team and presenting the mission in the first five minutes!  And in the next 6 minutes, they're off to the beautiful shooting location of Yugoslavia!  Corman does a quick job of getting this picture moving.  The scenery is gorgeous.  That helps the movie more than anything.  The cast does a good job with mixed results.  Granger does his standard down-to-business/I'm-carrying-the-weight-of-the-world-on-his-shoulders performance. Raf Vallone is easily the MVP here.  He's fantastic.  Mickey Rooney can be fun when he isn't over-doing it.  It's so easy for him to over-act and he takes advantage of that.  Henry Silva doesn't talk much.  He was probably hired for his unusual mug and not his thespian skills.  And William Campbell looks like the Tony Curtis they could afford but he does a pretty good job.  Overall, they make a good team of actors.

Some of what dragged the picture down were things like the dialogue not flowing smoothing, unnecessarily padded, longer scenes, idiotic solutions for some of the problems they encounter and a general low budget vibe in spots.  The whole snapping of the fingers bit was set up and executed awkwardly.  First of all, they weren't keeping strict time and they were supposed to, which was the whole point of doing it in the first place.  It was used like what you'd see in a heist movie where several people each have a job to do that hinges on everyone doing their job at precisely the right moment or it falls apart.  They're busting out of a Nazi prison with a plan that relies on a few thought out beats but the rest has them winging it so a fixed schedule was impossible.  It's that kind of silliness that hurts the picture.  I also got the feeling like the film makers started with some scene ideas without a fully fleshed-out way of linking them.  Plus, the story feels rushed.  This picture definitely would've benefited from spending more time on the story.   Oh, and the dubbing has some pretty bad spots, too.

Fortunately for us, Corman couldn't resist an exploitation-y opportunity!

LT. MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD...YARRRRRR!

There's a ballsy-as-fuck scene when Silva and Rozin are dangerously close to being discovered by German guards.  Her baby starts to cry and Silva covers its mouth to stop it.  Once the guards leave and they're safe, the baby isn't moving anymore.  THE FUCK?  They had the balls to kill a baby?  WOW!  NICE!!!  Hats off to Corman and writer Campbell!  I did not see that coming.

The often cheap feel is expected since that's what Corman was used to but he does a good job at times with elevating this to the level of what you'd expect from the film's big time siblings of the day.  The story is a bit reminiscent of the best of the "prisoners assembled for a secret WWII mission" sub genre with THE DIRTY DOZEN (1967).  Nothing comes close to that one as DOZEN is one of the all-time great films.  THE SECRET INVASION benefits by pre-dating DOZEN by three years.  If you're a fan of these types of pictures, you're going definitely going to want to see this but lower your expectations.  There are some nice things to be found here but overall, it's lacking.