OPERATION NAM aka COBRA MISSION (Italy/West Germany - 1986; US release 1987) Directed by Larry Ludman (Fabrizio De Angelis). Written by Gianfranco Clerici, Vincenzo Mannino, Larry Ludman (Fabrizio De Angelis) and Erwin C. Dietrich. Cast: Oliver Tobias, Christopher Connelly, Manfred Lehman, John Steiner, Donald Pleasence, Ethan Wayne, Gordon Mitchell, Enzo G. Castellari, Enio Girolami, Alan Collins (Luciano Pigozzi), Aldo Massasso, David Light. (Unrated, 87 mins) "Forget about it, man. It's Vietnam." This Italian-German Namsploitation actioner was shot in 1985 as COBRA MISSION but unreleased in the US until 1987, when it went straight to video courtesy of Imperial Entertainment, who retitled it OPERATION NAM, as Vietnam movies were in vogue in months after PLATOON. In West Germany, COBRA MISSION was known as THE RETURN OF THE WILD GEESE in an effort to tie it in with Antonio Margheriti's WILD GEESE ripoff CODENAME: WILDGEESE (1984), as both films shared German co-producer Erwin C. Dietrich. An unusually downbeat and cynical example of the '80s P.O.W. rescue movie, COBRA MISSION/OPERATION NAM avoids the flag-waving, "Born in the USA," "America! Fuck yeah!" jingoism of the Reagan era, when blockbusters like RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II went back to Vietnam to refight the war with a guaranteed American victory. OPERATION NAM shares the distrust of the powers that be exemplified by Charles Napier's duplicitous Murdock in RAMBO, but it goes further by letting the corrupt US government and military win and having the good guys lose the war a second time. The heroes of OPERATION NAM aren't killing machines like Sylvester Stallone's John Rambo or Chuck Norris' James Braddock in the MISSING IN ACTION movies. They're normal, everyday guys like the Vietnam vets in Ted Kotcheff's UNCOMMON VALOR. OPERATION NAM has some valid points to make and its finale is an unexpectedly subversive gut-punch, but it's still a Namsploitation B-movie directed by Fabrizio De Angelis, under his usual pseudonym "Larry Ludman." Much better known as a producer (ZOMBIE, THE BEYOND, 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS) than a director--something he didn't start doing until 1983's FIRST BLOOD ripoff THUNDER WARRIOR-- De Angelis blows things up impressively, but the film is ragged and filled with amateurish continuity gaffes (like one character going back and forth from light stubble to a two-week beard, often in the same scene) and sloppy corner-cutting, often glossing over important details just to get to the next explosion.
Unable to adjust to civilian life in the decade-plus since they returned home from Vietnam, three Arizona men impulsively decide to mount a hastily-planned P.O.W. rescue mission: henpecked Roger (Christopher Connelly) plays video games all day and hates his wife, his daughter, and his life in general; drifter Mark (Manfred Lehman) just walked out on a shitty job at a desert bar; and unemployed James (John Steiner) has just pawned his service medals so he can afford a suit to wear to Roger's daughter's wedding. The vets share crass, vulgar war stories and offend the other guests--all rich friends of Roger's nagging wife--who drop unsubtle lines that scream "MESSAGE!" like one pompous asshole declaring "Those Marines are trained for combat, but they're only happy when they're fighting in war." The three men ditch the wedding and pay a visit to their old commander, Major Morris (cult director Enzo G. Castellari), who was railroaded out of the Marines for his persistence in pushing the issue of rescuing P.O.W.s still left behind in Vietnam, a topic that those high up the military chain of command, like stern Col. Mortimer (Gordon Mitchell), refuse to discuss or even acknowledge. The guys visit another vet buddy, Richard (top-billed Oliver Tobias of THE STUD), who's crashing in a mental institution for free meals and easy sex with the nurses, improbably break him out of the facility and head to Bangkok. "There's only one problem...how do I get outta here?" Richard asks, as De Angelis immediately cuts to the four men driving around Bangkok, never bothering to show how they managed to get Richard out of the hospital.
Taking $30,000 from a corrupt, Bangkok-based contractor (Enio Girolami) who cons grieving families of their hard-earned money by promising to find their MIA sons, the quartet head to Vietnam meet up with Father Lenoir (Donald Pleasence), a French priest who's been in the region since the 1950s and supplies them with weapons, ammo, and maps to still-operational P.O.W. camps. Typical Namsploitation antics ensue, with the guys mowing down numerous Viet Cong soldiers and eventually finding a camp with several Americans still being held captive. In a plot development that echoes RAMBO and the untrustworthy Murdock, Roger and the others find out that the US government and military are fully aware of the remaining P.O.W.s, and that they were left behind and labeled "war criminals" as part of the agreement to end the war. US inspectors visit the camps every year or so to check up on everyone, always promising that "We're gonna bring you home soon," and they never do, and Roger and the others who went on this unauthorized rescue mission find themselves in over their heads with a government that needs them to keep their mouths shut.
Perhaps because European producers didn't have an American flag to fly behind tough guy stars like Sylvester Stallone, Chuck Norris, and David Carradine (who's literally draped in an American flag at the end of the 1986 Cannon production P.O.W.: THE ESCAPE), bleak endings were nothing new with Italian Namsploitation movies. Two films by Antonio Margheriti--1980's THE LAST HUNTER and 1983's TORNADO--have bum-out final shots that send the audience out sulking. Even taking those into consideration, OPERATION NAM is a little more subversive than you might expect, going full PARALLAX VIEW in the home stretch and boasting one of the more ballsy downer endings you'll see in the Namsploitation genre, one that not only paints the government as not giving a shit about those who risk their lives fighting for their country, but actively silencing those who pose a risk of shattering the illusion of America. Until then, it's fairly typical of mid '80s Italian action, complete with some of the same Arizona locations seen in films like THUNDER WARRIOR and HANDS OF STEEL, location work in the Philippines filling in for Vietnam, questionable dubbing choices (Tobias, Lehman, and Steiner are all dubbed, with British Steiner given a ridiculously overripe Southern good ol' boy accent), a slumming guest star cameo (in this case, Pleasence, who's in the movie for five minutes, tops), and Connelly ad-libbing the same bizarre insults he used in almost all of his many Italian trash movies of the period (yes, his old standbys "flyface" and the ubiquitous "suckfish" make appearances here).
Ethan Wayne hanging with his dad on the
set of 1973's THE TRAIN ROBBERS
When Imperial Entertainment's VHS release of OPERATION NAM arrived in video stores, the pre-release promo and the cover art hyped the presence of Ethan Wayne. The sixth of John Wayne's seven children and named after his father's character in THE SEARCHERS, Ethan Wayne (who's also gone by "John Ethan Wayne") has a supporting role as one of the P.O.W.s and figures prominently in the depressing finale, but Imperial's tag line screamed "In the John Wayne action-packed tradition comes his son Ethan Wayne," plastered over a pic of Oliver Tobias blowing someone away. Born in 1962 to John Wayne and his third wife Pilar, Ethan Wayne started out with bit parts in some of his dad's late-period westerns like 1970's RIO LOBO and 1971's BIG JAKE, and eventually moved into stunt work. He made a brief detour to Italy in an attempt to start a career as an action star, but all he got were roles in two Fabrizio De Angelis films, starring in 1984's Arizona-shot THE MANHUNT, plus his supporting role in OPERATION NAM. Wayne got a few TV guest spots over the years and had a lengthy run on the daytime soap THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL, but things never took off for him and he never even got as big as Patrick Wayne, let alone their old man. These days, Ethan is in charge of overseeing his father's estate and all of its business concerns, and he runs the John Wayne Cancer Foundation charity. Tobias, meanwhile, would reunite with De Angelis for 1990's insane THE LAST MATCH, without question the greatest football commando movie ever made, with Tobias as a superstar QB whose daughter is abducted in a South American country, prompting him to take his team--played by off-season members of the Miami Dolphins and the Buffalo Bills, including then-Bills QB Jim Kelly--on a rescue mission as they attack the villain's compound in full game-day attire, complete with their coach (Ernest Borgnine) calling coordinated plays ("Hut! Hut!") and their kicker punting footballs stuffed with grenades.
Under its original COBRA MISSION title, the film was enough of a success in Europe and Asia that De Angelis produced the 1988 sequel COBRA MISSION 2, directed by Camilo Teti (a production manager for Sergio Leone on ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST and DUCK, YOU SUCKER and for Dario Argento on THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE) under the pseudonym "Mark Davis," with the younger and more Stallone-esque Brett Clark (BACHELOR PARTY, EYE OF THE EAGLE, DELTA FORCE COMMANDO) as someone named Roger--though it doesn't seem as if he's playing the same Roger as Connelly, who died of cancer in 1988--who's off the grid and working black ops for the US government, sent to help freedom fighters depose a Latin American dictator. COBRA MISSION 2 can be found on the bootleg circuit, but was never released in the US and has fallen into total obscurity.
SPOILER ALERT
Note: the version of OPERATION NAM that's streaming on Amazon Prime, under the original title COBRA MISSION, has a bizarre edit in the final scene that eliminates crucial information and inadvertently gives the film an anticlimactic and confusing wrap-up that significantly cushions the blow. After the men leave Vietnam and head home, forced by the military to leave the P.O.W.s behind, Mortimer is shown arriving at a hospital and saluting an apparently shell-shocked, motionless, wheelchair-bound Richard. The Amazon version eliminates a POV shot of Moritmer walking down the hallway to Richard's room as captions reveal that Roger and James both died mysterious deaths immediately after their attempted rescue mission, the implications being that they were murdered and Richard has been given a ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST lobotomy and dumped back in the V.A. hospital to keep quiet about what he knows. This scene is actually shown in full in the COBRA MISSION trailer above, so it's odd that it's incomplete in the Amazon Prime version, which actually runs two minutes longer and has more violence and gore than Imperial Entertainment's 85-minute VHS release of OPERATION NAM.
THE MESSENGER (Italy - 1987) Directed by Fred Williamson. Written by Brian Johnson, Conchita Lee and Anthony Wisdom. Cast: Fred Williamson, Christopher Connelly, Cameron Mitchell, Joe Spinell, Val Avery, Jasmine Maimone, Micheal Dante, Sandy Cummings, Peter Brown, Stack Pierce, Suzanne von Schaack, Umberto Raho, Riccardo Parisio, Maurizio Bonuglia, James Spinks, Cyrus Elias, Stelio Candelli, Frank Pesce, Chris Conte, Vince Townsend. (R, 97 mins) During his eight-season career in pro football with the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Oakland Raiders, and the Kansas City Chiefs, DB Fred Williamson earned the nickname "The Hammer," and upon his retirement in 1968, he parlayed his tough gridiron persona into a TV and movie career. He landed a recurring role as Diahann Carroll's love interest on the NBC series JULIA and made his big-screen debut as Spearchucker Jones in Robert Altman's 1970 classic MASH. Williamson followed that with a supporting role in Otto Preminger's 1970 Liza Minnelli vehicle TELL ME THAT YOU LOVE ME, JUNIE MOON before finding his niche as one of the top blaxploitation stars of the 1970s. Williamson enjoyed one drive-in and grindhouse success after another, with HAMMER and THE LEGEND OF NIGGER CHARLEY in 1972, and no less than four films in 1973, with the sequel THE SOUL OF NIGGER CHARLEY, BLACK CAESAR and its sequel HELL UP IN HARLEM, and the 007-inspired THAT MAN BOLT. Williamson worked relentlessly throughout the decade, often teaming with fellow football legend Jim Brown in films like 1974's THREE THE HARD WAY and 1975's TAKE A HARD RIDE, but by the mid '70s, Williamson grew restless and wanted to start making his own independent movies through his own Po' Boy Productions. He made his directing debut with 1976's MEAN JOHNNY BARROWS and managed to talk some celebrity friends into co-starring, including MASH buddy Elliott Gould in a cameo as a bum, and Roddy McDowall ludicrously cast as a Mafioso. Williamson directed and starred in three more films in 1976: the western ADIOS AMIGO with Richard Pryor, followed by NO WAY BACK and its immediate sequel DEATH JOURNEY, the first two of four films where he'd play private eye Jesse Crowder. With Enzo G. Castellari's 1978 cult classic THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS, Williamson began a second career in Italy, even directing the Italian-made MR. MEAN during his BASTARDS downtime. Though he made some American films in the '80s, most notably 1983's THE BIG SCORE and the same year's VIGILANTE, Williamson spent most of that decade in Italy, starring in Castellari's 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS (1983) as well as the director's post-nuke WARRIORS OF THE WASTELAND (1983) and Lucio Fulci's post-nuke THE NEW GLADIATORS (1984). 1985 also saw him as a pitchman in a series of King Cobra malt liquor commercials, and the same year, he took a break from Italian genre fare to co-star in the short-lived Joe Pesci NBC series HALF NELSON.
But by the mid '80s, Williamson was getting lazy. He made a pair of almost interchangeable back-to-back thrillers with 1986's FOXTRAP and 1987's THE MESSENGER, both vanity projects (well, every Williamson movie is a vanity project to some extent) that co-starred Williamson BFF Christopher Connelly and were little more than an excuse to get Italian production company Realta Cinematografica to send him on paid vacations throughout Europe and the US. THE MESSENGER is especially bad, with Williamson demonstrating a level of carelessness that borders on audience contempt, whether it's staging inept action sequences, putting himself in an overlong love scene where he has the camera pan down so we see his co-star Sandy Cummings' hands caressing his gyrating ass, or padding the running time with absurdly long establishing shots like following two actors on a golf course for over a minute or planting the camera inside a cab and giving us an impromptu, MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE-style travelogue every time his character arrives in a different city. We get a two-minute look at Vegas, up and down the strip, past the casinos and hotels, and even going blocks away, taking the audience on a captivating drive past the local Woolworth. There's also a scene where Michael Dante, as a Hollywood mobster, is shown pulling into his driveway, turning his car around in the driveway, then backing into the garage, pulling back out and then maneuvering the car back into the garage again so he can straighten it out. Then Williamson keeps the camera right where it's at while Dante gets out of the car and leisurely walks into what I presume is the actor's own home. It's at least a solid minute and a half of static screen time devoted to watching Dante dick around in his driveway.
The threadbare vigilante/revenge plot requires location work in Rome, Chicago, Hollywood, and Las Vegas simply because Williamson was given enough money to do so. The Hammer is Jake Sebastian Turner, a Green Berets legend released from a Rome prison and reunited with his wife Sabrina (Cummings, in her first and thus far only film), who's turned into a junkie while he was locked up. She's killed in a drive-by shooting and Jake is informed by the improbably-named Italian mob boss Gielgud (Riccardo Parisio) that Sabrina got involved with Rome drug traffickers who were supplying Chicago gangster Paolo (Maurizio Bonuglia). The same people who killed Sabrina also murdered Gielgud's stepson, and he offers Jake $500,000 to go to Chicago and track down and kill those responsible. Arriving in Chicago, Jake kills Paolo with a ninja star only to find out that he was just a part of the machine and he'll need to head out west to find the real bosses behind the operation. His path of vengeance takes him to Hollywood (Schwarzenegger's RAW DEAL on a theater marquee!), where he finds Emerson (Dante), whose tool company is used as a money-laundering and narcotics distribution front for Vegas mob kingpin Rico (Joe Spinell) and his top flunkies Clark (John Cassavetes inner circler Val Avery) and Harris (Peter Brown). Meanwhile, loose-cannon, plays-by-his-own-rules FBI agent Parker (Connelly) develops a begrudging admiration for the so-called "Messenger of Death" who's wiping out syndicate goons, and butts heads with Chicago police captain Carter (Cameron Mitchell, hamming it up but still outacted by his garish eyeglasses that must be seen to be believed) and irate detective Leroy (Stack Pierce), who want this mystery vigilante off the streets.
THE MESSENGER is grossly incompetent but calling it "so bad it's good" is a stretch. Williamson's direction is unbelievably sloppy, from the half-assed action scenes to his direction of the actors, none of whom appear to be aware of what kind of movie they're in. As a director, his chief concern seems to be getting women to throw themselves at him and staging as many King Cobra product placements as possible (they even get a shout-out in the closing credits). Williamson and Connelly play it straight, Connelly especially enjoying himself as Parker, pointlessly doing a T.J. HOOKER shoulder-roll into Rico's mansion and throwing around the usual made-up insults that he used in a lot of his Italian films (RAIDERS OF ATLANTIS, OPERATION NAM, STRIKE COMMANDO). His favorite standby "suckfish" makes a required appearance (calling someone "suckfish" is Connelly's "John Cusack vaping"), along with "shitstick" and calling Spinell "butt-wipe." Mitchell just seems to be goofing off (did he borrow his mother-in-law's glasses for this role?), Dante does what he's required to do--be the guy you get when John Saxon, Henry Silva and Tony Lo Bianco turn you down--and Spinell plays it broad, turning Rico into a whiny, sniveling Joe Besser of a mob boss. The Rome scenes with Italian actors are shot with live sound, and it's pretty clear when you listen to Eurocult stalwarts like Stelio Candelli (DEMONS) and Umberto Raho (THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE) that their grasp of English is tenuous at best (bonus points if you can understand a single word Raho says as the warden who releases Jake from prison). Even the dialogue in the American scenes is often difficult to decipher, as the actors are constantly cut off or drowned out by William Stuckey's repetitious, flatulent synth score.
And whether it's a fault of the script--somehow the work of three people, two of whom did nothing else after while the other (Anthony Wisdom) went on to write 1990's THE RETURN OF SUPERFLY--or Williamson's slapdash direction, THE MESSENGER offers one of the all-time great continuity gaffes, one that involves Mitchell's pissed-off Capt. Carter. When introduced, he's bitching at Parker and refusing to cooperate with him after the Chicago hit on Paolo. When others turn up dead in Hollywood, Parker informs Carter that the Messenger must've left Chicago and made his way out west, with Parker announcing "I'm going to L.A." as Carter chomps on his cigar and seethes, adjusting his ill-fitting Estelle Getty glasses. Much later, in Hollywood, after Emerson is killed and his naive wife (Suzanne von Schaack) finds out he's a drug dealer and that's how he was providing for her and their children, she inexplicably turns up as a cokehead hooker in Vegas for no reason at all. She recognizes Jake at a casino, dials the operator and asks for the Los Angeles police department, specifically "Chief Carter," as we see Cameron Mitchell pick up the phone. Wait..,LAPD Chief Carter? Wasn't he just a precinct captain in Chicago a few scenes back, with a map of Illinois on the wall of his office? Sure enough, Carter rounds up the cops and Parker and they go straight to...Rico's mansion in Las Vegas?! Is Williamson even paying attention to his own movie?
Williamson campaigning for
Donald Trump in 2016.
Williamson continued dividing his time between Italy and America, and by the 1990s was a C-lister relegated to straight-to-video status with films like 1991's THREE DAYS TO A KILL and 1992's SOUTH BEACH. He enjoyed a brief resurgence in 1996 with the all-star blaxploitation throwback ORIGINAL GANGSTAS and with longtime fans Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez giving him a showy supporting role in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, two years after turning down an offer from Tarantino to play crime boss Marcellus Wallace in PULP FICTION. Williamson passed on the part because of the scene where Wallace is raped by Zed in the Gimp dungeon in the pawn shop basement.. He got to demonstrate some slow-burn comedy skills, playing off Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson as the perpetually flustered Capt. Doby in 2004's STARSKY & HUTCH, but other than that, Williamson has done some sporadic TV guest spots and some Z-grade DTV swill you find in the New Release section at Walmart. He's also become a regular presence in low-budget faithsploitation dramas like 2015's LAST OUNCE OF FREEDOM, where he played a villain trying to stop a small rural town from celebrating Christmas. Now 79 and probably still able to kick your ass, Williamson most recently made the news in 2016 when he was spotted on the presidential campaign trail competing with Ben Carson for the coveted "Donald Trump's black friend" role.
MANHATTAN BABY aka EYE OF THE EVIL DEAD (Italy - 1982; US release 1984) Directed by Lucio Fulci. Written by Elisa Livia Briganti and Dardano Sacchetti. Cast: Christopher Connelly, Martha Taylor (Laura Lenzi), Brigitta Boccoli, Giovanni Frezza, Cinzia de Ponti, Laurence Welles (Cosimo Cinieri), Andrea Bosic, Carlo De Mejo, Lucio Fulci, Martin Sorrentino. (R, 89 mins) Released to US drive-ins and grindhouses in 1984 by 21st Century as EYE OF THE EVIL DEAD, this 1982 Lucio Fulci film is best known by its original and subsequent home video title, MANHATTAN BABY, and while it's far from the director's best effort, it's better than its reputation. Viewers of the much-maligned MANHATTAN BABY are usually disappointed that it's not as gory as most titles from Fulci's unstoppable 1979-1982 classic era, but it does have its charms. It's also noteworthy as the last collaboration between Fulci and producer Fabrizio De Angelis after several years of trailblazing gore classics like ZOMBIE (1979), THE BEYOND (1981), THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY (1981), and THE NEW YORK RIPPER (1982), the duo having an irreparable falling out over some eleventh hour budget cuts on this film, which co-writer Dardano Sacchetti estimated to be in the neighborhood of 75%. After this, De Angelis started calling himself "Larry Ludman" and concentrated on directing Italian ripoffs of popular American action films, and though he kept working with other producers throughout the '80s on films like CONQUEST, MURDER ROCK, and ZOMBI 3, Fulci never scaled the glorious heights of his De Angelis years, his prolific golden era effectively coming to a close by the time MANHATTAN BABY and THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY hit US theaters in 1984.
One big problem with MANHATTAN BABY is that Sacchetti, his co-writer and wife Elisa Livia Briganti, and Fulci can't seem to settle on what they're ripping off: there's elements of 1980's THE AWAKENING, a little of 1982's POLTERGEIST, plus a climax that seems like a tamer version of 1973's THE EXORCIST. Gore is minimal, confined mainly to a ridiculous bird attack near the end. Christopher Connelly (around the same time he played the hapless Hot Dog in Enzo G. Castellari's 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS) is archaeologist George Hacker, who uncovers a mysterious force in Egypt and is temporarily blinded, and his daughter Susie (Brigitta Boccoli) is given a strange medallion by a blind old crone who vanishes into thin air. Back in NYC, Susie is slowly possessed by the force, sand turns up in Susie's and little brother Tommy's (Giovanni Frezza, best known as THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY's "Bob") bedroom, colleagues start getting killed, and a pervasive Evil seems to be taking hold. This leads Hacker and his wife Emily (Laura Lenzi, credited as "Martha Taylor," for some reason) to consult mysterious antiques dealer Adrian Mercato (MURDER ROCK's Cosimo Cinieri, billed as "Laurence Welles") who seems to know something, and lucky for him the Hackers apparently never saw ROSEMARY'S BABY, since Mercato shares the name of the title hellspawn, for no particular reason.
US theatrical poster. "George" Frezza?!
The pace is a little slow, there isn't the level of gore one usually associates with early '80s Fulci, and the title is terrible, but it's atmospheric, the NYC and Cairo locations are very well-shot by cinematographer Guglielmo Mancori (SPASMO), and though the bulk of the score is simply older Fabio Frizzi cues from the Fulci classics CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD and THE BEYOND (thanks to the budget cuts), the composer's main theme ranks among the best of his career. MANHATTAN BABY is definitely not the place for aspiring Fulciphiles to begin their explorations, but time has been kind to it, and even its biggest longtime detractors are slowly coming around to admitting that it's not deserving of its bad rep. Blue Underground's new Blu-ray is a three-disc special edition that includes a cd of Frizzi's score, and should further make the case for MANHATTAN BABY's belated acceptance.
1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS (Italy - 1982; US release 1983)
Directed by Enzo G. Castellari. Written by Dardano Sacchetti, Elisa Livia Briganti, Enzo G. Castellari. Cast: Vic Morrow, Christopher Connelly, Fred Williamson, Mark Gregory, Stefania Girolami, Enio Girolami, George Eastman (Luigi Montefiori), John Sinclair, Betty Dessy, Rocco Lerro, Massimo Vanni, Angelo Ragusa, Enzo Girolami, Carla Brait. (R, 86 mins/92 mins)
Frequently and mistakenly lumped in with the onslaught of early 1980s Italian post-nuke ROAD WARRIOR ripoffs, Enzo G. Castellari's 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS is more indebted to Walter Hill's THE WARRIORS, with a bit of John Carpenter's ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK. In it, we have warring gangs making their way across gang-controlled territories of NYC, but with a "near-future" element of the Bronx being a desolate No Man's Land, a look that wasn't hard to achieve given its state in 1982. Castellari, best known for his 1970s crime thrillers and 1978's THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS, captured the look of the decayed Bronx so effectively that the film, along with examples like WOLFEN and FORT APACHE THE BRONX from 1981, stands as a powerful visual document of its era. Of course, any semblance of seriousness offered by 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS ends there, especially considering that Castellari and the Italian crew couldn't get any of the streets in the Bronx shut down for their shoot, so in this uninhabitable "No Man's Land," you clearly see cars travelling in an orderly fashion (a crew member can be seen directing traffic in one shot) and area residents standing around, obviously watching some crazy Italians shoot a movie in their neighborhood. The Bronx was so dangerous that a local Hells Angels chapter hired by producer Fabrizio De Angelis to play additional members of the main biker gang pulled double duty as security for the cast and crew during the Bronx portion of the shoot (the interiors were shot in the much safer confines of the De Paolis Studios in Rome).
I absolutely love 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS. It's one of the essential trashy Italian exploitation films of its era. It's everything one looks for in such fare: blatant ripoff of one or more American box office hits, gratuitous violence, nonsensical and illogical story, often hilarious dubbing, slumming American actors, a killer score (by Walter Rizzati), and an eye for the grime of 1980s NYC that Hollywood films rarely captured, likely because the Italians were always shooting without permits and the city didn't step in first to clean it up and make it presentable for the cameras (a good example of this is seeing just how different the same stretch of Times Square porn palaces and sex shops look in Lucio Fulci's THE NEW YORK RIPPER and Ron Howard's NIGHT SHIFT; both films shot the same year, but NIGHT SHIFT manages to make it look safe and clean while you actually fear for the well-being of RIPPER's cameraman, especially with passersby looking right at him). Low-budget American films like James Glickenhaus' THE EXTERMINATOR (1980), Romano Scavolini's NIGHTMARE (1981), and Abel Ferrara's FEAR CITY (1984) among others, were successful at this and there's an occasional TAXI DRIVER (1976) that didn't sugarcoat things, but if you want a really accurate look at 1970s and 1980s Times Square, Manhattan and the rundown areas of the surrounding boroughs in all their sleazy, decayed, and morally decrepit glory, no one captured this energy and imagery better than permitless Italian film crews.
In 1990, the Bronx is declared a no-man's-land (a crawl explains that all "attemps" at law and order have been abandoned) and is ruled by warring biker gangs who know to keep to their own turf. The main gang is The Riders, led by Trash (Mark Gregory). Complications ensue when rich teenager Anne (Stefania Girolami, Castellari's daughter), who can't stomach being the heiress to the powerful Manhattan Corporation, which handles 60% of the world's arms manufacturing, flees Manhattan and heads to the Bronx. She's immediately attacked by a gang of hockey stick-wielding idiots known as The Zombies, but is rescued by Trash and welcomed into The Riders. Meanwhile, Manhattan Corporation honcho Fisher (Enio Girolami, Castellari's brother) sends in renegade cop Hammer (Vic Morrow) to find Anne and bring her back home. Hammer has other plans: born in the Bronx and sporting a huge chip on his shoulder about it, the self-loathing Hammer detests his origins and wants the Bronx to burn, and instead of doing his job and rescuing Anne, decides to plant evidence that he hopes will start a war between The Riders and The Tigers, the other major gang led by The Ogre (Fred Williamson). Hammer assumes that Trash and his old-school bikers and Ogre and his pimped-out henchmen will destroy each other and the Bronx in the process. He even gets help from Ice (John Sinclair), Trash's duplicitous second-in-command who has his eyes set on leading The Riders and needs Trash out of the way, resenting the influence Anne has on him ("Since he's hooked up with that Manhattan pussy, all the blood's rushed to his cock"). Hammer, fueled by rage and hubris and assisted by untrustworthy trucker Hot Dog (Christopher Connelly), gets sloppy and it doesn't take long for the not-very-brightTrash to figure out that they're being played. He's forced to journey across dangerous territory and face other rival gangs (including one called The Scavengers, who inexplicably grunt and dress like prehistoric cavemen) to get to The Ogre and convince him to band together to take on the insane Hammer, who's bringing along an army of cops for the subtly-named "Operation Burnt Earth."
Hammer's curious hatred of his home turf is about as close to psychological drama as the script by Castellari, Dardano Sacchetti, and Elisa Livia Briganti gets. The primary focus is on action and, thanks to the work of the dubbing crew, hilarious dialogue. Whether it's the background chatter of The Riders ("Yeah! Ya gotta fight to live!") or the colorful metaphors (thinking they're being set up by Hammer, Trash doesn't simply say something like "This is a bunch of crap!" but instead goes with "It could be a pile of shit outta somebody's asshole!"), something bizarre is uttered in seemingly every scene. Even Connelly, dubbing himself, gets into the act, calling Ice "fagface" and Trash "pisshead" in odd insults that were improvised by the actor himself. In his later Italian B-movie excursions, Connelly used similar strange terms, including "suckfish" in at least three different movies. The silliness continues with a random riverside drum solo, and a complete disregard for NYC geography, with scenes in "the Bronx" obviously shot in Brooklyn (including one looking at the Brooklyn Bridge and the Twin Towers), and the exterior of The Ogre's "Bronx" headquarters actually being the abandoned insane asylum on Roosevelt Island between Manhattan and Queens. But perhaps the film's biggest laugh comes from Sinclair badly wiping out on his bike in one shot and breaking several ribs...and Castellari leaving it in the movie.
Connelly and Williamson were no strangers to B-movies during this time and both would continue to work in the Italian exploitation scene, reuniting a few years later on 1987's Williamson-directed THE MESSENGER. Always employed but with his BLACKBOARD JUNGLE and COMBAT days long behind him, Morrow failed to get much of a career bump from co-starring as the rival coach in the 1976 blockbuster THE BAD NEWS BEARS, and was mainly doing TV guest spots and drive-in flicks like 1979's THE EVICTORS and 1980's HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP. He starred in the 1978 Japanese STAR WARS ripoff MESSAGE FROM SPACE and had already worked with Castellari on the Italian JAWS ripoff GREAT WHITE, released in the US in the spring of 1982 and quickly withdrawn from circulation. He co-starred with a then-unknown Michelle Pfeiffer on the short-lived 1980 ABC cop show B.A.D. CATS, but it was cancelled after six episodes. Estranged from his two daughters (including actress Jennifer Jason Leigh) from his first wife and in the midst of a divorce from his second, Morrow's professional and personal lives weren't at their pinnacle by the time he agreed to star in 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS, and on the BRONX WARRIORS DVD commentary, Castellari tells a story of Morrow breaking down on the flight to Rome after seeing the warm father-daughter affection between the director and daughter Stefania, saying he wished he had that kind of relationship with his daughters. According to Castellari, it was while Morrow was working on 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS that he learned he got a major role in the John Landis segment of the big-budget, Steven Spielberg-produced TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, and that he was due to begin work on it when he was finished working on the Castellari film. Morrow's spirits picked up tremendously, and he told Castellari that he believed things were finally looking brighter for him and that he was going to try to repair the fractured relationship with his daughters.
Of course, everyone knows that Morrow never finished shooting TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE. He and two children were killed in the early morning hours of July 23, 1982 when, amidst explosions and pyrotechnics, a hovering helicopter crashed on top of them, crushing one of the children, with the blade decapitating the other child and 53-year-old Morrow. The actor had expressed concern over such a dangerous stunt while carrying two young children, but this was his most high-profile role in years and he wanted the scene to be perfect and didn't want to be seen as "difficult." Morrow was dead just three months after GREAT WHITE appeared in US theaters, and with the Italian practice of not shooting with live sound and instead dubbing the dialogue later on, Morrow didn't live long enough to voice his performance in 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS, so he was dubbed by veteran voice actor Ed Mannix, whose gruff tones can be heard in countless Italian exploitation films from that era. Cut by six minutes (eliminating a couple bits of gore, the Hells Angels onscreen credit, and the appearance of a campy gang of tap-dancers, all restored on the 2004 Media Blasters DVD), 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS was released in the US in April 1983 by United Film Distribution, nine months after Morrow's death, with TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE hitting theaters two months later, with Landis' segment with Morrow as a loudmouthed bigot who gets the tables turned on him included but slightly restructured and understandably feeling incomplete. The film was a modest box office hit and had its moments (most notably, John Lithgow's performance in George Miller's segment), but the resulting lawsuits and settlements dragged on for years as the tragic and completely avoidable deaths of Morrow and the children has, to this day, left a dark cloud hovering over the entire project.
1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS also introduced the world to the enigmatic and elusive Mark Gregory. Just 17 years old at the time of filming, young Marco di Gregorio was discovered working out at a Rome gym that Castellari frequented. Rechristened "Mark Gregory," the novice actor's screen presence is, in a word, awkward. His strange, halting posture and his pulled-too-high jeans are a sight to behold, and, well, there's no really delicate way to put this: he's got a chick's ass. This, and his apparent orientation (Williamson said in the DVD's accompanying interview, "Let's just say he didn't leave any footprints in the snow") weren't lost on the Hells Angels playing his fellow Riders, who, according to Castellari, openly razzed and insulted the actor, who didn't speak or understand much English. Gregory seems to be phonetically mouthing English, and was dubbed by the very Noo Yawk-sounding Steven Luotto. Gregory would eventually bulk up a bit more and gain some more confidence in his screen presence, never again looking quite as silly as he does here. Following 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS, Gregory reprised his role as Trash in Castellari's inferior sequel ESCAPE FROM THE BRONX. Shot in 1983 and released in the US by New Line Cinema in 1985, ESCAPE is unremarkable except for Henry Silva's over-the-top, coffee-spitting performance as a psycho sent in by the Manhattan Corporation to once again exterminate Trash and the denizens of the Bronx. ESCAPE FROM THE BRONX was skewered on MST3K under its alternate title ESCAPE 2000, which is not be confused with Brian Trenchard-Smith's ESCAPE 2000, aka TURKEY SHOOT.
Gregory also starred in the FIRST BLOOD knockoff THUNDER WARRIOR and its two sequels, and he appeared in several other Italian exploitation outings, such as 1983's ADAM AND EVE VS. CANNIBALS, aka BLUE PARADISE and 1987's DELTA FORCE COMMANDO (playing the villain opposite Williamson), and left the movie industry after 1989's AFGANISTAN: THE LAST WAR BUS, aka WAR BUS COMMANDO. For years, rumors circulated that he was serving time in prison on a murder charge or that he was working in a Rome pizza joint, and even Castellari and his son appeared in a video on YouTube asking for information from anyone that knew Gregory's whereabouts. A BRONX WARRIORS "Hunt for Trash" fan site found someone who claimed he knew a guy claiming to be Gregory, but the photos were unconvincing, to say the least, and the guy seemed entirely too young to be Gregory. I even briefly--well, for a day or so--teamed with none other than Stefania Girolami herself to investigate a "Marco di Gregorio" on Facebook who looked very similar to Gregory. She contacted him and he said he wasn't the guy, but even Girolami said the resemblance was pretty strong. It's interesting to think that in this day and age, with fan conventions and all the technology and the social media and all the ways to internet-stalk someone, the obviously off-the-grid Mark Gregory has successfully transformed himself into the J.D. Salinger of Eurotrash cinema.
Where are you, Mark Gregory? You have a huge fan base. Tell us your story!
YouTube montage created by a Mark Gregory superfan
Directed by Anthony M. Dawson (Antonio Margheriti). Written by Giovanni Simonelli. Cast: Christopher Connelly, Marina Costa, Lee Van Cleef, Alan Collins (Luciano Pigozzi), Mike Monty, Rene Abadeza, Protacio Dee (PG-13, 94 mins/101 mins)
The Italian exploitation scene wasted no time ripping off Steven Spielberg's 1981 blockbuster RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, with veteran journeyman Antonio Margheriti (YOR: THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE), aka "Anthony M. Dawson," becoming Italy's go-to director for contemporary and period jungle action movies. Going back to the early 1960s, Margheriti dabbled in everything: peplum, sci-fi, gothic horror, 007 ripoffs, spaghetti westerns, martial arts, crime thrillers, and even a ripoff of a ripoff with 1979's PIRANHA-inspired KILLER FISH, but he really found his niche in the 1980s with a near-constant stream of jungle/commando/explosion actioners. In quick succession, the busy Margheriti and his frequent star David Warbeck cranked out HUNTERS OF THE GOLDEN COBRA (1982; released in the US in 1984) and THE ARK OF THE SUN GOD (1984; released in the US in 1986), in addition to their ongoing Vietnam-themed outings like THE LAST HUNTER (1980; released in the US in 1984), and TIGER JOE (1982; released in the US in 1986). In 1985, without Warbeck, Margheriti made one more INDIANA JONES knockoff before turning his attention to a series of WILD GEESE imitations with British TV star Lewis Collins while his contemporaries like Bruno Mattei focused on ripping off RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II. JUNGLE RAIDERS was produced by the Italian B-movie outfit L'Immagine, and was acquired by Cannon and given a very limited US theatrical run in the summer of 1985, making it one of the few Italian exploitation films to not wait anywhere from one to four years to get a token US release. JUNGLE RAIDERS turned up in US video stores not long after and could be found in most of them until the end of the VHS era.
In 1938 Malaysia, adventurer/con artist Duke Howard, better known to the locals as Captain Yankee (Christopher Connelly) and his affable sidekick Gin Fizz (Margheriti regular Luciano Pigozzi, dubbed by the gravelly Robert Spafford) run a scam where they take rich vacationers on a trek to find a rare piece of treasure. However, it's all a staged set-up between Howard and some locals pretending to be "natives," as Howard's pal, US government official Inspector Warren (Lee Van Cleef) looks the other way. Warren comes to Howard with a legit pursuit: lead a pair of academics--Maria Janez (Marina Costa, dubbed by Carolynn De Fonseca) and Professor Lansky (Mike Monty)--deep into the jungle and into a volcano to find the priceless Ruby of Gloom (the US trailer calls it the "Ruby of Doom," which sounds better). Howard isn't too keen on the idea, but agrees when Warren blackmails him with a report from American authorities over a Texas oil man being swindled by a Duke Howard on a search through Mexico for "Montezuma's diamond-studded toilet bowl." Howard, Gin Fizz, and their other pal Alain (the ubiquitous Rene Abadeza, in a rare instance of playing something other than a nameless native in an Italian jungle adventure) lead Maria and Lansky to the Ruby, with Borneo pirates led by the nefarious Tiger (Protacio Dee, dubbed by Ted Rusoff) in hot pursuit.
JUNGLE RAIDERS was made with a larger budget than most Italian copycats, though as he did until the end of his career, Margheriti still relies--perhaps too much--on obvious miniatures for the big explosion and chase sequences. You can clearly see immobile action figures sitting in model trucks in several shots during a big chase. Margheriti tries to be slick about it, but by 1985, it was harder to convincingly pull off these 1950s techniques. Unlike a major Hollywood movie, Margheriti's miniatures are so obvious that they only succeed in drawing attention to themselves rather then seemlessly blending. And the less said about the precocious child who can communicate with his lovable pet cobra (!), the better. Still, it's a fun and fast-paced B-movie, with enjoyable performances by Connelly, Van Cleef, and Pigozzi.
JUNGLE RAIDERS wasn't Cannon's first RAIDERS/INDIANA JONES ripoff: Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus also had their in-house Allan Quatermain franchise kick off in 1985 with J. Lee Thompson's remake of KING SOLOMON'S MINES, with Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone, which was followed by a 1987 sequel ALLAN QUATERMAIN AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD. Additionally, Golan & Globus handled Ferdinando Baldi's 1983 3D Italian/Spanish co-production TREASURE OF THE FOUR CROWNS, with forgotten American-born '60s spaghetti western third-stringer Tony Anthony as one J.T. Striker (in his introduction to FOUR CROWNS on The Movie Channel's Drive-In Theater, Joe Bob Briggs called it "the first hit in a series of one for Tony"). By the time JUNGLE RAIDERS was released, RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II happened and, using the same Filipino locations, most of the Italians gradually moved on to RAMBO ripoffs and other Namsploitation, most notably Bruno Mattei's infamous STRIKE COMMANDO, which co-starred Connelly, Pigozzi, and Monty (in 1987, a badly-dubbed Connelly also took on the mandatory professor role in another Italian RAIDERS ripoff, Mino Guerrini's rock-bottom THE MINES OF KILIMANJARO). Margheriti belatedly joined the RAMBO game with 1989's INDIO (featuring the once-in-a-lifetime pairing of Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Brian Dennehy, the latter inexplicably slumming in an Italian knockoff at the height of his Hollywood character actor fame) and its 1991 sequel INDIO 2: THE REVOLT, but mainly stayed busy with his WILD GEESE ripoffs: 1984's CODENAME: WILDGEESE (given a decent-sized US release in 1986 by New World), 1985's COMMANDO LEOPARD, and 1988's THE COMMANDER, with the latter two never given official US distribution.
The US release of JUNGLE RAIDERS was uncut and ran 101 minutes, receiving a PG-13 rating from the MPAA, with the VHS print cropping the 2.35 image to the full-frame 1.33. The German print available on the bootleg and torrent circuit, titled DIE JAGER DER GOLDENEN GOTTIN (translated: THE HUNTERS OF THE GOLDEN GODDESS), dubbed in English, omits some of the violence and other minor bits and comes in at 94 minutes, but it's the full 2.35 image, and seeing as its one of Margheriti's and L'Immagine's more generously-budgeted '80s films, obviously benefits greatly from the intended framing.
Directed by Vincent Dawn (Bruno Mattei). Written by Clyde Anderson (Claudio Fragasso). Cast: Reb Brown, Christopher Connelly, Alex Vitale, Loes Kamma (Louise Kamsteeg), Alan Collins (Luciano Pigozzi), Mike Monty, Edison Navarro, Rene Abadeza. (Unrated, 89 mins)
When FIRST BLOOD hit theaters in 1982, it was a relatively low-budget indie that became a surprise hit for Sylvester Stallone, but fell a bit short of achieving ROCKY-level box office. However, it found an even bigger audience on video and cable, and by the time the bigger-budgeted 1985 sequel RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II came out, Stallone's John Rambo, initially a withdrawn, shell-shocked, battle-scarred loner more in line with "crazed Vietnam vet" subgenre protagonists like Robert De Niro in TAXI DRIVER (1976), William Devane in ROLLING THUNDER (1977), and Robert Ginty in THE EXTERMINATOR (1980), became a Rocky-sized American hero and full-fledged cartoon killing machine draped in the American flag. RAMBO, coupled with the Gene Hackman actioner UNCOMMON VALOR (1983), and the Chuck Norris breakout smash MISSING IN ACTION (1984), was a key film in spawning a series of "the war's not over till the last man comes home" Namsploitation flicks, a few of which were domestically-made (1986's P.O.W.: THE ESCAPE with David Carradine, and Norris' two MISSING IN ACTION follow-ups), but most of these titles that flooded video stores came from Italy and particularly the Philippines. Roger Corman associate and Filipino exploitation icon Cirio H. Santiago even had his own direct-to-video Namsploitation franchise with 1987's EYE OF THE EAGLE, which spawned two sequels of its own in addition to a supporting character played by a then-unknown Robert Patrick (four years before TERMINATOR 2) getting his own spinoff film BEHIND ENEMY LINES (1988). Cartoonish fantasies like MISSING IN ACTION and RAMBO and serious films like PLATOON (1986) and FULL METAL JACKET (1987) among many others, kept Namsploitation a very in-demand and financially successful subgenre in the world of video rental well into the 1990s.
Of course, in those days, wherever a popular American film or genre was being ripped off, you can bet there was a crew of Italians working without permits nearby. Fabrizio De Angelis, using his reliable "Larry Ludman" pseudonym, gave us the first notable Italian FIRST BLOOD ripoff with 1983's THUNDER WARRIOR, featuring 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS' Mark Gregory as Thunder, a Native American war vet being run out of town by an asshole sheriff (Bo Svenson). Gregory returned for two sequels, 1986's THUNDER WARRIOR II, which finds Thunder promoted to deputy sheriff with Svenson returning as a different asshole sheriff, and 1988's imaginatively-titled THUNDER WARRIOR III (with John Phillip Law stepping in as the asshole sheriff), but De Angelis never put the Thunder character back in combat, instead choosing to confine his ass-kicking to the surrounding areas of Page, AZ, where the Italian exploitation industry set up shop and made a number of action films in the mid-1980s (busy Italian actor Claudio Cassinelli was killed in a helicopter crash at the Navajo Bridge outside Page in the summer of 1985 while shooting Sergio Martino's cyborg arm-wrestling classic HANDS OF STEEL). De Angelis's 1985 film COBRA MISSION (released in the US in 1987 as OPERATION NAM) had four bored and disgruntled vets heading back to 'Nam to free POWs. Elsewhere, the ever-reliable Antonio Margheriti, who helmed the 1980 APOCALYPSE NOW ripoff THE LAST HUNTER, continued his Namsploitation contributions with TORNADO (1983), but there's one Italian Namsploitation RAMBO ripoff that stands apart from the rest. Yes, I'm talking about Bruno Mattei's ridiculous 1987 trash classic STRIKE COMMANDO.
Mattei (1931-2007), who usually directed under the name "Vincent Dawn," was one of the busiest and least competent of the Italian schlock artists, with 1980's HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD (released in the US in 1983 as NIGHT OF THE ZOMBIES) and the sleazy women-in-prison gems CAGED WOMEN (1984) and WOMEN'S PRISON MASSACRE (1985) to his credit. Mattei's films have their bad movie charms, though it's obvious that his top priority was getting it in the can. Mattei was perhaps Italy's most flagrant ripoff artist. His 1988 film ROBOWAR is an almost scene-for-scene copy of PREDATOR, while 1990's SHOCKING DARK is a blatant ALIENS clone. Towards the end of his life, Mattei was making really cheap films and couldn't even be bothered to shoot imitation scenes and instead opted to just openly steal footage from other movies. One of his last films, 2006's unwatchable THE TOMB, not only rips off the Brendan Fraser-headlined THE MUMMY, but uses footage from it, in addition to RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (!). His last film, 2007's ZOMBIES: THE BEGINNING, somehow manages to work in footage pilfered from 1995's CRIMSON TIDE. In short, Mattei was a real character, and the Philippines-shot STRIKE COMMANDO is one of the all-time great examples of Italian exploitation at its most ludicrous, blatantly copying the plot of RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II and, with a straight face, restaging scenes from it.
Instead of Stallone as John Rambo, we get the great Reb Brown as Mike Ransom. Brown, who actually co-starred in the previously mentioned UNCOMMON VALOR and whose contributions to world cinema have been documented on this blog time and again, opts to not go for the stoical Stallone approach, but instead plays Ransom as if he's constantly having a spaz attack. Brown's signature battle cry, heard in many of his films, is front and center throughout most of STRIKE COMMANDO, which finds Brown's Ransom on a mission to destroy a VC stronghold with the elite Strike Commando unit in Vietnam. Despite the protests of his commander Major Harriman (Filipino B-movie fixture Mike Monty as Richard Crenna), Ransom and his men are left behind to die when overzealous Col. Radek (Christopher Connelly) decides to blow the place up before all the Strike Commandos are out. The last Strike Commando standing, Ransom is nursed back to health by a village of refugees cared for by Frenchman LeDue (Brown's YOR co-star Luciano Pigozzi, using his usual "Alan Collins" pseudonym), who tells Ransom that Russian military officials have been patrolling the area. Back at the base, the traitor Radek (not to be confused with Charles Napier's Murdock from RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II) orders all evidence of the Strike Commando unit to be erased, but Harriman stages a rescue of Ransom, who immediately goes back to the village to rescue the refugees only to find they've been slaughtered by Jakoda (Alex Vitale), a psychotic, hulking Commie killing machine with no tolerance for "Americanskis." Ransom is captured and tortured by Jakoda, eventually escaping and launching a one-man assault on the VC, the Soviets, and other "lousy bastards" that get in his way, as Radek repeatedly ignores Harriman's warnings that Ransom can't be stopped and "There's no one who can touch him in your whole damned army!"
Brown's overwrought, shrieking acting style (as any fans of MST3K's skewering of SPACE MUTINY will recall: "Big McLargehuge!") is the main reason for STRIKE COMMANDO's cult appeal, but don't underestimate the general stupidity of the script by Claudio Fragasso (MONSTER DOG, TROLL 2) and Mattei's inept direction. The dubbing crew also had a field day on this one, especially whomever dubbed Vitale, whose grunting of "Americanski!" reaches ridiculous proportions by the end. There's also some questionable attempts at humor in the opening scene where Ransom and his men are cutting their way through a fence and an African-American Strike Commando remarks "When I was stealin' watermelon back home in Alabama, we had to climb fences, not cut 'em!" What?! There's also Ransom's friendship with mushmouthed young refugee Lao (Edison Navarro), who's always asking Ransom to tell him about Disneyland ("There's popcorn and ice cream growing on trees!"). Of course, Lao is killed by Jakoda, which leads to one of STRIKE COMMANDO's most mocked scenes:
Once Jakoda is introduced, the hilarity is almost non-stop. I love how LeDue tosses a grenade at some VC soldiers and quips "Bonjour!" Wouldn't it be "Au revoir!"? There's a great scene with Ransom taking out some officers on a boat and rigging it with grenades, shouting "Our Father who art in Heaven!" as he jumps off the boat. There's a cut to a long shot as the boat explodes, and it looks a lot like a toy floating around in Mattei's bathtub. And the endless scenes stolen from RAMBO! The torture scenes, the shot of a VC officer in the foreground with Ransom camouflaged in the background (of course, Mattei is too clumsy to pull this off without piecing two shots together, which really dampens the effect), and the way Ransom arrives at Radek's office and shoots everything up while screaming "RADDDDEEEEKKKKKK!" Also hilarious is the first of two climactic brawls between Ransom and Jakoda, which is livened up by the surprise appearance of a huge waterfall.
Christopher Connelly (1941-1988)
Brown would go on working in low-budget Italian and South African action films (including reteaming with Mattei for ROBOWAR) before retiring from acting in the late 1990s. He recently started hitting the convention circuit and, in 2012, shot a still-unreleased horror film titled NIGHT CLAWS. Vitale appeared in a few more Italian exploitation films, most notably BEYOND THE DOOR III (1989), and a pair of late-period post-nuke Z-listers: URBAN WARRIORS (1988) and the hilarious THE BRONX EXECUTIONER (1989). Sadly, Connelly, a veteran American TV actor (PEYTON PLACE) who was reduced to appearing in some really shoddy Italian fare by the end of his career (STRIKE COMMANDO is so sloppy that his last name is misspelled "Connely" in the credits), was already ill with lung cancer while shooting STRIKE COMMANDO, and he's visibly uncomfortable in the obviously hot and humid shooting conditions in Manila (everyone is sweating, but Connelly is completely drenched). He doesn't look well and there's a couple of scenes where you can see his hand shaking, seemingly involuntary. He died the next year at just 47 years of age.
STRIKE COMMANDO went straight to American video stores in late 1987 courtesy of International Video Entertainment, formerly U.S.A. Home Video and later Live Entertainment. It was apparently successful enough in the rest of the world to spawn a Reb Brown-less sequel a year later...
STRIKE COMMANDO 2 (Italy - 1988)
Directed by Vincent Dawn (Bruno Mattei). Written by Claudio Fragasso. Cast: Brent Huff, Mary Stavin, Richard Harris, Vic Diaz, Richard Raymond (Ottaviano Dell'Acqua), Alex McBride (Massimo Vanni), Mel Davidson. (Unrated, 96 mins)
STRIKE COMMANDO 2 may lack the vein-popping histrionics of its predecessor, but in its own way, it's just as insane. Reb Brown is out, replaced by Brent Huff, an American model who was trying to get an action career off the ground. He co-starred with Tawny Kitaen in the cable favorite THE PERILS OF GWENDOLINE IN THE LAND OF THE YIK YAK (1984) and did a few other movies and TV shows, and though he never really got his big break, he remains busy today (his most significant recent credit is guest-starring on a 2010 episode of MAD MEN). Huff essays the Ransom role as more of a cynical smartass as opposed to Brown's testosterone-fueled, pants-shitting 'roid rage portrayal. It doesn't even really feel like a sequel, with the RAMBO elements dropped fairly early on in favor of becoming more of a lighthearted RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK/ROMANCING THE STONE knockoff, complete with the Mattei trademark of scenes restaged in their entirety.
But nevermind all that. The elephant in the room with STRIKE COMMANDO 2 is the mother of cinematic WTF?! surprise guest stars with the presence of a seriously slumming Richard Harris as Jenkins, Ransom's old commander in Vietnam. It's doubtful that even magical wizardry of Albus Dumbledore could reveal the actor's true motivation for taking third-billing in a Bruno Mattei film, but the fact remains: he's there, he's in the movie, and it's not a "one day on the set, Henry Fonda in TENTACLES" driveby, either. Harris is in most of the movie and even takes part in some of the action scenes. And on top of that, he seems to actually be trying. With his career in the toilet by the time of STRIKE COMMANDO 2, it's very possible that this was his best offer at the time, or maybe, for whatever reason, he just wanted to visit Manila. Maybe he was blackmailed. Maybe he and Mattei had a mutual friend and he felt like doing the hapless director a favor. Maybe he saw STRIKE COMMANDO and found it a powerful analysis of America's involvement in Vietnam. Who knows? Harris went through the 1980s without a box-office hit, and his most notable film of the decade was the 1981 Bo Derek train wreck TARZAN, THE APE MAN. When Harris got an Oscar nomination for his comeback role in 1990's THE FIELD, he claimed to have been retired for several years. This was in the pre-IMDb days but a look at his credits now shows that he never stopped working and STRIKE COMMANDO 2 was simply the shittiest in a series of shit jobs in shit movies that he probably hoped nobody would ever see. Fortunately for Harris, THE FIELD led to his career getting a second wind that carried him through character roles in A-list fare (including UNFORGIVEN, GLADIATOR, and the first two HARRY POTTER films) until his death in 2002. Harris' mere presence gives STRIKE COMMANDO 2 an element of class exhibited by no other Mattei film, and Huff--not a gifted actor--seems to step up his game a bit in his scenes with him. Of course Richard Harris would have that effect on a co-star. He's Richard Harris.
This time, Ransom is visiting Manila after getting news that his war buddy Jenkins has died. It turns out Jenkins, a deep-cover CIA agent, has faked his death and is in cahoots with Far East drug lord Huan To (Filipino B-movie icon Vic Diaz!), on some convoluted cocaine and diamond smuggling operation. Ransom teams up with hardass tavern owner Rosanna Boom (Mary Stavin) after a complete re-enactment of Karen Allen's beer-drinking contest intro in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. Ransom also tangles with a Huan To flunky (Mel Davidson) who's a combination of Paul Freeman's Belloq and Ronald Lacey's Toht in RAIDERS, and there's ninjas and a couple of destructive chases and painfully unfunny banter between Ransom and Rosanna. Mattei finally lets loose with the explosions in the last 15 minutes and it finally starts to look like something that should be called STRIKE COMMANDO 2, especially when Ransom barges into Jenkins' coke lab and starts blasing away, bellowing...you guessed it..."JENNNNKKKKKKIIIIIINNNNS!"
Made when the Italian exploitation heyday was entering the life-support years, STRIKE COMMANDO 2 never got an official US release, neither theatrically nor on VHS or DVD. It's been available on the bootleg and torrent circuit and there's even a 1.66:1 widescreen print on YouTube, but really, other than the morbid curiosity of seeing Richard Harris at his career low playing second fiddle to Vic Diaz, there's little reason to endure the dull STRIKE COMMANDO 2. It's impossible to follow and it's entirely possible that Claudio Fragasso's script was reworked into English on the fly by the actors who could very well have made the story up as they went along. There's a very (bad) improvisational feel to a lot of Huff's and Stavin's scenes together, and with the exception of two dubbed Italian supporting actors (the apparent package deal of Ottaviano Dell'Acqua and Massimo Vanni), all of the dialogue was recorded on-set and real voices used (Stavin, 1977's Miss World, tries to hide her Swedish accent in her earlier scenes, but gives up soon after and by the end, she's pointing a gun and screaming "Late me keel da fackin' base-turd!").
Mattei made STRIKE COMMANDO 2 right after doing producer Franco Gaudenzi a favor and stepping in to finish Lucio Fulci's troubled ZOMBI 3 (1988), which was also shot in Manila around the same time (it might've even been the same trip). Fulci quit ZOMBI 3 early in the production and Mattei completed it without credit. After STRIKE COMMANDO 2, Mattei continued punching a clock and cranking out whatever trendy ripoffs came his way, even delving into post-BASIC INSTINCT erotic thrillers like 1993's DANGEROUS ATTRACTION. The films seemed to decrease in budget and quality with each passing year, with the belated 1995 JAWS ripoff CRUEL JAWS being particularly embarrassing, recycling footage from JAWS, JAWS 2, and even the 1982 JAWS ripoff GREAT WHITE, in addition to having a character say "We're gonna need a bigger helicopter!" Mattei's career hit bottom late in his life with a string of no-budget, shot-on-video horror films that are actually painful to endure and make even CRUEL JAWS look good by comparison. But for pure Mattei magic at its finest, there is no better place to start than the inspired insanity of the immortal STRIKE COMMANDO.
