THE EXECUTIONER PART II (US - 1984) Directed by James Bryan. Written by Renee Harmon. Cast: Chris Mitchum, Aldo Ray, Antoine John Mottet, Renee Harmon, Dan Bradley, Frank Albert, Bianca Phillipi, Frisco Estes, Ricco Mancini, Bruce Barrington. (R, 86 mins)
Not picking up where THE EXECUTIONER left off because there was no EXECUTIONER, THE EXECUTIONER PART II joined the T&A comedy SURF II in the very short-lived fake sequel craze of 1984. Oh, there was a movie called THE EXECUTIONER: a largely forgettable 1970 British spy thriller with George Peppard and Joan Collins. And THE EXECUTIONER was also an alternate title for Duke Mitchell's 1974 gangster opus MASSACRE MAFIA STYLE, and the US title for both the 1978 release of a 1974 Sonny Chiba martial arts movie and the British-made 1975 Dirk Bogarde spy thriller PERMISSION TO KILL. THE EXECUTIONER PART II has nothing to do with any of those films and its intent seems to be fooling less-savvy grindhouse denizens into thinking it's a sequel to 1980's THE EXTERMINATOR, beating the actual EXTERMINATOR 2 into release by three months in the summer of 1984. Directed by James Bryan, who also made the 1981 slasher film DON'T GO IN THE WOODS, THE EXECUTIONER PART II was made for $20,000 and it still looks like none of that money made it to the screen. Exhibiting a level of production values ranking somewhere between an industrial training short and a snuff film, it's only slightly more polished than, say, MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE. To his credit, a realistic Bryan, interviewed on Vinegar Syndrome's new DVD (where it's paired on a drive-in double feature with 1975's FROZEN SCREAM, as both films share producer/co-star Renee Harmon), openly admits it's terrible, and that he did what he could do with $20K and a crew basically consisting of himself (he's also the cinematographer). Shot in the summer of 1983 (JAWS 3-D is visible on a theater marquee) and almost certainly without permits throughout Los Angeles, the film doesn't use live sound and was dubbed in post with all the care and precision of the cheapest GODZILLA movie. The words don't match the lip movements on American (or at least English-speaking) actors speaking English, and a lot of the sound and foley effects are either way out of sync or simply not there (car doors are slammed and shotguns pumped with no accompanying sound). Shots are cut together but often don't match, or Bryan will cut away from a dialogue scene, show something completely unrelated, then cut back to the dialogue scene, apparently still in progress. Then there's the bellowing and profusely-sweating Aldo Ray, who couldn't have been on the set for more than an hour and maybe even left his car running in a fire lane while Bryan got the footage of him that he needed, and is always shot in extreme close-up on his own, sharing the frame with no one and inserted into scenes so awkwardly that it's laughably obvious he's not there with any other actors. This happens a lot in movies due to the availability of people and conflicting shooting schedules, but a good editor makes it smooth and seamless. Rarely has such a reality of the movie business been handled so badly. How badly? Ray isn't wearing glasses but his over-the-shoulder double is. In short, right on the heels of the stunning NIGHTMARE WEEKEND, Vinegar Syndrome has resurrected an '80s obscurity that deserves to be the next Bad Movie sensation. The classic MST3K line about MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE where "every frame of this movie looks like someone's last known photograph" certainly applies here.
He's your judge, your jury, and
your executioner. Part II!
Like the "best" of the likes of Jess Franco and Al Adamson, THE EXECUTIONER PART II is so random and disjointed that it often feels like the scraps of several abandoned movies carelessly stitched together: dogged, rumpled cop Lt. Roger O'Malley (Chris Mitchum) is a widower Vietnam vet on the trail of "The Executioner," a hooded vigilante who's taking it upon himself to take out the city's trash, finishing off scumbags by stuffing a grenade down their pants as Bryan always goes full Toonces and cuts to the same stock footage shot of the same generic explosion. The cops can't catch The Executioner but the public, cheered on by thickly German-accented celebrity TV news reporter Celia Amherst (Harmon), loves him. The local Mafiosi, represented by smug mobster Casallas (Frisco Estes), aka "The Tattoo Man," even though he only has three small tattoos, wants The Executioner dead because he's disrupting business. O'Malley's teenage daughter Laura (Bianca Phillipi) is a drug addict who turns to hooking for Hawaiian-shirted pimp Pete Vance (Frank Albert) to support her habit. The police commissioner (Ray) is breathing down O'Malley's neck--never in the same shot, mind you--about catching The Executioner. And O'Malley's mechanic best buddy Mike (Antoine John Mottet) is suffering from Nam flashbacks, prompting O'Malley to think the man who saved his life in Vietnam might be The Executioner. SPOILER ALERT: he is.
A typical extreme close-up of Aldo Ray in THE EXECUTIONER PART II
In his prime, Aldo Ray (1926-1991) was a very popular tough guy in 1950s war movies like BATTLE CRY and MEN IN WAR (it's no coincidence that Brad Pitt's character in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS is named "Aldo Raine"), but he also had a gift for comedy, as evidenced in the Spencer Tracy/Katharine Hepburn favorite PAT AND MIKE (1952), and with Humphrey Bogart and Peter Ustinov as a trio of dim-witted Devil's Island escapees in WE'RE NO ANGELS (1955), and as a romantic lead paired with Judy Holliday in THE MARRYING KIND (1952). Ray's stardom waned but he stayed busy in supporting roles in mostly reputable productions and guest spots on TV into the early 1970s, but his career completely derailed by the end of the decade when he was appearing in things like Al Adamson's DEATH DIMENSION (1978) and in a straight role in the 1979 hardcore porno SWEET SAVAGE with Carol Connors. In the 1980s, Ray managed a couple of roles in some major projects: he voiced a character in the animated film THE SECRET OF NIMH (1982) and had a small part in Michael Cimino's bomb THE SICILIAN (1987), but THE EXECUTIONER PART II was typical of the work Ray was getting at this point in his career, along with garbage like Mardi Rustam's EVILS OF THE NIGHT (1985), and Fred Olen Ray joints like BIOHAZARD (1985) and the outer space women-in-prison actioner STAR SLAMMER: THE ESCAPE (1986). He was diagnosed with throat cancer at some point in the 1980s and was so indiscriminate about the jobs he accepted that he would infamously have his SAG membership revoked for working in non-union productions. Ray would eventually succumb to cancer in 1991, his last film appearance coming in the Traci Lords horror movie SHOCK 'EM DEAD that same year. Largely forgotten these days except by hardcore Turner Classic Movies viewers, Ray's crashing and burning from the 1950s A-list to some of the worst of the worst in no-budget 1980s schlock remains one of the saddest downfalls in Hollywood history. Sure, the way he's half-assedly spliced into random scenes in THE EXECUTIONER PART II is funny, but it's incredibly depressing at the same time, considering the guy once very capably held his own with the likes of Tracy, Hepburn, and Bogart.
"OK, if you have to look directly into the camera,
try not to do it more than five or six times in the
ten seconds you're onscreen."
THE EXECUTIONER PART II is mind-bogglingly incompetent on every level. It's filled with clumsy action, terrible dubbing, and the most inept and choppy editing you'll ever see. The opening Vietnam flashback looks like it was filmed in a park. Characters frequent a bar where a woman in tight pants busts spastic, David Brent-like moves. Casallas makes a special trip to Mike's shop, his driver opening the door for him and Casallas getting out of the backseat of the car for the sole purpose of telling Mike he's not paying his $64 bill (he had to be driven all the way there just to say that?). In one scene, Laura is walking with a friend played by an actress who repeatedly looks directly into the camera while carrying schoolbooks and flowers that look like a clump of pulled weeds. When Mike is giving Casallas a beatdown in the climax, the mobster issues the least effective offer-you-can't-refuse ever: "We can make a deal! I can write you a check!" There's simply too many things hilariously wrong with THE EXECUTIONER PART II to pick up on a single viewing, but one bit of genius could be sufficient evidence to prove the whole thing is an intentional goof: witness the absurd brilliance of Celia stabbing a Casallas goon with a samurai sword (that happens to be chained to wall?) and impaling him on a couch as he then gets up and tries to chase her...with the couch still attached to him. Working micro-budget is one thing, but it hardly explains how nothing seems natural and everything is so stilted and awkward. One can excuse Ray seeming like he's in another movie because he's certainly not in this one, but Mitchum is the only cast member who looks like he's been in front of a camera before, and even he appears completely flummoxed. Whatever conditions he was forced to work under due to time and budget constraints, it a safe bet that "Take two" was decidedly not in James Bryan's vocabulary. In other words, THE EXECUTIONER PART II is a must-see, but if all 86 minutes of it seem too daunting, the folks at Everything is Terrible did a nice job of condensing the highlights.
AMUCK! aka MANIAC MANSION aka LEATHER AND WHIPS aka HOT BED OF SEX (Italy - 1972; US release 1978) Written and directed by Silvio Amadio. Cast: Farley Granger, Barbara Bouchet, Rosalba Neri, Nino Segurini, Umberto Raho, Patrizia Viotti, Dino Mele, Petar Martinovic. (R, 78 mins/85 mins/98 mins)
Following the huge success of the early gialli of Dario Argento after 1970's THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE, the trailblazing Italian subgenre needed new ways to make the formula more appealing to audiences. Of course, the answer was to make them even more sensational by increasing the violence and sex at the expense of the craft and style that guys like Argento, Sergio Martino, and Mario Bava, whose 1964 classic BLOOD AND BLACK LACE was an early giallo prototype, brought to the more exemplary offerings. The giallo gets downright scuzzy by the time you get to 1975's STRIP NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER, but it was around 1971-72 that gialli began getting a little more daring with how much they were willing to show. Films like Martino's THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH and THE CASE OF THE SCORPION'S TAIL (both 1972), and YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY (1972), Giuliano Carnimeo's THE CASE OF THE BLOODY IRIS (1971), and Luciano Ercoli's FORBIDDEN PHOTOS OF A LADY ABOVE SUSPICION (1970) and DEATH WALKS ON HIGH HEELS (1971) invariably involve the rich and decadent artistic types (writers, photographers, models) basking in a world of privilege and luxury in gorgeous villas as a body count rises because of some past event obscured in a byzantine plot. Silvio Amadio's 1972 giallo ALLA RICERCA DEL PIACERE--translated: IN SEARCH OF PLEASURE--is one of the more flagrantly lewd contributions to the genre. It took six years to find a US distributor, when exploitation outfit Group 1 acquired it and released it under the catchy moniker AMUCK! in the summer of 1978. Group 1 was a prolific supplier of drive-in favorites throughout the mid-to-late 1970s like THE GIANT SPIDER INVASION (1975), NAZI LOVE CAMP 27 (1977), Lucio Fulci's THE PSYCHIC (1977), and PARTS: THE CLONUS HORROR (1979). The company's biggest successes were ALLIGATOR (1980) and THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER (1982), which was one of the major sleeper hits of its year. SWORD was so successful that Group 1 honcho Brandon Chase cashed out while he was ahead and closed down the company, taking the money he made from distributing grindhouse trash and forming the hugely-successful watch company Chase-Durer.
Because of its hyperbolic poster art promising such things as "An Explosion of Sexual Frenzy!" (which I'm guessing attracted more attention than "In Blazing Color") and its vaguely silly and exclamatory title, AMUCK! proved to be a durable drive-in and grindhouse hit for Group 1, who kept it in near-constant circulation into the early 1980s. Chase would frequently pair it up with other Group 1 titles like DR. TARR'S TORTURE DUNGEON (1973, acquired by Group 1 in 1976) and MEATCLEAVER MASSACRE (1977). As late as 1982, AMUCK! was still being shown at American drive-ins on the bottom half of a double bill with a re-released ALLIGATOR. And when Chase felt AMUCK! was getting too much exposure, he'd simply slap a new title on it and send it out again. The 98-minute AMUCK! was also released in an 85-minute version called MANIAC MANSION, and it played some areas in an even more-condensed 78-minute cut meaninglessly titled LEATHER AND WHIPS (meanwhile, AMUCK!'s UK distributor opted to christen it HOT BED OF SEX). It's doubtful that people were upset about seeing the film again and again, considering that Eurocult goddesses Barbara Bouchet (DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING) and Rosalba Neri (LADY FRANKENSTEIN) have an extended, slow-motion sex scene and spend a good chunk of the remainder of the film either completely nude or strutting around in skimpy lingerie or see-through gowns. Sure, there's a story and some people get killed and there's a mystery to solve, but with the rampant sleaze, the nudity, the Euro-lounge music (one song played to a striptease just has the singer repeatedly gasping "Sexually!"), the nudity, the dubbing, the nudity, the way the opening credits awkwardly cut from Bouchet on a gondola in scenic Venice to a plain AMUCK! title card, and the nudity, AMUCK! comes pretty close to perfectly encapsulating what this kind drive-in or Times Square grindhouse experience should be.
AMUCK! opens with Greta (Bouchet) arriving in Venice for her new job as an assistant to novelist Richard Stuart (Farley Granger, dubbing himself) after her predecessor Sally (Patrizia Viotti) has gone missing. But Greta has a secret: Sally was her lover and she's there to find out what happened to her. It doesn't take long for Eleanora to drug Greta and seduce her, a gateway for the young woman into the decadent life of debauchery, perversion, and homemade stag films enjoyed by the swinging Stuarts. In flashbacks, we see how Sally was drawn deeper into their hedonistic world. Even mentally-challenged handyman Rocco (Petar Martinovic) gets in on the action. While Eleanora carries on with Rocco and young boy-toy Sandro (Dino Mele), Greta allows herself to be seduced into a night of wild sex with Richard, even after she was convinced Richard and Eleanora were trying to kill her. Things get complicated when Sally's badly-decomposed body surfaces in a nearby lagoon, and while useless detective Antonelli (Nino Segurini) tries to get to the bottom of what happened, everyone else--except hapless butler Giovanni (Umberto Raho)--just keeps getting laid.
Amadio's script centers on a mystery that isn't particularly difficult to solve, and the big reveal isn't much of a reveal. But the notion of a homicidal writer using his own novel to strategize and secretly confess his murders is a clever one that would be utilized to a somewhat similar degree by Dario Argento a decade later in 1982's TENEBRE. AMUCK! also has a fumbling insertion of a potential supernatural subplot regarding Eleanora suddenly falling into a trance and Richard announcing she has ESP, but it's soon dropped and never mentioned again. And don't miss Greta pleading with dedicated man-of-action Detective Antonelli--who just rescued her from quicksand, which she fell into fleeing the shotgun-toting Stuarts--to believe her when she says Richard and Eleanora are trying to kill her, which he responds to by promptly excusing himself, hopping on a rowboat back to the heart of Venice, and leaving her at the isolated mansion for another night. Whatever interesting ideas Amadio (who had a largely undistinguished journeyman career, primarily as a screenwriter) brings to the table are quickly cast aside to get to the next nude scene, and that's precisely the reason why AMUCK! is undeniably fun, sleazy, trashy entertainment. You know a movie's going all in with the T&A when even a veteran of Hollywood's Golden Age like Farley Granger gets a sex scene where he gets to tilt his neck back in response to Richard receiving a just out-of-frame BJ from Bouchet's Greta.
Granger in a late 1940s publicity shot
When AMUCK! was shot in 1972, Granger was at the height of the busy Eurotrash phase of his career. Born in 1925, Granger was a Samuel Goldwyn prodigy who made a big splash with his film debut at 18 in THE NORTH STAR (1943) and he headlined two Alfred Hitchcock classics with 1948's ROPE and 1951's STRANGERS ON A TRAIN. He was among the first Hollywood stars to test the waters of the burgeoning Italian film industry with Luchino Visconti's SENSO (1954), cut down and released in the US in 1955 as THE WANTON CONTESSA. Granger's big-screen career began to fizzle in the late 1950s, and he found his services were much more in-demand on Broadway and in television. By the early 1970s, Granger was living in Rome and working almost exclusively as the American export value in Italian genre films like the popular Terence Hill/Bud Spencer spaghetti western THEY CALL ME TRINITY (1970), but mostly in sordid gialli like AMUCK!, SOMETHING CREEPING IN THE DARK (1971), THE RED-HEADED CORPSE (1972), KILL ME, MY LOVE (1973), DEATH WILL HAVE YOUR EYES (1974), and WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOUR DAUGHTERS? (1974). One such thriller, SO SWEET, SO DEAD (1972) was released in the US in 1974 by grindhouse outfit William Mishkin Motion Pictures as THE SLASHER IS THE SEX MANIAC. In 1976, Mishkin gutted and retro-fitted SLASHER with US-shot hardcore inserts featuring American porn stars Harry Reems and Tina Russell, and edited the new footage in a way that made it appear that Granger's character was voyeuristically watching them. Mishkin released this drastically altered version on the XXX circuit in 1976 as PENETRATION, with Granger's name prominently displayed in print ads and poster art, which boasted the charming tag line "Some women deserve it!" PENETRATION was quickly withdrawn from release after an outraged Granger threatened legal action. In his bluntly honest 2007 memoir Include Me Out, Granger more or less admits these films were mostly trash, but he was getting lead roles that Hollywood wasn't offering, they paid well, and they allowed him to live a very comfortable life of luxury in Rome. By the time Group 1 released AMUCK! in the US, Granger had moved back to the States and was keeping busy with guest spots on TV shows like THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN and THE LOVE BOAT, and in made-for-TV movies like THE LIVES OF JENNY DOLAN (1975). After starring in a pair of post-FRIDAY THE 13TH slasher films (1981's THE PROWLER and 1984's DEATH MASK), Granger worked sparingly in forgettable films like the Michael Nouri-headlined political thriller THE IMAGEMAKER (1986), had an obligatory MURDER, SHE WROTE guest spot, and from 1986-1988, had a recurring role on the daytime soap AS THE WORLD TURNS (more on that below). He left the business around 1990 but was talked out of retirement for a supporting role in the 2002 indie comedy THE NEXT BIG THING, starring then-Hal Hartley and Noah Baumbach regular Chris Eigeman. The film was barely seen outside of the festival circuit before getting dumped in video stores, and once more, Granger retired from acting.
Granger in his later years
Granger didn't go public until rather later in life, discussing it in the context of the movie industry as an interview subject in the 1995 documentary THE CELLULOID CLOSET, but in Hollywood circles, his bisexuality was an open secret throughout his career. The star was romantically linked to ROPE screenwriter Arthur Laurents, Shelley Winters, Leonard Bernstein, and French actor Jean Marais, and was engaged to Janice Rule at one point in the late 1950s. He met National Repertory Theater production manager and future AS THE WORLD TURNS producer Robert Calhoun in 1963 and they remained together until Calhoun's death in 2008. It was around the time of his memoir and after Calhoun's passing that Granger, still sharp and with a wry sense of humor, dove into the Raconteur Emeritus phase of his life, regularly giving interviews and doing Q&As at Hitchcock retrospectives, and screenings of other classic films in which he appeared going back to his Samuel Goldwyn days in the 1940s. While his career peaked early and his time as an A-list box-office draw ended by the late 1950s, Granger was happy to see that fans of Hollywood's classic era still remembered him and held him in high regard. Granger died in 2011 at 85.
Barbara Bouchet and Rosalba Neri in a pivotal scene
vital to the advancement of the plot of AMUCK!
With the possible exception of Edwige Fenech, Bouchet and Neri are probably the most stunning B-movie Euro starlets of this time period (they also appeared together in the Italian thriller THE FRENCH SEX MURDERS the same year). Born in 1943, Bouchet started in Hollywood fare like CASINO ROYALE (1967) and SWEET CHARITY (1969) before becoming a fixture in gialli and polizia films in the 1970s. She quit acting in the late 1980s but emerged from retirement for a small role in Martin Scorsese's GANGS OF NEW YORK (2002) and has since stayed very busy on Italian television. She's given many interviews over the years and pulls no punches, even attending a Quentin Tarantino-hosted screening of Antonio Margheriti's DEATH RAGE (1976), and giving the audience her unfiltered opinion about how much she hated working on the film with a rude and abusive Yul Brynner. Neri, sometimes credited as "Sara Bay," was born in 1939 and got an earlier start, appearing in some post-HERCULES peplum titles in the early 1960s but really hitting her stride around the time of AMUCK!, with 1971's LADY FRANKENSTEIN and 1973's THE DEVIL'S WEDDING NIGHT being particular favorites of her fans. Neri quit acting in the late 1970s before she even hit 40 but, like Bouchet, she's done numerous interviews in recent years, discussing her films that remain cult favorites today.
AMUCK! was released on VHS in a horribly cropped print by Catalina Video in the '80s but has been very difficult to see in the years since. Something Weird released it on VHS in its correct 2.35:1 aspect ratio, but it was the severely-cut, 78-minute LEATHER AND WHIPS print. The bootleg outfit Eurovista released it in the complete 98-minute version but it was just the visually compromised Catalina VHS master. Code Red recently unveiled what's--for now, at least--the best way to see AMUCK!, an occasionally and appropriately battered but still very watchable 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer of the 85-minute MANIAC MANSION cut (missing some exposition and dialogue, but the sexual content is intact), on the second half of a double feature "Spaghetti Cinema" DVD set with Alfonso Brescia's 1974 adventure comedy SUPER STOOGES VS. THE WONDER WOMEN, available exclusively through them. Since it's a crapshoot whether Code Red's web site--or company founder Bill Olsen, for that matter--will be functional on any given day, the fine folks at DiabolikDVD have purchased bulk quantities of Code Red product directly from Olsen to sell on their own site, subject to availability.
Written and directed by David Hills (Aristide Massaccesi). Cast: Miles O'Keeffe, Sabrina Siani, Edmund Purdom, Laura Gemser, Ritza Brown, Dakkar. (PG, 92 mins)
The success of 1982's CONAN THE BARBARIAN spawned an entire subgenre of mostly Italian-made barbarian/sword & sorcery ripoffs that flooded drive-ins, video stores, and cable in the early 1980s. One of the most recognizable is 1983's ATOR THE FIGHTING EAGLE, written and directed by Italian exploitation legend Aristide Massaccesi (1936-1999). Massaccesi was known for extreme gore classics like 1979's BURIED ALIVE and 1981's ANTHROPOPHAGUS (aka THE GRIM REAPER) and numerous BLACK EMANUELLE films but dabbled in every genre imaginable, including hardcore porn, and had worked under countless pseudonyms, with "Joe D'Amato" being the most commonly known. He uses two on ATOR: as writer/director, he's "David Hills," and functioning as his own cinematographer, he's "Frederick Slonisco." ATOR THE FIGHTING EAGLE, just released on DVD in a surprisingly nice-looking 1.78 anamorphic transfer by Scorpion, was one of the first CONAN ripoffs to hit theaters, and unlike its inspiration, keeps things generally clean and PG-rated, much like 1984's CONAN THE DESTROYER would.
'80s Italian barbarian movie fixture
Sabrina Siani, with Miles O'Keeffe.
Starring as Ator is Tennessee native Miles O'Keeffe, who made a splash in 1981, co-starring with Bo Derek in the highly-publicized laughingstock TARZAN THE APE MAN. Because of this fiasco, O'Keeffe's Hollywood A-list career ended as quickly as it began, but he found plenty of work in Italy throughout the 1980s and in numerous low-budget American DTV titles in the 1990s. He went on to play Ator in two of the three sequels in addition to starring in the British-made EXCALIBUR knockoff SWORD OF THE VALIANT for Cannon in 1984 and appearing as Dracula in Anthony Hickox's 1988 cult horror favorite WAXWORK. Now 58, O'Keeffe hasn't appeared in a feature since the 2005 DTV horror film CLAWED: THE LEGEND OF SASQUATCH, though he did get a bit of notoriety in the UK around 1999-2000 when comedian/talk-show host and O'Keeffe superfan Graham Norton would routinely prank call him, which eventually led to O'Keeffe appearing on Norton's show, much to the host's delight.
Black Emanuelle herself, Laura Gemser,
sending a subtle message to Ator.
ATOR THE FIGHTING EAGLE opens with a hopelessly confusing exposition voiceover by mellifluously-voiced dubbing veteran Tony La Penna. Something about newborn Ator (who's born looking eight months old and, judging from the camera angle, appears to slide out of his mother's womb already cozily pre-swaddled) being your typical Chosen One to bring down the evil reign of Thulsa, er, I mean, Dakkar the Spider King (who, as luck would have it, is played by the actor Dakkar, of ZOMBIE). The infant Ator is given to a couple to live in anonymity until he is old enough to take on Dakkar. Years later, Ator marries his (adoptive) sister Sunya (Ritza Brown), who is abducted by Dakkar and his evil followers. After being trained by mentor Griba (Edmund Purdom), Ator sets off on his quest with bandit/warrior Roon (Sabrina Siani) and his trusty bear cub sidekick Keog, who gives the film's best performance. Keog is introduced in this scene, which also features one of the greatest dialogue exchanges in cinema history.
From Ator's heroic quest and his various adventures to Dakkar's very James Earl Jones-ish presence to Carlo Maria Cordio's obviously Basil Poledouris-inspired score, ATOR THE FIGHTING EAGLE is about as blatant a ripoff of CONAN THE BARBARIAN as you can imagine. The only real differences are the PG-rating and that Ator's quest is motivated by his new bride, so there's no hookup with Roon. He's hypnotized and almost seduced by an evil witch (Laura Gemser), echoing an early CONAN vignette. He's ultimately rescued by Roon, but not before Massaccesi gives us some shots of Gemser oiling her hands and holding a slithering snake, because he's still Joe D'Amato at heart and probably can't resist. And instead of a giant snake, Ator battles a really hokey-looking giant spider. ATOR was clearly made fast and cheap, but given his roots as a cinematographer, Massaccesi does manage to offer some frequently very well-staged shots and beautiful scenery, even if it's accidental. O'Keeffe seems to invest a little more into this than he would his later Italian films, such as THE LONE RUNNER, where he appears to be half-asleep. The 20-year-old Siani is effectively cast as Roon, clearly modeled on Sandahl Bergman's Valeria from CONAN. Siani quickly became the go-to female lead for Italian CONAN knockoffs, appearing in THE INVINCIBLE BARBARIAN and Lucio Fulci's CONQUEST later the same year, and THE SWORD OF THE BARBARIANS and THE THRONE OF FIRE in 1984. Audiences were losing interest in the barbarian genre by 1985-1986, but I'm still surprised that Siani was never given her own RED SONJA knockoff to headline.
ATOR THE FIGHTING EAGLE is a total cheesefest, but it's good fun for '80s Eurotrash ripoff completists, and it's never looked as good as it does on Scorpion's DVD. The film was enough of a success to spawn three sequels. THE BLADE MASTER (1984), again directed by Massaccesi as "David Hills," finds Ator (O'Keeffe, also returning) and his Asian sidekick Thong (Chen Wong) teaming up to help Ator's mentor Akronas (Charles Borromel), who has discovered something called the Geometric Nucleus that's fallen into the hands of the evil Zor (David Brandon). Or something like that. THE BLADE MASTER is pretty terrible, and is better known under its alternate MST3K title CAVE DWELLERS, which became one of that show's most popular episodes ("How much Keeffe is in this movie, anyway?"). The MST3K crew have said that O'Keeffe contacted them at some point to request a copy of the CAVE DWELLERS episode and that he really enjoyed it, which is very much in line with his willingness to self-deprecatingly guest on Graham Norton's TV show. O'Keeffe may have been a washout as Tarzan, but he managed to keep working, and if nothing else, seems to be a good sport about the number of bad movies he's headlined.
O'Keeffe returned as Ator in 1987's dismal IRON WARRIOR. I'm not entirely sure this is meant to be an official Ator sequel. It was made by others (producer Ovidio G. Assonitis, director Alfonso Brescia, aka "Al Bradley"), and O'Keeffe doesn't appear to be playing the same Ator that he did in the two previous films. In this one, Ator is revealed to have a twin brother who was possessed by an evil witch and turned into the evil Iron Warrior, a pawn in her plot to kill the king and his princess daughter (Savina Gersak) and usurp the throne. Brescia, who helmed a lot of coma-inducingly dull post-STAR WARS sci-fi films like WAR OF THE ROBOTS in the late '70s, managed to go his entire career without making a good film, but IRON WARRIOR is probably his best-looking one, simply because Assonitis had access to a little more money. The film still makes no sense and shamelessly rips off past blockbusters like SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE, and O'Keeffe doesn't even seem to be entirely awake.
Massaccesi and his "David Hills" moniker made a triumphant return for the final chapter of the ATOR saga, 1990's QUEST FOR THE MIGHTY SWORD, aka ATOR III: THE HOBGOBLIN (further evidence to suggest that IRON WARRIOR wasn't supposed to be an Ator film). O'Keeffe sat this one out, forcing Massaccesi to do his best Dick York-to-Dick Sargent with Ator now played by one Eric Allen Kramer, perhaps best known for appearing as Little John in Mel Brooks' ROBIN HOOD: MEN IN TIGHTS (1992). Kramer, sounding like Seth Rogen and looking like Philip Seymour Hoffman in a bad wig, plays both Ator and Ator's son (also named Ator). Ator Jr must help an imprisoned goddess (Margaret Lenzey) and in the process, battles a two-headed robot, a guy in a half-melted Godzilla costume, and an evil troll left over from the Massaccesi-produced TROLL 2. Other than Eurocult legends like Donald O'Brien (DOCTOR BUTCHER, M.D.), Marisa Mell (DANGER: DIABOLIK), and a brief appearance by a returning Laura Gemser (playing a different character than she did in ATOR THE FIGHTING EAGLE), there's little reason to watch QUEST FOR THE MIGHTY SWORD unless you love bad movies. Interestingly, QUEST was shot with direct sound since a large number of cast members spoke English, and one highlight comes from Lenzey clearly and painfully flubbing a line and Massaccesi just leaving it in the finished movie. You can even see the other two actors seemingly waiting for someone...ANYONE...to yell "Cut."
Directed by Nello Rossati. Written by Roberto Gianviti, Nello Rossati. Cast: Franco Nero, Deborah Barrymore (Deborah Moore), Mary Stavin, William Berger, Larry Dolgin, Rodrigo Obregon, Steven Luotto, Shirley Hernandez, Robert Redcross, e con la partecipazione straordinaria di George Kennedy. (Unrated, 88 mins)
It can't be easy to take a story that blends INDIANA JONES adventure, Nazi war criminals, secret gold treasures, UFOs, Spanish conquistadors, government conspiracies, Cold War espionage, badly-staged bullfighting, angry cyborgs, and barfing aliens and make it this incredibly boring, but Nello Rossati's TOP LINE is an almost total snooze. Rossati, who had just done 1987's DJANGO STRIKES AGAIN, the first official sequel to Sergio Corbucci's 1966 spaghetti western classic, reunites with that film's star, the iconic Franco Nero, who can normally make anything interesting, but TOP LINE (also known as ALIEN TERMINATOR) finds everyone on an off day.
(SPOILERS follow)
Boozing, washed-up author Ted Angelo (Nero) is aimlessly idling about in Cartagena in a drunken haze when he inadvertantly stumbles on the trail of some secret gold treasure hidden in a cave. He's informed by his pal Alonso (Eurocult stalwart William Berger) that it's Nazi gold and wouldn't you know it...Alonso mysteriously turns up dead the next day. Proceeding with his investigation, Ted finds the gold, but also discovers a UFO in the cave, and then is almost killed by cackling Nazi war criminal-in-hiding Heinrich Holzmann (George Kennedy...yes, THAT George Kennedy), who nearly runs Ted down in his car and ends up forcing him to run barefoot through a cactus field before Ted ends up suffocating him by dumping a ton of sand on top of him.
"Yes, uh, Mr. Kennedy is here to see his agent."
Ted thinks that the UFO abducted a ship of Spanish conquistadors and their gold, but there's more to it, as the US government sends assassins to off Ted, and even the KGB is involved through their secret dealings with Holzmann. Ted ends up on the run with June (Deborah Moore--Roger Moore's daughter--but she's billed as "Deborah Barrymore"), who's sent to check on him by his ex-wife Maureen (Mary Stavin), who happens to be his publisher. The draggy film, little more than a Colombian travelogue with a maddeningly senseless, made-up-as-it-goes-along plot, finally lets the crazy break out with the late-in-the-game arrival of a pissed-off cyborg (Andy Sidaris regular Rodrigo Obregon) that immediately fries its face after accidentally igniting a fireworks display and ends up getting gored by a bull in a hilarious chain of events that has to be seen to be believed. But it gets better! After thinking they've fled to safety on Maureen's boat, Ted and June find an even greater evil when Maureen transforms into a gooey, slime-drenched, EXORCIST-green-puking alien that whips its long tongue around Ted's neck and says "You still taste good." Ted is understandably appalled that his ex-wife has been a reptilian extraterrestrial this whole time, but according to "Maureen," so has nearly everyone. "We've been here for 12,000 years," she/it explains. "We are in every position of power on this planet!"
And he thought she was a bitch before?
It's an imaginative THEY LIVE-style twist that arrives far too late to really be effective. TOP LINE has such a deliriously batshit closing 20 minutes that you be fooled into thinking it's more entertaining film than it really is. It's mostly awful, and the first 70 or so minutes are an absolute chore to endure. Easily one of Nero's least distinguished Italian efforts (DJANGO STRIKES AGAIN wasn't very good, either), but he'd find his way into a co-starring role in DIE HARD 2: DIE HARDER in a couple of years. The biggest surprise here is the partecipazione straordinaria di COOL HAND LUKE Oscar-winner Kennedy, in one of eight films he made in 1988 (did he really make this and DEMONWARP the same year he was in THE NAKED GUN?). With his brief two-scene role in TOP LINE (he's killed off less than halfway through), Kennedy joins the esteemed--and possibly blackmailed--likes of Henry Fonda in Ovidio Assonitis' TENTACLES (1977), Richard Harris in Bruno Mattei's STRIKE COMMANDO 2 (1988), and Brian Dennehy in Antonio Margheriti's INDIO (1989) in the "WTF is he/she doing in this?!" Italian Exploitation Hall of Fame. The veteran actor couldn't have been on the set for more than a couple of days, and likely took the job for a free trip to a Colombian resort. He didn't even stick around long enough to dub himself, and for an actor as recognizable as George Kennedy, being dubbed by a high-pitched, subpar Col. Klink-esque voice is distracting, to say the least.
Rodrigo Obregon!
Not surprisingly, the abysmal TOP LINE, made in the waning days of the Italian trash cinema heyday, never made it into US theaters, nor was it even given a VHS release. Its only US DVD release has been on a couple of those Mill Creek "50 Sci-Fi Classics" sets that you find at Best Buy or Wal-Mart for $10 or less, filled with public domain titles in mostly subpar, VHS-quality transfers. You can actually find some occasional diamonds in the rough on those things, but the ironically-titled TOP LINE is most definitely not.
Directed by Fred M. Andrews. Written by Fred M. Andrews and Tracy Morse. Cast: Mehcad Brooks, Serinda Swan, Dillon Casey, Lauren Schneider, Aaron Hill, Amanda Fuller, Sid Haig, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Daniel Bernhardt, Lance Nichols. (R, 93 mins)
I saw a trailer for CREATURE late last summer before DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK, and I wasn't alone in thinking "Uh...no way that's opening in theaters." To everyone's surprise, it opened in early September as one of several new films hitting theaters nationwide on the same weekend. Horror fans, having seen CREATURE on the cover of Fangoria as well as through numerous online ads, instantly gave it their blind seal of approval on internet discussion boards, declaring it the must-see movie of the weekend, essentially saying "Screw CONTAGION! CREATURE looks like a real horror flick for the fans!"
CONTAGION opened in first place that weekend, and CREATURE opened...in 19th. It pulled in $327,000 on 1507 screens, giving it the worst opening weekend of any film on more than 1500 screens. Ever. It averaged $220 per screen, giving it the second worst per screen average of any wide release. Ever.
So what happened, fanboys? I thought CREATURE was the movie to see.
Sid Haig in CREATURE. Or any one of
the last 15 movies in which he's appeared.
How did a low-budget monster movie distributed by something called The Bubble Factory end up on 1500 screens nationwide? Well, the Bubble Factory is a company owned by former Universal CEO Sid Sheinberg, largely credited with "discovering" Steven Spielberg. It was Sheinberg who greenlit JAWS and was around a couple decades later for JURASSIC PARK. It was also Sheinberg who infamously battled with Terry Gilliam over BRAZIL and it was Sheinberg who pieced together the butchered and ultimately unreleased "Love Conquers All" cut of the film against Gilliam's wishes. Sheinberg left Universal at some point after the mid-1990s buyout by Seagrams and formed The Bubble Factory with his two sons. Sheinberg and his family still undoubtedly have more money than they'll ever spend, which explains how CREATURE managed to get such a wide release, even though The Bubble Factory claimed it was "experimental marketing." Yeah...experimental marketing made possible by access to ludicrous amounts of money. You'd think someone of Sid Sheinberg's stature could find better projects to bankroll than a subpar SyFy-level movie with mostly unknown actors. Aren't there more meaningful, ambitious projects for an old studio warhorse like Sheinberg to get behind? And look, everybody loves the guy, but is it a good sign when Sid Haig is the biggest name in the cast?
The convoluted and rather perverse plot involves a group of obnoxious vacationers heading to New Orleans, driving through an off-the-map podunk town and finding their trip detoured by the backwoods legend of Lockjaw. Lockjaw is a half-man/half-gator who was once inbred local Grimley Boutine (Daniel Bernhardt). How he mutated into Lockjaw doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but does it need to? The vacationing idiots want to check out Grimley's cabin, abandoned for 100 years, and after setting up camp, end up coming face-to-face with Grimley/Lockjaw, who pursues them through the surrounding bayou area.
Mehcad Brooks vs. CREATURE
Equal parts THE DESCENT, THE WICKER MAN, and HEE HAW, CREATURE throws in some twists and has a weird incest theme throughout, so it gets points for earning its R rating with gusto, and in all fairness, it's hardly the worst thing that's ever played in theaters. It only made headlines and gained its notoriety by bombing so spectacularly that it earned cult status as soon as the weekend grosses posted on Box Office Mojo by Sunday night of the opening weekend. It's really nothing more than the kind of trashy, on-the-cheap, by-the-numbers splatter flick that gets dumped on DVD every week...just one with enough pull behind the scenes to somehow make it into theaters.
Amanda Fuller, presumably looking
for a way out of CREATURE
It's pretty disheartening to see the promising Amanda Fuller in this. Her work in Simon Rumley's unbearably grim and profoundly depressing RED, WHITE & BLUE (2010) was a revelation. But she's still young and establishing herself. I'm not sure what Pruitt Taylor Vince is doing in this as Grover, the hapless village idiot. An always-working, always-reliable character actor most recently seen as the doomed Otis on THE WALKING DEAD, Vince turned in an acclaimed performance in the 1995 indie HEAVY and has worked for the likes of Oliver Stone, Wim Wenders, and Giuseppe Tornatore, but here he is, stumbling and bumbling around and getting his face chewed off by a half-man/half-gator 25 minutes in. I guess everybody's got bills to pay. As expected, Sid Haig is cast radically against type as Sid Haig.
CREATURE's dismal box office performance set new standards for bombing in theaters. But it's really just your ordinary bad DTV horror movie that accidentally made it to the big screen. We're not talking about an MST3K-worthy yukfest here. There's a nice shout-out to Jack Hill's SPIDER BABY (1968), which featured Haig. But mostly, it's indifferently acted and slow moving and the best that can be said about the work of first-time director Fred M. Andrews is that he keeps the camera pointed in the right direction.
These reviews originally appeared in slightly different form on the Mobius Home Video Forum in March 2011.
URBAN MENACE (US - 1999)
The trilogy kicks off with a horror film, where a bunch of Bronx thugs find themselves pursued--through an abandoned warehouse--by the vengeful ghost of Preacher Caleb (Snoop Dogg), who was killed along with his family in a fire started by gang warfare. As the Preacher (as he's ultimately called, even though the opening crawl mentions that he was merely a janitor, though at one point, he's referred to as an alderman) knocks off the gangstas one by one as they wander around the abandoned building, it becomes clear that his true target is crime boss Crow (Big Punisher, who died shortly after this hit video). Meanwhile, snitch King (T.J. Storm) is working with the cops against Crow and his top henchman Terror (Fat Joe) to secure a better life for his family.
URBAN MENACE is nightmarishly bad in every way. Visually, the film is nauseating, as Pyun uses a bunch of garish filters for a washed-out look that is simply unviewable. You can't even see people's faces most of the time. It's just a blurry white. Secondly, Snoop Dogg isn't in this nearly as much as his obvious stunt double is, and when Pyun needs a closeup, he repeatedly resorts to the same shot of a scowling Snoop. But the biggest--no "pun" intended--offender here is the acting of Big Pun, who turns in a "performance"--and I use the term loosely--that defies all description and comprehension. He's wheezing, mumbling, and making zero effort to hide that he's reading cue cards, and I'm actually not entirely convinced that he knew how to read. Not to speak ill of the dead, but man...Big Pun is unspeakably bad here. There's numerous pauses as he either a) tries to figure out what the next word is, or b) has to take a breath. You have to see it to believe it. It's a legit contender for the worst performance in the history of the moving image. Fat Joe is also reading cue cards, but he's at least a little more stealthy about it. It's also painfully obvious that neither Big Pun nor Fat Joe are even performing with the other actors thanks to some hilariously inept editing. Third-billed Ice-T introduces the film and functions as narrator. Also with future 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN co-star Romany Malco, shame of the Hudson family Ernie Hudson, Jr., Karen Dyer, Tahitia, Jahi J.J. Zuri, Rob Ladesich, and Vince Klyn from Pyun's CYBORG, back in another lifetime when Pyun made real movies. Almost all of these supporting actors turn up in the next two films. Storm went on to play the ridiculous Irish-Rastafarian gangster Maginty in PUNISHER: WAR ZONE. The best that can be said about URBAN MENACE is that it's only 72 minutes long, and about ten of that is credits. (R, 72 mins)
CORRUPT (US - 1999)
Ice-T takes a much bigger role here, as vicious crime lord Corrupt, who, in one of the funniest scenes ever, wipes out rival crime boss Yazu (Jahi J.J. Zuri) and his crew so he can take over. But he has to deal with ambitious gangsta MJ (Silkk the Shocker), who's threatening to undermine his authority. Plus, Corrupt wants MJ's older sister Jodi (Karen Dyer), who's dating Miles (Ernie Hudson, Jr.). Most of the action takes place at the diner Jodi runs. Well, I think it's a diner. It looks like a prop counter set up in front of a janitor's closet, and the only food items visible are half-gallon containers of Tropicana orange juice, a Coke dispenser, several bottles of ketchup, a single hanging bag of Chi-Chi's tortilla chips, and a big styrofoam cup full of straws. People come in and order pizza, chili dogs, falafel, and burgers, but there's no visible food prep/kitchen area. Amazing.
Corrupt promises to leave MJ alone if Jodi will let him hit dat azz, which angers Miles, which, of course, leads to a wild, continuity-be-damned shootout at, you guessed it, the abandoned warehouse. At the very least, this actually looks normal, minus the filters and all the goofy processing Pyun utilized on URBAN MENACE. It still looks like it was shot on a cell phone, but let's take what we can get. The actors are terrible, especially Ice-T, who can actually act. I swear you can see him laughing a couple times. Silkk the Shocker is awful, and obviously isn't in any of the locations at the same time as Ice-T, even when they're in the same scene together. It just looks like Pyun kept the supporting actors around and let the big ballers come in when they wanted. Pyun commits perhaps his most merciful act by having the closing credits start at the 59-minute mark. CORRUPT's running time: 66 minutes. Also with T.J. Storm as Corrupt's eye-patched flunky Cinque, Tahitia, Vince Klyn as "The Sayer," Romany Malco as an obnoxious diner customer, and Miss Jones, better known as Tarsha Nicole Jones, the former Hot 97 radio host who followed up her CORRUPT triumph with an insensitive parody song about the 2004 Asian tsunami. (R, 66 mins)
THE WRECKING CREW (US - 2000)
The trilogy reaches its thrilling conclusion with its most grandiose outing yet: a 75-minute epic with Ice-T as Menace, the leader of an elite squad of Detroit (still Bratislava) cops pitting rival gangs against one another. Second-billed Snoop Dogg is Dra-Man, a Chicago gang lord who is introduced via silent stock footage of a Snoop Dogg interview and a bunch of AP file photos of Snoop Dogg...then promptly exits the film after 20 seconds of stock footage from URBAN MENACE, most of which is his double. Two gangs, the Locs, led by Sly (David Askew, having the good luck to only be in one of these), and the 111's, led by Hakiem (the inevitable Ernie Hudson, Jr.), agree to a truce, which angers a third group, the Cartel, who corner the two gangs in...yes, an abandoned warehouse, as Menace's Wrecking Crew closes in to wipe them all out. There's actually some semblance of a coherent plot with THE WRECKING CREW, but it's ruined by Pyun's sloppiest filmmaking of the series: most of the dialogue is barely audible and largely unintelligible, and both of the major shootouts are stock footage of the climactic shootout from CORRUPT. That's right...Pyun plays the same shootout twice. Three times if you count CORRUPT. And there's a ten-minute stretch where Hakiem is doing nothing but frantically running from room to room, yelling, presumably for no reason other than to pad the running time. As the incoherence and foolishness reach a fever pitch, Pyun demonstrates his love for the hilarious fire effect in CORRUPT by repeating it in a similar, and equally hysterical, scene at the very end. Also with Vince Klyn, Miss Jones, Romany Malco, Rob Ladesich, and Jahi J.J. Zuri, turning in his finest work in the trilogy as Hakiem's twitchy top gun who repeatedly looks into the camera during the truce sequence. (R, 75 mins)
SEVEN DEATHS IN THE CAT'S EYE (Italy/France/Germany - 1973)
Directed by Anthony M. Dawson (Antonio Margheriti). Written by Antonio Margheriti and Giovanni Simonelli. Cast: Jane Birkin, Hiram Keller, Francoise Christophe, Serge Gainsbourg, Venantino Venantini, Doris Kunstmann, Anton Diffring, Dana Ghia, George Korrade, Alan Collins (Luciano Pigozzi). (Unrated, 95 mins)
Cover art for 2005 DVD release
Often labeled a giallo, probably due to its very Dario Argento-inspired title, Antonio Margheriti's SEVEN DEATHS IN THE CAT'S EYE is more in line with his gothic Euro-horrors of the 1960s, like THE VIRGIN OF NUREMBERG and CASTLE OF BLOOD. There is a very giallo sense of sleazy perversity running through SEVEN DEATHS, but the film itself is ultimately a misfire that never gets out of first gear and is often too silly for its own good. It is redeemed by a terrific twist ending that might have you thinking you just saw a better film than you did. I remember thinking that after the first time I saw it six years ago, and I imagine in another half decade or so, I'll forget and once again think "Hey, I should revisit that one," and I can be disappointed all over again.
Jane Birkin and Hiram Keller
In a small Scottish village, Corringa (BLOW-UP's Jane Birkin) is visiting relatives at the Castle MacGrieff, overseen by her aunt Lady Mary MacGrieff (Francoise Christophe) and her eccentric, possibly insane son, Corringa's cousin Lord James (FELLINI SATYRICON's Hiram Keller). Also hanging around the castle, for various reasons, are Corringa's mother (Dana Ghia); bisexual tutor Suzanne (Doris Kunstmann), essentially hired by Lady Mary to seduce her son; groundskeeper Angus (Luciano Pigozzi); family advisor Father Robertson (Venantino Venantini); and lecherous family doctor Franz (Anton Diffring, dubbed by Ted Rusoff, who supervised the English script translation and dubbing), who's sleeping with both Lady Mary and Suzanne. Soon, someone starts offing the unlikable cast one by one, with all the murders witnessed by the ever-observant family cat who constantly roams the castle grounds. Before long, an eccentric detective who may as well be named Almost Hercule Poirot (Birkin's then-husband, French singer Serge Gainsbourg), starts investigating.
A ghostly vision in one of Corringa's nightmares.
It's a very Agatha Christie set-up, complete with a mysterious location, secret passageways, creepy crypts, sidelong glances, and scheming assholes, plus rats, bats, cobwebs, vampire superstitions, and Lord James' secret pet gorilla (!), who periodically frees himself from his cage and wanders the castle or peeps out of windows only to disappear a moment later.
Lord James MacGrieff's secret pet gorilla. Whatever.
Margheriti and "director of photographye" (as the credits label him) Carlo Carlini establish a admirably creepy and very colorful atmosphere, but SEVEN DEATHS IN THE CAT'S EYE is pretty dull stuff. There's a lot of padding and boring talk of inheritances and what not, with an occasional gory murder or sex scene to liven things up (Kunstmann supplies most of the nudity, but Margheriti gets dangerously close to showing Anton's Diffring at one point), plus an almost comical over-reliance of "DUN, DUN, DUNNNN!" at even the most insignificant plot development.
Eurocult regular Venantino Venantini and some of the film's garishly colorful lighting.
Old-school Prism VHS box
It's interesting to see Birkin and Gainsbourg acting together, and to see how much a 27-year-old Birkin reminds you of their daughter, actress Charlotte Gainsbourg. The performances are a little hard to judge since even the English-speaking actors are dubbed. Blue Underground's DVD, issued in 2005, has some rough spots but looks very nice overall, and at the proper 2.35:1 framing, is obviously a huge improvement over the reportedly hideous Prism Entertainment pan & scan VHS edition that used to be a video store mainstay back in the day.
