Retro Review: SHE (1984)

SHE
(Italy - 1984; US release 1985)

Written and directed by Avi Nesher. Cast: Sandahl Bergman, David Goss, Quin Kessler, Harrison Muller, Elena Wiedermann, Gordon Mitchell, Laurie Sherman, Andrew McLeay, Cyrus Elias, David Brandon, Susan Adler, Gregory Snegoff, Mary D'Antin, Mario Pedone, Donald Hodson, Maria Quasimodo, David Traylor. (Unrated, 105 mins)

Loosely--and that can't be stressed enough--based on the classic 1886 adventure novel by King Solomon's Mines author H. Rider Haggard, 1984's SHE is either the worst movie ever made or visionary work of next-level postmodernism that constantly walks the fine line between genius and insanity. Flip a coin. Previously filmed in 1935 with Helen Gahagan and most famously by Hammer Films in 1965 with Ursula Andress (which led to the inferior 1968 sequel THE VENGEANCE OF SHE with Olinka Berova), this version of SHE was headlined by Sandahl Bergman, a dancer who logged time as a member of the "Golddiggers" on Dean Martin's NBC variety show before being discovered by Bob Fosse. Her first significant notice came when she was featured in a memorable production number in the mercurial choreographer's 1979 film ALL THAT JAZZ, but it wasn't Fosse and it wasn't Bergman's dancing abilities that got her the SHE gig. It was the 1982 hit CONAN THE BARBARIAN, where she turned heads and won a Golden Globe for New Star of the Year-Female (she was the final recipient, as the New Star category was discontinued after the 1983 ceremony) as the fierce and seductive warrior Valeria, joining Arnold Schwarzenegger in battle and in bed in his big-screen breakout.

While CONAN led to stardom and THE TERMINATOR for Schwarzenegger, all Bergman got was SHE, a mind-boggling Italian mash-up of the barbarian and post-nuke actioners that were being cranked out with wild abandon by Italian exploitation producers not just as a result of CONAN, but also in to cash in on THE ROAD WARRIOR. But SHE is something else entirely, a virtual spoof of the Italian post-nuke craze that doesn't even try to make any logical sense, instead throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. SHE was available in every video store in the '80s and was in semi-regular rotation on late night cable during that same period. For whatever reason, I never pulled the trigger on it until, like a lot of obscure Eurocult titles, it turned up on Netflix streaming in its infancy prior to the company rebranding itself as an original content producer. And I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Was I hallucinating this film? Or was it really this bonkers? And why wasn't I aware of just how bugfuck insane this thing was?

In a post-apocalyptic "Year 23 - After the Cancellation," three siblings, Tom (David Goss), Dick (Harrison Muller, from the Italian post-nukes 2020: TEXAS GLADIATORS and THE FINAL EXECUTIONER), and their younger sister Hari (Elena Wiedermann), are venturing through the wasteland and come upon a vendors market called "Heaven's Gate," where the merchandise includes 7-Up and various boxes of Kellogg's cereals. The market is attacked by Hector (former '60s peplum fixture Gordon Mitchell), the leader of the army of the Nork. Hari is taken away by Hector's goons, who wear football helmets and padding adorned with swastikas, sending Tom and Dick on a quest to rescue her. That takes a while, since they first end up in the realm of the goddess She (Bergman), who commands an army of female warriors and is worshiped by men who endlessly bow and chant "She!" in what appears to be a decaying mansion out of a Luchino Visconti film (SHE was somehow shot at the fabled Cinecitta in Rome). An unholy alliance is eventually formed, as Tom and Dick are joined by She and her trusted second-in-command Shanda (Quin Kessler), the four venturing--together and often separated by circumstance--to the Nork city to find and rescue Hari. This involves a series of sequences including but not limited to:

• She going into a cavernous storage area filled with upright crates that collapse to reveal armor-wearing swordsmen who we must assume were just there patiently waiting for her eventual arrival.
• She attacked by a lumbering, cyborg Frankenstein monster whose head explodes when she bites the bolt out of its neck.
• a run-in with mutant leader Kram (Cyrus Elias) and his chainsaw-wielding disciples in the same abandoned factory that's in almost every Italian post-nuke. 
• some toga-wearing Caligula cosplayers led by siblings Pretty Boy (David Brandon, in perhaps some inside joke casting as he'd just starred in Joe D'Amato's CALIGULA ripoff CALIGULA: THE UNTOLD STORY) and Pretty Girl (Susan Adler), who turn out to a coven of werewolves. 
• a telepathic despot named Godan (Gregory Snegoff) with glowing green eyes who leads a cult of communist monks
• Rudolph (Mario Pedone), a brutish ogre in a tutu who becomes an unlikely ally
• a foppish mad doctor (Donald Hodson) who dresses like an extra from BARRY LYNDON and holds them captive behind clear plastic shower curtains with the intent of using them in his bizarre human/plant experiments. 
• Xenon (David Traylor, a mime later known as "robot comedian" Mr. Zed), the wacky guard of the bridge leading to the Nork fortress, who acts like Robin Williams on a talk show, sings the GREEN ACRES theme song, does impressions of James Cagney, Popeye, and the Cowardly Lion, and has the ability to clone himself from his own severed limbs.
• getting in the Nork fortress, where the masked Nork overlord (voiced by the familiar mellifluous tones of veteran dubber Anthony La Penna) puts them in a fight-to-the-death arena showdown with his warriors where the victors get Hari. 
• (note: the above list makes even less sense in context)

Believe it or not, Israeli-born SHE writer/director Avi Nesher is an award-winning filmmaker of sterling repute in his home country. His serious, art-house fare is rarely shown outside of Israel (2017's PAST LIFE got a limited US release), but he spent much of the '80s and '90s paying the bills with video store genre fare like the 1991 Michael Biehn sci-fi outing TIMEBOMB, the 1993 Drew Barrymore thriller DOPPELGANGER and by directing (SAVAGE, MERCENARY) or producing (AUTOMATIC, MARS, MERCENARY 2: THICK AND THIN) several Olivier Gruner actioners. SHE certainly falls under the "genre fare" category, and we can only assume that Israeli cineastes who admire Nesher's auteur works like RAGE AND GLORY and TURN LEFT AT THE END OF THE WORLD haven't been privy to the sight of Sandahl Bergman battling a cyborg Frankenstein. SHE was recently released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber (because physical media is dead) and has a Nesher interview as an extra. He talks about his distinctly different genre and art film careers and jokes that it's hard to imagine his serious films winning awards in Israel when watching something like SHE. He also tells a great story about shooting at Cinecitta and blasting loud heavy metal to get the actors psyched up between takes until an assistant to Federico Fellini, who was on an adjacent soundstage shooting 1983's AND THE SHIP SAILS ON, came over and asked him to turn it down. This led to an appreciative Fellini taking Nesher to lunch and asking "What are you making over there?" to which the young director replied "I'm not quite sure yet." 

Featuring a soundtrack composed by former and future Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman (!), with contributions from Moody Blues frontman Justin Hayward (!!), Motorhead (!!!), and Bastard (?), SHE ended up getting a virtually non-existent US release in 1985 and did nothing to capitalize on Bergman's fleeting bit of CONAN THE BARBARIAN and Golden Globes fame. She reunited with Schwarzenegger and got a Worst Supporting Actress Razzie nod as a result when she was cast as the villain Queen Gedren in 1985's RED SONJA. In the years that followed, she found steady work with TV guest spots on shows like CHEERS and DESIGNING WOMEN, and B-movies like the 1987 strip club drama KANDYLAND, the 1987 TERMINATOR knockoff PROGRAMMED TO KILL, and the 1988 Roddy Piper cult classic HELL COMES TO FROGTOWN. Bergman became one of many celebrities to hop on the post-Jane Fonda workout bandwagon, and became a regular in the '90s straight-to-video erotic thriller explosion, appearing in unrated gems like BODY OF INFLUENCE (a title in no way inspired by BODY OF EVIDENCE), LIPSTICK CAMERA, POSSESSED BY THE NIGHT (a Shannon Tweed vehicle that's almost as batshit crazy as SHE), INNER SANCTUM 2, and SORCERESS II: THE TEMPTRESS. Now 68, Bergman has been offscreen since a brief appearance as a dancer in the 2003 Robert Downey, Jr. comedy musical noir THE SINGING DETECTIVE, but these days, she stays busy on the convention circuit, her place in film history secured with her work in CONAN THE BARBARIAN. And while it's been shown some love at a handful of Alamo Drafthouse screenings, it's definitely time that more people experience the indescribable midnight movie nirvana that is SHE. 

Ripoffs of the Wasteland: 2020: TEXAS GLADIATORS (1983)

2020: TEXAS GLADIATORS
(Italy - 1983; US release 1984)

Directed by Kevin Mancuso (Aristide Massaccesi and Luigi Montefiori). Written by Alex Carver (Luigi Montefiori). Cast: Harrison Muller, Al Cliver, Daniel Stephen, Peter Hooten, Al Yamanouchi, Sabrina Siani, Donald O'Brien, Geretta Geretta. (Unrated, 86 mins)


The credits of the Italian post-nuke ROAD WARRIOR ripoff 2020: TEXAS GLADIATORS take great pains to make the movie look American. All of the technical credits are pseudonymous, starting with score composer Carlo Maria Cordio going by "Francis Taylor" and production manager Donatella Donati as "Helen Handris," all the way to the end with assistant director and future Italian horror auteur Michele Soavi (CEMETERY MAN) hiding incognito as "Mike Soft." But all of that effort is for naught early on with the repeated sightings of signs reading "DANGER: EXSPLOSIVE," the tell-tale, "Do Not Entry" sign from THE BEYOND that, despite the Herculean efforts of everyone involved, the ruse collapses thanks to the Italian prop guy. And if you watch enough of these, you'll start recognizing not only the same actors being dubbed by the same voices, but also the same Italian locations, as 2020's action mostly has the actors running around the same abandoned factory and the stunt drivers careening around the same gravel pit and dirt mounds that can be spotted in most entries in the subgenre.

Set in the ruins of Texas several years after "the Atomic Wars," 2020 focuses on the Rangers, a group of mercenaries led by Nisus (Al Cliver). The Rangers battle the jack-booted forces of The Black One (Donald O'Brien), a nefarious dictator-type who's trying to conquer the community so he can have access to a refurbished refinery that now produces clean drinking water. After an early Rangers expedition results in Nisus banishing Catch Dog (Daniel Stephen) after he tries to rape single mother Maida (Sabrina Siani, in one of her few appearances outside of an Italian CONAN ripoff), Catch Dog immediately switches sides and joins the Black One, using his knowledge of the Rangers to get back at his former cohorts. When Nisus (the character is listed as "Nisus" in the credits, but it sounds like the dubbing team is saying "Nexus," which sounds cooler) is killed in a raid by the Black One's goons and Maida is sold into prostitution, the rest of the Rangers--Halakron (Peter Hooten), Jab (Harrison Muller), and Red Wolfe (Al Yamanouchi)--rescue her and avenge Nisus by taking on The Black One and Catch Dog. Filled with the usual goofy-looking cars, mutant goons, wild stunt work, gun battles, "exsplosions," completely inconsistent beard continuity for Hooten and Muller, over-the-top violence, and a pretty impressive body count, 2020 is total guilty pleasure stupidity, right from the start with the Rangers killing about 50 bad guys before the opening credits are even finished. There's no shortage of bloodshed and the near-constant action keeps things moving briskly, but 2020: TEXAS GLADIATORS doesn't really try to take advantage of its setting. Other than a hand-painted "Texas" sign, and Halakron challenging Maida's cowboy pimp to some DEER HUNTER-inspired Russian Roulette in an old west saloon, no effort is made to create the illusion of "Texas," unlike the many post-nukes set in NYC, like 2019: AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK, where even a half-melted model of the Statue of Liberty went a little way toward creating some NYC atmosphere. 2020 does an OK job of being a post-nuke western of sorts--an idea more successfully explored in Giuliano Carnimeo's EXTERMINATORS OF THE YEAR 3000--but it mainly resorts to cliches and cringe-worthy stereotypes that would've been antiquated in the 1940s, like the late-film introduction of some constantly war-whooping "Indians" who stop just short of saying "How!" and "We smokum peace pipe" when they reach a tentative truce with Halakron and the Rangers and join their fight against The Black One.

Aristide Massaccesi (1936-1999),
 aka "Joe D'Amato," "David Hills,"
and at least 50 other pseudonyms

Released in the US in 1984 by short-lived grindhouse outfit Megastar Films and shown on TNT's MONSTERVISION with Joe Bob Briggs in 1999, 2020 was directed mostly by Aristide Massaccesi, who used countless pseudonyms over the course of his career, the most frequent and familiar being "Joe D'Amato." Massaccesi dabbled in everything, starting as a camera operator on Mario Bava's HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD (1961) before graduating to cinematographer by the late '60s and moving on to directing in the '70s, with everything from Laura Gemser's BLACK EMANUELLE films to the gore classics BEYOND THE DARKNESS, aka BURIED ALIVE (1979), and ANTROPOPHAGUS, aka THE GRIM REAPER (1981). As "David Hills," he directed several ATOR films during the post-CONAN craze, and under the name "Steven Benson," he would gather most of the cast and crew of 2020 for the same year's Italian post-nuke favorite ENDGAME. The workaholic Massaccesi also used the D'Amato name on several old-school Skinemax favorites like ELEVEN DAYS, ELEVEN NIGHTS (1986) and TOP MODEL (1988). By the early 1990s, Massaccesi was working exclusively in hardcore porn, where he would finish his career prior to his death in 1999. 2020: TEXAS GLADIATORS' direction is credited to "Kevin Mancuso," which is actually a shared pseudonym for Massaccesi and familiar Italian cult actor Luigi Montefiori, better known as "George Eastman."

Luigi Montefiori, aka "George Eastman"

Montefiori first gained notice as The Minotaur in 1969's FELLINI SATYRICON, and, as "Eastman," would later co-star in the Charlton Heston version of THE CALL OF THE WILD (1972) and with Kirk Douglas in SCALAWAG (1973), as well as one of the kidnappers in Mario Bava's RABID DOGS (1974), but that's about as classy as his resume got. As "George Eastman," he was a regular fixture in Eurotrash cinema, usually appearing in "Joe D'Amato" films. He starred as the cannibalistic killer in THE GRIM REAPER and in the D'Amato horror/porno crossovers EROTIC NIGHTS OF THE LIVING DEAD (1980) and PORNO HOLOCAUST (1981), the latter known more for its close-ups of porn actor Mark Shanon's genital warts than anything else. "Eastman" is perhaps best known by post-nuke fans for his performance as Big Ape in 2019: AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK (1983). In addition to acting under his "Eastman" moniker, Montefiori scripted numerous films, either under his own name (1976's KEOMA) or under a variety of pseudonyms (as "Lew Cooper," he co-wrote Michele Soavi's 1987 breakthrough STAGEFRIGHT). Montefiori scripted 2020 under the name "Alex Carver," and wanted to try his hand at directing some of it as well. It's been rumored that Massaccesi handled the action scenes, which would mean he directed most of the movie. Considering they remained friends and worked together several more times over the years, it's doubtful that this was a situation where Massaccesi stepped in and took over for Montefiori. More likely, Montefiori wanted to get his feet wet behind the camera and Massaccesi delegated some scenes to the neophyte director. Cult actress Geretta Geretta--aka Rosemary in Lamberto Bava's DEMONS--had a small role in 2020 and when asked who directed what, she responded "All I remember is that the director was tall and handsome," which would probably indicate that the few scenes she was in were handled by the the 6' 9" Montefiori. If Montefiori wanted to branch out into filmmaking, it didn't really pan out after partnering with Massaccesi on 2020: to date, he's only stepped behind the camera on one other occasion, the Norfolk, VA-shot horror film METAMORPHOSIS (1990)--memorable to back-in-the-day video store denizens for having one of those great, gimmicky Imperial Entertainment VHS boxes--where he's credited as "G.L. Eastman." Now 72, Montefiori hasn't acted since 2004 and has spent recent years writing for Italian TV.

Despite being fourth billed in the credits, Hooten is the real star of 2020: TEXAS GLADIATORS, at least after second-billed Lucio Fulci regular Cliver gets Janet Leigh'd out of the film by the 30-minute mark. A native of Florida, Hooten worked steadily on TV in the early '70s with guest appearances on shows like THE MOD SQUAD, MANNIX, and THE WALTONS. Over 1977 and 1978, with a co-starring role in ORCA and the title role in the CBS/Marvel pilot movie DR. STRANGE, it appeared as if he was about to break out, but DR. STRANGE wasn't picked up for series and Hooten quickly became a Next Big Thing instantly forgotten. By the end of 1978, he made his way to Europe where he would work almost exclusively starting with Enzo G. Castellari's THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS. Already showing signs of disinterest in the projects he was being offered--his only Hollywood gig during this time came in a supporting role as one of Ken Wahl's commando unit in James Glickenhaus' 1982 actioner THE SOLDIER, and he didn't even stick around to dub himself for 2020, leaving it to voice actor Frank von Kuegelgen--Hooten only worked sporadically as the '80s went on. He eventually retired from acting in 1990 after starring in TROLL 2 director Claudio Fragasso's completely obscure NIGHT KILLER. It was shortly after shooting 2020 that the openly gay Hooten met Pulitzer Prize-winning poet James Merrill, and the two were together until Merrill's 1995 death from AIDS. Now 64, Hooten currently lives in Florida and came out of retirement in 2013 to appear in a pair of extremely low-budget Sarasota-shot regional horror movies, HOUSE OF BLOOD and SOULEATER.

2020: TEXAS GLADIATORS is a fun film, but between young Montefiori working with Fellini and Hooten almost becoming a Marvel superhero, it's also a film that those with once-promising careers settled for when they just needed the work. French-born Irish actor O'Brien was no exception. He got his start with supporting roles in big-budget films like John Frankenheimer's THE TRAIN (1964) and GRAND PRIX (1966) before finding his niche as villains and miscreants in a slew of Italian spaghetti westerns throughout the 1970s, going back to Sergio Sollima's RUN MAN RUN (1967), all the way up to era-enders such as Lucio Fulci's FOUR OF THE APOCALYPSE (1975), Enzo G. Castellari's KEOMA (1976), and Sergio Martino's MANNAJA (1977). He also played a Nazi general in THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS and an exorcist in Massaccesi's sleazy nunsploitation classic IMAGES IN A CONVENT (1979). O'Brien is best known to Eurotrash audiences for Marino Girolami's ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST (1980), where his zombie-creating mad doctor was granted the title role when the film was rechristened DOCTOR BUTCHER M.D. for its 1982 American release. Vacationing in Paris in 1980, shortly after completing his work on ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST, O'Brien suffered a serious head injury when he slipped and fell in the bathroom of his hotel room. After spending several days in a coma, he awoke to find he was partially paralyzed. 2020: TEXAS GLADIATORS was his first film after the accident and its effects are obvious: he has a halting limp and is often dragging his left leg, and the right side of his face demonstrates frequent, involuntary twitching very similar to that of Japanese actor Takeshi Kitano/Beat Takeshi in the aftermath of his 1994 motorcycle accident. Still, the veteran actor, while dubbed, manages to create a vivid impression with his shaved head, hammy overacting (check out his overdone Dr. Evil cackle at a not-very-funny joke that Catch Dog makes), and memorable death scene. O'Brien continued to act in films, but his paralysis took its toll. He required a cane and as the years went on, in later films like HANDS OF STEEL (1986) and THE NAME OF THE ROSE (1986), he's usually seated or leaning against something. O'Brien would go on to appear in Massaccesi's final ATOR film QUEST FOR THE MIGHTY SWORD (1990) and Michele Soavi's THE SECT, aka THE DEVIL'S DAUGHTER (1991), before retiring from acting in 1994 after severely injuring his hip in another fall. He died in 2003 at the age of 73.

The Cannon Files: THE VIOLENT BREED (1984)

THE VIOLENT BREED
(Italy - 1984)

Directed by Fernando Di Leo. Written by Nino Marino and Fernando Di Leo. Cast: Henry Silva, Harrison Muller, Woody Strode, Carole Andre, Debora Keith, Danika, Hector Wells, Loris Bartock, Serge Doran, Adrian Jeffries. (R, 91 mins)

In recent years, there's been a resurgence of interest in poliziotteschi--Italian crime films of the 1970s, the subject of the recent documentary EUROCRIME!--and in particular the work of Fernando Di Leo (1932-2003), one of the most prominent figures in the movement. Di Leo began his career as a screenwriter on spaghetti westerns like NAVAJO JOE (1966), HATE FOR HATE (1967), and BEYOND THE LAW (1968), but it was the politically-charged crime thrillers that he wrote and directed in the 1970s that have cemented his place in genre history. Four of his best-known films were collected in Raro USA's acclaimed 2011 DVD and Blu-ray box set FERNANDO DI LEO: THE ITALIAN CRIME COLLECTION. Compiling Di Leo's essential "Milieu Trilogy" of CALIBER 9 (1972), THE ITALIAN CONNECTION (1973), and THE BOSS, aka WIPEOUT! (1973) with the bonus film RULERS OF THE CITY, aka MISTER SCARFACE (1976), the first Di Leo set made an airtight case that the filmmaker, with his recurrent themes of nihilism, corruption, and Italy in chaos, his ability to stage an exciting action sequence, and his expert use of actors (so long as you don't count the impossibly Irish Cyril Cusack as a NYC Mafia don in THE ITALIAN CONNECTION), was deserving of respect and serious study.

Raro released a second volume of Di Leo crime films in 2013, featuring the excellent SHOOT FIRST, DIE LATER (1974), which has since had a couple of airings on Turner Classic Movies, the decent but unspectacular KIDNAP SYNDICATE (1975), and the disappointing NAKED VIOLENCE (1969), a controversial film in Italy in its day that's interesting for Di Leo completists, but is more of a giallo and really has no business in a set representing Di Leo's crime films. Di Leo's cynicism and his view of society and humanity as inherently and irredeemably evil reached its apex in 1978's TO BE TWENTY, which spends about 85 minutes being a fluffy, lighthearted sex comedy about the wild and wacky misadventures of two nubile teenage girls...who end up getting viciously gang-raped and slaughtered in the final five minutes when Di Leo smacks the viewer upside the head by abruptly turning it into THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (the film was also released in a differently-edited version that completely eliminated Di Leo's intended shock ending). Di Leo scripted Ruggero Deodato's excellent polizia LIVE LIKE A COP, DIE LIKE A MAN (1976), but after TO BE TWENTY, his career more or less fizzled. He explored some more LAST HOUSE-type territory in 1980's MADNESS and did a couple of hired-gun TV gigs, but by the middle of the decade, he would eventually retire from filmmaking altogether after the little-seen 1985 actioner KILLER VS. KILLERS, aka DEATH COMMANDO. He gave interviews for some Italian DVD releases before his death in 2003, some of which made their way to the later US-released Raro sets. Though he was largely a typically genre-hopping journeyman, the polizia explosion in the early-to-mid 1970s helped Di Leo carve a niche for himself, very much the same way that Lucio Fulci found his true calling with the cinematic zombie outbreak in the early 1980s.

Di Leo's penultimate film, THE VIOLENT BREED, finds him hitching a ride on the then in-vogue Namsploitation and commando explosion bandwagon that kept Antonio Margheriti busy throughout the '80s. A few elements of Di Leo's misanthropic worldview are on display--most notably an admittedly chilling and effective scene where the villain mows down some peasants after taking over their village--and the abrupt, ineptly-executed twist ending seems to be making some muddled statement about government corruption, but for the most part, THE VIOLENT BREED is probably Di Leo's worst film. If he was growing disillusioned enough to retire a year later, then THE VIOLENT BREED may very well be a significant reason why. Produced by busy '80s Italian schlock king Ettore Spagnuolo, the film was shot in the summer of 1983 in NYC, Rome, and Bangkok, and was acquired by Cannon, who released it in the US in 1984. It opens during the Vietnam War as a band of soldiers led by Kirk Cooper (Henry Silva) rescue some refugee children who all seem to be dressed in conspicuously early '80s attire. Cooper and fellow soldier Mike Martin (Harrison Muller) are shocked when their buddy Polo (Woody Strode) sends them on their way and tells them he's staying behind as he promptly deserts and vanishes in the jungle. Years later, Cooper is a big shot with the CIA and gets some intel that Polo is running a complicated drugs-weapons-prostitution empire centered in the fabled Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia. He's getting help from both the KGB and the Mafia, and Cooper sends top agent Martin into dangerous territory to eliminate Polo's operation and settle some old scores.

Di Leo just never gets things going with THE VIOLENT BREED. It has some enthusiastic blood and squib effects late in the game and some early NYC location shooting shows a theater with a ZABRISKIE POINT/BLOW-UP Antonioni retrospective, but overall, it's cheap-looking and Di Leo's disinterest is obvious. He never once gives this the gritty feel that his polizia classics displayed. Di Leo's direction is uncharacteristically lazy and corner-cutting: in the early Vietnam scenes, Polo sends Martin to "get some bandages," and all Muller does is walk out of frame and pop right back in with the bandages, probably handed to him just out of camera view by Di Leo. In another instance, one of Polo's stooges is keeping a sharp eye out for Martin, who just saunters into the frame and shoots him.  Wouldn't the guy see him coming? Maybe Sergio Leone can get away with a move like that, but it doesn't play here. The climax, which goes on forever, has Martin and one of Polo's captive prostitutes (Debora Keith) running from one yellow cabin to another in Polo's supposedly massive compound, but it's clear from the cutting that they're just running into the same cabin over and over again like an unintentional homage to a Hanna-Barbera wraparound background. The size of Polo's compound is never convincingly conveyed.  Instead, it looks like what it is: Muller and Keith repeatedly running into the same structure and Strode's Polo and his men driving their Jeeps around in circles. There's also an odd amount of long shots of people awkwardly standing around or walking into buildings, almost like it's second-unit footage that was supposed to have been whittled down to give it some semblance of pacing.

Silva, Di Leo, and Strode in better days, during the
filming of THE ITALIAN CONNECTION

THE VIOLENT BREED is badly-made and badly-edited, and the performances are terrible across the board. After the opening sequence, where he gets to indulge in some customary overacting while getting a bullet scooped out of his chest, Silva is seen only fleetingly, occasionally popping up to grit his teeth and look irritable at the CIA command center, which looks exactly like a conference room at the budget-priced hotel where Spagnuolo had the cast and crew booked. This is also where Cooper and some CIA officials keep tabs on Miller's progress, which realistically would take days or weeks, but Silva and the actors playing the CIA officials are always shown wearing the same clothes in these cutaways--a clear indicator that these shots were likely knocked out in a few hours and Di Leo failed to consider or simply didn't care enough to have them change clothes. Silva's looping of his dialogue sounds halting, groggy, and half-asleep, and it's doubtul that he put in more than a few days' work on this.

Strode (1914-1994) is actually in THE VIOLENT BREED quite a bit, though his voice was dubbed by the gruff Ed Mannix. And, at nearly 70 years of age, he's likely the oldest grunt in the entire Namsploitation subgenre. Prior to being an actor, Strode excelled in multiple sports, and was a noted college football star who made NFL history as one of the first four men to break the league's color barrier when he was signed by the Los Angeles Rams in 1946 after a 13-year ban on black players. He was also a symbol of stereotype-shattering progress in black Hollywood, as well as a Golden Globe nominee for Stanley Kubrick's SPARTACUS (1960), and a prominent member of John Ford's stock company. But by the 1980s, he was reduced to appearing in some truly terrible Italian D-movies, with the low point being his entire performance in the 1984 Italian post-nuke THE FINAL EXECUTIONER (where he's dubbed by gravelly-voiced Robert Spafford) being revoiced and recycled into 1989's very similar THE BRONX EXECUTIONER, probably without the actor's knowledge or financial benefit. Both Silva and Strode fared much better as a pair of NYC hit men hunting down an Italian mobster in Di Leo's THE ITALIAN CONNECTION, and they also worked with the director separately, with Silva starring in THE BOSS and KILLER VS. KILLERS, and Strode appearing in the lighthearted LOADED GUNS (1975). In the late '90s, Xenon Home Video, a company largely focused on "urban"-themed fare, tried to cash in on the burgeoning, I'M BOUT IT-inspired rapsploitation scene by re-releasing THE VIOLENT BREED under the absurd new title REAL SOULJA, with a now-top-billed Strode prominently displayed on the box art.

Little is known these days about American actor Muller. Born in 1955, his parents were post-Vaudeville entertainers in the 1940s and 1950s, with his father--also named Harrison Muller--a well-known dancer and an occasional guest on THE GEORGE BURNS AND GRACIE ALLEN SHOW. Like his older sister, actress Nadia Cassini (PULP, STARCRASH), Muller Jr.'s short-lived acting career was spent almost entirely in Italy, with only a bit part in the Christopher Reeve flop MONSIGNOR (1982) and a supporting role in the 1983 Pia Zadora bomb THE LONELY LADY allowing him the slightest whiff of a Hollywood breakthrough. Muller found a niche in low-grade Italian ripoffs like the post-nuke offerings 2020: TEXAS GLADIATORS (1982), WARRIOR OF THE LOST WORLD (1983), SHE (1985), and THE FINAL EXECUTIONER. He also co-starred in the 1983 CONAN ripoff THE THRONE OF FIRE, produced by Spagnuolo, who spent a good chunk of the 1980s unsuccessfully trying to turn Muller into an action star. Muller took a few years off after THE VIOLENT BREED and THE FINAL EXECUTIONER (though released in 1985, the insane SHE was shot in 1982), and returned in 1989 with pair of back-to-back Spagnuolo productions that teamed him with none other than SHAFT himself, Richard Roundtree. MIAMI COPS, directed by the legendarily incompetent Alfonso Brescia (Al Bradley) and released in the US by Cannon, tried very hard to be an Italian ripoff of MIAMI VICE, keeping its fingers crossed that however few viewers it mustered wouldn't notice that many of its exteriors were actually shot in the decidedly un-Miami-like Detroit. GETTING EVEN, directed by Leandro Lucchetti and released by Menahem Golan's doomed post-Cannon outfit 21st Century, had Roundtree and Muller going after a serial killing Vietnam buddy, trailing him from NYC to Thailand, which gave Spagnuolo the perfect excuse to recycle a long action sequence in Polo's compound from THE VIOLENT BREED, intercutting it with badly-integrated new footage of Roundtree standing by himself lobbing grenades. Spagnuolo even went so far as to cast Debora Keith in GETTING EVEN simply because she was in the footage he was borrowing from THE VIOLENT BREED (it's worth noting that these are Keith's only two film credits). After these last two action duds, Muller pulled a Mark Gregory and fell off the face of the planet, his legacy buried near the bottom of the VHS Glory Days scrap heap, his films remembered only by the most ardent devotees of the justifiably obscure and the deepest cuts in the bottomless back catalog of '80s Italian exploitation ripoffs.

In other words, he's gotta have some stories to tell. In the unlikely event you're reading this, Mr. Muller, I extend an open invitation for a career-spanning interview covering your adventures in the wild world of 1980s Eurotrash cinema.

If This Wasn't Streaming On Netflix, Would Anyone Remember It Existed? Vol 3: GETTING EVEN (1988)

This review was published in a slightly different form at the Mobius Home Video Forum in February 2011.


GETTING EVEN
(Italy - 1988)  Written and directed by Leandro Lucchetti.  Cast: Richard Roundtree, Michael J. Aronin, Harrison Muller, George Ardisson, Kate Chesher, Deborah Keith.  93 mins.  R


Not to be confused with the 1986 Edward Albert vehicle directed by Dwight H. Little (a pic from that film accompanies this film's Netflix Instant listing), this GETTING EVEN is a low-grade Italian actioner from director Leandro Lucchetti and notoriously cheap producer Ettore Spagnuolo and his L'Immagine s.r.l./Filman International, the company that spent the bulk of the 1980s trying to turn spectacularly uncharismatic Eddie Rabbitt-lookalike Harrison Muller into an action star. 

Here, Muller is Roy Evans, a homeless Vietnam vet in NYC (as evidenced by constant stock footage shots of the Twin Towers in the opening credits) who gets shot by some thugs while trying to help a rape victim.  While recovering, he's visited by his old commander Dundee (Richard Roundtree, in one of his few forays into Italian exploitation), who's working with the FBI in a hunt for a crazed psycho who's slicing up prostitutes with a kris knife.  Dundee is sure the culprit is nutjob Slisko (Michael J. Aronin), who was in their unit back in 'Nam and tried to use the knife on a prostitute while they were on leave.  Since Slisko left Evans for dead during a covert mission, which led to him being a POW for five years, Evans goes along with Dundee on the hunt for Slisko. Because hey, the FBI always brings in homeless guys and has them basically supervise investigations.  And Slisko probably does own the only kris knife in the world.  It's an open and shut case.

Turns out Slisko is running a weapons operation out of Bangkok, which of course sends Evans to Thailand, thereby enabling Spagnuolo to lift an entire extended action sequence straight out of Fernando Di Leo's THE VIOLENT BREED (1983), which conveniently co-starred Muller and this film's Deborah Keith, intercut with new shots of Roundtree, standing alone throwing grenades and firing a gun in the some of the most awkward editing this side of SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT PART 3. Not content with swiping just one sequence and putting it in another movie, Spagnuolo's most duplicitous act of cost-cutting madness would come in 1989, when he recycled Woody Strode's entire performance in 1984's THE FINAL EXECUTIONER into THE BRONX EXECUTIONER.

GETTING EVEN is pretty bad, but at least it's bad in an entertaining way.  You get gratuitous nudity; hilariously over-the-top dubbed profanities; bad guys appearing out of nowhere; Roundtree plowing into the requisite Stack of Empty Cardboard Boxes in a totally badass white Citation, a vehicle that hardly seems fitting for the black private dick that's a sex machine to all the chicks; Ted Rusoff dubbing both a racist pimp named Nick the Cobra and a Thai maitre d in a Bangkok restaurant; Roundtree's FBI boss (George Ardisson) being dubbed by the guy who voiced Frank Brana in PIECES; Roundtree getting totally cockblocked by an underling (first a Citation, now THIS?!); and, in the film's funniest bit, Roundtree getting shot multiple times in the chest and stomach with softball-sized blasts and splattered blood, then getting up unhurt with a clean shirt.  How is that possible?  Because he's Richard Roundtree, that's how.

One minor plus is that Lanfranco Perini's score is actually pretty decent most of the time. But if you've seen any other Spagnuolo productions, you know what to expect.  Acquired by Menahem Golan's short-lived 21st Century Film Corporation and released straight to video in the US in 1990.  Spagnuolo got Roundtree, Muller, and Aronin back together to recapture the GETTING EVEN magic in 1989 for Alfonso Brescia/"Al Bradley"'s MIAMI COPS, which had location shooting in Detroit passing for Miami.  In other words, vintage Al Bradley.