Written and directed by James Glickenhaus. Cast: Ken Wahl, Alberta Watson, Klaus Kinski, William Prince, Jeremiah Sullivan, Joaquim de Almeida, Peter Hooten, Steve James, Alexander Spencer, Jeffrey Jones, Zeljko Ivanek, Ron Harper, Ned Eisenberg, David Lipman, Tom Wright, George Strait. (R, 88 mins) Ken Wahl was poised to be a Next Big Thing on more than one occasion, but fate and some really bad luck repeatedly intervened to prevent it from happening. Born in either 1954, 1956, or 1957 depending on the source, Wahl debuted to much acclaim in Philip Kaufman's THE WANDERERS (1979) and was soon co-starring with Paul Newman in the gritty time capsule FORT APACHE, THE BRONX (1981). The 1981 adventure RACE FOR THE YANKEE ZEPHYR was an Australian/New Zealand co-production that only made it into a handful of US theaters in 1984 under the title TREASURE OF THE YANKEE ZEPHYR. 1982 saw Wahl clashing with Bette Midler on the set of the troubled box-office bomb JINXED, a doomed project that almost ruined the careers of everyone involved and ended up being the great Don Siegel's final film as a director. The same year, he starred in the international espionage thriller THE SOLDIER, writer/director James Glickenhaus' follow-up to his 1980 surprise hit THE EXTERMINATOR. THE SOLDIER didn't do much business in theaters, but like TREASURE OF THE YANKEE ZEPHYR, it found a home in its seemingly daily airings on HBO throughout the '80s. It's a convoluted Reagan-era spy/terrorism thriller with KGB agents embedded in the US by Soviet spymaster Ivan (Jeremiah Sullivan) hijacking a plutonium shipment and taking it to an oil field in Saudi Arabia, where they threaten to detonate it and destroy 50% of the world's oil supply unless Israel withdraws from the West Bank. Believing Islamic extremists are behind the plutonium hijacking, the US President (William Prince) is prepared to attack Israel if it means saving the oil, but the CIA chief (Ron Harper) proposes another solution: "The Soldier." A nameless covert ops agent who officially doesn't exist, The Soldier (Wahl) and his team (including Peter Hooten, Joaquim de Almeida, and future Cannon regular Steve James) go to work. The Soldier teams with Mossad agent Susan Goodman (Alberta Watson), and eventually figures out that the Soviets are behind the heist, which becomes obvious after an attempt is made on The Soldier's life by duplicitous KGB agent Dracha, played by legendary cinematic and real-life madman Klaus Kinski, putting in a day's work at an Austrian ski resort.
THE SOLDIER is best-known for one sequence, but it's one for the ages: where Dracha traps The Soldier in a ski lift and has one of his guys try to take him out with a rocket launcher, only to have The Soldier jump out and lead Dracha's guys on a truly incredible ski chase with the stunt guys doing some pretty death-defying stuff. There's also a memorable scene in a shitkicker bar where Steve James beats the shit out of some racist, redneck urban cowboys while a just-breaking-out George Strait and his band play. There's also some fantastic bloody squib work throughout, but otherwise, THE SOLDIER is a strange and oddly-paced film. It runs a brief 88 minutes but still seems padded with tons of filler, and Wahl is absent for several stretches throughout while we see his team do their thing, infiltrating a missile silo in Kansas to aim a nuke at Moscow if the Soviets don't withdraw from Saudi Arabia. There's a long meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister and his cabinet, a long meeting with the President and his national security adviser (Jeffrey Jones), and a long interrogation of a terror suspect by Susan, and other than an opening sequence where The Soldier cleans up any trace of a CIA hit in Philadelphia, Wahl doesn't really join the main plot until 25 minutes in. It's also marred by a weak conclusion that looks like the crew just stopped and called it a wrap, almost like a climactic action sequence that should be there is missing. While it's admirable that Glickenhaus demonstrated some ambition and tried to make something a little more substantive in terms of its political storyline, it too often feels like a 42nd Street grindhouse version of a John Le Carre novel, and that's a mix that just doesn't work well together. After THE SOLDIER and JINXED, Wahl appeared in 1984's barely-released PURPLE HEARTS with Cheryl Ladd before his career faced its first setback when he was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident on his way to meet with Diane Keaton about co-starring in MRS. SOFFEL (Mel Gibson eventually got the part). Wahl was out of commission for a year and upon his recovery, found his movie career was stalled and he shifted to TV, where he eventually landed his career role in 1987, starring as undercover FBI agent Vinnie Terranova, infiltrating the mob on the CBS series WISEGUY.
THE SOLDIER opening in Toledo, OH on October 1, 1982
THE TAKING OF BEVERLY HILLS (US - 1991) Directed by Sidney J. Furie. Written by Rick Natkin, David Fuller and David J. Burke. Cast: Ken Wahl, Matt Frewer, Harley Jane Kozak, Robert Davi, Lee Ving, Branscombe Richmond, Lyman Ward, Michael Bowen, William Prince, George Wyner, Tony Ganios, Ken Swofford, Raymond Singer, Bob Golic. (R, 96 mins) Ken Wahl found more success with WISEGUY than he ever had on the big screen. He was nominated for an Emmy and won a Golden Globe in 1990, the same year he abruptly left the series at the end of its third season over "creative differences" with the network. They decided to carry on without him, bringing in Steven Bauer (SCARFACE) to play a new character investigating Vinnie Terranova's disappearance, possibly at the hands of South American drug cartels. Nobody was really happy with the retooling, and CBS cancelled WISEGUY nine episodes into its fourth season. Freed from his commitment to the show, Wahl was given another shot at movie stardom with the DIE HARD ripoff THE TAKING OF BEVERLY HILLS, directed by his PURPLE HEARTS helmer Sidney J. Furie (THE IPCRESS FILE, LADY SINGS THE BLUES, IRON EAGLE, SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE), a career journeyman going back to the late 1950s who's still directing today, well into his 80s. A casualty of the bankruptcy of Orion Pictures, THE TAKING OF BEVERLY HILLS only made it to about 500 theaters and grossed just $940,000 when it was eventually released by Columbia in the fall of 1991. It's a spectacularly dumb movie, but it's endlessly enjoyable, and a perfect snapshot of 1990-91, from Wahl's amazing mullet to a burglary montage set to EMF's "Unbelievable" and cop cars crashing and Wahl taking out bad guys with ninja stars to the tune of Faith No More's "Epic."
Wahl is Boomer Hayes, an aging pro quarterback who ends up in the middle of an elaborate Beverly Hills heist being pulled off by a crew of renegade, disgraced ex-cops. The plan? A hoax chemical spill that forces the evacuation of the city, sending the residents to a ritzy hotel out of the quarantine area while they raid all the empty mansions of their owners' valuables and assorted priceless possessions. Boomer missed the evacuation warning, since he was in his hot tub waiting to score with Laura Sage (Harley Jane Kozak), his former flame and current girlfriend of Robert "Bat" Masterson (Robert Davi), a wealthy Beverly Hills businessman and the owner of Boomer's team. Unaware that Boomer is a person (they assumed Laura was talking about a dog when she kept yelling "What about Boomer?" as she was herded onto a departing bus), the criminals go about their business while Boomer throws on his jersey, shoots his bum knee with cortisone and plays through the pain, teaming up with doofus cop Ed Kelvin (MAX HEADROOM's Matt Frewer), who went along with the heist because he was told no one would be hurt, but who comes to regret his decision and helps Boomer when the body count starts escalating. Mismatched buddy duo Boomer and Ed join forces to take back the town and expose the heist's mastermind (gee, could it be asshole "Bat" Masterson?)...if they don't kill each other first!
THE TAKING OF BEVERLY HILLS is no classic, but it's a shame it didn't get much of a chance. It's pretty much DIPSHIT DIE HARD, but it's a lot of fun and Wahl was never more loose or funny than he was here, moving from street to street through Beverly Hills (this was actually shot in Mexico) while uttering ludicrous dialogue like "I am a master at moving downfield and they don't even know I'm in the game!" and "I'm through playing defense!" and, of course, "Touchdown, asshole!" while throwing ninja stars and literal Hail Mary bombs and Molotov cocktails that blow up Masterson's chief henchman Varney (Fear frontman Lee Ving as Alexander Godunov to Davi's Alan Rickman). The film is so beholden to the DIE HARD formula that at one point Masterson even derisively calls Boomer "Hopalong" as opposed to "Mr. Cowboy." THE TAKING OF BEVERLY HILLS gives you all that plus Branscombe Richmond as another Masterson flunky who commandeers a tank and actually gets set on fire at one point in an example of the kind of practical stunt work that's become extinct in the era of CGI. Around the same time he shot this film, Wahl (with almost the same mullet) co-starred with Kozak in the romantic comedy THE FAVOR, which featured Elizabeth McGovern and a young Brad Pitt. THE FAVOR was also an Orion release that ended up being shelved until 1994, by which point Wahl's career was essentially over.
Wahl at the height of his WISEGUY fame
In 1992, Wahl broke his neck in what he initially claimed was another motorcycle accident. Years later, he revealed that he fell down the stairs at the home of Rodney Dangerfield's girlfriend and future wife, who was also seeing Wahl at the same time, and concocted the motorcycle story to respect her privacy. Wahl underwent multiple surgeries and was unable to walk for over two years. His limited movement caused a significant weight gain and he lived in constant, debilitating pain and developed a serious drinking problem. He managed to shed some pounds but was noticeably heftier and stiff as he struggled to get through the one-off 1996 WISEGUY reunion movie for CBS, but following that, Wahl effectively withdrew from public life and, to date, hasn't acted since. He hasn't given a print interview since 2004, instead finding his new calling as an activist for US military veterans, organizing a "Pets for Vets" charity that offers animal adoption services to provide pet therapy and companionship for disabled and/or emotionally troubled vets. He was also a frequent call-in guest on NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch's now-defunct radio show. Wahl is a conservative who's active on Twitter (though not in a crazy way like, say, James Woods) and has been married to Shane Barbi--half of the modeling duo the Barbi Twins--since 1997. He stays busy with his activist concerns, but he's largely reclusive, does what he does from home, and he adamantly refuses to be photographed on a rare occasion when he is spotted or recognized in public. Both THE SOLDIER and THE TAKING OF BEVERLY HILLS have recently been released on Blu-ray and to no one's surprise, the Howard Hughes-esque Ken Wahl is MIA on the bonus features for both.
Wahl in the promising early days of his career, with Paul Newman
on the set of 1981's FORT APACHE THE BRONX.
Much to the chagrin of concerned parents' groups and a scaremongering media, slasher films were big business in the early 1980s, especially calendar-related slasher films. John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN (1978) is usually credited with creating the holiday slasher subgenre, and while it certainly kickstarted its wild popularity and was instrumental in establishing the formula, it was Bob Clark's terrifying BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974) that did it first. HALLOWEEN exploded, becoming (at the time) the highest-grossing indie film ever, and it led to such titles as TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT, CHRISTMAS EVIL, NEW YEAR'S EVIL, and PROM NIGHT from 1980, GRADUATION DAY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME, and MY BLOODY VALENTINE from 1981. 1984 brought the controversial SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT, and even as late as 1986, there were two movies--one American and one British--called APRIL FOOL'S DAY, though the British film was retitled SLAUGHTER HIGH for the US.
None of these post-HALLOWEEN holiday/calendar offshoots were as popular as the FRIDAY THE 13TH series, which even inspired its own series of imitative "horny teenagers being killed in the woods/at camp" subgenre. Dismissed and practically burned at the stake by critics, Sean S. Cunningham's FRIDAY THE 13TH, is an expertly-constructed, archetypal slasher film--aided significantly by the terrifying "ki ki ki, ma ma ma" Harry Manfredini's score--that only seems tame today because it's been imitated so much. The success of FRIDAY THE 13TH, and the idea of the killer's actions being some sort of payback for the transgressions of past or present camp counselors, immediately led to THE BURNING (1981), MADMAN (1982), and SLEEPAWAY CAMP (1983), which itself had numerous sequels. But even the "dead kids in the woods" angle had somewhat of a precedent with Mario Bava's 1972 Italian horror film BAY OF BLOOD, which existed under a ton of alternate titles (TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE, and the misleading LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT PART II among them). FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2's famous scene of two lovers being impaled simultaneously during sex is an idea lifted completely from BAY OF BLOOD. The first two FRIDAY THE 13TH films did huge business and became a near-annual tradition for the rest of the 1980s. The hockey-masked killer Jason is right alongside HALLOWEEN's Michael Myers in terms of slasher horror iconography. Jason wasn't even the killer in the first FRIDAY film: he's only mentioned as the drowned son of Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer), revealed to be the killer, who's seeking revenge on past camp counselors who were fooling around and not paying attention while he cried for help, struggling to stay above the waters of Crystal Lake. Jason only appears in a dream scene at the end, but takes center stage as the suddenly very much alive killer in FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2, seeking revenge for the killing of his mother. It was Jason who would become the focal point of the franchise from then on (except for 1985's FRIDAY THE 13TH: A NEW BEGINNING, which has a killer dressed as Jason), though starting with 1986's witty, self-mocking FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES, the series would abandon any illusion of seriousness, resulting in gimmicky fare like 1988's FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN, and culminating in 2002's JASON X, which finds the killer awakening from a cryogenic sleep in outer space in the year 2455. By this time, the rights to the character had drifted from Paramount to New Line, who owned A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, and 2003 saw the release of FREDDY VS. JASON, the last in the original series, which was rebooted in 2009 with FRIDAY THE 13TH to middling interest and thus far, appears to be stalled.
Jason's FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 "sackhead" look, very reminiscent
of the killer in the 1977 cult classic THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN
The iconic hockey mask look that started with FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III, which became the second film of the summer to knock E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL out of the top spot at the box office, is also an important film for the franchise in that it's the first time Jason (played here by Richard Brooker) wears his trademark hockey mask. He had the one-eyed "sackhead" look in PART 2, and he acquires the hockey mask after killing the hapless, buffoonish Shelley (Larry Zerner), who was wearing it at the time. Jason sports the mask for the rest of the film, and the look stuck in subsequent sequels. His first appearance with the hockey mask occurs exactly one hour into PART III and it's one of the series' best moments.
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III also worked in another short-lived early '80s craze: the return of 3-D, which hadn't been widely used since its initial 1953-1954 explosion. Numerous 3-D films were made from 1981-83 before the trend flamed out again: COMIN' AT YA (1981), PARASITE (1982) and several from 1983: TREASURE OF THE FOUR CROWNS, SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE, METALSTORM: THE DESTRUCTION OF JARED-SYN, AMITYVILLE 3-D, and JAWS 3-D.
Also, from a point of personal interest from growing up in Toledo, OH, one of the film's co-stars, Ann Arbor, MI-native Tracie Savage, quit acting after this film to pursue a career in journalism. While watching PART 3 on cable a year or so after seeing in theaters, I recognized her as a reporter for Toledo's then-NBC affiliate WTVG. At the time, being 10 or 11, I couldn't figure out how she managed to go from FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III to being a reporter in my hometown, and that was coupled with the strange feeling of having a seen a well-known local news reporter naked in a horror movie. She was on Los Angeles TV for several years and now handles news radio in the L.A. area, and was even called to the stand to testify during the O.J. Simpson trial in 1995.
Tracie Savage, soon to leave acting for a career in TV news.
FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH was based on a book by Rolling Stone writer Cameron Crowe, who went undercover as a student and chronicled his experiences. Crowe also scripted the film, which featured a large ensemble cast of future stars, including Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, Phoebe Cates, Forest Whitaker, Eric Stoltz, Anthony Edwards, and Nicolas Cage (in his first film, and billed as Nicolas Coppola). But it was Sean Penn's star-making performance as stoner icon Jeff Spicoli that got all the attention, and deservedly so. Whether he's having pizza delivered to Mr. Hand's (Ray Walston) history class or wrecking the star football player's car ("My old man is a television repairman! He's got this ultimate set of tools! I can fix this!"), Spicoli is one of the great movie characters of the 1980s. As funny as Penn is, he largely functions as the comic relief in a film that's not as slapsticky as its ad campaign indicated. Also featuring Tom Petty's "American Girl," Jackson Browne's "Somebody's Baby," The Cars' "Moving in Stereo," and the Go-Go's "We Got the Beat," plus several girls "who've cultivated the Pat Benatar look." 1984 saw the release of the disappointing semi-sequel THE WILD LIFE, also written by Crowe, which followed a group of friends over the summer after graduation. Stoltz returns, but as a different character, and Penn's younger brother Chris stars as the resident party animal of the group, which seems to exist in the same Ridgemont High universe even though no FAST TIMES characters are carried over. FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH also spawned a short-lived 1986 TV series titled FAST TIMES, with Dean Cameron (Chainsaw from 1987's SUMMER SCHOOL) as Spicoli, but it was cancelled after just seven episodes.
PINK FLOYD THE WALL opened in limited release this weekend, and would go wide a month later. Based on the 1979 Pink Floyd album conceived by bassist Roger Waters, THE WALL would become a mainstream success but went on to a long life as a midnight movie. Working with Waters, who wrote the screenplay, and animator Gerald Scarfe, director Alan Parker brought his unique sense of visual style and his keen ability for melding music and imagery (the Giorgio Moroder-propelled chase in 1978's MIDNIGHT EXPRESS, plus films like 1976's BUGSY MALONE, 1980's FAME, 1991's THE COMMITMENTS, and 1996's EVITA) and helped create a truly nightmarish big-screen vision of Waters' bleak, disturbing magnum opus. The film opened to generally positive reviews but it was far from smooth sailing getting it to the screen. Waters planned on starring as Pink, but the role ended up going to Boomtown Rats frontman and future Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof, while Waters and Parker clashed throughout filming. Despite the behind-the-scenes troubles, the film has aged quite well and as far as cinematic rock operas go, it's arguably the best of its kind, with many haunting, unforgettable images throughout.
Also opening on this busy Friday was the very Reagan-era political action thriller THE SOLDIER, directed by James Glickenhaus, who had a huge sleeper hit with 1980's vigilante cult classic THE EXTERMINATOR. Ken Wahl (later of TV's WISEGUY) stars as a US government operative who tangles with an evil KGB agent (Klaus Kinski!) while dealing with a Soviet plot to detonate nukes in a Saudi oil field and contaminate the world's oil supply unless the US President (William Prince) starts a war with Israel. Glickenhaus, who left filmmaking years ago and became a major NYC investment broker and race car collector, was a tremendously underrated action craftsman with films like this, THE EXTERMINATOR, and 1988's SHAKEDOWN. He doesn't run from his B-movie past however, contributing audio commentaries to Synapse Films' recent Blu-ray release of THE EXTERMINATOR and their planned release of his 1991 Christopher Walken actioner MCBAIN. THE SOLDIER is probably best known for its memorable ski chase. And yes, that music is Tangerine Dream.
Lastly, this weekend also saw the re-release of STAR WARS, accompanied by a brief teaser for the next summer's final installment of the trilogy, then titled REVENGE OF THE JEDI before George Lucas changed it to RETURN OF THE JEDI.
