THE LAST HUNTER (Italy - 1980; US release 1984) Directed by Anthony M. Dawson (Antonio Margheriti). Written by Dardano Sacchetti. Cast: David Warbeck, Tisa Farrow, John Steiner, Tony King, Bobby Rhodes, Margi Eveline Newton (Margie Newton), Massimo Vanni, Alan Collins (Luciano Pigozzi), Dino Conti, Gianfranco Moroni, Edoardo Margheriti. (Unrated, 96 mins) Veteran Italian journeyman Antonio Margheriti became synonymous with jungle explosion movies in the 1980s with RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK ripoffs like THE HUNTERS OF THE GOLDEN COBRA, THE ARK OF THE SUN GOD and JUNGLE RAIDERS, and a WILD GEESE-inspired commando trilogy with British TV star Lewis Collins (CODENAME: WILDGEESE, COMMANDO LEOPARD, THE COMMANDER), but it was his partnership with New Zealand-born David Warbeck that initially got the ball rolling. Shot in the Philippines on some of the same locations and abandoned sets from APOCALYPSE NOW, 1980's THE LAST HUNTER (belatedly released in the US in 1984 by World Northal) was the first teaming of the director and star and the first of countless Namspoitation actioners to come from Italy throughout the decade. Filmed under the title IL CACCIATORE 2 in response to the Oscar-winning THE DEER HUNTER being known there as IL CACCIATORE (from Lucio Fulci's ZOMBI 2 to Ciro Ippolito's ALIEN 2: ON EARTH, unofficial bogus sequels were a trend in Italian exploitation at the time), THE LAST HUNTER is more of gritty, down-to-the-basics riff on APOCALYPSE NOW. In January 1973, burned-out Capt. Henry Morris (Warbeck) is given a top secret assignment. Dropped in an area swarming with VietCong, he meets up with a small group of soldiers--Sgt. George Washington (Tony King), Carlos (Bobby Rhodes), and Stinker Smith (Edoardo Margheriti, the director's son and assistant)--who are accompanied by war correspondent Jane Foster (Tisa Farrow) as they make their way toward a destination known only by Morris, who's haunted by the recent suicide of his best friend. They're ambushed by VC along the way, and Stinker is ripped apart by a spiked booby trap, but they eventually find refuge at a rowdy outpost run by the very Kilgore-like Major Cash (John Steiner), who sends daredevil Phillips (Massimo Vanni) on dangerous coconut runs outside the camp's perimeter that are in no way meant to remind you of Lance's surfing during a bombing raid in APOCALYPSE NOW.
Morris' mission is to terminate (with extreme prejudice) a traitorous voice broadcasting anti-American, "Charlie" propaganda over the airwaves in Saigon. The voice is that of an American woman who turns out to be someone close to Morris (making this mission...wait for it...personal) and the embodiment of every enraged, right-wing "Hanoi Jane" caricature you've heard for the last 50 years. Cash complains that the voice is turning his officers against him with statements like "Don't obey your commander...he's only sending you out to die. Go home to your girl, American boy..." while the deeper into the jungle they go, the more Morris and the others start to question why they're even there. It all leads to one of the more downbeat finales in Italian Namsploitation, which was a common theme as these went on. More often than not (Margheriti's TORNADO, Fabrizio De Angelis' COBRA MISSION aka OPERATION NAM), the Italians avoided the revisionist, flag-waving "This time we're gonna win!" mythology of the American Namsploitation movies and went for full-on bleak hopelessness. Of course, in 1980, Sylvester Stallone and Chuck Norris had yet to embark on one-man missions to bring the POWs back home and as such, THE LAST HUNTER is certainly more in line with the grim elements of APOCALYPSE NOW and THE DEER HUNTER, particularly Washington's memorable death scene and Morris' final decision at the end. It's also quite brutal and often incredibly gory, so much so that it earned a spot on the UK's infamous "Video Nasties" list. Margheriti wasn't one to indulge in the graphic gore of his contemporaries like Lucio Fulci and Umberto Lenzi, but 1980 saw him going all in on the splatter. The same year, he directed CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE, his lone entry into the Italian cannibal cycle. Also known as CANNIBALS IN THE STREETS and INVASION OF THE FLESH HUNTERS, the film fuses the cannibal subgenre with Namsploitation, as Vietnam vets John Saxon, Giovanni Lombardo Radice ("John Morghen") and THE LAST HUNTER's Tony King return home infected by a cannibal virus, their PTSD manifesting itself as an insatiable craving for human flesh that sends them on a rampage through Atlanta.
Typically, Margheriti would use gore sparingly to focus more on action, of which THE LAST HUNTER--written by frequent Fulci collaborator Dardano Sacchetti--has plenty. Displaying more explosions and firefights than perhaps the rest of Margheriti's filmography combined, THE LAST HUNTER is old-school and has a cut-the-bullshit attitude, especially in the way it shows off the kind of dangerous stunt work that would never fly today (there's one shot of an explosion going off near Warbeck and Farrow that's pretty ballsy on the part of both actors). You can feel the sweltering heat and humidity in the obviously unpleasant shooting conditions. Of course, this being an Antonio Margheriti film, there's also the usual display of Margheriti miniatures as well as some explosions in the opening sequence that's mostly recycled footage from 1978's THE SQUEEZE and 1979's KILLER FISH. But overall, THE LAST HUNTER is one of the great Namsploitation offerings and a masterpiece from the glory days of the Italian Ripoff. It helped set the course for Margheriti's output for the rest of the decade and established Warbeck as an action star in Italy. Known for some UK TV roles and small parts in British horror films like TROG, TWINS OF EVIL, and CRAZE, as James Coburn's doomed friend in Sergio Leone's DUCK, YOU SUCKER, and as the male lead in Russ Meyer's BLACK SNAKE, Warbeck's status as a Eurocult legend would be cemented thanks to his work with Margheriti and Lucio Fulci in the 1980s. Warbeck's star would dim as the Italian exploitation cycle declined in the late '80s, but he did land one major A-list gig with a supporting role in the 1984 Tom Selleck vehicle LASSITER. Code Red/Kino Lorber's new LAST HUNTER Blu-ray (boasting the obligatory Code Red packaging typos as producer Gianfranco Couyoumdjian becomes "Grand Franco Couyoumdjian"--honesty, isn't "Gianfranco" the easy part of that name?) also features an interview with the well-traveled Tony King, who retired from the NFL after one season with the Buffalo Bills in 1967 before drifting into modeling and acting in the early '70s. His standout performance in 1975's underrated REPORT TO THE COMMISSIONER should've made him a star, but nothing happened, and by 1980, he was working in Italy, reteaming with Margheriti and Warbeck for 1982's TIGER JOE. He moved into social activism and upon changing his name to Malik Farrakhan in the late '80s, became well-known as the head of security for Public Enemy. King's life and career have gone down some unexpected paths, and he has some good stories about working in Italy, and fond memories of the cast and other films he's worked on, though the interview's most memorable moment is when someone starts banging on his door and shouting "Tony, open the motherfuckin' door!"
OPERATION NAM aka COBRA MISSION (Italy/West Germany - 1986; US release 1987) Directed by Larry Ludman (Fabrizio De Angelis). Written by Gianfranco Clerici, Vincenzo Mannino, Larry Ludman (Fabrizio De Angelis) and Erwin C. Dietrich. Cast: Oliver Tobias, Christopher Connelly, Manfred Lehman, John Steiner, Donald Pleasence, Ethan Wayne, Gordon Mitchell, Enzo G. Castellari, Enio Girolami, Alan Collins (Luciano Pigozzi), Aldo Massasso, David Light. (Unrated, 87 mins) "Forget about it, man. It's Vietnam." This Italian-German Namsploitation actioner was shot in 1985 as COBRA MISSION but unreleased in the US until 1987, when it went straight to video courtesy of Imperial Entertainment, who retitled it OPERATION NAM, as Vietnam movies were in vogue in months after PLATOON. In West Germany, COBRA MISSION was known as THE RETURN OF THE WILD GEESE in an effort to tie it in with Antonio Margheriti's WILD GEESE ripoff CODENAME: WILDGEESE (1984), as both films shared German co-producer Erwin C. Dietrich. An unusually downbeat and cynical example of the '80s P.O.W. rescue movie, COBRA MISSION/OPERATION NAM avoids the flag-waving, "Born in the USA," "America! Fuck yeah!" jingoism of the Reagan era, when blockbusters like RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II went back to Vietnam to refight the war with a guaranteed American victory. OPERATION NAM shares the distrust of the powers that be exemplified by Charles Napier's duplicitous Murdock in RAMBO, but it goes further by letting the corrupt US government and military win and having the good guys lose the war a second time. The heroes of OPERATION NAM aren't killing machines like Sylvester Stallone's John Rambo or Chuck Norris' James Braddock in the MISSING IN ACTION movies. They're normal, everyday guys like the Vietnam vets in Ted Kotcheff's UNCOMMON VALOR. OPERATION NAM has some valid points to make and its finale is an unexpectedly subversive gut-punch, but it's still a Namsploitation B-movie directed by Fabrizio De Angelis, under his usual pseudonym "Larry Ludman." Much better known as a producer (ZOMBIE, THE BEYOND, 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS) than a director--something he didn't start doing until 1983's FIRST BLOOD ripoff THUNDER WARRIOR-- De Angelis blows things up impressively, but the film is ragged and filled with amateurish continuity gaffes (like one character going back and forth from light stubble to a two-week beard, often in the same scene) and sloppy corner-cutting, often glossing over important details just to get to the next explosion.
Unable to adjust to civilian life in the decade-plus since they returned home from Vietnam, three Arizona men impulsively decide to mount a hastily-planned P.O.W. rescue mission: henpecked Roger (Christopher Connelly) plays video games all day and hates his wife, his daughter, and his life in general; drifter Mark (Manfred Lehman) just walked out on a shitty job at a desert bar; and unemployed James (John Steiner) has just pawned his service medals so he can afford a suit to wear to Roger's daughter's wedding. The vets share crass, vulgar war stories and offend the other guests--all rich friends of Roger's nagging wife--who drop unsubtle lines that scream "MESSAGE!" like one pompous asshole declaring "Those Marines are trained for combat, but they're only happy when they're fighting in war." The three men ditch the wedding and pay a visit to their old commander, Major Morris (cult director Enzo G. Castellari), who was railroaded out of the Marines for his persistence in pushing the issue of rescuing P.O.W.s still left behind in Vietnam, a topic that those high up the military chain of command, like stern Col. Mortimer (Gordon Mitchell), refuse to discuss or even acknowledge. The guys visit another vet buddy, Richard (top-billed Oliver Tobias of THE STUD), who's crashing in a mental institution for free meals and easy sex with the nurses, improbably break him out of the facility and head to Bangkok. "There's only one problem...how do I get outta here?" Richard asks, as De Angelis immediately cuts to the four men driving around Bangkok, never bothering to show how they managed to get Richard out of the hospital.
Taking $30,000 from a corrupt, Bangkok-based contractor (Enio Girolami) who cons grieving families of their hard-earned money by promising to find their MIA sons, the quartet head to Vietnam meet up with Father Lenoir (Donald Pleasence), a French priest who's been in the region since the 1950s and supplies them with weapons, ammo, and maps to still-operational P.O.W. camps. Typical Namsploitation antics ensue, with the guys mowing down numerous Viet Cong soldiers and eventually finding a camp with several Americans still being held captive. In a plot development that echoes RAMBO and the untrustworthy Murdock, Roger and the others find out that the US government and military are fully aware of the remaining P.O.W.s, and that they were left behind and labeled "war criminals" as part of the agreement to end the war. US inspectors visit the camps every year or so to check up on everyone, always promising that "We're gonna bring you home soon," and they never do, and Roger and the others who went on this unauthorized rescue mission find themselves in over their heads with a government that needs them to keep their mouths shut.
Perhaps because European producers didn't have an American flag to fly behind tough guy stars like Sylvester Stallone, Chuck Norris, and David Carradine (who's literally draped in an American flag at the end of the 1986 Cannon production P.O.W.: THE ESCAPE), bleak endings were nothing new with Italian Namsploitation movies. Two films by Antonio Margheriti--1980's THE LAST HUNTER and 1983's TORNADO--have bum-out final shots that send the audience out sulking. Even taking those into consideration, OPERATION NAM is a little more subversive than you might expect, going full PARALLAX VIEW in the home stretch and boasting one of the more ballsy downer endings you'll see in the Namsploitation genre, one that not only paints the government as not giving a shit about those who risk their lives fighting for their country, but actively silencing those who pose a risk of shattering the illusion of America. Until then, it's fairly typical of mid '80s Italian action, complete with some of the same Arizona locations seen in films like THUNDER WARRIOR and HANDS OF STEEL, location work in the Philippines filling in for Vietnam, questionable dubbing choices (Tobias, Lehman, and Steiner are all dubbed, with British Steiner given a ridiculously overripe Southern good ol' boy accent), a slumming guest star cameo (in this case, Pleasence, who's in the movie for five minutes, tops), and Connelly ad-libbing the same bizarre insults he used in almost all of his many Italian trash movies of the period (yes, his old standbys "flyface" and the ubiquitous "suckfish" make appearances here).
Ethan Wayne hanging with his dad on the
set of 1973's THE TRAIN ROBBERS
When Imperial Entertainment's VHS release of OPERATION NAM arrived in video stores, the pre-release promo and the cover art hyped the presence of Ethan Wayne. The sixth of John Wayne's seven children and named after his father's character in THE SEARCHERS, Ethan Wayne (who's also gone by "John Ethan Wayne") has a supporting role as one of the P.O.W.s and figures prominently in the depressing finale, but Imperial's tag line screamed "In the John Wayne action-packed tradition comes his son Ethan Wayne," plastered over a pic of Oliver Tobias blowing someone away. Born in 1962 to John Wayne and his third wife Pilar, Ethan Wayne started out with bit parts in some of his dad's late-period westerns like 1970's RIO LOBO and 1971's BIG JAKE, and eventually moved into stunt work. He made a brief detour to Italy in an attempt to start a career as an action star, but all he got were roles in two Fabrizio De Angelis films, starring in 1984's Arizona-shot THE MANHUNT, plus his supporting role in OPERATION NAM. Wayne got a few TV guest spots over the years and had a lengthy run on the daytime soap THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL, but things never took off for him and he never even got as big as Patrick Wayne, let alone their old man. These days, Ethan is in charge of overseeing his father's estate and all of its business concerns, and he runs the John Wayne Cancer Foundation charity. Tobias, meanwhile, would reunite with De Angelis for 1990's insane THE LAST MATCH, without question the greatest football commando movie ever made, with Tobias as a superstar QB whose daughter is abducted in a South American country, prompting him to take his team--played by off-season members of the Miami Dolphins and the Buffalo Bills, including then-Bills QB Jim Kelly--on a rescue mission as they attack the villain's compound in full game-day attire, complete with their coach (Ernest Borgnine) calling coordinated plays ("Hut! Hut!") and their kicker punting footballs stuffed with grenades.
Under its original COBRA MISSION title, the film was enough of a success in Europe and Asia that De Angelis produced the 1988 sequel COBRA MISSION 2, directed by Camilo Teti (a production manager for Sergio Leone on ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST and DUCK, YOU SUCKER and for Dario Argento on THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE) under the pseudonym "Mark Davis," with the younger and more Stallone-esque Brett Clark (BACHELOR PARTY, EYE OF THE EAGLE, DELTA FORCE COMMANDO) as someone named Roger--though it doesn't seem as if he's playing the same Roger as Connelly, who died of cancer in 1988--who's off the grid and working black ops for the US government, sent to help freedom fighters depose a Latin American dictator. COBRA MISSION 2 can be found on the bootleg circuit, but was never released in the US and has fallen into total obscurity.
SPOILER ALERT
Note: the version of OPERATION NAM that's streaming on Amazon Prime, under the original title COBRA MISSION, has a bizarre edit in the final scene that eliminates crucial information and inadvertently gives the film an anticlimactic and confusing wrap-up that significantly cushions the blow. After the men leave Vietnam and head home, forced by the military to leave the P.O.W.s behind, Mortimer is shown arriving at a hospital and saluting an apparently shell-shocked, motionless, wheelchair-bound Richard. The Amazon version eliminates a POV shot of Moritmer walking down the hallway to Richard's room as captions reveal that Roger and James both died mysterious deaths immediately after their attempted rescue mission, the implications being that they were murdered and Richard has been given a ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST lobotomy and dumped back in the V.A. hospital to keep quiet about what he knows. This scene is actually shown in full in the COBRA MISSION trailer above, so it's odd that it's incomplete in the Amazon Prime version, which actually runs two minutes longer and has more violence and gore than Imperial Entertainment's 85-minute VHS release of OPERATION NAM.
EXTERMINATORS OF THE YEAR 3000 (Italy/Spain - 1983; US release 1985) Directed by Jules Harrison (Giuliano Carnimeo). Written by Elisa Briganti, Dardano Sacchetti and Jose Truchado Reyes. Cast: Robert Jannucci (Robert Iannucci), Alicia Moro, Alan Collins (Luciano Pigozzi), Eduardo Fajardo, Fred Harris (Fernando Bilbao), Beryl Cunningham, Luca Venantini, Venantino Venantini, Anna Orso, Sergio Mioni, Jose Chinchilla, Goffredo Unger. (R, 90 mins)
One of the more stunt-crazed entries in the Italian post-nuke onslaught that followed the success of THE ROAD WARRIOR in 1982, EXTERMINATORS OF THE YEAR 3000 kicks off what appears to be a post-apocalypse revival of sorts on Blu-ray, apparently to coincide with George Miller's upcoming reboot MAD MAX: FURY ROAD. Shout! Factory recently released EXTERMINATORS on Blu-ray (they're also handling the original MAD MAX, and Blue Underground will be releasing 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS, ESCAPE FROM THE BRONX, and THE NEW BARBARIANS this summer) in an anamorphic widescreen transfer that's a significant upgrade to the decent-looking but cropped 1.33:1 edition released on DVD by Code Red in 2010. EXTERMINATORS is surprisingly good for its type, with director Giuliano Carnimeo--using the pseudonym "Jules Harrison"--indulging in some ridiculous stunts and car wrecks as well as keeping a distinct western motif to the proceedings--even shooting in and outside of Almeria, Spain, where most of the classic spaghettis were filmed--that echoes the numerous spaghetti westerns he made in the late '60s and early '70s under his usual "Anthony Ascott" nom de plume. Carnimeo dabbled in various genres, as Italian journeymen were wont to do, but he was best known for his several SARTANA westerns with titles like SARTANA THE GRAVEDIGGER (1968), and the 1970 ellipses trio of SARTANA'S COMING...GET YOUR COFFINS READY, HAVE A GOOD FUNERAL, MY FRIEND...SARTANA WILL PAY, and LIGHT THE FUSE...SARTANA IS COMING.
Presumably set in the year 3000, where cars from the late 1970s are still surprisingly functional after 1020 or so years, EXTERMINATORS centers on nomadic, lone-wolf road warrior Alien (Robert Iannucci, billed as "Robert Jannucci"), who reluctantly finds himself helping young Tommy (CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD's Luca Venantini). Tommy and his family are part of a ragtag community overseen by a Bible-thumper calling himself The Senator (Eduardo Fajardo), and he stowed away on a recon mission in search of both water and Tommy's father, who's been missing and presumed dead weeks after being sent on the same hunt for water. The recon mission, led by Tommy's father's best friend (Venantino Venantini), is promptly ambushed by a band of marauding lunatics led by Crazy Bull (Fernando Bilbao, billed as "Fred Harris") and Shadow (Beryl Cunningham) in a truly memorable sequence filled with amazing stunt driving and exploding cars and craniums. Tommy, who has a biomechanical right arm (this is never really explained--he just has it) teams up with Alien, who's already pissed off Crazy Bull by stealing his beloved car "The Exterminator," and they make their way to grizzled old astronaut-turned-mechanic Papillon (Luciano Pigozzi, under his usual "Alan Collins" pseudonym). Papillon tweaks Tommy's bionic arm to make it super-powerful, capable of throwing something to split someone's skull at 200 yards. Into this impromptu group of Humanity's Only Hope comes Trash (Alicia Moro), Alien's car-stealing ex, and the four team up to gather water from a nearby mutant stronghold while constantly fighting off attacks by Crazy Bull and his "Mothergrabbers," as he calls them. It's mostly typical Italian post-nuke silliness, but EXTERMINATORS OF THE YEAR 3000 has an undeniable energy to it with some of the best action sequences in the entire subgenre. Before the script--co-written by Italian horror stalwarts Elisa Briganti and Dardano Sacchetti--falls apart and stupidity takes over (Alien and Trash find the scarce, precious water and of course, start playfully splashing one another with it), there's actually some legitimate attempts at character development. Alien, Trash, Tommy, and Papillon form a classic spaghetti western "unholy alliance" that puts the film firmly into Carnimeo's wheelhouse.
Carnimeo got out of spaghetti westerns as the genre started slowing down in the early '70s. He dabbled in gialli (THE CASE OF THE BLOODY IRIS) and erotic dramas (the Edwige Fenech vehicle SECRETS OF A CALL GIRL) before directing several "Butch and Toby" buddy comedy actioners starring Paul Smith and "Michael Coby" (actually Italian actor Antonio Cantafora), who had a brief run in Italy as the second-string Bud Spencer and Terence Hill. 1975's CONVOY BUDDIES was released in the US in 1978 by Film Ventures, and Smith filed a lawsuit against the company when he and Cantafora were billed in the advertising as "Bob Spencer" and "Terrence Hall" in an effort to fool hopefully inattentive moviegoers into thinking it was the latest film from the popular TRINITY duo. Carnimeo made a few obscure sex comedies before directing EXTERMINATORS, but the now 82-year-old director has been inactive since 1988's RATMAN, which has attained minor cult status thanks to the presence of Nelson de la Rosa as a half-monkey/half-rat mutant running loose on a Caribbean island. De la Rosa would go on to play Marlon Brando's "Mini-Me"-inspiring sidekick in 1996's ill-fated THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU and those connections generated some belated interest in RATMAN years after it was made, and his involvement was enough to get it released on DVD in the UK with the tagline "He's the critter from the shitter." RATMAN sounds a lot more fun than it really is, and it seems to be the final chapter in Carnimeo's career.
EXTERMINATORS OF THE YEAR 3000 was a one-and-done venture into acting for Ohio-born Calvin Klein model Iannucci, unless you count a bit part in the 1982 comedy YOUNG DOCTORS IN LOVE. He looks the part, though he's dubbed by veteran voice artist Larry Dolgin. The towering Bilbao, also known to Eurotrash fans for his appearances as the Frankenstein monster in Jess Franco's 1972 double-shot of DRACULA, PRISONER OF FRANKENSTEIN and THE EROTIC RITES OF FRANKENSTEIN, makes an imposing villain with his very Wez-like look, though dubber Robert Sommer carries a lot of the weight, bellowing Ron Burgundy-isms like "By the beard of the prophet!" EXTERMINATORS was picked up by New Line Cinema and released in the US in January 1985, after which the Thorn/EMI VHS could be found in any video store in America.
Unfortunately, Shout! Factory's otherwise fine edition of EXTERMINATORS OF THE YEAR 3000 features the 2010 Code Red commentary track with Iannucci and temperamental Code Red head Bill Olsen. True to form as the worst commentary figure in the biz, Olsen torpedoes it almost immediately by grumbling "I'm only putting this out to prove that it doesn't sell" before indulging in his usual unfunny schtick of intentionally mispronouncing names ("Anna Onion!" he says when he sees the name "Anna Onori") or taking shots at things like Detto Mariano's score and Cunningham's "big ass," and spending almost the entire track complaining about how much he dislikes the movie and how "boring" it is (less than five minutes in, Olsen gripes "No offense, Bob, but this needs more action"). At first, Iannucci seems eager to talk about EXTERMINATORS and has a good memory for the details of the shoot, but his sincerity quickly succumbs to Olsen's cynicism and he joins him in the mockery and the bitching ("Any last words?" Olsen asks at the end, to which Iannucci replies "Thank God it's over"). If you've ever experienced a Bill Olsen commentary track or witnessed his behavior online and on social media, where he claims nothing he releases sells and he frequently berates his customers, it's hard to tell if it's some kind of Andy Kaufman performance art or if he's genuinely mentally unstable. Olsen has released some fine product through Code Red and for that he should be commended, but reputable companies like Shout! and Scorpion (the latter run by Olsen's more even-tempered and socially adept brother Walter) continuing to showcase his tiresome antics on commentary tracks, ruining potentially serious discussions and good-natured reminiscing with his inane questions, pathetic jokes, and shitty attitude, is a practice that needs to stop.
Written and directed by Warren Kiefer. Cast: Christopher Lee, Gaia Germani, Philippe Leroy, Mirko Valentin, Donald Sutherland, Anthony Martin (Antonio De Martino), Jack Stany (Jacques Stany), Luke Pigozzi (Luciano Pigozzi), David Pappas (Renato Terra), Lewis Bonos (Luigi Bonos), Ike Pallacn (Ennio Antonelli). (Unrated, 90 mins)
Trailblazing directors like Riccardo Freda and Mario Bava ushered in a series of Italian-made, Gothic-styled horror films throughout the early '60s. These are thought to have been inspired by the success of Hammer Films' THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957) and HORROR OF DRACULA (1958), as well as Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe cycle, but though it wasn't released in the UK until 1960 and the US in 1963, Freda's 1957 film I VAMPIRI (partially directed by Bava) was made at roughly the same time the British horror cycle kicked off, and preceded Corman's Poe films by three years. Freda also directed the 1962 classic THE HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK and its 1963 sequel THE GHOST, while Bava made his name with the legendary BLACK SUNDAY (1960) and THE WHIP AND THE BODY, aka WHAT! (1963). As is the norm with trends in Italian genre cinema, other journeyman directors took stabs at the Gothic scene filled with haunted castles and dark family secrets: Antonio Margheriti's HORROR CASTLE aka THE VIRGIN OF NUREMBERG (1963), CASTLE OF BLOOD (1964), and THE LONG HAIR OF DEATH (also 1964); Mario Caiano's NIGHTMARE CASTLE (1965); Camilo Mastrocinque's TERROR IN THE CRYPT (1964); and Massimo Pupillo's BLOODY PIT OF HORROR (1965) just to name a few.
After a decade in bit parts and small supporting roles, Christopher Lee finally became a star with THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and HORROR OF DRACULA, and hasn't stopped working since. Shortly after finding stardom, he tested the waters of the Italian film industry with the 1959 vampire spoof UNCLE WAS A VAMPIRE and Bava's HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD (1961). Over 1963 and 1964, Lee starred in five Italian-made Gothic horror films: Giuseppe Veggezzi's little-seen and presumed-lost KATARSIS, Margheriti's HORROR CASTLE, Bava's THE WHIP AND THE BODY, Mastrocinque's TERROR IN THE CRYPT, and finally, THE CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD. LIVING DEAD isn't the best of Lee's contributions to the Italian Gothic cycle (that would be THE WHIP AND THE BODY), but its fascinating backstory, confusion over exactly who directed it, and that it features the film debut of an unknown Donald Sutherland in two roles (more on that in a bit), have combined to keep its cult status going for nearly 50 years.
It's hard to pin down exactly what happened behind the scenes on THE CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD, since even reputable sources--from IMDb to TCM.com--are riddled with incorrect information. For years, Herbert Wise was considered the director of the film. But "Herbert Wise" was a pseudonym for Luciano Ricci. Using pseudonyms was a very common practice for Italian directors during this period, in order to make the films seem more British or American (Freda was frequently credited as "Robert Hampton"; Margheriti started going by "Anthony M. Dawson" and stayed that way for the rest of his career; Bava is credited as "John M. Old" on THE WHIP AND THE BODY). Ricci/"Wise" was credited on European prints while Warren Kiefer was credited on the US release. Years of confusion and the use of pseudonyms perpetuated the myth that "Warren Kiefer" was a pseudonym for a Lorenzo Sabatini, when in fact, it was the other way around. Kiefer (1929-sometime in the early 2000s) was an American writer and documentary filmmaker who ended up in Europe by the early 1960s and met expat American producer Paul Maslansky, who would return to the US in the 1970s and go on to have his biggest success overseeing the POLICE ACADEMY franchise. Maslansky and Kiefer conceived the LIVING DEAD story and Kiefer ended up directing the film. Ricci/"Wise" was actually the assistant director but was given full directing credit on the Italian prints for quota purposes, to satisfy a government subsidies requirement that the director be Italian. Further complicating the issue is that Maslansky hired 21-year-old Michael Reeves to handle the second unit and make some uncredited script contributions. Maslansky met Reeves during the filming of the 1964 Richard Widmark/Sidney Poitier epic THE LONG SHIPS, where Maslansky was an assistant to the producer and Reeves was hired on as a low-level directorial assistant. Reeves would go on to direct 1968's WITCHFINDER GENERAL before his tragic death from a barbiturate overdose in 1969 at just 25 years of age. Reeves' untimely death and small body of work have made him the sort-of Kurt Cobain of British horror and there's been no shortage of "What might've been?" hypotheticals about how his career--taking off after the stunning WITCHFINDER--would've panned out had he lived. The Reeves legend further fanned the flames of bewilderment over who did what on THE CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD. Reeves fans, of course, claim that all of the good stuff in LIVING DEAD was directed by him. Even if his duties were limited to running the second unit and punching up the script a bit, Reeves made enough of a good impression on Maslansky for the producer to give him his first shot at directing his own film with 1966's THE SHE-BEAST.
But the last word should probably go to Donald Sutherland, who has said in interviews over the years that he named his son Kiefer (born in 1966) after the director of his first film. Warren Kiefer made a few more films in Italy, sometimes utilizing the "Lorenzo Sabatini" name to, oddly enough, make them appear more Italian, and eventually became a novelist. He was tracked down for an interview not long before his death--an interview that featured a photo of him directing some actors on the set--and explained that he directed THE CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD, that Ricci was his assistant, and that Reeves worked on the second unit. Sutherland naming his son after Kiefer would seem to corroborate at least the "Warren Kiefer was the real director" claim. Turner Classic Movies recently aired an unfortunately subpar print (widescreen, but blurry and improperly-framed--probably from fake letterboxing--with the tops of everyone's heads cut off) that credited Kiefer as the director in one of three different spellings: he has a story credit as "Warren Kiefer," a screenplay credit as "Warren Keifer," and a director credit as "Warren Kieffer."
The film has a traveling circus troupe led by siblings Laura (Gaia Germani) and Bruno (Jacques Stany) being invited to the castle of area nobleman Count Drago (a gaunt Lee, sporting dark circles under his eyes and a hipster goatee). En route, they're joined by Eric (Philippe Leroy), an officer whose horse was stolen by troupe member Dart (Luciano Pigozzi), and they're accosted by a hideous, hunchbacked old witch who warns them to avoid "The Castle of the Living Dead." That the witch is played a dubbed Sutherland in drag is probably the biggest attraction to this for cult horror fans. Sutherland also turns up later, dubbing himself and mugging shamelessly as Sgt. Paul, a doofus police official who functions as Drago's flunky and the film's comic relief. Once at Drago's castle, the circus folks find themselves the unwitting victims in their host's diabolical scheme. With the help of his evil henchman Sandro (Mirko Valentin, who co-starred with Lee in HORROR CASTLE), Drago has created a serum derived from tropical plant secretions that causes the victim to freeze in place, dying immediately. Drago has what is assumed to be a taxidermy hobby but it's actually animals he's killed with the serum, and he's ready to try it on humans.
The plot is silly, to put it mildly, and Leroy's Eric is a pretty dense hero who takes forever to figure out what Drago's up to. Even when Drago tells him all about the serum and the animals he's used it on, the most Eric can muster is an indifferent "Oh?" Utilizing black & white, Kiefer and cinematographer Aldo Tonti have a nice Gothic look to the whole thing, filled with ominous shadows and howling winds, and it would probably look terrific in a properly remastered version instead of the shit sandwich of a print TCM aired. There's one incredibly striking shot late in the film that ranks with the macabre best of Bava: the discovery of the corpse of Drago's late wife, propped up in bed, perfectly still, head positioned toward a handheld mirror in her right hand as if frozen in time, admiring her own beauty for all eternity...as spiders crawl over her and rats gnaw on her fingers.
Lee, on set for ten of the film's 24-day shooting schedule, is good as Count Drago (a name in no way meant to invoke his fame as Count Dracula), and unlike some of his Italian and German films from this period, he actually dubs himself, which is important when you have a voice as distinctive as Christopher Lee's. The voices used to dub him in HORROR CASTLE, THE WHIP AND THE BODY, and especially the 1962 German film SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE DEADLY NECKLACE were distractingly inappropriate at best and complete deal-breakers at worst. Lee and Maslansky became friends during the making of LIVING DEAD, with Lee acting in several future Maslansky productions, including RAW MEAT (1973), CIRCLE OF IRON (1978), THE SALAMANDER (1981), HONEYMOON ACADEMY (1990), and the unfortunate POLICE ACADEMY: MISSION TO MOSCOW (1994), a sequel so dire that even Bubba Smith opted out of it. This would be Lee's last Italian film of this period, as he would soon return to the UK for such iconic classics as DRACULA: PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1965) and DR. TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS (1965), which also co-starred Sutherland. The Canadian Sutherland would work in British TV for a few years before getting his big break as one of THE DIRTY DOZEN (1967) and becoming a full-fledged Hollywood A-lister with 1970's MASH.
The surplus of erroneous information that's out there regarding THE CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD even extends to the cast: one of the circus troupe members is a dwarf named Nick, played by Italian actor Antonio De Martino, who's credited as "Anthony Martin." De Martino only acted in a couple of other films, but going as "Anthony Martin" in this one has led some to confuse him with Skip Martin, another actor of short stature from that period, best known as Hop-Toad in Roger Corman's THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (1964) as well as from other prominent roles in CIRCUS OF FEAR (1966) and VAMPIRE CIRCUS (1972). The surname and the recurring circus motif are certainly noteworthy coincidences, and to their credit, IMDb hasn't confused the actors, but there's a lot of sources out there--including the otherwise reliable Warren Kiefer piece linked a few paragraphs up--that think Antonio De Martino/"Anthony Martin" and Skip Martin are the same person, when a look at photos of each pretty definitively show that they aren't.
Antonio De Martino/"Anthony Martin"
Skip Martin
Also causing confusion: Lee's 1967 film TORTURE CHAMBER OF DR. SADISM has numerous alternate titles, one of which is CASTLE OF THE WALKING DEAD. Lee's 1973 film NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT, the sole, misfired effort by his short-lived production company Charlemagne, went by a ton of different titles in any effort whatsoever to make the dull thriller appealing to audiences, including THE DEVIL'S UNDEAD, THE RESURRECTION SYNDICATE, and...wait for it...THE CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD, which is especially odd considering there's neither a castle nor living dead in the film.
THE CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD--the real CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD--was released in the US in 1965 by Woolner Brothers before making a quick turnaround to the small screen as part of an AIP-TV syndication package, and it was a late-night/Saturday afternoon Creature Feature fixture well into the '80s. It isn't a great film by any means--though a better transfer prepared with some care would go far in pleading its case--but there's enough history to it that it's worth a look on that alone. It's definitely required viewing for fans/completists of Lee, Sutherland, Reeves, and Italian horror of that period, and is almost worth seeing just for the scene with Drago's wife or any scene with Sutherland as the witch. His first time on the big screen and he was lucky enough to get a director who would indulge his sometimes hammy tendencies right out of the gate. Obviously, this meant a lot to the young actor, who held his first film director in high enough regard to name his son after him. And as far as who directed the film, it's worth noting that Kiefer Sutherland isn't named "Reeves Sutherland," "Ricci Sutherland," or "Sabatini Sutherland."
Directed by Anthony M. Dawson (Antonio Margheriti). Written by Giovanni Simonelli. Cast: Christopher Connelly, Marina Costa, Lee Van Cleef, Alan Collins (Luciano Pigozzi), Mike Monty, Rene Abadeza, Protacio Dee (PG-13, 94 mins/101 mins)
The Italian exploitation scene wasted no time ripping off Steven Spielberg's 1981 blockbuster RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, with veteran journeyman Antonio Margheriti (YOR: THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE), aka "Anthony M. Dawson," becoming Italy's go-to director for contemporary and period jungle action movies. Going back to the early 1960s, Margheriti dabbled in everything: peplum, sci-fi, gothic horror, 007 ripoffs, spaghetti westerns, martial arts, crime thrillers, and even a ripoff of a ripoff with 1979's PIRANHA-inspired KILLER FISH, but he really found his niche in the 1980s with a near-constant stream of jungle/commando/explosion actioners. In quick succession, the busy Margheriti and his frequent star David Warbeck cranked out HUNTERS OF THE GOLDEN COBRA (1982; released in the US in 1984) and THE ARK OF THE SUN GOD (1984; released in the US in 1986), in addition to their ongoing Vietnam-themed outings like THE LAST HUNTER (1980; released in the US in 1984), and TIGER JOE (1982; released in the US in 1986). In 1985, without Warbeck, Margheriti made one more INDIANA JONES knockoff before turning his attention to a series of WILD GEESE imitations with British TV star Lewis Collins while his contemporaries like Bruno Mattei focused on ripping off RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II. JUNGLE RAIDERS was produced by the Italian B-movie outfit L'Immagine, and was acquired by Cannon and given a very limited US theatrical run in the summer of 1985, making it one of the few Italian exploitation films to not wait anywhere from one to four years to get a token US release. JUNGLE RAIDERS turned up in US video stores not long after and could be found in most of them until the end of the VHS era.
In 1938 Malaysia, adventurer/con artist Duke Howard, better known to the locals as Captain Yankee (Christopher Connelly) and his affable sidekick Gin Fizz (Margheriti regular Luciano Pigozzi, dubbed by the gravelly Robert Spafford) run a scam where they take rich vacationers on a trek to find a rare piece of treasure. However, it's all a staged set-up between Howard and some locals pretending to be "natives," as Howard's pal, US government official Inspector Warren (Lee Van Cleef) looks the other way. Warren comes to Howard with a legit pursuit: lead a pair of academics--Maria Janez (Marina Costa, dubbed by Carolynn De Fonseca) and Professor Lansky (Mike Monty)--deep into the jungle and into a volcano to find the priceless Ruby of Gloom (the US trailer calls it the "Ruby of Doom," which sounds better). Howard isn't too keen on the idea, but agrees when Warren blackmails him with a report from American authorities over a Texas oil man being swindled by a Duke Howard on a search through Mexico for "Montezuma's diamond-studded toilet bowl." Howard, Gin Fizz, and their other pal Alain (the ubiquitous Rene Abadeza, in a rare instance of playing something other than a nameless native in an Italian jungle adventure) lead Maria and Lansky to the Ruby, with Borneo pirates led by the nefarious Tiger (Protacio Dee, dubbed by Ted Rusoff) in hot pursuit.
JUNGLE RAIDERS was made with a larger budget than most Italian copycats, though as he did until the end of his career, Margheriti still relies--perhaps too much--on obvious miniatures for the big explosion and chase sequences. You can clearly see immobile action figures sitting in model trucks in several shots during a big chase. Margheriti tries to be slick about it, but by 1985, it was harder to convincingly pull off these 1950s techniques. Unlike a major Hollywood movie, Margheriti's miniatures are so obvious that they only succeed in drawing attention to themselves rather then seemlessly blending. And the less said about the precocious child who can communicate with his lovable pet cobra (!), the better. Still, it's a fun and fast-paced B-movie, with enjoyable performances by Connelly, Van Cleef, and Pigozzi.
JUNGLE RAIDERS wasn't Cannon's first RAIDERS/INDIANA JONES ripoff: Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus also had their in-house Allan Quatermain franchise kick off in 1985 with J. Lee Thompson's remake of KING SOLOMON'S MINES, with Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone, which was followed by a 1987 sequel ALLAN QUATERMAIN AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD. Additionally, Golan & Globus handled Ferdinando Baldi's 1983 3D Italian/Spanish co-production TREASURE OF THE FOUR CROWNS, with forgotten American-born '60s spaghetti western third-stringer Tony Anthony as one J.T. Striker (in his introduction to FOUR CROWNS on The Movie Channel's Drive-In Theater, Joe Bob Briggs called it "the first hit in a series of one for Tony"). By the time JUNGLE RAIDERS was released, RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II happened and, using the same Filipino locations, most of the Italians gradually moved on to RAMBO ripoffs and other Namsploitation, most notably Bruno Mattei's infamous STRIKE COMMANDO, which co-starred Connelly, Pigozzi, and Monty (in 1987, a badly-dubbed Connelly also took on the mandatory professor role in another Italian RAIDERS ripoff, Mino Guerrini's rock-bottom THE MINES OF KILIMANJARO). Margheriti belatedly joined the RAMBO game with 1989's INDIO (featuring the once-in-a-lifetime pairing of Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Brian Dennehy, the latter inexplicably slumming in an Italian knockoff at the height of his Hollywood character actor fame) and its 1991 sequel INDIO 2: THE REVOLT, but mainly stayed busy with his WILD GEESE ripoffs: 1984's CODENAME: WILDGEESE (given a decent-sized US release in 1986 by New World), 1985's COMMANDO LEOPARD, and 1988's THE COMMANDER, with the latter two never given official US distribution.
The US release of JUNGLE RAIDERS was uncut and ran 101 minutes, receiving a PG-13 rating from the MPAA, with the VHS print cropping the 2.35 image to the full-frame 1.33. The German print available on the bootleg and torrent circuit, titled DIE JAGER DER GOLDENEN GOTTIN (translated: THE HUNTERS OF THE GOLDEN GODDESS), dubbed in English, omits some of the violence and other minor bits and comes in at 94 minutes, but it's the full 2.35 image, and seeing as its one of Margheriti's and L'Immagine's more generously-budgeted '80s films, obviously benefits greatly from the intended framing.
Directed by Vincent Dawn (Bruno Mattei). Written by Clyde Anderson (Claudio Fragasso). Cast: Reb Brown, Christopher Connelly, Alex Vitale, Loes Kamma (Louise Kamsteeg), Alan Collins (Luciano Pigozzi), Mike Monty, Edison Navarro, Rene Abadeza. (Unrated, 89 mins)
When FIRST BLOOD hit theaters in 1982, it was a relatively low-budget indie that became a surprise hit for Sylvester Stallone, but fell a bit short of achieving ROCKY-level box office. However, it found an even bigger audience on video and cable, and by the time the bigger-budgeted 1985 sequel RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II came out, Stallone's John Rambo, initially a withdrawn, shell-shocked, battle-scarred loner more in line with "crazed Vietnam vet" subgenre protagonists like Robert De Niro in TAXI DRIVER (1976), William Devane in ROLLING THUNDER (1977), and Robert Ginty in THE EXTERMINATOR (1980), became a Rocky-sized American hero and full-fledged cartoon killing machine draped in the American flag. RAMBO, coupled with the Gene Hackman actioner UNCOMMON VALOR (1983), and the Chuck Norris breakout smash MISSING IN ACTION (1984), was a key film in spawning a series of "the war's not over till the last man comes home" Namsploitation flicks, a few of which were domestically-made (1986's P.O.W.: THE ESCAPE with David Carradine, and Norris' two MISSING IN ACTION follow-ups), but most of these titles that flooded video stores came from Italy and particularly the Philippines. Roger Corman associate and Filipino exploitation icon Cirio H. Santiago even had his own direct-to-video Namsploitation franchise with 1987's EYE OF THE EAGLE, which spawned two sequels of its own in addition to a supporting character played by a then-unknown Robert Patrick (four years before TERMINATOR 2) getting his own spinoff film BEHIND ENEMY LINES (1988). Cartoonish fantasies like MISSING IN ACTION and RAMBO and serious films like PLATOON (1986) and FULL METAL JACKET (1987) among many others, kept Namsploitation a very in-demand and financially successful subgenre in the world of video rental well into the 1990s.
Of course, in those days, wherever a popular American film or genre was being ripped off, you can bet there was a crew of Italians working without permits nearby. Fabrizio De Angelis, using his reliable "Larry Ludman" pseudonym, gave us the first notable Italian FIRST BLOOD ripoff with 1983's THUNDER WARRIOR, featuring 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS' Mark Gregory as Thunder, a Native American war vet being run out of town by an asshole sheriff (Bo Svenson). Gregory returned for two sequels, 1986's THUNDER WARRIOR II, which finds Thunder promoted to deputy sheriff with Svenson returning as a different asshole sheriff, and 1988's imaginatively-titled THUNDER WARRIOR III (with John Phillip Law stepping in as the asshole sheriff), but De Angelis never put the Thunder character back in combat, instead choosing to confine his ass-kicking to the surrounding areas of Page, AZ, where the Italian exploitation industry set up shop and made a number of action films in the mid-1980s (busy Italian actor Claudio Cassinelli was killed in a helicopter crash at the Navajo Bridge outside Page in the summer of 1985 while shooting Sergio Martino's cyborg arm-wrestling classic HANDS OF STEEL). De Angelis's 1985 film COBRA MISSION (released in the US in 1987 as OPERATION NAM) had four bored and disgruntled vets heading back to 'Nam to free POWs. Elsewhere, the ever-reliable Antonio Margheriti, who helmed the 1980 APOCALYPSE NOW ripoff THE LAST HUNTER, continued his Namsploitation contributions with TORNADO (1983), but there's one Italian Namsploitation RAMBO ripoff that stands apart from the rest. Yes, I'm talking about Bruno Mattei's ridiculous 1987 trash classic STRIKE COMMANDO.
Mattei (1931-2007), who usually directed under the name "Vincent Dawn," was one of the busiest and least competent of the Italian schlock artists, with 1980's HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD (released in the US in 1983 as NIGHT OF THE ZOMBIES) and the sleazy women-in-prison gems CAGED WOMEN (1984) and WOMEN'S PRISON MASSACRE (1985) to his credit. Mattei's films have their bad movie charms, though it's obvious that his top priority was getting it in the can. Mattei was perhaps Italy's most flagrant ripoff artist. His 1988 film ROBOWAR is an almost scene-for-scene copy of PREDATOR, while 1990's SHOCKING DARK is a blatant ALIENS clone. Towards the end of his life, Mattei was making really cheap films and couldn't even be bothered to shoot imitation scenes and instead opted to just openly steal footage from other movies. One of his last films, 2006's unwatchable THE TOMB, not only rips off the Brendan Fraser-headlined THE MUMMY, but uses footage from it, in addition to RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (!). His last film, 2007's ZOMBIES: THE BEGINNING, somehow manages to work in footage pilfered from 1995's CRIMSON TIDE. In short, Mattei was a real character, and the Philippines-shot STRIKE COMMANDO is one of the all-time great examples of Italian exploitation at its most ludicrous, blatantly copying the plot of RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II and, with a straight face, restaging scenes from it.
Instead of Stallone as John Rambo, we get the great Reb Brown as Mike Ransom. Brown, who actually co-starred in the previously mentioned UNCOMMON VALOR and whose contributions to world cinema have been documented on this blog time and again, opts to not go for the stoical Stallone approach, but instead plays Ransom as if he's constantly having a spaz attack. Brown's signature battle cry, heard in many of his films, is front and center throughout most of STRIKE COMMANDO, which finds Brown's Ransom on a mission to destroy a VC stronghold with the elite Strike Commando unit in Vietnam. Despite the protests of his commander Major Harriman (Filipino B-movie fixture Mike Monty as Richard Crenna), Ransom and his men are left behind to die when overzealous Col. Radek (Christopher Connelly) decides to blow the place up before all the Strike Commandos are out. The last Strike Commando standing, Ransom is nursed back to health by a village of refugees cared for by Frenchman LeDue (Brown's YOR co-star Luciano Pigozzi, using his usual "Alan Collins" pseudonym), who tells Ransom that Russian military officials have been patrolling the area. Back at the base, the traitor Radek (not to be confused with Charles Napier's Murdock from RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II) orders all evidence of the Strike Commando unit to be erased, but Harriman stages a rescue of Ransom, who immediately goes back to the village to rescue the refugees only to find they've been slaughtered by Jakoda (Alex Vitale), a psychotic, hulking Commie killing machine with no tolerance for "Americanskis." Ransom is captured and tortured by Jakoda, eventually escaping and launching a one-man assault on the VC, the Soviets, and other "lousy bastards" that get in his way, as Radek repeatedly ignores Harriman's warnings that Ransom can't be stopped and "There's no one who can touch him in your whole damned army!"
Brown's overwrought, shrieking acting style (as any fans of MST3K's skewering of SPACE MUTINY will recall: "Big McLargehuge!") is the main reason for STRIKE COMMANDO's cult appeal, but don't underestimate the general stupidity of the script by Claudio Fragasso (MONSTER DOG, TROLL 2) and Mattei's inept direction. The dubbing crew also had a field day on this one, especially whomever dubbed Vitale, whose grunting of "Americanski!" reaches ridiculous proportions by the end. There's also some questionable attempts at humor in the opening scene where Ransom and his men are cutting their way through a fence and an African-American Strike Commando remarks "When I was stealin' watermelon back home in Alabama, we had to climb fences, not cut 'em!" What?! There's also Ransom's friendship with mushmouthed young refugee Lao (Edison Navarro), who's always asking Ransom to tell him about Disneyland ("There's popcorn and ice cream growing on trees!"). Of course, Lao is killed by Jakoda, which leads to one of STRIKE COMMANDO's most mocked scenes:
Once Jakoda is introduced, the hilarity is almost non-stop. I love how LeDue tosses a grenade at some VC soldiers and quips "Bonjour!" Wouldn't it be "Au revoir!"? There's a great scene with Ransom taking out some officers on a boat and rigging it with grenades, shouting "Our Father who art in Heaven!" as he jumps off the boat. There's a cut to a long shot as the boat explodes, and it looks a lot like a toy floating around in Mattei's bathtub. And the endless scenes stolen from RAMBO! The torture scenes, the shot of a VC officer in the foreground with Ransom camouflaged in the background (of course, Mattei is too clumsy to pull this off without piecing two shots together, which really dampens the effect), and the way Ransom arrives at Radek's office and shoots everything up while screaming "RADDDDEEEEKKKKKK!" Also hilarious is the first of two climactic brawls between Ransom and Jakoda, which is livened up by the surprise appearance of a huge waterfall.
Christopher Connelly (1941-1988)
Brown would go on working in low-budget Italian and South African action films (including reteaming with Mattei for ROBOWAR) before retiring from acting in the late 1990s. He recently started hitting the convention circuit and, in 2012, shot a still-unreleased horror film titled NIGHT CLAWS. Vitale appeared in a few more Italian exploitation films, most notably BEYOND THE DOOR III (1989), and a pair of late-period post-nuke Z-listers: URBAN WARRIORS (1988) and the hilarious THE BRONX EXECUTIONER (1989). Sadly, Connelly, a veteran American TV actor (PEYTON PLACE) who was reduced to appearing in some really shoddy Italian fare by the end of his career (STRIKE COMMANDO is so sloppy that his last name is misspelled "Connely" in the credits), was already ill with lung cancer while shooting STRIKE COMMANDO, and he's visibly uncomfortable in the obviously hot and humid shooting conditions in Manila (everyone is sweating, but Connelly is completely drenched). He doesn't look well and there's a couple of scenes where you can see his hand shaking, seemingly involuntary. He died the next year at just 47 years of age.
STRIKE COMMANDO went straight to American video stores in late 1987 courtesy of International Video Entertainment, formerly U.S.A. Home Video and later Live Entertainment. It was apparently successful enough in the rest of the world to spawn a Reb Brown-less sequel a year later...
STRIKE COMMANDO 2 (Italy - 1988)
Directed by Vincent Dawn (Bruno Mattei). Written by Claudio Fragasso. Cast: Brent Huff, Mary Stavin, Richard Harris, Vic Diaz, Richard Raymond (Ottaviano Dell'Acqua), Alex McBride (Massimo Vanni), Mel Davidson. (Unrated, 96 mins)
STRIKE COMMANDO 2 may lack the vein-popping histrionics of its predecessor, but in its own way, it's just as insane. Reb Brown is out, replaced by Brent Huff, an American model who was trying to get an action career off the ground. He co-starred with Tawny Kitaen in the cable favorite THE PERILS OF GWENDOLINE IN THE LAND OF THE YIK YAK (1984) and did a few other movies and TV shows, and though he never really got his big break, he remains busy today (his most significant recent credit is guest-starring on a 2010 episode of MAD MEN). Huff essays the Ransom role as more of a cynical smartass as opposed to Brown's testosterone-fueled, pants-shitting 'roid rage portrayal. It doesn't even really feel like a sequel, with the RAMBO elements dropped fairly early on in favor of becoming more of a lighthearted RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK/ROMANCING THE STONE knockoff, complete with the Mattei trademark of scenes restaged in their entirety.
But nevermind all that. The elephant in the room with STRIKE COMMANDO 2 is the mother of cinematic WTF?! surprise guest stars with the presence of a seriously slumming Richard Harris as Jenkins, Ransom's old commander in Vietnam. It's doubtful that even magical wizardry of Albus Dumbledore could reveal the actor's true motivation for taking third-billing in a Bruno Mattei film, but the fact remains: he's there, he's in the movie, and it's not a "one day on the set, Henry Fonda in TENTACLES" driveby, either. Harris is in most of the movie and even takes part in some of the action scenes. And on top of that, he seems to actually be trying. With his career in the toilet by the time of STRIKE COMMANDO 2, it's very possible that this was his best offer at the time, or maybe, for whatever reason, he just wanted to visit Manila. Maybe he was blackmailed. Maybe he and Mattei had a mutual friend and he felt like doing the hapless director a favor. Maybe he saw STRIKE COMMANDO and found it a powerful analysis of America's involvement in Vietnam. Who knows? Harris went through the 1980s without a box-office hit, and his most notable film of the decade was the 1981 Bo Derek train wreck TARZAN, THE APE MAN. When Harris got an Oscar nomination for his comeback role in 1990's THE FIELD, he claimed to have been retired for several years. This was in the pre-IMDb days but a look at his credits now shows that he never stopped working and STRIKE COMMANDO 2 was simply the shittiest in a series of shit jobs in shit movies that he probably hoped nobody would ever see. Fortunately for Harris, THE FIELD led to his career getting a second wind that carried him through character roles in A-list fare (including UNFORGIVEN, GLADIATOR, and the first two HARRY POTTER films) until his death in 2002. Harris' mere presence gives STRIKE COMMANDO 2 an element of class exhibited by no other Mattei film, and Huff--not a gifted actor--seems to step up his game a bit in his scenes with him. Of course Richard Harris would have that effect on a co-star. He's Richard Harris.
This time, Ransom is visiting Manila after getting news that his war buddy Jenkins has died. It turns out Jenkins, a deep-cover CIA agent, has faked his death and is in cahoots with Far East drug lord Huan To (Filipino B-movie icon Vic Diaz!), on some convoluted cocaine and diamond smuggling operation. Ransom teams up with hardass tavern owner Rosanna Boom (Mary Stavin) after a complete re-enactment of Karen Allen's beer-drinking contest intro in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. Ransom also tangles with a Huan To flunky (Mel Davidson) who's a combination of Paul Freeman's Belloq and Ronald Lacey's Toht in RAIDERS, and there's ninjas and a couple of destructive chases and painfully unfunny banter between Ransom and Rosanna. Mattei finally lets loose with the explosions in the last 15 minutes and it finally starts to look like something that should be called STRIKE COMMANDO 2, especially when Ransom barges into Jenkins' coke lab and starts blasing away, bellowing...you guessed it..."JENNNNKKKKKKIIIIIINNNNS!"
Made when the Italian exploitation heyday was entering the life-support years, STRIKE COMMANDO 2 never got an official US release, neither theatrically nor on VHS or DVD. It's been available on the bootleg and torrent circuit and there's even a 1.66:1 widescreen print on YouTube, but really, other than the morbid curiosity of seeing Richard Harris at his career low playing second fiddle to Vic Diaz, there's little reason to endure the dull STRIKE COMMANDO 2. It's impossible to follow and it's entirely possible that Claudio Fragasso's script was reworked into English on the fly by the actors who could very well have made the story up as they went along. There's a very (bad) improvisational feel to a lot of Huff's and Stavin's scenes together, and with the exception of two dubbed Italian supporting actors (the apparent package deal of Ottaviano Dell'Acqua and Massimo Vanni), all of the dialogue was recorded on-set and real voices used (Stavin, 1977's Miss World, tries to hide her Swedish accent in her earlier scenes, but gives up soon after and by the end, she's pointing a gun and screaming "Late me keel da fackin' base-turd!").
Mattei made STRIKE COMMANDO 2 right after doing producer Franco Gaudenzi a favor and stepping in to finish Lucio Fulci's troubled ZOMBI 3 (1988), which was also shot in Manila around the same time (it might've even been the same trip). Fulci quit ZOMBI 3 early in the production and Mattei completed it without credit. After STRIKE COMMANDO 2, Mattei continued punching a clock and cranking out whatever trendy ripoffs came his way, even delving into post-BASIC INSTINCT erotic thrillers like 1993's DANGEROUS ATTRACTION. The films seemed to decrease in budget and quality with each passing year, with the belated 1995 JAWS ripoff CRUEL JAWS being particularly embarrassing, recycling footage from JAWS, JAWS 2, and even the 1982 JAWS ripoff GREAT WHITE, in addition to having a character say "We're gonna need a bigger helicopter!" Mattei's career hit bottom late in his life with a string of no-budget, shot-on-video horror films that are actually painful to endure and make even CRUEL JAWS look good by comparison. But for pure Mattei magic at its finest, there is no better place to start than the inspired insanity of the immortal STRIKE COMMANDO.
