HIGHPOINT (Canada - 1984) Directed by Peter Carter. Written by Richard Guttman and Ian Sutherland. Cast: Richard Harris, Christopher Plummer, Beverly D'Angelo, Kate Reid, Peter Donat, Robin Gammell, Saul Rubinek, Maury Chaykin, George Buza, David Calderisi, Ken James. (PG, 87 mins) Aside from one good car chase and stunt legend Dar Robinson taking a dive off of Toronto's CN Tower, which at the time was the tallest free-standing structure in the world, the justifiably obscure Canadian tax shelter comedy-thriller HIGHPOINT is an absolute shit show. Filmed in 1979, subjected to reshoots in 1981, given a brief European release in 1982, and unseen in the US until 1984 in a drastically restructured version that was assembled following even more reshoots and post-production tweaking, HIGHPOINT was deemed a lost cause by anyone who came into contact with it. Director Peter Carter and co-writer Ian Sutherland had just made the Canadian survivalist horror film RITUALS, and intended HIGHPOINT to be a spoofy homage to NORTH BY NORTHWEST and other Hitchcockian "innocent man caught in a web of intrigue" tropes, even though Mel Brooks' HIGH ANXIETY did the job quite well in 1977. By the time HIGHPOINT was finally dumped in a handful of theaters on Labor Day weekend in 1984 (opening the same day as BOLERO and C.H.U.D.), the new regime at New World Pictures, which had just changed hands after being sold by Roger Corman, jettisoned the lighthearted score by Oscar-winner John Addison (TOM JONES) and replaced it with more bombastic, Jerry Goldsmith-style cues by Christopher Young, who would become an in-house New World composer on films like FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC and HELLRAISER before going on to a busy career with the major studios (he received a Golden Globe nomination for his work on Lasse Hallstrom's 2001 film THE SHIPPING NEWS). New World also excised as much of the comedy as they could, opting to retool it in the editing room as a relatively straight-faced, serious action-heavy thriller, with what appears to be half of the jobs in the credits being prefaced by the word "additional," and all without the involvement of Carter, who died of a heart attack at just 48 in June of 1982. As anyone who's seen Sam Peckinpah's THE KILLER ELITE can attest, taking a comedy and turning it into a serious movie in post-production is a terrible idea, and HIGHPOINT, which would be more accurately titled NORTH BY NORTHWORST, is such an ineptly-assembled dumpster fire of a movie that it's surprising it was ever released at all. And even after all the time, effort, and money (approximately $2 million) spent revamping HIGHPOINT as a thriller, New World's poster art sold it as a comedy anyway, further proof that no one at any point could reach an agreement on what they wanted from this project and that no one involved was on the same page. A new exposition-filled opening sequence was shot with co-stars Peter Donat and Robin Gammell after test audiences had no clue what was happening, and veteran Roger Corman associates Clark Henderson and Barry Zetlin are among the heavily-staffed behind-the-scenes triage unit credited with "additional editing," which is enough to seriously question whether HIGHPOINT was acquired by the Corman-owned New World prior to his selling the company in late 1983 and perhaps thrown in as a freebie for the new owners. Speaking purely hypothetically, if there was ever a wreckage so beyond salvaging that not even Roger Corman could get it in profitable shape, it's HIGHPOINT.
Unemployed accountant Lewis Kinney (Richard Harris, trying desperately to be Cary Grant) rescues a young woman from an attempted suicide by drowning and ends up getting involved in all manner of complex and incoherent machinations. The woman is Lise Hatcher (Beverly D'Angelo, who replaced a bailing Katharine Ross shortly before filming began), the adopted younger sister of noted playboy and con artist James Hatcher (Christopher Plummer), whose funeral she just left. But Hatcher is very much alive, faking his own death after absconding with $10 million of CIA cash that was loaned to the Mafia for a top secret money laundering scam code-named "Highpoint." When Hatcher's ailing mother (Kate Reid) hires Kinney to help locate her son, the nebbishy accountant finds himself targeted by government goons working at the behest of corrupt CIA agent Banner (Gammell), as well as incompetent, slapstick hit men Centino (Saul Rubinek) and Falco (Maury Chaykin), dim-witted flunkies working for mob boss Maronzella (Donat). The plot begins in Los Angeles before moving to NYC and eventually Quebec and Toronto, probably per the rules of the tax shelter incentive, but it's anyone's guess why anything happens in HIGHPOINT. One admittedly well-done car chase early on is still plagued by obvious post-production stitching, awkward cutting, and continuity issues that run rampant throughout, like two repeats of the same reaction shot of D'Angelo laughing. And while Robinson's jaw-dropping 700 ft free fall off the CN Tower in the climax (he's doubling Plummer in the scene) is the sole reason HIGHPOINT got any attention at all back in the day and probably why New World worked so hard to make this presentable, even it's handled in a way that ruins the moment, looking as if Carter and the crew didn't get enough coverage for the shot and had no way of cutting it together without asking Robinson to do it again. And to give you some perspective on just how incredible this HIGHPOINT stunt was, Robinson's famous free fall from the Peachtree Plaza at the end of SHARKY'S MACHINE, where he's doubling Henry Silva, was only 220 ft.
As this miserable film slogged on, the most interesting thought I had was wondering if, years later on the set of Clint Eastwood's 1992 classic UNFORGIVEN, Harris (as English Bob) and Rubinek (as bespectacled, tenderfoot biographer W.W. Beauchamp) reminisced about the trainwreck they appeared in together over a decade earlier. Harris and Plummer, both in the midst of a string of Canadian tax shelter gigs, walk through HIGHPOINT looking smug and punchable, delivering their lines with an annoyingly glib tone that might've been appropriate for a comedy but makes no sense now that these performances are in a thriller. The "comedy" cut is included in a 112-minute workprint version on Code Red's new Blu-ray, though I can't imagine anyone caring enough to do a comparison with New World's 87-minute US cut, which only came about because no one, from test audiences to the suits at New World, could follow the original version, even though executive producer William J. Immerman (TAKE THIS JOB AND SHOVE IT, SOUTHERN COMFORT) is on hand for an interview to defend the 112-minute cut as superior. Even in its restructured and streamlined incarnation, too much unfunny comedy remains, whether it's Harris breaking the fourth wall and winking at what I presume is a vacant theater where an audience was expected to be, or a long mid-film chase involving horse-drawn carriages, cars, and a portly guy chasing them all, with everything sped up Benny Hill-style complete with high-pitched voices, wacky music and zany sound effects. It sticks out like a sore thumb in what's supposed to be a thriller (imagine the Keystone Kops pulling up alongside Cary Grant while he's being chased by the crop dusting plane in NORTH BY NORTHWEST), but if that was an indication of what constituted "funny" in the original cut, then New World probably had the right idea, but just no way to make it better regardless of the tone. With today's constant crowing about the so-called death of physical media, I'm glad to see any obscure movie resurrected on Blu-ray, but does this film have any fans? Thanks--I guess--but special edition restorations don't get much more pointless than HIGHPOINT, currently the front-runner for my Buyer's Remorse Blu-ray of 2017.
Directed by George Pan Cosmatos. Written by Tom Mankiewicz, Robert Katz and George Pan Cosmatos. Cast: Sophia Loren, Richard Harris, Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Martin Sheen, O.J. Simpson, Ingrid Thulin, Lee Strasberg, Lionel Stander, Ann Turkel, Lou Castel, John Phillip Law, Ray Lovelock, Alida Valli, Tom Hunter, Stefano Patrizi, Carlo De Mejo, Fausta Avelli, Angela Goodwin, Renzo Palmer, John P. Dulaney. (R, 129 mins)
SPOILERS DISCUSSED THROUGHOUT
Disaster movies were one of the signature genres of 1970s cinema. Though the concept wasn't new and dated back to the early days of the movies to SAN FRANCISCO (1936) and 1950s hits like THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY (1954) and ZERO HOUR! (1957), and would continue later with the likes of ARMAGEDDON (1998), THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW (2004) and 2012 (2008), the subgenre really exploded in the 1970s. Starting with box-office blockbusters like AIRPORT (1970), THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972) and THE TOWERING INFERNO (1974) to less-popular but still entertaining later offerings like the sniper-in-a-football-stadium TWO-MINUTE WARNING (1976), the Goodyear Blimp-blowing-up-the-Super Bowl BLACK SUNDAY (1977), and the mad-bomber-terrorizing-amusement-parks ROLLERCOASTER (1977), disaster films showcased then-state-of-the-art special effects depicting catastrophes both natural and man-made, and a large cast of stars both current and from Hollywood's golden age. The incredible success of these films spawned countless imitations, from exclamatory made-for-TV disaster movies like HEAT WAVE! (1974), FLOOD! (1976), and FIRE! (1977) to drive-in exploitation like THE BEES (1978) and AVALANCHE (1978) to the inevitable foreign-made ripoffs with films like TIDAL WAVE (1975), which inserted new footage of Lorne Greene into a Japanese disaster movie; the Italian oil fire thriller OIL (1977); the Canadian city-on-fire thriller CITY ON FIRE (1979); and the Italian/Brazilian co-production KILLER FISH (1979), which involved an emerald heist, a laughable tornado, and a river filled with hungry piranha. It's unfortunate that most of these films lacked the hyperbolic punctuation that the TV movies used--think how much better KILLER FISH would be if it was called KILLER FISH!
In addition to the mandatory "faces in boxes" poster design, disaster movies frequently featured supporting roles for an off-season or retired sports star, usually from the NFL, such as Rosey Grier in SKYJACKED (1972), O.J. Simpson in THE TOWERING INFERNO, Alex Karras in WHEN TIME RAN OUT (1980), and then-Houston Oilers quarterback Dan Pastorini in the aforementioned KILLER FISH, as well as college football star Mark Harmon in BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1979). Other such stunt casting included the likes of fake evangelist-turned-actor Marjoe Gortner in EARTHQUAKE (1974), singer Helen Reddy in AIRPORT 1975 (1974), and game-show host and frequent TONIGHT SHOW guest host John Davidson--the Ryan Seacrest of the 1970s--in THE CONCORDE: AIRPORT '79 (1979). Audiences grew tired of the increasingly silly and often shoddy spectacles (how can we forget 1978's THE SWARM or 1979's METEOR?) and the demand for these things vanished. Kinji Fukasaku's mega-budget Japanese epic VIRUS (1980), featuring such stars as Glenn Ford, George Kennedy, Henry Silva, Sonny Chiba, and Robert Vaughn, was perhaps the most ambitious disaster film of them all, but couldn't find a US distributor even with a sappy Janis Ian theme song, and was cut by nearly an hour and drastically re-edited before going straight-to-video in 1984 (Fukasaku's complete 155-minute version is a masterpiece). By the time so-called "Master of Disaster" Irwin Allen, the man behind THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, THE TOWERING INFERNO, and THE SWARM, unveiled the volcano epic WHEN TIME RAN OUT, the title could've applied to the genre itself, especially when it was expertly parodied that same year by AIRPLANE!, from the gathering of stoical, serious actors known for their stern gravitas (Peter Graves, Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack), right down to the casting of NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as himself, moonlighting as a pilot named "Roger Murdock." Disaster movies, at least in their 1970s incarnation, were done.
These films always had eclectic casts populated by actors you'd never expect to find working together (THE CONCORDE: AIRPORT '79 managed to get Alain Delon, Charo, Jimmie Walker, and Sylvia Kristel in the same movie), but the British/Italian/West German co-production THE CASSANDRA CROSSING provides a bizarre mix of international A-list, Hollywood old guard, Eurocult regulars, and one vacationing football star nearing the end of his playing days. It's not often you see people like O.J. Simpson and Martin Sheen mixing it up with the likes of THE LIVING DEAD AT MANCHESTER MORGUE's Ray Lovelock and FISTS IN THE POCKET's Lou Castel. Like many of its genre brethren, THE CASSANDRA CROSSING offers multiple problems for its heroes to conquer and is actually two disaster movies in one: first a terrorist exposed to a deadly plague stows away on a Geneva-to-Stockholm train, then the US military tries to contain the disease by intentionally diverting the train to an unsafe bridge in the hopes that it will collapse, killing all the passengers and making for a nice, convenient cover-up. There's a level of cynicism in THE CASSANDRA CROSSING that doesn't exist in other disaster movies. The US government is the villain here, and it's interesting that it's represented by Burt Lancaster, who starred in the same year's TWILIGHT'S LAST GLEAMING, a bile-soaked screed of a conspiracy thriller that depicted the US President's own cabinet members sending the newly-elected and earnestly naïve Commander-in-Chief (Charles Durning) to his own execution when he decides to go public with his predecessors' classified memos that will expose the truth about America's Vietnam policies. He's advised against it by those in his inner circle, old men who tell him "This is just how it's always been," and he pays the price for breaking tradition.
In CASSANDRA, Lancaster's Col. Mackenzie is dispatched to the World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva after three Swedish terrorists (Castel, Stefano Patrizi, and Carlo De Mejo) infiltrate the building and the resulting shootout ends up exposing them to a strain of pneumonic plague that's been developed--illegally and in secret--by the US government and stored in a lab on the premises. De Mejo is killed by a guard, Patrizi is wounded and captured, and Castel escapes. Mackenzie, his aid Major Stack (John Phillip Law), and WHO-based Dr. Stradner (Ingrid Thulin) get no information out of Patrizi before he dies, and Mackenzie orders the body burned. Castel, the lead terrorist, makes his way to a nearby train station and sneaks aboard the express going to Stockholm. It's here where CASSANDRA, for a while at least plays out as your standard issue '70s disaster epic. The major players onboard are renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Jonathan Chamberlain (Richard Harris); his romance novelist ex-wife Jennifer (Sophia Loren); requisite elderly con man Herman Kaplan (Lee Strasberg); hippie lovebirds Tom (Lovelock) and Susan (Ann Turkel); a grandmother (Alida Valli) and her granddaughter Katerina (Fausta Avelli); wealthy Nicole Dressler (Ava Gardner, also in EARTHQUAKE and CITY ON FIRE), wife of a German arms magnate, along with her heroin-addicted, drug-dealing boy-toy Robby Navarro (Sheen); and Haley (Simpson), an incognito-as-a-priest Interpol agent tailing Navarro. The script by Tom Mankiewicz, Robert Katz, and director George P. Cosmatos (who would go on to Hollywood blockbusters like 1985's RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II and 1993's TOMBSTONE) spends a little too much time on the soapier elements of Jonathan and Jennifer's inevitable rekindling of their romance (they've already been divorced twice), but once the terrorist makes his way through the train, quickly infecting many of the passengers, things pick up considerably.
Oddly, the plague part of the film is resolved rather quickly. Chamberlain, in conference with Dr. Stradner, concludes that in a highly-oxygenated environment like a train, the disease will eventually run its course and people will recover unless, like the terrorist, it was directly absorbed into the bloodstream. The terrorist eventually dies, but those onboard who are afflicted soon find themselves on the mend. That's not good enough for Mackenzie, who orders the train to be diverted to a quarantined area--a former concentration camp--that will require it to cross a condemned bridge that hasn't been used since WWII. Of course, his intention--his orders--are to bury this incident by any means necessary, as the US was illegally developing deadly germ warfare in Geneva and keeping it secret. Mackenzie has the train met in Nuremberg by a team of 40 Army officers in HazMat suits led by Col. Scott (Tom Hunter). Scott's job is to keep everyone onboard and kill anyone who tries to get off the train. So, about midway through the film, with the plague story wrapped up, the action now centers on Chamberlain leading a passenger revolt against Scott and his goons and stop the train before it reaches the Cassandra Crossing.
Make no mistake, the bulk of THE CASSANDRA CROSSING is, like most of its disaster contemporaries, silly and illogical. Many of the actors on the train don't seem to be on the same page as far as what kind of movie they're in: Harris, Sheen, and Simpson play it straight and serious (as seriously as O.J. dressed as a priest can be taken), while Gardner, perhaps still amused by being cast as Lorne Greene's daughter in EARTHQUAKE, is glib and snarky at all the wrong times. Loren doesn't really have much to do other than look glamorous in soft focus, which Cosmatos ensures since her husband Carlo Ponti was the producer (Loren's introduction, where she's given numerous close-ups from various angles, is a bit excessive and obviously done to please Ponti). Strasberg's con man character keeps trying to sell phony watches, while you could make a drinking game out of how many times Valli helplessly says "Katerina!" to no one in particular after she gets separated from the little girl. And my God, I haven't even gotten to the song.
Any self-respecting '70s disaster movie had the mandatory maudlin theme song, like "The Morning After" from THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE and "We May Never Love Like This Again" from THE TOWERING INFERNO. Both of those songs were sung by Maureen McGovern and both won Oscars for Best Original Song. THE CASSANDRA CROSSING gives us a fine Ennio Morricone-esque score by Jerry Goldsmith, but also offered co-star Turkel--who was married to Harris at the time--singing something called "I'm Still on My Way," and she sings it early in the film, as she and Lovelock and some other hippie pals are jamming in one of the train cars. And just when you think it can't get any sillier, train conductor Max (Lionel Stander) takes a break from his duties to just hang out with them. It seems unnecessary to mention that their efforts were not rewarded with a Best Original Song Oscar. It's easily the worst scene in the film, and one that completely stops it cold and one that I never knew existed until I saw it on Turner Classic Movies some years back. For decades, I only knew the version that aired on NBC and in syndication, which mercifully cut that scene out entirely. Also absent from the television version are some gory bits from the finale, as the train indeed crashes and a good chunk of the passengers die horribly violent deaths: watch for the train rail cutting through a car and impaling a passenger right through his gut, yet another example of this film's unrepentant mean streak.
THE CASSANDRA CROSSING isn't the best of its type, but it's maintained a well-deserved cult-following over the decades, primarily for its unusual international cast and because it works very well as an entertaining thriller. But if you approach it from the angle of Lancaster's Mackenzie, there's some unexpected depth to the film. Of course, an old pro like Lancaster knows just how to play the various subtleties and nuances, and perhaps there wasn't anything in the script and he simply took it upon himself as an experienced actor to make something out of nothing. At the conclusion of the film, after telling Dr. Stradner "I know you see me as some kind of monster," and essentially saying he did what he had to do, you can see the sadness in Lancaster's eyes and it's the first moment in the film that Mackenzie seems remotely human. And in that moment, Lancaster makes us see that, like Stack and Scott and those under him, he's just a part of the machine. Lancaster nails it when he's about to leave the building. Stack offers to take him to a nearby bar and buy him a drink. Mackenzie says nothing, putting on his coat and unconsciously reaching for his uniform service cap, stopping himself, and going for his fedora instead. It's not that he isn't worthy of wearing it. No, he was a good soldier who followed orders. He's just too sickened by those orders to wear it, and by rejecting it, he retains some semblance of humanity. And as Mackenzie leaves the room without saying a word and heads down a long hallway to the exit, Stack can be heard on the phone with an unknown superior: "He's leaving right now. Yes, he and the doctor are both under surveillance." Mackenzie is as expendable as the people killed in the bridge collapse and he likely isn't making it to his next destination. In that closing scene, using no dialogue, Lancaster's aging face perfectly illustrates a career military man who served his country only to be made a fall guy who knows shit rolls downhill and it's coming straight for him. In that respect, THE CASSANDRA CROSSING--or, more accurately, Lancaster's sequences in it--makes for a fascinating companion piece to TWILIGHT'S LAST GLEAMING, where he played another soldier who just followed orders issued down a corrupt chain of command until his conscience could no longer allow it.
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.
Some months back, Severin Films announced Blu-ray releases of three late '70s adventure epics: THE WILD GEESE, ZULU DAWN, and ASHANTI, all previously released on DVD in disappointing presentations by the mercifully short-lived Tango Entertainment. Release dates for the Severin upgrades have yet to be announced, but HD prints of two of the films--THE WILD GEESE and ZULU DAWN--turned up this week as Netflix streaming titles.
THE WILD GEESE (UK/Switzerland - 1978)
This classic mercenary adventure was a big hit everywhere but the US, where distributor Allied Artists was in its final days and wasn't able to give it much of a push. That's surprising, considering its big-name cast headed by Richard Burton, Roger Moore, Richard Harris, and Hardy Kruger. Burton is an aging mercenary hired by powerful financial magnate Stewart Granger to rescue the imprisoned leader (Winston Ntshona) of the fictional African country of Zembela, where Granger has significant interest in the copper mining industry. Burton assembles a crack team of expert soldiers-for-hire (Moore, Harris, Kruger, etc) and they pull off a daring rescue, only to get double-crossed by Granger and left stranded in Zembala, pursued by the rebels who were holding Ntshona, and forced to fight their way out of the country. Directed by longtime John Wayne associate Andrew V. McLaglen (who made the MST3K favorite MITCHELL a couple years earlier), THE WILD GEESE is a terrific action film, with four enthusiastic lead performances (Burton, in particular, has a number of dryly funny lines), plus a memorable supporting turn by Jack Watson (a last-minute replacement for Stephen Boyd, who died shortly before filming began) as a foul-mouthed Sergeant Major hired by Burton to whip the troops into shape ("On your feet, you fucking abortion!" Watson yells to one exhausted soldier). Some of the character bits haven't aged very well--especially the way a mincing, sachaying, flamboyantly gay mercenary (Kenneth Griffith) is played for comic relief--and Kruger's metamorphosis from South African racist to sympathetic nice guy happens entirely too quickly to be plausible.
Dated, late '70s political incorrectness aside, THE WILD GEESE is a rousing, entertaining and very nicely shot large-scale actioner with suspenseful battle sequences, gratuitous bloodletting, and a cast that's impossible to dislike. Also with Frank Finlay, Patrick Allen, Barry Foster, David Ladd, Ian Yule, Ken Gampu, Jeff Corey, and the really out of place theme song "Flight of the Wild Geese," by Joan Armatrading. Burton was set to return for 1985's WILD GEESE II, but died before filming began and was replaced by Edward Fox. THE WILD GEESE was successful enough in foreign markets for Antonio Margheriti to make a trilogy of German-Italian WILD GEESE ripoffs with British TV star Lewis Collins: CODENAME: WILDGEESE (1984, released in the US in 1986), COMMANDO LEOPARD (1985), and THE COMMANDER (1988).
The Netflix print of THE WILD GEESE is HD, and framed at 1.78:1 (close enough to the original 1.85:1), and has some consistent instances of "jerky" movements, almost like it's skipping frames. The audio is never affected, and the film is perfectly watchable as a streaming title, but it's a noticeable distraction throughout, even though there are stretches where it ceases. Also, multiple sources list the film as 134 minutes, but the Netflix print comes in at 129 minutes. (R, 129 mins).
ZULU DAWN (UK - 1979)
The 1964 epic ZULU chronicled the British Empire's victory over the Zulus at the Battle of Rorke's Drift in the 1879 Anglo-Zulu War. This 1979 prequel examines the Battle of Isandhlwana, which took place earlier in the day, and the results weren't so good for the British forces, numbering around 1800 and led by the overly confident Lord Chelmsford (Peter O'Toole), who doesn't take the Zulus seriously with their spears and shields. Needless to say, the British (or more specifically, Chelmsford and his yes-men), fueled by colonial arrogance and entitlement, are blissfully ignorant of what they're up against and don't bother coming up with an effective game plan. As a result, they're almost instantly overwhelmed by 20,000 Zulu warriors and suffer over 1300 casualties in what went down as the worst defeat ever inflicted upon a modern army by native troops (by contrast, with better leadership, the British won Rorke's Drift with just over 150 officers going against 4000 Zulu warriors). Reportedly a troubled production, ZULU DAWN didn't get much of a release and was nowhere near ZULU's level of success. It takes forever to get going and juggles too many characters, many of whom disappear for long stretches of the film, but it steps up where it counts with some truly stunning, expertly-choreographed battle scenes in the last half hour, with thousands of extras (this is pre-CGI, folks) filling the 2.35:1 image.
The large ensemble cast includes many familiar faces: Simon Ward, John Mills, Nigel Davenport, Michael Jayston, Bob Hoskins, Denholm Elliott, Peter Vaughan, Christopher Cazenove, Freddie Jones, James Faulkner, Ronald Lacey, Ronald Pickup, Nicholas Clay, Dai Bradley, Ian Yule, Ken Gampu, Simon Sabela as the Zulu leader Cetshwayo, and top-billed Burt Lancaster as Col. Durnford, the nominal second-in-command, who would die alongside his fellow officers in the final battle and eventually be scapegoated for the disaster by the incompetent Chelmsford. The performances are fine, but Lancaster's having a rare off-day here, sporting a wildly inconsistent Irish brogue that comes and goes at random. I don't know if this is Lancaster's worst performance, but it's the only bad Lancaster performance I've seen. Directed by Douglas Hickox (THEATER OF BLOOD) and co-written by ZULU director Cy Endfield. The US theatrical release was cut down to 98 minutes, but this is the uncut 117 minute version. (PG, 117 mins)
