Friday, December 30, 2011

The Lawless Frontier...



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The Lawless Frontier

Sartana in the Valley of Death...

Sartana in the Valley of Death (1970)

Unrelated to the Sartana character made famous by Gianni Garko, this similarly clad outlaw hero is Lee Calloway (played by genre veteran William Berger). Lee is a man with a price on his head and a gun that is ready to eliminate anyone seeking to cash him in.


The film opens with enough style and atmosphere to make it look appealing to any fans of the sub-genre that is the spaghetti western, but it quickly falls apart as its relatively short running time begins to drag like a long walk in the desert. The film isn’t without its bright spots, but unfortunately for the viewer, those spots are few and far between.


After evading several attempts to kill him, or capture him, Lee Calloway agrees to break out a group of outlaws who are being held in prison, and are about to find their necks fitted for a noose. Lee successfully busts the men out and they agree to pay him one half of the gold that they have stolen and hid in the desert.


What follows is a less-than-intricate game of cat and mouse, as the fugitives do their best to outwit Calloway, and he manages to turn the tables on them a number of times too. Sartana in the Valley of Death delivers a handful of thrills, some stylish moments, and a lot of tedium.


-William J. White

One Damned Day at Dawn... Django meets Sartana!


One Damned Day at Dawn… Django meets Sartana! (1970)

Director Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 film Django, proved to be one of the most popular, and most influential spaghetti westerns ever. In fact, it was so influential, and so popular, that it spawned a ton of knock-offs, spin-offs, unofficial sequels, and general rip-offs. So much so, that trying to make sense of all of the imitators, and influence is a career in the making.

The star of the original movie was Franco Nero and Nero has pointed out on several occasions, that Django was so popular in Germany, that virtually every movie he made afterwards managed to be turned into Django sequels when they were released in Germany. The Shark Hunter became Django and the Sharks when it found its way to German screens, similarly speaking, if Nero made a modern-day gangster movie, the Germans would probably have called it Django vs. the Mafia.

Another incredibly popular, influential, and generally exploited spaghetti western was director Gianfranco Parolini’s 1968 classic If You Meet Sartana Pray for Your Death. Next to Django, it’s almost ridiculous to try and catalogue the number of would-be sequels that came in its wake. Never mind the fact that were a number of official sequels and that the film’s star Gianni Garko, actually starred in a number of the unofficial sequels/rip-offs too.

All of that said; here comes a movie that tries to double its impact by cashing-in on both of these iconic euro-western heroes. I’m pleased to say that although it doesn’t present strong imitations of either popular character, this film does deliver when it comes to the basic fun aspects of what makes the spaghetti western such an enjoyable sub-genre of the western movie.

Part of the fun comes from the tight direction delivered by Demofilo Fidani, it’s pretty apparent that the man was having some serious fun on the set, and it shines on the screen too. But, more to the point, the story works, and it never drags, it moves forward at a great pace, and it’s all fun to watch.

Fabio Testi is Sheriff Jack Ronson, an un-proven; tenderfoot lawman that arrives in the gang-controlled town of Black, and finds that he is drowning in a sea of crime, corruption, and general danger. He is called-out almost immediately by the real boss of the town; Bud Willer (played by Dino Strano) a brutal outlaw who rules the town with an iron fist. With the help of his henchman Sanchez, Willer not only gets away with murder, he can keep the town under his control, and all witnesses to their crimes remain fearfully silent.

Oddly enough, Testi represents the Sartana character in the title’s equation, despite the fact that the character bares no resemblance to the classic rendition of Sartana. Fabio not only doesn’t act like the original character, he doesn’t look like, or even dress like the true Sartana. So, that said, nothing about this character even reminds the viewer of its intended reference.

Furthermore, when we are introduced to the Jack Betts portrayed stranger that arrives in town, seeking vengeance against the men that were responsible for the deaths of his wife’s brothers. We automatically assume that he is Sartana, but no, he is Django, and he’s carrying himself with more of the Sartana swagger than any of the Django edge. It’s funny, because I’ve read somewhere that Jack never bothered to watch the original Django movie, and so he just went with his gut, and performed the character as he saw fit. It works, until we realize that this is Django, not Sartana, and once we realize that Testi is supposed to be Sartana, it now works if you ignore all of the attempts to capitalize on the other two movies, and just enjoy it as a self-contained work, thoroughly un-related to the movies that the filmmakers were attempting to cash in on.

It would be easy to complain, but why bother? If imitation is the highest form of flattery, than exploitation is the highest acknowledgement of true success.

-William J. White

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Wild Country...




Wild Country (1947)

Producers Releasing Corporation was probably the lowest budget of all low budget movie production companies. Their movies were literally made on a shoestring budget and it’s kind of ironic that their initials were PRC, because many people refer to these kinds of movie companies as poverty row companies.

PRC did work with some major talent though; their westerns featured such heroes as Buster Crabbe and Lash La Rue. Eddie Dean had been a bit player in several Gene Autry films, but he had more potential than Republic Pictures had ever realized, and it would take a few starring roles in several smaller productions to prove it. Those smaller efforts would eventually lead to his series for PRC.

Lacking the charm of Gene Autry or Roy Rogers, Eddie Dean would never quite reach their level of popularity, but what Dean lacked in charisma he more than made up for with his vocal talents. He had one of the finest voices in the ranks of the singing cowboys and I’m very surprised that he isn’t more fondly remembered than some of his other contemporaries.

Wild Country finds Eddie and his sidekick Soapy (played Roscoe Ates) on the trail of the outlaw Rip Caxton (portrayed by the ever reliable I. Stanford Jolley). Along the way Dean sings a few tunes (including the title track and Ain't No Gal Got a Brand On Me), Soapy provides some comedic antics, and a few good fights round out the mix.

Not a particularly memorable movie, but entertaining none the less, and it does move along quickly enough to not wear out its welcome. Clocking in at less than an hour it’s certainly a decent enough time killer.

-William J. White

Blazing Guns...




Blazing Guns (1943)

The Trail Blazers series wasn’t one of the longest running b-western series around, but what it lacked in volume, it more than made up for in audacity. These movies were action packed and downright full of fun.

Ken Maynard and Hoot Gibson play Marshal Maynard and Marshal Gibson, the Governor sends them to the town of Willow Springs to clean it up. A gang has taken total control of the town and Ken and Hoot’s predecessors have already been killed by the ruthless gang. So, how do you fight vicious killers? Very simple, convince the Governor to release a handful of criminals that you’ve already taken into custody, and use them in your fight against the latest threat.

Despite the fact that our heroes are beginning to look either long in the tooth, or fairly round in the gut, this movie still manages to work. The story is rather secondary, it’s designed to build up just enough tension to make the final shootout really exciting. Which is exactly what the final shootout is; it’s exciting, action packed, and more than a little violent. This climax would have made Sam Peckinpah proud, sure, by today’s standards it may seem a bit tame, but to a 1943 crowd of children this was probably one of the most violent shootouts they’d ever seen, a lot of them probably walked out of that theater with a look resembling some the first crowds that saw the Wild Bunch.

-William J. White

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Blue Montana Skies...


Blue Montana Skies (1939)

With nearly one hundred movies to his credit and over ninety episodes of a TV series that bore his name, Gene Autry was one of the biggest movie stars that the b-western genre ever produced. Not only was he a movie star, he was also a singing star, a radio star, and his stage shows played to sold out crowds all over this country.

In nearly all of his screen appearances Autry played Gene Autry, not always the same Gene Autry though, sometimes he’s Autry the lawman, sometimes he was Gene Autry the rancher, sometimes he was radio singing star Gene Autry, he was even Congressman Autry once. It didn’t matter what the setting was, or when the action was taking place, Gene was always essentially just playing himself. This formula worked very well and it made Autry the king of the singing cowboys.

Autry’s first starring role was in a cliffhanger serial from 1935, the serial was called the Phantom Empire, and it was directed by B. Reeves Eason. Blue Montana Skies was also directed by B. Reeves Eason, Autry and Eason only paired up five times, but all of the movies they made together, or at least the ones I’ve had the opportunity to see, turned out to be rather above average for the singing cowboy genre.

Blue Montana Skies is no exception either, it’s very exciting, and it’s a whole lot of fun as well. Smugglers are carrying illegal fox furs across the Canadian border into the US and when rancher Gene Autry’s partner catches them in the act, he’s murdered by one of the smugglers. As he lies dying, he leaves a clue; he uses his un-fired gun to scrape a rancher’s brand into the rock in front of him. The brand belongs to the Double H Ranch and Gene takes it upon himself to solve his friend’s murder.

Like many of Autry’s movies this one also features Smiley Burnette. Comedic sidekicks are very common in b-westerns, Gabby Hayes was probably the most popular of all them, but for my money, Smiley Burnette was the best of all of them. He was genuinely funny and his musical numbers are among some of my favorites ever.

As Autry movies go, this one is certainly a fun ride, and it’s also one of his more underrated movies. Seek it out, you might be pleasantly surprised.

-William J. White

The El Paso Kid...


The El Paso Kid (1946)

In the mid 1940s Sunset Carson starred in a series of b-westerns for Republic Pictures, most of these films were directed by Thomas Carr. Carr directed close to ninety titles in a career that spanned just over two decades. He was born in Philadelphia, but most of his movies were set in the Wild West. Carr’s first directorial effort was a Sunset Carson vehicle called Santa Fe Saddlemates, the El Paso Kid was one of the last few movies the pair would work on together, and it’s also a really enjoyable b-oater too.

Sunset Carson starred in about a dozen movies for Republic Pictures, that was until he was fired by the studio. His films were good money makers for Republic, but Sunset’s off-screen behavior wasn’t good for the company’s family-friendly image, and when Carson showed up at a Republic party intoxicated with an underage girl for his date, the studio finally decided that they’d had enough, and waited no time at all to drop Sunset’s contract.

The movie opens with a robbery performed by a bandit named Santos and his gang of henchmen (one of which happens to be Sunset Carson). When Sunset’s old-timer buddy Jeff is wounded in the escape, Santos decides to leave Jeff to die. This doesn’t sit well with Carson, so he leaves the gang, and takes Jeff with him.

Sunset and Jeff decide to start their own bandit operation and give Santos and company a real run for their money. Their first attempt at holding-up a gold shipment runs into trouble when the Santos gang decides to hit the same target, instead of successfully robbing the gold, Sunset ends up successfully saving the shipment. This seemingly brave act on the part of the outlaw Sunset Carson (AKA the El Paso Kid) leads to him being made Deputy Sheriff Carson.

The high level of action coupled with a slightly unconventional script makes for an above average b-western. Sunset Carson was never a great actor, but the script plays to his charms, and the plot twists really do work to keep the audience interested. Although far from a classic by any stretch of the imagination, in the end the El Paso Kid really is a rather enjoyable piece of escapist entertainment.

-William J. White

More Across the Wide Missouri...

Across the Wide Missouri...



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Across the Wide Missouri

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Riders in the Sky...



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Riders in the Sky

Sheriff of Tombstone...



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Sheriff of Tombstone

Last of the Pony Riders...



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Last of the Pony Riders

More Taxi Hunter...

Taxi Hunter...



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Taxi Hunter

More Ninja: The Protector...

Ninja: The Protector...



Ninja: The Protector (1986)

Producer Joseph Lai’s IFD Film and Arts Company produced a whole string of ninja movies in the eighties. Most of these films were directed by Godfrey Ho, a lot of them starred Richard Harrison, and most of them were cut and paste jobs cobbled together from multiple movies, and dubbed in a manner that tried to pass them off as a cohesive single movie. From what I have read, Richard Harrison was under the impression that he would be making three ninja pictures, but his footage was edited into enough other films that in the end he had his name attached to nearly a dozen ninja movies, and they are all pretty much a mess.

Although these pictures were made in Hong Kong, I do not think they were ever intended for the Cantonese language audience, and they were sold to many American video stores at the time. A lot of devotees to these cinematic mad libs cite the Golan-Globus classic known as American Ninja as the inspiration for these movies. But, I do not believe that the great Michael Dudikoff inspired the casting of the even greater Richard Harrison. No, I think Harrison was tapped as the lead in these films, because he bears more than a passing resemblance to the even more greater Franco Nero, and Franco was the star of the ninja movie that started it all; yet another Golan-Globus classic called Enter the Ninja.

In this particular example of a Godfrey Ho cut and paste job, Richard Harrison is Gordon; a Hong Kong cop who is also a ninja master, even though he constantly tells his fellow police officers that there is no such thing as ninjas. When Gordon isn’t sporting his camouflage ninja outfit he is a bit too comfortable in white tennis shorts, but I do think that I will recommend that camouflage ninja outfit for my friends that like to go deer hunting, and I wouldn’t recommend those tennis shorts to anyone. But, I digress, Gordon constantly finds himself confronting black clad ninjas that work for David Bowles as the villain Bruce, Bruce’s men are usually easily bested by Gordon who then proceeds to handcuff them to things like park benches before he calls the police station, and has one of the other cops go looking for the handcuffed ninja while stolen Peter Gabriel music plays on the soundtrack, the cop arrests the incapacitated ninja, and repeatedly steals our man Gordon’s glory.

Bruce is also a ninja master, he is running a counterfeiting operation, and one of his underlings is a woman that is running a modeling agency. Gordon sends a spy named Warren to infiltrate the modeling agency, he succeeds, and his modeling career takes off rather quickly. But, he doesn’t appear to be doing much in the way of spying, just engaging in a lot of sex with women that can help his career, and getting pretty wealthy in the process. Of course this doesn’t help his relationship with his girlfriend and she eventually attempts to kill herself while Warren is sleeping with yet another woman. Things get more complicated here, because in this case the woman that Warren is rolling around with (literally in this case) is the girlfriend of yet another of Bruce’s associates, a man known as Four-Eyes. This leads to Four-Eyes targeting Warren’s brother and his suicidal girlfriend.

In the end, it’s up to Gordon to yet again don his camouflage ninja suit, and face off against Bruce. This leads to a somewhat interesting showdown featuring ninjas on motorcycles and stolen Pink Floyd music.

Even More Remo Williams...



Here is the first few minutes of the pilot episode of the rejected Remo Williams TV series. It would have been a direct spinoff from the movie. It starred Jeffrey Meek as Remo and the late Roddy McDowall as Chiun. It was made in 1988, I have yet to see the whole thing, but I will make sure to do so eventually.

More Remo Williams...

Monday, December 26, 2011

Remo Williams...



Remo Williams: the Adventure Begins (1985)

The adventure began, unfortunately it didn’t continue, and although I am more than likely in the minority, I really wanted to see this movie jumpstart an entire franchise. Sure, it’s hokey, it’s clunky, and I’m sure it will grate the nerves of many a viewer, but every time I turn it on I’m instantly sucked into it, and I can watch it over, and over again.

The film was based on a series of popular adventure novels known as the Destroyer, the books were created by Warren Murphy, and Richard Sapir. The first in the series was published in 1971, it was entitled Created, the Destroyer, and it was followed by more than 140 additional novels.

The producers of the movie were certainly hoping to create a franchise, more than likely they were hoping to produce the American answer to James Bond, but the film was not a financial success, and no sequel was ever produced. By the way, amongst the producers was Dick Clark, and yes, I do mean that Dick Clark.

The film serves as an origin story and it works very well as one. Fred Ward is a cop who is thought to have been killed in the line of duty, but he wakes up in a hospital room with a new face, and a new name; Remo Williams. Remo is informed that he has been recruited for a secret organization, an organization that is answerable only to the President of the United States, and that he will be trained to be an assassin. As one of Remo’s new bosses (J.A. Preston) explains, he is going to become the Eleventh Commandment; thou shalt not get away with it.

Of course, before Williams can jump into action, he’s going to need some training, and that’s when Chiun comes in. Chiun is an elderly Korean martial arts expert, the master of the fighting style known as Sinanju, and he’s as stubborn a teacher as Remo is a student. The training sequences that follow take up a large chunk of the movie, but they are some of most entertaining moments too, and the humorous banter between Remo and Chiun are the best parts of the film.

Fred Ward delivers the appropriate mixture of annoyance, cockiness, and self-assured masculinity. Joel Grey steals the movie as Chiun, his comedic timing, and personality shine through. But, in this day and age, a Caucasian actor playing Asian in yellow-face is probably not exactly politically correct. The ever-reliable presence of Wilford Brimley is always welcome in my book and he’s as good as he always is as the leader of the clandestine operation that Williams is recruited by. J.A. Preston delivers a pleasurably memorable performance as Brimley’s assistant. And, Charles Cioffi is appropriately hammy as the villain of the piece.

Guy Hamilton’s direction perfectly blends the exciting action segments with the brilliant comedic sequences. It’s all blended very well and I can’t find much to complain about on that level. Although, I can’t help but think that Hamilton was brought in to add the James Bond element to the motion picture. With Goldfinger, Diamonds are Forever, Live and Let Die, and the Man with the Golden Gun to his directorial credit, Hamilton was hardly a weak choice for a director that was being asked to helm the beginning of a new series that was intended to rival the Bond films. But, the differences between Remo and Bond are so stark that I’m not so sure that it was a good idea on the part of the producers to try to force a connection between the two characters.

I first saw Remo Williams in the cinema on the movie’s opening weekend. My interest was piqued purely from the advertising campaign and because I was thirteen years old at the time, I was completely unaware of the literary source for the picture. But, I was so impressed, that as soon as I left the theater, I walked right over to the nearby used book store, and began looking for some of the Destroyer novels. I’ve since become a huge fan of those books and if for no other reason than that, I should always love this movie, but I love the film for its own charms too.

One could easily dismiss my enjoyment of Remo Williams as the unsophisticated opinion of a then child. But, since I still find myself enjoying this movie more than twenty-five years later, I think that there is more to it than just that. I know the film received fairly lukewarm critical reception when it was released, but I liked it then, and I still like it today.

Ran...



Ran from 1985 is Akira Kurosawa's award winning adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear. It is a beautiful looking and deeply psychological reworking of the Shakespearean classic set in the Japanese Sengoku period.



For a more traditional version of King Lear, check out this version from 1983, although produced for television, it is still quite good, and it marks Laurence Olivier's final screen appearance in a Shakespearean role.

Blackjack...



Note to John Woo, next time someone suggests that you should direct a pilot for a possible TV series starring Dolph Lundgren, don't walk away, just run...

Sunday, December 18, 2011