31 Days of Fear!

Foto Frenzy: Halloween  (Compass International, 1978)



I got my mom to take me to this during the original theatrical run. It scared me. A lot. I love this movie.



"I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face and, the blackest eyes... the devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... evil..."



I had crushes on all three of them, and all for different reasons. Left to right: Linda (P.J. Soles), Annie (Nancy Loomis), and Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis).




Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance)



This movie is just amazing, with a sense of dread from the opening frames. The horror starts at a distance...




...before coming right into the closet with you! And he's wearing William Shatner's face!




That's not Bob.




My favorite shot in the film - as Laurie tries to wrap her mind around her friends' deaths, Michael's face appears in the darkness behind her...

If you've never seen it; if you've only seen the not-much-good remake/reimagining; if you've never seen it in widescreen (as these pics attest, a very important aspect -  my favorite shot is ruined in pan-n-scan); or if you just haven't seen it in a long while...do yourself a favor and watch it this Halloween season!



Til next time, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

Buddha Man!

Buddha Man Hijacks the Blog!

Yes, it is I, Buddha Man! I am tired of reviewing only one movie per posting! Now I will give you the quick lowdown on several flicks all at once! Don't expect all that "Let's Get Some Candy in Our Eyes" stuff either. Machete may not text, but Buddha Man doesn't shtick.

The following movies rate a smile from me.

Paper Man (20th Century Fox/TV, 1971) - Four college students led by Dean Stockwell get together for some credit card fraud when one of them receives a card in the mail under a different name. Some punch card whiz bangery later, that name has a fictitious identity in the university mainframe. Shortly after, as the credit card charges build up and are erased, the computer system, which is integrated into all of the electrical and mechanical systems in the building, apparently develops its own ideas and starts working to bump off the students.



Dean Stockwell realizes he left out a "Goto" on line 10,030.

Some clever twists and a creepy robotic medical dummy figure in to this fairly interesting TV movie (that also played a few theaters, hence the Fox logo on front). Found on a bargain DVD along with another TV movie starring Stockwell, this also stars Stefanie Powers, James Stacy, and James Olsen.




The Fiction Makers (ITV, 1967) - Roger Moore stars as the Saint in this very entertaining feature cobbled together from a two part episode of the long running TV series. After attending the newest superspy "Charles Lake" movie with the film's female lead, Simon Templar is called in to a meeting with reclusive author Amos Kline, creator of the Charles Lake books. Simon is delighted when Amos turns out to be cute-as-a-bug Sylvia Syms. He's less delighted when a band of nutters who style themselves after Charles Lake's archenemy group S.W.O.R.D. and their diabolical leader Warlock kidnap them to press the inventive Kline into planning the perfect heist from the impregnable Hermetico, Inc.

The buzzing of that damn fluorescent halo was going to drive him mad.

What makes this so much fun is that the whole thing is a send up of James Bond (more the books, only a little of the movies, but still...) six years before Roger Moore took over the role. Highly recommended, also starring Nicholas Smith (Mr. Rumboldt himself!) and Philip Locke (Vargas from Thunderball!)




Bug (Curb Entertainment, 2001) - Featuring a large cast of familiar faces, this indie flick is a long connected chain of events crossing several familiar faces (including John Carroll Lynch, Jamie Kennedy, Sarah Paulson, Brian Cox, and Ed Begley Jr.).

It gets going when a kid stomps on a bug. Lynch stops his car in the middle of the street and gets out to admonish the kid about the sanctity of life; this gets him a parking ticket, which leads into the next little piece of the story and eventually forms a long string of cause and effect vignettes. Very clever scripting and direction and a solid cast put this over and make it well worth a look. Also with Alexis Cruz.

I mostly frown at the flicks below, but you may feel differently.

Star Trek: Nemesis (Paramount, 2002) - Leading up to its release, this flick seemed to have everything going for it - the whole cast was returning, it was one of the even numbered sequels, the script was by Oscar nominated Trekker John Logan, and they were bring in new director Stuart Baird to orchestrate it all to glory.



Villain Shinzon is pissed he has to wear Pinhead's hand-me-downs from Hellraiser.

So what happened? Well, lots, in my humble opinion: they gave too much preproduction input to Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner, so the movie is very Picard and Data heavy; Logan may know his Star Trek lore, but did he think we'd not notice that he lifted whole scenes and plot points from earlier Trek movies (Data's climactic actions (Star Trek II) - Riker giving secondary baddie Ron Perlman the boot (Star Trek III)?); NEVER make your main baddie a clone of the lead actor - either your lead will play both parts and turn the movie into a giant wank for himself or they'll cast a different actor as the clone (as they did here) and we'll never buy that these are the same guy (as we don't here); oh, and they did let one actor play two roles, too, (Spiner as Data and brother android B-4) and sure enough, long and tedious Spiner wanking moments ensue; director Baird was apparently quite the jackwagon on set, and the contempt comes through into the movie; the idea of making the Romulans' neighbors the Remans look like vampires from Blade doesn't work at all; and finally, the producers and Baird somehow tied every good bit to a clunker bit- Riker/Troi wedding - good/Data singing at the wedding - bad. Wesley Crusher cameo - good/Having all of Wesley's dialogue on the cutting room floor - bad. Setting up the plot with a mystery on a sun baked, washed out planet - good/The solution being another android brother for Data played by Spiner and turning the scene into a dune buggy race - bad. It has enough moments to warrant a look for completist fans, all others might want to skip right to J.J. Abrams's reboot from 2009.



Mother, Jugs, & Speed (20th Century Fox, 1976) - The late great Tom Mankiewicz wrote and produced this "dramedy" (a word I'll use as often as it's warranted) about a privately run ambulance company and their misadventures. On the positive side, it's got a fun cast, including Bill Cosby, Raquel Welch, Larry Hagman, Bruce Davison, Allen Garfield, LQ Jones, Dick Butkus, Severn Darden, Bill Henderson, Toni Basil (as a junkie - !), and Ric Carrott (wonder if he ever worked with Fred Asparagus?), and it has some clever and funny moments, but to me, the movie bogs down when it gets serious, which is often. Also, third lead Harvey Keitel is as miscast as miscast can be as a romantic lead shmoozing with Welch.



lliB ybsoC sevird dna ecurB nosivaD rehtar yllacinori sedir nugtohs.

I understand Mankiewicz was going for humor on the dark side, but an awful lot of people get shot in this movie. My folks loved it back in the day, maybe I brought the wrong expectations to it. If you like the cast, give it a try. Me, I think the funniest thing about the whole deal is that they tried this as a TV pilot a couple of years after the movie came out, but had to change the title to Mother, Juggs, and Speed, making the female lead a woman named Jennifer "Juggs" Juggston so no one would think they were crassly referring to her bosom. And that's all I'm gonna say about that.


That is all for now, thank you for attending my words. And remember, if you lived in this blog, you'd be home now.

That was no lady, that was Andrew Stevens's mom!

Las Vegas Lady (Crown International, 1975)

Before the camera:

Stella Stevens (Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold - she was the Dragon Lady!)
Stuart Whitman (Guyana: Cult of the Damned - he was the Reverend Jim Jones - er, Johnson!)
George DiCenzo (Back to the Future - he was Marty's grampa!)
Lynne Moody (Scream Blacula Scream!)
Linda Scruggs (Salty)
and
Jesse White (TV's first Maytag Repairman himself!)
and if you look fast -
Andrew Stevens (Stella's son, later a lead actor - The Fury - and more recently a producer - The Boondock Saints)
Frank Bonner (Harb Tarlek himself!)

Behind the Camera:

Directed by Noel Nosseck

Produced by Joel B. Michaels, Noel Nosseck, Gene Slott and Joseph Zappala

Written by Walter Dallenbach

    Lucky (Stevens - Stella, that is, not Andrew) is tired of hanging around Las Vegas making a few bucks here and there being arm candy for low end gamblers like Big Jake (White) and waiting on her casino security guard boyfriend Vic (Whitman) to dump or get off the pot. With the help of a shadowy figure, Lucky and two of her pals, Carol (Moody) and Lisa (Scruggs) plan to pull off a heist at the Circus Circus hotel and casino, which in this movie is managed by the really mean Eversull (DiCenzo). (Lesson #1: Maybe you should choose a heist target with a really old, nearsighted, sweet natured manager?) The plan will require flawless execution from each of the ladies - Carol as a fill-in serving girl, Circus Circus high wire acrobat Lisa mountaineering around the outside of the building, and Lucky opening some doors and windows on the upper floors by slipping away from a big game she gets into thanks to an unwitting Big Jake. It's not going to be easy, and each lady has an external complication that could trash the whole deal: Carol is in debt to a weaselly loan shark, Lisa has recently developed vertigo, and Lucky is dallying with a security guard at the place she's trying to rob. Will they be able to get it together and steal the cash? Who is that mysterious planner who set the whole heist up? And most importantly, will they be able to get away with it, or will Eversull figure the whole thing out and stop them cold?





Eversull figures it out and stops them. From the evidence, it wasn't too cold, though.

 I had very high hopes for this one, with it being from the mid 70's, set in Las Vegas, and with that cast. And though it's watchable, it isn't exactly what I was hoping it would be. This was only the second film for director Nosseck, made the same year as his first, and it shows. The first half hour is edited in a very ragged fashion, with several scenes just getting up to speed before suddenly cutting to a different unrelated scene that seems to start out on pause. Finally, as the second half gets going and we get to the heist, the editing problems fade out and the movie improves, staying mostly on target through to the end. The other big problem I had is the film's PG rating. I don't need every movie I watch to wallow in human filth and degradation (just some of them) but this movie sets up some harsh plot points and then ends up only hinting at them and dropping them. How mean was that loan shark, and what did he do to Carol? And what did Eversull do to that extremely frightened prostitute? We never find out. Again, I don't need to see hours of torture and gore, but if you're a filmmaker and you want to introduce these elements, give us some kind of a payoff. Leave what you want to the imagination, but give our imaginations something to work with. What we get is the girl grimacing as Eversull grins and moves toward her. Cut. We never hear another word about the young woman, and the whole subplot is dropped. Instead, why not have Eversull pull out some horrendous, evil prop (knife, blowtorch, Lady Gaga CD) and advance on the girl as she screams. Cut away. Later, have a lesser light in the cast mention the girl died from the wounds. Now I know Eversull is a REALLY bad guy and you still didn't show anything. But then, the movie is truly squeamish about the rough stuff all around. In fact **Major Spoiler Alert** no one even dies in the movie. At all. Ever. Including the bad guys.
    On the plus side, we've got good location work in Las Vegas, especially at Circus Circus, where James Bond had visited four years previously in Diamonds are Forever, and where I stayed when I got married in Las Vegas decades later. We've got the always welcome leads - the cool Stevens, and the earthy Whitman; and good support from Moody, Scruggs, and even ol' Jesse White. It's also cool to see Andrew Stevens and WKRP's Frank Bonner in small roles. The biggest acting kudos go to DiCenzo as a truly despicable jackwagon of the highest order, always angry, always grimacing, and never speaking anything approaching a kind word to anyone in the movie. There is also some stuntwork involving Scruggs' stunt double climbing around the outside of Circus Circus that looks like it came from a bigger budgeted movie (though there are also a couple of shots where the giant neon letters on the building look like weird miniatures combined optically with the stuntman). All in all, if you're really into heist movies or Las Vegas movies or you're a fan of the stars, this squeaks by with a recommendation. Others, not so much. Finally, a word on the presentation: I saw this on a double feature "Welcome to the Grindhouse" DVD from BCI/Eclipse. It's paired with Policewomen (which will turn up here sooner or later) and features trailers for Chinese Hercules, Weekend with the Babysitter (narrated by Casey Kasem, I do believe), Chain Gang Women, and Superchick - some or all of which are available on DVD from the same company.



Let's Get Out of Here ?

Approximately 43:00 in, Jesse White drops The Line on Stella Stevens to get her to leave the lounge and accompany him to the gaming tables .




Eye Candy ?

Stella Stevens might still qualify even now, but she definitely did in 1975.



Yeah, I know this is The Poseidon Adventure and 1972, go with it.

Buddha Man's Capsule Review



Buddha Man says "Las Vegas Lady isn't playing with cold dice, but it is a little choppy. That's gambling jargon, by the by."

Mob Better Blues!

The Outfit (MGM, 1973)

Before the Camera:

Robert Duvall (THX-1138)

Joe Don Baker (Walking Tall)

Karen Black (Airport '75)

Robert Ryan (Captain Nemo and the Underwater City)

Timothy Carey (The World's Greatest Sinner)

Richard Jaeckel (The Dirty Dozen)

Sheree North (Maniac Cop)

Bill McKinney (Deliverance)

and if you look fast -

Marie Windsor (Abbott and Costello Meet The Mummy)

Elisha Cook, Jr. (College Confidential)

Joanna Cassidy (Who Framed Roger Rabbit?)

Henry Jones (Dirty Dingus Magee)

and

I think Hoyt Axton (Gremlins) is in there too, but he's not listed in it anywhere. Still, if it's not him he had a twin...

 

 

 

Behind the Camera:

Directed by John Flynn

Produced by Carter DeHaven

Written by John Flynn, based on the novel by Richard Stark (Donald Westlake)

 

 

 

    Here we have a down-n-dirty lean and mean crime melodrama, based on a novel by Donald Westlake writing under his harder edged Richard Stark pseudonym. Macklin (Duvall) is released from prison and finds out from his longtime girlfriend Bett (Black) that his brother has been killed gangland style. A little digging turns up the info that the last bank Macklin and his brother robbed was a front for the mob (or Outfit) run by Mailer (Ryan). They put the hit on Macklin's bro, now they want to make it a double Macklin funeral. But he's not going to go gently into that good night and instead goes on the run with Bett. Through one of Mailer's captains, Menner (Carey), Macklin gets word to Mailer that all will be forgiven if the mob will shuck out $250,000 to him. Otherwise, he will commence an attack on their enterprises like they've never seen. (Lesson #1: When a guy like Macklin comes to you asking for $250,000, give it to him. Then kill him later when he's drunk and covered in hookers...) The Outfit respectfully indicates their answer is no, sure their torpedoes will find their mark before Macklin can cause too much trouble. But Macklin's a crafty devil, and re-teaming with his old pal Cody (Baker) they start running and gunning on The Outfit's operations, stealing thousands of dollars that Macklin has already warned would not reduce the $250,000 debt he feels he is owed. Gunfire, fistfights, pistol whippings, girl smackings, and car chases all ensue.


Duvall and Baker discover laundry is the most dangerous chore of all.

Thematically it's very similar to Westlake's novel The Hunter (filmed twice - 1967's Point Blank and 1999's Payback) - with a lead character not likely to win any church or civic awards looking to score a very specific amount of money from a gang of criminals he feels wronged him; but it's also different from both of those films and stands on its own. It's nice to see character pro Duvall get the lead here, and he's ably supported by that cast of familiar faces, with standout awards going to Baker, Carey, and especially Ryan, in his final role - he died before the film was released. The ladies don't have all that much to do, and the movie will never be mistaken for a National Organization for Women training flick, but the actresses do get in a couple of nice moments, Black with that strange allure she always brings to the table, and North nearly falling out of a flimsy little nothing she almost wears in her scene. Director Flynn handles his duties adroitly, keeping a solid pace but not forgetting some solid character moments along the way. These aren't people you would want to have over for Sunday dinner, but it's fun to watch them run around waving guns at each other for an hour and forty minutes.

Let's Get Out of Here ?

At about the 10:00 mark, Karen Black goes large with The Line, proposing a new start on life to Robert Duvall. He declines, natch.

Eye Candy ?

Although Karen Black could qualify, she doesn't get the necessary showcase here. Sheree North, however, tramps right over and takes the prize for this flick.

Buddha Man's Capsule Review

Buddha Man says "The Outfit is good actors, good action, good times!"

Until next time, you can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!