Month: November 2019

The World’s Greatest Athlete (1973)

THE WORLD’S GREATEST ATHLETE (1973)
Article 3932 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-10-2012
Posting Date: 5-20-2012
Directed by Robert Scheerer
Featuring Tim Conway, Jan-Michael Vincent, John Amos
Country: USA
What it is: Shopping cart movie

A coach discovers a boy in the jungles of Zambia who has incredible athletic powers, and tricks the boy into coming back to American with him. But what will happen when the boy’s witch doctor godfather comes to take him back home?

For some reason, I was incredibly eager to see this movie back when I was in Junior High. In retrospect, I think it was the presence of top-billed Tim Conway, a comic actor who I loved from his work on “The Carol Burnett Show”. I never did get a chance to see the movie in a theater, but I caught it several years later on TV … and was promptly underwhelmed. The script is one of the weakest of the Disney shopping cart movies, and the direction is uninspired and pedestrian. As for Conway, he’s stuck in a role that doesn’t play to his strengths, and his comic dialogue is pretty lame; his best moment is when he’s under the spell of a voodoo doll made in his image, which emphasizes physical shtick instead of dialogue. In fact, the best performance here is from Roscoe Lee Browne, who plays Gazenga the witch doctor; it may be a silly role, but Browne plays it with a charming confidence and an authority that transcends the silliness. Actually, the most impressive thing about the film is the presence of a tiger who actually seems to be interacting with the actors and not just trainers; this must have been one well-trained animal.

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The Tenant (1976)

THE TENANT (1976)
aka La locataire
Article 3931 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-9-2012
Posting Date: 5-19-2012
Directed by Roman Polanski
Featuring Roman Polanski, Isabelle Adjani, Melvyn Douglas
Country: France
What it is: Psychological horror

A shy man takes an apartment whose former occupant committed suicide. He finds the neighbors and the management hostile, and grows to believe they are forcing him to become the former tenant… and to also kill himself.

This rather odd horror movie is something like a cross between ROSEMARY’S BABY and REPULSION, with the sinister neighbors of the former crossed with the descent into madness of the latter. The fascinating thing is that we’re never quite sure whether the various incidents he undergoes are the result of a plot, coincidence, or an overactive imagination, though the end of the movie clearly shows a descent into madness that tinges everything. Though I don’t like the movie quite as well as either of the two movies mentioned above, it does have a power to it, and I’m sure anyone who has ever had to deal with difficult fellow apartment dwellers will find something to relate to here. It is interesting to see how the various events cause the man to start identifying with the former (female) tenant, from the fact that he changes his cigarette brand to match hers to the way he ends up establishing relationships with the people that formerly knew her. The ending is a bit of a question mark, and I suspect it could be interpreted in various ways.

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Sweet Sugar (1972)

SWEET SUGAR (1972)
Article 3930 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-8-2012
Posting Date: 5-18-2012
Directed by Michel Levesque
Featuring Phyllis Davis, Ella Edwards, Timothy Brown
Country: USA
What it is: Women in Prison movie

A prostitute is set up for drug possession, but agrees to work at a sugar cane farm instead. But the work farm is brutally run, and the doctor there is an insane maniac who likes to experiment on the workers…

Okay, it’s not strictly a “women in prison” movie, but it’s pretty much working along the same lines and is meant to appeal to the same crowd. In short, this is heavy on the exploitation elements. These movies usually don’t have any fantastic content to them, but this one has a couple of elements. Some of the doctor’s “experiments” may put it into the realm of science fiction, and the appearance of a voodoo priest whose magic does seem to work (he locates the corpses of some of the doctor’s subjects by using his powers) adds a bit of fantasy/horror. I found the whole thing to be pretty silly, but then, I’ve never been a big fan of this particular genre, so I don’t have a whole lot of examples to which I can compare it. Still, I think it’s particularly stupid for the management of the farm to allow the captive women to all have their own machetes handy.

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O Lucky Man! (1973)

O LUCKY MAN! (1973)
Article 3929 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-7-2012
Posting Date: 5-17-2012
Directed by Lindsay Anderson
Featuring Malcolm McDowell, Ralph Richardson, Rachel Roberts
Country: UK / USA
What it is: Satire

An ambitious and eager coffee salesman is sent out to take over the position of another salesman who has disappeared. This eventually causes him to undertake an odyssey that will put his ambition and eagerness to the test…

This is a sprawling and very long epic, based on an idea from Malcolm McDowell and brought to life by Lindsay Anderson, who is perhaps best know for IF…., which also featured McDowell as a character of the same name as the one he has here. I’d seen it years ago, and though I remember certain individual moments, I didn’t remember it well. The movie’s actually a bit tough to get through, and to some extent it’s because it’s a little hard to find the center of the story because of its rambling, episodic nature; it isn’t until the end that you really see what the story arc is. The movie primarily qualifies as fantastic cinema thanks to a sequence in which the main character volunteers for scientific experimentation and then discovers what his fate is going to be; outside of that, there’s an air of surreal weirdness over much of the action that makes it at least partially a fantasy. With the exception of McDowell and Helen Mirren, all of the major actors have multiple roles. The use of music is striking, with Alan Price actually performing all of the numbers instead of having them heard over the action of the movie; he also appears as a character in the movie itself at one point. The movie works because the ending is strong and memorable, though I wonder how many people were able to make it that far. And I was wondering if the actor playing the film director at the end of the film was Lindsay Anderson himself, and sure enough, it was.

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Sleepaway Camp (1983)

SLEEPAWAY CAMP (1983)
Article 3928 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-6-2012
Posting Date: 5-16-2012
Directed by Robert Hiltzik
Featuring Felissa Rose, Jonathan Tiersten, Karen Fields
Country: USA
What it is: Slasher film

A painfully shy young girl, the sole survivor of a boating accident that killed the rest of her family, finds herself tormented by cruel people when she goes off to summer camp. Pretty soon, her tormentors start dying in horrible ways…

I’ll give the movie some credit; the final revelation isn’t half bad. The movie even gives a clue to the twist in what seems at the time to be an impenetrable flashback. Unfortunately, to get to the ending, you have to sit through the rest of the movie, which is populated with one-dimensional characters, has a bad case of Tourette syndrome, and features some of the worst overacting I’ve seen in years. The only reason you don’t spend most of the movie trying to figure out which performance is the worst is because that performance comes before we even reach the campground. Still, I’m not surprised this one has a bit of a cult reputation; the ending alone would guarantee that, as well as certain truly weird sequences. But I’m also not surprised that director Hiltzik has only one other directorial credit; a direct-to-video sequel made a quarter of a century later.

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The Comeback (1978)

THE COMEBACK (1978)
Article 3927 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-5-2012
Posting Date: 5-15-2012
Directed by Pete Walker
Featuring Jack Jones, Pamela Stephenson, David Doyle
Country: UK
What it is: Horror thriller

A singing star moves into an English country estate and begins work on a new album, unaware that his ex-wife has just been brutally murdered. He begins to have strange visions of her death, but are they just visions…?

Pete Walker has directed some interesting horror movies, some of which I quite like. This one has an interesting premise, a nice touch of mystery, and has a way of unfolding in unexpected ways. It is also rather contrived, especially in the ways it tries to throw suspicion on different characters at one time or another. The movie also has long dead spots in the story; it spends too much time on the “artist trying to make a comeback” storyline, and his involvement with his manager’s secretary. Still, the biggest problem I had with this movie is its ending; after setting up some interesting situations, the final revelations are distressingly ordinary, and the overall story doesn’t hold up under any close examination. I’m afraid I found this one to be particularly disappointing.

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The Hobbit (1977)

THE HOBBIT (1977)
TV-Movie
Article 3926 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-4-2012
Posting Date: 5-14-2012
Directed by Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr.
Featuring the voices of Orson Bean, Richard Boone, Hans Conried
Country: USA
What it is: Children’s epic fantasy

A hobbit is recruited as a burglar for a band of dwarfs intent on recovering a treasure from a dragon.

Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” is in something of an odd place; it’s the prelude to one of the greatest epic fantasies of all time, “The Lord of the Rings”, but since “Rings” is a fairly adult fantasy while “The Hobbit” is intended for juveniles, there’s an odd difference in style between the works. And since “The Hobbit” was intended for children, one of the hazards of its being adapted is for it to be made cuter and more cuddly than it is. At least this adaptation of the book avoids that; it maintains its epic fantasy feel rather well. The use of music is uneven and a little too persistent, but at least most of the lyrics come directly from the book, and the music never gets too pretty. The movie also keeps fairly faithful to the book; the only major episode missing is the encounter with Beorn, but given that very little actually happens during that part of the novel, it was no doubt the first thing to get the axe when trying to condense the story to 77 minutes. But, because of the shortness, the story sometimes feels a bit rushed, especially during the first half. All in all, I found this a good, if not great, adaptation of the Tolkien novel.

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Secret Agent Super Dragon (1966)

SECRET AGENT SUPER DRAGON (1966)
aka New York chiama Superdrago
Article 3925 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-3-2012
Posting Date: 5-13-2012
Directed by Giorgio Ferroni
Country: Ray Danton, Marisa Mell, Margaret Lee
Country: France / Italy / West Germany
What it is: Eurospy

Secret agent Super Dragon comes out of retirement to investigate a plot to poison the world with a new drug.

This movie has a rating of 1.9 on IMDB, and part of that low rating is no doubt due to the fact that it was featured on MST3K. However, I suspect that even without that factor, the movie wouldn’t have much of a reputation; it’s one of the most tepid and lifeless Eurospy movies I’ve seen for this series. The movie seems particularly short of action; it’s mostly walking around, dull conversations, tired attempts at humor, etc. The drug is the fantastic content in the movie, as well as a couple of minor gadgets. All in all, this was a particularly joyless experience.

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Klaun Ferdinand a raketa (1963)

KLAUN FERDINAND A RAKETA (1963)
aka Rocket to Nowhere, Clown Ferdinand and the Rocket
Article 3924 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-2-2012
Posting Date: 5-12-2012
Directed by Jindrich Polak
Featuring Jiri Vrstala, Hanus Bor, Vladimir Horka
Country: Czechoslovakia
What it is: Children’s comedy

Clown Ferdinand encounters a rocket and a robot that can turn invisible.

Apparently, several movies have been made with the character of Clown Ferdinand, which leads me to believe that he was a fairly popular children’s character. If the plot description above is threadbare, that’s because any real plot thread seems to be hidden in the dialogue, which, since it isn’t in English, I can’t follow. Still, that’s not a big factor here, as the movie mostly seems to focus on various slapstick comic scenes which don’t require much in the way of explanation. It’s juvenile and only slightly amusing, but what else do you really expect from a movie like this? Still, I will give the movie credit for one thing; at least Clown Ferdinand comes across as likable and not annoying, and for adults having to watch these movies, that’s a definite plus. The robot (when he’s visible) resembles Robby a little, and he actually gets the biggest laugh when he does a little dance routine. The movie is inconsequential, but harmless.

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Shadow of the Hawk (1976)

SHADOW OF THE HAWK (1976)
Article 3923 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-1-2012
Posting Date: 5-11-2012
Directed by George McCowan and Daryl Duke
Featuring Jan-Michael Vincent, Marilyn Hassett, Chief Dan George
Country: Canada / USA
What it is: Supernatural fantasy

An old Indian medicine man comes to the city to find his grandson with the intent of getting him to be his successor… and to help fight an evil sorceress who means to destroy him.

John Stanley’s guide describes this movie as a supernatural fantasy rather than a horror movie, and I do rather agree with his assessment; despite the horror elements on display, the atmosphere is more like a fantasy. The movie is deliberately paced, and most of the running time is dedicated to the long trip from the city back to the reservation, an ordeal intended to put to rest the skepticism of the grandson and to test his mettle. The special effects don’t always live up to the ambitions of the movie, and the ending was a little disappointing, but overall I quite liked it, and I think Chief Dan George steals the movie, at least partially because he lends authority and simple conviction to the mysticism and magic. There are some nice character moments; I like the scene where the medicine man encounters his grandson’s future love in the hospital, where he simply looks up at here from his gurney, and she begins to wipe his brow.

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