Monday, May 14, 2018

STONEY (1975) *


The luscious Barbara Bouchet stars in the brain-dead lensed-in-the-Philippines stinker.  She plays the mistress of a smuggler (Michael Rennie) who gets a line on a valuable cache of jewels.  He sends Barbara to retrieve them, and naturally a lot of people come crawling out of the woodwork to get their hands on the loot. 

The promise of Bouchet naked will be the only thing to keep you watching this boring heist picture.  Even then, her nude scenes are brief and not all that titillating.  The presence of one of my all-time favorite character actors, Vic Diaz couldn’t even brighten things up.  That’s mostly because his role is minor, and his character is underwritten.  If only the filmmakers allowed Diaz to go full-tilt boogie on Bouchet.  What a treat that would’ve been.

Another problem is that the movie never tries to make Bouchet a credible action star.  Sure, she looks great while wearing a variety of vintage garments, but I bet she would’ve looked even sexier brandishing a machine gun.  Unfortunately, we’re forced to settle for a dull, British, way-past-his-prime matinee idol type to do that sort of stuff while Barbara cowers in a corner somewhere.

Most of the blame must be placed on director Wray Davis.  He never directed another movie and it’s easy to see why.  The film is painfully low on action and what action we do get is badly shot, poorly lit, and incompetently staged.  (The strobe light effect during the final double-cross is annoying as hell.)  Since most of the running time is devoted to long, boring scenes of people sitting around plotting and scheming, enjoying Stoney is a rocky proposition at best.  

AKA:  Surabaya Conspiracy.  AKA:  The Gold Seekers.

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