TERROR IN BEVERLY HILLS (1991) *

Terrorists kidnap the president’s daughter while she’s shopping on Rodeo Drive.  Naturally, there’s only one man who can stop the terrorist mastermind.  That man is played by… 

You guessed it... Frank Stallone.

Terror in Beverly Hills is punishing almost from the get-go.  It’s particularly sluggish when the focus is on the terrorists.  The beginning is plagued by long boring scenes of the terrorists boarding a plane, getting annoyed by a kid in the next seat, and getting hassled at customs.  It’s almost like director John Myhers was more interested in the minor inconveniences of traveling rather than the action.  

In fact, it takes almost twenty minutes for Frank to even appear on screen.  I never thought I’d want MORE Frank Stallone in a movie, but here we are.  Stallone does what he can with his limited skill set, and in the right hands probably could’ve been marginally effective.  Too bad it’s painfully clear Myhers has no idea what he’s doing.  Aside from a few haphazard car chases early on, the action is largely absent, leaving us with a lot of dull scenes of people arguing with each other.  The action we finally do get is poorly staged and the editing is embarrassing.  The big fight between Stallone and the heavy is especially terrible. 

The highlight (for me anyway) was seeing Cameron Mitchell as a foul-mouthed, chain-smoking, chain-donut-eating Yelling Police Captain.  His constant obscenity-laden diatribes help to keep you awake, although he’s not in it nearly enough to make it worthwhile.  Some amusement can also be had from seeing the great William Smith (whose familiar voice is dubbed by another actor) as the President.  Unfortunately, he’s only in a handful of scenes and never gets to do anything worthy of his talents.

AN EYE FOR THE GIRLS (1966) **

A narrator with a thick Midwest accent (“Ain’t that a mouthful of cheese?”) teaches a class about the female form.  We then see choppy and grainy footage of women dancing before we’re shown nude stills while a guy offscreen points to their naughty parts with a pencil.  Then, there are still images of a guy named “Georgie” taking pictures of scantily clad “goils”. 

The rest of the film plays out like that.  Instead of seeing actual stripteases, we merely get a series of photos of girls with less and less clothing.  It often feels more like a slideshow accompanied by clumsy narration than a real movie.  Either that or a screen version of a pictorial from nudie magazine.  Sure, it’s clumsy and awkward, but once you get used to it, it isn’t too bad.

The narration is good for some laughs.  After a close-up of boobs, the narrator says, “How would yah like tah spot weld deez things?”  What the fuck?  It’s not close to being “good”, but it’s certainly strange enough and short enough (it’s less than fifty minutes) to be watchable. 

Georgie’s mugging gets old quickly though, and the girls vary in attractiveness.  Still, it’s got enough random moments (like the odd scene where a guy holds a woman at knifepoint, not to mention the padding taken from an old western) to make for a unique experience.  It’s actually kind of shocking this was made and released. I would’ve liked to have seen audience’s reactions to this one when it was first released. 

THE MOVING FINGER (1963) ½ *

A thief is shot and wounded while robbing a bank.  Some no-good beatniks nurse him back to health in an effort to get their grubby hands on the loot.  Lionel Stander (from Hart to Hart) plays a coffeeshop owner who caters to the beatnik crowd who also wants to cash for himself.  Pretty soon, cops and crooks soon start swarming around the place looking for the lost loot, further complicating matters. 

The Moving Finger is a borderline unwatchable pseudo-noir beatniksploitation drama that is completely undone by the thoroughly repellent characters.  After an okay opening, things quickly devolve into one interminably boring scene after the other.  The scenes of the beatniks hanging out, smoking dope, singing godawful songs, and holding cockroach races will make you want to pull you hair out.  Only Stander’s crotchety rambling provides a brief respite from the listing pacing and the boneheaded beatnik shenanigans. 

Another problem is that the filmmakers couldn’t figure out whether they wanted to make a crime thriller or a beatnik flick.  Splitting the difference between the two does no one any favors.   The Moving Finger also briefly flirts with being a full-blown horror movie during the scene where Stander makes out with a sexy woman.  Thankfully, this scene is abruptly cut short before he can get to second base.  In fact, a long section of the film is devoted to unattractive people making out, further adding to the viewer’s displeasure.

MURDER A LA MOD (1968) ** ½

Murder a la Mod is Brian De Palma’s first movie.  It’s alternately frustrating and fascinating.  The most impressive thing about it is that he arrived fully formed with plenty of the cinematic fetishes that would later become his hallmarks already on display.  There are Hitchcockian murder set pieces, a shopping scene that plays with time similarly to Carrie, William Findlay acting creepy, and characters using film to uncover a crime.  All of this is maddingly uneven, but when it hits the sweet spot, Murder a la Mod is a lot of fun.

Artist models are instructed to disrobe by an unseen photographer during screen tests.  Some are timid and/or complain and others are brutally murdered on camera.  One such victim is Tracy (Andra Ankers).  Is the creepy cameraman Otto (Findlay, who even sings the awesome theme song!) to blame?  Or is someone else the culprit?  

Most of the fun comes from seeing De Palma already exploring thematic material he’d later use in his other movies.  Like Body Double, it involves the seedy side of moviemaking.  There’s also a definite Psycho element at work here, which would later influence De Palma’s Dressed to Kill.  We even get a body-hiding scene that’s similar to Sisters.   

After the shocking opening scene, things get awfully uneven.  One scene plays out like a silent comedy while the next turns into full-on gory horror.  These shifts in tone are often jarring, although it adds to the film’s anything-goes charm.  The meandering script and the amateurish performances (especially by the bank manager) are the main debits, but it still remains a fascinating curio for De Palma’s fans.  Like the title pun, it’s amusing even if it doesn’t quite work. 

STRAY CAT ROCK: WILD JUMBO (1970) **

In this second film in the Stray Cat Rock series, a gang of delinquents try to cheer up their down-in-the-dumps leader, Taki (Takeo Chii).  His spirits brighten when he falls for the rich, horseback riding Asako (Bunjaku Han).  When his buddies find a huge munitions stash, they horde the weapons for themselves.  Meanwhile, Taki and his new girlfriend join a religious youth group and he even signs the gang up, causing them to question his sanity.  However, it’s all a ruse to steal the church’s donation box.  Naturally, his trigger-happy friends bring their guns to the heist, and things end in predictably tragic fashion.

As with the first Stray Cat Rock movie, Delinquent Girl Boss, Wild Jumbo is episodic and slow moving.  The gang in this one feel much too naïve and unthreatening to make it worthwhile.  In fact, some scenes play like a Japanese version of a Beach Party movie.  I did like the part when a rival gang came after them and comic book thought bubbles and random cartoon inserts where humorously utilized.  The snazzy harmonica-driven score is pretty cool too.  

Despite one or two nifty moments, Wild Jumbo commits a fatal sin by having the usually dynamic Meiko (Lady Snowblood) Kaji relegated to the role of the “girl”.  Most of the time, she just sits next to Taki, not doing a whole lot.  At times she almost blends in with the background.  Wasting her considerable talents like this is downright criminal and unforgivable if you ask me.  Kaji gets to sing one song (at a campground), which is okay, but it’s far from her best stuff.  The same can be said for the movie itself. 

SHOWDOWN IN MANILA (2018) ***

DTV action legend Mark Dacascos makes his directorial debut with this fun flick that at times feels like a spiritual sequel to the iconic Showdown in Little Tokyo.  I’m not saying that just because it has Tia Carrere and Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa in prominent roles either.  Like Little Tokyo, the banter between the two leads, Alexander Nevsky and Casper Van Dien is offbeat, quirky, and is often very funny.  Casper gets a lot of laughs as the sex addict private detective and Nevsky makes for a likeable and capable leading man.  It’s nowhere near as good as that classic, but it’s a largely entertaining DTV shoot ‘em up.

Tia watches in horror as her husband (played by Dacascos in an extended cameo) is killed in broad daylight by the evil Hiroyuki-Tagawa.  She then hires a pair of private detectives (Nevsky and Van Dien) to find her husband’s killer.  That’s easier said than done since Hiroyuki-Tagawa is a legendary “ghost” who only shows his face when he’s about to kill someone.  Since Nevsky has a score to settle with Hiroyuki-Tagawa, it gives him extra incentive to bring him down.

If the film was nothing more than Nevsky and Van Dien hunting Hiroyuki-Tagawa down, Showdown in Manila would’ve been a blast.  However, the last half hour turns into a B-level version of The Expendables as Nevsky gets his old crew together to track down his arch-nemesis.  The team includes such DTV luminaries as Olivier Gruner, Don “The Dragon” Wilson, and Cynthia Rothrock!  Not only that, but we also have Matthias Hues as Hiroyuki-Tagawa’s slimy henchmen.  Rothrock’s character is particularly hilarious as she wears camouflage fatigues in the jungle, yet has her hair is dyed purple, which you’d think would give her away to the enemy.  However, she’s so badass that she probably doesn’t care since she’s more than capable of taking care of herself. 

As a director, Dacascos has a no-frills style, but there’s lots of action, so it’s hard to really complain.  Even though the pacing gets kind of pokey at times, seeing this gang of familiar faces gathered in one place is just plain fun.  Maybe when they do the sequel, the team can have more screen time together. 

Screenwriter Craig Hamann (who collaborated with Quentin Tarantino on the unfinished My Best Friend’s Birthday in his salad days) also directed the Dacascos flick Boogie Boy.  

CRAWL (2019) *** ½

Legends of horror, director Alexandre (Piranha 3-D) Aja and producer Sam (The Evil Dead) Raimi teamed up for this solid and effective alligator thriller. Kaya Scodelario comes to Florida in the face of a massive hurricane to check on her father (Barry Pepper).  When she arrives, she is horrified to find he’s trapped in his crawlspace suffering from a gator wound.  The pair then must fend off hungry gators while in the midst of raging winds and an ever-rising flood. 

Aja makes good use of the claustrophobic setting.  He deftly takes Florida’s two worst nightmares, hurricanes and gators, and combines them into one satisfying popcorn thriller.  The suspense is tightly wound and the film crackles when Scodelario (who has an Amber Heard quality about her) is risking life and limb to save her dad.  The various subplots (that include a gang of thieves whose hurricane heist is foiled by swarming gators and rescue workers getting turned into gator chow) are pretty much only there to pad the body count (and running time), but they also help provide the brief but juicy gore.  I could’ve also done without Scodelario’s swimming flashbacks (that seem inspired by The Shallows), although they don’t detract from the main story too much.

What really matters is that Aja does fine job setting up the scares and springing them like a master.  Flawed though it may be, whenever Aja is cooking up the suspense, Crawl delivers the goods.  It’s certainly more respectable than your typical SyFy Channel Original, but the film wears its down and dirty craftsmanship like a badge of honor, which to a Killer Alligator Movie fan is commendable.