THE SIN OF HAROLD DIDDLEBOCK (1947) **

Writer/director Preston Sturges had a number of hits under his belt in the mid ‘40s and practically had carte blanche in Hollywood.  He was a big Harold Lloyd fan and decided to make The Sin of Harold Diddlebock as a comeback vehicle for him.  (Lloyd hadn’t appeared in a movie in over nine years at that point.)  It sounded like a match made in Heaven, but unfortunately for comedy fans, their styles never really mesh.  The fact that the laughs are precious and few makes the teaming of the two comedic titans even more disappointing.

The film opens with the classic football game scene from The Freshman.  It’s supposed to do two things simultaneously:  Remind the audience of just how funny Lloyd could be while also acting as cheap stock footage.  Too bad there’s more laughs in the footage from The Freshman than there is in the rest of the movie.

After winning the big football game, Harold gets offered a lowly job with the promise of an eventual promotion.  Fast-forward twenty years and he’s still stuck at the same desk.  When he complains to the boss, he’s promptly fired.  Faced with few options, the usually teetotaling Harold decides to go out and get drunk for the very first time.  He goes on a wild bender and awakens from his drunken stupor surprised to learn he’s now in possession of a failing circus.  Harold then goes off on a frantic search to pawn off the circus on someone else, but of course he gets no takers. 

The best scene is when Harold goes into the bar and the overly eager bartender played by Edgar (Duck Soup) Kennedy mixes him up a customized drink.  Kennedy is quite funny in this scene, and it’s a shame he wasn’t given more to do elsewhere in the picture.  Other bits are played by such familiar faces as Lionel Stander (as a bookie), Margaret Hamilton (as a maid), and Rudy Vallee (as a potential investor).   

The rest of the picture is low on laughs and surprisingly light on the physical comedy Lloyd is known for.  I guess that’s to be expected, given the fact that he was much older and hadn’t appeared in a movie in over a decade, but still.  He doesn’t give a bad performance either.  It’s just that the film itself is rather lackluster.  The big finale where Harold tries to retrieve a lion from the ledge of a tall building is supposed to evoke memories of the iconic Safety Last.  However, it just comes off as a hollow imitation and isn’t very funny to boot. 

The film sorely lacks Sturges’ comedic touch too.  Sturges might’ve meant The Sin of Harold Diddlebock as a love letter to Lloyd, but I think he would’ve been better off allowing Lloyd to direct the picture as their sensibilities don’t quite gel.  Ultimately, its biggest sin is that it just isn’t very funny.   

AKA:  Mad Wednesday.

ONE-EYED JACKS (1961) ***

There’s a fine line between art and crap.  Because of that, it can sometimes be difficult to tell if the movie you’re watching is terrible or if it’s a work of greatness.  That’s the overriding feeling you get while watching One-Eyed Jacks, the first and only film directed by Marlon Brando.  It’s obtuse and frustrating at times, and yet it’s hard to take your eyes off it.  I can’t say it’s particularly well-made or has any distinguishing directorial touches, but it has a lure to it that is hard to deny, even if the film itself is rather leaden.

Brando replaced Stanley Kubrick as director, if you can believe it.  He stars as a bank robber named Kid who gets left in the desert by partner, Dad (Karl Malden).  Naturally, Kid gets caught by the authorities and is sent to prison.  He breaks out five years later and heads to Monterey, California where Dad is now sheriff. 

This set-up is rather laborious and will likely have you squirming in your seat but stick with it.  An odd thing happens as One-Eyed Jacks enters into its second act.  It becomes less a western and more a maudlin morality play.  You see, once Kid stares down Dad face to face, he realizes he can’t very well kill the man in cold blood.  Dad is grateful of course, but that all changes when Kid starts messing around with Dad’s stepdaughter.  From here, the picture turns grim, violent, and nearly operatic.  

It’s clear when you watch One-Eyed Jacks that Brando was in over his head.  He went way over schedule and over budget and legend has it his first cut clocked in at a whopping five hours.  The studio naturally took it away from him and cut it down to 141 minutes.  

It’s hard to tell just what he was going for.  At times, it’s introspective and moody.  Other times, there are outbursts of violence.  It’s a western in sheep’s clothing as it doesn’t really cater to the demands of the genre.  It almost seems as if Brando was making it all up as he went along.  The picture, like his acting technique calls for long quiet stretches punctuated by great emotion.  I can’t quite say it works, but it’s certainly something.

At times you can almost feel like Brando is only playing coy with the genre and seeing just how far he could push it.  For example, many scenes in the film take place at the beach.  I can’t say I can recall the last time I saw a western with so many (if any) beach scenes.  It’s as if Brando was literally pushing the western as far west as it could possibly go.  

The drama, as I’ve said, is nearly operatic.  You don’t need to be a psychologist to read into the fact that the protagonist and antagonist are named “Kid” and “Dad”.  Nor is the castration metaphor subtle when Dad catches Kid with his daughter and smashes his gun hand, leaving him unable to “shoot”.

It’s hard to say what Stanley Kubrick would’ve done with the material.  If he had done everything exactly the same, it might’ve been hailed as a masterpiece.  Because Brando did it, it’s merely a curiosity piece.  I don’t think Kubrick, who is known for his cold, detached style would’ve allowed Brando to act as theatrical as he does here.  That unrestrained passion seeps into every other aspect of the movie, making One-Eyed Jacks worth a look for Brando enthusiasts.

SANTO ON THE BORDER OF TERROR (1981) ***

Santo on the Border of Terror is at its heart, a metaphor for the plight of the Mexican refugee who is escaping to America in search for a better life.  In fact, it’s probably timelier now than when it was first released.  The film also pulled at my heartstrings more than any Lucha Libre movie in history.  Because of that, it comes highly recommended, even if there are some serious lulls in between the action.  

The picture does kick off right away with El Santo participating in a fast-moving tag-team wrestling match during the opening credits.  (El Santo also wrestles in a six-man tag-team match later in the film.)  He then makes the acquaintance of a sexy lounge singer and her little sister, who is blind.  They plan to cross the border to America so she can have an operation on her eyes, and El Santo offers to help them out.  Her boyfriend is lured into thinking a doctor will help him across the border, but he just wants to use him for his own devious medical experiments.  It’s then up to El Santo to rescue him and bring down the evil doctor once and for all.

Masked wrestlers are intensely secretive about their identities.  Keeping up the mystery of their appearance is one of the most hallowed traditions in their sport.  That’s what makes the scene where El Santo takes off his mask and allows the little blind girl to touch his face so she can “see” him so damned beautiful.  The other characters respectfully look the other way when El Santo does this, and the camera is kept behind him, so the audience doesn’t see his face either.  It’s a great, touching, tender, human moment that we rarely get to see in these films.  So poignant was this scene that it reduced me to tears.  I’ll admit, I’ve had some personal stuff going on this week.  It might not have affected me the way it did otherwise.  That in no way takes away from the power of this scene, one of the finest in El Santo’s career.

Okay, enough of the mushy stuff.  There’s still enough wrestling action and goofy shit (the doctor keeps a pair of eyeballs floating in a jar) to make Santo on the Border of Terror work as a pure Lucha Libre flick.  I will say the fights that take place outside of the ring are somewhat lacking.  (The overuse of long shots during the action kind of takes away from the immediacy of the fights.)  We also get two nightclub performance scenes for viewers who love seeing Mexican musical numbers in their El Santo movies.  I also enjoyed seeing The Puma Man’s Miguel Angel Fuentes in an early role as the mad scientist’s henchman.

Unfortunately, the film really drags when El Santo or the cute kid aren’t front and center.  Although the presence of a mad scientist is always welcome in these films, these scenes just aren’t as wacky or as weird as El Santo’s best stuff.  The evil doctor shit is also an uneasy mix with the exploitation of Mexican workers subplot.  Still, Santo on the Border of Terror’s heart is in the right place, which is all that really matters.  I can’t be too mad if it doesn’t quite make the grade as a social parable, especially when El Santo’s interactions with the little blind girl are so heartwarming.  

AKA:  Santo in the Border of Terror.  AKA:  Santo vs. the White Shadow.

INFERNO (1953) ***

Geraldine (Rhonda Fleming) and her lover Joseph (William Lundigan) ditch her husband Donald (Robert Ryan) in the middle of the desert with a broken leg.  Hoping he’ll die of exposure so they can live happily ever after together, they come up with a bogus cover story that the gullible law enforcement buys hook, line, and sinker.  Naturally, Donald uses his wits and ingenuity to not only survive, but to get the upper hand on his two-timing wife and her spineless suitor. 

This 3-D thriller has a solid premise, reliable performances, and a snappy pace.  Director Roy Ward Baker (who would go on to direct many Hammer horror classics) waits till the thrilling climax before he unleashes the best 3-D gimmicks.  He’s more concerned with crafting an involving tale of survival than tossing a bunch of stuff into the audience’s lap.  The taut desert scenes utilize some terrific voiceover by Ryan.  Although he says very little out loud, his constant narration is a wonderful technique to show his thought process and draw the audience deeper into his plight.

The scenes of Fleming and Lundigan deliberately throwing the police off their scent and playing house together aren’t nearly as compelling as Ryan’s fight for survival.  Their performances are still strong enough to keep you watching though.  Ryan is the real standout however.  His performance is even more impressive when you realize he speaks very little throughout the first two acts of the film.  Henry (The Werewolf of London) Hull is also quite good as an old timer who eventually lends Ryan a hand.

Baker waits till the last ten minutes or so to pile on the 3-D effects, but they’re well worth the wait.  Once Ryan and Lundigan finally lock horns, they throw nearly everything they can get their hands on at each other, and consequentially out into the audience.  Among the 3-D effects:

·         3-D Airplane Nose

·         3-D Gun

·         3-D Rocks

·         3-D Torch

·         3-D Lantern

·         3-D Cup

·         3-D Chair

·         3-D Falling Timbers 

RADIOACTIVE DREAMS (1986) *

Two boys are locked in an underground bunker as the bombs of WWIII begin to fall.  Having spent their formative years in a fallout shelter reading ‘40s detective novels, Phillip (John Stockwell) and Marlowe (Michael Dudikoff) emerge from the bunker fifteen years later as “atomic dicks”.  Almost immediately, they run smack into a mysterious woman (Lisa Blount) who is on the run from some shady characters who are looking for the keys to the last nuclear warhead left on earth.  Phillip and Marlowe give chase and wind up having many bizarre misadventures in the post-puke landscape. 

There’s a kernel of a good idea here, but writer/director Albert (The Sword and the Sorcerer) Pyun never figures out a way to make it pop.  The odd mix of Mad Max action, ‘40s film noir inspiration, and ‘80s teen comedy doesn’t gel.  The plot is nearly incoherent as our heroes have run-ins with everything from foulmouthed kids that look like Bugsy Malone versions of Al Pacino in Scarface to ‘50s style greasers to mutant cannibals to giant monsters.  None of it remotely works and it feels more like a checklist of shit Pyun wanted to put into a movie than a movie itself.

The incomprehensible plotting has nothing on the dingy cinematography.  Like many of Pyun’s movies of the era, it’s often ugly and unpleasant to look at.  The combination of dark shadows and grimy looking locations and sets make it hard to tell what’s going on some of the time.  The repetitive rock soundtrack gets annoying fast, and many sequences just feel like a bad MTV music video.

For a movie whose characters are obsessed with ‘40s detectives, it really doesn’t lean into the film noir clichés until late in the game.  I’m not sure why it took so long for the film to embrace the genre because these scenes are definitely the strongest stretch of the picture.  It’s still not very good mind you, but it’s certainly better than the cruddy sequences of our heroes hanging out in dark and grody punk rock nightclubs. 

Stockwell isn’t bad, but Dudikoff is thoroughly annoying.  While he was quite good in the American Ninja movies, he’s not much of a comedic actor, and his constant mugging and whiny demeanor are like nails on a chalkboard.  Blount gives the film a fleeting spark, although she is sadly underutilized as the femme fatale.  Even if she was given more to do, I’m not sure it would’ve prevented Radioactive Dreams from being a total snoozer. 

THE RAGE (1998) **

Lorenzo Lamas stars as an FBI “Mindhunter” on the trail of a madman played by Gary Busey.  His superior (Roy Scheider) hates Lorenzo’s guts, so he saddles him with a wet-behind-the-ears agent (Kristen Cloke), hoping they’ll screw up and Roy can finally fire his ass.  After a rocky start, the two agents eventually combine their resources to stop Busey and his trigger-happy militia members from assassinating a bunch of politicians during a woodland weekend retreat.

Directed by Sidney J. (Superman IV:  The Quest for Peace) Furie, The Rage is uneven, overlong, and undercooked.  It often feels like two scripts were haphazardly stapled together.  Busey’s character starts out like a serial killer/rapist in the early scenes, but by the end of the movie, he’s leading a team of trigger-happy Ruby Ridge-inspired militia members.  They probably should’ve dropped all the stuff with him being a rapist because it lends an air of unpleasantness to the film that prevents it from being fun.  

I mean what can you say about a movie that features A) Its lead female character dealing with the repercussions of being molested by the villain and B) A random Kung Fu battle between Lorenzo Lamas and Roy Scheider?  The tone is just too all over the place to work.  Not to mention the fact that Busey’s character’s backstory is blatantly stolen from Women’s Prison Massacre.  

Furie does deliver on the action.  The car chase through a steeplechase course is a lot of fun, and I liked the sequence when Lamas’ car gets stuck underneath a speeding tractor trailer.  The climax, in which Busey is set on fire and still proceeds to do battle with Lamas, is unintentionally hilarious too.  It’s just that the jarring shifts in tone prevent it from ever getting into gear.

Lamas is more straitlaced than usual, but he still gets in a couple of funny quips.  He has a lot of chemistry with Cloke, who is asked to endure a lot of unnecessary unpleasantness.  Busey is entertaining to watch, and Scheider seems to be having fun, even though he is clearly slumming.  We also get a completely random cameo by David Carradine who provides a gratuitous exposition dump mid-movie, only to be abruptly killed off.

BAD BLOOD (1994) ***

Travis (Lorenzo Lamas) is an ex-cop who went to jail for destroying evidence to keep his younger brother Franklin (Hank Cheyne) out of prison.  When Franklin rips off the cartel for five million bucks, it’s once again up to Travis to protect him.  Franklin just so happens to be married to Travis’ former flame (Bad Lieutenant’s Frankie Thorn), which further complicates their already strained relationship. 

You know Bad Blood is going to be better than your average Lorenzo Lamas actioner when you see it was directed by the great Tibor Takacs.  This is the guy that directed minor '80s classics such as The Gate and I, Madman; not to mention Mansquito, one of the best Syfy Channel movies of all time.  Takacs infuses the film with enough quirky touches (like when Lamas beats up some thugs after a Little League practice), gratuitous T & A (Thorn, along with Skinamax sirens Nikki Fritz, Kim Dawson, and Kimberley Kates eagerly participate in softcore sex and/or stripping scenes), and non-stop action to keep things moving along at a steady clip.

Much of the film feels like a low rent version of a John Woo movie, and I mean that in the best possible way.  Nearly all the action sequences feature an abundance of slow motion during the shootouts, chase scenes, and Kung Fu battles.  Actually, there’s probably a bit too much slow motion, but it’s hard to complain when the plot moves faster than the action.  The finale is a hoot as Lamas dispatches the villains in a variety of ways including explosions, electrocutions, and forklifts.  In fact, this movie would make a great double feature with Death Wish V:  The Face of Death as both films came out in 1994, feature deaths by forklift, and conclude with its villain taking a dip in an acid bath.

Lamas once again delivers a fine performance and gets to show off an array of Kung Fu moves in his fight scenes.  He also uses a nice assortment of weapons such as bats, bricks, and pipes to bludgeon the bad guys senseless.  The supporting cast is equally strong.  Cheyne is well-cast as Lamas’ brother as they strongly resemble one another.  Thorn makes for a great leading lady, and John P. Ryan is a lot of fun as Lamas’ crotchety father.  Their combined efforts help keep Bad Blood in good standing with the audience.

AKA:  Viper.