THE GREAT GABBO (1929) ** ½

Gabbo (Erich Von Stroheim) is a ventriloquist whose dummy Otto is the toast of Broadway.  When he spots his former assistant Mary (Betty Compson from Mad Youth) in a restaurant, he tries to coax her back into the act.  She’s already in a relationship with another nightclub performer, who immediately becomes jealous at the thought of her having eyes for Gabbo, and a love triangle develops.

The Great Gabbo basically set the stage for all ventriloquist dummy movies and TV shows to come.  What makes it different than The Twilight Zone, Devil Doll, and Magic is the fact that the dummy is a lot more well-adjusted and mannered than the ventriloquist.  Von Stroheim is perfectly cast as the spiteful, egotistical Gabbo and effectively portrays him as such a tyrant that you can’t help but feel sorry for Mary… and Otto too.  While later ventriloquist cinema would often make the dummy the villain of the piece, it’s actually sort of… creepier to have him playing the nice guy?  That’s partially because you’re sort of waiting for a twist where he’s secretly a monster or something, but also because it’s a little unsettling to see other people treat Otto with dignity and class and him returning in kind. 

Ultimately, it’s more of a melodrama than horror film.  The constant musical numbers and dance sequences are the main thing that gets in the way of the fun.  While it’s one thing to see Otto performing on stage, many of the numbers don’t have jack squat to do with anything.  They’re intrusive to the plot and only serve to eat up a bunch of screen time.  There is one sequence that’s pretty cool in which a bunch of chorus line dancers climb onto a giant spider web.  For the most part though, these numbers just stop the movie on a dime.  Originally, there was a color sequence in there too, but unfortunately all the prints that still exist are completely in black and white.

VENGEANCE: A LOVE STORY (2017) ***

The poster for Vengeance:  A Love Story is almost as generic as the title.  Despite appearances, it has a little bit more going for it than your average Nicolas Cage DTV flick.  That is both a blessing and a curse.  Those who want a light and breezy night of entertainment are bound to be disappointed by the heavy subject matter and overall depressing atmosphere.  I applaud Cage for trying some a bit more downbeat, even if it doesn’t all quite come together. 

Cage stars as a widowed cop named John who is getting over the death of his partner in the line of duty.  While at a bar, he strikes up a polite conversation with Teena (Anna Hutchison), herself a widower, who is raising her young daughter, Bethie (Talitha Eliana Bateman).  After a party, Teena is accosted by some rednecks and Bethie is forced to watch as the men violently rape her.  It seems like an open and shut case, but the rapists hire a slick lawyer (Don Fuckin’ Johnson) to do some judicial voodoo and have them acquitted.  John, the detective on the case, soon sets out to see that justice is done.

This is probably Cage’s most somber performance in a long time, which suits the material.  He is quite good in his scenes with Hutchison, who gives a heartbreaking performance.  It’s Don Johnson who steals the show as the sleazy lawyer.  The scene where he argues that his clients pay him every cent that’s coming to him is especially memorable. 

Those hoping for the usual Cagey theatrics are likely to be blindsided by Vengeance:  A Love Story.  What is most surprising is the way that it concentrates on the lingering aftershocks of such a brutal assault.  Most movies would rush right into the vengeance portion of the plot (and you would think this would too given the fact that the title is Vengeance:  A Love Story).  However, director Johnny (Hangman) Martin handles the subject with sensitivity and wisely gives the film a little time to breath, allowing Hutchison a few scenes to express a wide range of emotions during her struggle to regain normalcy.

It is not a perfect movie to be sure.  The way the script unnecessarily tries to stack the deck is borderline comical.  The asshole judge and the jeering courtroom visitors are way too on-the-nose and almost cartoony.  If the script was a bit subtler in this section, the film could’ve been even more powerful.  Johnson, it must be said, is very good in this scene, but even though his character is reprehensible and slimy, somehow the judge and crowd seem way worse.  Also, there really isn’t any “Love Story” in Vengeance:  A Love Story.  They should’ve just called it Vengeance. 

The scenes of Cage exacting revenge aren’t so much crowd-pleasing as they are inevitable.  (OK, maybe the first one is.)  It hits the right note though as you get the feeling that Cage will be living with his deeds for a long time.  As far as his recent DTV work goes, this is the one of his best.

AKA:  Vengeance. 

GRINDHOUSE HORRORS (1992) ** ½

If it seems like I’m rating this grindhouse trailer compilation a little on the low side, it’s because it had a lot of overlap with some of the other trailer compilations I have seen recently, most notably, World’s Wildest Rarest Trailers.  In fact, I had to pause it about fifteen minutes in and re-read my review of that compilation just to make sure I wasn’t watching a retitled version.  That doesn’t seem to be the case, although many of the trailers that were featured in that one are present here.  There’s also a lot of trailers here that were featured in Grindhouse Trailers Classics 2, which I watched just the day before, and that REALLY added to the overall feeling of déjà vu.  

That said, there are some trailers here I’ve never seen, which makes it worthwhile.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen the trailer for Street Trash, even though I’ve watched the movie several times, so that was cool.  The same goes for the Girls of the Underworld trailer, the 1939 sexploitation flick (better known as Mad Youth) that promises to be “Sexsational”!  There’s also an ad for The Gold Guitar, an obscure Nashville musical from the ‘60s starring Bill Anderson, so there are some definite highlights here.  If you’re a fan of trailer compilations but you haven’t seen as many as I have, you’re bound to enjoy it more than I did.  It’s still not bad though.

Here’s the complete roster of titles:  Journey into the Beyond, Cult of the Damned (AKA:  Angel, Angel, Down We Go), Sweden:  Heaven and Hell, Amin:  The Rise and Fall, Savage Island, Jungle Warriors, Battle of the Amazons, Devils Three, Shogun Assassin, J.D.’s Revenge, Honky, If He Hollers Let Him Go!, Savage Sisters, Hell’s Belles, Girls of the Underworld (AKA:  Mad Youth), Run Swinger Run, The Depraved, Don’t Open the Window, Don’t Answer the Phone, The Death Dealer, Deranged, Slaughter in the South Bronx (AKA:  Tenement), Massacre at Central High, Street Trash, The Offspring (AKA:  From a Whisper to a Scream), Demon! (AKA:  God Told Me To), Dixie Dynamite, Wild Rebels, The Gold Guitar, The Doll Squad, Virgin Witch, Deep Red, Rabid, Maniac, Slumber Party Massacre, The Exterminator, The Evil, Silent Night Deadly Night, Chinese Hercules, Dirty Mary Crazy Larry, Fearless Fighters, Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster, Goliath and the Sins of Babylon, Jaws of the Dragon, The Man from Hong Kong, Puppet on a Chain, and Race with the Devil.

GRINDHOUSE TRAILER CLASSICS 2 (2008) *** ½

In 2007, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez came out with the cult classic Grindhouse, and it introduced a new generation to the world of ‘70s exploitation and drive-in movies.  It also sparked renewed interest in old grindhouse movie trailers.  The UK-based Grindhouse Trailer Classics was one of the many trailer compilations that came out around the same time to capitalize on Grindhouse’s release.  (I can’t say “success” because it was a box-office flop.)  This second collection followed the next year, and it’s an even better compilation than the first one as far as I’m concerned. 

Grindhouse Trailer Classics 2 predominantly focuses on the exploitation hits of the ‘70s.  Sure, there are a couple trailers from the ‘60s and ‘80s scattered about, but about 90% of the films come from the glorious ‘70s.  The concentration is mostly on badass babes and Blaxploitation badasses.  Along the way, we get some great taglines like, “The one thing she can’t give is legal consent!” from Jail Bait Babysitter, Snuff’s “Filmed in South America, where life is cheap!”, and Tender Flesh’s “It makes the killing in Snuff seem like amateur night!”.  The best trailers though feature rhyming schemes in their taglines.  There’s Black Shampoo (“A woman entices… a chainsaw slices!”), Dolemite (“If you crave satisfaction… here’s the place to find that action!”), Foxy Brown (“Pam Grier is back to do a job on the Mob!”), and The Bodyguard (“Faster than Ali… Meaner than Bruce Lee… Sonny Chiba, the Streetfighter is the dirty, mean, murder machine!”).

My favorite trailer is for The Tigress, which is just a retitling of Ilsa, the Tigress of Siberia.  I’m not sure why the studio chose to drop the Ilsa connection (they sure as shit play up Dyanne Thorne’s involvement), but it certainly makes it stand out from the rest of the pack.  Almost to balance the books, there’s also a trailer for Jess Franco’s Wanda, the Wicked Warden, a Dyanne Thorne movie that was retitled to cash-in on Ilsa. 

In case you’re wondering, here’s the complete round-up of trailers:  Night Call Nurses, The Tigress, Sister Streetfighter, Chain Gang Women, Black Shampoo, The Undertaker and His Pals, Jail Bait Babysitter, The Violent Professionals, The Cheerleaders, Cut-Throats Nine, The Black Gestapo, Sacrifice (AKA:  Man from Deep River), Dolemite, The House That Screamed, Dr. Minx, Don’t Go in the House, Cinderella 2000, The Hunchback of the Morgue, Criminally Insane, Foxy Brown, Bloody Pit of Horror, The Pink Angels, Nightmare, The Depraved, Don’t Look in the Basement, The Arena, The Naughty Stewardesses, Snuff, The Twilight People, The Worm Eaters, The Virgin Sacrifice (AKA:  Axe), Mean Mother, Tender Flesh, Wanda the Wicked Warden, The Death Dealer, Invasion of the Blood Farmers, Deep Red, Mighty Peking Man, Blood Orgy of the She-Devils, The Bodyguard, Virgin Witch, Women in Cages, The Exterminator, Don’t Answer the Phone, Raw Meat, Street Law, Flesh Gordon, Vampyres, Rabid, House of Psychotic Women, The Girls Who Do, The Driller Killer, Nurse Sherri, Chinese Hercules, and Invasion of the Bee Girls.

ACCELERATION (2019) ** ½

Natalie (Killer Mermaid) Burn’s son has been kidnapped by a shadowy underworld figure (Dolph Lundgren).  In order to get him back, she must complete five tasks… and by “tasks” I mean she has to kill five dudes.  Since we already saw Burn and Lundgren teaming up to shoot a bunch of guys in the cliched “Let’s Show You This One Part from the End of the Movie Before the Opening Credits Roll”, we have a feeling that somebody else is pulling the strings. 

Burn (who also produced and served as the casting director) equips herself nicely in the lead, playing a confident and tough badass.  She even shows a vulnerable side to her character, which makes her a surprisingly well-rounded heroine for this sort of thing.  Dressed in a skintight outfit that makes her look like Kate Beckinsale’s stunt double from the Underworld movies, Burn does a solid job in the action scenes as she gamely Kung Fus and shoots people.  The movie itself never really catches fire, but I’d watch her in another DTV action flick.

Lundgren (who also starred with Burn in Hard Night Falling from the same year) spends a lot of his time looking at TV monitors and keeping tabs on Burn.  He does have a nice rapport with Burn’s kidnapped son, which allows him to flex his acting chops a bit.  Like Altitude, he literally sits out most of the movie, which may come as a disappointment to his fans.

The supporting cast is a Who’s Who of DTV luminaries and random-ass actors.  The usually subdued Sean Patrick Flanery annoyingly overacts as the cranky crime boss.  I don’t know if he was experimenting with Nicolas Cage-style overacting techniques or what, but it just isn’t a good look for him.  We also have Chuck Liddell as a cliched henchman character, Oscar nominee Sally (Fatal Games) Kirkland as a waitress, an unrecognizable Jason London as a junkie, and Danny Trejo as the uh… Danny Trejo character.

The most surprising cast member was Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, who plays a soft-spoken gangster with an almost Buddhist attitude towards crime.  I thought he was great in The A-Team and he does a good job here.  It’s a shame he was never able to capitalize on his work as B.A. because he could’ve potentially had a fine career in the DTV realm, as clearly evidenced here. 

The movie itself is a competent, if forgettable, exercise.  You can see the John Wick influence as scenes are often bathed in purple light.  They don’t have the intricate “rules” of that franchise, but the directors (Michael Merino and Daniel Zirilli) certainly take a lot of visual cues from it.  Although Acceleration never really puts the pedal to the metal, it’s an OK DTV flick, with a decent amount of action, a not-bad plot twist, and some pretty solid editing (courtesy of Mike Mendez, who also directed Dolph in Don’t Kill It). 

AKA:  The Driver.

PROMISES….. PROMISES! (1963) **

Jayne Mansfield had the first nude scene by a famous movie star in a legitimate release since the advent of The Hays Code in Promises….. Promises!  They don’t make you wait long to see it either, which is certainly appreciated.  She briefly shows off her birthday suit in a bubble bath before bouncing around topless in her room until she lays down in bed and rolls around bare for all to see.  (These scenes are also repeated throughout the movie in the form of dream sequences to help up the skin quotient.)  Then, the plot begins. 

Jayne plays a married woman with a bad case of baby fever.  Her husband (Tommy Noonan, who also co-wrote) can’t seem to seal the deal, and his dumb doctor (Fritz Feld), thinking it’s all in his head, keeps him supplied with a heavy dose of placebo.  While on a cruise ship, Tommy and Jayne have a dinner party with their friends (Marie McDonald and Mickey Hargitay, Mansfield’s real-life husband), and the couples get drunk, get fresh, and wind up swapping partners… or so they think.

Mansfield’s womanly charms are pretty much the whole show.  Aside from the nude scenes, the movie itself is only mildly risqué for its time.  It’s basically a lame bedroom farce with a plot that hinges on couple swapping, a few conversations about “reproductive urges”, and jokes revolving around Spanish Fly.  To put it frankly, the jokes aren’t funny, the dream scenes are dumb, and Noonan’s shtick is tiresome. 

The movie coasts on Mansfield’s bubbly personality.  She also sings (not too badly), although it kind of seems like that was part of the deal.  It’s as if she told her agent, “I’m not taking my puppies out of their chute unless I get to sing a number or two!”  She also posed nude in Playboy to help promote the movie, which would eventually become standard in the industry

Ultimately, the movie feels like a more polished version of a nudie-cutie.  As a comedy, it’s not successful at all.  As a landmark of celebrity skin, Promises….. Promises! is an important film.  It gives you just about what it promises and nothing much else.

FAIR TRADE (1988) ** ½

Oliver Reed stars as a drug-dealing general in a fictional South American country who wants payback on the federal agent (Robert Vaughn) who imprisoned his son.  His elaborate plan is to wait for Vaughn’s daughter (Lisa Rinna) and her girlfriends to board a plane to go to South America.  Then, he has his men hijack the flight, kidnap Lisa and her gal pals, and gun down all the male passengers.  He then holds Lisa and the female passengers captive in his jungle camp, stating that if he son isn’t released, he’ll kill all the hostages.  Little does he know that Lisa is a badass, and she and her friends escape into the jungle to plot revenge on Reed and his men.

Reed snorts so much coke and drinks so heavily in this movie that you have to wonder if he was going Method on this one.  With his gravelly South American accent, greying hair, and bushy beard, he almost always looks and sounds like the Most Interesting Man in the World.  Reed doesn’t always pay his rent, but when he does, it’s usually because he got paid for starring in junk like this.

At one point, Reed says, “I’m chasing beach bunnies through the jungle.  How humiliating!”  It’s almost as if he’s providing commentary on his own career.

Fair Trade is all over the place.  It starts off as a hijacking thriller, and then it turns into a jungle variation on the Women in Prison genre, before giving way to a female Rambo movie.  While it isn’t exactly a sum of its parts, those parts are pretty rad.  Women are kept in bamboo cages, rapist guards are castrated, people fall into a piranha pit, Ninjas ride around on horseback brandishing machine guns, and lots of bamboo guard towers blow up. 

It sounds like Fair Trade should be a classic, but it just never comes together.  If you put all the boring shit in this movie on one side of a seesaw and the awesome shit on the other side, the boring side would be hitting the ground hardcore.  However, that awesome shit is pretty awesome.  How often do you get to see Oliver Reed suffocate somebody in a pile of cocaine?  Besides, is a movie that features exploding bamboo guard towers really all that bad?

Reed and Vaughn are clearly slumming.  (Vaughn must’ve filmed all his scenes in a single afternoon.)  It must be said that future Real Housewife of Beverly Hills (and Mrs. Harry Hamilin), Rinna equips herself better than expected.  She is credible in her action scenes and is convincing at being a tough action heroine.  She can’t quite singlehandedly save the movie, but she does save the hostages, so I guess that’s a… uh… fair trade. 

Director Cedric Sundstrom later went on to direct American Ninja 3 and 4. 

AKA:  Blood Ransom.  AKA:  Captive Rage.  AKA:  Fire with Fire.  AKA:  Fighting Fire with Fire.  AKA:  Fire on Fire.