Author Archives: Jedadiah Leland

Barbarian Queen (1985, directed by Hector Olivera)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The forces of the evil Lord Arrakur (Arman Chapman) raid a peaceful Barbarian village, disrupting the wedding of Queen Amethea (Lana Clarkson) and Prince Argan (Frank Zagarino).  Along with slaughtering almost the entire village, Arrakur also kidnaps Amethea’s sister, Taramis (Dawn Dunlap).  Amethea survives the attack and, with her handmaiden Estrild (future director Katt Shea) and the warrior Tiniara (Susana Traverson), sets out for Arrakur’s realm to rescue her sister and to take vengeance on him.

In Barbarian Queen, there’s much violence, much nudity, and much time spent in a dungeon with a pool of acid.  This may sound like pretty standard fantasy stuff and it is, except for the fact that almost all of the warriors are women and Arrakur and his forces are even nastier than the typical sword-and-sorcery villain.  Arrakur uses rape to terrorize his enemies and his subjects and, while that may be historically correct, it’s not easy to watch.  By the time Arrakur and Amethea are facing off in the gladiatorial arena, most viewers will be ready to see Arrakur defeated in the most extreme way possible.

Barbarian Queen was released by Roger Corman’s Concorde Picture and it was filmed in Argentina.  Today, it is best-remembered for the presence of the tragic Lana Clarkson in the role of Amethea.  Lana Clarkson starred in several Corman-produced fantasy films before she was murdered by Phil Spector in 2003.  At the time of her death, the media often dismissively described Clarkson as being a “former B movie starlet” but anyone who caught Clarkson’s movies on late night Cinemax knows that she was always the best thing about the films she was in and that she had a likable and sincere screen presence that made you root for her, whether she was fighting off an army with a sword and hiding in a tree with a bow-and-arrow.  Lana Clarkson’s performance in Barbarian Queen is always strong and sympathetic.  She endures even the movie’s most exploitive scenes without sacrificing her dignity and when she fights back, she refuses to surrender.  Her determination to have her vengeance and to free the people from a tyrant is the thing that makes Barbarian Queen worth watching.

RIP, Lana Clarkson.  She was so much more than just “a B movie starlet.”

Doctor Who — The Daemons (1971, directed by Christopher Barry)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

When I was growing up and watching Doctor Who on PBS, I had a friend whose mother forbid him from watching the show because she thought that it promoted Satanism.

Her opinion was almost totally based on the cover of the novelization of one of the Third Doctor’s most popular adventures.

She took one look at that cover and decided that both the book and the show were promoting Satan.  I warned him that would happen when he first bought the book but, back in the day, it was nearly impossible to resist the temptation of the shelf of Doctor Who novels at Walden Books.  It was almost as if the books had been put there by you know who.

If my friend’s mother had read the book or even watched the serial when it eventually aired on PBS, she would have discovered that The Daemons did not feature the Devil.  Instead, it features Azal (Stephen Thorne), an evil horned alien who had spent centuries experimenting on humans and who had inspired many ancient myths and religions.  If my friend’s mother had watched the show, she would have seen that, rather than celebrate Satan, the show instead suggested that there was no Satan and that all of mankind’s Gods were actually visiting aliens.  She would have also seen that while The Master (played by Roger Delgado) disguised himself as a vicar, it fell to a local white witch to warn everyone in a quaint British village that the local archeological dig was a mistake.  Because of the Master’s religious disguise, everyone followed him when they should have been listening to the pagan…

In hindsight, it’s probably a good thing my friend’s mother never watched the show.

The Daemons has a reputation for being one of the best of the Third Doctor’s adventures and I’m inclined to agree.  The Doctor (Jon Pertwee) and his latest companion, Jo Grant (Katy Manning), try to stop the dig and instead find themselves trapped by a heat shield that has suddenly sprung  up over the village.  One of the defining images of this episode was a helicopter busting into flame when it hit the invisible barrier.  With the Brigadier and the majority of UNIT outside of the village, The Doctor, Jo, Sgt. Benton (John Levene), and Captain Yates (Richard Franklin) try to stop the plans of The Master and Azal.  Unfortunately, the villagers themselves have fallen under the sway of evil and are planning a special maypole sacrifice.

 

So many different actors have played The Master (and the character has become so overused) that it is easy to forget just how good Roger Delgado, the first Master, was in the role.  Delgado played the Master as being incredibly evil but he also played him as having a sense of humor and style about his evil, which is something that subsequent Masters have often failed to do.  Delgado’s Master appeared in every serial of the eighth series and he proved to be more than a worthy opponent for Pertwee’s Doctor.  Off-screen, Pertwee and Delgado were close friends and Pertwee later said that Delgado’s death in a traffic accident was one of the factors in Petwee’s decision to step away from the show.  The Daemons featured Delgado at his best as the Master did his worst and tried to claim the powers of someone who humans considered to be Satan.

The Daemons is also remembered for one of the best lines in the history of Doctor Who.  When confronted by Azal’s gargoyle servant, the Brigadier calls over a UNIT solider and orders, “Chap with wings there, five rounds rapid.”  I can only imagine how tired Nicholas Courtney got of having that line repeated to him over the years but his delivery of it is perfect.  The Brigadier was such a uniquely English character, imbued with the unflappable attitude of a country that had survived the collapse of an Empire, the Blitz, and the Suez Crisis.  Nicholas Courtney took a line that sounds like something Graham Chapman would have said on Monty Python and instead made it into an iconic piece of dialogue that reminded those of us American watching on PBS that, in Doctor Who, the entire universe was British.

Though it led to the show being forever banned in my friend’s house, The Daemons is a Doctor Who classic.

Star Slammer (1986, directed by Fred Olen Ray)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

On the planet of Arous, Taura (Sandy Brooke) leads a group of dwarf miners in rebellion against the international empire.  The empire sends Captain Bantor (Ross Hagen), Krago (Michael D. Sonye), and the Inquisitor (Aldo Ray) to capture Taura and put down the revolution.  When Bantor attempts to attack Taura, he sticks his hand in a volcanic acid plume and screams as it dissolves.  Taura is arrested.  Judge John Carradine sentences her to a term on Vehemence, a spaceship that serves as an intergalactic women’s prison.

Star Slammer is a Women In Prison film that happens to be set in space.  Taura makes an enemy of the sadistic warden (Marya Grant) and her henchwoman, Muffin (Dawn Wildsmith).  Taura also befriend Mike (Susan Stokey) and the two of them plot to overthrow the guards and make their escape.  When the now crazed Bantor boards the ship, Taura sees her chance.  Meanwhile, the prisoners have to deal not only with pervy guards but mutant rats.

Legend has it that Fred Olen Ray had rented Roger Corman’s New World Pictures studio for four days so that he could shoot some extra scenes for his film Biohazard.  Ray finished his Biohazard work in one day and then spent the other three days filming promotional footage for the film that would become Star Slammer.  He used props that were left over from Galaxy of Terror and was able to get Aldo Ray to come in for a day so that the footage would feature “a name.”  Producer Jack H. Harris looked at the footage and put up the money to shoot the rest of the film on the condition that Ray change the title from Prison Ship to Star Slammer.

Amazingly, the resulting film itself is not that bad.  Ray used the outer space setting as a way to both indulge in and poke fun at the common tropes of the Women In Prison genre and Sandy Brooke and Susan Stokey both turn in committed performances.  Ross Hagen laughs like a maniac and demands vengeance for his missing hand while trying to get his remaining hand on a mind control device.  The prisoners are kept in check by promises of prizes and free trips in return for good behavior.  A thoroughly deformed guard is promoted as a sex symbol and there’s a sharp wit to many of the scenes.  Star Slammer is much more clever and fun than anyone would have any right to expect it to be.

Music Video of the Day: Poison by Alice Cooper (1989, directed by Nigel Dick)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

There are actually two versions of this video.  Both of them feature model Rana Kennedy as the mysterious woman looking over Alice Cooper.  One version features shots where the woman is meant to be topless.  (A body double was used in those shots).  The MTV-friendly version excises the toplessness and is less focused on torture than the first version.

Director Nigel Dick was one of the big music video directors of the MTV era.  He worked with everyone who was anybody.  Alice Cooper definitely was and still is somebody.  It’s funny how he went from being the rocker that parents feared to being a beloved cultural institution and he did it while, for the most part, still remaining true to his original act and persona.  All the kids who used to get yelled at for listening to Cooper grew up and kept listening to him and Alice turned out to be a pretty smart guy.

Enjoy!

Doctor Who — Spearhead From Space (1970, directed by Derek Martinus)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Two meteorite showers have fallen in rural England and a poacher has come across a strange plastic polyhedron at one of the sites.  Brigadier General Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney), the head of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT), fears it could be the start of another alien invasion.  He explains to UNIT’s skeptical scientific advisor, Dr. Liz Shaw (Caroline John), that UNIT was specifically created to protect the Earth from such invasions.

Meanwhile, a bushy-haired man has collapsed in front of an old-fashioned blue police call box.  He’s been taken to a hospital, where the doctors are confounded by the fact that he appears to have two hearts.  The Brigadier, hearing the news, is convinced that the man is his old friend the Doctor and heads to the hospital.

The Brigadier is right.  The man (Jon Pertwee) is the Doctor but, as a result of being found guilty of stealing a TARDIS and breaking the Time Lord code of non-interference, the Doctor now looks and sounds completely different.  While the Doctor works to convince the Brigadier that he is who he says he is, a tentacled alien known as the Nestene is using the Autons, a race of plastic humanoids, to do its deadly bidding.

I’ve always really liked Jon Pertwee’s interpretation of the Doctor and the reasons why are to be found in his very first adventure.  While Pertwee’s Doctor was just as intelligent and egocentric as the two Doctors who came before him, he was also a man (or an alien, I guess) of action.  Rather than just stay cooped up in that hospital room, the Third Doctor is constantly trying to escape.  When the Autons show up and try to abduct him, the Third Doctor doesn’t go without a struggle.  Unlike the first two Doctors, this Doctor has no problem commandeering a car and then demanding one just like it in return for working with UNIT.  Pertwee combined intelligence with action and humor and that brought a unique feel to his five years in the role.  I’ve often seen Pertwee’s Doctor compared to James Bond.  I think a better comparison would be to Patrick McNee’s John Steed from The Avengers.  The Third Doctor was an intelligent, erudite gentleman who dressed well and knew how to throw a punch.

The majority of the Third Doctor’s adventure would involve UNIT in some way.  Exiled to Earth and with a locked-down TARDIS, the Third Doctor was the most Earth-bound of the Doctors but, as shown in Spearhead From Space, that worked well for Pertwee’s interpretation of the character.  Pertwee and Nicholas Courtney were a good team and, for Pertwee’s first season, Liz Shaw was a companion who was actually the Doctor’s equal.  (I had a huge crush on Caroline John when her episodes were first broadcast on PBS.)  The first Auton Invasion showed why UNIT was so necessary and also why it needed the services of the Doctor.

The Autons have a reputation for being the scariest of Doctor Who’s monsters.  They definitely were creepy, with their expressionless, plastic faces.  Imagine mannequins that can walk and who will also shoot you on a whim and you have an idea of why the Autons inspired many bad dreams in 1970.  (Like the Cyberman in Tomb of the Cybermen, the Autons were soon at the heart of a debate about whether or not Doctor Who was too scary for children.)  The Autons are certainly more scary than the Nestene, which was quite obviously a puppet and not very well-put together one at that.

Spearhead from Space was a wonderful introduction to Jon Pertwee’s Doctor and it remains a classic of the original series.  The first serial to be broadcast in color, it not only allows us to get to know the Third Doctor but it also introduces a classic new threat.  As this story ends, the Doctor is settling to his new role as an advisor to UNIT.  Waiting in the future are many more adventures and the Master.

The Pumaman (1980, directed by Albert De Martino)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Dr. Kobras (Donald Pleasence) has got an evil scheme.  He’s going to use an ancient gold mask to take over people’s mind and eventually take over the world.  Only the Pumaman, a man who has inherited God-like powers, can defeat Dr. Kobras and keep the mask from falling into the wrong hands.  Unfortunately, Prof. Tony Farms (Walter George Alton) doesn’t understand that he’s the Pumaman.  Vadinho (Miguel Angel Fuentes), an indigenous shaman, travels to London to convince him.

Perhaps the worst super hero movie ever made, Pumaman was an attempt to cash in on the popularity of the Superman movies.  Pumaman didn’t start out in a comic book.  He was created directly for the screen and his first movie was obviously meant to be the start of many adventures.  It didn’t work out that way.  Pumaman has plenty of fantastic powers but he’s not sure how to use them and he spends a lot of the movie complaining.  He might as well just be called Whinyman.  From the minute that he meets Tony, Vadinho has an expression on his face that reads as, “I’ve made a terrible mistake.”  Beyond Pumaman just being plain unlikable, the movie also features some of the worst special effects that I’ve ever seen.  The success of a film like that depends on whether or not you believe that a man can fly.  Pumaman flies but he looks really stupid doing it.  That was the failure of Pumaman.

How bad is Pumaman?  Even Donald Pleasence looks embarrassed.  Pleasence always made a good villain.  He set the standard for Bond villains in You Only Live Twice.  Pleasence also had the right sensibility for a good super hero film.  If he had been born a decade or two later, he would have been equally well-cast as either Professor X or Magneto in the first X-Men film.  In Pumaman, he rolls his eyes while delivering his lines.  Not even he can believe this movie.

Pumaman saved the day and then disappeared.  Earth already had enough heroes.

Doctor Who — The War Games (1969, directed by David Maloney)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The War Games is an episode of firsts and lasts.

It featured the last regular appearance by Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor.  (Troughton would return for three guest appearances.)  Having played the role for three years, Troughton feared getting typecast and felt it was time to leave.  It was also the last episode to feature Frazer Hines (as Jamie) and Wendy Padbury (as Zoe) as companions.  (Hines holds the record for appearing in the most episodes as a companion.)  Finally, this episode was the last to be broadcast in black-and-white.

The War Games also featured a very important first.  This episode featured the first appearance of the Time Lords and the first trip to their home planet.  This was the first episode that showed the society that the Doctor fled when he stole his TARDIS and went to Earth.

At ten episodes, The War Games was either the second or third-longest serial in Doctor Who history, depending on whether or not you count The Trial of the Time Lord as just one long (and regrettable) serial.  The serial opens with the Doctor and his companions apparently landing in No Man’s Land during World War I.  As things progress, the Doctor notices anachronistic technology and Jamie is shocked when a redcoat shows up in a World War I prison.  The Doctor discovers that an alien known as The War Lord (Philip Madoc) has determined that humanity is the most bloodthirsty race in the universe and that he has abducted soldiers from Earth’s bloodiest wars.  They are fighting war games on The War Lord’s planet and the survivors will become the members of the War Lord’s army.  Helping the War Lord is the War Chief (Edward Brayshaw), a renegade Time Lord.

(Just as with The Time Meddler‘s Monk, there’s a fan theory that the War Chief was an early incarnation of The Master.  I don’t believe it, myself.  The Master was far more cunning than The War Chief.)

Despite running for four hours, The War Games is a rare Doctor Who serial that doesn’t have any slow spots and the scenes where the characters cross from war zone to war zone are creatively realized.  The serial starts out as if it’s going to be yet another dry historical episode and then it gradually reveals that all is not as it seems.  I especially liked the performance as Jane Sherwin as Lady Julia, an ambulance driver in the World War I zone.  (Jane Sherwin was also the wife of Doctor Who’s then-produccer Derek Sherwin.)

What really makes The War Games stand out is the final episode.

Having brought an end to the War Games, the Doctor is faced with the impossible prospect of returning the soldiers to their proper times.  He is forced to call upon The Time Lords for help.  Bernard Horsfall, Trevor Martin, and Clyde Pollitt appear as the Time Lords, who dematerialize the War Lord and send the soldiers back home with no memory of what happened.  Unfortunately, The Time Lords are not just going to let the Doctor off the hook for violating their police of non-interference.

First, Jamie and Zoe are sent back to their original times, both with no memory of their life on board the TARDIS.  The Doctor is then put on trial for having stolen his TARDIS and interfering in time and space.  The Doctor argues that he has been fighting evil.  The Time Lords accept his argument and then say that his punishment is to be sent to 20th Century Earth.  He’ll keep his TARDIS but he won’t be able to use it.  And, because the Doctor is well-known on Earth, he’ll have to regenerate.  He’s given five faces and told to pick one.  The Doctor refuses them all.  The Time Lords pick one.  “That’s the worst one!” the Doctor says before he finds himself spinning through space and time.

It’s a poignant ending to the Second Doctor’s adventures.  The Time Lords do not come across as being as bad as the Doctor often made them out to be but it is easy to see why an adventurer like the Doctor would feel constrained by their society.  That the Second Doctor called them for help despite knowing what the consequences would be not only shows how dangerous The War Lord’s plan was but also how the Doctor would always do the right thing even when it was dangerous for him to do so.  The Time Lords could have just as easily dematerialized The Doctor as punishment for stealing his TARDIS.  Jamie and Zoe are spared punishment but they lose their memories of the amazing adventures they shared.  And the Doctor changes once again.

For viewers like me, who got to know Doctor Who from the episodes that were broadcast late at night on PBS, The War Games is a bridge between “old” Doctor Who and the classic era of Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker.  In America, we didn’t get to see much of Patrick Troughton’s Doctor but what we got established him as one of the best to ever play the role.

 

Yor, The Hunter From The Future (1983, directed by Antonio Margheriti)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Yor (Reb Brown, wearing a loin-cloth and blonde wig) is a hunter who makes his way through the desert, fighting dinosaurs and cavemen and drinking the blood of his enemeis.  Yor finds a village and, after saving Kalaa (Corrine Clery) and Pag (Luciano Pigozzi) from a dinosaur, he becomes a valued member of the community.  Yor does not know much about his past and he is searching for the meaning behind an amulet that he wears.  With Kalaa and Pag, he goes on a quest for answers and instead finds himself being attacked by flying saucers, robots, and laser beams.  Despite the dinosaurs and the cavemen, it turns out that this film is taking place in the future, after a nuclear apocalypse.

That’s a great twist and it’s too bad that the film’s title gives it away.  When I first saw this movie as a kid, I loved it.  What kid wouldn’t love a movie the mixed dinosaurs with flying saucers?  Rewatching it as an adult, I still love this film even though I now know better than to take it seriously.  It’s a cheap production and the special effects are so ineptly done that, when the killer robots shoots their laser guns, the beams don’t even appear to be coming out of the barrel.  But I still appreciate the way the film combined two genres, caveman fantasy and post-apocalyptic science fiction and the cast’s commitment to bringing this mix of styles to life.  Director Antonio Margheriti knew that the best way to deal with an incoherent plot was just to toss in a lot of action.  No matter what else you might say about Yor, it’s not boring.

Reb Brown plays Yor and, despite the fight wig, gives one of his better performances.  It helps that, for once, he doesn’t scream like a girl during the action scenes.  John Steiner plays the evil Overlord gives another one of his trademark evil performances.  Yor even gets a Flash Gordon-style theme song!

The movie ends with a cliffhanger and the narrator asking, “Will he succeed?”  Tragically, there was never a Yor 2.