Author Archives: Jedadiah Leland

Raw Justice (1994, directed by David Prior)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

When his daughter is strangled, New Orleans Mayor David Stiles (Charles Napier) hires ex-cop-turned-bounty-hunter Mace (David Keith) to keep an eye on the main suspect, Mitch McCullum (Robert Hays).  What the mayor doesn’t know is that his daughter’s murder was ordered by Deputy Mayor Jenkins (Stacy Keach) and now, both Mace and Mitch are being stalked by a crooked cop named Atkins (Leo Rossi).  Also getting involved in this mess is a hooker with a heart of gold named Sarah (Pamela Anderson), who is angry because Mace earlier stole his clothes while trying to get the jump on a bail jumper.  Sarah and Mitch soon fall in love.  Mace is good with a gun and Mitch turns out to know karate (because he watched a lot of Bruce Lee movies growing up) but the film’s high point is when one of the bad guys is taken out with a giant novelty dart.

The plot is dumb and David Keith comes across as being a discount version of Patrick Swayze but this film does give the always likable Robert Hays a good role and fans of Pamela Anderson (and you know who you are) will definitely appreciate at least two scenes in the movie.  Actually, Pamela Anderson isn’t bad in Raw Justice.  She’s mostly there for her looks but she still has a likable and energetic screen presence.  Otherwise, this is a typical low-rent David Prior production, complete with action scenes featuring guns that never run out of bullets (unless it’s convenient for the plot) and a score that is pretty much the same guitar riff over and over again.  It’s not exactly good but it is entertaining if you’re in the right mood.

This film was also released under the title Good Cop Bad Cop, which doesn’t make much sense because neither Keith nor Hays is playing  a cop.

Somewhere In Sonora (1933, directed by Mack V. Wright)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

After stagecoach rodeo racer John Bishop is framed for causing a competitor to have an accident, he’s hauled off to jail.  Fortunately, Bishop’s boss, Bob Leadly (Henry B. Walthall), comes through for Bishop and helps him escape from the jail.  To thank Bob, Bishop heads down to Mexico to search for Bob’s son, Bart (Paul Fix).  The last that Bob heard, Bart was running with an outlaw gang called “The Brotherhood of Death.”  The only way get out of the Brotherhood of Death is to die.

By an amazing coincidence both Bart and Bishop’s girlfriend, Mary (Shirley Palmer), are in the Mexican town of Sonora.  To try to get Bart to return home, Bishop goes undercover and infiltrates the gang.  Once inside, Bishop discovers that gang leader Monte Black (J.P. McGowan) is planning on robbing the silver mine that belongs to Mary’s father.

This is a John Wayne B-western, typical of the poverty row productions that he was making before John Ford cast him as the Ringo Kid in Stagecoach and made him into a star.  This one features the usual horse chases and bar fights and John Wayne gives a solid-enough performance in the lead role.  The most interesting thing about it is that, even though it’s a western, it’s set in modern times.  I guess frontier days lasted longer in some parts of the county than in others.

John Wayne’s horse, Duke, appears in this picture and shows again that he was the most talented of all the horse actors in the 30s.  He earned his co-starring credit.

Hellcats of the Navy (1957, directed by Nathan Juran)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

At the height of World War II, Commander Casey Abbott (Ronald Reagan) breaks up with nurse Helen Blair (Nancy Davis, the future first lady) and takes command of a submarine that has been tasked with mapping out Japanese mine fields.  Abbott struggles at first with commanding his submarine.  After a popular diver — and Helen’s new boyfriend — is killed during a mission, much of the crew holds Abbott responsible.  While Abbott is able to win back the respect of the crew, he still struggles with his second-in-command, Don Landon (Arthur Franz).  Landon wants to command his own submarine but when Abbott gives him a negative recommendation, Landon is forced to consider his past actions.  Landon eventually discovers just how difficult it is to be in charge.

Full of stock footage and chintzy special effects, Hellcats of the Navy was the movie that Ronald Reagan considered to be so bad that it led to him retiring from feature films and devoting himself to mastering the emerging medium of television.  Gene Hackman had his Welcome To Mooseport.  Ronald Reagan had his Hellcats of the Navy.  It’s definitely on the cheap and predictable side but, when I watched it earlier today, I discovered it wasn’t as bad as I had heard.  Reagan actually gives a pretty good performance as Abbott and the film does show that even a good commander will make mistakes.  The main problem is that it’s just not a very exciting film and a good deal of the undersea footage was clumsily lifted from other movies.

Hellcats of the Navy was the one movie that co-starred both Ronnie and Nancy and it’s worth watching for curiosity’s sake.  Nancy isn’t in much of the movie and it’s really a role that anyone could have played.  There’s not a lot of romantic chemistry between Ronnie and Nancy, they’re both too reserved for that.  This film still shows the likability and the natural authority that led to Ronald Reagan launching a second career in politics.

Just think, if Hellcats of the Navy had been a better movie, the past 45 years might have been very different.

Knute Rockne, All American (1940, directed by Lloyd Bacon)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The son of a Norwegian carriage builder who immigrated to the United States in 1892, Knute Rockne (Pat O’Brien) attends Notre Dame, revolutionizes football as both a player and a coach, and leads Notre Dame to upset victory after upset victory.  Other coaches look to Rockne and see how to build and inspire a team and learn the importance of taking chances when the game is on the line.

This rah-rah biopic of real-life coach Knute Rockne elevates the character to near sainthood.  I was surprised that he didn’t heal any sick children or single-handedly end World War I.  Pat O’Brien is just the right age to play Rockne as an aging, veteran coach but the movie also has him playing Rockne as a college student.  It’s strange to see Rockne telling his father that he’s decided to go into coaching and that he hopes he won’t be a disappointment to his family when both the father and the son appear to be the same age.

If there is one thing about this movie that really works, it’s the performance of future President Ronald Reagan as George Gipp, a college baseball player who is recruited to the football team after Rockne sees how far and how high he can kick the ball.  Gipp becomes a surrogate son to Rockne and Ronald Reagan’s innate likability is put to good use.  As an actor in forgettable B-movie, Reagan could seem stiff and uncomfortable but, as George Gipp, he seems surprisingly relaxed and natural.  It’s easy to see why this film temporarily made him a star.  The scene when George Gipp, on his death bed, tells Knute to tell the team to “win one for the Gipper” is a classic tear-jerker moment and Reagan’s image as being the selfless Gipper, the man who was all about inspiring the team at even the worst of moments, served him well when he went into politics.

(It also served the makers of Airplane! well when Leslie Nielsen needed to give Robert Hays an inspiring speech to get Hays back into the cockpit of that plane.  Win one for the Zipper!)

Ronald Reagan’s performance is the only thing about Knute Rockne, All American that has aged well.  The movie made me want to win one for the Gipper.

California Straight Ahead! (1937, directed by Arthur Lubin)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Biff Smith (John Wayne), fired from his job as a school bus driver, becomes a partner in a trucking company.  In order to show-up the railroads that are determined to put any potential competitors out of business, Biff and his fleet race a train to the Pacific Coast, where a boat needs to be unloaded before a labor strike begins.  Making this personal for Biff is that he’s in love with Mary Porter (Louise Latimer), the sister of Biff’s late business partner.  Embittered by her brother’s death in a trucking accident, Mary is now working for the head of the railroad, James Gifford (Theodore van Eltz).  Biff not only wants to prove that his small trucking firm can compete with the big boys but also wants to show Mary that her new boss is nothing but a smooth-talking weasel.

This film is from John Wayne’s B-movie star period, before John Ford cast him in Stagecoach and made him one of the biggest stars in the world.  California Straight Ahead! features Wayne in a contemporary role, though the movie still has a western sensibility.  There’s not much difference between a wagon train and Wayne’s fleet of trucks and, as in so many westerns, the greedy railroad baron is the villain.  This is one of Wayne’s better B-movie performances.  He was clearly comfortable in front of the camera by the time he made this movie and was no longer as stiff as he was in his earlier films.  California Straight Ahead! is a crowd-pleasing film that finds Wayne standing up for small businesses and their workers.  Though this may just be a 61-minute B flick, California Straight Ahead! reveals the movie star that Wayne would soon become.

Westward Ho (1935, directed by Robert N. Bradbury)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

As a young man, John Wyatt (John Wayne) witnessed an attack on a wagon train by the evil outlaw Wick Ballard (Jack Curtis).  John’s parents were killed and his younger brother Jim was abducted.  Years later, the grown John Wyatt realizes that the law cannot be depended upon in the wild west so he raises his own band of vigilantes and delivers justice to the frontier.  (Wayne’s second-in-command is played by the legendary Glenn Strange.)  Wyatt remains committed to taking down Ballard.  Going undercover as John Allen, Wyatt joins a cattle drive that he thinks will be attacked by Ballard.  Also working undercover as a member of the cattle drive is Jim Wyatt (Frank McGlynn Jr), John’s long-lost brother, who is now working for Ballard!  Both the Wyatt bothers end up falling for Mary Gordon (Sheila Bromley), the daughter of rancher Lafe Gordon (Jim Farley).

This was a good example of the the type of B-movies that John Wayne made in the years before John Ford cast him in Stagecoach.  The story is simple but Wayne gives a commanding performance as Wyatt.  Unlike many of the B-movies that featured Wayne as a callow singing cowboy or a fun-loving rogue, Westward Ho features Wayne playing the type of character that he would often play after he became a star.  Wyatt is determined to get justice for his family and to protect the innocents who are attacked by men like Ballard.  The presence of his brother in the enemy camp adds an extra dimension to Westward Ho.  Wyatt learns that vengeance isn’t everything.

It’s only 61 minutes long but it tells a good story and it has all the gunfights and horse chases that Western fans expect from their movies.  Of Wayne’s poverty row westerns, Westward Ho is one of the better ones.

Hidden Assassin (1995, directed by Ted Kotcheff)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

After the Cuban ambassador to the United States is assassinated, the CIA worries that someone is trying to create trouble between the USA and Cuba.  With another Cuban-American summit due to be held in Prague, CIA Agent Dolph Lundgren is sent to arrest the assassin and bring her back to America to be tried before she can cause anymore trouble.  The CIA claims that the assassin is a sniper-turned-club owner named Simone (Maruschka Detmers) but, once it becomes obvious that whoever wants to keep her from going to America want to not only kill him but also her as well, Dolph starts to suspect that there’s a bigger conspiracy at work.

Hidden Assassin was the last feature film to directed by Ted Kotcheff and, while it’s definitely a direct-to-video action flick, it’s still a cut above similar films that were being released at the time.  Not surprisingly, the director of First Blood and Uncommon Valor knew how to shoot action films but he also did a good job directing the actors and everyone gives it their all in this film.  Amongst the lower-tier action films of the 90s, Dolph Lundgren was always a better actor than Van Damme and he also more likable than Seagal.  (Of course, a rabid bobcat is more likable than Steven Seagal.)  Lundgren is at his best here, believable as both an action star and a spy.  John Ashton of Beverly Hills Cop fame plays his partner and Gavan O’Herlihy plays his superior.  They’re both pros who know exactly how to handle the material.

Hidden Assassin has some plot holes, the least of which anyone would go through that much trouble to sour relations between America and Cuba.  America and Cuba haven’t gotten along for a very long time.  Still, the movie makes great use of Prague as a location and Lundgren is characteristically strong as the film’s hero.  There’s even some moments of deliberate humor that work surprisingly well.  Lundgren and Kotcheff were a killer combination and it’s too bad they didn’t do more movies together.

Buckaroo From Powder River (1947, directed by Ray Nazarro)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Pop Ryland (Forrest Taylor) is a frontier outlaw who makes law-breaking a family business.  With his two sons, Pop is planning on flooding the territory with counterfeit bonds.  His stepson, Tommy (Paul Campbell), doesn’t want anything to do with any criminal activity so Pop sends for McCall (Frank McCarroll), an assassin.  In a letter, Pop explains that he wants his stepson murdered.  When federal agent Steve Lacey (Charles Starrett) captures McCall, he finds the letter.  Steve heads into town and goes undercover, pretending to be McCall.  He also uses his other identity, the Durango Kid, to thwart Pop’s plans.

More than usual, this Durango Kid film leans more into the undercover aspect of Steve’s work.  What’s interesting is that, after Tommy fakes his own death, Tommy also disguises himself as the Durano Kid and keeps his stepfather from suspecting that Steve is actually a member of law enforcement.  It’s actually pretty clever, as far as these movies go, and it answers the question of why no one ever wonders why Steve and Durango are never in the same place at the same time.

Smiley Burnette shows up as Steve’s sidekick and he sings a few songs with the The Cass County Boys.  Along with Smiley’s antics, this film has all of the horse chases and gunfights that we expect from a Durango Kid movie.  Most of the usual stock company is present, including Ted Adams and Kermit Maynard.  As always, Charles Starrett looks authentic riding horse and handling a gun.  If you’re not into westerns, this film won’t convert you.  But, for fans of the genre, this is another entertaining outing for the Durango Kid,

Summer Dreams: The Story of the Beach Boys (1990, directed by Michael Switzer)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Bruce Greenwood stars as Dennis Wilson and Greg Kean plays his brother Brian in this made-for-TV movie about the history of the Beach Boys.  The movie focuses on Dennis and his struggle with his abusive father (Arlen Dean Snyder) and his ultimately fatal addictions.  Bo Foxworth plays Carl Wilson, who doesn’t get a line until half an hour into the movie.  Andrew Myler plays Al Jardine and Casey Sanders plays Mike Love, both of whom are portrayed as being bystanders while Brian and Dennis create the Beach Boys sound.  (Jardine doesn’t get a single line in the movie.)  An actor named Michael Reid MacKay shows up briefly as Charles Manson, wearing a fake beard and crashing at Dennis’s pad in the 60s.  The movie portrays the Beach Boys transformation from being a clean-cut group of California teenagers to psychedelic pioneers by putting everyone in a wig once the late 60s arrive.

Summer Dreams claims to be The Story of the Beach Boys but next to no time is spent on the recording of Pet Sounds and Smile isn’t mentioned at all.  (Don’t go looking for Van Dyke Parks.)  Admittedly, this film was made before Brian Wilson made his touring comeback so I guess it would make sense that the story would focus on Dennis, who had died seven years previously.  (Brian is portrayed as being neurotic and sensitive but not mentally ill.)  Bruce Greenwood doesn’t do a bad job as Dennis and there definitely is a place for a movie that takes a real look at Dennis Wilson and his contributions to the group.  Dennis was, in many ways, as serious an artist as Brian but, due to his early death, he’s often overlooked.  But this film, mired as it is in biopic cliches and bland recreations of the 60s and 70s, doesn’t do justice to either Brian or Dennis or the group as a whole.

Watch Love & Mercy instead.

Uncommon Valor (1983, directed by Ted Kotcheff)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Retired Marine Colonel Jason Rhodes (Gene Hackman) and oilman Harry MacGregor (Robert Stack) share a tragic bonf.  Both of them have sons that served in Vietnam and are listed as being MIA.  Believing that their sons are still being secretly held in a POW camp in Loas, Rhodes and MacGregor put together a team to sneak into Southeast Asia and rescue them.

With MacGregor supplying the money and Rhodes leading the mission, the team includes Blaster (Red Brown), Wilkes (Fred Ward), Sailor (Randall “Tex” Cobb), and Charts (Tim Thomerson), all of whom served with Rhodes’s son.  Also joining in his helicopter pilot Curtis Johnson (Harold Sylvester) and former Marine Kevin Scott (Patrick Swayze), whose father was also listed as being MIA in Vietnam.  After a rough start, the group comes together and head into Laos to bring the prisoners home!

Uncommon Valor is one of the many movies released in the 80s in which Vietnam vets returned to Asia and rescued those who were left behind.  In the 80s, there was a very strong belief amongst many Americans that soldiers were still being held prisoner in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos and Hollywood was quick to take advantage of it.  The box office success of Uncommon Valor set the stage for films like Rambo and Missing In Action, film in which America got the victory that it had been denied in real life.

What set Uncommon Valor apart from the films that followed was the cast.  Not surprisingly, Gene Hackman brings a lot more feeling and nuance to his performance as the obsesses Col. Rhodes than Sylvester Stallone and Chuck Norris brought to their trips to Vietnam.  The film surrounds Hackman with a quirky supporting cast, all of whom represent different feelings about and reactions to the war in Vietnam.  Fred Ward’s character suffers from PTSD.  Randall “Tex” Cobb, not surprisingly, is a wild man.  Patrick Swayze’s character is trying to make the father he’ll never know proud.  Robert Stack and Gene Hackman represent the older generation, still trying to come to terms with everything that was lost in Vietnam and still mourning their sons.  The raid on the POW camp is exciting but it doesn’t feature the type of superhuman action that’s present in other POW-rescue films.  Col. Rhodes and his soldiers are ordinary men.  Not all of them survive and not all of them get what they want.

Uncommon Valor started out as a screenplay from Wings Hauser, though he’s not present in the cast of the final film and he was only given a “story” credit.  John Milius served as producer. Director Ted Kotcheff is best-known for First Blood, another action film about America’s struggle to come to terms with the Vietnam War.