The beach is so much fun that even mom and dad can’t stay away!
Actually, the two beachgoers in this film may look like they’re in their 40s but they were only supposed to be teenagers. That’s just the type of film that 1964’s Horror Of Party Beach is.
Anyway, in this one, the Del-Aires return and perform You Are Not A Summer Love. It’s meant to be romantic, though you’ll probably laugh before you swoon. One thing’s for sure. It’s all very 1964.
“Wheeeeeeee!”
— Loren Hardeman Sr. (Sir Laurence Olivier) in The Betsy (1978)
Here’s a little thought experiment:
Imagine if The Godfather had starred Laurence Olivier and Tommy Lee Jones.
That may sound strange but it actually could have happened. When Francis Ford Coppola first started his search for the perfect actor to play Don Vito Corleone, he announced that he could only imagine two actors pulling off the role. One was Marlon Brando and the other was Laurence Olivier.
As for Tommy Lee Jones, he was among the many actors who auditioned for the role of Michael Corleone. At the time, Jones was 26 years old and had only recently made his film debut in Love Story. As odd as it may be to imagine the quintessentially Texan Tommy Lee Jones in the role, Coppola always said that he was looking for a brooder as Michael and that’s definitely a good description of Jones.
Of course, as we all know, neither Olivier nor Jones were ever cast in The Godfather. Marlon Brando played Don Vito and Al Pacino was cast as Michael. However, a few years later, Olivier and Jones would co-star in another family saga that combined history, organized crime, and melodrama. That film was 1978’s The Betsy and, interestingly enough, it even co-starred an actor who actually did appear in The Godfather, Robert Duvall.
Of course, now would probably be a good time to point out that The Godfather is perhaps the greatest American film of all time. And The Betsy … well, The Betsy most definitely is not.
The film’s German poster even gives off a Godfather vibe
Based on a novel by Harold Robbins, The Betsy exposes the secrets of Detroit. Decades ago, Loren Hardeman founded Hardeman Motors and started to build his considerable fortune. Sure, Loren had to break a few rules. He cut corners. He acted unethically. He had an affair with his daughter-in-law and then drove his gay son to suicide. Loren never said that he was perfect. Now in his 80s, Loren has a vision of the future and that vision is a new car. This car will be called the Betsy (named after his great-granddaughter) and it will be the most fuel-efficient car ever made.
Since the film appropriates the flashback structure used in The Godfather Part II, we get to see Loren Hardeman as both an elderly man and a middle-aged titan of industry. Elderly Loren is played by Laurence Olivier. Elderly Loren spends most of the film in a wheelchair and he speaks with a bizarre accent, one that I think was meant to be Southern despite the fact that the film takes place in Michigan. Elderly Loren gets really excited about building his new car and, at one point, shouts out “Wheeeeeee!”
Middle-aged Loren is played by … Laurence Olivier! That’s right. Olivier, who was 71 years old at the time, also plays Loren as a younger man. This means that Olivier wears a hairpiece and so much makeup that he looks a bit like a wax figure come to life. Strangely, Middle-aged Loren doesn’t have a strange accent and never says “wheeeee.”
To build his car, Loren recruits race car driver Angelo Perino (Tommy Lee Jones). Angelo’s father was an old friend of Loren’s. When Angelo agrees, he discovers that the Hardeman family is full of drama and secrets. Not only is great-granddaughter Betsy (Kathleen Beller) in love with him but so is Lady Bobby Ayers (Lesley-Anne Down), who is the mistress of Loren’s grandson, Loren the 3rd (Robert Duvall).
Because he blames his grandfather for the death of his father, Loren the 3rd has no intention of building Loren the 1st’s car. Loren the 3rd wants to continue to make cars that pollute the environment. “Over my dead boy!” Loren the 1st replies. “As you wish, grandfather,” Loren the 3rd replies with a smile.
But we’re not done yet! I haven’t even talked about the Mafia and the union organizers and the automotive journalist who ends up getting murdered. From the minute the movie starts, it’s nonstop drama. That said, most of the drama is so overdone that it’s actually more humorous than anything else. As soon as Laurence Olivier shouts out, “Wheeeee!,” The Betsy falls into the trap of self-parody and it never quite escapes. There’s a lot going on in the movie and one could imagine a more imaginative director turning the trashy script into a critique of capitalism and technology. However, Daniel Petrie directs in a style that basically seems to be saying, “Let’s just get this over with.”
The cast is full of interesting people, all of whom are let down by a superficial script. Nothing brings out the eccentricity in talented performers quicker than a line of shallow dialogue. Jane Alexander, who plays Duvall’s wife, delivers all of her lines in an arch, upper class accent. Edward Herrmann, playing a lawyer, smirks every time the camera is pointed at him. Katharine Ross, as Olivier’s mistress and Duvall’s mother, stares at Olivier like she’s trying to make his head explode. Tommy Lee Jones is even more laconic than usual while Duvall always seems to be struggling not to start laughing.
And then there’s Olivier. For better or worse, Olivier is the most entertaining thing about The Betsy. He doesn’t give a good performance but he does give a memorably weird one. Everything, from the incomprehensible accent to a few scenes where he literally seems to bounce up and down, suggests a great actor who is desperately trying to bring a spark of life to an otherwise doomed project. It’s a performance so strange that it simply has to be seen to be believed.
Tomorrow, we take a look at another melodrama featuring Robert Duvall, True Confessions!
Hi, everyone!
Last week, I swore to myself that there was only one thing that I would allow to interrupt my vacation and that thing would be a new trailer for Avengers: Infinity War. I swore to myself that if a new trailer dropped, I would take a few minutes to hop on here and share it with everyone.
Well, the trailer has dropped.
And here it is:
This is going to be so awesome!
“I was born for water sports!”
— J. Tyler Ward (Christian Letelier) in Return to Savage Beach (1998)
Never let it be said that I’m not a completist!
About a month ago, I decided that it would be fun to write up a review of Hard Ticket To Hawaii that I could schedule to publish while I was on vacation. At the time, I really should have realized that this would probably lead to me also watching and reviewing all of the sequels (and the one prequel) to that film. And that’s exactly what happened!
1998’s Return to Savage Beach is the final chapter of the story of the world’s most inept intelligence agency, L.E.T.H.A.L. (That stands for Legion to Ensure Total Harmony and Law, which is almost as Orwellian a name as Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council.) Once again, security at L.E.T.H.A.L’s Dallas office has been breached. This time, it done by a woman named Sofia (Carrie Westcott), who randomly showed up and passed out slices of drugged pizza. Of course, everyone ate the pizza. After all, why would a bunch of national security professionals be suspicious of a total stranger handing out food? After everyone’s unconscious, Sofia steals the file on Savage Beach.
Don’t remember Savage Beach? Savage Beach was a previous Andy Sidaris film, in which two other undercover agents ended up on a desert island and discovered a hidden treasure of World War II gold. If you still don’t remember the film, don’t worry. Return to Savage Beach contains several minutes of flashbacks from Savage Beach.
Return to Savage Beach also features a handful of flashbacks to the previous Sidaris film, Day of the Warrior. That’s because The Warrior (Marcus Bagwell), who was previously established as being a homicidal maniac, is now suddenly one of the good guys. Apparently, one of the people that he murdered in the previous film was actually a serial killer and, as a result, he was only given three months in prison. Now, he’s out and he’s the newest L.E.T.H.A.L. agent. He’s an expert on lost treasures and that’s a good thing because it turns out that there’s even more treasure on Savage Beach than anyone realized.
L.E.T.H.A.L. is determined to get that treasure, which means that Willow Black (Julie Strain) has to assign her best agents to the mission. (Of course, the best L.E.T.H.A.L. agent is the equivalent of a bigamist who tells his second wife that he’s working for the CIA as a cover whenever he has to go on vacation with his other family.) And so, Tyler (Christian Letelier), Cobra (Julie K. Smith), Tiger (Shae Marks), and Doc Austin (Paul Logan) are sent to explore Savage Beach.
However, L.E.T.H.A.L. is not the only organization returning to Savage Beach. The evil Morales (Rodrigo Obegron) is determined to get the treasure as well. Morales wears a Phantom Of The Opera-style mask because he claims that he was horribly scarred when he was blown up during his last trip to Savage Beach. (Cue more flashbacks.) Morales not only has Sofia working for him but he also employs three ninjas who wear kabuki makeup.
Maybe you’re getting the feeling that Return to Savage Beach is not a serious film and it most definitely is not. Like most Sidaris films, Return to Savage Beach is cheerfully aware of its own absurdity. Towards the end of the film, after about a dozen or so outlandish twists, one of the L.E.T.H.A.L. agents even exclaims, “How many endings can this story have!?” The song that plays over the end credits asks the exact same question.
All in all, Return to Savage Beach is a pretty dumb movie. I compared the acting in Day of the Warrior to Mark Wahlberg and John C. Reilly playing Brock Landers and Chest Rockwell in Boogie Nights and that’s even more true when it comes to Return to Savage Beach. At times, the stupidity of it all is amusing and, at other times, you just find yourself checking the time.
Return to Savage Beach was Andy Sidaris’s final film. All in all, Sidaris directed thirteen films (12 dramatic features and one documentary). Some of them were really bad. Some of them were amusingly over-the-top. One of them, Hard Ticket To Hawaii, has become something of a mainstay on TCM Underground. Good or bad, Sidaris definitely had his own style. In the end, no one would ever mistake any of his films as having been directed by anyone other than Andy Sidaris.
(SPOILERS)
On August 12th, 1964, Ian Fleming died in Canterbury. He was 56 years old.
Like his famous creation, James Bond, Ian Fleming was both a heavy drinker and a chainsmoker. Unlike Bond, he suffered from heart disease. In 1961, he had his first known heart attack and his health was always precarious afterward. It is said that his last words were to the ambulance drivers: “I am sorry to trouble you chaps. I don’t know how you get along so fast with the traffic on the roads these days.”
Eight months after Fleming’s death, his final James Bond novel, The Man With The Golden Gun, was published. (One more collection of short stories, Octopussy and The Living Daylights, would follow in 1966.)
The Man With The Golden Gun opens with a brainwashed Bond attempting to assassinate M and ends with Bond turning down a knighthood and again declaring his loyalty to Her Majesty’s Secret Service. In between, Bond is tasked with tracking down and killing the notorious assassin, Pistols Scaramanga. (Scaramanga is known for using a golden gun.) Bond once again goes undercover, assuming the name Mark Hazzard and working his way into Scaramanga’s operation. Felix Leiter makes another appearance and, by the end of the book, it looks like Bond might even find happiness with his secretary, Mary Goodnight.
It’s an unfortunate book. Apparently, Fleming had finished his first draft but was still in the process of editing when he died. As a result, The Man With The Golden Gun has all the flaws that you would associate with an early draft. The plot is thin. There’s little nuance or subtlety to the dialogue. Bond comes across as being rather dull, showing little of the wit or personality that was present in both On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and You Only Live Twice. Scaramanga is a bit more interesting but he can’t compare to the great Bond villains like Blofeld or Goldfinger. There’s really not much else to say about The Man With The Golden Gun. It’s a sad way to end Fleming’s Bond series but, at the same time, it doesn’t diminish everything that Fleming accomplished in the previous novels.
Anyway, since I’ve reviewed all of Ian Fleming’s Bond novels, I guess now is the time to rate them all, from best to worst. Not included in the list below are the two collections of short stories that Fleming wrote, For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy.
From best to worst:
Despite Fleming’s death, Bond would live on. Not only would there be the films but other writers would continue Bond’s literary adventures. Later this year, I’ll start in on the non-Fleming Bond novels. Until then, I hope everyone has enjoyed this look back at Ian Fleming’s original novels!
Bond, as visualized by Ian Fleming.
To be honest, I was hoping this song would be a cover version of the song that Coyote Shivers and Renee Zellweger perform at the end of Empire Records but no, it’s not.
It’s still a good song, though. And I like the simplicity of the video.
Enjoy!
Courtesy of the 2015 film, 3-Headed Shark Attack, here is one of the greatest understatements of all time:
“Only in the movies, baby.”
— Mike Wayne (Kirk Douglas) in Jacqueline Susann’s Once Is Not Enough (1975)
Jacqueline Susann’s Once Is Not Enough (for that indeed is the unwieldy title of this little movie) opens with a shot of two Oscars sitting on an end table. Those Oscars belong to Mike Wayne (Kirk Douglas), a legendary Hollywood producer who hasn’t had a hit in way too long. He’s struggling financially. He may even have to fire his maid (Lillian Randolph), despite the many years that she’s spent making sure he wakes up and remembers to take a shower before leaving the house. What choice does Mike have but to marry Deidre Milford Granger (Alexis Smith), the world’s sixth richest woman? Mike doesn’t even mind that Deidre is having an affair with Karla (Melina Mercouri).
That makes sense to everyone by Mike’s daughter, January (Deborah Raffin). As Mike explains it, January’s name came about as a result of January being born in January. So, I guess if I was Mike’s daughter, I would have been named November. Everyone in the film thinks that Mike’s being terribly clever by naming his daughter after her birthday but, to me, that just sounds lazy.
Does January have some issues? Well, when she returns to America after getting into a serious motorcycle accident in Europe, she greets her father by cheerfully saying, “I hope nobody thinks we’re father and daughter. I hope they think you’re a dirty old man and I’m your broad.”
Agck! That sounds like the set up for a Freudian nightmare but instead, the film’s rather blasé about the whole incestuous subtext of January’s relationship with her father. Mike is soon pushed to the side as the movie follows January as she tries to make a life for herself in New York City. Fortunately, she’s able to land a job at a magazine, working for her old college friend, Linda (Brenda Vacarro). In college, Linda was smart and homely but she has since had so much plastic surgery that January doesn’t even recognize her. Linda’s either found the greatest plastic surgeon in the world or else January is just really, really stupid.
Linda gets all the best lines. While talking about all of the work that she’s had done, she takes the time to brag that she had everything fixed by her navel, which she declares to be perfect. When January comments that Linda is beautiful, Linda replies, “And now ugly is in! I want my old nose back!”
Linda is stunned to learn that January is still a virgin but that problem is solved once January goes out on a few dates with David (George Hamilton), who is Deidre’s cousin. David and January go out to a club and January is shocked when a random woman throws a drink in David’s face. Later, January goes back to David’s apartment, which turns out to be the epitome of 70s tackiness. When January asks David why the carpet and all of the furniture is red, David replies, “I wanted it to look like a bordello.”
Things don’t really work out between January and David but don’t worry! January soon meets the world-renowned author, Chest Hair McGee (David Janssen)! Okay, actually his name is Tom Colt.
Tom spends almost the entire movie drunk and acting obnoxious but January falls in love with him. And, of course, it has nothing to do with the fact that he’s the same age as her father. No, of course not. Instead, she’s charmed by the way he slurs the line, “Forgive me, I can’t take my eyes off of your ass!”
January is convinced that she and Tom are going to be together forever. Of course, Mike hates Tom. And there is the fact that Tom’s married. Literally everyone in the movie tells January that Tom is never going to leave his wife but I guess we’re still supposed to be shocked when Tom tells her that he’ll never leave his wife. He does, however, thank her for allowing “a broken-down old man” to “feel like a stud.” In the end, nothing really works out for January but she’s such an annoying and vacuous character that you really don’t mind.
Based on a novel by the same author who gave the world The Valley of the Dolls, Once Is Not Enough is a movie that manages to be both remarkably bad and also surprisingly watchable. Some of that is because the film is a time capsule of 70s fashion, 70s decor, and 70s slang. A lot more of it is because the cast is made up of such an odd mishmash of performers and acting styles that nobody seems like they should be in the same movie. Kirk Douglas grimaces. George Hamilton looks embarrassed. David Janssen lurches through the film like a drunk trying to remember where he lives. Alexis Smith and Melina Mercouri chew every piece of scenery they can find while Brenda Vaccaro shouts her lines as if hoping the increased volume will keep us from noticing what she’s actually saying. Poor Deborah Raffin wanders through the film with a dazed look on her face. Can you blame her?
Interestingly enough, Jacqueline Susann’s Once Is Not Enough actually was nominated for an Oscar. Brenda Vaccaro was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Admittedly, Vaccaro does probably come the closest of anyone in the cast to creating an interesting character but I still have to wonder just how weak the Supporting Actress field was in 1975.
Anyway, this incredibly silly and tacky film is a lot of fun, though perhaps not in the way that it was originally intended to be. Between the nonstop drama, the unintentionally hilarious dialogue, and the weird performances, the film plays out like a cartoon character’s dream of the 70s.
Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at another silly and tacky film from the same decade, 1978’s The Betsy!
“Bring him in from the cold? That’s real spy talk. I love it when you do that.”
— J. Tyler Ward (Christian Letelier) in The Day Of The Warrior (1996)
Here’s two good things about the 1996 Andy Sidaris film, The Day of the Warrior:
First, a good deal of the film takes place in Dallas. As I’ve said before, I’m always happy to see my hometown in a movie, regardless of whether the movie is good or terrible. The Day of the Warrior not only reveals that a division of the Legion To Ensure Total Harmony And Law (a.k.a. L.E.T.H.A.L.) operates out of Dallas but also that it’s apparently headquartered on the top floor of the Bank America Plaza. Willow Black (Julie Strain, who had previously played a villain in three separate Sidaris films) is the new head of the Dallas branch. Apparently, her job largely consists of working out on the treadmill in her office.
The other good thing about The Day of the Warrior is that one L.E.T.H.A.L’s top agents is named Doc Austin (Kevin Light). Unlike the Abilene cousins that appeared in Sidaris’s previous films, Doc appears to actually be good at his job. For one thing, he can actually shoot a gun and his dialogue isn’t exclusively made up of painful double entendres. But my reason for liking Doc Austin is because he shares his first name with my cat and his last name with one of my favorite cities.
Anyway, the film itself is pretty stupid but you probably already guessed that as soon as I mentioned that it’s an Andy Sidaris film. The latest international super villain is a guy named the Warrior (Marcus Bagwell). The Warrior used to be an agent with the CIA but, when the Cold War ended, he discovered that he was out of a job. Because The Warrior’s mother was half-Native American, he decided to start wearing war paint and launched a career as a professional wrestler. However, The Warrior’s wrestling career was really just a cover so that he could safely travel the world and set up his own black market operation. He deals drugs. He sells weapons. He dabbles in human trafficking. “The SOB is even into pirating porno flicks,” Willow says. The Warrior takes the whole professional wrestling thing pretty seriously. At one point, he gives orders to his henchmen while standing in the middle of a wrestling ring.
(It’s also established that The Warrior lives in “north Dallas.” You probably actually have to be from Dallas to get the joke but, as far as Sidaris humor goes, it’s a good one.)
LETHAL has several agents working undercover in The Warrior’s organization. Apparently, they’re so deep undercover that not even Willow Black knows how to get in contact with them. (To be honest, that would seem to be kind of counterproductive but I’m not an international super spy so what do I know?) However, The Warrior has employed a computer hacker known as Hard Drive. (The Warrior calls him “Mr. Drive.”) When The Warrior manages to compromise LETHAL’s computer systems, Willow and her agents not only have to track down the people undercover but they also have to stop whatever it is that The Warrior is planning to do.
(The Warrior’s ultimate scheme was never easy to figure out. He seemed to spend most of his time flexing his muscles.)
As for the undercover agents, Doc Austin is investigating drug dealers in South Texas. Scorpion (Tammy Parks) and Shark (Darren Wise) are trying to infiltrate The Warrior’s Vegas-based porn operation. Fu (Gerald Okamura) is working as an Elvis impersonator. Cobra (Julie K. Smith) is working as an exotic dancer in Beverly Hills because of … reasons, I guess? Another agent, Tiger (Shae Marks) teams up with a pilot named J. Tyler Ward (Christian Letelier) because it’s not a Sidaris film without someone flying a plane over the bayous. To be honest, it seems like most of these people are just hanging out. I wouldn’t necessarily trust any of them with any national security secrets.
Anyway, this is pretty much a typical Sidaris film: stuff blows up, everyone gets naked, and there’s a lot of bad jokes. Even by the standards of a Sidaris film, the acting is incredibly bad. Remember those scenes in Boogie Nights where Mark Wahlberg and John C. Reilly played Brock Landers and Chest Rockwell? That’s about the level of talent that we’re talking about here. To illustrate, here’s a typical scene from Day of the Warrior:
In short, it’s no Hard Ticket to Hawaii but at least Dallas looks good.
(MAJOR SPOILERS)
You Only Live Twice, the 11th James Bond novel, opens 8 months after the tragic ending of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
Tracy Bond is dead.
Ernst Stavro Blofeld has vanished.
And James Bond is no longer the man who readers thought they knew.
Over the course of the previous ten novels, one thing that remained consistent about Bond was his ruthless and unsentimental approach to his job. For the first 9 books, Bond was the man who reacted to Vesper Lynd’s suicide by coldly announcing, “The bitch is dead.” Then, in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Bond finally fell in love and married, just to have Tracy murdered an hour later. The first few chapters of You Only Live Twice introduces us to a Bond who has become a shell of his previous self. The man who used to always be in control of every situation is now drinking so heavily that it’s causing him to screw up at his job. The once committed professional is now rarely in his office and, when he’s summoned to a meeting with M, he actually shows up late.
M has decided that he only has one option. It’s time to demand Bond’s resignation. The scene where M says that he has no choice but to fire his best agent is a shocking one. For 10 books, Bond has been M’s best agent. M is almost a paternal figure to Bond. To read M casually talking about dismissing Bond not only shows us how far Bond has fallen but also reminds us that there’s no room for sentiment in intelligence work.
Fortunately, before going through with his plan to fire Bond, M speaks to a psychologist who explains that Bond is suffering from shock and that, in order to become the man that he once was, he needs to be given a task that will restore his confidence, an “impossible” mission. If Bond succeeds, it’ll be the first step to dealing with his grief. If Bond fails, his career will be over.
That’s how Bond eventually ends up in Japan, trying to convince the head of Japan’s secret service, Tiger Tanaka, to share intelligence with the British. Tanaka says that he’s willing to do so if Bond does him a favor. The mysterious Dr. Guntram Shatterhand has moved into an ancient castle and has set up his own “suicide garden.” Tanaka wants Bond to kill Shatterhand. Once Bond realizes that Shatterhand is actually Blofeld, he’s more than happy to do the favor.
Of course, it won’t be easy to penetrate Shatterhand’s castle. However, with the help of actress Kissy Suzuki, Bond disguises himself as a mute Japanese miner named Taro Todoroki and heads out to get his revenge.
You Only Live Twice is one of the stranger Bond novels. Far more than any of the other Fleming books, You Only Live Twice deals with Bond’s psychology. In fact, the story is often so twisted that it’s tempting to wonder if perhaps the entire thing is some sort of fever dream. Much like a German silent film, it sometimes seems as if the book’s bizarre and outlandish plot is actually a reflection of Bond’s twisted mind. We’ve never seen Bond as self-destructive as he is at the start of this book and it’s probably not a coincidence that his mission leads him to a literal suicide garden. When Bond transforms himself into Taro Todoroki, it allows him to leave behind the baggage of being Bond and only by denying his identity can he finally defeat Blofeld. As for Blofeld, he’s such a bigger-than-life villain in this book that it sometimes tempting to think that he may have leapt fully formed out of Bond’s damaged psyche. Blofeld is the opponent that both Bond and Fleming needed.
And just as Bond found freedom in his new identity, it seems that it did the same thing for Ian Fleming as a writer. There’s a liveliness to Fleming’s prose that suggests that he actually enjoyed writing this odd chapter of Bond’s life.
And then there’s that ending! Despite the fact that I already gave a spoiler warning, I’m not going to reveal the ending because it’s one of the most shocking and unexpected endings in the history of the Bond novels.
Tomorrow, we finish up our look at Ian Fleming’s Bond novels with The Man With The Golden Gun.
