Spring Break Scenes That I Love: “You jerk. You moron. You idiot.” from Welcome to Spring Break

Posted on March 12, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Since it’s Spring Break for many people in the United States, I figured this would be a good time share some of my favorite Spring Break scenes.

This one comes from Umberto Lenzi’s 1988 film, Welcome to Spring Break. In this scene, a student has decided to have a little bit of fun by pretending to be dead on the beach. Since there’s an actual murderer on the loose, his friends are less than impressed with his sense of humor.

It’s a short scene but it features one of the greatest line readings ever.

“You jerk.”

“You moron.”

“You idiot.”

Embracing The Melodrama Part III #2: Common Law Wife (dir by Eric Sayers and Larry Buchanan)

Posted on March 12, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Serenity, Texas!

Serenity is the setting for the 1963 film, Common Law Wife. It’s a small country town, one with a modest downtown and a quaintly innocent feel to it. As soon as the movie started, I recognized Serenity and that’s not just because I’m a Texan. No, I recognized it because Common Law Wife was filmed in Forney, Texas. Forney is known as being the “antique capital of Texas” and apparently, it hasn’t changed much over the past 55 years. I always like seeing old films that were made locally, even if they’re held in as little regard as Common Law Wife.

Just as small Texas towns rarely ever changed, the same can be said for the way that exploitation and grindhouse films were advertised. Just look at the poster at the top of this review. Judging from the poster, you would think that this film is not only dealing with the most important issue ever but that it’s also a realistic look at what it means to be a common law wife.

“You don’t have to say ‘I DO’ to be married!” the poster shouts, “Do you know the law in your state? Are you a common law wife? If you’re not old enough for marriage, you should not see this movie.”

On top of that, we’ve got the scales of justice and a key for a room at the State Line Motel. Nothing good ever happens at a State Line Motel!

Of course, the film itself has very little to do with anything to be found on the poster. Don’t get me wrong. There is a common law marriage in the film. Rich, old Shugfoot Rainey (George Edgley) has lived with Linda (Anabelle Weenick) for so long that they are now legally considered to be married. Linda and Shug have the type of relationship where Shug keeps himself entertained by throwing darts at Linda’s head. However, Shug now wants Linda to move out of his house. His niece, a stripper named Baby Doll (Lacey Kelly) is moving from New Orleans to Serenity and she’s going to need a place to live. Shug wants Baby Doll. Baby Doll wants Shug’s money. Unfortunately, for her, Linda also wants Shug’s money.

While Shug tries to get Linda to move out, Baby Doll gets to know all of the other men in Serenity. Fortunately, there aren’t many of them. There’s the sheriff and then there’s a moonshiner. It turns out that Shug loves his moonshine so what better way to get rid of him than to serve him some poisoned moonshine? Shug is just dumb enough to fall for Baby Doll’s act but not Linda. It all leads to an appropriately fatalistic ending.

As in the case of many grindhouse film, the story behind Common Law Wife is more interesting than the story that appears on screen. In 1960, the notorious Texas-based director Larry Buchanan started to work on a film called Swamp Rose. For whatever reason, Swamp Rose was abandoned but, three years later, a director named Eric Sayers shot some additional footage and mashed it to together with Buchanan’s footage. The end result was Common Law Wife. The majority of the footage is taken from Swamp Rose but all of the dialogue was overdubbed to change Swamp Rose‘s plot. Whereas the Sayers footage is bleak and harshly lit, the Swamp Rose footage is notably grainy. Obviously, it makes for a disjointed viewing viewing experience, though it’s really not as disjointed as any other movie that Buchanan was involved with over the course of his long career.

Common Law Wife is currently available of YouTube. Even by the standards of Larry Buchanan, it’s definitely a lesser film but if you’re a fan of grindhouse and exploitation films — especially ones that have a hillbilly feel to them — you might get a laugh or two from it.

Tomorrow, we continue to embrace the melodrama with the 1968 drug epic, More!

Film Review: Fit To Kill (dir by Andy Sidaris)

Posted on March 12, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1993’s Fit To Kill opens with the most incompetent secret agents in the world on a training exercise in the desert. All of the Andy Sidaris regulars are present. There’s Donna (Dona Speir). There’s Nicole (Roberta Vasquez). Bruce (Bruce Penhall) and Shane (Michael Shane) are still with the organization, despite the fact that, over the course of four films, neither one of them has really added much to the mix. For some reason, these agents still don’t know better than to hide whenever they see a remote control helicopter. Seeing as how every Andy Sidaris film features someone being blown up by either a remote control helicopter or remote control boat, you would think that these experienced government agents would no longer be shocked when it happened.

Anyway, we quickly go through all of the usual Sidaris stuff. There’s a meeting in a hot tub. The team’s boss, Lucas (Tony Peck), shows up and acts like a prick. Coded messages are still being sent out via the Hawaiian radio station. Shane Abilene still can’t shoot a gun to save his life. Eventually, the film gets around to revealing the latest mission.

Chang (Aki Aleong) is the owner of a valuable Russian diamond. As he explains in a flashback that’s full of stock footage, the diamond was originally stolen by a Nazi general. On his deathbed, the general gave the diamond to Chang. And really, in defense of Sidaris, it must be said that the flashbacks are actually handled fairly well. Maybe the flashbacks were Sidaris’s attempt to show that he actually could be a good director when he felt like it. Anyway, Chang is planning on returning the diamond to the Russian ambassador (Rodrigo Oberon) during an official ceremony. The problem is that the diamond is extremely valuable and, as a result, certain international criminals want to steal it.

Criminals like Martin Kane!

That’s right. Martin Kane is back and he’s again played by RJ Moore. Just as in Hard Hunted, RJ Moore is handsome, stylish, and charismatic. RJ was the son of Roger Moore and, when he shows up wearing a tuxedo, it’s hard not to regret that RJ never got a chance to play James Bond. Kane is determined to steal the diamond but it turns out that he’s motivated by more than just pure greed. What’s this!? A complex character in an Andy Sidaris film? Believe it or not, it’s true. And Moore gives a good performance in the film, perhaps the best performance to ever show up in a Sidaris film.

If Moore gives the best performance in the film, he’s closely followed by Julie Strain, who plays Blu Steele. Blu Steele is the mercenary/assassin who is hired by Kane to steal the diamond. However, Blu Steele has schemes of her own. Strain, to her credit, appears to understand the exact type of movie that she’s been cast in and she responds with a totally over-the-top performance. Both she and Moore are so memorably berserk that Donna, Roberta, Bruce, and Shane are even more forgettable than usual.

Fit To Kill is stupid but entertaining. The plot makes no sense and the dialogue is full of the usual bad puns and regrettable jokes. Still, it’s entertainingly stupid, thanks to Moore and Strain. Plus, there’s a scene in which two hitmen get into a passionate debate about whether Homer Simpson’s a better actor than Fred Flintstone.

Of course, it all ends with a hot tub party. The Fast and the Furious franchise has Vin Diesel saying grace before everyone eats. Andy Sidaris films have hot tub parties.

Book Review: Thunderball by Ian Fleming

Posted on March 12, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After the publication of Goldfinger in 1959, Ian Fleming’s next installment in the adventures of James Bond would be a short story collection, 1960’s For Your Eyes Only. It would not be until 1961 that another Bond novel would be published.

That novel was Thunderball.

Thunderball originally began life as a screenplay. In 1959, Ian Fleming met with producer Kevin McClory to discuss the possibility of McClory producing a Bond film. Working with McClory, Fleming developed not only the basic storyline of Thunderball but also created the villains who, in the 60s, would replace the Russians as being Bond’s main villains. It was while working with McClory that Fleming first created both SPECTRE and its enigmatic leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

Ultimately, Fleming and McClory had a falling out, putting a temporary end to McClory’s plans to produce the first James Bond film. Instead, the first Bond film would be produced by Harry Saltzman and Albert Broccoli and Fleming would turn the screenplay into a novel. This led to problems when McClory and screenwriter Jack Wittingham sued Fleming, claiming that they owned the rights to Thunderball’s story. As a result of a settlement, McClory won the right to produce the eventual film version of Thunderball, with Broccoli and Saltzman received executive producer credits.

McClory would later claim that, as the producer of Thunderball, he had the right to produce other James Bond films as well. This led to several years of lawsuits, during which time McClory remade Thunderball as Never Say Never Again. Reportedly, he was trying to raise money for a third remake when he died in 2006. (Later, the McClory estate would sell the rights to Thunderball, SPECTRE, and Blofeld to MGM. The end result was SPECTRE, a film that totally wasted one of Fleming’s most intriguing villains.)

Reading Thunderball, it’s easy to see that Fleming was thinking in terms of cinema when he came up with the story. Most of the action takes place in the always photogenic Bahamas. There are lengthy action scenes, involving planes being hijacked and underwater combat. The storyline, which features two atomic missiles being stolen by SPECTRE’s Emilio Largo, is tailor-made for the movies.

Thunderball even starts with a lengthy prologue, the type that should be familiar to anyone who has seen any of the Bond films. M sends Bond to a health spa, where Bond ends up getting targeted by an international criminal named Count Lippe. The health spa scenes are among the most enjoyable in the book. Not only is Bond forced to drop all of his “bad” habits but afterward, he actually discovers that he does feel healthier and more active. Soon, he becomes a bit of a health fanatic and gets on the nerves of almost everyone who works with him with all of his “good” habits. It’s easy to imagine that Fleming was having a little bit of fun at the expense of all the critics who claimed that Bond was somehow a bad role model. Of course, by the next novel, Bond was back to all of his old habits.

As for the rest of Thunderball, this was a book that I wanted to like more than I actually did. After Bond gets finished at the health spa, he gets sent to the Bahamas track down the missiles and it becomes a rather standard thriller. It doesn’t take long for Bond to both figure out that Emilo Largo stole the missiles and to seduce Largo’s mistress, Domino. Felix Leiter makes another welcome appearance but, on the whole, it all feels rather slow and uninspired.

However, Thunderball will always be an important work in the Bond canon because it introduced the world to Blofeld. Though Bond and Blofeld never meet (that would have to wait for later novels), the book’s best chapters deal with Blofeld’s background and the way he manages SPECTRE. As is typical of many of Fleming’s villains, Blofeld is described as being someone who does not drink, does not smoke, and who has no interest in sex. A reoccurring theme in all of Fleming’s Bond novels is that a man with a certain amount of minor vices is far more trustworthy than a man with none. It’s a good thing that Bond eventually recovers from going to that health spa because otherwise, he never would have been able to defeat SPECTRE’s nefarious schemes.

Fleming would follow Thunderball with one of his most controversial novels, The Spy Who Loved Me. We’ll look at that one tomorrow!

20 Shots from 20 Alfred Hitchcock Films

Posted on March 12, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Happy National Hitchcock Day!

20 Shots From 20 Films

The Pleasure Garden (1925)

The Lodger (1927)

Blackmail (1929)

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

The 39 Steps (1935)

The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Rebecca (1940)

Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

Lifeboat (1944)

Notorious (1946)

Strangers on a Train (1951)

Rear Window (1954)

The Wrong Man (1956)

Vertigo (1958)

North by Northwest (1959)

Psycho (1960)

The Birds (1963)

Topaz (1969)

Frenzy (1972)

Family Plot (1976)

Music Video of the Day: Hitchock Blonde by Laeticia de Valer (2015, dir by J. Antonio)

Posted on March 12, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

According to TimeandDate.com, today is Alfred Hitchcock Day!

I’m not sure why March 12th would be considered Alfred Hitchcock Day, seeing as how Alfred Hitchcock was born in August of 1899 and passed away in April of 1980. But no matter! It’s always a good day for Hitchcock!

So, in honor of Alfred Hitchcock Day, today’s music video of the day is Laeticia de Valer’s Hitchcock Blonde!

Enjoy!

Lisa’s Week In Review: 3/5/18 — 3/11/18

Posted on March 11, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Movies I Watched

Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Clueless (1995)
Coco (2017)
The Criminal (1960)
Ecstacy (1933)
An Education (2009)
Man With A Movie Camera (1929)

Television Shows I Watched

Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby
Back in Time for Tea
Bad Robots
Coronation Street
Dancing on Ice
Frasier
Joanna Lumley’s Trans-Siberian Adventure
Mum
Room 101
Sun, Sex, and Suspicious Parents
World’s Most Extraordinary Homes
The Young Offenders

Books I Read

Anatomy of Scandal by Sarah Vaughan (2018)
Call Me Zebra by Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi (2018)

Music To Which I Listened

Blanck Mass
Jacquemo
Jakalope
Souisxie and the Banshees

Links From The Site

Erin shared both the covers of Utopia and even more covers of Utopia!
Gary shared his thoughts on the Oscars and reviewed The Naked Dawn, Barbary Coast, and Manhattan Melodrama!
Ryan reviewed Combed Clap of Thunder and Dust Pam, along with sharing his weekly reading round-up!
Jeff took a look at the music video for Doctorin’ The TARDIS!

(Curious to see what I watched, read, and listened to last week? Click here!)

Jeff & I are on holiday until March 19th so, ’til then, have a great week!

Embracing the Melodrama Part III #1: No Down Payment (dir by Martin Ritt)

Posted on March 11, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Back in 2014 and 2015, I did a series of reviews that I called Embracing the Melodrama, in which I reviewed some of the best (and worst) melodramas ever made. All together, I reviewed 186 films as a part of Embracing the Melodrama, everything from Sunrise to Reefer Madness to The Towering Inferno to Cocaine: One Man’s Seduction. I had so much fun doing it that I’ve decided to do it again.

No, don’t worry. I’m not going to attempt to review 186 films this time. Instead, for Embracing The Melodrama Part III, I am going to limit myself to reviewing 8 films. I’ll be posting one Embracing the Melodrama review a day, from now until next Sunday.

Let’s kick things off with 1957’s No Down Payment, a film about life in … THE SUBURBS!

(cue dramatic music)

The suburbs!

Is there any place in America that’s more dramatic? Is it any wonder that, since the early 50s, films have regularly been using the suburbs as an example of everything that’s apparently wrong with America? Every year sees at least one major film about how terrible life is in the suburbs. Last year, for instance, George Clooney directed a film called Suburbicon, which was regularly cited as a possible Oscar contender before it was released and everyone was reminded of the fact that George Clooney is a terrible director. That said, I can understand why filmmakers continue to be drawn to the suburbs. Secret affairs. Dangerous drugs. Duplicitous children. Fractured families. Barbecuing alcoholics. Undercover occultists. You can find them all in the suburbs!

No Down Payment opens with David (Jeffrey Hunter) and Jean Martin (Patricia Owens) driving down a California highway and looking at the billboards that dot the landscape. Every billboard advertises a new community, inviting people to make a new and better life away from the crowded city. David and Jean smile, amused by how blatant all of the ads are. That’s when they see the billboard that’s advertising their new home:

Sunrise Hill Estates

A Better Place For Better Living

Soon, David and Jean are moving into their new home and meeting their new neighbors. It turns out that most of the houses in Sunrise Hill Estates are available for “no down payment” and the majority of the residents are struggling financially. Though David may look at all of his neighbors and say, “Looks like everybody here is living a wonderful life,” the truth is something far different.

(If David’s line sound a bit too on the nose and obvious, that’s because almost all of the dialogue in No Down Payment was too on the nose and obvious. As a side note, “on the nose” is an extremely strange expression.)

David’s neighbors include:

Herm Kreitzer (Pat Hingle) and his wife, Betty (Barbara Rush). Herm owns an appliance store and sits on the town council. Herm is gruff but likable. He’s the leader of his neighborhood and he welcomes the Martins with a backyard party. Herm’s employee, Iko (Aki Aleong), wants to move to Sunrise Hill but no one is willing to give him a reference because he’s not white.

Troy Boone (Cameron Mitchell) and his wife, Leola (Joanne Woodward). We know that Troy is going to be trouble because he’s played by Cameron Mitchell. We know that we’re going to like Leola because she’s played by Joanne Woodward. Troy’s an auto mechanic and a veteran. He wants to be appointed the chief of police but the town is reluctant to hire him because he doesn’t have a college education. Leola wants to have a child but Troy says that they can’t even think about that until he has a good job.

And then there’s Jerry Flagg (Tony Randall) and his wife, Isabelle (Sheree North). Jerry is a used car salesman and he’s also a drunk. Jerry spends most of the movie hitting on other women and embarrassing Isabelle. Jerry has no impulse control and, as a result, he’s heavily in debt. His only hope is that he can convince a family to buy an expensive car that they really don’t need. When last I checked, that’s what a used car salesman is supposed to do.

The film deals with a lot of issues — prejudice, sexism, economic insecurity — that are still relevant today. Unfortunately, the film itself is a bit slow and what was shocking in the 50s seems rather jejune today. Watching the film, you get the feeling that, as with many films of the 50s, all of the interesting stuff is happening off-screen. That said, the film has an interesting cast. Jeffrey Hunter and Patricia Owens are a bit dull as the Martins but then you’ve got their neighbors! Any film that features Cameron Mitchell glowering can’t be all bad but the best performance comes from Tony Randall, who is memorably sleazy and desperate as Jerry Flagg. For a fun experiment, watch this film right before watching Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

Tomorrow, we’ll continue to embrace the melodrama with 1961’s Common Law Wife!

Film Review: Hard Hunted (dir by Andy Sidaris)

Posted on March 11, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Uh-oh! A master criminal is trying to sell a nuclear device to terrorists and it’s up to the most secret law enforcement agency in the world to stop him! How secret is this agency? It’s so secret that it’s based in Dallas but most of its agents live in Hawaii. It’s so secret that there’s an entire Hawaiian radio station that exists for the sole purpose of broadcasting heavily coded messages. It’s the type of agency that continues to employ an agent who can’t shoot a gun and where the completion of successful mission is celebrated with a hot tub party.

As you probably guessed, 1992’s Hard Hunted is an Andy Sidaris film.

Hard Hunted picks up where Do Or Die left off. Master criminal Kane is still at large and planning to do various evil things. It’s up to Donna (Dona Speir) and Nicole (Roberta Vasquez) to catch him but their search for him mostly seems to mostly amount to spending a lot of time sunbathing in Arizona. Fortunately, there are two other agents, currently working undercover as members of Kane’s operation. Considering how dangerous and evil Kane apparently is, you have to wonder why the agency never just takes out Kane. I guess that wouldn’t be ethical or something.

In Do Or Die, Kane was an elderly Japanese man who made a big deal about fair play and his code of honor. In Hard Hunted, Kane is suddenly a young and handsome British man. He’s played by RJ Moore, who was the son of Roger Moore. Kane is now charming and sexy and that’s good. If you’re the type who continually threatens to destroy the world, you should definitely be hot because otherwise, people are going to get sick of you.

Anyway, Kane has a nuclear trigger device that he wants to sell to terrorists. He keeps the device hidden in a jade Buddha. One of the undercover agents manages to run off with the trigger so Kane sends his number one henchman, Raven (Al Leong), to retrieve it before it gets into the hands of Donna and Nicole.

There are two things to notice about Raven.

First off, as you can tell from the picture above, Raven wears a jacket with a lion’s hand emblem on it. Kane is apparently big into branding because all of his henchmen wear clothing with the lion’s head emblem. It would seem to me that, when you’re a global supper villain, it might be a mistake to advertise yourself but Kane apparently feels differently.

The other good thing about Raven is that he’s played by Al Leong. Leong, who got his start as a stuntman, is a character actor who has been playing evil henchman since the 1980s. Leong always brings a lot style to these roles and he does so again in Hard Hunted. In fact, he’s the second best thing about this largely misbegotten movie, right behind his helicopter.

Anyway, as for the film itself, it’s stupid even by the standards of Andy Sidaris. This time, most of the action takes place in Arizona. The biggest plot development is that Donna strikes her head on a rock and spend the latter half of the film suffering from amnesia and being held hostage by Pico (Roberto Obregon). While Donna’s out-of-commission, it’s up to Bruce (Bruce Penhall), Shane (Michael Shane), and Nicole to step up and take care of the situation. It’s all typical Sidaris mayhem, with stuff blowing up and final justice being meted out with yet another rocket launcher.

It may not make any sense, but at least it has Al Leong and a helicopter!

Book Review: Goldfinger by Ian Fleming

Posted on March 11, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(SPOILERS)

In 1959, Ian Fleming introduced a character who would go on to become the quintessential James Bond villain. His name? Auric Goldfinger.

When I reread Goldfinger, Fleming’s seventh Bond novel, I was surprised to discover just how faithful the 1964 film adaptation really was. True, there were a few differences. While Jill Masterson was still killed via gold paint, it happened off-stage in the book and long after Bond had already left Miami. Meanwhile, Jill’s sister, Tilly, survived far longer in the book than she did in the movie. Pussy Galore, on the other hand, doesn’t appear until the very last few chapters of the book. There’s no scene with Bond being threatened by a laser. Goldfinger never laughs and says, “I expect you to die.”

And yet, while reading Fleming’s novel, it was impossible for me not to visualize Gert Frobe and Harold Sakata as Goldfinger and Oddjob. Outside of the actors who have played Bond, the casting of Frobe and Sakata in the film version of Goldfinger may have been the two best casting decisions in the history of the Bond franchise. And while that giant laser never made an appearance, Oddjob’s killer hat was present in the novel and loving described by Fleming.

Goldfinger’s lunatic plot to rob Fort Knox is present in both the novel and the book, though it’s somehow even more implausible in the book than in the movie. What’s interesting is that, from the minute Bond hears about Goldfinger’s plot, Bond continually says that it’s a crazy plan that can’t possibly succeed. Fleming never makes much of an effort to convince us that Bond could possibly be wrong about Goldfinger’s plan, either. For once, the threat isn’t that the villain will succeed. The threat is that Goldfinger will cause even more damage while failing. Bond’s mission is less to thwart Goldfinger than to contain him.

With a personality that is somewhat reminiscent of Moonraker‘s Hugo Drax, Goldfinger is one of Fleming’s best bad guys. Though there’s nothing subtle about Goldfinger, his flamboyant and cocky villainy serves as a nice contrast to James Bond’s more serious-minded personality. Like many Bond villains, Goldfinger is so defined by his single obsession (in this case, with gold) that he doesn’t show any interest in any of the activities — drinking, smoking, having sex — that tend to define Bond as a character. That’s one of the reoccurring themes to found in Fleming’s work. Men who do not indulge in “gentlemanly vices” are almost always evil.

It’s a good and entertaining book, marred only by some foolishness towards the end in which Bond is upset to realize that 1) Tilly Masterson is a lesbian and 2) she’s more attracted to Pussy Galore than to him. In fact, during Goldfinger’s assault on Fort Knox, Tilly ignores Bond’s orders and goes looking for Pussy instead. (I know, I know. Stop it.) Tilly is promptly killed by Oddjob and Bond mournfully considers that she would still be alive if only she had been attracted to men instead of women.

(As I mentioned in my review of Live and Let Die, Fleming may have been a “man of the world” but he was also a product of his time and all the prejudices that went along with it.)

Fleming would follow Goldfinger with a collection of short stories. The next James Bond novel, Thunderball, would not appear until 1961. We’ll take a look at it tomorrow.