A Movie A Day #125: Diamonds (1975, directed by Menahem Golan)

Posted on May 12, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Originally, for today’s entry in Movie A Day, I was hoping to follow up my review of Mad Dog Coll by reviewing Hit The Dutchman. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a review-worthy copy of Hit The Dutchman so, instead, I am going to review another film that was directed by Menahem Golan, Diamonds.

Filmed and set in Golan’s home country of Israel, Diamonds is a heist film. Richard Roundtree is Archie, an experienced thief who has just been released from prison. Sally (Barbara Hershey, though she was known as Barbara Seagull when she made this movie) is Archie’s girlfriend. Robert Shaw plays Charles Hodgman, the businessman who recruits Roundtree to help him break into a vault located in the Tel Aviv Diamond Exchange Center. The twist is that the vault was designed by Charles’s twin brother, Earl. Earl is also played by Robert Shaw and the two of them have an intense sibling rivalry. If you have ever wanted to see Robert Shaw fight himself in a karate match, Diamonds is the film to see!

(In true Golan fashion, Shaw wears a puffy wig whenever he is supposed to be Earl.)

If he had not died, in 1978, at the tragically young age of 51, Robert Shaw would probably be known as one of our greatest actors. As it is, he will always be remembered for playing Quint in Jaws and Red Grant in From Russia With Love. (I am also a fan of his performance in the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.) Diamonds is typical of the many films in which Shaw was better than what he had to work with. He gives two good performances but even he is occasionally overshadowed by the swaggering cool and floppy hats of Richard Roundtree. As for Barbara Seagull/Hershey, she was, as always, beautiful but she had little to do (which was a common problem for her until she rebooted her career with her performance in The Stunt Man). Shelley Winters is also in this movie, providing tepid comic relief as an American tourist. (It’s typical of the type of roles in which, following her performance in The Poseidon Adventure, Winters got typecast.)

Barbara Hershey’s beautiful. Richard Roundtree’s cool. Robert Shaw is Robert Shaw. The Israeli location distinguishes it from similar heist films. The plot may be implausible and the dialogue may be weak but, just as he did with Get Carter, Roy Budd offers up a great score. Diamonds is typical of many Golan films. It’s not good but it is damn entertaining.

A Movie A Day #124: Mad Dog Coll (1992, directed by Greydon Clark and Ken Stein)

Posted on May 11, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

New York. The prohibition era. The Coll Brothers, Vincent (Christopher Bradley) and Peter (Jeff Griggs), are sick of working for the Irish gangster, O’Malley (William Anthony La Valle). They want to hang out at the Cotton Club with big time gangsters like Lucky Luciano (Matt Servitto), Legs Diamond (Will Kempe), and Dutch Schultz (Bruce Nozick). Vincent has fallen in love with Lotte (Rachel York), a singer at the club but the club’s owner, Owney Madden (Jack Conley), makes it clear that Lotte is too good for a low-rent thug. After killing O’Malley, Vincent and Peter go to work for Dutch Schultz but soon, they grew tired of the low wages that Schultz pays them. The Colls decide to strike out on their own, leading to all out war with New York’s organized crime establishment.

Vincent Coll was a real-life gangster who actually did go to war with Dutch Schultz and Lucky Luciano. After a five-year old boy was fatally caught in the crossfire of a gun battle between Coll and his rivals, Vincent was nicknamed “Mad Dog” by the New York press. Mad Dog Coll presents a highly fictionalized account of Coll’s life, suggesting that the kid was actually shot by one of Coll’s rivals and presenting Coll as an idealistic rebel who refused to be controlled by Luciano’s organized crime commission. Luciano, Vincent and Peter agree, has sold out and no longer remembers where he came from.

Mad Dog Coll was one of two gangster movies that Menaham Golan produced, back-to-back, in Russia. In fact, Mad Dog Coll may be the first American film in which Russia stood in for America instead of the other way around. Though this film was produced after Golan broke up with his longtime producing partner, Yoram Globus, Mad Dog Coll still has a definite Cannon feel to it. It is low-budget, fast-paced, unapologetically pulpy, and entertaining as Hell. For a Golan production, the performances are surprisingly good. Bruce Nozick steals the entire movie as crazy Dutch Schultz. None of it is subtle but it is enjoyable in the way that only a Greydon Clark-directed, Menahem Golan-produced gangster film can be. 1920s New York is recreated on Russian soundstages. The threadbare production design and cardboard cityscape brings a Jon Pertwee/Tom Baker-era Dr. Who feel to the movie. All that is missing is The Master brewing up moonshine and the Daleks exterminating the Chicago Outfit.

In the U.S., Mad Dog Coll was retitled Killer Instinct, probably to cash in on the recent success of Basic Instinct. The entire cast was featured in the sequel, the Menahem Golan-directed Hit the Dutchman.

Insomnia File #25: The Winning Season (dir by James C. Strouse)

Posted on May 10, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If, last night, you were up at 11:45 then … well, you were probably like most people. To be honest, I don’t know if The Winning Season, which aired on Cinemax last night, really counts as an insomnia file. Being up at midnight probably doesn’t qualify as insomnia.

That said, The Winning Season is an extremely sweet and likable movie that, until I came across it last night, I had previously heard nothing about. Even if it wasn’t directly inspired by insomnia, this was a film that I was happy to discover and I’m going to recommend that, if you haven’t seen it, you discover it too.

Of course, I guess I shouldn’t be too shocked that I loved this film because it stars Sam Rockwell. Sam Rockwell is one of my favorite actors. It’s not just that he’s talented and that he frequently takes risks and chooses interesting projects, though all of that is certainly true. There’s a sincerity to Sam Rockwell’s performances. He’s one of those actors who, when you watch him, you feel as if he’s literally opening up his heart and soul to you. There are few actors who can make me cry quite as effectively as Sam Rockwell. That he didn’t win an Oscar for Moon (and has, in fact, never even been nominated) remains one of the most glaring mistakes in the history of the Academy Awards.

Sam Rockwell is at the center of The Winning Season and it’s hard to imagine the film working with anyone other than him in the leading role. Sam plays Bill, a former high school basketball star who is now a divorced alcoholic with a 16 year-old daughter that he struggles to communicate with. Like many of Rockwell’s character, Bill is irresponsible but he means well. Bill spends most of his time drinking and working as a busboy at a restaurant.

One night, Bill is approached by his former teammate, Terry (Rob Corddry). Terry is now a high school principal and he has an offer for Bill. Terry needs a new coach for the Girls’ Basketball Team. Even though Bill doesn’t consider Girls’ Basketball to be a real sport, he accepts the position.

And you can guess what happens. When Bill is first hired, no one takes the team seriously. There’s only six players on the team and none of them — not even the ones played by Emma Roberts and Rooney Mara — believe that they have a chance at a winning season. In fact, their best player breaks her ankle before the season even begins. After a rough start, Bill and the girls bond and soon, they start to win games.

Again, it’s not surprising but it is incredibly sweet. And, as predictable as it may be, the film still throws in a few unexpected twists. One thing that I liked is that, even after they started to get good, the team still struggled and lost the occasional game. They didn’t all magically become the best basketball players ever and, for that matter, Sam didn’t magically become the best coach in the world. This is an unapologetic crowd pleaser that still keeps one foot in reality. Everyone, in the film, fully commits to their roles. In particular, Margo Martindale is great in the role of Bill’s assistant. It’s always a pleasure to watch two good actors play off of each other and Martindale’s scenes with Sam Rockwell are fun to watch.

But really, the entire film belongs to Sam Rockwell. Sam Rockwell can take the most predictable dialogue imaginable and make it sound like poetry. About halfway through the film, Bill loses his driver’s licence and is reduced to showing up at the games on bicycle. There’s little that is more adorable than Sam Rockwell pedaling across the screen.

The Winning Season is an incredibly sweet and likable movie. I’m glad that I discovered it.

Previous Insomnia Files:

A Movie A Day #123: Dillinger and Capone (1995, directed by Jon Purdy)

Posted on May 10, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

1934. Chicago. The FBI guns down a man outside of a movie theater and announces that they have finally killed John Dillinger. What the FBI doesn’t realize it that they didn’t get Dillinger. Instead they killed Dillinger’s look-alike brother. The real John Dillinger (played by Martin Sheen) has escaped. Over the next five years, under an assumed name, Dillinger goes straight, gets married, starts a farm, and lives an upstanding life. Only a few people know his secret and, unfortunately, one of them is Al Capone (F. Murray Abraham). Only recently released from prison and being driven mad by syphilis, Capone demands that Dillinger come out of retirement and pull one last job. Capone has millions of dollars stashed away in a hotel vault and he wants Dillinger to steal it for him. Just to make sure that Dillinger comes through for him, Capone is holding Dillinger’s family hostage.

This film, which was produced by Roger Corman, combines two popular but probably untrue rumors, that Dillinger faked his own death and that Al Capone had millions of dollars stashed somewhere in Chicago. Though the two never met in real life (and moved in very different criminal circles), the idea of bringing Dillinger and Capone together sounds like a good one. Unfortunately, the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Sheen and Murray are both miscast in the lead roles, with Sheen especially being too old to be believable as the 40 something Dillinger, and the script never takes advantage of their notoriety. In this movie, Dillinger could just as easily be any retired bank robber while Capone could just as easily be any unstable mob boss. In classic Corman fashion, more thought was given to the title than to the story.

One things that does work about the movie is the supporting cast, which is full of familiar faces. Clint Howard, Don Stroud, Bert Remsen, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Catherine Hicks, Maria Ford, and Martin Sheen’s brother, Joe Estevez, are all present and accounted for. Especially be sure to keep an eye out for Jeffrey Combs, playing an FBI agent who suspects that Dillinger may still be alive. He may not get to do much but he’s still Jeffrey Combs.

Vincent Price Goes to Camp in DR. PHIBES RISES AGAIN (AIP 1972)

Posted on May 10, 2017 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

Since 1971’s THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES was such a big hit, American-International Pictures immediately readied a sequel for their #1 horror star, Vincent Price. But like most sequels, DR. PHIBES RISES AGAIN isn’t nearly as good as the unique original, despite the highly stylized Art Deco sets and the presence of Robert Quarry, who the studio had begun grooming as Price’s successor beginning with COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE. The murders (for the most part) just aren’t as monstrous, and too much comedy in director Robert Feust’s script (co-written with Robert Blees) turn things high camp rather than scary.

Price is good, as always, bringing the demented Dr. Anton Phibes back from the grave. LAUGH-IN announcer Gary Owens recaps the first film via clips, letting us know Phibes escaped both death and the police by putting himself in suspended animation. Returning with loyal servant Vulnavia (who’s now played by Valli Kemp, replacing a then-pregnant Virginia North), Phibes…

View original post 369 more words

A Movie A Day #122: The Lost Capone (1990, directed by John Gray)

Posted on May 9, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Chicago. 1915. Up-and-coming gangster Al Capone (Eric Roberts) berates his younger brother, Jimmy (Adrian Pasdar), for not being aggressive enough in a street fight. Not wanting to follow his brothers into a life of organized crime, Jimmy runs away from home and eventually finds himself in Harmony, Nebraska. Claiming to be a World War I vet named Richard Hart, Jimmy impresses everyone with both his marksmanship and his incorruptible nature. Soon, the new Richard Hart has been named town marshal. While Al Capone is taking over the Chicago rackets, Richard is keeping the town safe with his Native American deputy, Joseph Littlecloud (Jimmie F. Skaggs), and starting a family with the local school teacher, Kathleen (Ally Sheedy). When illegal liquor from Chicago starts to show up on a nearby Indian reservation, Richard Hart comes into conflict with the Chicago Outfit and his secret is finally revealed.

There is a sliver of truth to this made-for-TV movie. Al Capone really did have a brother named James, who ended up changing his name to Richard Hart and working as a prohibition agent in Nebraska. Otherwise, the movie changes so many facts that it is hard to know where to begin. In real life, Al and James Capone grew up in New York. James, who was actually several years older than Al, ran away from home not to escape Al’s bullying but because he wanted to join the circus. (Al was only 9 when James ran away.) James changed his name to Richard Hart not to keep people from realizing that he was related to Al but because he admired silent screen cowboy William S. Hart. Though James did work in law enforcement, he never came into conflict with Al Capone’s organization and, in fact, regularly visited Chicago.

The Lost Capone is a forgettable mix of western and gangster clichés, featuring a notably stiff performance from Adrian Pasdar in the lead role. It does feature two of the strangest performances that I have ever seen. Eric Roberts, complete with a phony scar, playing Al Capone is just as weird as it sounds, while Ally Sheedy plays a wholesome and always smiling teacher but delivers her lines in the same halting tone of voice that she used as the “basket case” in The Breakfast Club.

There is probably a good movie that could be made about the life of James Capone/Richard Hart but The Lost Capone is not it.

Heel with a Heart: Dan Duryea in THE UNDERWORLD STORY (United Artists 1950)

Posted on May 8, 2017 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

Hollywood’s favorite heel Dan Duryea got a rare starring role in THE UNDERWORLD STORY, a 1950 crime drama in which he plays… you guessed it, a heel! But this heel redeems himself at the film’s conclusion, and Duryea even wins the girl. Since that girl is played by my not-so-secret crush Gale Storm , you just know I had to watch this one!

The part of muckraking tabloid journalist Mike Reese is tailor-made for Duryea’s sleazy charms. He’s a big-city reporter who breaks a story about gangster Turk Meyers spilling to the D.A., resulting in the thug ending up murdered on the courthouse steps in a hail of bullets. DA Ralph Monroe (Michael O’Shea ) puts the pressure on Mike’s editor, and Reese becomes persona non grata in the newspaper game. Seeing an ad for a partner at a small town newspaper, Mike gets a $5,000 “loan” from crime boss Carl…

View original post 451 more words

A Movie A Day #121: Frank Nitti: The Enforcer (1988, directed by Michael Switzer)

Posted on May 8, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Everyone knows who Al Capone was but few people remember Frank Nitti. Nicknamed “The Enforcer,” Nitti was Capone’s right-hand man. When Big Al was sent to federal prison for not paying his taxes, Nitti was the one who kept things going in Chicago. While Al was losing his mind in Florida, Nitti was the one who moved the Chicago Outfit away from prostitution and into the labor racket. Today, if anyone remembers Frank Nitti, it is probably because of the scene in Brian DePalma’s The Untouchables where Eliot Ness tosses him off of a building. In real life, Nitti survived the Untouchable era just to become one of the few crime bosses to die by his own hand. In 1943, With the feds closing in on him, Nitti shot himself in a Chicago rail yard.

Frank Nitti: The Enforcer was a made-for-TV movie that told the story of Nitti’s life. Broadcast a year after The Untouchables, Nitti is, in many ways, a direct refutation of DePalma’s film. Eliot Ness never appears in the movie and is dismissed, by special prosecutor Hugh Kelly (Michael Moriarty), as being a publicity seeker. Al Capone (Vincent Guastaferro) is ruthless and resents being called Scarface but he never hits anyone with a baseball bat. In this movie, the only real villains are the Irish cops who harass Nitti (played by Anthony LaPaglia, in his American film debut) and Chicago’s ambitious mayor, Anton Cermak (Bruce Kirby). Cermak orders a corrupt cop (Mike Starr) to shoot Nitti and the film implies that Cermak’s subsequent assassination was payback.

Though it sometimes tries too hard to portray its title character as just being a salt of the Earth family man who also happened to be the biggest mob boss in the country, Nitti is a good gangster film. Michael Moriarty’s performance is a forerunner to his work on Law & Order and Trini Alvarado is lovely as Nitti’s wife. Anthony LaPaglia gives a good performance in the lead role, with the film’s portrayal of Nitti as a ruthless but reluctant mob boss predating The Sopranos by a decade.

Movie A Day #120: Teenage Bonnie and Klepto Clyde (1993, directed by John Shipperd)

Posted on May 7, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Scott Wolf plays Clyde, a nerdy high school student who has a go-nowhere job at a burger place. Maureen Flannigan, best known for starring in Out Of This World, is Bonnie, who likes to steal stuff and have fun. Unfortunately, Bonnie’s father (played by Tom Bower) is not an avuncular alien who sounds like Burt Reynolds. Instead, he’s the extremely strict and controlling police commissioner of their hometown. Clyde like Bonnie but Bonnie wants nothing to do with him. It’s not until Clyde spies Bonnie shoplifting in a record store that he realizes that larceny is the key to her heat. When Clyde steals a van and Bonnie steals her father’s guns, the two of them head for Mexico, robbing banks, shooting guns, making love (which, judging from the comments I have found online, is the main reason the film found an audience once it started showing up on HBO) and becoming media celebrities along the way.

An attempt to do a teenage version of Bonnie and Clyde, Teenage Bonnie and Klepto Clyde predates Natural Born Killers by a year with its critique of the public’s fascination with sex and violence. While the film was hurt by its low-budget, both Maureen Flannigan and Scott Wolf were ideally cast as the young lovers and the entire movie is a hundred times better than anyone would ever expect something called Teenage Bonnie and Klepto Clyde to be. After being typecast of Out of this World‘s wholesome Evie, Maureen Flannigan tried to change her image with this violent film. Unfortunately, the movie ended up exiled to late night showings on HBO where it guaranteed that kids like me would never look at reruns of Out of This World the same way ever again.

What Lisa Watched Last Night #164: Running Away (dir by Brian Skiba)

Posted on May 7, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After I watched Deadly Sorority, I watched the second Lifetime premiere of the night, Running Away!

Why Was I Watching It?

I nearly missed Running Away, which would have been a shame. After being disappointed with Deadly Sorority, I was seriously tempted to go down to my neighbor’s 3-day Cinco de Mayo party. But, somehow, my cinematic instincts knew that I should take the time to watch Running Away. I’m glad that I did because Running Away is one of the best Lifetime films of the years so far.

What Was it About?

Peg (Paula Tricky) is a single mother, struggling to raise two rebellious daughters even as the bank attempts to take her home away from her. However, salvation comes in the form of Richard (William McNamara). Richard is never quite clear about what he does for a living but he’s rich. He has a great (and big) house. He drives a red sports car and has no problem about honking the horn at people crossing the street and shouting, “Yeah, you better be watching!” He’s more than a little creepy but he appears to worship the ground that Peg walks on. Add to that, when he asks her to marry him, he gives her a really nice ring.

After the wedding, Peg’s two daughters have differing reactions to Richard. The youngest, Lizzie (Madison Lee Brown), loves their new home and decides that Richard isn’t as bad or as creepy as he originally seemed. Maggie (Holly Deveaux) knows that Richard is a creepy perv, the type who walks in on her when she’s in the shower and who, when he discovers that she’s been drinking beer, uses the knowledge for sexual blackmail. Being molested and abused by her stepfather, Maggie resorts first to self-harm and then to running away.

Maggie finds herself living with a drug dealer and his traumatized girlfriend. Both Richard and Peg are searching for her but both have different plans for what to do when they find her.

What Worked?

I know that the plot probably sounds extremely melodramatic and, in a way, I guess it was. But, that’s okay. This is a film that used melodrama to make a very real and important point about the consequences of abuse. This a very well-done and very heartfelt film.

It took me a while to recognize William McNamara, who gives an all-too realistic performance as the monstrous Richard. When we first meet Richard, the film wisely plays up his dorkiness. We know he’s a bad guy but we’re still shocked by just how bad and dangerous he ultimately turns out to be. Paula Trickey also does a good as Peg, portraying her with a combination of regret, disillusionment, and, as the same time, a cautious hope for the future. However, the film really belongs to Holly Deveaux, who gives an empathetic and compelling performance of Maggie, one that reveals both her pain and her inner strength.

What Did Not Work?

I have to admit that, towards the end of the film, I kind of rolled my eyes when one final secret about Richard was revealed. At that point, he was already such a bad guy that revealing the reason why he was so rich felt like overkill. Other than that, though, I would say that the entire films worked.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

As someone who was an angry, rebellious, and often self-destructive teenager, I related to Maggie. Holly Deveaux’s performance captured all of the emotions. Though the whole movie, I was cringing as I had flashbacks to all the times that I was tempted to get on a bus and go wherever it took me.

(Seriously, for about a year and a half, I had this ludicrously romanticized fantasy about getting on a bus, traveling to random towns, and spending a year filling up my notebooks with my thoughts on America. After I talked about it one too many times, my sister Megan drove me down to the Greyhound station in downtown Dallas and we spent an hour watching people get on and off buses. The sights and the smells — well, mostly the smells — of actual bus living pretty much ended that fantasy.)

Lessons Learned

You can’t run away from your problems but you can beat them over the head with a baseball bat.