Tag Archives: Marc Singer

THE SEA WOLF (1993) – Charles Bronson vs. Superman!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

Back in the early 90’s, I was finishing up my high school years and starting up my college years, but I was still paying attention to every move my movie hero Charles Bronson was making. Bronson was at a very difficult place personally during those years as he was continuing to mourn the passing of his wife, Jill Ireland, and it really shows in his choice of roles. His first two films of the 90’s, THE INDIAN RUNNER and YES VIRGINIA, THERE IS A SANTA CLAUS, featured the aging star in the roles of a man dealing with great suffering and loss. Bronson’s third role, as Captain Wolf Larsen in the made for cable TV film, THE SEA WOLF (1993), featured him as the “thinking man’s megalomaniac” from Jack London’s work of classical literature. I couldn’t wait to see the film, but I had just one small problem. We didn’t have cable-TV in Toad Suck, Arkansas, so I would not be able to watch it on the night of its April 18th, 1993 premiere on the TNT channel. It was tough waiting a few months for that VHS release, but it was worth it! 

In a nutshell, Charles Bronson plays Wolf Larsen, the captain of the ship The Ghost, who saves shipwrecked aristocrat Humphrey Van Weyden (Christopher Reeve) and con woman Flaxen Brewster (Mary Catherine Stewart). He saves them, but once they’re on board his boat, they find out that Larsen rules over the crew with an iron fist. They also find out that he’s on a life or death mission to find his brother, Death Larsen, and exact revenge for past conflicts. Will they be able to survive this voyage?

Charles Bronson had mostly steered clear of roles that could be described as “villainous” later in his career, but it must have felt great to take on one of Jack London’s most famous characters. I remember the advertising would show him maniacally spouting lines like, “It’s better to reign in hell than serve in heaven!” Wolf Larsen is a man of contradictions. He’s ruthless and mad with power when it comes to the men and his boat, but he also appreciates great works of literature and philosophy. Even at 71 years of age, the icon is able to project arrogant menace and brute strength. Charles Bronson and Wolf Larsen almost seem made for each other, and he’s fantastic in the role. It’s his strongest performance of the 1990’s. 

There’s another great performance in the film, and it comes from Christopher Reeve as Humphrey Van Weyden. Most famous as Superman, Reeve was not having a lot of success at this point in his film career and was wanting meatier roles when he accepted this part. I was blown away with his performance as the intelligent and bullied aristocrat-turned-cabin boy who is forced to resort to some level of savage and barbaric behavior in order to survive Larsen’s boat! Christopher Reeve had really become a good actor at this point in his career, and he handles the role expertly. You believe his transformation throughout the course of the film as he adapts to the brutal conditions aboard the ship yet still retains his humanity. Reeve himself has been quoted as saying that THE SEA WOLF was a project “I really believed in and still think of as some of my best work.” I couldn’t agree more, Mr. Reeve. 

THE SEA WOLF was directed by veteran filmmaker Michael Anderson who had been working since the 1940’s with credits like AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS (1956) and LOGAN’S RUN (1976) to his name. He and Bronson were roughly the same age, and they’re both in fine form. In order for these types of films to work, you need a good director who can deliver a solid finished project and Anderson brings his A-game to this production. 

I’ve included the trailer for THE SEA WOLF below:

Horror On TV: The Hitchhiker 5.8 “Code Liz” (dir by Bruno Gantillon)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

On tonight’s episode of The Hitchhiker, Marc Singer plays a real loser, a deadbeat husband who spends almost all of his time talking to a phone sex operator named Liz (Paulina Mlynarska).  When Liz suggests that the husband murder his wife (Katrine Boorman), who is left to wonder whether he should follow her advice or if she even exists to begin with.

This episode, featuring a wonderful turn from Marc Singer, originally aired on July 21st, 1989.

A Movie A Day #305: Go Tell The Spartans (1978, directed by Ted Post)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

One of the best films ever made about Vietnam is also one of the least known.

Go Tell The Spartans takes place in 1964, during the early days of the Vietnam War.  Though the Americans at home may not know just how hopeless the situation is in South Vietnam, Major Barker (Burt Lancaster, in one of his best performances) does.  Barker is a career military man.  He served in World War II and Korea and now he’s ending his career in Vietnam, taking orders from younger superiors who have no idea what they are talking about.  Barker has been ordered to occupy a deserted village, Muc Wa.  Barker knows that occupying Muc Wa will not make any difference but he is in the army and he follows orders.

Barker sends a small group to Muc Wa.  Led by the incompetent Lt. Hamilton (Joe Unger), the group also includes a drug-addicted medic (Dennis Howard), a sadistic South Vietnamese interrogator (Evan C. Kim) who claims that every civilian that the men meet is actually VC, a sergeant (Jonathan Goldsmith) who is so burned out that he would rather commit suicide than take command, and Cpl. Courcey (Craig Wasson).  Courcey is a college-educated idealist, who joined the army to do the right thing and is now about to discover how complicated that can be in South Vietnam.  At Muc Wa, the soldiers find a cemetery containing the graves of French soldiers who died defending the hamlet during the First Indochina War.  The inscription as the cemetery reads, “Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here, obedient to their laws, we lie.”  

Because the film strives for realism over easy drama, Go Tell The Spartans has never gotten the same attention as some other Vietnam films.  Unlike The Deer Hunter, Platoon, Coming Home, and Born on the 4th of July, Go Tell The Spartans received no Oscar nominations.  It is still a brilliantly acted and powerful anti-war (but never anti-soldier) film.  It starts out as deceptively low-key but the tension quickly builds as the soldier arrive at Muc Wa and discover that their orders are both futile and impossible to carry out.  Vastly outnumbered, the Americans also find themselves dealing with a land and a culture that is so unlike their own that they are often not even sure who they are fighting.  Military discipline, as represented by Lt. Hamilton, is no match for the guerilla tactics of the VC.  By the film’s end, Vietnam is revealed to be a war that not even Burt Lancaster can win.

A Movie A Day #227: Silk Degrees (1994, directed by Armand Garabidian)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Actress Alex Ramsey (Deborah Shelton) may have become a star as a result of playing the lead role in a cop show but she still worries that her show is not realistic enough.  When a fight with her director (Gilbert Gottfried) leads to her walking off the set for the hundredth time, Alex stumbles across a real-life murder.  Now being chased by terrorists and gun smugglers, Alex is forced to go into hiding.  FBI agent Baker (Marc Singer) is assigned to protect her but how can he hide one of the most famous women in America, especially one who does not appreciate being told what to do? Making things even worse, there is a traitor in the bureau.  Shelton is going to have to use all of her tv crime-fighting skills to survive.

Though it featured enough Deborah Shelton nudity to win it a place in the regular Skinemax rotation, Silk Degrees is basically a standard 90s direct-to-video action film but it has a cast that will be appreciated by any B-move fan.  Along with Body Double‘s Shelton, Beastmaster’s Marc Singer, and everything’s Gilbert Gottfried, Silk Degrees also features Charles Napier as Singer’s boss, Mark Hamill as Singer’s partner, and Katherine Armstong as a duplicitous femme fatale.  The main villain is played by singer Michael Des Barres.  Even Adrienne Barbeau shows up in a tiny role!  Silk Degrees is not a great movie but with a cast like this, it does not have to be.

A Movie A Day #66: Deadly Game (1991, directed by Thomas J. Wright)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Seven strangers are invited to a remote island by a mysterious billionaire named Osiris.  There is a doctor, a dancer, an auto mechanic, a mercenary, a football player and his agent, and a member of the Yakuza.  The auto mechanic points out that, in Egyptian mythology, Osiris judged mankind’s sins.  For some reason, none of the seven think twice about going to the island but, once they arrive, they soon discover that they should have.  Osiris is willing to give them seven million dollars but to get it, they have to reach the other end of the island without being killed by Osiris or his men.

Of the many movie adaptations of The Most Dangerous Game, this is probably the worst.  The cast, which includes Michael Beck, Marc Singer, Jenny Seagrove, Mitch Ryan, John Pleshette, Soon-Tek Oh, and Roddy McDowall, isn’t bad but the script is terrible, full of overwrought dialogue and plot holes.  Across the island, Osiris has left clues that are designed to trigger flashbacks and lead to each member of the seven explaining what it is that they did in the past.  But for that to work, Osiris would have to know exactly what route the seven of them were going to use to cross the island and he would also have to know who would still be alive by the time that they came across each clue.  Also, whenever they come across the clue, everyone stands around and wastes valuable time arguing about it.  Considering that there are armed men trying to kill them, no one seems to be in that much of a hurry to make it to the other side of the island.  The flashbacks themselves are interesting in how clumsily they are put together.  40ish Marc Singer plays himself as a senior in high school.

Like Hitler’s Daughter, Deadly Game was originally made for the USA network.  The first time I saw it was in the UK where, for some reason, it seemed to air frequently during the mid-1990s.  (Possibly this was because it starred quintessential Hollywood Brit Roddy McDowall.  That’s the only reason I can think of.)  It’s now on YouTube, for anyone who wants to sit through it.

A Movie A Day #46: Body Chemistry (1990, directed by Kristine Peterson)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

body-chemistry-1990-large-pictureDr. Tom Redding (Marc Singer) is a sex researcher, which in this film means that his workday consists of showing people clips from porn films, mixed in with educational films and pictures of Ronald Reagan.  Tom has a great career, a beautiful wife (Mary Crosby), and a funny best friend (David Kagan).  But everything changes when his research firm receives a contract from Dr. Claire Archer (Lisa Pescia).  Tom and Claire end up having a torrid affair but when Tom tries to break it off, Claire is not ready to give him up.  At first, Claire’s just sending him a box full of dead lobsters and a VHS porn tape but soon she’s using one overturned tiki porch and a tank of propane to blow up his house.

Back when Cinemax was still known as Skinemax, Body Chemistry was one of the channel’s mainstays.  Though the film was clearly designed to be a rip-off on Fatal Attraction, the sociopathic and manipulative Dr. Claire Archer actually has much more in common with Basic Instinct‘s Catherine Trammell than Fatal Attraction‘s Alex Forrest.  (Interestingly, Body Chemistry predates Basic Instinct by two years.)  Though the plot will never surprise you and the sex scenes are almost as uninspired as the saxophone that often accompanies them on the soundtrack, Body Chemistry is an enjoyably stupid “erotic” thriller. Much as Anne Archer, as the betrayed wife, was the only sympathetic character in Fatal Attraction, Mary Crosby plays the only sympathetic character in Body Chemistry.    If possible, Marc Singer’s adulterous husband is even less sympathetic than the one Michael Douglas played in Fatal Attraction but Lisa Pescia does a good job vamping it up as Claire Archer.

Body Chemistry led to not one but three sequels.  Tomorrow’s movie a day will be Body Chemistry 2.

 

A Movie A Day #40: In the Cold of the Night (1990, directed by Nico Mastorakis)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

51zd7jstaol-_sy445_Scott Bruin (Jeff Lester) is a high fashion photographer who is haunted by nightmares in which he strangles a naked woman in the swimming pool.  His nymphomaniac girlfriend, Lena (Shannon Tweed!), is surprisingly understanding when she wakes up to discover Scott strangling her but Scott is worried that he might be losing his mind.  His psychiatrist (David Soul) is not much help.  When Scott has a violent vision in the middle of photo shoot, he freaks out.  “Hey, are you on drugs?” one of the models asks.

Then Scott meets Kimberly (Adrienne Sachs) and she looks exactly like the woman from his dreams.  When she invites him to back to her house, the house looks exactly like the house from his nightmares.  Is Scott going crazy or is he seeing the future?  And how is Kimberly’s ex, a cold businessman named Ken Strom (Marc Singer), involved?

Does anyone remember this movie?  In the 90s, this used to be on HBO and Cinemax all of the time.  It’s a typical sex-fueled, nudity-filled direct-to-video thriller but Nico Mastorakis, a Greek director who has obviously learned a lot from Brian DePalma, gives the movie an enjoyably slick sheen.  Neither Jeff Lester nor Adrienne Sachs gives a good performance and the plot feels like it was made up on the spot but fans of Shannon Tweed in her Skinemax heyday might enjoy it.

In the Cold of the Night also features Tippi Hedren, playing Kimberly’s mother.  She only appears in one scene and freaks out when she sees some birds.  The scene ends with Adrienne Sachs looking directly at the camera and saying, “Mother simply hates birds!”