The Dallas Connection | Through the Shattered Lens

This is the last weekend of my vacation! I’ll be back on Monday. Here are a few film recommendations, inspired by both my vacation and the upcoming patriotic holiday!

Keeping The World Safe

Whenever anyone asks me what the best film ever made about Hawaii is (and it happens all the time, let me tell ya), I always reply with From Here To Eternity. Then I smile and say, “Or maybe it’s Hard Ticket To Hawaii!” Directed by Andy Sidaris, Hard Ticket to Hawaii (1987) has it all. A mutant snake, a sex doll-carrying assassin on a skateboard, a killer frisbee, the Molokai cops, a single-engine airplane, and Ridge from the Bold and the Beautiful! This is the film that taught me that the proper way to reply to a guy saying, “Nice ass!” was to smile and say, “You too, Pilgrim.” Hard Ticket To Hawaii is one of the most deliriously strange and entertaining films ever made and you can view it on Tubi!

After viewing Hard Ticket to Hawaii, be sure to check out Andy Sidaris’s other great film, Guns (1990). Guns not only features a tropical paradise but it also stars Erik Estrada, giving a totally over-the-top performance as the villain. Guns can be viewed on Tubi.

As a resident of Dallas, I will always have a soft place in my heart for Sidaris’s Day of The Warrior (1996), in which it is established that the world’s most evil secret organization is headquartered on top floor of the Bank America Plaza and that the evil mastermind lives in “North Dallas.” You probably have to be from Dallas to get the joke but it’s a good one. Day of the Warrior can be viewed on Tubi.

Finally, The Dallas Connection (1994) was directed by Andy’s son, Christian Drew Sidaris. I have to recommend this one because it not only takes place in Dallas but it’s actually named after the city as well! Filmed on location, this film features plenty of action and exploding toy boat. The Dallas Connection can be viewed on Tubi.

If you want your action stars to have a bit more of a social consciousness, Born Losers (1967) features Billy Jack (Tom Laughlin) in his first film appearance. In three subsequent films, Billy Jack would go on to fight for pacifism and Native American rights and would eventually becomes a U.S. Senator but, in this film, he just kills a bunch of bikers who have been harassing tourists in California. Born Losers can be viewed on Tubi.

God Bless America

Next Friday will be the Fourth of July. USA! USA! USA!

Invasion USA (1952) takes a look at what happens when a bunch of people take America for granted. Fortunately, Dan O’Herlihy is on hand to hypnotize everyone and force them to experience what life would be like if the communists took over America. Thank you, mysterious hypnotist! This film can be viewed on Tubi.

Years later, those commies were still trying to invade and divide America. Fortunately, Chuck Norris was available to stop them. Invasion U.S.A. (1985) features one of Richard Lynch’s greatest performances and it can be viewed on Tubi.

I Was A Communist For The FBI (1958) claims to tell the true story of a man who spent years working undercover as a communist. His family rejected him. His neighbors scorned him. This film is a real time capsule of the time it was made. That said, it’s portrayal of communists as being a bunch of upper class bigots who manipulate a working class that they have no interest in being a part of still feels relevant today. I Was A Communist For The FBI can be viewed on YouTube.

Odds and Ends

Cold In July (2014) is one of the best neo-noirs of the best ten years and it features an excellent performance from Don Johnson, whose weathered toughness gives him a gravitas that he was occasionally lacking in his younger years. It can be viewed on Tubi.

Finally, Jeff and I watched Smokey and the Bandit (1977) earlier this week. It’s one of Jeff’s favorites and, whenever I watch it, I’m always surprised to re-discover how much I enjoy it myself. Fast cars, a truck that looked a lot like the one my Dad used to drive, Southern scenery, and a theme song that gets stuck in your head, what’s not to like? I related to Sally Field’s confusion as to why anyone would want to eat at a “choke-n-puke.” It’s available on Netflix!

(Check out last weekend here!)

My first thought when I came across 1994’s The Dallas Connection:

Oh my God, it’s a movie about my hometown!

And, just judging from the film’s poster, it appears that Dallas is blowing up! Look at all of those flames behind Reunion Tower!

(Whenever a film is set in Dallas, you know you’re going to see Reunion Tower in the background. Depending on when the film was made, you’ll probably also see Bank of America Plaza. That’s the green building.)

Of course, film posters are often inaccurate and it’s not really a spoiler for me to tell you that, at no point, does Reunion Tower blow up in this movie. Don’t get me wrong. A lot of stuff does blow up in The Dallas Connection. It’s a Sidaris film, produced by Andy Sidaris and directed by his son, Christian Drew Sidaris. The Sidaris name is pretty much synonymous with stuff blowing up.

That said, a good deal of The Dallas Connection does take place in Dallas and, unlike a lot of other films, it was actually filmed in Dallas. This wasn’t a case of something like Dallas Buyers Club or Killer Joe, where New Orleans was used as a Dallas stand-in. Nor was it like that terrible “Babylon” episode of The X-Files, where a bunch of Canadians in denim were awkwardly cast as Texans. It’s always fun to see building that you recognize when you watch a movie.

That said, The Dallas Connection opens in Paris. We know it’s supposed to be Paris because of all the French stock footage. Inside a Parisian mansion (which looks suspiciously like a house one would expect to find in the suburbs of Dallas), an assassin named Black Widow (Julie Strain) is murdering a scientist. Black Widow’s trademark is that she has rough sex with her targets before murdering them.

Meanwhile, Black Widow’s associates — Cobra (Julie K. Smith) and Scorpion (Wendy Hamilton) — are killing scientists in South Africa and Hong Kong. The South African scenes feature a lot of grainy stock footage that was probably lifted from a nature documentary. Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, death comes via an exploding golf ball.

Why are all the scientists being killed? Well, it turns out that they’re all due to attend a scientific conference in Dallas. (Woo hoo! Way to go, Dallas!) Apparently, they’ve developed some sort of missile defense system or something. The last remaining scientist, Morales (Rodrigo Obregon), needs to be protected from Black Widow and her assassins so it’s time to call in Chris Cannon (Bruce Penhall) and his team of incompetent government agents.

In typical Sidaris fashion, the plot is pretty much impossible to follow. That’s not because the story is especially complex or clever. This isn’t one of those films where you need to rewatch it to pick up on all the details or the clues or anything like that. Instead, The Dallas Connection’s incoherence feels as if it’s a result of everyone just making it all up as they went along. It’s a Sidaris film so you know that, inevitably, everyone’s going to end up in the bayous, blowing stuff up.

And yes, yet another remote control boat shows up and explodes. Of all of the Sidaris trademarks, the exploding remote controlled boats is perhaps the strangest. At the same time, it’s also the most amusing. Seriously, whenever anyone is standing near any body of water, you just know a tiny speedboat’s going to come along and blow him up.

In the end, The Dallas Connection is a typically incoherent Sidaris film but at least it features a lot of scenes shot in my hometown.