Johnny LaRue's Crane Shot

Super Women Who Kissed And Killed

noreply@blogger.com (Marty McKee) — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 02:15:00 +0000

It's very easy to believe this 1952 horror movie is something I dreamed up in a sweaty, delirious haze. But, no, I took my temperature and my pulse, and I'm feeling fine. So MESA OF LOST WOMEN must be a real movie.

Quite probably one of the worst films I've ever seen, MESA OF LOST WOMEN plays like a jittery delight, an ethereal neverland where normal laws of logic and physics don't apply. A land of midgets and giant spiders, mad scientists and genteel psychopaths, where the women are stacked and the audience is stumped.

According to Bill Warren's essential KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES, MESA OF LOST WOMEN was produced in 1952, but not released in Los Angeles in 1956, during the period when the infamous Edward D. Wood, Jr. was flooding theaters with his peculiar style of cinematic ineptitude. MESA even feels like something Wood might have concocted on the back of a cocktail napkin in a dive on Sunset. In fact, the maddening musical score composed for the picture by Hoyt Curtin later turned up on the soundtrack of Wood's JAIL BAIT.

Once you've heard Curtin's repetitive Mexican-guitar-and-pounding-piano opus, you aren't likely to forget it, as it drowns the picture in a cacophony of noise that sounds as though it were performed by a pair of monkeys locked in a junior high school band room. An interesting footnote is that Curtin ended up at Hanna-Barbera, composing themes and scores for some of the most famous animated series in television history, including THE FLINTSTONES, THE JETSONS, JONNY QUEST, and SCOOBY-DOO, WHERE ARE YOU?

MESA OF LOST WOMEN stars Jackie Coogan (that's right--Uncle Fester!) as Dr. Aranya ("That's Spanish for spider!"), a mad scientist living atop Mesa Zarpa, perched 600 feet above the Mexican desert. For some idiotic reason, Aranya is attempting to breed humans with spiders in order to create a master race to do his bidding. For an even more idiotic reason, the experiments transform the men into mute midgets, whereas the women become sexy Amazons with long fingernails.

Aranya summons a fellow scientist, Masterson (Harmon Stevens), to his laboratory in order to share his secrets with the scientific community. The results drive Masterson mad, however, and he is sentenced to a mental hospital and lobotomized. Somehow, he escapes and shows up at a cantina, where Tarantella (Tandra Quinn) is performing a steamy spider dance. Masterson shoots her and kidnaps a millionaire, his golddigging fiancé, his Chinese servant, and Masterson's male nurse.

Masterson takes his captives to their airplane and forces pilot Grant Phillips (Robert Knapp) to fly them to Mesa Zarpa, where, uh, where not much happens, really. The nurse and the millionaire are killed (off-screen) by a giant spider, and the rest of the party ends up in Aranya's underground lab. Masterson recovers his sanity long enough to send Phillips and his new squeeze on their way safely, and then blow the lab all to hell, destroying Aranya's mad dream and himself in the process.

All of this happens in about 68 minutes and is actually more compressed than that. MESA opens with a prologue that has nothing to do with the rest of the movie, showing Tarantella planting a kiss of death on an unassuming male victim and then incomprehensible narration written by co-director Herbert Tevos (who doesn't appear to have made another picture) and delivered by Lyle Talbot (JAIL BAIT), another reminder of the Wonderful World of Ed Wood. Talbot rambles deliciously about "hexapods" and the perils of Muerto Desert--"the desert of Death."

Although a handful of minor B-movie actors signed on to Tevos and co-director Ron Ormond's lunacy, including Allan Nixon (PREHISTORIC WOMAN) and Richard Travis (Lou Gehrig in THE BABE RUTH STORY), the only performer you're likely to recognize is Coogan, who later played the eccentric Uncle Fester on THE ADDAMS FAMILY. A famous child actor, Coogan had not yet made many waves in his adult career, except for starring in an obscure syndicated series with the unlikely title of COWBOY G-MEN. He doesn't appear to be enjoying MESA very much, basically walking through the (probably) two days he spent on the set. Sporting thick eyeglasses, a goatee, and a mole, he almost looks as though he's trying to hide, thankful for the house payment he was able to make that month because of his MESA paycheck. Coogan went on to appear in a couple of Albert Zugsmith productions, including the magnificent HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL as a drug kingpin, and even produced and directed an obscure espionage B-flick under his own Coogan Films banner before hitting it big opposite John Astin and Carolyn Jones on THE ADDAMS FAMILY.

.38 Magnum

noreply@blogger.com (Marty McKee) — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 22:45:00 +0000

His name is Stoner. Mark Stoner. He's a treasure hunter and a salvage expert based in Key West, but THE SATAN STONE, the second Stoner adventure penned by Ralph Hayes, is set in Africa.

Published by Manor in 1976, THE SATAN STONE starts out with a different character carrying the first two chapters. McMillan, a so-called partner at a South African diamond mine run by the fat, corrupt De Villiers, is cheated of his final payment. Hey, what can he do about it, seeing as De Villiers' vicious right-hand man Graaf has no qualms about torturing and killing anyone who even slightly threatens his boss.

So McMillan decides to steal the largest diamond he's ever seen. Easily a million-dollar gem. But there's no way to get it out past Graaf's security, so he stashes it beneath a bulldozer. McMillan avoids being killed by one of Graaf's men and makes it to Nairobi, where he runs across his old friend Mark Stoner. And eventually--with some fast talking--convinces Stoner to infiltrate De Villiers' camp and somehow emerge with the gigantic gem.

Air Force veteran Hayes does a nice job spinning this tough-guy yarn, which may remind one somewhat of the 1976 action film KILLER FORCE. The macho shenanigans and action sequences are rendered in an exciting manner, just like a pulpy short story out of a sweaty men's magazine. The climax finds Stoner stranded in the desert and pursued by some of De Villiers' men...who are slightly less dangerous than the pack of killer baboons who attack him!

I liked the one Hunter novel Hayes wrote, and this is a good one too. Hayes also wrote the Cominsec series and a few Nick Carter adventures.

A Baby Born In Hell

noreply@blogger.com (Marty McKee) — Wed, 29 May 2013 22:22:00 +0000

Horror star Christopher Lee tried to film an adaptation of Dennis Wheatley’s 1953 novel TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER for several years, and it turned out to be Hammer’s last horror picture of the 20th century.

The film of TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER is surprisingly sleazy for a Hammer film with an on-camera murder of a newborn baby, a naked Lee (actually his longtime stunt double Eddie Powell) going doggie-style in an orgy, a bloody rubber puppet fetus crawling around, and the sexualization of young Nastassja Kinski (TESS), who performs a full-frontal nude scene at the age of fourteen.

In the film’s favor are its intriguing premise, strong production values (it was filmed mostly on location in Germany), good photography, and strong performances, particularly by Lee, who likely relished playing this character, and Denholm Elliott (RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK) as a weak-willed lapsed cultist.

Against the film, however, are a confusing screenplay credited to Christopher Wicking (SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN) and John Peacock (but heavily rewritten during shooting by THE DUELLISTS’ Gerald Vaughan-Hughes), a miscast Richard Widmark (who seems reticent), and a terrible ending that gives every evidence of being improvised on the set by a director with his hands flung into the air.

Widmark is American John Verney, a horror writer living in London, who is caught up in a master plan by ex-communicated priest Father Michael (Lee) to baptize nun Catherine (Kinski, whose casting came at the behest of the German financiers) in the blood of a baby on her eighteenth birthday and bring to life a demon called Astaroth. Catherine’s father (Elliott) had signed her over to Michael’s Satanic cult when she was born, but has developed cold feet as she approaches Judgment Day and asks Verney the occult expert to save her.

TO THE DEVIL moves along well enough under the direction of Peter Sykes (DEMONS OF THE MIND), and with a better script might well have sent Hammer out with a bang; the studio’s next and last film (until being resurrected in the late 2000s) was the desultory Hitchcock remake THE LADY VANISHES.

Watch the trailer, and see what you think.

The Circus Is Coming To Town

noreply@blogger.com (Marty McKee) — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:47:00 +0000

One of Hammer’s best horror films of the 1970s stars none of the studio’s familiar performers (Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Ralph Bates, Victoria Carlson, Michael Ripper et al.). While packed with more than its fair share of nudity and gore, it’s also very exciting and creates a few interesting twists on traditional vampire lore.

Like Hammer’s DRACULA A.D. 1972 the same year, VAMPIRE CIRCUS gets off to a strong start with a bloody and pulse-pounding pre-credits sequence. When Professor Mueller (Laurence Payne) spots his younger wife Anna leading one of the village children into the castle of Count Mitterhouse (Robert Tayman), he organizes a lynch mob to storm the castle, rescue the child, and destroy Mitterhouse, who’s rumored to be not only a serial killer of children, but also a vampire. Mueller kills the Count, who curses the townspeople on his deathbed and swears to destroy the next generation of villagers.

Fifteen years later, it appears the Count’s prophecies have come true. The village is riddled with plague, and the King’s soldiers have cordoned it off. No one goes in or out, except a small traveling circus which somehow manages to break through the roadblock. Besides the gypsy woman (Adrienne Corri) who appears to be running the show, the performers include a midget clown, male-and-female twin acrobats, a strongman played by David Prowse (STAR WARS’ Darth Vader), a tiger woman, and Emil (Anthony Corlan), who appears to be able to turn into a black panther. More bloody murders occur, as it becomes clear to the audience—if not to the villagers—that not only are the circus performers bloodsuckers, but also Emil is the cousin of Count Mitterhouse and plans to revive his kin’s corpse.

While VAMPIRE CIRCUS contains enough crosses, wooden stakes, and vampire bats to please purists, the “next generation” of horror fans certainly will find much to like. These vamps can float through the air, transform into cat creatures, and, of course, mesmerize the beautiful young women of the village. Dripping with unusual touches (like a very sexy dance involving a naked woman painted in tiger makeup), period style, and enough heavy dollops of sensuality and raw violence to push the “R” rating of the day, VAMPIRE CIRCUS makes Hammer’s Dracula series appear almost quaint. Even the Hammer films (such as THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA) that were made later seem old-fashioned compared to this audacious entry. Director Robert Young bookends the film nicely with action setpieces that open and close the film, and his cast of veteran character actors, young leading men, and fetching ingénues perform flawlessly.

Hard To Play God Doing Five To Life, Man

noreply@blogger.com (Marty McKee) — Sun, 19 May 2013 15:16:00 +0000

1972's THE CAREY TREATMENT was a job of work for Blake Edwards (THE PINK PANTHER), who neither wrote nor produced this medical thriller based on an early novel by Michael Crichton: the Edgar-winning A CASE OF NEED, which he wrote under the name Jeffery Hudson. No writer wanted to take credit for this film, because credited screenwriter James P. Bonner is actually the trio of Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr. (HUD) and John D.F. Black (SHAFT). Edwards hated the film too. I like it, as swinging physician James Coburn (OUR MAN FLINT) bounces from clue to clue, suspect to suspect, hanging in there during the plot turns and chases.

Newly arrived in Boston for a new job as a pathologist at a swanky hospital, Dr. Peter Carey (Coburn) turns amateur sleuth after his friend and colleague David Tao (James Hong) is accused of killing a fifteen-year-old girl during an illegal abortion. He uncovers most of his leads through bullying and wisecracks, but Coburn is such a charming performer that he can get away with anything (to a wealthy, flirty housewife who claims she’s much too young to be the mother of her teenage stepdaughter, Coburn grins that Cheshire grin and laconically answers, “If you say so”).

Look, no one’s saying THE CAREY TREATMENT isn’t ludicrous—it sure as hell is, and it’s a little sloppy in the post-production department too (Edwards reportedly split or was fired after shooting was completed). It gives Coburn the opportunity to be groovy and hip and cool, which hardly any movie star did better. It also provides a good scene or two for its talented supporting actors, such as Pat Hingle (great in his initial volley with Coburn), Jennifer O'Neill, Dan O’Herlihy, Alex Dreier (also interesting in his single scene), Regis Toomey, Robert Mandan, John Hillerman, Ed Peck, and Michael Blodgett. Another indication Edwards left the project early: score by Roy Budd, not Henry Mancini.

Light Years Beyond Tomorrow

noreply@blogger.com (Marty McKee) — Tue, 14 May 2013 02:45:00 +0000

Can’t get enough crazy Italian science fiction like STARCRASH? Don't miss 1979's THE HUMANOID, one of many Italian ripoffs of STAR WARS to haunt movie theaters in the 1970s. A good-natured astronaut named Golob (7’4” Richard Kiel, in between Bond films) is transformed into a hulking, growling, mindless, indestructible “humanoid” by renegade scientist Kraspin (Arthur Kennedy). In the employ of malevolent dictator Graal (Ivan Rassimov), a megalomaniac garbed in black armor with plans to rule the galaxy, Kraspin plans to create an entire army of humanoid killing machines to aid in Graal’s conquest.

Luckily, Kraspin veers from Graal’s order to murder Earth’s leader, “Great Brother,” and sends Gorob to destroy pretty Barbara Gibson (MOONRAKER's Corinne Clery), who was responsible for the mad scientist’s exile to an insane asylum. Barbara and her “pupil,” a young Chinese boy named Tom-Tom (Marco Yeh), force the evil and hatred from Gorob’s mind, transforming him back into a gentle giant, albeit one who retains his super-strength and invulnerability. Joining forces with hot-shot warrior Nick (Leonard Mann), Barbara, Gorob, Tom-Tom, and Gorob’s robot dog Robodog (!) invade Graal’s planetary base and blow everything up in the name of justice and goodness.

Oh, yeah. When Kraspin isn’t fiddling with his humanoid “serum” or raving about revenge against Barbara, he’s killing topless women in a transparent iron maiden and draining their blood to keep Graal’s future queen, the busty Lady Agatha (Barbara Bach, who appeared with Kiel in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME), eternally young.

THE HUMANOID is ridiculous, hilarious, and utterly unpredictable. Just when you think director Aldo Lado couldn't pull anything new out from under his hat, suddenly Graal starts firing blue blasts from his hands or heavenly angels with crossbows drop out of the sky at Tom-Tom’s command to pull the good guys out of a tough spot. It’s also fun laughing at the obvious STAR WARS riffs. Most of the characters are drawn directly from George Lucas’ movie (with Kiel playing the Chewbacca part), even though Antonio Margheriti’s visual effects pale next to their precursor. Heck, they pale next to the STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL.

Kiel probably never got top billing again, and does his best in another “monster” role. He isn’t a good enough actor to make Gorob very sympathetic, although he’s likable enough in his pre-humanoid scenes. Clery’s job is to be gorgeous, which she accomplishes quite well. As usual, the villains receive the bulk of the script’s color and meaty dialogue, and Kennedy and Rassimov leap into it like finely sliced ham. Ennio Morricone was tapped for the score, which lacks melody and sounds as though it were composed in a hurry—sort of like the special effects. Filmed in Rome as L’UMANOIDE, THE HUMANOID may not have received a U.S. theatrical release, as it didn’t receive an MPAA rating and doesn’t seem to have been reviewed by VARIETY.

The Conscience Of The King

noreply@blogger.com (Marty McKee) — Sat, 11 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Note: this post is one of a series of STAR TREK episode reviews originally written for the alt.tv.startrek.tos newsgroup. For more information, please read this post.

THE CONSCIENCE OF THE KING
Episode 13 out of 80
December 8, 1966
Writer: Barry Trivers
Director: Gerd Oswald

The U.S.S. Enterprise transports a Shakespearean repertory company, and Captain Kirk (William Shatner) comes to suspect that its leader, Anton Karidian (Arnold Moss), may well be a notorious thought-dead dictator named Kodos the Executioner, whose past crimes include the slaughter of members of Kirk’s family.

The acting in this episode is among the best of the series. The confrontation between Moss and Shatner is absolutely riveting, and Barbara Anderson, who plays Moss’ psychotic daughter Lenore, is pretty terrific in a difficult role. Anderson moved on to regular roles on IRONSIDE and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE. The byplay between DeForest Kelley and Leonard Nimoy is great, and really does a lot to show the friendly yet adversarial relationship between Spock and McCoy. “Conscience” is an old-fashioned tale of revenge and murder, and there isn't much action in it, but the strong performances and clever script by Barry Trivers holds it together.

Again, Shatner shows his strength as a performer by making Kirk fallible and human without sacrificing any of his heroic qualities. It was rare for a '60s TV hero to suffer bouts of vengeance and obsession, yet Kirk often did, while still holding the audience's sympathy. This is a great actor and a great character.

McCoy must have still been drunk while making his medical log entry. Surely he could have figured that Riley would be able to hear his every word. Maybe he should lay off the "hard stuff" for a couple of days.

Director Gerd Oswald said in a FILMFAX interview that Shatner was a bit difficult to work with. I think "pain-in-the-ass" was the term Oswald used to describe Shatner. Not too surprising, considering what his costars have said about him since. Oswald did a ton of OUTER LIMITS episodes, and his feature film AGENT FROM H.A.R.M. was on MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000.

Do phasers have safety features? Just wondering...

Joseph Mullendore's music is pretty good. I especially like the cue he wrote to accompany Kirk and Spock's search for the overloaded phaser. I don't recall if this turned up as a recurring cue, but it should have. Pretty suspenseful.

Kirk makes a direct reference to the "ship's theater" in this episode. I guess it seems likely that the Enterprise would have a theater (it doesn't seem to take up much space), but I wonder how often it gets used. You think the crew members have their own little theater group?

The Past Holds The Key

noreply@blogger.com (Marty McKee) — Sat, 04 May 2013 18:01:00 +0000

From time to time, I plan to use this space to repurpose film reviews I wrote for several local independent newspapers during the previous decade:

THE OCTOPUS: 1999–2000
CU CITYVIEW: 2002
THE PAPER: 2003–2004
THE HUB: 2005–2006

During my tenure as a professional (re: paid) film critic, I wrote about both new releases and cult classics. The date provided below is the date the newspaper issue containing the review hit the streets.

This review has been slightly edited from the original published piece.

THE CUTTER (2006)
Running Time 1:32
Rated R
Directed by Bill Tannen
Stars Chuck Norris, Joanna Pacula, Daniel Bernhardt, Bernie Kopell
Originally published March 31, 2006

35 years after memorably fighting Bruce Lee in the Rome Colosseum in RETURN OF THE DRAGON, Chuck Norris is as famous now as he ever has been. Conan O’Brien’s LATE NIGHT jabs at Norris’ long-running WALKER, TEXAS RANGER TV series and the spoofy list of “Chuck Norris Facts” that have been making the Internet rounds (“When Chuck Norris does a pushup, he isn’t lifting himself up, he’s pushing the Earth down.”) have pulled the chopsocky star back into the national spotlight, five years after WALKER left the airwaves. Taking advantage of the new buzz, which reveals Norris as a man with a sense of humor, Nu Image has released the first major Chuck Norris film in a decade.

THE CUTTER was filmed in Spokane, Washington with director Bill Tannen, with whom Norris worked on HERO AND THE TERROR, an unexceptional serial-killer thriller that came near the end of the star’s exclusive contract with Cannon in the 1980’s. “Unexceptional” also describes THE CUTTER, which may have been made with Norris’ middle-aged WALKER target audience in mind, since only a couple of cast members appear to be under the age of forty.

The intriguing opening finds Dirk (played by Daniel Bernhardt, a Swiss Van Damme-lookalike who starred in three BLOODSPORT sequels), an assassin and master of disguise, swooping down to an archeological dig in the Sinai, murdering all the treasure hunters and swiping the priceless Breastplate of Aaron right off a dusty mummy’s chest. The breastplate is encrusted with perfect gems that must be cut into smaller pieces for sale on the black market. Dirk takes the stolen artifact to Spokane, where he kidnaps Isaac Teller (Bernie Kopell, “Doc” from THE LOVE BOAT), an elderly diamond cutter and Auschwitz survivor, and forces the old man to work his craft on the spectacular gems. Isaac resists, giving his niece Elizabeth (Joanna Pacula, GORKY PARK) time to hire John Shepherd (Norris), a private detective who specializes in kidnap cases.

Writer Bruce Haskett’s plot doesn’t grow much from there, stringing together a few mildly effective chases and fight scenes between easy-to-follow clues and investigative techniques familiar to Walker’s family-friendly audience. Shepherd is, of course, a “lone wolf” who doesn’t bow to authority, represented in THE CUTTER by Parks, an officious FBI agent played by Nu Image regular Todd Jensen. Marshall Teague, who played the heavy in both the first and last WALKER episodes, and LOIS & CLARK’s Tracy Scoggins (still shapely in her fifties) are friendly Spokane cops. Handsome Dean Cochran, the star of Nu Image’s SHARK ZONE and AIR MARSHAL, provides some light as a comic-relief lawyer. Executive producer Aaron Norris (Chuck’s brother) is a hitman. 80-year-old German character actor Curt Lowens (WEREWOLF IN A GIRLS’ DORMITORY) is a welcome sight. Lowens specialized in playing Nazis, and he does so again in THE CUTTER, adding dramatic weight to an otherwise unassuming action picture as Colonel Speerman, the officer who murdered Isaac’s family in Auschwitz and is the brains behind the current caper.

Chuck Norris was 65 when he shot THE CUTTER, and it’s to his disadvantage that he worked so hard in an unsuccessful attempt to look younger. Sporting a strangely colored hairpiece and what appears to be a surgically enhanced face, Norris now has looks to match his typically unnatural acting performance. It’s odd that he has not improved as an actor over the last three decades—one would think that doing anything everyday for thirty years would make you better at it—but his martial arts skills have also, understandably, deteriorated over time. Even with son Eric Norris, THE CUTTER’s stunt coordinator, looking out for the star’s best interests, it’s obvious that Chuck is being heavily doubled in the fight sequences.

With his looks, action skills, and acting ability fading, what’s next for Chuck Norris? I hate to say it, but if THE CUTTER is an indication of what Norris fans can expect, perhaps he should stop now. Not that THE CUTTER is awful—Tannen’s hackneyed direction does Barkett’s routine script no favors, but the movie is no worse than a typical WALKER episode. It certainly espouses WALKER’s (and Norris’) core American values of right over wrong. Old-fashioned, perhaps, but never out of style.

NOTE: The MPAA, in its infinite idiocy, has granted THE CUTTER an R rating for “violence.” This is a ridiculous decision with absolutely no merit. THE CUTTER is devoid of sex, nudity and gore and features very mild profanity and action scenes that could air uncut on network television. It’s a helluva lot less violent than many PG-13 movies, and is a perfect example of the influence that the major studios hold over the MPAA ratings board.

Great TV Episodes: City Of Passion

noreply@blogger.com (Marty McKee) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 00:38:00 +0000

HUNTER
"City of Passion"
November 7, November 14 & November 21, 1987
NBC
Teleplay: Charlotte Huggins & Thomas Huggins (Part 1); Dallas L. Barnes (Part 2 & 3)
Based on the Novel by Dallas L. Barnes
Director: James Whitmore Jr.

HUNTER's magnum opus, the three-part "City of Passion," based on a novel by real-life police detective Dallas Barnes, aired early in the series' fourth season. But the series almost didn't make it that far.

Low ratings and massive pummeling by critics that labeled HUNTER a crude DIRTY HARRY ripoff nearly got the show cancelled during its first season in 1984. However, Brandon Tartikoff, then the head of NBC Entertainment, allowed the show to find its legs by moving it to a Saturday timeslot, where it became a ratings hit for the rest of the 1980s.

Fred Dryer, a former Los Angeles Ram who narrowly lost the leading role of Sam Malone on CHEERS to Ted Danson, starred as Rick Hunter, who very much was influenced by Clint Eastwood during the show's first season. He even had a throwaway catch phrase, "Works for me," which Dryer usually delivered after blasting a bad guy. Hunter was, as all great TV detectives are, a maverick cop who shot first, shouted "Freeze!" later, and never balked at destroying whatever public and private property he needed to in order to capture a criminal.

Knowing this wouldn't do on a weekly basis, series creator ~~Stephen J. Cannell (THE ROCKFORD FILES)~~ Frank Lupo gave Hunter a partner--a woman who could bring out Dryer's softer side on-screen. Stepfanie Kramer played Dee Dee McCall, who was vulnerable and sexy, but also tough enough to earn the nickname "The Brass Cupcake" from her colleagues on the force.

Despite a rotating cast of variably apoplectic commanding officers (including John Amos, John Shearin, James Whitmore Jr., and Bruce Davison, who all barked at Hunter for crashing another car until the calmer Charles Hallahan joined the regular cast in the third season), Hunter and McCall burned rubber and broke the rules to entertain audiences for seven seasons (except Kramer, who departed after six).

By the fourth season, HUNTER--while not exactly shying away from gun battles and car chases--had become a more mature series that was marked with humor, strong characters, and a charming platonic relationship between Hunter and McCall that was a triumph of Dryer and Kramer's personal chemistry. This upgraded approach was reflected in its elegiac opening titles (see below), and HUNTER finished in the Top 20 in the Nielsens that season for the first time. A perfect representation of the stories HUNTER was telling that year was the epic "City of Passion," the series' lone three-part episode.

"City of Passion"'s sprawling narrative is indicative of its literary origins. Married couple Charlotte Huggins (billed as Charlotte Clay) and Thomas Huggins, HUNTER's story editors (and kin to executive producer Roy Huggins), and Dallas L. Barnes adapted Barnes' novel for television and spun three intertwining tales in rich detail. The strongest story teams up Hunter and McCall with Sex Crimes detectives Kitty O'Hearn (Shelley Taylor Morgan, MALIBU EXPRESS) and Brad Navarro (CHIPS star Erik Estrada) to track down a serial rapist (Fred Coffin, HARD TO KILL) whose most recent attack culminated in murder. Notable for his size 14 feet, the rapist is tagged "Bigfoot" by the detectives and is clearly the creation of Barnes, who had earlier penned the unintentionally hilarious "Big Foot," also about a rapist nicknamed Bigfoot, for a 1982 T.J. HOOKER.

Meanwhile, Hunter pokes into the case of a teenage prostitute named Stacey (FREDDY'S DEAD: THE FINAL NIGHTMARE's Lezlie Deane), who contacts police with a harrowing tale of being kidnapped by Satanists who performed a blood ritual on her friend. McCall's spare time involves a political clash with Commander Cain (Arthur Rosenberg), her boss Charlie Devane's (Hallahan) boss, who pulls heavy strings in an attempt to coerce Dee Dee into dropping solicitation charges against the Governor's father-in-law, Superior Court judge Warrick Unger (BRADY BUNCH dad Robert Reed, who spent much of his post-BRADY career playing scumbags). The manner in which these subplots intersect add layers of menace to both.

It also gives the stars meatier material to play than their usual cops-and-robbers shenanigans. For Kramer, "City of Passion" is a callback to the second-season two-parter "Rape & Revenge," in which McCall was raped in her home by a foreign government official with diplomatic immunity. In part two of "City of Passion," the Bigfoot Rapist attacks McCall in her home. She fights him off, but tells her physician (Rosemary Forsyth) that she won't report the attack because of the shame and ostracism she suffered from her colleagues the last time. Because she's refusing to report a felony, she declines to tell even Hunter about Bigfoot's attack in order to protect his career.

Barnes' novel, which I haven't read, must have provided the screenwriters and producers Stu Segall and Jo Swerling Jr. with enough material for three parts, because "City of Passion" doesn't feel padded. They called on James Whitmore Jr., HUNTER's most prolific director (with 23 one-hours), to helm the epic, and he came through with a strong effort. The episode lacks the series' usual action beats for the most part, but Whitmore engineers a good deal of suspense in the rape sequences, particularly the harrowing scene that opens part one. The Satanic rituals, overflowing with candles and blood and men in robes, could easily have looked laughable, but Whitmore (a semi-regular in HUNTER's first three seasons) has a strong handle on the material and films them as horror, rather than crime drama.

"City of Passion" was HUNTER's peak in quality, as well as chronology, as the three-parter aired as episodes 70, 71, and 72 of a 152-episode run. To say it was all downhill from there isn't fair, as HUNTER turned out several more good shows in its fourth, fifth, and sixth year. The seventh season was something of a mess with Darlanne Fluegel (TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A.) and then Lauren Lane (THE NANNY) failing to fill Kramer's high heels as Hunter's new partners.

The series managed to have an almost unprecedented appeal even more than a decade after it was cancelled. Three reunion movies led to a return of HUNTER on a weekly basis in 2003, again on Saturday nights on NBC. Backstage complications and NBC's inept promotion caused the new HUNTER to be cancelled after only three episodes, so it never got a chance to produce an epic to compete with "City of Passion."

Enter A World Of Sea Monkeys, X-Ray Spex, And Count Dante

noreply@blogger.com (Marty McKee) — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 16:48:00 +0000

If only this book had existed in 1979, it would have saved a lot of kids a lot of grief and their parents a lot of checks for 97 cents.

Remember all those tantalizing ads you saw in the comic books you read as a kid? Sell GRIT. See the bones in your hand with these X-ray glasses. Amaze your friends with this flying disc. 100-piece toy soldier set. Count Dante, the deadliest man alive! I never once sent away for any of these items, no matter how amazing they appeared in the ads. But I did always wonder about the kids who did and what they received. Thanks to author Kirk Demarais, we now know.

Through the magic of eBay and the examination of other people's collections, Demarais managed to get his hands on many of these items and published them in his book MAIL-ORDER MYSTERIES: REAL STUFF FROM OLD COMIC BOOK ADS! It's pretty much a must-read if you remember any of those ads, and it's laid out in a colorful, entertaining way that breezes by in a couple of hours at the most.

Who would have guessed that the famed Kryptonite Rock was not a green chunk of the planet Krypton that fell to Earth and contained the power to kill Superman, but was actually a regular old rock painted green? Okay, we all did (and I still wonder who was dumb enough to shell out $2.50 for that one), but I wasn't exactly sure what sending away for the X-Ray Spex, the life-size Moon Monster, the Spud Gun, the Trick Baseball, or the ever-present Sea Monkeys would actually bring you. Demarais' book is the best way I know, other than tracking down these objects yourself, to finding out.

Unsurprisingly, most of it is shit. The Flashing Eyes (cost: 50 cents) is merely a sloppily Xeroxed paper telling you how to place tin foil on your eyelids. The Life-Like Lady's Legs wouldn't fool a dog, much less the victim of the hilarious practical joke you wanted to play. The 7-11 Magic Dice might fool a dog, but not the pal you hoped to dupe into gambling away his lunch money. And the "working laser pistol?" Ha!

Still, some of Demarais' discoveries turned out to be not so bad after all, and it's fun turning the pages of MAIL-ORDER MYSTERIES to find out what was a ripoff and what wasn't. At the very least, it's a joy to relive these wonderful ads again, their purple copy and tantalizing illustrations designed to part little children with their allowance bringing back good memories. Or maybe I think they're good because I didn't blow a buck on the 7-foot Monster Ghost (a trash bag, a balloon, and fishing line).

The Eyes Of Goldfoot Are Upon You

noreply@blogger.com (Marty McKee) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 03:26:00 +0000

AIP must have figured beach movies were out and spy movies were in back in 1965, so it created a silly spy spoof for its contract star Vincent Price, best known then for the studio’s Edgar Allan Poe horror films he made with director Roger Corman.

In DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE (!), Frankie Avalon and Dwayne Hickman (THE MANY LOVES OF DOBIE GILLIS) return from SKI PARTY, strangely enough playing characters with the same names, even though the script by Robert Kaufman and Elwood Ullman makes no attempt to tie the films together and, heck, the actors have switched characters anyway!

Price is great as Dr. Goldfoot (he wears golden genie shoes), but Norman Taurog’s trite direction lets him down. Goldfoot and his inept assistant Igor (the painfully unfunny Jack Mullaney of MY LIVING DOLL) shepherd a plot to create gorgeous bikini-clad robots and send them into the world to seduce wealthy men into signing over their fortunes to them. Bumbling secret agent Craig Gamble (Avalon) falls for one, Diane (played well by the delectable Susan Hart), who swindles playboy Todd Armstrong (Hickman).

Though not technically a Beach Party movie, most of GOLDFOOT’s cast will look familiar to fans. Regulars Salli Sachse, Patti Chandler, Sue Williams, Mary Hughes, Marianne Gaba, Luree and Laura Nicholson make up a good portion of Goldfoot’s robot army, as well as Deanna Lund (LAND OF THE GIANTS) and—believe it or not—a black woman (Issa Arnal) and an Asian (China Lee). Audiences probably also cheered the cheeky cameos by Annette Funicello, Harvey Lembeck, Aron Kincaid, and Deborah Walley. Goldfoot’s lair appears to be recycled sets from AIP’s horror films, adding another layer of fun for fans.

GOLDFOOT isn’t great, though it looks brilliant next to its execrable Italian-produced sequel, DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE GIRL BOMBS, which teamed Price with a leadfooted Italian comedy duo. Outside of Price, who is a joy, BIKINI MACHINE doesn’t catch fire until Frankie and Dwayne invade Goldfoot’s lair in the third act. The closing credits (and a theater marquee) promise THE GIRL IN THE GLASS BIKINI, which came out as THE GHOST IN THE INVISIBLE BIKINI.

Terror In The Flesh

noreply@blogger.com (Marty McKee) — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 19:07:00 +0000

From time to time, I plan to use this space to repurpose film reviews I wrote for several local independent newspapers during the previous decade:

THE OCTOPUS: 1999–2000
CU CITYVIEW: 2002
THE PAPER: 2003–2004
THE HUB: 2005–2006

During my tenure as a professional (re: paid) film critic, I wrote about both new releases and cult classics. The date provided below is the date the newspaper issue containing the review hit the streets.

This review has been slightly edited from the original published piece.

CABIN FEVER
Rated R
Running Time 1:34
Originally published September 19, 2003

What is it about CABIN FEVER that so many others see and I don’t? After seeing it at last year’s Toronto Film Festival, Lionsgate Entertainment reportedly shelled out more dough (in the “high seven figures”) to distribute it than they had ever spent before. The hipsters at FILM THREAT and THE VILLAGE VOICE are going ga-ga over it without really explaining why director/producer/co-writer Eli Roth is “the real shit” or why the film “isn’t really horror” (which it obviously is). Even geek guru Peter Jackson (THE LORD OF THE RINGS) has been quoted as calling it “brilliant.“ To paraphrase Carleton Young in THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE, perhaps this is a case where “when the hype becomes fact, print the hype.” Because the only thing “brilliant” about CABIN FEVER are the lights used to photograph the woody North Carolina locations.

Here’s the premise: five college students attempt to vacation at a remote cabin in the forest, only to encounter fear and death in a non-human form. What a great idea…when Sam Raimi created it in THE EVIL DEAD more than twenty years ago, when he also had the marvelously expressive Bruce Campbell to anchor the supernatural evil in some sort of relatable reality, instead of wimpy BOY MEETS WORLD castoff Rider Strong. On their way to the cabin, the five encounter several eccentric and possibly racist backwoods types at the general store, including blond-maned wolf boy Dennis, whose passion for pancakes is matched only by his tendency to bite strangers (the influence of David Lynch, for whom Roth worked). The other influences are there too: DELIVERANCE, LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, THE THING. CABIN FEVER feels as though Roth had a checklist of his favorite horror movies with him on the set and crossed off each title as he ripped off…uh, that is, paid homage to…it.

In so doing, Roth created perhaps the most unlikable cast in recent horror history. Our five protagonists include virginal Paul (Strong), who has a crush on chaste cocktease Karen (Jordan Ladd, Cheryl’s lookalike daughter); sex-crazed couple Jeff (Joey Kern) and Marcy (Cerina Vincent); and gun-toting, beer-swigging lunk Bert (James DeBello). Each character acts exactly as you would expect them to act, given that their antecedents lie in so many other past horror movies with a teen slant. Why couldn’t the blonde Ladd play the horny girl and the brunette Vincent the virgin? Wouldn’t it have been more interesting to make the slight Strong an obnoxious lout and the hulking DeBello the “sensitive one?”

Of course, this would require imagination, a trait decidedly lacking in Roth’s approach to material older than most of his cast. When I originally read Roth’s claims that CABIN FEVER was as much a comedy as a horror film, I anticipated he would be somehow satirizing in SCREAM-like fashion horror-movie clichés. If he is, it’s the most subtle application of satire I’ve ever seen because I couldn’t find it. And I looked. Brother, did I look.

On their first night at the cabin, the youths are assaulted by a stranger covered in blood, the victim of a flesh-eating virus contaminating the forest. They chase the poor guy away, but his infectious influence remains behind. Which of the five will get sick next? How will the others react? If you’re guessing “sensitively,” “intelligently,” or “logically,” you must go directly to Movie Jail and forfeit 200 Junior Mints.

Let’s give the devilish Roth his due and acknowledge what CABIN FEVER does right. Scott Kevan’s cinematography is crisper than this low-budget movie probably deserves, imbuing the forest’s brown richness with a foreboding beauty. Nathan Barr, with the assistance of Lynch maestro Angelo Badalamente, provides a brooding musical soundscape punctuated by ominous fly-buzzing. The gooey makeup effects by KNB are suitably gruesome. And Giuseppe Andrews as a party-loving deputy contributes one of the funniest supporting performances of the year.

But it’s what Roth does wrong that sinks the picture. Even setting aside the massive plot holes that plague the ending (like why aren‘t more people affected by the virus?), it’s pretty clear that whatever ideas Roth had evaporate an hour or so into the picture, as he piles on one superfluous climax after another, presumably figuring that one will finally wrap things up in a suitably ironic fashion. Oh, and speaking of that. The final “twist” proves that Roth watches more than just horror movies. He has also seen DIRTY MARY CRAZY LARRY.

A Journey That Begins Where Everything Ends

noreply@blogger.com (Marty McKee) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 23:26:00 +0000

From time to time, I plan to use this space to repurpose film reviews I wrote for several local independent newspapers during the previous decade:

THE OCTOPUS: 1999–2000
CU CITYVIEW: 2002
THE PAPER: 2003–2004
THE HUB: 2005–2006

During my tenure as a professional (re: paid) film critic, I wrote about both new releases and cult classics. The date provided below is the date the newspaper issue containing the review hit the streets.

This review has been slightly edited from the original published piece.

THE BLACK HOLE (1979)
Rated PG
Running Time 1:37

Walt Disney’s first PG-rated feature is often confusing, childish, and scientifically laughable, and at the time of its original release, it was loudly bashed by critics. However, the movie also boasts outstanding sets and Oscar-nominated cinematography and visual effects, and, if you don’t think about it too much, is a lot of fun.

THE BLACK HOLE was Disney’s riskiest venture to date: a $20 million science-fiction epic combining philosophical themes about God and mankind’s search for a better existence with the company’s typically juvenile approach. Released just two weeks after STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE, it seems to have been lost in the box-office shuffle, although it was considered one of Disney’s all-time biggest moneymakers.

An Earth exploration vessel, the Palomino, manned by Captain Robert Forster (JACKIE BROWN) and his crew—gung-ho first mate Joseph Bottoms (HOLOCAUST), twitchy scientist Anthony Perkins (PSYCHO), psychic Yvette Mimieux (THE TIME MACHINE), and cynical journalist Ernest Borgnine (ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK)—encounters the Cygnus, a massive spaceship that was believed to have been lost 20 years earlier.

Its commander, legendary scientist Dr. Hans Reinhardt (JUDGMENT AT NUREMBURG’s Maximilian Schell), claims to be the only survivor. His ship is run by robots, including his ominous bodyguard Max, which has buzzsaws for hands. The Cygnus is perched just beyond an immense black hole. Reinhardt has invented a groundbreaking anti-gravity field that he believes will allow him to pass through the black hole safely and rule whatever universe lies on the other side. To do this, he needs the Palomino crew to guide him, whether they want to or not.

Basically a space-age remake of Disney’s classic 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA with Schell in the James Mason/Captain Nemo role, THE BLACK HOLE features enough colorful special effects and action to keep one entertained. Admittedly, the simple dialogue by Jeb Rosebrook and Gerry Day and the token “cute” robots with painted-on square eyes, V.I.N.CENT (voiced by Roddy McDowall) and Old B.O.B. (Slim Pickens), will probably annoy most adults, although they aren’t nearly as obnoxious as Jar Jar Binks. The familiar cast has done good work elsewhere, but there are no strong characters or meaty words in the script for them to get into, and as a result, the actors are left to their own unfettered devices.

The real reason to see THE BLACK HOLE is for its marvelous Victorian-style sets designed by Disney vet Peter Ellenshaw (who was also in charge of the miniatures) and the frequently stunning visual effects. Today’s audiences, used to cartoony CGI effects that are considered cutting-edge, may be surprised at the work on display here. Using matte paintings, models, animation, and even wirework, the Disney effects artists have created a real feast for the eyes (the colossal fireball blasting its way down a Cygnus corridor is very cool). John Barry’s outstanding orchestral score was the first to be recorded digitally.

THE BLACK HOLE originally came out during an exciting resurgence in filmed science-fiction which roughly lasted from 1977–1984, and was overlooked in favor of STAR WARS, STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN, BLADE RUNNER, THE TERMINATOR, and others. Although THE BLACK HOLE isn’t as good as any of those films, its old-fashioned visual thrills are too impressive to ignore.

It's Been Sleeping For 2000 Years

noreply@blogger.com (Marty McKee) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 02:22:00 +0000

Released theatrically in 1985 with the generic but evocative title CREATURE, THE TITAN FIND is one of many ALIEN rip-offs of the 1980s about gooey space monsters with big teeth that chomp on astronauts with paper-thin personalities.

The second film by writer/director William Malone (whose next film was THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL fourteen years later), THE TITAN FIND does a nice job creating a mood and delivering cheap violent thrills on a $750,000 budget. The miniature work and production design by future Oscar winners Robert Skotak (ALIENS) and Dennis Skotak (THE ABYSS) are very good, as are the many gore effects by Bruce Zahlava (DEAD HEAT). Really, the goo is the best reason to watch—faces are ripped off, heads explode, and blood splashes everywhere.

An American research team travels to Titan, one of Jupiter’s moons, to investigate some ancient artifacts that left a previous expedition dead. They discover their West German rivals have beaten them there, but have all been brutally murdered. That is, except for one: creepy Hans Hofner (Klaus Kinski, who leads the league in creepy German portrayals), who informs the new arrivals they’re being stalked by a 200,000-year-old creature that subsists on human blood and can control the dead using squishy control devices attached to the back of the corpses’ heads.

Besides Kinski (NOSFERATU), whose star-billed role as a lascivious, sandwich-chomping astronaut is really just a five-day cameo, the only satisfactory performances are given by pretty Wendy Schaal (THE ‘BURBS) as a brainy scientist (who is forced by the script to do some pretty idiotic things) and Stan Ivar (LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE) as the ship’s captain. You’ll instantly recognize Lyman Ward, who plays the arrogant corporate lackey who’s responsible for the party’s trouble, as Matthew Broderick’s clueless dad in FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF. Co-writer Alan Reed is actually Robert Short, the visual effects artist who won an Academy Award for BEETLEJUICE. The orchestral score by Thomas Chase and Steve Rucker makes the action seem more exciting than it actually is, and helps to lend a “big-budget” feel to the proceedings.

It was nice to finally see THE TITAN FIND in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio, so that the Skotaks' imaginative low-budget sets and Malone's widescreen framing are shown off to their best advantage. If I understand the situation correctly, Malone was set to self-distribute THE TITAN FIND on DVD with special features. Days before he was to sign copies at Dark Delicacies in Burbank, California, it was announced that THE TITAN FIND would be postponed so it could be distributed by a major independent company, presumably Synapse. Malone's DVD signing was cancelled, but he agreed to sell the copies he had already printed and sold via pre-order through the Dark Delicacies site. Which explains why I own the DVD with Malone's autograph on the cover. I don't know how many of these DVDs made it out--Dark Delicacies no longer offers it--but it's possible I own a rare collector's item (which you can see at right).

The original negatives of THE TITAN FIND no longer exist, so Malone's personal answer print in Panavision widescreen was used to create the DVD. It looks and sounds just fine, though certainly the upcoming Synapse version will be better. It is not the theatrical cut, because trims were made to the film before it hit theaters as CREATURE, but I'll leave it to the VIDEO WATCHDOG gang to determine the differences (though I do think the exploding head is longer on Malone's DVD).

Malone could have used a moderator to help him through his audio commentary, but he has a candid memory and explains pretty much everything you could want to know about the movie. Unsurprisingly, he didn't get along with Klaus Kinski (nobody did), and tells a few stories about the mercurial actor's five days on the set. He also points out the props he borrowed from earlier science fiction movies, including FORBIDDEN PLANET, THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN, and THE FLY. Malone moves before the camera for a short interview segment, as are actors Diane Salinger and Stan Ivar (who have their own Kinski memories). The DVD is also loaded with production stills (including a VARIETY box office chart placing CREATURE in the week's Top 10!) and Robert Skotak's conceptual art.

Malone describes THE TITAN FIND as the movie that directors usually pretend they never made early in their careers. He's quite fond of THE TITAN FIND, however, as he should be. It's trash, but it's entertaining trash clearly made by filmmakers who cared.

Random Comic Book Splash Page: Tower Of Shadows #8

noreply@blogger.com (Marty McKee) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 19:14:00 +0000

For whatever reason, Marvel was never as successful at producing four-color mystery/horror/science fiction comic books as DC was. DC's genre titles like HOUSE OF MYSTERY, TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED, GHOSTS, and WEIRD WAR TALES ran for years, but Marvel had trouble keeping alive any book that didn't have superheroes in it.

Editor Stan Lee did try, however, many times. One of his efforts was TOWER OF SHADOWS, which chugged away for nine issues and a King-Size Special from 1969 to 1971. Despite words and art by top-notch comic book professionals, including Jim Steranko and Neal Adams, TOWER was a poor seller.

Among the book's triumphs was "Sanctuary!", which was both written and drawn by the legendary Wally Wood for TOWER OF SHADOWS #8.

TOWER lasted only one more issue before it converted to CREATURES ON THE LOOSE and presented new stories featuring King Kull, Gullivar Jones, Thongor, and Man-Wolf. CREATURES was cancelled after #37, and the conclusion of its delirously insane Man-Wolf arc was described in a text page in that issue by writer David Anthony Kraft.

Dolph Vs. Stone Cold

noreply@blogger.com (Marty McKee) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 16:52:00 +0000

Action heavyweights Steve Austin (THE CONDEMNED) and Dolph Lundgren (the original PUNISHER), who appeared together in THE EXPENDABLES, schedule a rematch in THE PACKAGE. Believe it or not, it actually squeezed into a single theater last month just a few days before its release on DVD and Blu-ray. “Stone Cold” Steve Austin may be a big shot in the wrestling ring, but he’s little better than a hunk of redwood on film, and he comes off even worse next to Dolph’s chiseled charisma.

Austin plays Tommy Wick, an enforcer who collects debts for loan shark Big Doug (Eric Keenleyside). Tommy’s wife (Kristen Kerr) wants him to settle down and take a job as a bar bouncer, but, Doug pays well, provides health benefits (!), and lets Tommy work off his incarcerated little brother Eddie’s (a miscast Locklyn Munro, also in Austin’s RECOIL) debt. He can settle that debt with one last job: deliver a book-sized package to The German (Lundgren), a sophisticated epicurean whom a lot of people try to kill. You and I, having seen other movies, know this job isn’t the milk run Doug promises, but Tommy somehow doesn’t. Before he knows it, guys with large guns are chasing him all over the Pacific Northwest.

Austin’s dull presence aside, THE PACKAGE is an entertaining B-picture, mostly because of Lundgren’s charm, but also because director Jesse V. Johnson (THE LAST SENTINEL) keeps the action, bits of well-placed humor, and a couple of plot surprises chugging along. He favors letting large men with large fists pound them into faces, which benefits the clumsy Austin, though THE PACKAGE has no shortage of ammunition fired. Former kickboxing pro Jerry Trimble, who used to star in films exactly like this one in the 1990s (like LIVE BY THE FIST and ONE MAN ARMY), has a flashy fight scene with Austin, and audiences anticipating a showdown between the two stars won’t be disappointed.

My Chat With Comic Book Writer Steve Englehart

noreply@blogger.com (Marty McKee) — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 19:10:00 +0000

Steve Englehart has earned his status as a legend of the comic book industry. He has written almost every important character—if not every important character, period—in the DC and Marvel universes. His books—just for those two companies—include THE AVENGERS, JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, CAPTAIN AMERICA, DETECTIVE COMICS, DOCTOR STRANGE, and MASTER OF KUNG FU. He has written for other comic book publishers as well. Also novels, teleplays, video games, and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear he’s penned a menu or two.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Steve on the OGR Podcast January 31, 2012 (all episodes are now offline). He’s a very pleasant guy, candid, smart, and blessed with the patience to politely answer any silly question posed to him.

Note: I conducted the bulk of the interview, but not all of it. I transcribed the conversation during February 2013. For the sake of clarity, I’m using “Q” and “A” to indicate which “side” is speaking. Special thanks to Matt McKee, Brett Dinelli, Matt Toler, and, obviously, Steve Englehart for making this conversation possible. Material used to research this project came from Wikipedia, the Grand Comics Database, editor Roy Thomas’ essential comics history ALTER EGO, and Englehart’s personal website, among other sources.

Q: I want to first ask you about one of my favorite comic books, and I figure you’ll know the answer to this question if anyone does, since you co-created the character. Will Marvel ever reprint the Master of Kung Fu series?

A: From what I understand, they will. The deal on that was, when Jim Starlin and I co-created it [for SPECIAL MARVEL EDITION #15], all we came up with was Shang-Chi. Roy Thomas didn’t feel kung fu was enough of a draw for comics, so he wanted to put in Fu Manchu. Which was fine, but then when Marvel gave up the rights to Fu Manchu, they couldn’t reprint the comic. From what I understand, what I’m told is they’re going to go through and change Fu Manchu into the Yellow Claw, who they do own, and (Shang-Chi) will become the son of the Yellow Claw. And if so, they’ll be able to reprint it. Again, Starlin and I co-created that book, but the main run that everybody remembers was Doug Moench and his various artists, and I’d love to see all that stuff back in print again.

Q: I assume Shang-Chi was based on David Carradine.

A: Absolutely. No mystery about that.

Q: Were you fans of kung fu movies? You were fans of the KUNG FU TV series, I guess, but also the Hong Kong movies coming out at that time?

A: I was only a fan of the television series. The Hong Kong movies I didn’t discover until much later, actually. But Starlin and I both really liked the TV show. We weren’t at all being tricky about it. We said we wanna do our own version of something like that. Marvel at the time didn’t think there was enough of a market for it. Once we started the series, it just took off like crazy for the entire 1970s. Kung fu was such a big deal then.

Q: Later, when Doug Moench got a hold of it [beginning with MASTER OF KUNG FU #20], Shang-Chi became something of a Chinese James Bond with a very rich supporting cast. Was that the direction you were heading in before you handed the series off?

A: No, not at all. I just wanted to do the David Carradine character, the wandering guy. I was writing DOCTOR STRANGE, and one of the things I did when I got DOCTOR STRANGE was try to learn about magic, which turned out to be Western magic. The whole idea of doing an Eastern philosophy as a counterpart was what I was looking at. I only did five color issues and two black-and-white issues (of Shang-Chi), and Starlin dropped off after about the third one, I think. So we knew we wanted to run around with this character, but I had no long-term plan, because I wasn’t really involved in it long-term. I’m 98% sure I wouldn’t have gone where Doug went, but that’s the nature of comics. First of all, there’s no complaint involved in that statement. Doug was very interested in the whole James Bond thing, and so was Paul Gulacy, and so they took it in that direction, and, as you say, turned into this very rich series.

Q: Did you feel there was a challenge in writing a character who was basically a pacifist?

A: No, not really. I was interested in the philosophy. I was not so interested in the fighting aspect of things, although fighting was part of kung fu, at least on television and in comics. And comics, in general, has to have the fighting. I’m not saying I don’t like that kind of stuff too, but my particular impetus was the philosophy and the whole kind of esoteric approach to life. Doctor Strange had it too, but he was more of an action hero, and I kinda liked the idea of somebody who did less action up until the point that he kicked your ass.

Q: People may be surprised to learn that when you started out in comic books, you were an artist, I think doing horror and romance stories. How did you transform from penciling into writing?

A: I did want to be a comic book artist. That was the thing that I thought I was wanting to get to be. I had help from Neal Adams, I had help from Dick Giordano. There were a number of people—Vinnie Colletta, too—who helped me in my struggling days as a young artist. I ended up on staff at Marvel, where I was doing art corrections among other things. And one day Gary Friedrich, who wrote SGT. FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS primarily, but also NICK FURY, AGENT OF S.H.I.E.L.D. and some other books, had a little monster story that he didn’t want to actually write. He was taking the summer off. Marvel was a bullpen in those days—everything Stan Lee said about that was true in those days, it was a small group of people—and they kinda looked around and said, “You there, Englehart, sitting in the corner. Would you like to write this thing?” I said, “Well, sure,” because I wasn’t gonna turn down any chance at doing work for Marvel.

It turned out, to my surprise—well, not complete surprise, but I hadn’t really thought about being a writer—but I liked the process of writing, and they thought the story was good enough to give me another one. In those days, Marvel had the superhero line, but they also still published romance books and westerns and horror books. Those books were used as a kind of training ground that they could let you write stuff that wasn’t as important as IRON MAN or whatever. You could learn the process of writing. They could continue to evaluate whether you actually could write an interesting comic book story. So I came through that process, and they did eventually give me the Beast [beginning with AMAZING ADVENTURES #12] and then everything came after that. I really was sorta in the right place at the right time. I didn’t plan to go this route.

Q: I love to hear stories about the Marvel Bullpen, especially from the early 1970s when Roy Thomas was the editor-in-chief. It seems like a crazy place where there were no creative limits.

A: There really weren’t. When I started, Stan was still the editor-in-chief, though that was more of a title than an actual function. He knew he was winding up his comic book career, and he was looking forward to getting out to California and trying out movies and stuff like that. In fact, I did overlap him for six months, but Roy was the de facto editor, and then he got the title, in addition to everything else.

This is something I didn’t understand at the time. When you walk into any sort of situation, you scope it out, and you have no idea what was happening yesterday. You just know what’s happening now. Roy and Denny O’Neil, when they had come to work for Stan, Stan had really taken them over the coals trying to get them to write like him. Since he had been writing everything, there was a sound to Marvel books that was very defined at that point. He wanted both Roy and Denny to be able to emulate him. I didn’t know this at the time, but when Roy took over, Roy decided on his own he was gonna let the people working for him find their own voice.

So he did give us complete freedom. You had to make sure the books sold well enough, and you had to turn in the stuff on time—you couldn’t screw up the deadlines—but assuming you did that, he did sort of let people go. When I found out about it later, I was sorta in awe of the balls that it took to say, “We’re gonna let Marvel not have to sound like Stan all the time.” There was a Marvel sound, and we all tried to work around that sound, but it did allow me to do whatever I did and Steve Gerber to go off on his sort-of quirky direction and Don McGregor and other people—Gerry Conway, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman—everybody kind of got to do their own version of the thing. The longer we did it, the more we became less a version of Stan and more a version of ourselves. Which I totally thank Roy for allowing us to do.

Q: I love some of the crazy ideas you guys came up with. I remember a series of stories about Man-Wolf…do you remember Man-Wolf?

A: Yeah, yeah, yeah!

Q: Man-Wolf is in outer space, and he’s fighting aliens on the moon…

A: Yep.

Q: …and I would just think these are just incredibly crazy ideas. I love the DC comics too, especially at that time, but they weren’t doing stuff like Howard the Duck.

A: No. Howard the Duck was definitely a one-of-a-kind thing. Man-Wolf is an interesting case, because it was one of the things…when we were young comic book guys just a year or so into our careers—me and a whole bunch of other people all sort of came in in the early ‘70s. We were having a discussion one day about how Marvel books always…you’d be sitting around, and a book wouldn’t quite be doing what it oughta be doing. And then Jim Steranko would show up out of nowhere and take over NICK FURY or, y’know, whatever. People said, “Yeah, but Man-Wolf? It’s just such an awful series. How could Man-Wolf ever be anything?” And right after that, George Perez became the artist…

Q: That’s right.

A: …on Man-Wolf. I’m not sure if the stories got any better, but the art certainly did. And Man-Wolf has always stayed with me as this series that looked hopeless. And yet all you really need on any series is energy. You just have to say, “I’m gonna take this seriously, and I’m gonna put my energy behind it.” And whether you’re George Perez getting an early break drawing books or whatever it is, you can turn pretty much anything into a series.

But again, Marvel overall, the thing was, they had the superhero line, they did have monsters, they did have romance, they did have MILLIE THE MODEL, that kind of stuff. And in the early ‘70s, probably because of SWAMP THING across town, but I’m not sure…but all of a sudden, there was Man-Wolf, and there was WEREWOLF BY NIGHT, and there was Frankenstein and Dracula…the whole idea of superhero monsters, y’know?

Q: And GIANT-SIZE MAN-THING.

A: Yes. (Laughs) Yes. Yeah. Well, all that, y’know, you’re back with Gerber, who had his very quirky view of life, in addition to everything else. So all of his books are kind of out in left field in one way or another.

Q: Well, the more outrageous the concept, the better I like it. A couple of weeks ago, we were talking here on the podcast about the old MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE television series, which had some incredibly way-out plots. And that’s what I like.

A: Well, it was a time of freedom in general, whether it was comics or TV or music. There’s a whole genre of movies, the whole ‘70s movies thing when Jack Nicholson was young…it just was a different time. We were lucky to be able to take advantage of it.

Q: I have to ask you about one of my favorite stories. I imagine it’s one you get asked about a lot. You wrote a story arc for CAPTAIN AMERICA about an organization called The Secret Empire that was endangering the United States.

A: Right.

Q: The head of The Secret Empire was a hooded figure known as Number One, and…explain what happened to Number One at the end of that story.

A: Well, Captain America found him in the White House and saw him blow his brains out. That was a Watergate allegory.

Q: And who was Number One?

A: It was Nixon. It was definitely Nixon.

Q: (Laughs) Does that make you a Commie pinko at all?

A: (Laughs) It does, absolutely it does. The whole Watergate thing, again, talking about the ‘70s. The idea that the President would order a burglary was very difficult for a lot of people to wrap their minds around in those days. It was treated seriously. All summer long in ’73, I think it was, maybe it was ’74. But there were hearings being held about this, and America was just riveted to it. Everybody was watching these hearings, where these Senators were investigating the President. It went on all summer, and they’d get close to him, and then he’d block ‘em, and then they’d overcome him, and then he’d…it was like this big novel being shown to America.

I was sitting there writing CAPTAIN AMERICA, and I’m thinking the Marvel Universe is supposed to be the real universe. Peter Parker lives in New York, he doesn’t live in Emerald City or whatever. So I just said, “There’s no way that Captain America could not be affected by this.” So I set out to do stuff… When I first started it, it was more of a superhero kind of thing with the Secret Empire and guys in hoods and Moonstone and all that sort of stuff. But the longer that Watergate went on, the more I got pulled toward what was actually going on. In the end, Nixon in real life was impeached or was going to be impeached, and managed to resign just before they got to that point. In the comic, we settled for something simpler: a suicide in the White House.

Q: (Laughs) Simpler.

A: (Laughs) Well, yeah, ya know, you don’t have much room in comics. And then Nomad came out of that—the man without a country. I was just playing out the whole…again, the approach I generally take to these characters: if Captain America really existed, what would he be like, y’know? To me, Captain America had to be affected by that kind of stuff.

Q: You’re the first person I’ve ever spoken to who has his own personal Stan Lee nickname, and I’ve always wondered what it’s like to have a Stan Lee nickname. You’re “Stainless Steve,” is that correct?

A: That is correct, yeah. Since I don’t work for Marvel anymore, and since Marvel kinda grew up and couldn’t use (nicknames), Stainless Steve is a name I haven’t been able to use for quite a long time. It’s very cool. I’m honored to have received it. At the same time that Steve Englehart was there, Steve Gerber was there, and he unfortunately ended up with Steve “Baby” Gerber…

Q: (Laughs) After the baby food…

A: (Laughs) …so I’m doubly pleased I got to be Stainless Steve.

Q: How did you find out you were Stainless Steve? Did you read it in the book, or is there a memo from Stan?

A: No, no, he just told me.

Q: (Laughs) “You are Stainless Steve!”

A: Yeah.

Q: There was a character you created for MARVEL PREVIEW called Star-Lord [to be played by PARKS AND RECREATION’s Chris Pratt in the upcoming GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY movie]…

A: Oh yeah.

Q: Two things about that. Number one, are you still into astrology? And number two, what were you planning to do with the character? Because this story is basically a 30-page prologue.

A: Right.

Q: And I’m sure you had a lot of ideas that you never got to explore with Star-Lord.

A: Yeah. As I mentioned earlier, when I got into Doctor Strange, I thought I should learn something about Western magic, and astrology is one of those things that’s in there. So I was immersed in all this stuff that was new to me, and I came up with this idea. The basic idea of Star-Lord was he was a complete asshole.

Q: (Laughs) Right.

A: I mean, he was completely nuts. In the first episode, he was gonna be this totally unlikeable guy, but he ended up falling into the sun, as I recall, or something like that. And what he was gonna do then was work his way out across the galaxy, and each book was gonna be a different kind of story based on the astrological meaning of the planet he was on. So when he got to Mars, it was gonna be a complete war story. When he got to Venus, it was gonna be a complete love story, that kind of thing.

Q: Ah, okay.

A: I was gonna do a story with each one tied to the astrological meaning of the planet as he worked his way out to Pluto and then kept going. But I only got to do the first issue in which he’s an asshole.

Q: (Laughs)

A: (Laughs) I left Marvel at that point, and so we never got to see the grandeur involved in the whole guy. Later, Chris Claremont and John Byrne took a shot at doing other stuff with him, and they didn’t do what I was gonna do, so it was a different kind of deal.

You were talking earlier about freedom and crazy ideas. I said let’s do something about astrology, and they said alright, fine. So I set out to do it. As it happens, I didn’t get to finish it, but nobody was saying, “That’s a terrible idea” or “Do something else” or whatever. You had to sell it. If it turns out nobody wanted to buy this book, then it would be cancelled, and I’d have to go on to something else. But if you had an idea, you could run with it.

Q: Marvel and DC, at least during that period, never had any success with science fiction, outside of superheroes. Why do you think that is?

A: I’m not entirely sure. I wrote an introduction for the latest Captain Marvel Masterworks with the issues that I did. There was a discussion that when Captain Marvel had first been introduced into the Marvel Universe, it was more of a science fiction thing. He was a Kree spy on Earth. And I think there were problems with that—having the enemy be your lead character after we all knew the Kree was a bunch of bad guys, it was a little hard maybe to sell. Real science fiction appeals to a more sort of intellectual side of things, and comics appeals more to a colorful “let’s blow his brains out rather than explain Watergate” approach to life.

Q: That’s mature material though.

A: Yeah.

Q: The Marvel comics of that period were something that kids could read and enjoy, but you also had a college-age audience.

A: There was Killraven, which was science fiction, I suppose. It was popular, but not super-popular. I can say this to you, because we’re talking on a comic book podcast, but going to the other things I’ve done over time, I’ve run through the science fiction community, and it always seems to be that the science fiction community is primarily interested in the intellectual concept. Whereas the comic book community, there’s movement. The stories take place outside of the mind, whereas the science fiction stuff quite often takes place very comfortably in the mind. Which is not to say comic book people have no minds or whatever, but I just find the science fiction approach to be more interiorized than the vibe that makes you put on a colorful costume and go out and punch people.

Q: Do you think there’s no way to capture a cerebral science fiction premise in four colors?

A: No, I don’t say that. But the stuff that I think of—the EC science fiction books and then even later Julius Schwartz when he was doing MYSTERY IN SPACE and things with the Space Ranger. Those things were nicely done, particularly the Julie Schwartz stuff at DC. I think it’s pretty much forgotten now, but those were nice little “half-issue” stories, because they’d have two or maybe three in the book. And they would have nice little science fiction things and very proper 1950s DC art, y’know. Totally unobjectionable and unexciting in many ways, but I liked those books. They actually worked, but they were never a huge thing. Once the Flash and the Justice League came along, MYSTERY IN SPACE (got less popular). Adam Strange was probably the most popular (science fiction) character, and he was always sort of a second-rank character compared to the rest of those guys.

Q: Most of those DC science fiction stories were written by Gardner Fox and John Broome, who also wrote science fiction prose.

A: Right. And Edmond Hamilton. A lot of those guys. Well, Julie had been a science fiction agent before he became a comic book editor, so he knew those guys. He knew what they wanted to do, and they knew what he wanted. In a lot of ways, those 1950s DC comics are kind of ‘30s pulp magazines reworked. But they did work in both eras. You could say STAR WARS was science fiction. It’s not as if you can’t marry the two concepts or find some sweet spot in there. Hard science fiction has never been a big draw for comics. They didn’t sell for EC either.

Q: I want to ask you a bit about your time at Warren. You wrote VAMPIRELLA for awhile. I’m really interested in your interactions with Jim Warren. He was a very colorful guy. Some people got along with him, and some people didn’t.

A: I got along with him great. I liked him a lot. As I mentioned earlier, I was working with Neal Adams when I first got into being an artist. The first thing I did with Neal was a job Denny O’Neil had written for Neal for the VAMPIRELLA book. Not the Vampirella strip in the book, but one of the backup stories.

One of the very first people I got to know in New York in terms of an actual comic book person was Jim Warren. He was a colorful guy. Always wore a blue shirt. Always…I can’t remember if it was white pants or not, but he had a kind of costume or uniform, whatever, but a shirt and pants—wasn’t a costume in that sense. He had a flair. It was fun. The company was so small that it was no problem talking to Jim, dropping up there and seeing people. I really did enjoy working for him.

I was very pleased to get VAMPIRELLA, but I had to do it under a pseudonym [Chad Archer], because I was already working for Marvel. Then Marvel began giving me more and more work, so I had to drop the non-Marvel stuff. But I would have loved to have written VAMPIRELLA much longer than I did. I liked her quite a bit. I liked the artists I had quite a bit. And I liked Jim Warren quite a bit.

Q: I wanna put you in the middle of a controversy we have here at the podcast…

A: Uh-oh.

Q: I know you wrote Green Arrow when you wrote JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, and I would love to hear your opinion: are you pro- or anti-trick arrows?

A: I’m in favor of trick arrows. I like trick arrows.

Q: Specifically the boxing glove arrow.

A: Wellllllll, you know, I mean, uh, I’m not sure how well it would fly…

Q: (Laughs)

A: …but, you know, he’s very skilled.

Q: It has been suggested that it wouldn’t be very aerodynamically sound, but it’s comics, so we guess it would work.

A: Did Kirby come up with that one, do you know?

Q: I wouldn’t be surprised. I don’t know when the first appearance of the boxing glove arrow was. [Turns out it was in ADVENTURE COMICS #118, written by Ed “France” Herron and drawn by George Papp] But…the crazier the arrow, the more I like it. Did you have a favorite arrow? The handcuff arrow?

A: I don’t remember. I don’t think I did too much with the really weird arrows when I was writing him. But as a reader, yeah, I’m right with you, I like the crazy arrows. That sounds like something Kirby would come in and figure out, but I don’t know who came up with those things.

Q: Here at the podcast, we’re huge fans of Dick Dillin, who penciled the JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA issues you wrote. Any personal stories of working with Dick?

A: I’m unfortunately going to have to disappoint you in that I did not know Dick Dillin personally. I would write the scripts in advance. They were sent off to him, he drew them, and that was it. I don’t know that I ever actually met him in person unfortunately. I’m right with you in that I was a huge fan of his, and I really thought that if I was going to do the Justice League, of the options that were available at the time, I wanted to do it with Dick Dillin. In later years, DC has not always wanted to reprint the stuff that I did in those days. It’s been a disappointment to me that they’ve never reprinted the JLA run. The last time I talked to them about it, they said, “Oh well, nobody likes Dick Dillin. We couldn’t sell a book with Dick Dillin.”

Q: That’s insane.

A: That’s what I think too. I don’t think that’s entirely the reason, because their relationship with me is prickly. In any event, I was really pleased to work with Dick Dillin.

Q: Did you go directly from Marvel to DC?

A: I left Marvel…I had a falling out with them. It’s part of my M.O. is to…

Q: (Laughs) Make everybody angry and move on?

A: (Laughs) Yeah, that’s right, burn a lot of bridges and piss everybody off. The thing with Marvel, actually, was the other way around. I got burned and didn’t like it and decided to leave. I left Marvel and had no plans to go anywhere else. I didn’t have much of a plan at all, because it was very sort of sudden. I was still mulling what it was I was gonna do next when the publisher at DC called me up and said, “Why don’t you come over here and have lunch with me and we’ll talk about stuff?” I went and had lunch with (Jenette Kahn). She said, “I really like you. You wrote THE AVENGERS and you did all this stuff that really worked out well for (Marvel), and I’d really like you to come over here and write the Justice League for us and revamp all the characters. We want you to give them all characterizations and bring them into the 1970s.”

It was totally true that, unfortunately, DC had treated these guys like statues with costumes on. They really hadn’t done much to give them personalities, and she wanted me to come in and basically redo the entire DC superhero line by way of the Justice League. And I said, “Yeah, I’d love to do that, that’d be great. And, in addition, I’d really like to write Batman in and of himself.” That’s how I ended up doing the Batman stuff too. But the original concept was: come revamp the Justice League. Because of that, it became very clear to me that if I was gonna revamp all these characters—give them all personalities, give them all interactions that we had been doing in THE AVENGERS—and tell a story, it was gonna take more room than a single issue would allow. That’s when I said let’s do every book a double-sized issue. Even DC in those days, if I was willing to go for a crazy idea like that…

Q: The “novel-length thriller.”

A: Yeah, it allowed me 34 pages a month. And Dick Dillin was the kind of guy who could draw that kinda stuff. The 34 pages gave me a change to tell you a story and stop and take a look at all these different characters along the way and do the stuff that would build them into something more long-lasting. After the Ultraverse went away, Marvel bought the Ultraverse and stuck it in a drawer. In around 2001, 2002, they came to me and said, “We want you to bring the Ultraverse into the Marvel Universe. Bring over the top characters and do a series about them.”

That didn’t work out, because Marvel realized that the contracts we had at Ultraverse allowed the creators to get a cut of the profits, and Marvel didn’t want to go there. That’s why there’s no Ultraverse. But while we were talking about it, I said I wanted to do what we did with the Justice League. Explain who all these characters are and put them in context with the Marvel Universe. Give me 34 pages a month. At that point, they just threw up their hands and said, “Totally impossible.” I said, “We did it with Dick Dillin.” And they said, “No, any artist that fans really want to see couldn’t draw 34 pages a month. And anybody who could draw 34 pages a month would be some hack that no one wants to see.”

Q: Oh, goodness. You said you have a “prickly” relationship with DC right now. Is that because of the Batman movies?

A: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. They…really don’t want… DC has never really liked to give credit to the individual creators for stuff. DC likes to pretend that it all was just created by “DC Comics.” It was done work-for-hire. It’s not that they owe me money. The deal was it’s work-for-hire. But they sort of took it beyond that in that they really don’t like to talk about the fact that I was involved with Batman at all. They don’t reprint that stuff. Well, they do, as little as possible. The Joker stories are so popular that they have to be reprinted now and again. But in general… They called it “Strange Apparitions,” so nobody would understand what it was. (Laughs)

The latest thing with not wanting to do any more Dark Detective even before (penciller) Marshall (Rogers) was dead. I’m not looking for a million-dollar paycheck, but I would appreciate a little recognition from them. I think most people who pay any attention to comics from that era know what Marshall and I did and (inker) Terry Austin and so forth and how it played out in movies. I’d like to hear it from DC, and DC’s pretty clear they’re not gonna give me that. So I’d say “prickly” is a reasonable word.

Q: We don’t have a lot of time left, so let’s get into what you’ve been doing since you haven’t been working for Marvel and DC. Tell us about your novel series.

A: Back in the 1980s, I wrote a novel called THE POINT MAN. It was a one-shot thing. I didn’t want to continue it. But when I was kinda wrapping it up in comics, I saw a way to go back and revisit that character, basically by making him immortal. So then the fact that the character was still in the prime of his life, even though in real time as expressed in the books two decades had passed, I thought that was interesting. I thought I could do some stuff with that, and so I did.

There’s a series now of new books—THE LONG MAN, THE PLAIN MAN, and then THE ARENA MAN. In which this immortal character who’s really…the quick shorthand for comic book people is that Max August, this character, is kind of a combination of Dr. Strange and Captain America in that he’s… If you knew, for example, that you were gonna be alive a hundred years from now, or maybe 200 or maybe 500 years, you’d start thinking about the future of the planet, I think. This is not some heavy ecological treatise here. But taking the long-term view sort of goes with being immortal. That then leads you to start thinking about these guys who want to run the planet into the ground for their own personal profit. You don’t like ‘em very much. So it’s kind of a Captain America with mystical overtones through the series. Then it’s also…he’s got a dead wife who’s still alive. (Laughs) And a new girlfriend who’s gotta deal with this. So there’s a weird romance going on.

Q: A weird love triangle?

A: A weird love triangle, yeah. Mutant love stories. It’s action/adventure, it’s fantasy. It’s the kind of stuff that I like to do. And the good thing about novels is, another thing I say is that it’s kind of like taking six miniseries and cramming them all into one package. Because there’s a lot of characters here who have their own storylines in each book. So each storyline’s got to have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and then they all have to fit together. It’s a real interesting set of stories, I think.

Q: Can we get those books at your website? You wanna plug your website?

A: Yes, I’ll plug my website, which is just steveenglehart.com, but I don’t sell the books. Get them at Amazon. Amazon’s fine. Or get ‘em at your local bookstore, but they’re probably more readily available at Amazon, because Amazon can have anything anytime.

Q: One more question before we wrap up. I’m curious which comic book genre you liked writing the most.

A: I liked them all. I’m not trying to be political here, but…any sort of writing is basically a guy sitting alone in a room. Sometimes, there’s two guys sitting alone in a room, but generally I stood alone. If I’m not entertaining myself while I’m doing this kinda stuff, I’m certainly not gonna be able to entertain you. Plus I’d be bored silly. So anything that I took on, I really tried to figure out how I could make it as entertaining as possible. Most of what I did was superheroes, and I really like superheroes quite a bit. But the oddball stuff like VAMPIRELLA or I did a series that nobody knows for Claypool called PHANTOM OF FEAR CITY. Very much fun. These things that were off in the corners were fun, because I didn’t do them all the time. But anything that I did, I found fun. People say, “What was your favorite character?” and I say, “All of them.”

Q: Like your favorite child.

A: Yeah, well, I pretty much liked everything that I did. Because it was up to me to make sure that I did, so that’s what I tried to do.

Gentlemen, We Are Now A Superpower

noreply@blogger.com (Marty McKee) — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 18:26:00 +0000

With the United States in the habit of embroiling in wars with dubious motives, director Robert Aldrich’s TWILIGHT'S LAST GLEAMING will always be as timely as it was when originally released in 1977, two years after the fall of Saigon. It's impossible to conceive of such a sharp, angry, intelligent, cynical political thriller emerging from today's mindless Hollywood studios.

Former Air Force general Lawrence Dell (Burt Lancaster, no stranger to political thrillers), five years a prisoner of war in Vietnam and currently incarcerated on a trumped-up murder charge in a Montana prison, breaks out, along with three other death row inmates (played by Paul Winfield, ROCKY's Burt Young, and William Smith), and infiltrates “Silo 3,” an ICBM silo containing nine nuclear missiles.

In exchange for not starting World War III, Dell demands $10 million in cash, safe passage to another country aboard Air Force One, and, oh yes, that the President of the United States, David Stevens (Charles Durning), announce to the world details of a secret meeting of high-placed government officials that would reveal the true reason for America’s involvement in Vietnam. As President Stevens and his advisors decide how the American people will react to the shocking truth, hawkish General MacKenzie (Richard Widmark) plans to strike at Dell using military force and doesn’t care who gets in his way.

Based upon a novel by Walter Wager, the screenplay by Ronald M. Cohen and Edward Huebsch adds the political polemic that makes the film more than just a tightly constructed suspenser. What may have seemed farfetched in 1977 has become prophetic in the decades since, now that we know the U.S. Government’s decision to keep sending troops to fight in Vietnam was indeed a mistake (how much of Cohen and Huebsch’s screenplay is actually non-fiction?) The script occasionally fumbles. The base seems childishly easy to break into with just a few (not too bright) guards blocking Lancaster’s path, and MacKenzie seems too simpleminded in his reticence to take Lancaster’s threat seriously.

Those story holes and others are easily forgotten, however, amid the edge-of-the-seat suspense Aldrich (THE DIRTY DOZEN) wrings out of the script and the tightly controlled performances by the extraordinary cast. Lancaster stands out as the paranoid yet mannered terrorist, a man who wants only for the government for which he believes to stand up and admit its wrongdoing. Dell is unhinged, but respectful, intelligent, and even sensitive. He’s more than matched by Durning in the film’s best performance, an honest man who wasn’t in charge during the Vietnam years (the film is set in 1981), but is willing to accept the responsibility for the sins of his “fathers.”

Joining these men are Joseph Cotten, Melvyn Douglas, Gerald S. O’Loughlin, Richard Jaeckel, Charles McGraw, Leif Erickson, William Marshall, Charles Aidman, Simon Scott, Roscoe Lee Browne, Ed Bishop, John Ratzenberger, and Morgan Paull. Allied Artists released this independently financed feature (the low budget is evident in the flat lighting and the well-crafted but obvious miniature effects), which was shot in Munich partially using German funds.

The Defendants And The Defenders

noreply@blogger.com (Marty McKee) — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 21:12:00 +0000

THE DEFENDERS is the first of four tie-in novels based on the Emmy-award winning television drama THE DEFENDERS (natch). The CBS show starred E.G. Marshall (CREEPSHOW) and Robert Reed (THE BRADY BUNCH) as Lawrence and Ken Preston, father-and-son attorneys who defended clients and usually got involved with various social issues of the 1960s. For more on the TV series, see my earlier reviews of DEFENDERS novels.

This 1961 Gold Medal paperback is a little blah. Surprising, considering it was penned by the great Edward S. Aarons, author of the fantastic ASSIGNMENT spy novels starring Sam Durell. Aarons' book is the only DEFENDERS tie-in to be written before the series premiered, meaning he perhaps didn't know the show was going to be more than a standard crime drama about lawyers getting crooks off the hook.

The Prestons have two clients land in their laps on the same day. One is Jenny Scott, a friend of Ken's girlfriend who's on the hook for her husband's murder. Ken has a feeling she's being framed, even though a ton of circumstantial evidence puts her at the scene, and her husband's best friend claims to have received a phone call from the victim naming Jenny as his killer!

Meanwhile, Lawrence handles Eleanor Dunn, a rich, spoiled young woman who ran over a little boy while driving drunk. The boy, whose Fundamentalist parents refuse to allow doctors to operate, dies in the hospital, meaning a reckless homicide conviction for Eleanor unless the Prestons can create some fancy moves.

THE DEFENDERS is a fine read. Aarons has a handle on the characters, and you can certainly hear Marshall's and Reed's voices in the Prestons' dialogue. But the book, without the social commentary the series (and later books) was known for, is no more than a slight entertainment. Aarons' Sam Durell novels, on the other hand: fantastic.

Macho Man

noreply@blogger.com (Marty McKee) — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 13:17:00 +0000

Macho Man
January 20, 1981
Writers: Mark Jones and Glen A. Larson
Director: Gene Levitt

Birdie’s best friend Michael Prescott is murdered (Brett Clark, a Chippendale’s dancer who later starred in low-budget movies, plays Michael in photos), and the deputy (Brian Kerwin) is on the hot seat. Perkins (Mills Watson) thinks something might have been wrong with Prescott, because he finds Macho Man, a magazine with male centerfolds, in his house. It was 1981.

Thinking Michael’s connection with the magazine might have contributed to his death (for no reason I noticed), Lobo (Claude Akins) suggests that Birdie go undercover as next month’s nude centerfold. Meanwhile, Chief Carson (Nicolas Coster), discovering Prescott is the second Macho Man model to turn up murdered, sends in Brandy (Tara Buckman) and Peaches (Amy Botwinick) to poke around the magazine for clues. Tricia O’Neil (PIRANHA II) guest stars as Macho Man’s editor.

Another indication this show was telecast in 1981: the weird racial humor, mainly out of the mouth of Nell Carter (GIMME A BREAK) as Carson’s sassy black secretary Hildy (a wisecrack about rednecks, ropes, and trees seems especially shocking today). Levitt keeps the show chugging along, though there’s little mystery to the script by series creator Glen A. Larson and story editor Mark Jones. It does take steps to establish a budding romance between Brandy and Birdie though.

The Fastest Women Around

noreply@blogger.com (Marty McKee) — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 12:29:00 +0000

The Fastest Women Around

January 13, 1981

Story: Sy Salkowitz

Teleplay: Bill Dial

Director: Nicholas Colasanto

New producer Bill Dial, who had previously worked on WKRP IN CINCINNATI, wrote the teleplay for LOBO’s third episode of its second season. Keeping with the series’ formula of involving as many gorgeous women as possible, “The Fastest Women Around” is about a gang of sexy car thieves menacing Atlanta. As usual, Chief of Detectives Carson (Nicolas Coster) cuts Lobo (Claude Akins), Perkins (Mills Watson), and Birdie (Brian Kerwin) out of the investigation, so the trio of Orly transplants pokes around on its own.

Doing not so much investigating as loitering, Perkins and Birdie catch one of the girls (a fetching Jeannie Wilson, soon a regular on SIMON & SIMON, in boots and hot pants) and steal her stolen car. The idea is to upset the girls’ bosses and push them into doing something stupid. Of course, it works, and Perkins and Birdie are working on the inside with Lobo (in an awesome disguise as a Mafioso named Big Sal), Peaches (Tara Buckman), and Brandy (Amy Botwinick) providing support.

“The Fastest Women Around” appears to be part of an effort to make Perkins less of a cartoon figure. He’s still something of a clod—and still played by Watson to perfection—but he isn’t the clumsy, idiotic boob of the first season. Veteran Peter Mark Richman (CAIN’S HUNDRED) checks in as head of the car theft ring. Director Colasanto worked steadily in television both before and behind the camera, and is best known as the beloved Coach on CHEERS.

Let's Dance!

noreply@blogger.com (Marty McKee) — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 19:27:00 +0000

Direct-to-video stalwart Bryan Genesse—ya know him, ya love him in such classics as CYBORG COP III, PROJECT SHADOWCHASER II, and OPERATION DELTA FORCE 3—hams it up bigtime in LIVE WIRE: HUMAN TIMEBOMB (1995) as lone-wolf FBI agent Parker. His introduction finds him rappelling down the (corrugated iron!) screen of an abandoned drive-in theater, dodging dozens of bullets, blowing up rusted-out cars and oil drums (in an abandoned drive-in?), and bugging out his eyes to deliver one-liners like “You’ve blown it!” and “Ready to dance?” Considering what happens to Parker later, it makes sense for Genesse’s performance to be emotional, but neither he nor director Mark Roper (OPERATION DELTA FORCE 3 and 4!) are able to properly moderate it.

Parker snares a big-shot Cuban drug dealer, but is pissed to learn Treasury agent Gina Young (former Playmate J. Cynthia Brooks) plans to exchange him for an American prisoner (Gavin Hood, later the director of X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE!) on the cusp of an historic U.S./Cuba trade agreement. The exchange in Cuba is a setup though, and General Arnaz (Anthony Fridjhon) implants a chip inside Parker’s neck (without leaving a scar!) that turns him into a mindwiped killing machine. Aiding Arnaz is Price (former TV Tarzan Joe Lara), a traitorous CIA agent who has his own plans for the general’s zombie army.

Frequently hilarious in its over-the-top violence (stuff explodes for no reason…yay!), this Nu Image production is typical of the studio. It looks more expensive than it probably was, and entertains with its slick action sequences, impressive stunts, and disregard for dramatic tension and logic. One big chase, in which Lara repeatedly reminds his men to take Genesse alive, is still punctuated with gunfire, rocket attacks, and explosions (why are they still shooting at him?).

Veteran viewers of this type of low-budget actioner may be amused by Roper’s attempt to pass off South African locations as Florida and Cuba. Editing is slack, so the suspense scenes aren’t as tight as they should be for maximum impact, but Roper knows how to choreograph action and place the camera for proper coverage. Nu Image’s reluctance to hire bigger stars hurts too (it’s doubtful fans have ever argued the results of a hypothetical Joe Lara vs. Bryan Genesse fight), but LIVE WIRE: HUMAN TIMEBOMB (please, Nu Image, either would have been fine) nicely fills the need for action thrills as mindless as its hero.

Will You Believe It When You're Dead?!

noreply@blogger.com (Marty McKee) — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 04:11:00 +0000

MGM originally released this Japanese space opera in the United States in 1969. THE GREEN SLIME began attracting a rabid cult not long thereafter, thanks to its wobbly visual effects, corny dialogue, and hilariously silly monsters (reportedly portrayed by children in rubber suits). Oh, and its amazing rock-and-roll theme song composed for the U.S. version by Charles Fox (THE NEW, ORIGINAL WONDER WOMAN).

The story, co-written by Batman co-creator Bill Finger, is straight out of a Ziff-Davis comic book and zips through 151 minutes of ARMAGEDDON in about 25. Macho Commander Jack Rankin (lantern-jawed Robert Horton) and astronauts from American space station Gamma 3 are sent on an emergency mission to destroy an asteroid that threatens to smash into Earth. Rankin, his estranged friend Vince Elliott (SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION’s Richard Jaeckel), and the rest of the crew do the job, but a small green glob attaches itself to someone and gets loose about Gamma 3, where it expands to form a seemingly unending supply of dopey creatures that administer deadly shocks with their tentacles.

Kinji Fukasaku (BATTLE ROYALE) directs rapidly and brightly to distract the viewer from the clichéd dialogue, but he can’t disguise the flab that tries to hold together the first-act action on the asteroid and the fight with the monsters in the third. The script concocts a boring and unbelievable love triangle among Rankin, Elliott, and physician Lisa Benson (THUNDERBALL’s Luciana Paluzzi), Elliott’s fiancé and Rankin’s ex, that nobody cares about. It also features a fair amount of blood—both red and green—for a G-rated movie.

And that includes the actors, who aren’t exactly busting their humps. Horton, who left the TV smash WAGON TRAIN in search of greener pastures, couldn’t have been thrilled about acting in a Japanese monster movie. Jaeckel (later in LATITUDE ZERO) was a steady old pro, but neither he nor Horton has an attractive character to play, and Paluzzi was cast for her auburn tresses. Oddly for a Toei production, no Japanese actors appear. Supporting cast includes Robert Dunham (DOGORA), Bud Widom, David Yorston, and Ted Gunther (COP HATER).

Take a gander at the opening credits of THE GREEN SLIME and let the awesomeness of the theme song roll over you:

His Eminence, Death

noreply@blogger.com (Marty McKee) — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 15:08:00 +0000

Early in his writing career, long before hitting it big with his 1981 novel GORKY PARK and just after penning a pair of Nick Carter potboilers, Martin Cruz Smith invited a unique men's adventure character called the Inquisitor. Francis Xavier Killy is basically a spy for the Catholic Church. Based in The Vatican, Killy is a former CIA agent who takes on missions for the Church. Because he's a Believer and a member of the Church, he must do penance after each mission: ten days on bread and water for every man he kills.

You have to hand it to Smith, who wrote the Killy novels as "Simon Quinn": it's a heck of an idea. I liked the first Inquisitor novel quite a bit, but the fourth, HIS EMINENCE, DEATH (Dell, 1974), is a bit lacking, despite one crackerjack suspense piece. The stakes are low, the action content is low, and the villain isn't terrible interesting.

Cruz sets up the story nicely. A priest is threatened by a black mamba and then shot to death. Another priest is caught in a compromising position with a sexy young black woman. A cardinal awakens in his highly guarded bedroom to discover gore and body parts strewn around.

The villain, whom we unfortunately don't get to know as well as I would have liked, is a one-armed killer with an eye patch, Klein, who is believed to be dead. Cruz spends about half the 159-page paperback setting up the plot, which is that Klein is hired to assassinate a religious fanatic, John Cardinal Mema. Killy is assigned to protect Mema, despite the fact that Mema wants to die a martyr.

Cruz does a good job with the action scenes, but the book's best part contains no "action" at all. Having been seduced into a cruise ship bathtub (see "sexy young black woman" above), Killy freezes to discover his companion is an eight-foot sea snake, the deadliest reptile of all. Instead of relying on brawns or weaponry, Killy has to think his way out of a situation that would have even the best of us frozen in fear.

Despite the good parts, HIS EMINENCE, DEATH didn't work for me as well as the earlier Inquisitor I read. A stronger plot and a beefier part for the villain would have helped, though the novel is admittedly a quick and breezy read.

Dolph Is An Army Of One

noreply@blogger.com (Marty McKee) — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 03:49:00 +0000

You can expect the directorial debut of the man who performed movie stunts for Han Solo, James Bond, Indiana Jones, and Superman to be heavy on action, and that’s what this crackerjack action vehicle for Dolph Lundgren delivers.

Lundgren worked with Vic Armstrong on his previous film, UNIVERSAL SOLDIER, on which Armstrong was stunt coordinator. Armstrong was either a stunt performer or stunt coordinator on some of the greatest action pictures of all time, including RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, STAR WARS, TOTAL RECALL, SUPERMAN, and BLADE RUNNER. When he got the opportunity to direct a feature for the first time, he picked Lundgren to be his star. The result is JOSHUA TREE, which came out this week on a beautiful new Blu-ray/DVD combo pack from Shout Factory.

JOSHUA TREE unfortunately never played theatrically in the United States, though it's good enough to (it was a theatrical hit overseas, where Lundgren was a bigger box office draw). Its title was changed to the more commercial ARMY OF ONE when it was released directly to home video and later when Artisan put it out on a subpar full-frame DVD. So when JOSHUA TREE was first seen on VHS in the spring of 1993, it never got its just due as an above-average actioner. Hopefully, it will now.

The screenplay by Steven Pressfield (FREEJACK) is short on plot, but the central relationship between escaped convict Wellman Santee (Lundgren) and his hostage (played by DAYS OF OUR LIVES star Kristian Alfonso) is well-rounded and even generates a bit of steam. However, Armstrong (whose career as a second-unit director extends to THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and beyond) is more interested in the chases, shootouts, explosions, and other setpieces, and when they’re as exciting as they are in JOSHUA TREE, he should be.

Santee, on his way to prison on a trumped-up charge of killing a cop, escapes from guards paid to kill him. He snatches a four-wheel-drive truck and Alfonso’s Rita Marrick, a deputy sheriff (it may be an in-joke that nobody in the film believes the fetching Alfonso is really a police officer, just like we in the audience don’t), and takes off into the desert with corrupt detective Severence (a slumming George Segal, having a good time) in pursuit. No prize for guessing that Severence is the movie’s real bad guy, who goes so far as to put a bounty on Rita to prevent her from telling what she knows.

Armstrong assembles a strong supporting cast and provides them with roles right in their wheelhouses (Beau Starr as a bad detective, Bert Remsen as crusty desert rat, Al Leong as henchman who gets blasted to death), so he doesn’t have to spend valuable screen time fleshing them out—time better spent blowing stuff up. Highlight is a spectacular shootout in a chop shop full of paint, fire, expensive sports cars, and bad guys loaded with chunky squibs. The Shout Factory Blu-ray appears to contain an uncut version of this sequence that never could have received an R rating, and it's worth owning the disc just to see this bravura action scene filmed without faking it with shaky-cam and CGI.