8.5 Million Views!

Hey there, groovy people! I remain humbled and thrilled that even as Every ’70s Movie moves inexorably toward its 15th birthday (coming your way this October), new and longtime readers alike continue to enjoy this content. For those who’ve been here a while, you know where this is going: the blog just crossed another wild milestone because the lifetime-view tally is now more than 8.5 million. This sustained enthusiasm is all the encouragement I need to keep going with the project. Happily, the set of titles I mentioned in the last post of this nature has not yet been fully tapped, so my plan is to continue posting at least one or two new reviews every month, with brief flurries of more frequent posting whenever I get the bandwidth to watch and write up newly unearthed obscurities. Meantime, if any of you out there in the wilds of the Weird Wide Web have access to something not yet represented on the blog, don’t be shy about sharing! (Earlier this year I named the elusive titles that are highest on my to-see list.) Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. Until next time, thanks for reading, and keep on keepin’ on!

Mister Deathman (1977)

Among the many criticisms fairly directed at Mister Deathman, a modestly budgeted thriller filmed in South Africa, one cannot fault leading man David Broadnax for timidity: the first-time actor wrote the story for his sole appearance as a 007-esque secret agent. Presumably Broadnax hoped Mister Deathman would initiate a franchise, but instead the movie barely got a release in the ’70s before landing in the cultural graveyard of bottom-shelf ‘80s home video. (A sure sign the folks responsible for marketing Mister Deathman doubted its financial prospects is the outrageous use of Pam Grier’s image on the poster, despite the fact that neither she nor anyone who resembles her appears in the flick.) Mister Deathman is confusing, dumb, pointless, and repetitive, all of which could be said about many of the 007 pictures it emulates—but at least those movies are also fun, sexy, and spectacular. Broadnax plays Geoffrey Graves, an ex-spy hired by aerospace executives who are being blackmailed for $50 million. A mysterious villain (never shown onscreen) kidnapped the scientist who designed the executives’ planned space shuttle and now threatens to sell the scientist’s secrets to competitors. Clues regarding this yawn-inducing scheme lead Graves to South Africa, where he battles various underlings including Liz (Stella Stevens, unsubtly coded as a lesbian for no particular reason). Most of the picture comprises scenes of Graves escaping from ridiculous traps with ease. In one bit, he discovers his car was sabotaged before encountering any danger; in another, he’s chained to a rocky shore at low tide and left alone so he can free himself. Mister Deathman has a few gadgets, ladies, and underground hideaways, but it can’t manage sight gags or verbal zingers. Only the climax, featuring a grounded jet versus an army of trucks, has any kind of wow factor. Given that you’ve never heard of Broadnax (he appeared in only one more movie), it should come as no surprise to learn that even though he’s athletic and self-assured, he’s quite forgettable.

Mister Deathman: LAME

The Kid from Not-So-Big (1978)

          A harmless but unimpressive attempt at mimicking Disney’s family-friendly formula, The Kid from Not-So-Big is somewhat akin to Disney’s silly Apple Dumpling Gang movies—like those pictures, Not-So-Big is a gentle Western comedy involving frontier swindlers, goofy gunslingers, and saintly children. Deepening the Disney alignment, there’s even a tangential connection to theme parks. Six Flags briefly partnered in a production company that generated only two 1978 projects—Barnaby and Me, a koala-themed comedy that was broadcast on Australian television, and Not-So-Big, which probably reached its broadest audience through a Warner Bros. video release in the ‘80s. Given its close adherence to Disney’s style, Not-So-Big would have benefitted from some Mouse House overkill: name actors, posh production values, a zippy mixture of broad farce with cornpone plotting. Although Not-So-Big looks great thanks to the efforts of future A-list cinematographer Dean Cundey, the picture suffers from bland leading performances and script that goes slack in the middle.

          In the whimsically named town of Not-So-Big, precocious preteen Jenny (Jennifer McAllister) does most of the heavy lifting for a tiny newspaper owned by her grandfather, Hank (Don Keefer). When con man Sylvester Quick (Robert Viharo) blows into Not-So-Big with hype about making everyone rich by selling property to big-city investors, Jenny calls BS. First Sylvester torches the newspaper’s office, resulting in Hank’s death. Then Sylvester hires gunman Slowhand (Paul Tulley) to kill Jenny. Per the norm of such stories, Slowhand’s conscience gets in the way, as does his affection for Not-So-Big’s newly installed schoolteacher, Corinne (Veronica Cartwright). If you’ve ever seen a children’s movie, you can figure out how things go from there.

          The first stretch of the movie is fine, setting up a by-the-numbers plot and stock characters in an innocuous manner, and the final act has the requisite mixture of dopey physical comedy and sappy emotional payoffs. Alas, the second act is quite dull and repetitive because the script by Desmond Nakano (who later found a groove writing heavy dramas) grinds through uninteresting subplots. Exacerbating the vanilla storytelling are performances that range from adequate to less so. It’s a kick to see Cartwright playing a girl-next-door type, but McAllister is likeable without actually being charismatic and Viharo is overbearing without actually being menacing. It’s never a good sign when scowling trash-cinema stalwart George “Buck” Flower, playing one of his patented rural schemers, is the liveliest performer onscreen. 
 
The Kid from Not-So-Big: FUNKY