1980 Week: When Time Ran Out . . .

It’s hard to imagine a more fitting title for the final big-screen release from producer Irwin Allen, who became synonymous with the disaster-movie genre after making The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974). By the time this enervated flick hit cinemas with a resounding thud, time had indeed run out for Allen’s formula of jamming as many movie stars as possible into melodramatic epics about mass destruction. The disaster this time is a volcano that threatens to consume an island in the Pacific, so the usual Allen contrivances seem especially silly. For instance, tanned B-movie stud James Franciscus plays the requisite cold-hearted businessman who tries to convince island residents that the volcano’s not going to erupt. Really? Then what’s with all the lava and smoke, to say nothing of the corpses left over from scientists conducting tests in the mouth of the volcano? Similarly, the endless scenes of people climbing hills and crossing ravines—running from lava as if the stuff possesses malicious intent—are ludicrous. And while much of the cast comprises such second-stringers as Edward Albert, Barbara Carrera, Alex Karras, and (of course) Allen regular Ernest Borgnine, Allen clearly wrote big checks to get a trio of major stars involved. William Holden plays a hotel owner more concerned with his love life than his professional obligations, Paul Newman plays a heroic oil-rig boss who spots trouble that others can’t recognize (naturally), and Jacqueline Bisset plays the woman caught between them. Never mind that late-career Holden looks so desiccated from alcoholism that he seems more like Bisset’s grandfather than her would-be lover. Anyway, it’s all incredibly boring and shallow and trite, with any potential for excitement neutralized by indifferent acting, leaden pacing, and questionable special effects. Not even Bisset’s spectacular cleavage or Newman’s irrepressible charm can sustain interest. Instead of being a disaster movie, When Time Ran Out is merely a disaster.

When Time Ran Out . . .: LAME

Embryo (1976)

          The sci-fi thriller Embryo is one of a zillion movies patterned after Mary Shelley’s classic novel Frankenstein, because it’s a cautionary tale about a scientist who pays a terrible price for attempting to create new life. You know the drill: madman makes monster, monster causes havoc, madman and monster meet in a final confrontation. Yet Embryo imprudently alters the familiar formula by adding a love story, which drains energy from the middle of the story. For a good 40 minutes, viewers are subjected to repetitive sequences of the scientist bonding with his creation—and, as every good dramatist knows, there’s nothing more destructive to narrative momentum than characters getting along. So, while Embryo isn’t awful, it’s not the lean-and-mean shocker it could and should have been.

          Rock Hudson stars as Dr. Paul Holliston, a widower who specializes in the use of chemicals to stimulate fetal development. After successfully experimenting on a dog fetus, which matures to adulthood in the space of a few days, Paul repeats the experiment on a human embryo. Thus he begets Victoria (Barbara Carrera), a beautiful young woman who grows from fetus to twentysomething in the space of a month. Once Paul arrests her rapid growth, he educates her and introduces her to the world, concealing the secret of her birth from everyone except Victoria. Predictably, the two develop feelings for each other, and Paul happily satiates Victoria’s curiosity about sex. (As if you couldn’t have guessed, she’s hot.) Unbeknownst to Paul, however, the dog he created develops violent tendencies—so when Victoria discovers she possesses built-in abnormalities that might prove fatal, it’s no surprise that she goes on a rampage. (Paul’s inability to recognize danger signs is one of the movie’s biggest logical lapses.)

          As directed by skillful journeyman Ralph Nelson, Embryo is okay on a scene-by-scene basis; among other things, Nelson does a fine job of turning Paul’s lab into a forbidding place simply by using shadows. But on a macro level, Embryo falls apart. Subplots are handled poorly, with plot twists overly telegraphed and rich veins left unexplored. Leading lady Carrera’s performance is another weakness—appearing in one of her first movies, she’s pretty but unconvincing. (Hudson is merely okay, hitting his marks with crisp professionalism.) It’s tempting to say that Embryo is ripe fodder for a remake, since a more exciting version of the story is easily envisioned, but it’s also possible that this middling interpretation is as strong a treatment as the hokey premise deserves.

Embryo: FUNKY

The Master Gunfighter (1975)

          Thanks to his work as the creator and star of the four-film Billy Jack franchise, Tom Laughlin remains one of the most weirdly fascinating figures of ’70s cinema. On the plus side, he’s a maverick with deeply sincere political convictions. On the negative side, his hallmarks are confused ideology and sloppy storytelling. As a case in point, consider the only movie Laughlin made in the ’70s outside of the Billy Jack franchise, notwithstanding a couple of small acting roles in other directors’ pictures. Like the Billy Jack flicks, The Master Gunfighter is a strange mishmash of bleeding-heart politics, extravagant action, and murky philosophy derived from indigenous cultures. Yet while the Billy Jack movies sprang forth from Laughlin’s turbulent id, The Master Gunfighter is a pastiche of influences.

          The plot was taken from a 1969 Japanese movie called Goyokin, and Laughlin added a smattering of episodes from the history of 19th-century California. Reflecting the story’s Asian origin, all of the principal male characters wear a six-gun on one hip and a Japanese blade on the other. And reflecting the Latin influence on old California, the characters prance around in flamboyant Spanish-style costumes of embroidered bolero jackets, form-fitting bell-bottomed slacks, and puffy white shirts.

          The storyline is as jumbled as the aesthetic. Finley (Laughlin) is a solider at a coastal hacienda whose de facto leader is a fellow warrior, Paulo (Ron O’Neal). In a confusing prologue that writer-producer-director Laughlin spends the rest of the movie explaining and rehashing, Paulo robs gold from a U.S. government sailing ship, and then slaughters a village of local Indians who accidentally come into possession of the loot. After extracting a promise that Paulo never commit another atrocity, Finley leaves the hacienda in shame. Yet while Finley wanders the Mexican wilderness (working, of course, as a sideshow performer), Paulo contrives plans to repeat his infraction, forcing Finely to return home for a showdown—and for a reunion with his wife, Eula (Barbara Carrera).

          As in all of Laughlin’s pictures, unnecessary subplots make the picture feel meandering and vague. Furthermore, Laughlin’s reiteration of tropes from his best-known characterization make Finley seem like Billy Jack in a beard: Laughlin sighs and speechifies before dispatching bad guys, repeatedly expressing the dubious notion that he’d prefer not to kick ass. The funny thing is that Laughlin’s actually a pretty good actor, though he’s his own worst enemy when working behind the camera; melodramatic staging and stiff dialogue undercut the quiet intensity that Laughlin generates simply by occupying the camera frame.

          Just as Laughlin the director subverts Laughlin the actor, Laughlin the producer subverts the whole movie with poor casting. Untalented amateurs are featured in minor roles, Carrera is pretty but vapid, and O’Neal (best known for the Superfly pictures) is truly awful. Only suave African-American player Lincoln Kilpatrick, as a warrior with shifting allegiances, delivers a consistently credible performance. Worse, while some of the movie’s action scenes are exciting, Laughlin’s camera often seems to be in the wrong place, and many scenes end too abruptly. However, Laughlin and veteran cinematographer Jack Marta make great use of the beautiful Monterey, California, coastline and nearby inland forests, so the movie often looks great even if what’s happening onscreen is bewildering.

The Master Gunfighter: FUNKY

The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977)

          H.G. Wells’ horrific story about a mad scientist who gene-splices animals with men on his own private island was first filmed in 1932 as the extraordinary Island of Lost Souls, which boasted disturbing atmosphere and a perverse performance by Charles Laughton as medical maniac Dr. Moreau. Four decades later, schlock merchants American International Pictures produced a remake with a lot more action but a lot less artistry. Directed with typical indifference by Don Taylor, The Island of Dr. Moreau stars Michael York as an English seaman who survives a wreck and washes ashore on the titular land mass. Burt Lancaster plays the not-so-good doctor, but his stilted intensity fails to capture the unhinged majesty of the Moreau character, and York isn’t much better, substituting eye-bulging breathlessness for convincing terror. In one of her first major films, Nicaraguan model-turned-starlet Barbara Carrera is sultry as York’s love interest, although her presence is purely ornamental. In all versions of the story, the jungle surrounding Moreau’s compound is filled with examples of the doctor’s experiments, animals converted into hirsute bipeds whose innate bloodlust is (barely) kept in check by Moreau’s brutally enforced laws; tension arises from wondering how long these “manimals” will tolerate Moreau torturing them in his lab, which the creatures refer to as “the House of Pain.”
          The team behind the ’70s version unwisely depicts the manimals through the use of waxy-looking masks that are filmed in garishly bright lighting, so the sight of genetic aberrations roaming through the jungle is mundane instead of horrifying. Making matters worse, the story frequently degrades into clunky thriller scenes, like chases through the jungle and comin’-at-ya monster attacks. This lowbrow approach is a hell of a comedown from Island of Lost Souls, but for those who’ve never seen the original version (or read the Wells novel), The Island of Dr. Moreau is passable escapist junk: The production looks and feels like bad episodic television from the ’70s, with blandly utilitarian camera setups and twinkling music straight out of a Fantasy Island installment, and the climax is amusingly overwrought, right down to the endless final duel between the surviving major characters and a persistent manimal. The picture’s epilogue, unfortunately, is a complete cop-out.

The Island of Dr. Moreau: FUNKY