The Invincible Six (1970)

          To calibrate expectations appropriately, this Magnificent Seven knockoff takes place in Iran, and Elke Sommer—yes, the curvy German ice queen—plays a local, at one point fretting to an American tough guy, “You foreigners are so slow to learn our Persian ways.” Whatever you say, fräulein. Low-budget junk featuring a hodgepodge of second-rate international actors, The Invincible Six is borderline watchable, because after the confusing and dull first act, things resolve into a familiar formula, with a gang of crooks joining forces to defend a village against a local menace. Although the storytelling never takes flight, thanks to laughably thin characterizations and substandard plotting, the screen eventually fills with explosions, gunfights, and macho standoffs. Oh, and Sommer does a topless scene, but given the déclassé context, that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. As for the aforementioned international actors, American leading man Stuart Whitman gets the most screen time, and the supporting players include James Mitchum, Germany’s Curd Jürgens, and England’s Ian Ogilvy.

          The picture starts off, awkwardly, with a heist, because Tex (Whitman) and Ronald (Ogilvy) try to boost Iran’s crown jewels. That doesn’t work out, so they become fugitives, eventually connecting with Baron (Jürgens) and other lowlifes in the Iranian desert. The gang finds refuge in a village perpetually besieged by marauder Nazar (Mitchum) and his goons. Around this time viewers meet Zari (Sommer), who switches allegiances from one powerful man to the next, thereby forming a credibility-stretching romantic triangle with Nazar and Tex. Or something like that. Directed indifferently by Jean Negulesco, who won an Oscar in the ’40s but was far past his prime here, The Invincible Six was edited in a slapdash manner, so never mind trying to follow the particulars of the story. Better to shut off your brain and enjoy the dumb barrage of sex and violence. However, if you have the slightest inkling you can live without The Invincible Six, then rest assured you can.

The Invincible Six: FUNKY

Missile X: The Neutron Bomb Incident (1979)

Out of deference to the fine folks at IMDb, I’m going with their title of choice for this multinational coproduction, which has been released by so many different monikers that some artwork bears the title The Tehran Incident, while other ads have the alternate spelling The Teheran Incident. By any name, this one’s a dud. Curd Jürgens stars a super-wealthy psycho who steals an experimental missile, then conspires to shoot the weapon into Iran, thereby derailing a planned Middle East peace summit. Don’t hold your breath awaiting explanations of how doing so would benefit the villain financially or ideologically; this is one of those hopelessly murky international thrillers in which bad guys do bad things simply because it advances the plot. Peter Graves costars as an American spy tasked with finding the whereabouts of the missile and preventing its use. While tramping around (pre-revolutionary) Iran, he aligns with his Soviet counterpart, played by Michael Dante. Although there are shades of 007, notably because Jürgens played the heavy in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), this schlocky picture exists a world apart from the razzle-dazzle of the James Bond franchise. Graves is almost laughably wooden, and it’s a gross understatement to remark that he lacks heat in scenes with various starlets. He’s so dull throughout this movie that the filmmakers might as well have hired a stand-in. The other notable player in the cast, Hollywood survivor John Carradine, phones in a non-performances as scientist in the villain’s employ. As for Jürgens, he gets the most interesting material simply because his character evinces ambiguous sexuality. He’s got the requisite female arm candy, but he’s also got a one-handed henchman, and in one scene Jürgens’ character implies he wants a three-way. Kinky! In every other respect, this movie is confusing, dull, and pointless.

Missile X: The Neutron Bomb Incident: LAME

The Mephisto Waltz (1971)

          Despite falling well short of greatness, The Mephisto Waltz is an above-average supernatural-horror flick with evocative atmosphere, strong acting, and a unique hook—it’s built around the world of classical music. It should also be noted that the movie stars Jacqueline Bisset at her most ravishingly beautiful, so the eye-candy quotient is considerable. At the beginning of the movie, we meet angsty Myles Clarkson (Alan Alda), a mediocre pianist relegated to interviewing better players in his role as a music journalist. Accompanied by his wife, Paula (Bisset), Myles travels to a sprawling estate for an audience with Duncan Ely (Curt Jurgens), a legendary virtuoso. Although Paula gets a bad vibe off Duncan and his twentysomething daughter, Roxanne (Barbara Parkins), Myles quickly falls under Duncan’s spell—because Duncan claims he can train Myles to become a world-class pianist. It turns out the Elys are Satan worshippers, and Duncan has designs on U-Hauling his soul into Myles’ healthy young body, since Duncan is terminally ill but determined to preserve his genius.

          It’s not giving anything away to say that Duncan succeeds, because the real thrills begin when Paula starts to realize her husband isn’t her husband anymore. Produced by prolific TV guy Quinn Martin (whose output included The Fugitive and The Streets of San Francisco), the picture is capably directed by Paul Wendkos from a script by Ben Maddow (which was adapted from Fred Mustard Stewart’s novel). The execution is stylish even when the story gets convoluted and silly, and the film benefits tremendously from spooky music by composer Jerry Goldsmith. Additionally, the locations are consistently credible, especially the shadowy expanses of the Ely mansion. Yet it’s the acting that really propels the piece. Alda is poignantly narcissistic as Myles, and then appropriately aloof once Duncan’s spirit inhabits Myles’ body, while Jurgens makes a strong impression as a domineering diva during his few scenes. Parkins, whose dark beauty complements Bisset’s natural look, has fun playing a scheming witch, and Bisset lends a certain measure of emotional credibility to her various scenes of anguish and panic. Best of all, the movie twists and turns toward a perverse ending that almost justifies the movie’s overlong, 115-minute running time.

The Mephisto Waltz: GROOVY

Goldengirl (1979)

          If nothing else, the sports drama Goldengirl delivers on its title—the film is crammed with adoring shots of leading lady Susan Anton, a gleaming Amazon with a lustrous blonde mane. Yet Anton, while not exactly horrible, is the picture’s weakest link. The fault is not entirely hers, since screenwriter John Kohn and director Joseph Sargent failed to provide her with a fleshed-out role—but because Anton is in nearly every scene, her superficiality defines the movie.
          Story-wise, Goldengirl is a cautionary tale with a touch of sci-fi. During the run-up to the 1980 Moscow Olympics, top sports agent Jack Dryden (James Coburn) is asked to join the team preparing Goldine (Anton) for an unprecedented feat—winning three gold medals in sprinting events. As Jack is shown around a remote mountaintop training facility, we learn that Goldine—nicknamed “Goldengirl”—has been conditioned from childhood for Olympic victory. Her adoptive father, Serafin (Curt Jurgens), is an obsessed Germanic scientist whose work may or may not have begun during the Third Reich’s grotesque eugenics experiments.

          Jack is considered crucial to the Goldengirl team because he’s got the connections to line up millions in endorsement deals if she wins all three medals, thus recouping the money that’s been invested in her. The more the story progresses, however, the more apparent it becomes that Serafin is a lunatic who’s been pumping Goldine full of dangerous hormones for years, simply to gain an international spotlight with which to showcase his crackpot theories about human evolution.

          Based on a novel by Peter Lear, Goldengirl could (and should) have been a provocative conspiracy movie, with the innocent Goldine caught in the machinations of commerce and megalomania. Unfortunately, the film is diffuse and passive, so no real tension develops until the last 30 minutes, when it’s revealed that running is dangerous to Goldine’s health. It’s also incredibly distracting that Anton looks nothing like an athlete—she’s lean but soft, and she wears dense mascara even during major races. Furthermore, the name actors surrounding Anton—in addition to those mentioned, Leslie Caron plays a shrink and Robert Culp plays a journalist—perform their paycheck gigs indifferently. Compounding Goldengirl’s second-rate status is the fact that America didn’t actually participate in the 1980 Olympics—after this picture was filmed, the U.S. pulled out of the Moscow games in response to Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan.

Goldengirl: FUNKY

Tales from the Crypt (1972) & The Vault of Horror (1973)

          Years before the cult-favorite 1989-1996 HBO series reintroduced the title Tales from the Crypt into popular culture, the notoriously gory short stories that first appeared in the EC Comics periodical of that name inspired a pair of British anthology films. Here’s the backstory: Published by William Gaines, EC Comics’ horror titles were scandalized during a mid-1950s witch hunt that blamed comic books for juvenile delinquency. Gaines’ books were easy targets, with their viscera-laden morality tales about nefarious people suffering horrifically ironic fates; the vignettes were like O. Henry yarns with dismemberments. All of Gaines’ horror books were canceled as a result of censorship pressures—yet once the passage of two decades made lighthearted bloodshed socially acceptable again, Amicus Productions, the English company that briefly competed with Hammer Films for dominance of the lucrative Brit-horror market, licensed a slew of EC stories for a pair of films.

          Unfortunately, neither movie is particularly good. One gets the impression that brisk shooting schedules were to blame, since the acting and photography feel rushed, and, as a result, neither picture evokes the beloved shadowy atmosphere of the source material. The first picture, Tales from the Crypt, includes a familiar framing device: A character called the Crypt Keeper (Ralph Richardson) gathers several people into a mysterious tomb and exposes them to visions of horrible things they might or might not have done. Instead of the cackling cadaver from the comics or the HBO series, however, Richardson is just a bitchy old Englishman, sort of like an otherworldly schoolmaster.

          The five episodes in Tales from the Crypt are unnecessarily long-winded, though Tales benefits from the participation of Hammer Films stalwarts including director Freddie Francis and actor Peter Cushing. In the most generic episode, “All Through the House,” Joan Collins plays a murderous wife who gets stalked by a psycho on Christmas Eve, and in the most sadistic story, “Blind Alleys,” Nigel Patrick plays a former Army major who runs a home for the blind with ruthless efficiency until his charges exact bloody revenge. The picture also features “Wish You Were Here,” the umpteenth variation of the old short story “The Monkey’s Paw,” about people who get into trouble by making unwise wishes. Everyone delivers professional work in front of and behind the camera, but it’s all quite rote.

          The follow-up flick, The Vault of Horror, features more of the same, albeit with more efficiency and less impressive marquee value. In the most amusing episode, “The Neat Job,” a memorably prissy Terry-Thomas plays a clean freak who drives his wife to murderous distraction, leading to a gruesomely appropriate fate. Several Vault episodes go the supernatural route, including “Drawn and Quartered,” featuring onetime Dr. Who star Tom Baker as an artist using voodoo to kill people who stole his work, and “This Trick’ll Kill You,” with Curt Jurgens as a magician who steals a gag from the wrong snake-charmer. The problem with these movies, aside from their unrelenting gruesomeness, is the formulaic story structure: villain does creepy stuff, villain gets bloody comeuppance. Some episodes have more zing than others, but the novelty wears off quickly.

Tales from the Crypt: FUNKY

The Vault of Horror: FUNKY