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

Assault on Paradise (1977)

          Some intrepid soul could write an entire treatise on film distribution by analyzing the way this drab thriller was sold to the public. Not only has the picture been issued under several titles—Maniac!, The Ransom, The Town That Cried Terror—but the most prevalent poster art, extrapolated from the opening scene, suggests a serial-killer saga echoing Son of Sam, Zodiac, and other human monsters who prowled the streets of America’s cities during the ’70s. In truth, Assault on Paradise is quite different. The story concerns a deranged Native American who terrorizes the wealthiest residents of a resort community in Arizona, demanding payment as punishment for, presumably, the residents’ mistreatment of tribal land. Although the story includes a number of murders, only one fits the urban-psycho paradigm, because most of the killings involve a bow and arrow. What’s more, Assault on Paradise isn’t some grim character study of a sociopath. The protagonist is a tough-talking mercenary hired by the wealthy residents to kill the sociopath. Accordingly, most of the picture involves a chase across desert lands, with helicopters and Jeeps and motorcycles. Hardly what people were promised by sensationalistic advertising.

          The setting is Paradise, a small town where rich guys including William Whitaker (Stuart Whitman) lord over municipal employees. After an Indian named Victor (Paul Koslo) kills several people, he issues a demand for $1 million and threatens more carnage if he is not paid. Whitaker hires Nick McCormick (Oliver Reed) to find and terminate Victor. Nick then recruits a local tracker (Jim Mitchum) to guide him through rough terrain. The story also involves a TV reporter, Cindy (Deborah Raffin), who becomes romantically involved with Nick.

          Thanks to a genuinely terrible screenplay, long stretches of the movie are deadly boring, and virtually none of the onscreen behavior makes sense. Nick is supposed to be the height of cold-blooded efficiency, but he spends a lot of time drinking, hanging out, and screwing. The tracker is supposed to know the terrain perfectly, but he often throws up his hands and says he doesn’t know where to look next for Victor. And Victor is played by the decidedly Caucasian actor Paul Koslo—who, by the way, is blond. Directed with zero story sense by Richard Compton, who spent most of his career making second-rate television, Assault on Paradise is a slog to get through, despite the colorful cast and violent premise. The picture gets better in its second half, once the action gets going, and props are due to Don Ellis for the energy of his frenetic disco/jazz/rock score, but the number of scenes that simply don’t work is startling. Which begins to explain, perhaps, why desperate methods were employed to hype the picture.

Assault on Paradise: FUNKY

Trackdown (1976)

          Tough, nasty, and violent, Trackdown tells the story of a modern-day cowboy who travels to the big city because his little sister has gone missing, then dives headlong into a cesspool of human exploitation and organized crime while looking for his lost sibling. The movie is something of a cousin to Paul Schrader’s provocative Hardcore (1979), although Schrader’s movie deals with pornography instead of prostitution, and there’s a big gulf between the theologically charged Hardcore and the no-frills Trackdown. Still, what both movies share is the rich premise of a man from a simple place wading through the muck of late-’70s Los Angeles, where pretty dreamers looking for new opportunities are easy prey for flesh merchants. In fact, had a stronger actor been cast in the lead of Trackdown, the movie might have found a niche among the era’s memorable exploitation films, since it benefits from a well-constructed plot, interesting supporting characters, and vivid action scenes. Alas, while James Mitchum inherited his father Robert’s hangdog eyes and hulking physique, he didn’t get his dad’s charisma or talent.

          The picture begins with Betsy Calhoun (Karen Lamm) running away from her Montana home and taking a bus to Hollywood. Almost immediately after her arrival, she’s mugged by a group of Latino street toughs, but one of the Latinos takes sympathy on her plight. He’s Chucho (Erik Estrada). Chucho gives Lynn a place to crash and a lead on work, so they become friends—but Chucho’s cronies have designs on the pretty blonde. They kidnap and drug Lynn, delivering her to Johnny Dee (Vince Cannon), a mob-connected pimp. He entrusts Lynn to high-priced call girl Barbara (Anne Archer), who offers to train Lynn as a prostitute. In one of the picture’s most interesting nuances, Lynne accepts the overture after she’s recovered from the influence of drugs—as she explains, there’s a reason she left small-town America for the bright lights and endless promise of the Golden State. Once Lynn’s brother, Jim (Mitchum), shows up to “rescue” her, he quickly learns that he’s looking for someone who doesn’t want to be found.

          Lest the preceding give the false impression that Trackdown is a sensitive exploration of human feeling, it should be emphasized that Trackdown is a lowbrow thrill ride. (Note the fact that Cathy Lee Crosby, who plays a social worker and provides a love interest for Mitchum’s character, spends most of the movie wearing skin-tight jeans and revealing tied-off shirts.) Nonetheless, the filmmakers take their time establishing characters and situations in logical ways, so once the shooting starts, there’s a believable emotional context. Furthermore, while one might expect this sort of film to be presented in the grungy style of a Roger Corman-produced quickie, Trackdown instead has the look of a studio picture, and the polished images get juiced by tasty, disco-infused musical scoring. 

Trackdown: FUNKY

Moonrunners (1975)

          A hard-driving product of the mid-’70s craze for movies about moonshine peddlers, Moonrunners has interesting connections to popular culture that preceded and followed the film’s release. Costar James Mitchum, the son of legendary Hollywood actor Robert Mitchum, appeared with his dad in the 1958 moonshine-themed B-movie Thunder Road, so there’s a minor passing-of-the-torch element to Moonrunners. More significant is the picture’s legacy, because Moonrunners writer-producer Gy Waldron recycled many of the film’s elements when he created the hit rednecks-running-wild TV series The Dukes of Hazzard (1979-1985). Although Moonrunners doesn’t have the big-budget polish of The Dukes of Hazzard, the movie epitomizes the good-ole-boys irreverence that made the series popular.

          Set in Georgia, Moonrunners follows the adventures of cousins Bobby Lee Hagg (Kiel Martin) and Grady Hagg (Mitchum). Both drive cars for their uncle, white-lightning manufacturer Jesse Hagg (Arthur Hunnicut). The Hagg boys get into hassles with corrupt cops and with Uncle Jesse’s main competitor, Jake Rainey (George Ellis), a varmint determined to get a monopoly on his county’s illegal-liquor trade. The Hagg boys also enjoy brawling, chasing women, gambling, and participating in stock-car races. While the flick’s plotting is perfunctory at best, the style is fairly appealing. Country singer Waylon Jennings narrates (he served the same role on The Dukes of Hazzard), performing tunes and providing cornpone commentary, though he never appears on camera. Every once in a while, the synthesis between Jennings’ rascally delivery and Waldron’s playful language feels just about perfect, as when Jennings’ narration introduces a certain corrupt sheriff, whose name was repurposed for the series: Roscoe P. Coltrane. “After a career of being honest,” Jennings explains, “Roscoe was gonna retire on a bad case of hemorrhoids and $643 in the Shiloh County Bank.”

          Not everything in the picture is quite that lowbrow. For instance, the best scene involves a police chief explaining to a federal officer the county’s normal procedure for arresting and processing Beauregard, a mule used for hauling materials to and from Uncle Jesse’s still. In vignettes like that one, Waldron conveys a fully imagined subculture. (Similarly, it’s hard to argue with the character names “Cooter” and “Zeebo.”) Looking and sounding very much like a Roger Corman production, Moonrunners is rough around the edges, with inconsistent acting and jumpy editing, though Kiel’s hyped-up persona and Mitchum’s laconic nature complement each other well. Better still, by the time people start shooting dynamite-tipped arrows, Waldron hits the sweet spot for this particular subgenre.

Moonrunners: FUNKY

Blackout (1978)

A queasy hybrid of the crime-thriller and disaster genres, Blackout has, as its title suggests, a solid premise: When the lights go out in New York City, criminal types go on a rampage. Unfortunately, bad acting, a skinflint budget, and a terrible script make Blackout a study in monotony. The plot centers on a group of lunatics who escape from a transport van and terrorize the residents of a high-rise apartment building. Using a narrative gimmick later employed to better effect in Die Hard (1988), the hero is a lone street cop (James Mitchum) who follows the criminals into the building and tries to take them down one by one. There are a few perfunctory scenes outside the building, like drab vignettes in a power station, but the picture mostly comprises unattractively photographed interior scenes of bad people doing bad things. The main crook is Christie (Robert Carradine), an anti-corporate terrorist who inexplicably transforms into a petty thief; he enlists the less-intelligent thugs from the transport van to serve as muscle during a robbery spree, giving them license to rape and kill at their leisure. It’s safe to say that when the loveable geek from the Revenge of the Nerds movies is playing a criminal mastermind, expectations should be kept low; similarly, the presence of a leading man whose only claim to fame is being Robert Mitchum’s son doesn’t promise much elevation of the material. As in most disaster-themed pictures, some supporting actors provide momentary distraction. Dancer/singer June Allyson trudges through pointless scenes as a woman caring for her invalid husband, Belinda J. Montgomery is earnest as a rape victim, and Jean-Pierre Aumont is likeably urbane as a pauper living alone with his dog. The movie’s “big name,” Ray Milland, who had a bad habit of showing up in low-budget crap and looking ashamed for doing so, is characteristically obnoxious as a rich man who cares more about his paintings than his wife. Badly made, consistently boring, and performed with understandable indifference, Blackout represents the total waste of a good idea.

Blackout: SQUARE