Victory at Entebbe (1976) & Raid on Entebbe (1977)

          One of the Me Decade’s most startling real-life events occurred on July 4, 1976, when Israeli commandos raided an airport in Uganda to rescue more than a hundred hostages from Palestinians who hijacked a passenger plane. Filled with larger-than-life individuals, notably crazed Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, the story of “Operation Thunderbolt” helped define the era during which international terrorism first took root. Almost inevitably, Hollywood pounced on this material, with the first screen dramatization reaching American airwaves six months after the rescue, and a second version airing a month later. Both telefilms feature big-name casts.

          First to air was Victory at Entebbe, a rushed and schlocky melodrama that mostly focuses on dynamics among hostages during their tense incarceration in Uganda. Filmed by director Marvin J. Chomsky with garish lighting and unimpressive production values, Victory at Entebbe suffers badly for the choice to shove the biggest names possible into various roles, no matter the results. Good luck figuring out the genetic math by which parents Kirk Douglas and Elizabeth Taylor produce daughter Linda Blair—and have fun scratching your head while Anthony Hopkins plays Israeli Prime Minister Ytzhak Rabin opposite Burt Lancaster as his Minister of Defense. Helmut Berger does forgettable work as lead terrorist Wilfried Böse, and those playing the other hijackers stop just short of twirling moustaches.

          Portraying key passengers, Theodore Bikel, Severn Darden, Helen Hayes, Allan Miller, Jessica Walter, and others do what they can with florid dialogue and overwrought dramaturgy. Way too much screen time is devoted to Blair’s alternately cutesy and whiny performance as a young hostage, the Douglas/Taylor scenes feel like clips from a bad soap opera, and Julius Harris looks cartoonish playing Amin thanks to an ill-advised fat suit. Scenes set in Israel are better, though it’s hard to buy doughy Richard Dreyfuss as fierce commando Yoni Netanyahu. Worse, the Israeli scenes focus on procedural matters, mostly sidelining political ramifications. A final strike against Victory at Entebbe is the use of stock footage for airplane scenes, which greatly diminishes verisimilitude.

          Although the star power of Raid on Entebbe is not quite as impressive as that of the preceding film, the performances are much better. Martin Balsam, Charles Bronson, Horst Buchholz, Peter Finch, John Saxon, Sylvia Sidney, Jack Warden, and others deliver restrained work, letting the story speak for itself. Only a few players—including Tige Andrews and Stephen Macht—succumb to melodramatic excess. More importantly, Raid on Entebbe has Yaphet Kotto. He’s  dazzling as Amin, conveying the madman’s grandiosity, moodiness, and narcissism. Directed by the versatile Irvin Kershner with docudrama simplicity and the occasional subtle flourish—a sleek camera move here, a dramatic lighting pattern there—Raid on Entebbe unfolds methodically. The opening scene depicts the hijacking without sensationalizing events, and thereafter the movie cuts back and forth between Israel, where officials plan their response, and scenes involving hostages and their captors.

          Eventually, the film resolves into three parallel narratives. The first involves Rabin (Finch) rallying support for military intervention, despite his government’s propensity for endless debate. The second involves the hostages, of whom Daniel Cooper (Balsam) is the unofficial spokesman, watching their fates transfer from the hands of religious zealots to those of an unpredictable tyrant. The third involves units of the Israeli military—under the command of Generals Gur (Warden), Peled (Saxon), and Shomron (Bronson)—figuring how to achieve the impossible. The level of detail in Barry Beckerman’s teleplay is extraordinary, so despite its lengthy running time (two and a half hours), Raid on Entebbe is interesting and thoughtful from start to finish. Better still, the presence of marquee-name actors never eclipses the solemnity of the narrative. (Special note should be made of Finch’s fine performance as Rabin, because this was his last project. He died a week after Raid on Entebbe aired.)

          Yet another dramatization of these historic events emerged soon after the dual telefilms, this time from Israel. Directed by Menaham Golan, Operation Thunderbolt features a mostly Israeli cast, although the intense German actor Klaus Kinski plays Böse and the voluptuous Austrian starlet Sybil Danning costars. Operation Thunderbolt received an Oscar nomination as Best Foreign Film.

Victory at Entebbe: FUNKY

Raid on Entebbe: GROOVY

The Glove (1979)

          Starring the inimitable John Saxon, who offers one of his most appealing performances, The Glove is a tonic for schlock-cinema addicts who are tired of mean-spirited exploitation flicks. The Glove is not gentle, per se, but it avoids the familiar traps of objectifying women and sanctifying pointless violence. Additionally, the picture overflows with lively character development and whimsical dialogue, sometimes to the detriment of the storyline, and the use of hard-boiled voiceover gives the piece a pleasing flow. So while The Glove is mostly a dud as an action picture, it’s pleasant to watch as a character piece involving an amiable bounty hunter and an even more amiable escaped convict. You may find yourself perplexed as to whom this picture was meant to satisfy, since the poster suggests a brutal urban thriller, but if you’ve spent too much time aiming your retinas at ugly stories about ugly people doing ugly things, the goofy humanism of The Glove offers a refreshing alternative.

          Saxon stars as Sam Kellogg, a Los Angeles-based bounty hunter with money problems. His ex-wife is after him for overdue alimony payments, so his treasured visitations with his young daughter are in danger of being revoked. The filmmakers present layer after layer of detail about Sam, so we learn that he gambles recklessly, gives bribes to former police-force colleagues for help tracking down hoodlums, and sometimes cuts breaks for hard-luck cases. Motivated by the promise of a $20,000 bounty, Sam spends most of the movie chasing Victor Hale (Rosey Grier), who seems terrifying the first time we encounter him. Having acquired a full suit of police riot gear, including a five-pound, lead-lined monstrosity known as a riot glove, Victor demolishes a car before pummeling one of the vehicle’s occupants nearly to death. However, subsequent scenes portray Victor as a gentle giant, entertaining local children by playing blues songs on guitar while hanging out in a tenement apartment. When Victor learns that Sam is after him, he calls the bounty hunter and says to back off, instead of, say, ambushing Sam with the glove.

          Although the filmmakers never reconcile the dark and light aspects of Victor’s portrayal, it’s enjoyable to watch a picture of this type that strives to make characters dimensional. The Glove also benefits from a cast stocked with familiar professionals: Joanna Cassidy, Joan Blondell, Michael Pataki, Aldo Ray, Keenan Wynn. In the end, is The Glove a jumble of contradictory intentions? Sure. But it’s hard not to appreciate elements including the pithy voiceover (“I felt like somebody had kicked me in the stomach and left their shoe there”) and the stunningly overwrought theme song, which must be heard to be believed.

The Glove: FUNKY

Moonshine County Express (1977)

          Since the ’70s were rotten with drive-in flicks about rednecks hauling white lightning through the woods with cops hot on their tails, there wasn’t much left to say about the subject by the time Moonshine County Express was made. That said, the textures of this low-rent genre were so firmly established that delivering a straight recitation shouldn’t have been too difficult—especially since Moonshine County Express was issued by trash-cinema titan Roger Corman’s New World Pictures. All of which goes to explain why Moonshine County Express is vexing. The movie has the usual barrage of zippy nonsense, so it’s never boring, per se, but the storyline is so sloppy that it’s hard to tell which of the two main characters is the protagonist. After all, John Saxon gets top billing for playing a racecar driver who moonlights running ’shine, but the narrative actually hinges on the character played by Susan Howard.

          After thugs kill an aging moonshiner, his three daughters learn that he left them a secret stash of valuable Prohibition-era whiskey, so the oldest daughter, Dot Hammer (Howard), begins selling the hooch to her dad’s old customers. This gets the attention of Jack Starkey (William Conrad), the kingpin of the area’s illegal-liquor business, since he’s the one who killed the father in the first place as a means of eliminating competition. Giving the story its small measure of complexity is J.B. Johnson (Saxon), who drives for Starkey until switching sides to help the imperiled Hammer sisters. There’s also a sheriff involved, but suffice to say nothing truly surprising happens.

          Still (no pun intended), it’s possible to groove on the film’s pulpy elements. Playing the Hammer sisters, Howard, Claudia Jennings, and former Brady Bunch star Maureen McCormick add eye candy, though all of them manage to keep their clothes since this PG-rated film is tame compared to other moonshine flicks. Saxon gives an unusually casual performance, and Conrad has a blast playing a cartoony villain. (Not every movie features the enormous Cannon star in a sex-fantasy scene featuring fishing tackle.) Furthermore, Dub Taylor plays a supporting role without his frontal dentures; the rootsy soundtrack features banjos and spoons and the like; and in one party scene, a bar band renders these peculiar lyrics: “Grandma’s got syphilis, Grandpa’s deranged, and all the children had their sexes changed.”

Moonshine County Express: FUNKY

The Bees (1978)

While the most enduring pop-culture artifact stemming from widespread mid-’70s paranoia about killer bees is undoubtedly the recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live depicting the striped insects as Mexican banditos, Hollywood cranked out a few overheated horror pictures on the subject, as well. Disaster-flick titan Irwin Allen was responsible for The Swarm (1978), a big-budget flop starring Michael Caine, and Roger Croman’s low-budget factory New World Pictures was responsible for this dud starring John Saxon. In fact, according to a book about New World, Warner Bros. paid New World to delay the release of The Bees until after The Swarm passed through theaters. In any event, The Bees is just as silly as the Allen production, only without the redeeming values of a kitschy cast and a melodramatic narrative. The Bees opens in Brazil, where crossbred bees attack their keepers at a ranch owned by an international conglomerate. (The murky setup tries to involve both accidental and intentional blending of insect species, resulting in a super-aggressive hybrid.) Soon after the deadly incident in Brazil, a scientist named Sandra Miller (Angel Tompkins) smuggles killer bees into New York, where she reports to John Norman (Saxon), head of a company angling to get a monopoly on the world’s honey supply. Or something. The plot is so stupid and turgid that parsing details isn’t worth the effort, and even trying to watch the movie for the “exciting” scenes is pointless. Once killer bees start rampaging across the United States, director Alfredo Zacarías employs cheap animation to show massive swarms passing landmarks, and he uses grainy stock footage to illustrate the military response. Meanwhile, Saxon gives stilted line readings and John Carradine, in a supporting role, speaks in some amateurish hodgepodge of European accents. The whole pathetic enterprise concludes (spoiler alert!) with the protagonist realizing the bees have learned to communicate, then addressing a general assembly of the UN with this urgent message: “You have to listen to what the bees have to say!” Sadly, just when the movie reaches campy terrain, it ends instead of going full-bore into craziness.

The Bees: LAME

Genesis II (1973) & Planet Earth (1974) & Strange New World (1975)

          Following the demise of the original Star Trek series in 1969, writer-producer Gene Roddenberry spent the ’70s trying to launch a new TV show, as well as moonlighting in features. None of his wilderness-years projects clicked, so once Star Trek was revived in 1979 with the first of myriad feature films (and, later spinoff TV shows), Roddenberry resigned himself to being the godhead of a franchise. Within this context, it’s interesting to look at this trifecta of TV movies, each of which represents a fresh attempt at repurposing the same underlying material. Given the similarity between the underlying material and the ethos of Trek, these movies prove that certain themes and tropes were ingrained into Roddenberry’s DNA.

          The best of the telefilms, though that’s not saying a whole lot, is the first one, Genesis II (pictured above). At the beginning of the story, near-future scientist Dylan Hunt (Alex Cord) is put into suspended animation as part of an experiment. An earthquake buries the laboratory surrounding Dylan’s chamber, so he’s revived more than a century later by citizens of PAX, a peaceful society living underground in the postapocalyptic future. Things get dull quick, because Dylan is smothered with exposition from PAX official Isaac (Percy Rodrigues) and from Lyra-a (Mariette Hartley). Turns out Lyra-a is not from PAX; instead, she’s a mutant from the country of Terrania. Before long, Dylan and Lyra-a flee PAX, because the mutant has convinced the 20th-century man that PAX is secretly warlike. Upon reaching Terrania, however, Dylan discovers that humans are used by Terranians as slaves, so he leads a rebellion against Lyra-a’s people.

          Repeating mistakes from the worst Trek episodes, Genesis II features ridiculous costumes suitable for a cabaret show on Fire Island, overwrought discussions of morality, and turgid storytelling devoid of humor. (Sample dialogue: “You will find it profitless to lie to us, human! Will you repair our nuclear generator?”) Cord is stalwart but stilted, while Hartley’s sexy in a soccer-mom sort of way, but it’s fun to groove on the voices of Trek veterans Ted Cassidy (“Lurch” from the ’60s Addams Family series) and Rodrigues (who later narrated the iconic Jaws trailer). Genesis II contains interesting concepts, but the presentation is far too clinical.

          Predictably, the next version of the material, Planet Earth, is lustier in every sense of the word. Re-conceived by Roddenberry as an action show, instead of a show about ideas, Planet Earth replaces Cord with campy he-man actor John Saxon in the role of Dylan Hunt. The story skips the set-up and gets right to Dylan leading a team of PAX adventurers into a land ruled by cruel amazons, with the nominal goal of rescuing a doctor who’s needed back at PAX for emergency surgery. The vibe of Planet Earth evokes Trek even more than the vibe of Genesis II did. Hunt contrives elaborate strategies, employs flying tackles, and makes out with two different women. (One is Janet Margolin, who would have been a series regular, and the other is guest star Diana Muldaur.) Hunt even narrates the onscreen action in voiceover via “log entries.” Still, the added testosterone means that Planet Earth is significantly dumbed-down from its predecessor, although Planet Earth seems like the most viable launching pad for a series of any of these three flicks.

          The final—and most lavish—spin on this material, Strange New World, was made without Roddenberry’s involvement. (That’s the cost of selling a concept to a network.) Saxon returns, now playing the new role of Anthony Vico, and this time the story involves three modern-day people thrust into the future. The explanation this time is that a meteor shower hit the Earth while the trio were in suspended animation aboard a space station. The pacing of Strange New World is painfully slow, even though two separate adventuress are crammed into 97 minutes. The first involves Anthony’s team encountering the people of Eterna, who survive using clones and other medical miracles but need blood from normal people. The second story dramatizes a clash between Anthony’s team and groups of savages living in a forest and a zoo, respectively. In both narratives, endless exposition and tiresome fight scenes ensue.

          It’s all quite flat and talky, but the photography is atmospheric, the outer-space shots look great, and the supporting cast is colorful: Avuncular Keene Curtis and lovely Kathleen Miller play the teammates of Saxon’s character, and guest stars include Catherine Bach, Martine Beswick, Reb Brown, Richard Farnswoth, Gerrit Graham, Bill McKinney, and James Olson. (Hardcore ’70s junkies will recognize all of these names.) There’s also an amusing contribution to the annals of sci-fi vehicles, because the characters tool around postapocalyptic Earth in the space-age equivalent of a Winnebago.

Genesis II: FUNKY

Planet Earth: FUNKY

Strange New World: FUNKY

The Swiss Conspiracy (1976)

          Perhaps because he always wears a pissed-off expression on his face, as well as swinging-single outfits noteworthy for plunging necklines that showcase his manly pelt, David Janssen looks like an unhappy tourist in many of his ’70s films. It’s as if he walked from the airport to the location, spat out his lines, and then left with a check in his hands, the ink still wet. One hopes that Janssen at least got to enjoy some sightseeing whenever he wasn’t sleepwalking through his leading role in The Swiss Conspiracy, which makes decent use of beautiful locations throughout Switzerland. The story is a convoluted and forgettable caper about crooks blackmailing account holders of a Swiss bank, with lots of double crosses and “surprise” twists, but so little attention is given to character development that it’s impossible to care what happens to any of the people onscreen. Furthermore, the movie is edited so tightly (The Swiss Conspiracy runs just 89 frantic minutes), that the logical connections between scenes occasionally become obscured. The result is a bit of a hectic blur, though the producers toss lots of eye candy at viewers in the form of attractive women, expert gunplay, high=speed chases, nasty fist fights, and even a few colorful explosions. Adding to the soulless spectacle is the presence of several name-brand actors who do perfunctory work, including John Ireland, Ray Milland, John Saxon, and Elke Sommer.

          Since these performers are directed by Jack Arnold, a capable craftsman whose best work comprised a string of Atomic Age sci-fi classics including The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1955), The Swiss Conspiracy looks and sounds like a real movie even though it’s standard-issue European junk. Janssen plays David Christopher, an American security expert hired to help bank manager Johann Hurtil (Milland) identify and capture the criminals who are extorting Hurtil’s customers. Complicating matters is the presence of Robert Hayes (Saxon), an American gangster who recognizes Christopher as a former police officer and summons Mafia hit men to Switzerland. Predictably, Christopher makes room in his schedule to romance attractive jet-setter Denise Abbott (Senta Berger), one of the blackmail victims. Story-wise, The Swiss Conspiracy is a washout. Escapism-wise, it’s not awful. Powered by a cheesy electro jazz/rock score, the movie zips along from one high-octane scene to another, mixing death and deceit into a Saturday-matinee soufflé—albeit one that never fully rises. No wonder Janssen looks so irritable in every scene.

The Swiss Conspiracy: FUNKY

1980 Week: Battle Beyond the Stars

          Roger Corman’s most successful attempt at riding the coattails of Star Wars (1977), this somewhat enjoyable space adventure represents an important juncture in several cinematic careers. It was the last of several projects that John Sayles wrote for Corman, because Sayles graduated to working for bigger producers in addition to writing and directing his own independent films. Perhaps more significantly, Battle Beyond the Stars was the first big FX job for James Cameron, who was just a handful of years away from directing his first proper feature, The Terminator (1984). Both men contributed strong elements to Battle Beyond the Stars, notably Sayles’ dry wit and Cameron’s visual ingenuity, but that shouldn’t give anyone the impression that Battle Beyond the Stars is a good movie. Quite to the contrary, it’s typical Corman junk, rushed and silly, but it has better production values than one might expect, and the combination of a familiar plot and a lively cast generate some interest.
          After all, the movie is a shameless sci-fi riff on The Magnificent Seven (1960), which in turn was a remake of the Japanese classic Seven Samurai (1954), so the underlying narrative is rock-solid even if the campy execution is not.

          Battle Beyond the Stars revolves around farmers who live on the planet Akir and are terrorized by an interstellar villain named Sador (John Saxon). The farmers send one of their own, naïve young Shad (Richard Thomas), into space so he can hire mercenaries. Eventually, Shad gathers a crew including Gelt (Robert Vaughn), an assassin hiding from outer-space authorities; Saint-Exmin (Sybil Danning), a Valkyrie seeking battlefield glory; Space Cowboy (George Peppard), an intergalactic trucker with a grudge against Sador; and others, including the predictable coterie of anthropomorphized robots. Hiring Magnificent Seven veteran Vaughn accentuates the connection to the earlier film, as does James Horner’s rousing score, which emulates the spirit of Elmer Bernstein’s famous Magnificent Seven music.

          As should be apparent by now, very little in Battle Beyond the Stars is even remotely original, and the movie’s recycled quality is as problematic as the episodic story structure. Making matters worse is the all-over-the-map acting. Peppard gives an amiable turn as the wisecracking antihero and Vaughn is suitably icy as the killer seeking redemption, but Danning is amateurish and Saxon operates on moustache-twirling autopilot. (In Danning’s defense, the voluptuous actress contributes some of the most spectacular cleavage ever seen outside of a Russ Meyer movie.) Even the effects are a mixed bag. While some design elements are interesting, Corman cuts far too many corners, so battle scenes that should be epic end up feeling anticlimactic. Plus, the movie falls victim to the usual sci-fi foible of too many goofy-sounding names and silly-looking aliens. Still, Battle Beyond the Stars has enough colorful elements to merit a casual viewing, especially for space-opera junkies.

Battle Beyond the Stars: FUNKY

Company of Killers (1971)

Originally produced for television but then, inexplicably, released to theaters, Company of Killers has a number of interesting plot elements but suffers from such herky-jerky storytelling that, among other problems, it’s almost impossible to determine which character is the protagonist. As a result, the picture ends up feeling like a teaser for a longer version in which the story actually has narrative flow. Plus, did the marketplace truly hunger for a G-rated underworld thriller? Anyway, the picture begins with Dave (John Saxon) reeling from a gunshot wound in a city park. Dave is taken to a hospital, where—woozy from anesthesia—he reveals his identity as a hired killer. Then, once Dave escapes from the hospital, police detective Sam (Van Johnson) must track the killer down before Dave completes his latest contract. Meanwhile, businessman George (Ray Milland) contacts operatives working for a gangster named John (Fritz Weaver) in order to hire a hit man (Dave, naturally) for the elimination of a boardroom enemy. The movie also crams in subplots relating to a nosy reporter (Clu Gulager), a gang moll (Susan Oliver), and other peripheral characters including a stripper and Dave’s intended target. Considering that the picture only runs a brisk 84 minutes, you can imagine how superficially each element is presented. Company of Killers has some quasi-interesting scenes, mostly involving Dave trying to evade capture and/or revealing the compassion that lurks behind his cold-blooded façade, but the filmmakers tend to introduce potentially rich subplots without ever returning to them. What’s the point, for instance, of showing that the detective schedules a meal with his estranged daughter and her boyfriend, since the meal is never depicted? Company of Killers also suffers from ugly camerawork—think harsh lighting and jittery dolly moves—to say nothing of acting that borders on the amateurish. World War II-era heartthrob Johnson seems ridiculous playing a tough cop, and urbane character actor Weaver’s attempt at dese-dem-dose diction is laughable. Milland emerges unscathed, rendering his usual blend of reptilian charm and sweaty anxiety, while Saxon somehow manages to create genuine intrigue. Despite these minor virtues, however, Company of Killers is disjointed and unsatisfying in the extreme.

Company of Killers: LAME

Mitchell (1975)

One of the least interesting entries in the ’70s cycle of action movies about cops behaving as lawlessly as the criminals they pursue, Mitchell features a disjointed storyline, lackluster action scenes, and perfunctory acting. The movie is more or less coherent, but it’s also boring, clichéd, and stupid. Hulking B-movie star Joe Don Baker plays the title character, a dim-bulb detective who gets mixed up with sophisticated crooks, so the bulk of the story involves Baker’s character trying to outwit people whose intellects greatly surpass his own. This sort of premise worked well in a zillion other movies; for instance, Baker offered an entertaining, Southern-fried spin on similar material in Walking Tall (1973). Yet everything about Mitchell feels half-assed. Baker isn’t the right casting for a tough city cop, since he’s unmistakably a good ol’ boy from Texas, and he plays nearly every scene like light comedy, even though death and destruction follow in his wake. As directed by the normally reliable Andrew V. McLaglen, Mitchell wobbles between escapism and seriousness, so it seems likely that many of the film’s tonal problems emerged during postproduction. After all, there’s no excuse for the inclusion of cornpone country singer Hoyt Axton’s lackadaisical theme song during a lengthy love scene between Baker and leading lady Linda Evans—for several excruciating minutes, Mitchell becomes the equivalent of the worst type of Burt Reynolds romp. Future Dynasty star Evans is as forgettable as always, while the actors playing the villains—the great Martin Balsam and the emphatic John Saxon—are wasted in one-dimensional roles. (Saxon’s big scene is a silly chase involving dune buggies.) Virtually nothing in Mitchell works, and the climax is beyond ludicrous. Baker’s character commandeers a helicopter to chase after bad guys who are in a boat, transfers from the helicopter to the boat, and takes out a henchman with a metal hook. All the while, the main villain simply stands at the boat’s controls, waiting to get shot instead of taking defensive action. But then again, seeing as how he’s stuck in an awful movie, can you blame him?

Mitchell: LAME

Enter the Dragon (1973)

          A pulpy blend of martial arts and James Bond-style international intrigue, Enter the Dragon suffers from cardboard characterizations, predictable plotting, and action sequences that border on self-parody. Plus, the less said about the acting, the better. Nonetheless, Enter the Dragon is fascinating almost entirely because of its leading man, Bruce Lee. Like James Dean and Marilyn Monroe, Lee became a pop-culture icon by dying young, passing away at the age of 32 just days before Enter the Dragon, his first English-language starring role, premiered. And like his fellow tragic legends, Lee justifies his enduring appeal with a peerless onscreen persona: During the film’s many fight scenes, Lee does things that shouldn’t be possible and makes them look effortless. Lithe and graceful, he attacks with blinding speed and frightening power, so even though the fight scenes are jacked up with the campy sound effects that dominated ’70s martial-arts pictures coming out of Southeast Asia, Lee emerges as a cinematic badass of the highest order.

          As for the movie itself, Enter the Dragon is pure escapist silliness. An international criminal named Han (Shih Ken) holds a martial-arts tournament on his private island, and he invites Lee’s character (who is also named Lee) to participate. Meanwhile, government agents ask Lee to accept the invitation in order to sneak around the island and confirm reports that Han is hiding a major drug operation there. Also invited to the tournament are Americans Roper (John Saxon), a white man in debt to the mob, and Williams (Jim Kelly), a black man running from charges of assaulting police officers.

          Lee, Roper, and Williams participate in the tournament by day and discover Han’s criminal activities by night, leading to a giant confrontation as good guys, accompanied by legions of freed prisoners, battle Han and his minions in an island-wide martial-arts showdown. The movie’s climax is a justifiably famous duel between Han and Lee in a hall of mirrors, with Han wearing a set of metal talons in place of his missing left hand; since Shih Ken had starred in dozens of martial-arts movies before appearing in Enter the Dragon, he makes a formidable opponent for Lee, and their battle is exciting and stylish.

          Although Enter the Dragon wasn’t the very first martial-arts movie to find success in America—the 1971 indie Billy Jack, starring American karate fighter Tom Laughlin, made a mint when it was re-released in early 1973, just a few months before Enter the Dragon hit theaters—the fact that Enter the Dragon was a U.S./Hong Kong coproduction ensured the film was steeped in genre tropes most American audiences hadn’t seen before. Furthermore, director Robert Clouse shot fight scenes somewhat like dance numbers, emphasizing the elegance of the combatants’ movements and thereby helping stoke the fires of the ’70s kung fu craze. So, while it’s easy to identify the picture’s campy faults (many of which were mercilessly satirized in the 1977 comedy flick Kentucky Fried Movie), Bruce Lee’s participation makes Enter the Dragon one of the defining movies of the ’70s.

Enter the Dragon: GROOVY

Joe Kidd (1972)

Possibly Clint Eastwood’s least interesting Western, this forgettable action flick has an impressive pedigree: Celebrated novelist Elmore Leonard wrote the screenplay, and macho-cinema veteran John Sturges (The Magnificent Seven) directed. The thin story has bounty hunter Joe Kidd (Eastwood) recruited by a rapacious developer (Robert Duvall) to track down a Mexican revolutionary (John Saxon) who is impeding the developer’s plans. The revolutionary also makes the unwise choice of getting on Kidd’s bad side. One can see glimmers of Leonard’s style in the rangy plotting and in Kidd’s bitchy comic-relief observations, but while the best Leonard-derived Westerns have rock-solid conceits (see both versions of 3:10 to Yuma), the storyline of Joe Kidd is leisurely and unfocused. The movie looks pretty good with DP Bruce Surtees behind the lens, though it seems he was asked to light sets more brightly than he usually does, and Eastwood is always a compelling to watch when he’s got a six-gun on his hip, so Joe Kidd is more or less watchable. Yet Duvall marks his time in a role so trite and underwritten it would stifle any actor, and the miscast Saxon snarls lines through a silly Spanish accent. Saxon also fails to demonstrate the charisma one might expect from a grassroots leader, so it’s tempting to conjecture that Leonard envisioned a complex characterization. Some of the shootouts in Joe Kidd are moderately entertaining, but when such incidental details as the use of unusual firearms and an appearance by Dick Van Patten as a hotel clerk stick in the memory more than the main narrative, that’s an indication something unremarkable has unspooled.

Joe Kidd: LAME

Black Christmas (1974)

          Somewhat interesting as a footnote in the history of horror films because it bridges the suspenseful storytelling of Hitchcock thrillers and the gruesome excesses of slasher flicks, Black Christmas is a low-budget Canadian flick about a psychopath stalking the residents of a sorority house. Oddly, however, the film isn’t as lurid as the premise might suggest, because there’s very little gore and almost zero sexual content; instead, director Bob Clark focuses on colorful character details. Clark, whose strange career included everything from the juvenile T&A of Porky’s (1982) to the nostalgic sweetness of A Christmas Story (1983), demonstrates his ability to let actors form distinctive characters, but also displays his inability to maintain consistent tone. The movie begins with a POV shot of a heavy-breathing nutjob slipping into the attic of the sorority house, then trudges through lengthy soap-opera scenes involving the residents, interspersed with gruesome murder vignettes in which the killer exits the attic to kill the girls one at a time. The killer also places obscene phone calls to the house, most of which are answered by supposedly sophisticated coed Jess (Olivia Hussey).
          The story is predicated on everyone overlooking the obvious, so while the idea of a killer hiding several floors above his victims is creepy, the conceit strains credibility to a ridiculous degree. Furthermore, the premise strangles suspense: Since the “big secret” is revealed in the first scene, all viewers can do is wait for characters to stop being stupid, which they never do. Still, interesting things happen along the way. Hussey, the classically pretty female lead of Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet (1968), is stiff and unconvincing, so Margot Kidder steals the show as a drunk, foul-mouthed coed named Barb, displaying the sexy vivacity that later won her the role of Lois Lane in Superman (1978). B-movie stalwart John Saxon lends solid comic and dramatic support as a cop investigating the strange goings-on at the sorority house, and Marian Waldman scores cheap laughs with a Shelley Winters-type performance as the sorority’s lush housemother.
          Black Christmas isn’t scary, but it goes to unexpected places and it conjures genuine menace whenever Clark employs long traveling shots exploring spaces where horrible things are about to happen. As for the Christmas angle, that’s a minor element of the story hyped for marketing purposes; other than carolers, decorations, and snow, the holiday setting doesn’t have any significance.

Black Christmas: FUNKY

Fast Company (1979)

Badass biker-movie veteran William Smith didn’t get many opportunities to appear in “real” movies, and it was even less common for him to play sympathetic leads. So while Fast Company is a routine B-movie elevated by the skills and reputation of its director, it also represents a high point for fans of charismatic muscleman Smith. The director is, improbably, Canadian bio-horror specialist David Cronenberg, caught halfway between his early Great White North indies and his ’80s breakout period. He does a solid job as a helmer-for-hire, delivering all the requisite drive-in whammies; lean and mean but reflecting a fair amount of craftsmanship, Cronenberg’s drag-racing extravaganza is exploitive without being out-and-out sleazy. There's violence, debauchery, and skin, but also consistent characters and a rational narrative about how a devious corporate sponsor exploits its drivers. Enter the Dragon guy John Saxon, at the height of his macho comb-over glory, revels in his villainous role, and Smith plays a simple but relatable sort of romantic lead. He also gets to deliver a few tasty lines, like when he takes a shot at his sponsor, Fast Co. Motor Treatment, during a live TV shoot: "Fast Co. is gonna keep you regular and raunchy till way after sundown." Preach on, brother man! The low-rent '70s music is atrocious and tragic ’70s starlet Claudia Jennings is underused, but the movie pays off like gangbusters. Fast Company is that rare animal of an exploitation flick you can watch without feeling skanky the next morning.

Fast Company: FUNKY