Noon Sunday (1970)

Cheap-looking, humorless, murky, and slow-moving, Noon Sunday is ostensibly a thriller about a political assassination, but it’s really a turgid action picture noteworthy only for its location photography, since it was the first movie made in the island nation of Guam. Any expectations of a glamorous travelogue should be dispelled, however, since the filming style of Noon Sunday is ugly and unimaginative, so Noon Sunday looks very much like the myriad exploitation flicks that were made in the Philippines throughout the ’70s, only without the gonzo storytelling that distinguished those pictures. C-list Hollywood actors Mark Lenard and john Russell play mercenaries who travel to Guam in order to kill one Colonel Oong. To the accompaniment of old-fashioned music that sounds like it was cribbed from some hokey 1940s flick, the mercenaries exploit locals by using their homes for hiding places, kill underlings without hesitation, and navigate their way through armed compounds and dense jungles. There’s also a nasty bit during which Lenard’s character sleeps with a random American babe; after they screw, she stabs him and he strangles her. But he’s an okay sort of a fellow, you see, because he hesitates when compelled to detonate a bomb inside a church filled with kids and nuns. Whatever. Noon Sunday is enervated and schlocky from its confusing opening scenes to its predictable bummer ending, and even the presence of quasi-familiar actors generates little interest. TV fans of a certain age will recognize Lenard from his work in the Star Trek franchise as Mr. Spock’s dad, though he brings none of the elegance of that characterization to his perfunctory tough-guy work here. Similarly, Keye Luke’s turn as Oong bears little resemblance to his memorable work on the ’70s series Kung Fu. As for Russell, he was the star of the ’60s small-screen Western Lawman, but his impressively burly moustache is the most interesting thing about his presence in Noon Sunday.

Noon Sunday: LAME