Thirty Dangerous Seconds (1972)

          In the screenwriting world, it’s commonly understood that most weak scripts falter in the second act, because it’s easy to intrigue with a lively setup and to fabricate satisfactory endings by resolving things, whereas maintaining logic and momentum in between these milestones is the tricky part. Therefore it’s peculiar to encounter a movie along the lines of Thirty Dangerous Seconds, which starts poorly, hits its stride midway through, and stumbles again toward the end—a solid second act without benefit of good first and third acts is a rare thing. Anyway, Thirty Dangerous Seconds is a low-budget crime thriller shot in Oklahoma, with clumsy regional actors supporting imported Hollywood leads.

          Briefly, here’s the laborious setup. A down-on-his-luck geologist (Robert Lansing) robs an armored car, but at the very same moment, a trio of professional criminals attempts the very same crime. When the geologist gets the loot instead of the professionals, the professionals kidnap the geologist’s wife, then threaten her life unless the geologist surrenders the stolen money. Much of the picture depicts intrigue related to meet-ups between the geologist and either the crooks or random folks enlisted by the crooks to function as surrogates. Colorful characters include an actor playing a monk, a fellow dressed as a clown, and a little person on roller skates. In its best moments—very often just fleeting instants within otherwise problematic scenes—Thirty Dangerous Seconds is a sorta-clever, sorta-whimsical riff on crime-flick tropes. Lansing imbues early scenes with self-loathing before shifting to a kind of petty crankiness, yet this entertaining posturing ceases to make sense whenever the viewer remembers that the character’s beloved wife is in mortal danger.

          And that’s the problem with Thirty Dangerous Seconds overall: The elements don’t harmonize. In a better film of this type, such as a good Elmore Leonard adaptation, attitude and logic mesh organically. In Thirty Dangerous Seconds, the lighthearted stuff clashes with the nasty stuff, the criminal scheming defies recognizable human-behavior patterns, and so on. In short, Thirty Dangerous Seconds is an amateur-hour endeavor—but it also happens to feature a few decent throwaway jokes, like the shot of actors dressed as monks while reading Playboy. And, lest this point get overlooked, recall that bit with the little person on roller skates. In the absence of real cinematic quality, flashes of lively eccentricity count for something.

Thirty Dangerous Seconds: FUNKY

Alabama’s Ghost (1973)

          Fairly late in the brief but jam-packed running time of the unclassifiable flick Alabama’s Ghost, the leading character—a nightclub stage manager-turned-superstar magician—loses his cool after surviving a bizarre attack by vampires, then runs into the comforting embrace of his mother, even though he’s a full-grown man. Upon reaching her, the fellow exclaims, “I’m freakin’ out, Mama!” You can’t blame the guy. In fact, chances are you’ll feel the same way after watching Alabama’s Ghost. Although it’s neither well-crafted nor particularly involving, Alabama’s Ghost is thoroughly weird. Consider the bizarre opening salvo. Newsreel-type footage lets us know that in the 1930s, a robot expert named Dr. Caligula was sent by Hitler to Calcutta with the goal of interviewing a famous magician known as the Great Carter about “zeta,” a mystical form of hashish. Say what now?

          Soon afterward, the story cuts ahead in time to an American nightclub where a band plays a creepy song called “Alabama’s Ghost” while the opening credits unfurl. Then we meet our protagonist (Christopher Brooks), a skinny dude working as the band’s stage manager. In a slapstick sequence (yes, really!), he operates a forklift and accidentally breaks open a wall beneath the club, revealing the Great Carter’s cache of costumes and props. Then he tracks down the Great Carter’s sister—or at least the guy in drag who claims to be the Great Carter’s sister. Oh, and at some point during this stretch, the protagonist learns that the Great Carter had “frog skin over his heart,” whatever that means. Using the dead magician’s costumes and props, our protagonist becomes the stage illusionist “Alabama, King of the Cosmos,” at which point the film shifts into a sort of “Devil and Daniel Webster” riff, with the protagonist corrupted by his unchecked ambition. Enter Otto Max (Steven Kent Brown), the talent rep with a vaguely Liverpudlian accent who takes control over Alabama’s skyrocketing career.    

          Despite being set in the ’30s, Alabama’s Ghost becomes more and more ’70s as it goes along, with the protagonist driving a bizarre car shaped like a piece of abstract art, canoodling with groupies, and experiencing what can only be called bad trips. Highlights during the second half of the picture include an extensive jazz-rock dance sequence, and an indescribable bit set in Africa featuring weird magical/tribal signifiers. Good luck discerning which material is meant to occur in “reality” and which occurs inside characters’ addled minds. Moreover, good luck figuring out much of anything regarding Alabama’s Ghost. Is it a blaxploitation joint for the midnight-movie crowd? A druggie picture with a hip music angle? A perverse throwback mixing images from different decades to achieve a bewildering effect? And what’s with all that Biblical stuff in the desert at the end, when the picture becomes an ultraviolent parable?

          Short of ingesting some of whatever the people who made this movie must have been putting into their systems, better to just groove on the movie’s strange rhythms and make of Alabama’s Ghost what you will. That is, if you can come up with any compelling reason to watch the picture in the first place.

Alabama’s Ghost: FREAKY

Human Experiments (1979)

          Perhaps you’re familiar with the concept of “Stockholm Syndrome,” in which hostages bond with their captors. I’ve discovered there’s a cinematic equivalent. If you dive deep enough into a dubious niche of movie history, circumstances may compel you to believe that your surroundings are tolerable. Commonly, this manifests as people making excuses for bad movies from favorite filmmakers. Uncommonly, this manifests as obsessive cinephiles making excuses for entire subsets of movies. Which brings us to Human Experiments, a universally derided mishmash of horror and women-in-prison elements. Had I encountered this movie at any other phase of my life, I likely would have found it cruel and exploitive. Yet because I watched Human Experiments late in the process of watching every ’70s movie, I graded the thing on a curve. So while I can plainly see that the flick is trashy and undisciplined, I can’t help but appreciate a certain kind of boldness. Writer-director Gregory Goodell commits to a grim storyline and follows that storyline into all sorts of unpleasant places. So even though the movie isn’t about anything, and even though it feels much longer than its brief running time, Human Experiments cannot be accused of meekness.

         Rachel Foster (Linda Haynes) is a nightclub singer who, though circumstances too convoluted to explain here, stumbles onto a murder scene. Arrested and convicted for killings she didn’t commit, Rachel falls into the care of Warden Weber (Mercedes Shirley) and demented prison shrink Dr. Hans Kline (Geoffrey Lewis). While Weber employs merciless rules to strip away Rachel’s rebelliousness, Dr. Kline uses her for strange experiments in transforming personalities. Long story short, this leads to scenes of Rachel discovering that fellow convicts have been brainwashed, and, eventually, to grotesque sequences of Rachel trying to escape through insect-filled catacombs beneath the prison. It’s all quite distasteful, from the leering nude scene accompanying Rachel’s arrival at prison to the surprising sequence in which her attempt at private self-pleasuring is rudely interrupted. And then there’s the bit during which B-movie stalwart Lewis, giving an oddly robotic performance, taunts an experiment subject with instructions to compliantly eat her “poe-tay-toes.” Human Experiments is too dumb and linear to seem trippy, per se, but it’s also sufficiently perverse and rangy to leave familiar exploitation-flick rhythms behind.

Human Experiments: FUNKY

No Place to Hide (1970)

          First, a disclaimer—the following remarks pertain to a recut 1980s version of an original 1970 film, so it’s possible these reactions don’t apply to the earlier version. No Place to Hide first hit screens as a low-budget political thriller featuring then-unknown Sylvester Stallone in an important role. He plays a member of a Weather Underground-type group planning to bomb an office building as an act of radical anti-Vietnam War activism. The story intercuts his exploits with an investigation by FBI agents as well as scenes depicting the activities of other radicals. An ironic oh-the-humanity ending concludes the storyline, to the surprise of exactly no one. After Stallone scored with Rocky (1976), the picture was recut to focus on his participation and given the new title Rebel. Yet another reissue followed in 1990, with the material somehow reconfigured for laughs under the moniker A Man Called . . . Rainbo. If nothing else, the mutability of the material and the apparent failure of anyone involved in the first incarnation to protect the sanctity of the piece suggests that No Place to Hide, the original film, was lackluster.

          Certainly that adjective, and much stronger ones conveying disappointment, suit the ’80s version screened for this review. (Best guess—the rights holders reconfigured the material for home-video release, adding horrible mechanized music and low-rent electronic title cards.) On the plus side, Stallone brings his usual impassioned quality to his performance as anguished radical Jerry. On the minus side, he’s grossly miscast, which becomes painfully apparent during scenes of his character romancing a hippy-dippy girl who says things like this: “The deeper I reach, the more roads I take into the universe—my universe.” Unless you’re a Sly completist, chances are the only version worth tracking down is the warts-and-all ’70s original, and even in that circumstance, viewers shouldn’t expect much. FYI, No Place to Hide features Henry G. Sanders, respected by many for his naturalistic work in Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep (1977), as the lead FBI agent. His work here is not impressive.

No Place to Hide: LAME

Apache Blood (1975)

Nearly unwatchable because of narrative incoherence, this low-budget Western depicts the exploits of an Apache warrior seeking vengeance against deceitful and murderous U.S. soldiers. It also tracks the ordeal of a soldier left behind in the wilderness after a bear attack. If that second bit reminds you of Man in the Wilderness (1971) or The Revenant (2015), most likely that’s not a coincidence; the makers of Apache Blood probably encountered the same historical records that inspired the other films. Any tangential connection to real history, however, should not give the impression that Apache Blood—also known as Pursuit—is worth watching. While there may have been a passable action-adventure film somewhere in the raw footage, the assembled movie is a mess. Scenes start and stop abruptly, transitions don’t exist, and some of the production values, especially during the bear-attack scene, are laughable. Worse, the one thing that should give Apache Blood artistic merit, the choice to exclude dialogue from most scenes, helps render the picture incomprehensible. Who are the people onscreen? What are they doing? Why are they doing it? Don’t get your hopes up about answering any of those questions, because even detecting the broad outlines of the story is challenging. Every so often, a scene makes sense for a few moments, as when the protagonist, “Yellow Shirt” (Ray Danton), sneaks up on a military encampment because a guard has fallen asleep—but then the flick devolves into awkwardly filmed action and the viewer’s sense of narrative direction disappears. Oh, and just for good measure, the film is littered with clichés, as in the scene of a U.S. soldier buried up to his head in desert sand while Native Americans charge at him on horseback. Presuming the picture’s overall goal was to counter the demeaning image of Indians as savages, trite scenes like that aren’t helpful.

Apache Blood: LAME

Blood Bath (1976)

Aping the style of horror anthologies from British production companies, this cheap and dull American compendium matches a forgettable framing device with equally uninteresting vignettes. In the framing sequences, a suave actor rumored to have made a deal with the devil for success in movies gathers several friends for dinner, and they swap spooky stories. Those stories comprise the vignettes. In the first story, a perfectionist murderer makes a deadly mistake while planting a time bomb. In the second story, a soul brother returns from the afterlife to haunt the usurious landlord who evicted him while the soul brother was a mortal. And in the third story, which feels as if it was airlifted in from an entirely different movie, a shifty martial-arts master exploits students by charging exorbitant fees for teaching a secret combat method. While there’s virtually nothing to recommend here, since Blood Bath is interminably boring for most of its running time, the sequence with the soul brother at least has some humor, as when the beleaguered ghost whines about all the paperwork he had to complete in Hell before receiving permission to haunt the landlord. The cast is strictly low-rent, though attentive viewers will spot a young Doris Roberts. As for nominal leading man Harve Presnell, who plays the movie star/dinner host, he enjoyed a respectable if unspectacular career on Broadway and in movies, often showcasing his rich singing voice. Arguably his best-known screen role was that of the aggrieved patriarch in Fargo (1996). One assumes that Presnell did not count among the highlights of his screen career the opening scene of this picture, during which his character marries a demon while the devil, portrayed by a dude wearing silly-looking horns on his forehead, stands nearby and cackles.

Blood Bath: LAME

South of Hell Mountain (1971)

          At the risk of overstating this grimy picture’s virtues, South of Hell Mountain feels like a mixture of backwoods horror flicks and the idiosyncratic style of German filmmaker Werner Herzog. The backwoods stuff manifests in the main plot, about a group of rednecks who rob a mine, kill several people in the process, and seek refuge in a remote cabin populated only by a lonely woman and her long-suffering stepdaughter. The Herzog stuff manifests in the weird parallel storyline of a young woman suffering cruel indignities in a filthy asylum. The connection is that the mental patient is the aforementioned stepdaughter, so all the scenes taking place outside the asylum are flashbacks. Seeing as how South of Hell Mountain is a low-rent exploitation picture without any marquee names, expecting a satisfactory movie experience is unreasonable. Sure enough, the plot is mean and ugly, the acting is wildly uneven, and some scenes are bewildering. Yet South of Hell Mountain is a touch more interesting than the usual southern-discomfort fare, if only because it contains so many bizarre narrative and stylistic flourishes.

          The décor of the asylum suggests some wreck of a place in Eastern Europe—cracks on the wall, hay on the floor. Periodically, Sally (Anna Stuart) interacts not with other patients but with rats. That is, when she’s not receiving mental or physical abuse from her vile matron (Elsa Raven). Even the way the camera lingers on Sally’s vacant face evokes European art cinema. None of these remarks are intended to suggest that Herzog was an influence on South of Hell Mountain, as his work was mostly unknown in the U.S. at the time this picture was made; the point is simply to note an odd cinematic coincidence. Similarly, none of these remarks are meant to suggest that South of Hell Mountain is actually good. It’s not. But it is, however, peculiar. For instance, the movie’s tone becomes nonsensical when jubilant harmonica music accompanies a sexual-assault scene, and it’s startling that the filmmakers make direct allusions to Cinderella by having Sally do housework at the behest of an evil stepmother. South of Hell Mountain doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but it is not timid, and that’s worth something.

South of Hell Mountain: FUNKY

Sixteen (1973)

          One of those lurid exploitation flicks with a hint of something serious lurking behind sexy scenarios and topless shots, Sixteen tells the slight story of two country-bumpkin teens who become separated from their parents while visiting a traveling carnival, then fall into confusing relationships with older lovers. In some ways, the fact that both a brother and sister find romance (or at least intimacy) elevates this material above the usual titillating fare; a more grotesque version of the same story would have involved two nubile girls landing in bed with strangers. What’s more, the scenes that open the picture, establishing the story’s economic backdrop and such, dramatize culture-clash themes because the clan at the center of the narrative is virtually stuck in another century, as evidenced by their use of a horse-drawn carriage. Unfortunately, director Lawrence Dobkin and his collaborators strike discordant notes as early as the picture’s first act. Watching the lengthy scene of adolescent beauty Naomi (Simone Griffeth) skinny-dipping, one gets the impression the filmmakers considered it more important for viewers to know the contours of the character’s body than to know the contours of her soul.

          In any event, Pa (Ford Rainey) and Ma (Mercedes McCambridge) take their kids to a carnival as a means of celebrating after selling a valuable piece of land. Naomi gets lost, happening upon a swaggering daredevil who performs a “Wall of Death” routine with a motorcycle. Her brother, J.C. (Buddy Foster), wanders into a tent featuring strippers. In both subplots, mature characters exploit the country kids’ naïveté. The daredevil seduces Naomi, screwing her while other carny folk watch the encounter. Over at the stripper tent, an aging exotic dancer hears about the income from the land sale, so she lures J.J. into her mobile home. As this hanky-panky happens, Pa and Ma have no clue about their kids’ whereabouts, so they reluctantly head home, believing J.J. will track down his sister and bring her home. Watching Sixteen devolve is a bummer, not because it held the promise of being a thoughtful sociocultural investigation, but because the carnival scenes have an unsettling quality that should have led somewhere more interesting. Similarly, Sixteen features some creepy intimations of incest and religiosity; more material along those lines would have helped make the picture distinctive.

Sixteen: FUNKY

Bloomfield (1971)

          Midway through his long acting career, emphatic Irish thesp Richard Harris made an unimpressive directorial debut with this soccer-themed drama, a UK/Israel coproduction for which Uri Zohar shares directing credit. (Harris took over when Zohar left during production.) Harris portrays an aging English footballer who plays for a team in Tel Aviv, and the picture explores his anguish upon realizing that his playing days are nearly over. The sloppy script, to which Harris made contributions, employs a contrived device whereby the player has a meet-cute with a 10-year-old fan, then spends most of the day preceding his final match sharing adventures with the boy. Interspersed with this material are scenes involving the protagonist and his long-suffering girlfriend, a sensitive sculptor.

          Bloomfield—released in the US as The Hero—is so schematic that every heavy-handed note signifying the protagonist’s fall from grace is complemented by an equally heavy-handed note signifying the boy’s innocence or the sculptor’s promising future. While the picture is not without insight, subtle nuances are in short supply. Virtually no explanation is given for why the story takes place in Israel, so the viewer must assume that Eitan (Harris) had a celebrated career in European football before getting recruited to goose attendance at Tel Aviv’s Bloomfield Stadium. Similarly, very little emotional backstory is provided, so the viewer must assume that Eitan is a lifelong competitor who let other aspects of his personality go fallow while pursuing athletic glory. In lieu of helpful context, Eitan comes across as a narcissistic whiner, bitching about opportunities that others would relish, such as the offer of a lifetime coaching contract.

          The familiar extremes of Harris’ acting style don’t help, because it’s barely 13 minutes into the movie before Harris embarks on one of his signature screaming rages, punctuated by pained moans and ominous glares. The directors of his best films found ways to channel Harris’ alternately incendiary and sullen persona into effective drama, but that doesn’t happen here—and the failure to make Eitan sympathetic weakens other aspects of storytelling. For instance, Romy Schneider’s turn as Eitan’s girlfriend  feels bogus because it’s hard to accept that a woman so self-assured would tolerate his bullshit. Worse, Harris and Zohar regularly lose their grip on the movie’s tone. Most scenes are played for intense drama, but periodically the movie shifts to lighthearted lyricism for musical montages.

Bloomfield: FUNKY

The Bat People (1974)

          The problem with The Bat People isn’t that the premise of a man turning into a bat is ridiculous, because creature-feature history is filled with outlandish transformation stories. The problem is that The Bat People is dull. Structurally, the picture follows the familiar template. Protagonist Dr. John Beck (Stewart Moss) receives the wound triggering his change very early in the movie’s running time. Thereafter, he suffers seizures around the same time that mysterious killings occur, causing John to fear that he’s become a killer. His long-suffering wife, Cathy (Marianne McAndrew), seeks help from a friendly physician, Dr. Kipling (Paul Carr). Meanwhile, grotesque cop Sgt. Ward (Michael Pataki) identifies John as a suspect. Et cetera. Of such slender thread countless werewolf and vampire tales have been spun. Yet in those other creature features, the creature gets featured. In The Bat People, viewers don’t see the monster—represented as an early makeup creation by the revered artist Stan Winston—until nearly the end of the story.

          Accordingly, the murder scenes involve generic POV shots, making The Bat People feel like some random serial-killer saga. Worse, almost everything that happens between the murders is drab and repetitive, such as the myriad vignettes of John staggering while his eyes roll over white. There’s not nearly enough weird stuff along the lines of John grabbing a mannequin from a store window and pummeling the mannequin’s head against pavement. Leading man Moss is a poor man’s Bradford Dillman (let that simmer in your brainpan), and leading lady McAndrew renders passable work at best. This means the heavy lifting falls to exploitation-flick regular Pataki, who puts as much oomph as he can into a clichéd role. Some viewers might find a few scenes in The Bat People creepy, such as the one depicting the final fate of Pataki’s character, but getting to these mildly rewarding moments requires trudging through a whole lot of guano.

The Bat People: FUNKY

The Sandpit Generals (1971)

          Filmmaker Hall Bartlett only made three pictures during the ’70s. Each is humanistic, musical, offbeat—and pretentious. Bartlett’s tendency for making cinematic statements reached its apex with Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1973), an audacious adaptation of the hit book about a bird searching for deeper spiritual meaning. The two Bartlett pictures bracketing this achievement are mirror images of each other. The Sandpit Generals, also known as The Wild Pack, tells the story of street urchins in Brazil seeking dignity, whereas The Children of Sanchez (1978) depicts the offspring of a willful Mexican trying to break his chain of emotional abuse. Both of Bartlett’s explorations into the rhythms of Latin culture feature evocative location photography, sprawling casts, and vibrant music. Both, to varying degrees, straddle an uncomfortable line between purposeful social commentary and overwrought melodrama.

          Bullet (Kent Lane) is the twentysomething leader of a group called “The Sandpit Generals,” comprising impoverished youths. Living in a hovel they’ve claimed as a hideout, the “Generals” venture forth to steal food and other supplies, occasionally receiving assistance from the priest who helped care for Bullet in earlier years. Bullet imposes strict codes of conduct, at one point castigating a “General” for eating garbage; during another scene, the group debates whether to excommunicate a sick kid lest he infect the whole group. Through a mosaic of impressionistic scenes, the general idea comes across that the kids have formed their own society because they have no place in the civilized world. Dramatic conflict emerges once Bullet has trouble with the law, because his arrest and subsequent incarceration in a brutal prison test his devotion to values. Will he bow to the will of the state or remain a true rebel no matter the risk? Exacerbating Bullet’s problems is his love affair with a young girl, since their future options seem grim unless something about Brazilian society fundamentally changes.

          Unapologetically political, The Sandpit Generals had an unusual theatrical life, appearing briefly on American screens before finding a huge audience in Russia, where it was perceived as a celebration of revolutionary notions about class. Viewed through modern eyes, the picture is a bit mystifying, though it does have lyrical sequences and was plainly made with great passion. The acting is consistent, no small feat with numerous juvenile performers, and that music—dark and hot and sensual—gives the film a steady pulse. Is it all a bit humorless and obvious and self-important? Sure. (Note the scene in which the priest wails, “Is it their fault that they have to steal to eat?”) But is The Sandpit Generals also compassionate and intriguing and unusual? Yes. You might not know what to make of the picture once it’s over, but it’s unlikely you’ll regret giving it a look.

The Sandpit Generals: FUNKY

The World of Hans Christian Andersen (1971)

          One of many foreign animated films retooled for US release during the ’70s, a period when original feature-length cartoons were a rarity for American movie companies, The World of Hans Christian Andersen betrays surprisingly few trades of its Japanese roots. Only the big doe eyes of the animals and children are obvious giveaways. Otherwise, the picture feels European, seeing as how the storyline is set in Andersen’s native Copenhagen. The picture’s fantastical imagery stems from stories Andersen wrote in the 19th century. Featured concepts include the Little Match Girl and Thumbelina, though the dominant magical character is Uncle Oley, who serves as a sort of ambassador to the land of imagination. Andersen himself is featured as a character, though he’s depicted as a young boy experiencing wondrous events that will inspire the stories he tells in later life. As for the plot, it’s mostly a trifle used to bind sentimental episodes. Embedded within the material is a certain grimness, given that young Hans and the girl next door, Elisa, both watch their impoverished parents and/or guardians receive economic abuse from wealthy people.

          As for the overall mawkishness, singling out The World of Hans Christian Andersen for special criticism isn’t really fair, because there was a lot of awful children’s entertainment in the ’70s. What’s more, most repurposed foreign cartoons of the period reflect the worst instincts of Hollywood storytellers. Better, therefore, to say that The World of Hans Christian Andersen is generically shabby—most contemporary adults would find the movie intolerable, and it’s a fair bet many contemporary kids would, as well. It’s all just too cutesy and dull and familiar. A magical savior flying into town using an umbrella for a parachute? Shades of Julie Andrews. A cat causing a ruckus at a formal event by chasing mischievous mice? Yawn. And those gee-whiz line readings by Chuck McCann, who codirected the American version in addition to voicing Uncle Oley? One line of dialogue, cooed to the Andersen character, should give you an idea of what to expect: “Let the children fly on your wonderful wings of happiness!” Nonetheless, it’s hard to get too upset about a project that, on some level, means well. The World of Hans Christian Andersen celebrates imagination and expresses kindhearted principles. So let’s leave it at that.

The World of Hans Christian Andersen: FUNKY

C.B. Hustlers (1976)

A grungy softcore flick thinly disguised as a sex comedy about truckers, C.B. Hustlers is so tacky that a pair of hookers who communicate with potential clients via C.B. radios identify themselves as “Hot Box One” and “Hot Box Two,” advertising their services with crude come-on lines (“Can I check your dipstick?”). In fact, much of the picture comprises drab footage juxtaposed with naughty over-the-airwaves banter. The anemic plot has something to do with police and reporters trying to expose the activities of prostitutes who drive a panel van up and down rural highways, using the vehicle as a portable brothel. About the closest the picture comes to a fully realized joke is the scene during which a client remains so focused on intimate relations with a hooker that he doesn’t realize the van is engaged in a high-speed chase with a police cruiser. To be fair, there are glimmers of backwoods wit in the dialogue, as when someone insults sex workers by calling them “double-clutching degenerates.” Yet the virtues of these comic elements are mitigated by the movie’s abysmal production values (many lifeless scenes are juiced with post-production sound), by the thoroughly rotten acting, and by the preponderance of sleazy sex scenes. While tame by softcore standards, the saucy bits comprise repetitive shots of large breasts being groped by horny truckers or squished against sweaty male torsos. The cast mostly comprises unfamiliar faces, though two “notables” are portly character actor Richard Kennedy (a staple in sex flicks) and, in a small role, Russ Meyer regular Uschi Digard.

C.B. Hustlers: LAME

Fortune and Men’s Eyes (1971)

          While undoubtedly perceived as bold—perhaps even shocking—during its original release, the prison drama Fortune and Man’s Eyes has aged in complicated ways. Not only have decades of subsequent films and television shows expanded the cultural conversation about rape behind bars (the main focus of this film’s narrative), but attitudes toward the gay experience in general have changed. It’s therefore tricky to appraise Fortune and Men’s Eyes, which exists somewhere between a museum piece, reflective of outdated perspectives, and a sociocultural artifact, capturing viewpoints midway through an important transformation. Is this picture sensationalistic trash, forefronting sexual abuse as a means of getting attention? Or is it a serious study of male psychology, using the framework of prison violence as a means of exploring broader issues? Different viewers will read the picture in different ways, so perhaps it’s best to simply say that Fortune and Men’s Eyes is committed, disciplined, and intense. Whatever ambitions the film fails to realize, it’s not for lack of trying. After all, the narrative was developed and reshaped many times while John Herbert wrote the 1967 stage play of the same name, from which this film was adapted. Herbert penned the screenplay and Harvey Hart directed.

          Set almost entirely behind bars, the film tracks the journey of Smitty (Wendell Burton), a young—and, not unimportantly, straight—man imprisoned for the first time. Despite trying to keep distance from fellow inmates, Smitty becomes a target for his cellmate, Rocky (Zooey Hall), who demands sex in exchange for protection, or else “you’re gonna spread for the whole cellblock.” Sex is the dominant currency in this film’s prison culture, so in one horrific scene, an inmate is methodically gang-raped while nearly the entire prison population—inclusive of cons and guards—listens to his agonized whimpering. Notwithstanding various subplots, particularly the adventures of a drag performer named Queenie (Michael Greer), the core of Fortune and Men’s Eyes involves Smitty’s response to Rocky’s abuse. In the broadest strokes, the film is about how prison changes Smitty from a relative innocent to something very different. 

          The film’s performances are mostly strong, though some actors play characters far removed from everyday human reality, and Hart’s camerawork is often quite imaginative, especially in terms of metaphorically confining actors behind out-of-focus objects. As for Herbert’s dialogue, it runs the gamut from realistic to stylized, and ideas are expressed clearly. So in terms of appraisal, it’s back to the nature of the piece. Is Fortune and Men’s Eyes exploitive? And if so, is it exploitive for a worthy purpose? That those answers feel elusive may be reason enough to advise wariness.

Fortune and Men’s Eyes: FUNKY

Sign of Aquarius (1970)

In the spirit of starting with a compliment, it’s novel that Sign of Aquarius examines the counterculture as it manifested in the Midwest rather than coastal cities, which received most of the attention in flicks about hippies. Made in Cleveland, Sign of Aquarius explores the dynamics in a commune whose participants distribute pamphlets and join political demonstrations. Had director Robert J. Emery and his collaborators stuck to the verité approach that distinguishes scenes of hippies interacting with everyday citizens in downtown Cleveland, the picture would have made for a better time capsule. Alas, the filmmakers tried to integrate clashes with police, race relations, and romantic melodrama, none of which is handled particularly well, and the combination of mediocre acting and stilted writing gets tiresome. Plus, by 1970, moviegoers had already encountered plenty of flicks with dialogue like this: “It’s not the ultimate way of life, but it’s a good one if it’s what you want.” (Similarly, the opening-titles song features a singer warbling about kids who “don’t dig being classified by society’s game.”) The meandering plot revolves around debauched commune leader Sonny (Paul Elliot), while most of the political stuff is carried by Mousie (Jim Coursar), an activist African-American. (He frets about the Man quite a bit.) Some elements are pointlessly lurid, such as a blood-ritual sequence that was added when the film was reissued, bogusly, as a blaxploitation joint with the moniker Ghetto Freaks. Other elements are pointlessly heavy-handed, notably the over-the-top climax. About the only stuff that resonates is procedural material showing how the commune survives, such as the vignette of kids passing the same bus passes back and forth so they can steal rides on public transportation. More of that sort of thing would have gone a long way.

Sign of Aquarius: LAME

The Black Dragon’s Revenge (1975)

After Bruce Lee died, shameless producers exploited his likeness and name in every way imaginable, whether that involved repurposing footage from unfinished projects, giving similar-sounding stage names to random performers, or, as in the case of this wretched flick, constructing entire plots around the circumstances of Lee’s death. A mindless Hong Kong/US coproduction, The Black Dragon’s Revenge stars formidable African-American martial artist Ron Van Clief as a kung-fu fighter hired to investigate Lee’s demise. Never mind trying to figure out the identity of the fellow who hires him, or why that fellow is willing to spend $100,000 on the investigation, because the storytelling here is so wretched that very little of what happens onscreen makes sense. In any event, once Van Clief’s character gets to Hong Kong, he hooks up with an old buddy, a martial artist played by Charles Bonet, and they playfully spar before joining forces. Apparently Bonet’s character is a military veteran who lingered in the Far East after his service in Vietnam concluded. Eventually, the dudes begin prowling through Hong Kong and tussling with various nefarious types, including a villain who yanks eyes from sockets, and a villainess who lobs snakes. Van Clief cuts an impressive figure, and he seems quite skilled with all the chopping and kicking and whatnot, but there’s nothing to enjoy here beyond martial-arts exhibitions, because the movie is confusing, disjointed, and schlocky. FYI, Van Clief made several other pictures in Hong Kong—perhaps they were better showcases for his talents.

The Black Dragon’s Revenge: LAME

The Death Collector (1976)

          While it hardly qualifies as an essential entry in the ’70s crime-cinema canon, low-budget indie The Death Collector—more widely distributed under the title Family Enforcer—gets the dirty job done. Set amid the ambition, betrayal, and violence of New York City goodfellas, the movie borrows a bit of Francis Coppola’s novelistic style, as well as a bit of Martin Scorsese’s gritty swagger. In other words, there are many good reasons why The Death Collector didn’t create major career opportunities for its writer-director, Ralph De Vito. Although his work here is basically competent, the picture is so derivative (and so plainly juiced by editing-room fixes) that it falls well short of being an impressive cinematic debut. In fact, but for the presence of one supporting actor, it’s probable The Death Collector would have slipped into oblivion long ago.

          Joe Pesci, later to find stardom as a tough guy in Scorsese pictures, plays his first significant film role here as a hoodlum in the protagonist’s orbit. His performance is more inventive and vital than anything else onscreen, and during one memorable bit, when his character pelts an effeminate lounge singer with peanuts for the crime of playing “Beautiful Dreamer,” Pesci presages his many onscreen outbursts of cheerful psychosis. Alas, Pesci’s character is a relatively small part of the mix, and the actor at the center of The Death Collector is far less interesting to watch.

          Joe Cortese, affecting a stiff De Niro Lite quality, stars as Jerry, an ex-con who uses old Mafia connections while starting a new career as a debt collector. As the movie progresses, he evolves from a generic thug to a slick crook with a briefcase and a suit. Unsurprisingly, he makes enemies, so midway through the story he’s shot and nearly killed—but, of course, he survives to seek revenge. Although the plot is pedestrian, De Vito deserves some credit for creating Scorsese-esque authenticity during scenes of thugs hanging out in bars and restaurants and the like. Nonetheless, if there’s a compelling reason for watching The Death Collector, beyond enjoying Pesci’s work, that reason is not immediately apparent on first viewing.

The Death Collector: FUNKY