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Incredible Hulk-Italian Job

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I

THE INCREDIBLE HULK (1977)--Directed by Kenneth Johnson.  Stars Bill Bixby, Susan Sullivan, Lou Ferrigno, Jack Colvin.  "Mr. McGee, don't make me angry.  You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."  As envisioned by writer/producer/director Johnson, who had previously run two other series about superheroes, THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN and THE BIONIC WOMAN, THE INCREDIBLE HULK was a generally well-written and mature TV show that lasted five seasons on CBS. The pilot, which aired in the fall of 1977 (the series debuted early the following year), stars Bixby as Dr. David Banner, a physician and scientist experimenting with gamma radiation to discover why human beings, during periods of extreme emotional duress, are sometimes able to perform feats of superhuman strength.  Eleven months after the car accident that claimed his wife's life, Banner still feels guilty he was unable to save her.  Working late one night at the lab, Banner gives himself an accidental overdose of gamma rays that transforms him--whenever he gets angry--into a gigantic green monster (played by bodybuilder Ferrigno), which is capable of uncontrollable and brutal acts.  Seeking help from an old schoolmate, Dr. Elaina Marks (Sullivan), Banner tries to contain his "Mr. Hyde", while obnoxious tabloid reporter Jack McGee (Colvin) seeks an investigative story on the mysterious creature he has dubbed "Hulk". 
 
Surprisingly mature and literate for a TV movie based upon a comic book, HULK, like Johnson's earlier shows, manages to maintain enough dramatic leverage to keep the adults tuned in while the kids are digging The Big Green Guy smashing through walls and tossing people into the drink.  Bixby and Sullivan provide sensitive performances that lend a great deal of weight to the emotional finale.  Ferrigno, a bodybuilder and former Mr. Olympia, has no lines, but puts more into his "hulking" role than you might expect.  Johnson also served as writer and producer of the pilot, which is generally split into two one-hour episodes in syndication.  Based on the Marvel Comics character created in 1963 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.  Richard Kiel was originally cast as the Hulk, but was replaced after a few days shooting when Johnson realized he wasn't muscular enough.  Also with Charles Siebert, Susan Batson, Eric Server and Lara Parker as Mrs. Banner.  After the series' five-year run, Bixby and Ferrigno returned in three reunion movies.  Bixby died in 1993 of prostate cancer at the age of 59.
 
THE INCREDIBLE HULK: MARRIED (1978)--Directed by Kenneth Johnson.  Stars Bill Bixby, Mariette Hartley, Lou Ferrigno.  Guest star Hartley won an Emmy for her performance in this two-part opener to THE INCREDIBLE HULK's second season on CBS.  Dr. David Banner (Bixby) journeys to Hawaii to consult a noted physician, Dr. Caroline Fields (Hartley), about his unusual medical condition:  thanks to an overdose of gamma radiation, Banner turns into a green seven-foot "hulk" (played by bodybuilder Ferrigno) whenever he becomes angry or outraged.  Unfortunately, Caroline's health is even worse; a terminal disease gives her just a few weeks to live.  As time ticks away for both of them, the two attempt to find a cure for each other's conditions, falling in love and marrying in the process.  Although acclaimed as one of the series' finest hours (or rather two), much of the lovey-dovey stuff is overly schmaltzy and demonstrated by Johnson through dated means such as montages and soft-focus photography.  Bixby and Hartley are very good in what is actually a quite intimate two-character drama, with the main characters struggling to hold on to their desperate love through an extremely trying period.  Malibu and the Universal backlot unconvincingly double for Hawaii.  Also with Brian Cutler, Rosalind Chao and series regular Jack Colvin.  Music by Joe Harnell.  Hartley became very well-known around this time for a series of popular Polaroid commercials she did with James Garner, and she later co-starred with Bixby in the sitcom GOODNIGHT BEANTOWN.
 
THE INCREDIBLE HULK RETURNS (1988)--Directed by Nicholas Corea. Stars Bill Bixby, Lou Ferrigno, Lee Purcell, Jack Colvin, Eric Kramer. First of three reunion TV-movies based upon the successful series starring Bixby as Dr. David Banner, a scientist who is transformed into the monstrous Hulk (Ferrigno) in times of stress. This failure to create a new franchise teams the Hulk up with the Mighty Thor (Kramer), who is accidentally summoned from the land of Odin by investigative reporter Jack McGee (series regular Colvin). The two heroes are then stuck into a silly plot involving thugs and kidnappers. Fans of both the series and the comics will be disappointed. Also with Charles Napier and Tim Thomerson.

THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN (1978)--Directed by William Sachs. Stars Alex Rebar, Burr DeBenning, Myron Healey. Rick Baker's gooey makeup effects are the sole interest in this throwback to B-flicks of the '50s. Rebar is the titular character, the sole survivor of a space flight to Saturn, who turns into an icky creature and spends most of the running time shambling around the community eating the flesh of his victims. Sounds like fun, and Baker's bloody, sticky, goopy makeup is impressive, but the pacing by director Sachs (who also scripted) is sometimes tediously slow, and DeBenning (BEACH RED) as the hero is wooden. Rebar is absolutely unrecognizable as the Incredible Melting Man, but has terrific billing; that must explain how he was talked into putting Baker's goop all over himself. Also with Rainbeaux Smith and future Oscar-winner Jonathan Demme in a bit part.

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN (1957)--Directed by Jack Arnold. Stars Grant Williams, Randy Stuart, Raymond Bailey, William Schallert, Billy Curtis. Gripping science-fiction tale about a man who slowly shrinks to microscopic size after passing through a radioactive mist on his boat. Along the way, he moves into a dollhouse, engages in deadly battles with a cat and spider, survives flooding in his basement, and ponders the meaning of existence. Not a typically campy 1950s B-picture, thanks to Arnold's direction and an excellent screenplay, more thoughtful and philosophical than many of its peers, by science fiction vet Richard Matheson, who adapted his novel. Clifford Stine did the amazing special effects on a relatively low budget. Produced by Albert Zugsmith. From the director of CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON.

 

THE INCREDIBLE 2-HEADED TRANSPLANT (1971)--Directed by Anthony Lanza.  Stars Bruce Dern, Pat Priest, Casey Kasem, John Bloom, Albert Cole.  "One Wants to Love!  One Wants to Kill!"  This incredible horror movie released by AIP absolutely has to be seen to be believed.  Bruce Dern, in one last gasp of drive-in madness before SILENT RUNNING, THE COWBOYS and Jack Nicholson launched him into the realm of mainstream movies, is his typically nutty self as Dr. Roger Girard, a mad scientist who, despite being married to dishy, bikini-clad Priest (TV's Marilyn Munster), locks himself in his private laboratory in order to fulfill his obsession:  creating two-headed animals, including snakes, rabbits and monkeys.  When an escaped homicidal maniac rapist (Cole) who laughs constantly falls into Roger's custody, he decides to take that extra step--for mankind's sake, of course--and graft the killer's head onto the shoulder of his hulking retarded handyman (Bloom).  The two heads talk to each other (well, more like Bloom sobs a lot while Cole laughs his head off), escape from the lab, and go on a slaughter spree, starting with some necking teenagers and moving on to a trio of bikers, who are pounded with their own chain.  As Dern's physician pal, bad Top 40 DJ Kasem tries to make sense of it all.  He has about as much success as you will.

 

Dern is the main reason to watch this crazy movie, delivering his usual intense performance combined with just the right level of tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement that, yes, this is a pretty silly movie.  What makes Dern so much fun to watch in his early psycho drive-in roles, like THE CYCLE SAVAGES and THE WILD ANGELS, is the authenticity he brought to them.  He wasn't really a biker or doper and certainly not a raving maniac, but there always was something in his eyes onscreen that made you wonder how much he was acting and how much came out of his own eccentricities.  It often appears as though he's improvising dialogue, which is just as well, since it has to be more interesting and certainly more natural than the words penned by John Lawrence (who wrote Lanza's earlier THE GLORY STOMPERS) and James Gordon White (who wrote THE THING WITH TWO HEADS the same year!).  And believe me, the script has more than a few whoppers!  Like when Dern, referring to a dead chimp, says, "You know, if this little fella had been healthy, he'd be alive right now". 

 

As whacked-out as it is, Dern's isn't the hammiest performance in the film.  That dishonor falls on Cole, whose entire repertoire consists of rolling his eyes, sticking his tongue out, laughing and panting.  It's among the worst acting you'll ever see, not even worthy of a film called THE INCREDIBLE 2-HEADED TRANSPLANT, although I must admit it sort of adds to the movie's goofy feel.  After all, it is the kind of movie where an obviously deranged mad doctor can be married to a lonely, horny, sexy blonde who takes bubble baths and lounges in bikinis and nighties, where Casey Kasem not only acts (!), but also provides the (poorly disguised) voices of several radio announcers, and where a gory opening scene of a middle-aged couple lying murdered in their home and their daughter being fondled by a crazed killer rapist can be immediately followed by a treacly soft-rock theme song titled "It's Incredible" (warbled in grand Janis Ian-style by Bobbie Boyle).

 

AIP released THE THING WITH TWO HEADS the same year, this time splicing rich bigot Ray Milland's noggin onto the body of convicted killer Rosey Grier.  TRANSPLANT is probably the better of the two films, since it's slightly nuttier and stars Bruce Dern, whose unhinged charm is easier to take than Milland's bitching and moaning.  In addition to Boyle's singing, the musical score by John Barber is one of the most unusual of the period, sounding as though one of Dern's pet monkeys was let loose in a recording studio, thumping on various harps, xylophones and keyboards as tape rolled in the next room.  Also by Larry Vincent, Berry Kroeger, Don Brodie and Jack Lester.  Priest was actually the second actress to play the normal teen daughter Marilyn on THE MUNSTERS, replacing Beverly Owen after the first season.

 

INCUBUS (1965)—Directed by Leslie Stevens.  Stars William Shatner, Allison Ames, Milos Milos, Ann Atmar, Eloise Hardt.  One of the most unusual horror films ever made was never released in the U.S., but it was a critical favorite in France.  The reason you never saw it is because writer/director Stevens (THE OUTER LIMITS) had the unique idea to perform all the dialogue in Esperanto!  Creatively, it does work with Conrad Hall’s moody black-and-white cinematography to promote an otherworldly feel.  For years, INCUBUS was thought to be lost, until producer Tony Taylor discovered a print with French subtitles in Paris.  It’s worth watching, as demon Kia (Ames, who married Stevens) tires of luring the evil and the infirm to their deaths, and decides to work her sinister charms on Marc (a pre-Kirk Shatner), a virtuous soldier who lives with his vulnerable sister Arndis (Atmar).  Marc falls in love with her immediately, but when he, not knowing her true identity, lures her into a church (which hurts her), she seeks revenge by sending an incubus (Milos) after Arndis.  Mostly shot at Big Sur, INCUBUS is an intriguing experiment for sure, but also a mature and arty film with decent performances that feels unlike anything else you’ve ever seen.  Probably because it is.  Dominic Frontiere’s score consists mainly of OUTER LIMITS cues.

 

INCUBUS (1981)--Directed by John Hough.  Stars John Cassavetes, John Ireland, Kerrie Keane, Erin Flannery, Duncan McIntosh.  You may be surprised to learn the director of ESCAPE FROM WITCH MOUNTAIN made this sleazy Canadian horror movie.  And that big-name actor John Cassavetes starred in it.  Big John, who I assume needed some quick bread to bankroll one of his own independent features, plays Sam, a physician/surgeon/medical examiner in the small New England town of Galen.  A widower, Sam is also reeling from his recent affair with an 18-year-old girl that ended in her death.  His daughter Jenny (Flannery), also aged 18, is a sweet girl whose boyfriend, Tim (McIntosh), meets with Sam's disapproval for no particular reason.

 

Sam's medical skills make him the busiest man in town when Galen is rocked by a series of brutal rapes and murders.  The female victims are shown bleeding from their pelvic areas, and suffered ruptured uteri in the attacks.  So much semen is found inside the bodies that, at first, a gang of rapists are suspected by police chief Walden (Ireland), even though the sperm is colored red.  There's also the curious fact that Tim has begun acting strangely, sweating and ranting of nightmares, after each of which he claims that another murder has taken place.  Although his story is pooh-poohed by the spineless police chief (Ireland), Sam begins to suspect the attacker is an incubus, a demon who takes the male form to impregnate women while they sleep.  He also starts a curious affair with Galen's new newspaper editor (Keane), who bears a striking resemblance to his late girlfriend.

 

Although clearly made with not a lot of money, INCUBUS is a swiftly entertaining if not completely fulfilling shocker.  Hough, a horror vet (THE LEGEND OF HILL HOUSE), skillfully films the attacks as graphically as he can without going too far (although some may argue that he did), and he wisely keeps the incubus off camera until the end.  The monster suit by Les Edwards and Maureen Sweeney is actually pretty good, but as is often the case, the film is scarier if we are allowed to use our imagination as to the creature's appearance.  Hough also found some neat old locations to shoot in, but one of the film's weaknesses is that we don't get to see much of the town or its people, and thus it feels a bit claustrophobic.  Cassavetes, with his perpetual sneer and brusque manner, is also hard to take as a hero, although his quirky performance does add to the film's interest.  Also somewhat unusual is a slight incestuous context; in Cassavetes' first scene, he peeks at his daughter stepping out of the shower, and it's surely no coincidence that Jenny and his dead girlfriend are the same age. 

 

Also with Helen Hughes, Harvey Atkin, and Mitch Martin.  Music by Stanley Myers (THE DEERHUNTER).  Cassavetes previously appeared in Hough's BRASS TARGET.  Based on the novel by Ray Russell, who penned Roger Corman's X--THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES.  I have an old radio spot for INCUBUS (its on-screen title, not THE INCUBUS as it's often referred to) that makes it seem a lot creepier than it actually is.  The Vestron Video copy runs 92 minutes on the nose and seems to be complete.


INDEPENDENCE DAY (1996)--Directed by Roland Emmerich. Stars Jeff Goldblum, Will Smith, Bill Pullman, Judd Hirsch, Robert Loggia, Margaret Colin. This highly anticipated sci-fi thriller smashed all box-office records when it was released July 4th weekend of '96. If you don't think too much about the plot holes, implausibilities, stereotypes and coincidences in the screenplay by director Emmerich and producer Dean Devlin (who also teamed up for STARGATE and UNIVERSAL SOLDIER), you should have a great time.

As if you don't know the story already, huge spaceships show up over all the major cities in the world and start blasting away. After seeing the Empire State Building, the White House and other American landmarks spectacularly destroyed, the President of the United States (Pullman) escapes with his daughter to a top-secret military base in Nevada, where he engages in strategic meetings with an eccentric mathematician (Goldblum), a hotshot Air Force pilot with a stripper girlfriend (Smith), a presidential aide (Colin), Goldblum's stereotypical Jewish father (Hirsch), a gruff Army general (Loggia) and other unlikely survivors. ID4 is basically an Irwin Allen disaster movie for the '90s, with the emphasis on special effects, pace, spectacle, and stereotyped, easily recognizable characters played by a well-known cast. Much of Emmerich and Devlin's story is based on elements from movies they grew up with, including PLANET OF THE APES, V, WAR OF THE WORLDS, STAR WARS, THE TOWERING INFERNO and other big-budget sci-fi and disaster flicks.

While Pullman is a weak Commander-in-Chief, he does manage to whip his ragtag fleet (and the audience) into a patriotic frenzy, and it's hard not to cheer when the Americans (we don't see much of the rest of the world) blast the ugly aliens into oblivion. It's the kind of movie where tens of millions of people are killed by explosions and death rays, but when one dog manages to escape a blazing fireball, the audience is moved to applaud. The special effects, combining the latest CGI technology with old-fashioned miniatures and matte paintings, are amazing, David Arnold's musical score is properly inspiring, and the actors seem to be having a good time. Also with Mary McDonnell, Brent Spiner, Randy Quaid, Gaby Hoffman, Adam Baldwin, James Rebhorn and Vivica A. Fox.
 
INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL (2008)—Directed by Steven Spielberg.  Stars Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Shia LeBeouf, Karen Allen, Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Jim Broadbent.  It’s been awhile since I was so thoroughly disappointed by a movie.  Yes, I’ve seen worse movies—much, much worse—but I’ve been waiting nearly twenty years for this one.  It has its moments, and spending more time with Ford’s enthusiastic archeologist Indiana Jones is always going to be some fun.  But.  Sigh.  But, KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL is just…a drag.

It’s easy to assign blame to executive producer/co-writer George Lucas (who takes story credit with Jeff Nathanson; David Koepp wrote the screenplay), seeing as how he destroyed the STAR WARS legacy with three inadequate sequels, but Ford and Spielberg, who also had total script approval, deserve some too.  Koepp’s treatment feels like a Frankensteinian stitchwork of “cool scenes” from the many earlier scripts Lucas commissioned during the 2000s.  Many scenes, which may have made sense in those scripts, play without context and without a point here, one example being Indy’s accidental invasion of a Nevada nuclear test site, where he ludicrously survives an atomic bomb blast.  As the button to a setpiece that integrates the surroundings into the action, this could have been fun, but as KOTCS plays, there’s no reason for Indy to even be there.

I really don’t want to spend much energy listing the reasons why KOTCS doesn’t work, not as an action/adventure or as an Indiana Jones movie.  I could talk about idiotic CGI gophers or the outlandish action scenes that bear more resemblance to Tom & Jerry cartoons than the 1940s Republic serials Spielberg and Lucas grew up with.  Or the absurd decision to make Indy a deadbeat dad by introducing motorcycle tough Mutt Williams (a miscast LeBeouf), who is sent by his mother, Marion (the welcome Allen), Indy’s flame from RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, to recruit Indy to rescue her from Russians after the titular skull.

Besides Ford, who still has a gleam in his eye that proves Indy’s having a good time, no matter what pickle he’s gotten himself into, Blanchett is the only performer who appears to understand the pulp genre.  As psychic KGB agent Irina Spalko, Blanchett decks herself out in a vaguely dominatrix uniform, complete with rapier, to knock Indy about.  Janusz Kaminski’s photography doesn’t match the richness of Douglas Slocombe’s on the original trilogy, and even the reliable John Williams seems to be sleepwalking, mostly recycling themes for the earlier pictures.  Of course, this is necessary to some extent, but this is the first score for an Indiana Jones film that I didn’t whistle upon leaving the theater.

While Lucas plans to continue making sequels with LeBeouf under Indy’s trademark fedora (good luck with that, George; I expect Shia to be in ten years where Chris O’Donnell is now), I’d rather he didn’t.  I don’t think I could take another heartbreak like this one.

INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989)--Directed by Steven Spielberg.  Stars Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Julian Glover, Alison Doody.  Besides the original, the third Indiana Jones adventure seems to be most everybody’s favorite, due to the warm byplay between Ford (as Indy) and Connery, playing Indy’s absentminded father, Henry Jones, Sr.  Jeffrey Boam’s fun screenplay sends “the Jones boys” into the Turkish desert on a search for the Holy Grail, which is rumored to bestow eternal life to anyone who drinks from it.  Few filmmakers have ever directed action better than Spielberg, who presents a desert tank chase almost on par as his classic truck chase in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.  Blond Doody is a vast improvement over Kate Capshaw in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, and former James Bond foe Glover (FOR YOUR EYES ONLY) is a classy Jones villain, though not on par with Paul Freeman’s oily Rene Belloq in RAIDERS.  In a clever and thrilling prologue, River Phoenix plays teenaged Indy, which must have spurred Lucas to create THE YOUNG INDIANA JONES CHRONICLES for ABC.  Denholm Elliott (as Marcus Brody) and John Rhys-Davies (as Sallah) are welcome returning guests from the first film.  Nineteen years later, Spielberg, executive producer George Lucas and Ford reunited for the disappointing INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL, which sadly doesn’t live up to the imaginative pulp title.

INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (1984)--Directed by Steven Spielberg. Stars Harrison Ford, Kate Capshaw, Ke Huy Quan, Amrish Puri. Sequel to RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK is overly violent, but an excellent adventure film following Jones (Ford), love interest Capshaw and young sidekick Quan into India, where they encounter a magic jewel and a white slavery ring. Whereas the first movie slowed down only briefly to allow audiences to catch their breath, this one almost never stops. The best scenes include a breathtaking mine-car chase and the Busby Berkeley-like prologue. Great use of sets and locations. George Lucas was the executive producer. Screenplay by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz (AMERICAN GRAFFITI). Music by John Williams. Look for Dan Aykroyd's cameo.

INFERNO (1999)--Directed by Harley Cokliss.  Stars Ray Liotta, Gloria Reuben, Armin Mueller-Stahl.  Liotta stars in this routine direct-to-video crime thriller as an amnesiac who wakes up in the Mexican desert and wanders back to his hotel to discover a dead man in his shower.  As he methodically puts the pieces of his identity back together, he begins to realize he's not a very nice guy.  Meanwhile, two groups of thugs--one of them working for crime boss Mueller-Stahl--is demanding that Liotta cough up the $500,000 they allege he has--something he might do if only he could remember where he stashed the damn cash.  Liotta is good, and Reuben is appealing as the love interest, but INFERNO doesn't exactly burn up the screen, and you've seen all this before.  Also known as PILGRIM, INFERNO was directed by BLACK MOON RISING helmer Cokliss.

THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS (1977)--Directed by Enzo G. Castellari.  Stars Bo Svenson, Peter Hooten, Fred Williamson.  This action-packed DIRTY DOZEN-inspired WWII adventure was made in Italy.  A small group of American G.I. prisoners--including a deserter, an Italian forger, racist conman Tony (Hooten), macho killer Canfield (Williamson) and maverick fighter pilot Yeager (Svenson)--escape from the MPs taking them to be court-martialed, and attempt to sneak cross-country across the Swiss border 160 miles away, killing lots of Germans and blowing stuff up along the way.  Unfortunately, some of those Germans turn out to have actually been American commandos undercover on a mission to stop a Nazi train, forcing Svenson’s ragtag squad to take their place in order to avoid prison. 

This movie is a lot of fun, featuring a very high body count, some funny dialogue, just enough characterization so we can distinguish among all the actors in identical uniforms, and good performances by Svenson and Williamson.  As usual, Castellari keeps the pace moving very quickly; hardly more than five minutes ever pass without some machine guns being fired or a truck or two exploding.  The final train assault is excitingly lensed by Castellari, although the trite love story subplot could have been jettisoned.  Also with Ian Bannen, Michael Pergolani, Richard Basehart’s son Jackie as a coward, Debra Berger, John Sinclair, Donald O’Brien and a cameo by Castellari.  Francisco DeMasi (LONE WOLF MCQUADE) did the militaristic score.  The first of six movies in which Svenson and Williamson have acted together.  INGLORIOUS BASTARDS has also appeared as DEADLY MISSION, COUNTERFEIT COMMANDOS and G.I. BRO.  From the director of 2020 TEXAS GLADIATORS and WARRIORS OF THE WASTELAND.

THE INITIATION (1984)—Directed by Larry Stewart.  Stars Daphne Zuniga, Vera Miles, Clu Gulager, James Read, Hunter Tylo, Robert Dowdell.  What happens when a bunch of guys from the schlock TV show BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY reunite to make a slasher movie?  Not much, although there are a couple of notable aspects of THE INITIATION:  soap opera superstar Tylo (THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL) doing full-frontal nudity (under her original married name of Deborah Morehart) and one of the stupidest denouements in horror history.

College freshman Kelly (Zuniga, who made this the year before THE SURE THING) suffers from a recurring nightmare where she stabs her father in the leg while he’s having sex with her mother and then sets on fire a strange man who enters the bedroom.  She also has no memories before the age of nine, which is coincidentally the age she is in the dream.  Meanwhile, a psycho burn victim (Dowdell, a regular on VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA) escapes from a nearby sanitarium.  I wonder if everything is somehow connected.  It is, but not exactly how you’d guess (not that you can be blamed for not predicting writer Charles Pratt Jr.’s dopey climax).  Pledging a sorority, Kelly and her friends are assigned to break into the mall that her daddy (Gulager) owns and steal a watchman’s uniform.  More murders ensue.  Tylo, as a fellow pledge, pops her top again.  We all rejoice.

The only feature directed by TV hack Stewart, THE INITIATION’s executive producers were BUCK ROGERS’ Bruce Lansbury (who made MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE and THE WILD WILD WEST, in addition to BUCK ROGERS) and Jock Gaynor (Dowdell was a guest star on their show).  Producer Scott Winant went on to make THIRTYSOMETHING, MY SO-CALLED LIFE and HIDDEN PALMS.  Pratt, Zuniga and Tylo later worked together on MELROSE PLACE.  I wonder if any of these people ever talk about THE INITIATION.

THE IN-LAWS (1979)--Directed by Arthur Hiller. Stars Peter Falk and Alan Arkin. One of the greatest screen comedies ever made. Conservative dentist Arkin's daughter is marrying crazed CIA agent Falk's son. The weekend before the wedding, the two fathers end up in a zany adventure involving a South American dictator, a firing squad, currency plates swiped from the U.S. mint and plenty of serpentining. The chemistry between the two leads is terrific, and they're aided by Andrew Bergman's (HONEYMOON IN VEGAS) hilarious screenplay. Also with Richard Libertini, Nancy Dussault, Penny Peyser, Ed Begley, Jr., Barbara Dana, David Paymer and Michael Lembeck. The infectious score is by John Morris. From the director of LOVE STORY.

INN OF THE DAMNED (1975)—Directed by Terry Bourke. Stars Judith Anderson, Alex Cord, Michael Craig, Tony Bonner, Joseph Furst. What’s this? An Australian horror western? There can’t be too many of those. And this one is toplined by Dame Judith Anderson, who was nominated for an Academy Award for REBECCA way back in 1941! With Bob Young’s swelling music underscoring scenes with hard-bitten tough guys, including an American lawman (Cord) dressed just like Tom Selleck in QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER, INN OF THE DAMNED plays like a straight western for much of its first half.
 
Cord, needing his colleague Trooper Moore (Bonner) to vouch for him to save him from a murder rap, tracks him to a picturesque hostel run by an old Austrian couple, Caroline (Anderson) and Lazar (Furst) Straulle. What we know and he doesn’t is that no one who checks in ever checks out.
 
It takes Cord well over an hour to reach the inn, and during that time, writer/director Bourke (NOON SUNDAY) manages to present an exciting chase and fight in a waterfall, the sight of Cord eating peaches off a comely topless whore, child molestation, a lesbian bathtub scene, and almost everything else that would prevent him from getting to the story at hand. It’s too bad Bourke takes 118 minutes to tell an 88-minute story, because there’s a lot that’s good here—the grisly murders, the nudity, the music, the suspenseful finale.
 
INNER SANCTUM (1948)--Directed by Lew Landers.  Stars Charles Russell, Dale Belding, Nana Bryant, Fritz Lieber.  I kinda enjoyed this laidback cheapie produced by a Poverty Row outfit called M.R.S. Pictures.  The "S" stands for Walter Shenson, who produced The Beatles' hits A HARD DAY'S NIGHT and HELP! nearly two decades later.  Most of the 62-minute running time is set inside the boarding house of Mrs. Mitchell (Bryant), the temporary dwelling of a killer named Harold Dunlap (Russell).  Dunlap murdered his fiancé in the shadows of the local train station, but a storm has washed out all the roads, forcing him to spend the night in town without luggage.  By coincidence, the only witness to the murder is a young boy named Mike (Belding), who also happens to be, along with his demanding mother, a boarder at Mrs. Mitchell's.  Long takes and flimsy production values typical to low-budget filmmaking dot this oddball noir (dig the same small interior forest set used over and over), which adds occasional comic relief in the forms of other guests to pad the storyline.  And to beat everything, the whole plot is a story told on a train to a brash young woman by a mysterious elderly gentleman (Lieber) that leads to an (unsurprising) twist ending.  Entertaining stuff.  Also with Billy House, Mary Beth Hughes and Lee Patrick.  Music by Leon Klatzkin.  One of three features directed by Landers that year--a slow one, considering he made eight in 1947 and five in 1949.

INNERSPACE (1987)--Directed by Joe Dante.  Stars Dennis Quaid, Martin Short, Meg Ryan, Kevin McCarthy.  This fun adventure/comedy was a box-office flop, probably because Warner Brothers could never decide if it fell into the science fiction, action, romance or comedy category.  It's a combination of many genres, and even though it's a little long for a comedy, the excellent chemistry between the leads, who are hardly ever on screen together, and Dante's impish sense of fun keep INNERSPACE moving.  Tuck Pendleton (Quaid) is a hotshot test pilot who is miniaturized inside of a pod and accidentally injected into the backside of milquetoast supermarket clerk Jack Putter (Short).  With only a few hours until Tuck's oxygen supply runs out, Jack, who is able to communicate with the pilot, finds himself on the run from assassins hired by Scrimshaw (McCarthy) who want to sell the secret of miniaturization to enemy nations.  Ryan, who fell in love with Quaid on this movie and later married him, tags along as Tuck's girlfriend who doesn't know Jack's unusual secret.  Dante assembles an excellent supporting cast of veterans, as well as a couple of exciting chase scenes, while Quaid's devil-may-care heroics and Short's slapstick skills keep the interest level high.  Dennis Muren's visual effects won an Oscar.  Also with Fiona Lewis, Dick Miller, Robert Picardo, Orson Bean, Kenneth Tobey, Henry Gibson, Wendy Schaal, Vernon Wells, Kevin Hooks, William Sylvester, Mark L. Taylor, Rance Howard, Chuck Jones, Joe Flaherty, Andrea Martin and the voice of Charles Aidman, who narrated TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE for executive producer Steven Spielberg.  Music by Jerry Goldsmith.

INNOCENT BLOOD (1992)--Directed by John Landis. Stars Anne Parillaud, Anthony LaPaglia, Robert Loggia, Don Rickles. Landis tried to recapture the charm of AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON with this tongue-in-cheek vampire yarn, but misses by a blood vessel. LA FEMME NIKITA star Parillaud (in her first American feature) plays a sexy vamp (who appears naked a lot) who preys only upon the necks of bad guys. When victim Loggia becomes a vampire himself, he decides to turn his entire gang into bloodsuckers too (easier to take over the city that way). Amorous Anne decides a city ruled by vampire gangsters isn't a good idea, and plans to stop them with the help of dense cop LaPaglia. Landis throws in plenty of in-jokes for horror buffs (including appearances by filmmakers Sam Raimi, Dario Argento, etc.), but the horror isn't scary enough, and the comedy not funny enough. Angela Bassett has a brief role. Shot in Pittsburgh.
 
AN INNOCENT MAN (1989)--Directed by Peter Yates.  Stars Tom Selleck, F. Murray Abraham, Laila Robins, David Rasche, Richard Young.  Selleck, just off of the long-running MAGNUM, P.I. series, is "Jimmy Rain", an airline mechanic who is framed on a drug charge by two crooked cops and sent to prison, where he is taken under the wing of lifer Abraham.  Three years later, with wife Robins waiting at home, Selleck is paroled, only to discover the detectives who set him up are still on his back.  Not even the director of BULLITT and BREAKING AWAY can breathe life into Larry Brothers' predictable screenplay, which sketches the corrupt cops like a pair of routine sport-jacketed heavies on a Glen A. Larson television series and provides a completely unbelievable climax.  While Selleck is usually an amiable light leading man, he doesn't carry enough dramatic weight to pull off the role of a hardened con, which makes much of what happens to him seem contrived.  AN INNOCENT MAN isn't an awful film, just a mediocre one with a fine supporting turn by Abraham.  Also with Dennis Burkley, Bruce Young, Badja Djola, Tobin Bell, Philip Baker Hall and Dann Florek.  Music by Howard Shore.  Joe Cocker performs "When the Night Comes", which was a Top 40 hit.
 
INSIDE DEEP THROAT (2005)—Directed by Fenton Bailey & Randy Barbato.  The 2005 documentary INSIDE DEEP THROAT opens with a claim that 1972's DEEP THROAT, the cause celebre that brought pornography to the suburbs, has grossed more than $600 million. Clearly, this is b.s. Yes, I know it's the most famous (and infamous) porn film ever made, and the box office gross includes overseas plays and home video, but $600 million is impossible. There's no reason for Universal to inflate the numbers, because I have little doubt that, in terms of production cost to profit, DEEP THROAT probably is the most successful independent picture of all time. And that's impressive enough without doctoring numbers.
 
It's a surprise to see Universal Studios and Imagine Entertainment (Ron Howard and Brian Grazer's production company) involved with this NC-17 documentary, and their participation probably added some gloss and respectability to a film that is, after all, about a notorious sex film haunted by rumors of rape, drug use and organized crime. By the way, it's completely coincidental that I'm writing about sex films in back-to-back posts.
 
DEEP THROAT, made in Florida on the cheap for around $25,000, made a household name of its star, Linda Lovelace, who was indeed the first adult film performer to become a household name--the first porn star to be referenced in Johnny Carson's and Bob Hope's monologues. Linda starred as Linda Lovelace, whose disappointing sex life was based around the odd biological mutation that her clitoris was located in her throat. Therefore, to achieve sexual fulfillment, she had to, um, hone her oral skills and find a partner with a member prodigious enough to reach her clitoris. In reality, this plot, created by writer/director Gerard Damiano, is based on Lovelace's actual talent for "deep throating," which wasn't called that, of course, until the film.
 
DEEP THROAT (which I haven't seen, by the way) struck some sort of chord with mainstream Americans, which made it a box-office sensation on the level of a Hollywood hit like, oh, THE STING or THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE. It was one of the first (maybe the first?) porn films to play regular theaters, not just the grindhouses, and the first that normal everyday suburban middle- and upper-class couples attended together. Going to DEEP THROAT in those days was no different that going to see THE GODFATHER. The fact that DEEP THROAT is, apparently, an awful film didn't matter. As one writer put it, seeing DEEP THROAT was not nearly as important as being able to say one saw it. Curiosity likely brought in more paying customers than its content.
 
Of course, where would society be without those wonderful men and women who thanklessly take it upon themselves to serve as our moral chaperones and decide for us what movies we adults should be able to see? DEEP THROAT became the subject of several court cases in which local prosecutors sought to ban the film for being obscene. In one shocking case in Tennessee, Lovelace's co-star, noted adult film actor Harry Reems, was convicted of a conspiracy charge for no other reason than that he was in the film! Thankfully, the conviction was later overturned.
 
To get back to my original subject, INSIDE DEEP THROAT is a fine documentary that looks at all facets of the film from its making, the backgrounds of its makers, and the notoriety it inspired. Directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato interview nearly everyone even remotely involved with DEEP THROAT, including Damiano (now an old man with a bad toupee in Florida), Reems (a likable, intelligent man now working in real estate in Utah), the production manager, the location manager and theater owners who booked the film (Lovelace died in a 2002 car crash, but is heavily represented through archival footage and interviews with her family and friends). Other subjects, such as directors Wes Craven (who actually directed hardcore films early in his career) and John Waters, help place the adult-film art form in its proper historical perspective, while DEEP THROAT's legal battles are concisely told by the attorneys, judges, cops and even FBI agents (!) who were involved.
 
One aspect where INSIDE falls short is its connection to organized crime. According to the film, Damiano owned 1/3 of DEEP THROAT, while two reputed mobsters (who are named) owned the rest. Even though DEEP THROAT was worth millions, Damiano's partners forced him to sell them his share for less than it was worth. INSIDE fails to dig into this story, which sounds as though it could itself be the basis of an interesting film.  INSIDE DEEP THROAT earns its NC-17 rating with many glimpses of sex and nudity and much frank talk. And, yes, you do get to see for yourself Linda Lovelace's unique talent without which this documentary could never have existed.
 
INSIDE OUT (1975)--Directed by Peter Duffell. Stars Telly Savalas, Robert Culp, James Mason, Aldo Ray. Good caper film teams up Savalas, Culp and Mason in a plot to steal some gold from the East Germans. That's the easy part; the difficult part is that they must first rescue the only person who knows the location of the gold from a Berlin prison. Good pacing and lively performances by a veteran cast. Shot on location in London, Amsterdam and Berlin. Also known as HITLER'S GOLD.
 
INSIDE THE MAFIA (1959)--Directed by Edward L. Cahn.  Stars Cameron Mitchell, Grant Richards, Ted de Corsia.  Cahn more or less remade this a year later, again with Mitchell, as THREE CAME TO KILL.  Mobster Tony Ledo (Mitchell) hopes to move up in the organization by knocking off the Mafia's big man, Johnny Lucero (Richards).  Lucero, who has been in exile for ten years, is returning to upstate New York for one day only to attend a gangland reorganization meeting.  Ledo's plan is to ice Lucero when his private plane lands at a nearby landing strip, so, with two hoods to back him up, Ledo takes hostage the one-man flight crew, his two daughters, a local cop and the youngest girl's boyfriend.  Cahn's semi-documentary approach may have been influenced by THE UNTOUCHABLES, although that show's attacks by various Italian-American defamation groups must have scared Cahn and writer Orville H. Hampton to populate their film with some WASPy mobsters with names like Regent, Alto and Raychek.  Like the rest of the Cahn/Hampton/Mitchell collaborations, MAFIA is a decent little B-picture that moves fast enough to keep you entertained for 70 minutes or so.  Also with Robert Strauss, Jim Brown (THE ADVENTURES OF RIN TIN TIN), Carol Nugent, Edward Platt (GET SMART), Sidney Clute, Anthony Carbone and Anthony Warde.  Music by Albert Glasser.
 
THE INSIDER (1999)--Directed by Michael Mann.  Stars Al Pacino, Russell Crowe, Christopher Plummer.  An all-star cast creates sparks in this thriller based on a true story: the CBS network's notorious decision to censor a 60 MINUTES investigation of the Brown & Williamson tobacco company in fear that a possible lawsuit might jeopardize the network's sale to Westinghouse.  Pacino plays Lowell Bergman, the 60 MINUTES producer who spearheaded the story, which drove him to pressure former B&W executive Jeffrey Wigand (Crowe) to come forward and be interviewed on-camera, despite the ex-employee's confidentiality agreement prohibiting him from doing so.  A mixture of THE FIRM and ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, THE INSIDER deftly uses real people and incidents to craft an intelligent thriller that's exciting and provocative, despite the lack of typical Hollywood devices like chases and fights.  Pacino and Crowe are excellent in the leads and matched by Plummer as strutting correspondent Mike Wallace.  At more than 2 1/2 hours, Mann has plenty of time to tell his complicated story using a fine cast of character actors, including Philip Baker Hall (as 60 MINUTES executive producer Don Hewitt), Gina Gershon, Diane Venora, Lindsay Crouse, Stephen Tobolowsky, Debi Mazar, Bruce McGill, Rip Torn, Wings Hauser, Gary Sandy, Nestor Serrano and Michael Gambon.  Wallace and Hewitt spoke out against the film, which was nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and Crowe, who deserved to win, as Best Actor.
 
THE INSTRUCTOR (1983)—Directed by Don Bendell.  Stars Bob Chaney, Don Bendell, Bob Saal.  THE INSTRUCTOR is one of those films that comes along so often that makes you just shake your head in wonder that it even exists.  Making a good film is extremely difficult.  Making a bad film is also hard, but making a film both this bad and this hilarious is almost impossible.  This plotless wonder is still probably the best film ever made in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.
 
Chaney, who looks like a hairy cross between Ron Jeremy and Burt Reynolds, complete with mustache, huge eyebrows and a large helmet of black curly hair (really, he looks like Count Dante in those old comic book ads), plays The Instructor (who may be named Hunter, but I couldn’t be sure).  He and his karate student, Thumper Rhodes (played by writer/producer/director Bendell), are jogging and chatting one morning when they run across both a mentally disturbed “Mama’s boy” dressed as a ninja (who picks his nose) and a gang of punks who pick a fight with them at the railroad yard.  After Thumper is easily taken out with a single blow (making his later karate championship quite laughable), The Instructor fights the rest of the gang using moves more akin to Rudy Ray Moore than Chuck Norris.  Yes, I realize Chaney really is a karate grand master, but you wouldn’t know it from this movie.
 
Nothing in the opening twenty minutes has a thing to do with the rest of the movie, which introduces Bud Hart (Saal), a rival karate instructor who is also evil, moonlighting as an assassin for a union boss.  Hart and The Instructor were childhood friends until Hart raped and murdered The Instructor’s wife.  Instead of seeking vengeance, like in every other movie, The Instructor turned the other cheek.  He really doesn’t seem bothered by it at all, not even when Hart beats up a street cop in front of him.  And not even when Hart asks the union boss to send some goons over to The Instructor’s karate school to vandalize it (they throw some papers on the floor) and rape his new girlfriend.
 
More chases and fights ensue.  I’m not sure why.  Eventually, Thumper is beaten half to death in the shower by the fat retarded ninja, who steals his karate trophy to display in his mother’s basement.  The Instructor, suspecting Bud Hart, chases his nemesis all over Cuyahoga Falls in his groovy Stingray, then on a motorcycle, and finally down a waterfall and up a mountain.  It’s a long chase and fight sequence, made even more riotous because Hart didn’t do it.  The movie finally ends with The Instructor in jail facing a murder charge, but quickly released with a $500 fine and a suspended sentence!
 
In addition to the wonky story and inept action scenes (I can’t bring myself to call them setpieces), THE INSTRUCTOR provides plenty of laughter, including co-star Bendell’s wild hair and mustache combo, The Instructor’s occasional flashbacks to better times when his wife was alive (and to Hart and him as kids playing in the woods!), Chaney’s attempt at heavy dramatic acting when he discovers his friend’s beaten body (he clutches his fists, throws his head back and screams), and the ballads that punctuate the montages.  Don’t bother trying to find out who wrote and performed them; this movie has the smallest credits I’ve ever seen.  Bendell, much to our loss, never made another movie, but he moved to Colorado shortly after THE INSTRUCTOR and became a popular author of science fiction, western and military action novels.  Chaney also moved from Ohio to California, where he operates a martial arts academy.
 
THE INTERNATIONAL (2009)—Directed by Tom Tykwer. Stars Clive Owen, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl. Although timely—perhaps too much so for its own good—this visually arresting R-rated thriller about crooked bankers plays too inertly to get any rise from its audience. When Sony finally released THE INTERNATIONAL in the middle of a major American banking crisis, people weren’t bowled over by the concept of paying to be entertained by the same type of malfeasance that led to their own unemployment. Granted, director Tom Tykwer (RUN LOLA RUN) offers one sensational setpiece—a lengthy shootout inside the Guggenheim (filmed on life-size sets designed using the original museum’s blueprints) that ranks among the year’s finest action sequences—but one awesome shootout does not an exciting movie make.
 
I appreciate the effort to make an old-fashioned international thriller aimed at adults—a rarity in contemporary Hollywood—but this one wastes glamorous Clive Owen and Naomi Watts as an Interpol agent and a Manhattan assistant district attorney, respectively, who look into a powerful Luxembourg bank allegedly laundering money for Italian arms dealers. Tykwer demonstrates occasional flair in the way he surreptitiously provides a clue here and there, and there’s no doubt his action scenes are skillfully shot and cut. Screenwriter Eric Singer even introduces a few mystery elements, such as a missing third bullet and an elusive assassin with a bum leg, that initially seem intriguing.
 
But. The movie really putts along its needlessly complex plot without a cast colorful enough to provide enough interest to care about it. THE INTERNATIONAL (even the title is blah) plays like one of those stodgy studio movies of the sixties, before BULLITT and THE WILD BUNCH rode in to change the way action movies were made. Too many white guys in business suits and European accents chatting elliptical dialogue on dimly lit sets in exotic locations brings back flashbacks of THE SALZBURG CONNECTION, not DAY OF THE JACKYL.
 
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (1994)--Directed by Neil Jordan. Stars Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Christian Slater, Kirsten Dunst. I thought this big-budget box-office hit version of Anne Rice's novel was dull as dishwater, but lots of people liked it (and the equally boring Francis Ford Coppola Dracula movie). Pitt is an 18th-century plantation owner who is turned into a vampire, and spends the next several centuries whining about the existentialism of it all. He lives with blond bloodsucker Lestat (a miscast Cruise) and 11-year-old vamp Dunst. Production values, sets and visual effects (including some pretty gory bits by Stan Winston) are properly lush, but the film seems empty to me. Slater plays a reporter to whom Pitt tells his story in flashback; Slater was a replacement for River Phoenix, who died of a drug overdose. Also with Antonio Banderas and Stephen Rea (who worked with Jordan in THE CRYING GAME). Filmed in Paris, New Orleans and San Francisco. Music by Elliot Goldenthal.

INTO THE NIGHT (1985)--Directed by John Landis. Stars Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Pfeiffer, David Bowie, Richard Farnsworth, Vera Miles. Overly violent and overly hip action/comedy about a befuddled insomniac (Goldblum) who accidentally becomes involved with a beautiful woman (Pfeiffer) on the run from emerald thieves. A typically uneven (for Landis) pastiche of action, comedy and in-jokes. Rocker Bowie makes an interesting villain. With Kathryn Harrold and Dan Aykroyd, with cameos by directors Jonathan Demme, Lawrence Kasdan, Joe Dante, Jack Arnold, Jim Henson, Roger Vadim, Don Siegel, Amy Heckerling and David Cronenberg. Music by B.B. King.

INTO THE SUN (2005)--Directed by mink.  Stars Steven Seagal, Matthew Davis, Takao Osawa, William Atherton.  Seagal doesn't exactly stretch as a CIA agent in Tokyo who investigates the assassination of an important Japanese politician.  The screenplay, co-written by Seagal, is overly complicated, but it involves a team-up between Japanese and Chinese gangsters that could turn the city into a bloodbath.  Seagal's character, Travis Hunter, was reared in Tokyo, and is apparently the only agent familiar enough with Yakuza customs to crack the case.  His officious boss (Atherton) partners him with a green FBI agent (Davis) who's so clumsy, he accidentally discharges his pistol on a crowded street.  Despite a general lack of action--Seagal's investigation mostly consists of driving from one location to the next and following the bouncing clue ball--INTO THE SUN is a mildly diverting vehicle for Seagal's fans, boasting nice production values, competent direction and photogenic Japanese and Thai locations.  Seagal does most of his fighting with a sword, adding some novelty to the action sequences, which may have been inspired a bit by KILL BILL (that film's co-star, Chiaki Kuriyama, has a five-second cameo).  The one-named director comes from music videos and is attached to the next MORTAL KOMBAT film.  Decent score by Stanley Clarke.  Listen closely to hear several songs sung by star Seagal.

INTOLERABLE CRUELTY (2003)--Directed by Joel Coen.  Stars George Clooney, Catherine Zeta-Jones.  When is a Coen Brothers movie not a Coen Brothers movie?  When Ethan and Joel Coen, two of Hollywood's most original voices, are handed a story and screenplay by three other writers, including Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone, whose BIG TROUBLE was one of last year's biggest bombs, and then teamed up with ultra-commercial producer Brian Grazer, who's a master of slick, breezy entertainment, but would barely know a rebellious idea if it nipped him in the ass.  For the Coens, who have always originated their own projects, which range from the subversive noir BLOOD SIMPLE to the Depression-era fable OH, BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?, INTOLERABLE CRUELTY must have been a whim, a challenge to see if they could work as hired hands, so to speak, within The System.  And while the film's cartoonish tone and dark comic sensibilities are sure signs of the Coens' involvement, you still get the sense that somebody--maybe Grazer, maybe Universal--is holding them back, preventing INTOLERABLE CRUELTY from being as meanspirited as it should be.

The Coens rewrote the Ramsey/Stone screenplay, of course, the result being a mad romp in the spirit of a 1930's screwball comedy, complete with silly names and rapid pun-filled dialogue.  Our (anti-)hero is Miles Massey, a shark of a divorce attorney (reinforced by his habit of always checking his freshly polished teeth) to whom cases are "campaigns" and who has become so good at his job that ennui is setting in.  And representing Massey is a genuine movie-star performance by George Clooney, whose wonderfully expressive face and commitment to being unafraid to look foolish reminds one of Cary Grant's star turns in ARSENIC AND OLD LACE and HIS GIRL FRIDAY.  Less silly, but just as luminous, is Catherine Zeta-Jones as Massey's foil, Marylin Rexroth, a golddigger with teeth more sparkling than Miles' and a body to match, poured into dresses that call to mind an amoral Jessica Rabbit.

The two first square off after tycoon Rex Rexroth (Edward Herrmann) is busted in bed with a much younger woman by ass-nailin' P.I. Gus Petch (Cedric the Entertainer) and hires Miles to ensure wife Marylin is left high and dry in the divorce settlement.  For Miles, it's love--or something--at first sight, and months later, when Marylin returns to draw up a prenuptial agreement for her impending marriage to dorky Texas oil baron Howard D. Doyle (Billy Bob Thornton), he makes a slight move on her, fascinated and perplexed by a woman as dishonorably addicted to winning as he.

It's evident that Joel and Ethan Coen love actors as much as actors love to perform in their films.  Herrmann, who has made a living playing stiff sourpusses, most notably FDR, seems positively gleeful cavorting in bed with five top-heavy underwear models (come to think of it, why shouldn't he be?).  Thornton hauls out his overused Texas drawl for a pair of sharp scenes.  Geoffrey Rush channels James Woods as a cuckolded soap-opera producer massaging the new holes in his buttocks.  Cedric the Entertainer is crude, but often funny in material that seems more akin to his sketch-comedy show than the Coens' hyperventilated universe.  Julia Duffy, who I haven't seen since the NEWHART series, portrays Marylin's snooty rich girlfriend like an older, lonelier Stephanie with a weakness for Botox as comfort food.  Royce Applegate, Judith Drake, Booth Colman and George Ives upstage even Clooney in a marvelously timed trial scene involving a middle-aged woman's claims of sex slavery against her husband.  And hulking character actor Irwin Keyes as an assassin named Wheezy Joe gets more laughs with his asthma puffer than he has in all of his other films combined.

Working with their regular cinematographer Roger Deakins (who photographs some exquisite L.A. driving scenes), composer Carter Burwell and editor "Roderick Jaynes" (the Coens' nom de plume), Ethan and Joel Coen have managed to mostly subvert INTOLERABLE CRUELTY's mainstream leanings, although the ending settles for a romantic fade, rather than the cruel fate the story demands.  Coming as it does from the creators of THE BIG LEBOWSKI, one of the funniest comedies ever made, INTOLERABLE CRUELTY can only be disappointing, and while it doesn't fall into the Coens' 50th percentile, there's enough star charisma, energy and style to make it worth a look.

NOTE:  Keep an eye out for cult actor Bruce Campbell, an old friend of the Coens (Joel worked as an editor on Campbell's THE EVIL DEAD), who pops up playing presumably the same character he did in FARGO.  Also with Richard Jenkins, Paul Adelstein, Jonathan Hadary, Stacey Travis, Tom Aldridge, Jack Kyle, Emma Harrison, Blake Clark and John Bliss.  The animated opening titles play over Elvis Presley's recording of "Suspicious Minds", the King's final #1 hit.  Songs by Simon & Garfunkel, Chuck Mangione, Melissa Manchester and Tom Jones are also used to good effect.  Applegate, who also appeared in GODS & GENERALS and SEABISCUIT in 2003, died in a New Year's Day house fire.

THE INTRUDER (1961)--Directed by Roger Corman. Stars William Shatner, Leo Gordon, Robert Emhardt. STAR TREK fans, look out! TV's stalwart Captain Kirk plays a vicious racist! He visits a small Missouri town at the time of desegregation, and convinces the bigoted white townspeople to harass the black high school students. Shatner also forces the daughter of a prominent white citizen to accuse a black student of rape. An unusually serious picture for Corman, THE INTRUDER was extremely controversial at the time, and, despite good reviews, did not do well at the box office. In fact, Corman claims it's his only film not to make money. If you can ignore the cheap production and somewhat campy (by today's standards) approach, you'll find it to be quite a powerful drama. Many of today's viewers will be surprised to see that Shatner could actually act! Screenplay by Charles Beaumont. Filmed on location in Missouri with actual townspeople playing themselves; many were reportedly upset to discover that Shatner's character was supposed to be a bad guy! With Frank Maxwell, Beverly Lunsford, Jeanne Cooper (THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS), and Charles Barnes as the falsely accused boy; I don't think Barnes ever made another film. Also released as SHAME and I HATE YOUR GUTS.

 
THE INTRUDER (1986)--Directed by Jopi Burnama.  Stars Peter O'Brian, Craig Gavin.  It's hard to believe, but this is another crazy-ass Indonesian action film featuring the same cast members as Arizal's THE STABILIZER, one of the most unforgettable films I've ever seen.  Curly-mulleted Stallone clone O'Brian is now "Rambu", a jobless dope whose life seems to consist of kicking bad guys' asses and whining about it to his sexy girlfriend afterwards.  Unfortunately, Charlie the Hit Man gets pissed when Rambu bounces a rubber ball off his forehead a dozen times and rapes and murders said girlfriend.  That gets Rambu really pissed, enough to set his vengeful sights on Charlie's employer, white-clad mobster John White (Gavin, who portrayed menacing Greg Rainmaker in THE STABILIZER).  All of the sleaze, violence, hilarious dialogue and ugly fashions lead up to a Rambo-style finale, where Rambu, shirtless and wearing a headband, stumbles upon a cache of automatic weapons in White's living room and uses it to wipe out his entire crime operation.  Holy Hannah, this is one damn funny movie.  Hard to find, but well worth the effort.  Cast members Dana Christina and Harry Capri were also in THE STABILIZER.
 
THE INTRUDER WITHIN (1981)--Directed by Peter Carter. Stars Chad Everett, Jennifer Warren, Joseph Bottoms. Silly made-for-TV ALIEN ripoff, with no blood, little sex and a man-in-a-rubber-suit monster. Everett heads a team of men and women on an Arctic oil rig who drill a little too deep one day and unearth some prehistoric eggs. Scientist Bottoms's carelessness allows some goo from the eggs to infect a male crewmember, who goes nutso and rapes one of the women. Before you can say, "Ridley Scott did this much better", she has given birth to a slimy six-foot monster that wipes out half the crew before Chad blows it away with a flare gun. Only for MEDICAL CENTER fans curious about whatever happened to hunky Dr. Gannon.
 
INVADERS OF THE LOST GOLD (1982)—Directed by Alan Birkinshaw.  Stars Stuart Whitman, Edmund Purdom, Woody Strode, Laura Gemser, Harold Sakata, Glynis Barber, David de Martyn.  I’m surprised British director Birkinshaw went on to make other movies, considering how amateurish this Italian co-production is.  Francesco deMasi’s score sounds like needle drops, and the sound quality bounces back and forth between synch sound and horrible dubbing, often within the same conversation.  Strode and Sakata are dubbed by other actors, and—bizarrely—Whitman only sometimes is.  The plot manages to make cannibals, killer crocodiles, hot nude women, cobra attacks and lost Nazi treasure come across as somehow unexciting.  A expedition partially composed of alcoholic guide Whitman, financier de Martyn and his sexy young daughter Barber, right-hand man Strode, soldier of fortune Purdom and skinny-dipper Gemser set off into the Philippines jungle to find a cache of gold hidden there 36 years earlier by Japanese soldier Sakata and two now-dead partners.  Most of the explorers are dead, either by accident or murder (or, in Gemser’s case, who knows?), by the time the movie reaches the gold.  Clunky storytelling and sleepy performances make this jungle adventure worse for wear, although English TV star Barber manages to come across as fetching and energetic.  It’s a bit hard to believe her and Gemser as rivals for the affections of fat, grizzled old Stu Whitman though.  Also known as HORROR SAFARI.
 
INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS (1973)--Directed by Denis Sanders.  Stars William Smith, Anitra Ford, Victoria Vetri, Cliff Osmond.  If only the first half of this silly sex-filled SF movie lived up to the outrageously trashy second half.  Men in a small California town are dropping like flies, all from heart attacks during sexual intercourse.  Because the first victim was an employee of Brandt Industries, a local thinktank engaging in government research, the Pentagon sends agent Neil Agar (Smith) to investigate.  Both he and the local law, headed by Sheriff Peters (Osmond), are flummoxed by the body count, which Neil and Brandt scientist Julie (Vetri) soon attribute to an invading race of "bee women" led by the sublimely sexy Dr. Susan Harris (Ford).  Although the body count is high, the first part of the film plays like a police procedural, as we watch Smith plod after clues and piece them together to discover what we already know from the title.  The SF elements come into play near the end, but a little too late.  Sanders, directing the first screenplay by TIME AFTER TIME and STAR TREK II's Nicholas Meyer, displays a lot of nudity and a bit of sexual satire, but BEE GIRLS is a hit-and-miss affair that would be ripe for a modern-day retelling.  Also with Wright King, Ben Hammer, Katie Saylor, Andre Phillippe, Rene Bond and Anna Aries.  Charles Bernstein's score is wittier than the script.
 
INVASION OF THE BLOOD FARMERS (1972)--Directed by Ed Adlum. Stars Norman Kelley, Tanna Hunter, Bruce Detrick. Extremely dumb horror film about some cult members who serve their queen by sealing their victims in plastic tubes and draining their blood. The ending is tinted red. The ads said "Don't eat before you see this show and you'll have nothing to lose!!" Whatever. Filmed in upstate New York.

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978)--Directed by Philip Kaufman. Stars Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Jeff Goldblum, Veronica Cartwright, Leonard Nimoy. This creepy remake of Don Siegel's 1956 classic is arguably the screen's best adaptation of Jack Finney's famous novel about humans being kidnapped and replaced by alien impostors. All three film adaptations are firm products of the times in which they were made: the original was a blatant metaphor for McCarthyism, Abel Ferrara's 1993 version was set on an American military base--an interesting idea for a film about relinquishing ones individuality--and Kaufman's film, set in anything-goes San Francisco, takes on all kinds of '70s trends like New Age philosophy, pop psychoanalysis and the constant threat of government interference into our lives.

Sutherland plays Matthew Bennell, a Health Department inspector who enjoys cooking who discovers that aliens are systematically substituting Earth's human population with emotionless replicants--doubles spawned from gooey pods that replace us while were asleep. Bennell's partner Elizabeth Driscoll (Adams), whose live-in boyfriend is one of the first pod people, spacey mud-bath entrepreneurs Jack (Goldblum) and Nancy (Cartwright) Bellicec and hip shrink Dr. David Kibner (Nimoy) join forces with Bennell to fight an army of invaders that has already taken over San Francisco, and is building giant greenhouses in order to grow more pods, which are then shipped all over the world. Feelings of paranoia and hopelessness ooze out of every frame of this movie; my favorite example is a routine establishing shot of Elizabeth walking to work early in the movie that opens with an extra running across the street and down the sidewalk past her, as if he's in another movie and already knows what our heroes are about to discover.

Kaufman and cinematographer Michael Chapman (THE FUGITIVE) infuse an uncomfortable atmosphere into nearly every shot, using various tilted angles and dark noir-type lighting. The supporting characters add to the creep factor, even before it's become evident what's happening, by constantly staring at our heroes through windows or potted plants, and speaking in a flat monotone, and the climax, featuring a desperate Sutherland smashing up an horde of fresh pods, is exciting, leading up to an unforgettable final shot. Denny Zeitlin's discordant musical score is fantastic and quite reminiscent of the jarring effect Jerry Goldsmith's PLANET OF THE APES music had on its audience; Zeitlin, a Bay Area psychiatrist and jazz musician, has never scored another film.

Sutherland, with a curly hairstyle and a corduroy sports jacket, is an unlikely but personable hero; since he's very much an individual invested with odd quirks--like cutting strange articles out of the newspaper--it's hard not to root for him as he witnesses humanity evaporate before him. I really like Adams, a lovely actress who, like Janet Margolin and Jessica Harper, worked in a number of unusual projects during the '70s, but never managed to translate her offbeat talents into stardom. She and Sutherland have fine chemistry together, as do Goldblum and Cartwright, whose natural eccentricities made them perfect casting for a film about people being robbed of their eccentricities. It's also nice to see Nimoy, who had worked closely with Kaufman during an aborted mid-'70s attempt at a STAR TREK feature (STAR TREK-THE MOTION PICTURE, directed by Robert Wise, eventually was released in 1979), escape typecasting as a touchy-feely intellectual type who may or may not have his motives for helping his friend Matthew.

The DVD presents the feature in both pan-and-scan and 1.85:1 non-anamorphic versions. The widescreen print looks very nice, which is important for a film that relies so much on its visual style. The surround sound made my speakers jump whenever the pop people emitted their loud warning screeches. Extras include a theatrical trailer, which is quire effective without giving away any major plot points, amusing full-motion menus (including Brooke Adams pointing and screaming), English, French and Spanish captions, and an audio commentary by Kaufman, who isn't exactly the most riveting personality, but does provide a few interesting tidbits of information (such as confirming that the frequent, periodic shots of the Transamerica Building were included as a sort of subversive in-joke, since Transamerica owned United Artists, the studio financing BODY SNATCHERS).

Also with Art Hindle (as Elizabeth's dentist boyfriend), Leila Goldoni, Tom Luddy, Garry Goodrow and memorable cameos by original INVASION star Kevin McCarthy (still running after all these years), director Don Siegel as a cab driver and Robert Duvall as a priest on a swing.
 
INVASION OF THE ZOMBIES (1962)--Directed by Benito Alazraki.  Stars Santo, Lorena Velazquez.  After two Cuba-shot quickies in which he played supporting roles, the masked Mexican wrestler El Santo made his motion-picture starring debut in this entertaining black-and-white monster movie that played in the U.S.  Professional wrestler by day and crimefighter by night, Santo works out of his secret lab filled with advanced machinery and super-spy equipment, ready to leap into his convertible at the government’s request to fight evil.  A mysteriously hooded madman is electronically reviving corpses and using the zombies to rob banks.  Meanwhile, the father of Santo’s girlfriend Gloria (Velazquez), a famous scientist, is missing.  Could the two stories be connected?  Hmmmm.  Great stuff filled with ludicrous story points, beautiful women, cool-looking zombies and lots of fighting.
 
INVASION U.S.A. (1985)--Directed by Joseph Zito. Stars Chuck Norris, Richard Lynch, Melissa Prophet. American chopsocky champ Norris was one of America's biggest box-office stars at the time he made this lunkheaded thriller for Cannon. As retired Company agent Matt Hunter, Norris spends his free time wrestling alligators and trading quips with his grizzled Indian neighbor outside his ramshackle shack in the Everglades. He reluctantly returns to action when a large gang of godless Commie terrorists led by old foe Rostov (Lynch) invades Florida and starts blowing up school buses, shooting up shopping malls, turning citizens against authority and generally making Christmas a big bummer. Although it makes sense to let the Army, Marines, National Guard, FBI, etc. in on the caper, Chuck's condition for stopping Rostov is "I work alone!" so, while hundreds of terrorists roam the Sunshine State mowing down innocent civilians, he cruises around town in his pickup truck looking for bad guys, blasting them with his twin-holstered Uzis, and moving on to the next target. Every once in a while, he runs into an obnoxious female journalist (Prophet), who never seems to write any articles or report to an editor, and, after being rescued by Chuck, shows her gratitude by yelling sarcastically, "Thanks a lot, Cowboy!"

The screenplay by Norris and Cannon regular James Bruner is worse than brainless. Characterization is kept to a bare minimum, Norris barely speaks a couple hundred words, and the woman reporter wouldn't be any more than an annoying appendage even if Meryl Streep were playing her. In the hands of Melissa Prophet, who delivers one of the worst performances in the history of exploitation films, she becomes a perplexing example of the kind of mess INVASION U.S.A. is. The whole film is merely a series of setpieces in which Norris stumbles onto someone in danger and blows the bad guys away. There's no detective work involved in which he is able to deduce where Rostov's men will pop up next. No, he just drives around until he accidentally discovers the script's next action scene. Rostov's plan, as far-fetched as it seems, would stand a better chance of succeeding if he'd just give it priority, but, noooo, he has to kill Chuck Norris first. You see, years before, Chuck had interrupted one of Rostov's terrorist plots, and--gulp--kicked the Russian square in the face. One time. It must have been one heckuva kick, because Rostov still has nightmares about it, and refuses to fully commit himself the invasion until Chuck is dead.

A lot of bullets fly in this movie, and director Zito, who previously worked with Norris on MISSING IN ACTION, at least keeps things moving fairly quickly, tossing in a few smooth dolly shots and splashing enough blood on the screen to keep nondiscriminating audience members (like me) from getting bored. Working with a reported $10 million budget, Zito manages to get it all on the screen, photographing enough exploding houses, squibbed chests and burning men to keep Cannon's stunt crew plenty busy. INVASION U.S.A. may be stupid, crude and confusing, but it certainly isn't boring, and is pretty typical of the fun but empty-headed stuff Cannon was putting out in the mid-'80s.

I was surprised to notice that MGM/UA's videocassette is in surround stereo, with Jay Chattaway's score blaring from the rear speakers. Chuck's brother Aaron was the stunt coordinator and co-writer of the original story. Also with Eddie Jones, Alexander Zale, Billy Drago (who became Norris's adversary in DELTA FORCE 2), Alex Colon, and Dehl Berti, although Chuck's pet armadillo gives the film's liveliest performance. Former Flipper child star Luke Halpin was the marine coordinator. Tom Savini supervised the special makeup effects. From the director of FRIDAY THE 13TH--THE FINAL CHAPTER.
 
THE INVINCIBLE BARBARIAN (1982)--Directed by Franco Prosperi.  Stars Pietro Torrisi, Sabrina Siani, Giovanni Cianfriglia, Rita Silva, Emilio Messina.  This guy sure gets his ass kicked a lot for someone allegedly “invincible.”  Even a girl beats him up without even working up a sweat.  Twin boys are born to a woman who dies at childbirth as her entire village is destroyed by evil warrior Nuriak (Messina) and his goons.  One of the babies is to be “The Chosen One”.  Both are rescued and reared by an army of bodacious Amazons, but no one knows which is to receive the super mystical sword and medallion and battle evildoers.  When they reach adulthood, the Amazon queen (Silva) orders them to fight to the death.  The bad actor in the ill-fitting blond wig (Torrisi) wins and takes the name Zucan.  He lets the loser, the bad actor in the ill-fitting dark wig (Cianfriglia), live, but his evil twin kicks his ass and poses as Zucan, only to get his ass killed by Nuriak’s men.  The real Zucan hooks up with a hot slave girl (blond Siani, a veteran of terrible Italian exploitation movies), making the Queen jealous.  First she sentences Zucan to exile, but after he gets his ass handed to him (again) by an Amazon with a magic shield, she lets him stay.  Instead, she captures Siani and turns her over to Nuriak as ambush bait.  More slow-motion swordfights follow, the kind where the actors don’t try to hide that their fake swords are bouncing off their victims.  Zucan and Siani survive a deathtrap where she is stripped and forced to lie naked on top of her lover as spikes tear into her back.  Several minutes of ponderous narration and stock footage of the solar system and fighting dinosaurs get the movie off to a dull start, but eventually the bad dialogue, dubbing, fight choreography and storyline draw you in, not to mention Sabrina Siani’s body.  Not nearly as difficult to watch as I had expected, and parts of it are really funny.

INVISIBLE GHOST (1941)--Directed by Joseph H. Lewis. Stars Bela Lugosi, Polly Ann Young, John McGuire. Poverty Row studio Monogram tried to disguise this slightly entertaining mystery as a horror movie. There's no ghost in it--invisible or otherwise. Lugosi gives an atypically warm performance as Kessler, a wealthy man with a beautiful daughter (Young, sister of Loretta) who remains haunted by the knowledge that, some years earlier, his wife ran away with his best friend. His large house has been plagued by a series of unsolved murders over the years. When Young's fianc (McGuire) is convicted and executed for one of them, his twin brother arrives to clear the family name. Film contains a goofy and illogical screenplay by Helen & Al Martin that actually adds to the fun, as does Lugosi and a pretty good supporting cast. Also with Clarence Muse (very good as the family butler Evans), Terry Walker, Betty Compson and Ottola Nesmith. From the director of GUN CRAZY.

INVISIBLE INVADERS (1959)--Directed by Edward L. Cahn. Stars John Agar, Robert Hutton, John Carradine, Phillip Tonge, Jean Byron. Hooboy, is this a turkey! Cahn, who directed several entertaining low-budget crime dramas and westerns during the late '50s and early '60s, didn't fare so well in the science fiction field. After nuclear scientist Karol Noymann (Carradine, who has very little screen time) blows himself up in his laboratory and is mourned at his funeral, his colleague Dr. Penner (Tonge) is stunned that evening when Noymann comes a-knockin' at the door, a bit pasty-faced, but able to walk and talk. Only he ain't really Noymann. He's actually an emissary for a group of aliens who have been spying on Earth from their hidden base on our moon. Oh yeah, and he's invisible too. And has arrived in an invisible spaceship (a pretty pathetic concept, but great on the ol' special effects budget). Noymann gives Penner a message: the governments of Earth have 24 hours to surrender, or else his people will destroy us. Of course, Penner becomes a laughing stock--his own daughter Phyllis (Byron, later on THE PATTY DUKE SHOW) and her sort-of boyfriend Dr. Lamont (Hutton) barely believe him, and Earth's leaders merely mock him. Hopefully, Penner remembered to say "I told you so" when the invisible aliens begin reanimating the corpses of Earthlings and send them shambling out to wreak all kinds of havoc, like crashing cars and planes and blowing lots of stuff up. Teaming up with no-nonsense Army Major Jay (Agar), the Penners and Lamont barricade themselves in a bunker located in Bronson Caverns, while working against time to develop a method for stopping the invasion.

Carradine really got off easy, since he got to shoot all his scenes in a day and go home. Everyone else had to stick around for the seven or eight days it must have taken to film this dreck. Filled with somnambulant performances (what else would you expect from Hutton and Agar?), mucho stock footage (some of which does contain nice miniature work--and the rolling car crash from THUNDER ROAD), non-existent special effects, and static direction by Cahn, INVISIBLE INVADERS fails to work on any level. Although the fate of the whole world is in danger, we never see anything outside of Griffith Park, and the four protagonists have barely any contact with other living beings. Screenwriter Samuel Newman also penned THE GIANT CLAW and several Jungle Jim movies. Cahn and producer Robert E. Kent made 31 movies together; I think INVISIBLE's production company, Premium Pictures, may have belonged to Kent. Music by Paul Dunlap.

THE INVISIBLE MAN (1933)--Directed by James Whale. Stars Claude Rains, Gloria Stuart. Classic Universal horror film is based on the story by H.G. Wells. Rains is outstanding as a scientist who develops a method (using a drug known as monocaine) to turn objects invisible. He uses himself as a guinea pig; unfortunately, the process turns him insane as well as invisible. While police and his friends, fellow scientists and fianc search madly for him, Jack Griffin goes on a megalomaniacal murder spree that terrorizes England. Rains is never seen until the end; his performance is totally voice-driven, and what a marvelous performance it is. Great special effects by John P. Fulton; watch for the blooper near the end when Rains leaves shoeprints (!) in the snow. Frightening, witty & smart, THE INVISIBLE MAN is one of the best horror films of the decade. Look for John Carradine and Dwight Frye in bit parts. From the director of FRANKENSTEIN.

THE INVISIBLE MAN RETURNS (1940)--Directed by Joe May. Stars Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Vincent Price, Nan Grey, John Sutton. First sequel to THE INVISIBLE MAN concerns Sir Jeffrey Radcliffe (Price), who is on death row for his brothers murder. Dr. Frank Griffin (Sutton), the brother of the original Invisible Man, turns Radcliffe invisible to effect his escape. Price has to find the real murderer and clear his name before the drug (here called duocaine) drives him mad. With his marvelous voice, Price was great casting for a role played almost completely unseen. The special effects by John P. Fulton are marvelous, and this Universal horror is great fun.

THE INVISIBLE MONSTER (1950)--Directed by Fred C. Brannon. Stars Richard Webb, Aline Towne, Stanley Price, Lane Bradford, John Crawford. Not one of Republic's best chapterplays, THE INVISIBLE MONSTER contains no monster, and the invisibility gimmick is used to little effect. Price plays a megalomaniac who calls himself the Phantom Ruler, who has ideas of creating an invisible army that will enable him to rule the world. Operating out of a warehouse basement, he has created a chemical which, when mixed with the rays of a special lamp, will allow any object coated with it to become invisible. Clad head to toe in a chemical-coated robe and mask, the Phantom Ruler, aided by two henchmen, pull off a number of robberies to finance his deadly scheme. His plans are waylaid by insurance investigators Lane Carson (Webb) and Carol Richards (Towne), who are hot on his trail at all times. One could do a lot of interesting and fascinating things with an invisible villain, but scripter Ronald Davidson and director Brannon don't seem to have thought of any. Price is a colorless villain, and, in fact, there's rarely any reason for him to become invisible--a visible bad guy could carry out most of his exploits just as easily! Webb (soon to become TV's Captain Midnight) has a great voice, but comes off wooden here, and the stunts and special effects, while well-handled by Republic's topnotch crew, are mostly unoriginal and unexciting. You'd be much better off with Republic's THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL or SPY SMASHER instead. Also with Dale Van Sickel, John Hamilton, Dave Sharpe, Tom Steele, Douglas Evans, George Meeker, Eddie Parker and Edward Keane. Charles Regan is credited in the cast list, but does not appear anywhere in THE INVISIBLE MONSTER.

IRON EAGLE (1986)—Directed by Sidney J. Furie.  Stars Louis Gossett Jr., Jason Gedrick, Tim Thomerson.  This monumentally stupid pro-Reagan military thriller somehow spawned three sequels.  It has excellent special effects and a wildly simplistic political viewpoint that makes the Rambo films look progressive.  High school student Doug Masters (Gedrick) and his Junior Woodchucks, along with retired colonel Chappy (Gossett), make the Air Force look like a bunch of boobs as they steal classified information, hack into the base’s computers, file false flight plans, and manage to swipe a pair of fully armed F-16s so Doug and Chappy can fly to Libya and rescue Doug’s father (Thomerson), a pilot shot down and sentenced to hang.  Oh, and it all happens in about a day and a half.  Gossett is very good and tries very hard to sell the premise, which is somewhat reminiscent of RED DAWN but somehow even less plausible.  Lots of cool combat footage (some filmed using radio control models) and a silly but exciting race between a Cessna and a dirt bike, along with a hip rock soundtrack (Doug can’t concentrate in the air unless he’s cranking his favorite tunes), helped make IRON EAGLE a hit.  Also with Melora Hardin (later on THE OFFICE), Robbie Rist (Cousin Oliver on THE BRADY BUNCH), Jerry Levine (TEEN WOLF), Larry B. Scott (REVENGE OF THE NERDS) and David Suchet (POIROT).  Score by Basil Poledouris.  Filmed partially in Israel.

THE IRON GIANT (1999)--Directed by Brad Bird. Stars the voices of Jennifer Aniston, Harry Connick Jr., Christopher McDonald, Eli Marianthal. One of the best animated features in some time, THE IRON GIANT, from former SIMPSONS director Brad Bird, has no talking animals, no wacky sidekicks and no treacly Alan Menken songs. What it does have is imagination, charm and a whole lotta heart.

Set during the '50s in the quaint Maine town of Rockwell (as in Norman), THE IRON GIANT focuses on young Hogarth (Marianthal), a typical boy who likes furry critters, monster movies and Superman comic books. He'd like a pet, but his single (widowed?) mom Annie (Aniston), who works as a waitress at the local diner, won't allow it. Later that night, while engrossed in a schlocky B-movie on late-night TV, he hears noises outside. Investigating, he discovers a 100-foot robot chomping on the nearby power plant. Scared out of his wits, he rescues the robot from electrocution by flipping off a handy on/off switch. His mother doesn't believe his story, but sinister G-Man Kent Mansley (McDonald), sent by Washington to investigate a sailor's wild tales of a sea monster (the robot crashed off the Maine coast from his outer space flight), does, and resorts to some underhanded tricks to force Hogarth to tell what he knows. Hogarth eventually befriends the robot, and calls upon local junk-dealing beatnik artist Dean (Connick) to help conceal it, which of course ain't easy with a 100-foot metal-eating talking robot.

This movie contains plenty of action and comedy, and is the result of a sharp screenplay by Bird and Tim McCanlies (based upon a novel and play by Ted Hughes that I'm not familiar with) that creates a warm sense of nostalgia for the simple Red-baiting '50s (the government-issued duck and cover atomic scare films are lovingly spoofed here; can you believe how blatantly the U.S. Government lied to us back then?) and living, breathing characters (more realistic than those in many live-action movies) who speak sharp dialogue. The friendship that develops between Hogarth and the robot is very similar to the one between Elliott and E.T. in Steven Spielberg's E.T. THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL, and in fact there's a strong Spielberg feel to the whole film, which is not a knock of Bird or the movie, but illustrates Hogarth's position as protector and defender, especially when the narrow-minded military hears word of the robot's existence. There's also a strong anti-gun stance here, but not any stronger than BAMBIs (there's even a dead deer), but it bears more resonance following the recent mass shootings in America. Best of all, even though it's a family-oriented film (there's some minor swearing and a laxative joke), THE IRON GIANT will appeal to all ages, and is a rare animated feature that won't bore parents, especially the ones who grew up reading Superman comics in the '50s. Also with the voices of James Gammon, Cloris Leachman, M. Emmet Walsh, John Mahoney and Vin Diesel as the robot. Music by Michael Kamen is appropriately sensitive and heroic, while a few era novelty tunes lend a sense of setting. The Who's Pete Townshend was an executive producer.

IRRESISTIBLE FORCE (1993)--Directed by Kevin Hooks.  Stars Stacy Keach, Cynthia Rothrock, Christopher Neame.  Coming in at just about 75 minutes, this CBS TV-movie is a decent time-waster, about on the same level as a WALKER, TEXAS RANGER episode.  Keach is pretty good as a veteran cop who promises his wife that he'll stay out of shootouts from now on by teaming up with a female partner, his logic being that women are more likely to negotiate than draw their weapons.  Ironically, Keach draws Rothrock, a new recruit who actually flunked out of the police academy for--ho ho!--being too aggressive.  But the force needs more female cops, so little Cynthia, she of the high-kicking feet and vacuum-packed sweater hugging her too-large-for-her-tiny-frame bosom, becomes Stacy's new partner.  And just in time to rip off DIE HARD by getting trapped inside a new shopping mall being held hostage by terrorist Neame.  Hooks and writer Carleton Eastlake offers plenty of wisecracks, gunfire and plot contrivances, which are nicely held together by Keach's presence and Rothrock's moves.  The Gold Coast of Australia uncomfortably fills in for Southern California.  Also with Nicholas Hammond (THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN), Michael Bacall and Paul Winfield.  Music by David Michael Frank.  Might have made for an interesting series. 

THE ISLAND (1980)—Directed by Michael Ritchie. Stars Michael Caine, David Warner, Jeffrey Frank, Angela Punch McGregor, Brad Sullivan, Frank Middlemass. Universal’s notorious big-budget flop solves the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle. You’ll never guess what it is. Pirates. Arrrrr!

Caine, in the middle of his prime “paycheck” period, plays a reporter named Blair Maynard, who takes his 12-year-old son Justin (Frank) to investigate the Bermuda Triangle. Their flight with the world’s worst pilot (a welcome Brad Sullivan) crashes and burns in the Triangle, where father and son are kidnapped by a band of buccaneers.

At first, the pirates, who have been pillaging the seas for 300 years and speak their own language of backwards English, plan to kill Blair and Justin, but the group’s leader, John David Nau (Warner, a year after playing an excellent Jack the Ripper in TIME AFTER TIME), has a better idea. Since generations of inbreeding have left the tribe unable to generate healthy children, Nau decides to use Blair to “thrust” with the island’s lone woman (McGregor). He also brainwashes Justin into becoming his son; his planned initiation will be to kill his father.

Ritchie’s film is the best kind of terrible movie. It isn’t dull, and it doesn’t play it safe. Peter Benchley adapted his own novel, but Ritchie is unable to work magic on the author’s material the way Steven Spielberg transformed Benchley’s terrible JAWS novel into a horror classic. It’s hard to believe we’re supposed to take THE ISLAND seriously, but scenes like Caine’s tangle with a phony jellyfish or a mulleted kung fu fighter wearing nut-squeezingly tiny shorts are clearly meant to be suspenseful.

Caine is a real pro, and never lets his (presumed) disdain for the material get in the way of an entertaining performance. The pirates’ inexperience with holding prisoners is made clear in the number of times Maynard escapes their clutches, and the reporter’s surprising ability to swim miles in choppy Caribbean waters makes me think he should have chased an Olympic medal instead of a journalism career.

Many critics were undoubtedly appalled at the level of gore and violence in THE ISLAND, particularly the fake-looking makeup effects in the opening scene and the wild finale involving Caine getting medieval with a machine gun. The violence definitely fits Ritchie’s over-the-top tone, and even though I think the intelligent director was miscast here overall, I think it makes sense to go nuts with the squibs in a film where a reporter and his son battle anachronistic pirates on a desert island.

Adding to the hilarity is Caine’s brief but definitely out-of-place anti-drug message during a pirate raid on a sailboat. Ennio Morricone’s lively score tries its best to save this goofy movie, but there’s only so much il maestro can do.

THE ISLAND AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD (1974)--Directed by Robert Stevenson. Stars David Hartman, Donald Sinden, Mako. Epic Disney adventure film in the 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA mold. Hartman (a dull action hero) joins wealthy Englishman Sinden on a 1907 Arctic expedition to find Sinden's missing son. They encounter a race of Vikings. Good special effects and sets, but the film is dull. Maurice Jarre contributed the score.

ISLAND CLAWS (1981)—Directed by Hernan Cardenas. Stars Robert Lansing, Barry Nelson, Nita Talbot, Steve Hanks, Jo McDonnell, Martina Deignan. Writer/producer/director Cardenas has his heart in the right place, but making crabs—as ugly as they are—look menacing is too difficult for him. Professional performances, authentic Florida scenery, and a musical score by Bill Justis (SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT) that evokes monster flicks of the 1950s go a long way towards making this movie feel creepier than it has any right to be.

Irish bar owner Moody (Lansing), pretty blond reporter Jan Raines (McDonnell), and hunky marine biologist Pete (Hanks) battle the cranky crustaceans after nuclear power makes them feisty enough to attack bicyclists and blow up a school bus. The fact of the matter is crabs are slow and they’re soft and I don’t think people have a natural aversion to them like they do spiders or snakes. Now, when the giant crab shows up in the third act…that is awesome. Cardenas’ ecological message gets lost amid the crab attacks, but who cares when there’s a giant roaring crab.

As killer-crab pics go, ISLAND CLAWS falls behind Roger Corman’s more atmospheric ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS, but #2 ain’t bad. An attempt to add texture through backstory involving Jan’s wealthy father and the death of Pete’s parents almost works, but falls off the road on the way to the big crab finish. FLIPPER star Luke Halpin was among the stuntmen on this film co-written by Ricou Browning.

THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU (1977)--Directed by Don Taylor. Stars Burt Lancaster, Michael York, Nigel Davenport, Barbara Carrera. This big-budget (by AIP standards at least) adaptation of H.G. Wells anti-vivisection treatise is better than you may have heard, but it isn't scary, and the makeup by John Chambers, Dan Striepeke and Tom Burman isn't as believable as the ones they created for PLANET OF THE APES. York plays a sailor named Braddock, who is shipwrecked upon a remote island in the Pacific inhabited by the mad Dr. Paul Moreau (Lancaster), who is experimenting on animals, transforming them into humans in an attempt to learn more about heredity and discover new methods of curing disease. Braddock also meets Moreau's beautiful ward Maria (Carrera), who knows only of life on the island, and falls in love with her. Braddock is horrified by Moreau's experiments, which have resulted in a band of mutated animals living in a nearby cave, but when he protests too much, Moreau captures him, reverses his procedure, and regresses Braddock into a savage.

York is pretty good, especially during his transformation scenes, but Lancaster doesn't have a whole lot to do except mouth typical movie mad scientist platitudes, and Davenport, as Moreau's guilt-ridden assistant Montgomery, is completely wasted. Carrera is a vapid actress, but she's also exotically gorgeous, which is really what her role calls for. Some of the editing seems abrupt, making me think AIP may have done some last-minute cutting before release; my guess is that Maria was written by John Herman Shaner and Al Ramrus and played by Carrera as one of Moreau's subjects, but that this important character element was removed by the studio to ensure a happily-ever-after ending. Fine score by Laurence Rosenthal uses strident strings and brass to create a soundscape reminiscent of Bernard Herrmann or Jerry Goldsmith's PLANET OF THE APES music. Filmed in the Virgin Islands. Also with Richard Basehart as the Sayer of the Law, David Cass, Gary Baxley and Nick Cravat as MLing. From the director of ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES and DAMIEN: OMEN II.

THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU (1996)--Directed by John Frankenheimer. Stars Marlon Brando, Val Kilmer, David Thewlis. This whacked-out version of H.G. Wells' classic novel is not really a good movie, but it's so off-the-wall bizarre that I almost have to recommend it. You should be familiar with the story by now: Brando is the eccentric genius Dr. Moreau, who lives on a private island where he experiments on animals in an attempt to turn them into humans. Thewlis is a United Nations diplomat stranded at sea, who is rescued and taken to the island by Moreau's assistant Kilmer. There Thewlis is horrified by the weird array of freaks and monsters created by Moreau. This film had an extremely troubled production, and a film about the making of this film would probably be more entertaining than the film itself. The original director, Richard Stanley (who retains screenplay credit), was fired soon after shooting started.  Frankenheimer was brought in, cast member Rob Morrow (NORTHERN EXPOSURE) was fired, Kilmer decided he didn't want to play the U.N. diplomat, so he was shifted to the role of Montgomery, and Thewlis was hired to play the role Kilmer originally was signed for. Brando decided to play his first scene in a Mama Cass-like caftan and covered head-to-toe in white pancake makeup (he appears in a later scene wearing an ice bucket on his head!), and Kilmer affects a Brando imitation for much of his part. A good score by Gary Chang, some lush location photography (shot in Australia), convincing makeup and creature effects by Stan Winston, but the last half hour really falls apart, and ISLAND must be considered an interesting failure. I guess that's better than many of the cookie-cutter adventures coming out of Hollywood these days. Also with Fairuza Balk and Ron Perlman.

ISLAND OF TERROR (1966)--Directed by Terence Fisher. Stars Peter Cushing, Edward Judd, Carole Gray. Nicely paced horror movie about the inhabitants of a remote island off the Irish coast being terrorized by bone-sucking monsters that crawl (slowly) across the ground. A reclusive scientist seeking a cure for cancer created them accidentally. Leading the fight are a womanizing young doctor (Judd) and his wisecracking mentor (Cushing, who is great). With more money for special effects, this could have been a lot better, but there's something refreshing about it just the way it is. Some scenes are pretty shocking (like Cushing's hand amputation!).

ISLAND OF THE BURNING DOOMED (1967)--Directed by Terence Fisher. Stars Christopher Lee, Patrick Allen, Jane Merrow, Peter Cushing. From Planet Films, which tried to take a bite out of the British horror pie dominated by Hammer and Amicus. During the dead of winter, a small island off the British coast is in the midst of a mysterious heat wave. A scientist played by Lee discovers the cause: invading aliens made of heat impulses that proceed to burn many of the island's inhabitants to a proverbial crisp. Eventually it rains, and the creatures (which look like large glowing rocks) are destroyed. Allen is a typical British stiff-upper-lipped hero, and Merrow makes a lovely heroine. Lee, Cushing, and director Fisher usually worked for Hammer. A pretty good film, but not as good as the title. Ronald Liles and Pip & Jane Baker adapted John Lymington's novel, NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT.

IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE (1958)--Directed by Edward L. Cahn. Stars Marshall Thompson, Shawn Smith, Kim Spalding. Scripted by science-fiction scribe Jerome Bixby, this, more than any other '50s monster movie, is often referenced when discussing ALIEN. A team of American astronauts travels to Mars to pick up the only survivor (Thompson) of a previous expedition. Thompson is accused of killing the rest of his team, and is being brought back to Earth to stand trial. He claims some sort of monster slaughtered his crew, but no one believes him--that is, until the creature stows away aboard their spacecraft and begins murdering again. While the makers of ALIEN had surely seen IT! at some point, I'm not sure their monster movie was a direct ripoff. The idea of a rampaging killer on board a spaceship was not new, even in 1958. This, however, is not too bad, considering the low budget and the lowly skill of director Cahn (INVISIBLE INVADERS). Some of the special effects are surprisingly ambitious (shots of two astronauts walking on the outside of the ship), and the monster suit, while possessing a silly scowl on its face, is menacing enough. Also with Ann Doran and Ray "Crash" Corrigan as the blood-drinking Martian.

IT CAME FROM HOLLYWOOD (1982)--Directed by Malcolm Leo & Andrew Solt. Stars John Candy, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Cheech & Chong. Fun compilation of clips from campy B-flicks of the 1950s and '60s. Look for your favorite scenes from such classics as ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN, THE BRAIN THAT WOULDNT DIE, THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN and a whole segment on Edward D. Wood Jr.! I could do without the unfunny introductions by Candy and Co. though.

IT CONQUERED THE WORLD (1956)--Directed by Roger Corman. Stars Peter Graves, Lee Van Cleef, Beverly Garland. "It" is a ridiculous-looking three-foot rubber monster shaped like an artichoke. A scientist (Van Cleef) talks to it on his ham radio and becomes its slave. The monster from Venus also takes control of neighbor Graves's wife, so Peter blasts her with a shotgun. When "it" goes too far and murders Van Cleef's wife (Garland) with rubber bat creatures, he goes out to Bronson Canyon and destroys it with a blowtorch. Corman's second science-fiction picture pretty much sealed his future. Also with Corman regulars Dick Miller, Jonathan Haze and scripter Charles B. Griffith. Paul Blaisdell "plays" the Venusian.

IT LIVES AGAIN (1978)--Directed by Larry Cohen.  Stars Frederic Forrest, Kathleen Lloyd, John Ryan.  Several months after the events of IT'S ALIVE, more mutant babies have been discovered across the country.  The government has discovered a method of predicting prenatally which mothers are likely to deliver monsters, resulting in a group of covert operatives who kidnap the mothers and slaughter their children at birth.  Frank Davis (Ryan), the father of the first killer baby from the original film, opposes this faction and takes steps to protect expectant mother Jody Scott (Lloyd) and her lawyer husband Eugene (Forrest).  Unlike IT'S ALIVE, in which the protagonists attempted to destroy the monster, our heroes do their best to defend the creature from a murderous government force.  They are eventually given shelter in a scientific community, where they discover the existence of two more mutants.  Ryan takes a backseat to Forrest and Lloyd this time, but all three actors are quite good, even when Cohen's screenplay occasionally falters.  Cohen again refrains from showing too much of the monsters, which are again created by the great Rick Baker.  It's not as good as the first film, but is more polished and scarier than its immediate sequel.  Bernard Herrmann was dead by the time IT LIVES AGAIN was made, so Laurie Johnson refurbished Herrmann's cues from the original and even orchestrated some new ones.  Jim Dixon returns as LAPD officer Perkins, appearing with Andrew Duggan, John Marley and Eddie Constantine.  Filmed in Tucson, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

 
IT’S A BIKINI WORLD (1967)--Directed by Stephanie Rothman.  Stars Tommy Kirk, Deborah Walley, Sid Haig.  Trans America tried to rip off AIP’s Beach Party movies to dismal results.  First off, you have to buy wimp Kirk as the beach’s most handsome stud and most accomplished athlete.  Done laughing?  Then try on this sitcom plot about new-in-town bikini girl Delilah (Walley) rejecting BMOC Mike Samson (Kirk) for Mike’s glasses-wearing, intellectual, milquetoast brother Herbert (also Kirk).  But ho ho, Herbert doesn’t really exist--he’s actually Mike wearing a disguise in order to teach Delilah a lesson (even though Mike is clearly the one with something to learn).  You won’t care about their relationship or Rothman’s staging of the world’s dullest cross-country race, but the musical acts are pretty fab.  You get Eric Burdon and the Animals (Eric looks bored singing “We’ve Gotta Get Outta This Place”), the Toys, the Gentrys, Pat & Lolly Vegas, the Castaways (with a blistering “Liar, Liar”) and a kickass instrumental theme composed by Mike Curb and Bob Summers.  Bobby “Boris” Pickett plays a supporting role, but doesn’t sing.  Also with Suzie Kaye, Jack Bernardi and William O’Connell.  Rothman and co-writer/producer/husband Charles Swartz went on to make better exploitation movies for their own company, Dimension.
 
IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD (1963)--Directed by Stanley Kramer.  Stars Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, Dorothy Provine, Ethel Merman, Jonathan Winters, Jimmy Durante, Spencer Tracy et al.  Kramer throws everything--including the kitchen sink--into this all-star three-hour-plus epic comedy about a large group of greedy people in a hunt for $350,000 buried beneath a "big W".  Most of the great comic actors in the cast get plenty of opportunity to ham it up big, and Kramer keeps the stunts and laughs moving right along.  Also with Buddy Hackett, Mickey Rooney, Edie Adams, Dick Shawn, Phil Silvers, Don Knotts, the Three Stooges, Jerry Lewis, Jack Benny, Carl Reiner, Buster Keaton, Leo Gorcey, William Demarest, Andy Devine, Arnold Stang, Marvin Kaplan, Sterling Holloway, and Peter Falk!  From the director of Judgement at Nuremberg.
 
IT'S ALIVE (1974)--Directed by Larry Cohen.  Stars John Ryan, Sharon Farrell.  Leave it to offbeat writer/producer/director Cohen to create the best killer-monster-mutant-baby movie ever made.  It took audiences awhile to find this unique horror movie, which attempts to humanize its monster and make the viewer feel sympathy for it, much like FRANKENSTEIN and KING KONG.  Los Angeles is shaken by the birth of a mutant baby, a hideous and fierce monster that tears apart the entire medical team in the delivery room and then escapes into the city.  One faction, including local law enforcement and the baby's father, Frank Davis (Ryan), wants to destroy the killer infant; another, led by a team of scientists curious to study the phenomenon, wants it captured alive.  So does its mother, Lenore (Farrell), who doesn't see her son as a monster, merely a confused child looking for love from his mother.  The concept is admittedly campy, but Cohen and the cast wisely play it straight, resulting in genuine chills and intelligent subtextual themes of intolerance and filial togetherness.  Ryan has a tendency to ham it up, but his performance is strong and goes a long way towards making you believe the premise.  Also with Andrew Duggan, William Wellman Jr., Guy Stockwell, James Dixon, Robert Emhardt and Michael Ansara.  Ryan, Duggan and Dixon returned in the first sequel, IT LIVES AGAIN.  Rick Baker created the monster child, which is shown infrequently (and not enough, in my opinion).  Bernard Herrmann crafted the old-fashioned score.
 
IT'S ALIVE 2--See IT LIVES AGAIN.
 
IT'S ALIVE III: ISLAND OF THE ALIVE (1987)--Directed by Larry Cohen.  Stars Michael Moriarty, Karen Black, Jim Dixon.  Moriarty is failed actor Steve Jarvis, the father of another mutant baby who successfully convinces the courts not to kill the monsters, but to instead strand them on a deserted island.  Five years later, Jarvis joins a scientific expedition intended to study the progress of the five murderous children there, but the brats attack them, wiping out everyone except for Jarvis and taking their boat back to Florida to wreak havoc there.  Moriarty's performance is the weak link here; at times, he's astonishingly sincere, but most of the time he doesn't appear to be taking the film seriously, ad-libbing, singing, acting unnaturally silly, and ruining the verisimilitude needed to provide dramatic weight to a story involving killer infants.  Cohen's film, lensed in Kauai, is slick but uneven, and while you can still find hidden messages preaching tolerance of humans who are different, this second sequel falls flat in both the horror and humor departments.  Laurene Landon co-stars with Gerrit Graham, Art Lund, William Watson and Macdonald Carey.  Music by Laurie Johnson. 

THE ITALIAN CONNECTION (1973)--Directed by Fernando DiLeo. Stars Henry Silva, Woody Strode, Adolfo Celi, Mario Adorf. Gritty Italian crime drama about small-time pimp Luca Canali (Adorf), who's marked for death by a pair of American hitmen (Silva, Strode) from New York. The Mob wants Canali dead after he was framed for the theft of $6 million in drug money, a cache that was actually swiped by Milan boss Don Vito (Celi). As Don Vito tries to silence Luca and Silva and Strode party it up in Milan nightclubs, Luca scrambles madly to discover why he's been marked for assassination, his desperation changing to vengeance after his wife and daughter are murdered by Don Vito's men. Silva and Strode are great, but receive too little screen time--they vanish completely for at least a half-hour, before reteaming for the violent climax. The movie's major setpiece is a combination foot/car chase which delivers the bloody goods, even if DiLeo's film could have used a bit more of this type of action. Also with Luciana Paluzzi, Cyril Cusack, Femi Benussi, Sylva Koscina and Francesca Romana Coluzzi. Jazzy music by Armando Trovajoli. Celi and Paluzzi share no screen time in ITALIAN, but also appeared in THUNDERBALL. Also known as MANHUNT, MANHUNT IN MILAN, HIT MEN, HIRED TO KILL, BLACK KINGPIN and in its original language as LA MALA ORDINA.

THE ITALIAN JOB (1969)--Directed by Peter Collinson. Stars Michael Caine, Noel Coward, Benny Hill. An amusing British caper flick with a terrific car chase involving three Mini Coopers, one painted red, one white and one blue. Caine is Charlie Croker, a thief just out of prison who is handed the plans for an intricate scheme to rob an Italian armored truck of $4 million in gold. He receives financial backing from mobster Bridger (Coward), who runs his crime empire from behind bars. Troy Kennedy Martin's script is clever and witty, with Caine (who's very charming) and Coward getting all the great lines. The climactic car chase, while featuring some nice stuntwork, is played more for laughs than thrills, while the film's cheeky final scene, while in character with the attitude of the picture, may leave you a bit frustrated. The atypical score by Quincy Jones relies more on strings and harpsichords than the usual funk with which he is associated. Also with Raf Vallone, Tony Beckley, Robert Powell and Maggie Blye. Filmed mostly in London and Turin, Italy. Cinematographer Douglas Slocombe shot the Indiana Jones series.
 
THE ITALIAN JOB (2003)--Directed by F. Gary Gray.  Stars Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, Edward Norton, Jason Statham, Mos Def, Seth Green, Donald Sutherland.  Making a film is a difficult enough task without shooting yourself in the foot before you've even started.  For Paramount Pictures and director F. Gary Gray (THE NEGOTIATOR) have remade not only an old caper film starring Michael Caine, but one that has achieved a major cult following, especially in the United Kingdom, where dedicated fans began roaring as soon as the news of a revamped version appeared.
 
THE ITALIAN JOB, which was released in the U.S. by Paramount in 1969, is a much larger cult sensation in England than it is here, partially because of an ill-advised American advertising campaign featuring a road map drawn on the bare back of an English lass (which annoys Caine to this day), but more likely because of its overt "Britishness".  From its "England against the World" attitude to the prevalence of Union Jacks in its set dressing, THE ITALIAN JOB's wearing of its nationalistic pride on its sleeve makes robbery seem almost patriotic.  In fact, a poll taken earlier this year by London's DAILY TELEGRAPH selected one of Caine's lines as the greatest one-liner in movie history, just ahead of Clark Gable's "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."
 
Caine is as charismatic as ever as master thief Charlie Croker, whose first stop upon leaving prison is his tailor's (in the Swinging '60s, fashions changed as quickly as one's underwear).  After a "welcome home" orgy thrown by his favorite bird Lorna (Maggie Blye), Charlie begins planning his latest caper:  the theft of $4 million in gold right off the streets of Turin, Italy, an elaborate caper that involves a large team of specialists, including chubby-chasing computer expert Benny Hill; financial backing from mega-dignified criminal Noel Coward (it's amusing to speculate about the conversations Coward and Hill may have had on the set); a plan that involves clogging Turin's streets with traffic by dickering with the traffic lights; and, what everyone mostly remembers about the film, a delightful car chase involving three Mini Coopers--one red, one blue and one white (there's that Union Jack again)--that have more character than some of the humans do.  Add a funny screenplay by Troy Kennedy Smith (REILLY: ACE OF SPIES), cheeky direction by journeyman Peter Collinson (OPEN SEASON), an atypically playful score by Quincy Jones and a wonderful supporting cast including Raf Vallone and Rossano Brazzi, and a gold heist has never been this much fun.  Caine, the epitome of working-class cool, is absolutely magnetic, and comparing his cocksure performance with the humorless hitman he played in GET CARTER is a wonderful gauge of his range as an actor.
 
Which leads to a major weakness of Paramount's new interpretation, a clean, by-the-numbers chase movie that replaces Caine in the lead with the waxen Mark Wahlberg (BOOGIE NIGHTS), who couldn't brighten a movie screen if you spotted him a wreath made of 1000-watt bulbs around his neck.  One thing about Wahlberg you can admire is that he's a glutton for punishment.  His last three roles have been remakes of parts originally played by Caine, Cary Grant and Charlton Heston.  He's neither the actor nor the presence of any of them, but I suppose there's something to be said for trying.
 
Once you suspend your disbelief far enough to accept that Wahlberg is both smart and charming enough to lead a gang of gold thieves, THE ITALIAN JOB is actually kind of fun, if not quite the breezy delight of the original film.  This time, Croker masterminds a heist in Venice, Italy, which leads to a double-cross and the murder of his mentor John Bridger (the avuncular Donald Sutherland).  Shot up and left for dead by their turncoat colleague Steve (Edward Norton), Croker and his merry men--driver Handsome Rob (Jason Statham), computer genius Napster (Seth Green) and explosives expert Left-Ear (Mos Def)--lick their wounds and, one year later, head to Los Angeles for revenge, stopping off along the way to pick up Bridger's lovely daughter Stella (Charlize Theron), an expert safecracker.
 
While lacking the joie de vivre that made its predecessor one of the all-time great caper flicks, THE ITALIAN JOB serves its purpose, which is to deliver a mild combination of laughs and thrills and be completely forgotten by the time your popcorn has digested.  Writers Donna and Wayne Powers (DEEP BLUE SEA) have taken a few ideas from Martin's 1969 screenplay, including the concept of creating a massive traffic jam to mask a getaway, but set them in L.A. and added little to them that is new.  The Mini Coopers are back (and in the same colors), but look more like products in a car commercial than the impish creatures driven by the Remy Julienne stunt team in the original, where they spurted through sidewalk malls, up the sides of buildings, and off one roof onto another.
 
The press has well documented Norton's displeasureable experience.  Paramount forced him to appear to fulfill a contractual obligation, and it's easy to see why he was dissatisfied.  His role, as important as it is, is perhaps the thinnest in the movie, nothing more than a standard heavy in a mustache.  He's talented enough to be watchable, but it's clear he isn't working very hard in this misuse of his talent (the fact that he played virtually the same role in a previous Paramount caper film, THE SCORE, works against him as well).  He still generates more heat than the lunky Wahlberg, who has a nice smile and doesn't bump into the furniture.  If you find yourself wondering why he, instead of the more charismatic English actor Statham, is running the show, you won't be the only one.

Copyright 2002 Marty McKee