CAST AWAY (2000)--Directed by Robert Zemeckis. Stars Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt. A cynical and unimaginative drama almost made palatable by its likable leading man, Tom Hanks, who won a Golden Globe for his performance as on-the-go Federal Express exec Chuck Noland, a man who learns to stop and smell the roses only after losing touch with civilization for four years. Hours after saying a Christmas Eve goodbye to fiancé Kelly (Hunt), Chuck's airplane crashlands somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Washing ashore with only a bloodstained volleyball named Wilson to keep him company, Chuck manages to survive using only desperation, his wits and a few camping tricks. This extended second act is by far CAST AWAY's most interesting, and it's a tribute to Hanks as an actor and as a movie star that it's difficult to imagine anyone else we'd like to see alone onscreen for such an extended period.

Unfortunately, Zemeckis and screenwriter William Broyles Jr. (APOLLO 13) skip what would appear to be the most interesting segments; instead of showing how Chuck manages to deal with loneliness and despair, the narrative conveniently cuts from Chuck's first few days on the island to four years later. The filmmakers also waste an opportunity near the end to examine Chuck's emotional and mental state in favor of a treacly love story involving Kelly, who, after four years, has finally buried Chuck figuratively and begun a new life with a new husband and baby. I also found the constant commercial interruptions to be extremely annoying; the first twenty minutes are one long Fed Ex strokefest, and not more than a few minutes ever go by without the familiar Fed Ex logo being shoved into the camera.

Zemeckis, whose USED CARS and BACK TO THE FUTURE were among the most subversive and cleverly funny comedies of the 80s, has disappointingly become no more than an unimaginative, albeit slick, studio hack with little regard as to the intelligence of his audience (he countered criticism of the blatant spoilers contained in the CAST AWAY and WHAT LIES BENEATH trailers by saying that the audience wants to have the endings spoiled for them in advance). CAST AWAY is saved only by Hanks' performance, which even makes up for the condescending symbolism of its final scenes. Also with Nick Searcy, Chris Noth, Nan Martin, Timothy Stack, Jay Acovone, former Roger Corman leading man Michael Forest and country singer Lari White. Music by Alan Silvestri.

THE CASTAWAY COWBOY (1974)--Directed by Vincent McEveety. Stars James Garner, Vera Miles, Robert Culp, Eric Shea. Garner and Culp in a Disney movie? Evil Culp wants widow Miles's potato farm. Garner does the protecting in this routine comedy set in 1850s Hawaii. Nice scenery.

CASTLE IN THE DESERT (1942)--Directed by Harry Lachman. Stars Sidney Toler, Richard Derr, (Victor) Sen Yung, Douglas Dumbrille, Henry Daniell. Routine but entertaining Charlie Chan mystery finds the Honolulu detective stranded in a castle in the Mojave Desert with bumbling Number One Son (Yung) and a series of murders and usual suspects. Derr is likable as usual, and Daniell is always a welcome B-movie sight. Last Chan entry produced by 20th Century-Fox before the series--and Toler--moved to the low-budget but still entertaining pastures of Monogram. Also with Arleen Whelan, Edmund McDonald, Ethel Griffies.

 

THE CASTLE OF FU MANCHU (1969)--Directed by Jess Franco.  Stars Christopher Lee, Tsai Chin, Richard Greene.  Franco, Lee and writer/producer Harry Alan Towers hit the wall with their final Fu Manchu adventure, this one shot primarily in Spain.  Too many setpieces rely upon obvious stock footage (including tinted scenes from A NIGHT TO REMEMBER!), and the plot makes less sense than ever.  Evil Asian mastermind Fu Manchu (Lee) invents a freeze gun that he plans to use to destroy the world's oceans.  Why he would do this, I don't know, but in order to do it, he needs the help of a renowned scientist, Professor Heracles (Gustavo Re).  He kidnaps Heracles, but discovers his captive has a bad heart, so he then kidnaps Dr. Kessler (Gunther Stoll) and his assistant Ingrid (Maria Perschy) to perform a heart transplant.  Meanwhile, Fu Manchu's archrival, Scotland Yard inspector Nayland Smith (Greene), is converging on the mad genius' Turkish castle stronghold.  I think CASTLE is slightly better than Franco's previous entry, THE BLOOD OF FU MANCHU, but it's still isn't up to the series' early watermark.  Lee and Chin (as Fu Manchu's daughter Lin Tang) don't have a whole lot to do, and Franco even cuts down on the sleaze factor this time.  Howard Marion-Crawford returns as Dr. Petrie.  Also with Rosalba Neri, Burt Kwouk and Franco.  Music by Carlos Camilleri. 

CASTLE OF THE WALKING DEAD (1967)--Directed by Harald Reinl. Stars Christopher Lee, Lex Barker, Karin Dor. Outrageous and colorful horror film made in West Germany. Lee stars in one of his best Euro-thrillers as Count Regula, drawn and quartered in the 19th century for murdering and draining the blood of twelve virgins. 35 years later, he is resurrected to finish the job he had started: creating an elixir of eternal life, which requires the blood of thirteen virgins. A beautiful young woman (Dor), a rugged nobleman (Barker), a servant girl and a priest are lured to Regula's castle in an act of revenge. Features some pretty bizarre sets and images (like a forest with corpses hanging from the trees), exciting death traps (Barker is strapped below a swinging pendulum; the film claims to be based on Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum") and a great performance by Lee (who probably worked less than a week). Also known as BLOOD MANIA and its original title of THE TORTURE CHAMBER OF DR. SADISM! Listed anywhere between 75 and 90 minutes, the video copy I watched clocked in at about 68, suggesting heavy editing.

 

THE CAT BURGLAR (1961)—Directed by William Witney.  Stars Jack Hogan, June Kenney, Gregg Palmer.  United Artists released this independently produced (by Gene Corman) 65-minute potboiler to round out double bills.  Future COMBAT! co-star Hogan is top-billed as Coley, a down-and-out thief who snatches a briefcase from the apartment of a blonde secretary (Kenney), only to discover he has purloined top-secret documents that some foreign spies are desperate to recover.  It’s all cheap, harmless melodrama with not much to recommend, besides Hogan’s amiable leading-man antics and Buddy Bregman’s beatnikky jazz score.  It has been said that Quentin Tarantino is a fan of this film; though his praise for low-budget director Witney is well-known, I’d be surprised if he considered THE CAT BURGLAR to be one of the filmmaker’s greater works.  It’s a decent timewaster made to keep awake moviegoers who stayed for the second half of the bill, and on that level, THE CAT BURGLAR works fine.  Also with John Baer, Billie Bird, Tommy Ivo and Bruno VeSota.  Witney also directed MASTER OF THE WORLD for AIP and about a dozen TV shows in 1961.

THE CAT FROM OUTER SPACE (1978)--Directed by Norman Tokar. Stars Ken Berry, Sandy Duncan, McLean Stevenson, Roddy McDowall, Harry Morgan. OK Disney slapstick about an extraterrestrial talking cat that enlists Berry's help to repair its damaged spaceship. Stevenson is funny as Berry's bemused neighbor. Ronnie Schell provides the voice of the cat, named Zoolar J-5.

 

THE CAT IN THE HAT (2003)--Directed by Bo Welch.  Stars Mike Myers, Kelly Preston, Alec Baldwin, Dakota Fanning, Spencer Breslin.  I felt less depressed watching MIDNIGHT COWBOY than I did limping out of the auditorium after THE CAT IN THE HAT, a brainnumbingly vulgar adaptation of Dr. Seuss' classic 1957 children's story.  THE CAT IN THE HAT is the Bataan Death March of kid flicks, an ugly exercise in cynicism, created for no other purpose than to separate harangued parents from their hard-earned cash.  It despises its audience so much that it audaciously acknowledges on-screen its actual goal, which is not to enlighten or even entertain youngsters, but to sell compact discs, toys and tickets to Universal Studios' theme park.  The fact that director Bo Welch, an A-list production designer helming his first feature, and former SEINFELD scribes Alec Berg, David Mandel and Jeff Schaffer care little about making a good movie is evident in the material they present.  If Theodor Geisel (the birth name of Dr. Seuss, who died in 1991) were alive today, it's doubtful he would approve of the crass humor and hamfisted goo that substitute for Seuss' gentle fantasy world.  Do children really appreciate gags such as a supercar with the acronymous name S.H.I.T.?  Or is it a joke written and delivered by filmmakers who are embarrassed by their jobs and eager to show the audience how hip they are at the expense of their art?

 

Austin Powers' alter ego Mike Myers plays the Cat in full body makeup as the love child of Bert Lahr and Jerry Lewis.  To his credit, he seems aware of the production's insipidity, but in his cloying attempt to enliven Welch's black hole of comedy, Myers tries too hard, coming across as too self-aware to believably inhabit the film's pastel-driven alternate universe.  The only performer who truly appears to be having a good time is Alec Baldwin as the heavy, a supercilious shark with designs on the clueless single mom (Kelly Preston) of bratty kids Spencer Breslin and Dakota Fanning.  It says something that Baldwin is able to hang on to his dignity, even covered head to toe in purple slime.  Also with Sean Hayes and Clint Howard.

 

THE CAT O' NINE TAILS (1971)--Directed by Dario Argento. Stars James Franciscus, Karl Malden, Catherine Spaak. Italian horrormeister Argento's second film, the follow-up to THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE, is a sharp, slick slasher flick with style. American TV star Franciscus is solid as Carlo Giordani, a snoopy newspaper reporter investigating a break-in at the Tenzi Institute, a thinktank involved in gene research. When a Tenzi scientist is run over by a train just a few hours later, Giordani meets with blind crossword puzzle master Franco Arno (Malden), who believes the victim may have been murdered. Turns out he's right, and, when other Tenzi employees and acquaintances are brutally killed, the two team up to capture the man responsible.

Although possessing one of Argento's most linear storylines, CAT is mostly a triumph of style. The many murders are almost poetic in their brutality, and Argento ups the suspense by placing the camera creatively, using many first-person shots to put the audience in the killers shoes, frequently cutting to the murderers stalking eye to signal danger, and even placing the camera behind a glass of milk to raise hackles. Framed as a whodunit, Argento's script, while introducing many red herrings, really doesn't provide enough overt clues so the audience can play along, and the killer's motivation, while implausible, worked for me within Argento's slightly dreamy context.

Franciscus--always a strong, handsome presence--handles the intrepid reporter bit very well, and has a nice chemistry with Malden, warm as the cheery blind man with a nose for solving mysteries who originally teams with Franciscus as a lark, but comes through in the clutch when the stakes become personal. Spaak is vapidly beautiful and briefly pops her top as a spoiled debutante who dabbles romantically with Franciscus. Also with Horst Frank, Carlo Aligherio, Rada Rassimov and Pier Paolo Capponi. Perhaps they were in a career valley, but both American leads jumped from this to network TV series--Franciscus as blind (wonder if he called upon Malden for acting tips?) insurance investigator LONGSTREET, Malden alongside Michael Douglas in THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO. Argento has said CAT is his least favorite film, perhaps because it's one of his least gimmicky. Ennio Morricone composed the jazzy score, a very effective one.

CAT PEOPLE (1982)--Directed by Paul Schrader. Stars Nastassia Kinski, John Heard, Malcolm McDowell. Horror remake about a virgin who realizes she will turn into a vicious leopard and kill her partner every time she makes love--unless she mates with another cat person. Too bad the only one left is her own brother (McDowell), who is responsible for a series of brutal murders in New Orleans. A so-so thriller featuring interesting music by Giorgio Moroder and a hit theme by David Bowie. Has one great scene: irritating actor Ed Begley Jr.'s arm is ripped out of its socket by a cat. Alan Ormsby's script borrows a few elements from the 1942 original produced by Val Lewton. Gore effects by Tom Burman.

 

CAT-WOMEN OF THE MOON (1953)—Directed by Arthur Hilton.  Stars Sonny Tufts, Marie Windsor, Victor Jory, Carol Brewster.  Whenever you think about ‘50s science fiction movies, it’s probably crap like this that comes to mind, rather than thoughtful dramas like FORBIDDEN PLANET and THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL.  This is pure late-show hokum, but wildly hilarious if you’re in the right mood.  American astronauts—including martinet captain Tufts, navigator Windsor and wisecracking second-in-command Jory—land their rocket on the dark side of the Moon, where they discover an underground civilization of sexy women clad in black tights.  The meeting is no accident; the “cat-women”’s leader, Alpha (Brewster), used telepathy to lure Windsor all the way from Earth.  Alpha plans to murder the crew and use their rocket to take her followers (all three of them) to Earth as an invasion force.  Of course, the plot makes no sense, and the romantic triangle involving Tufts, Jory and Windsor (who loves Jory, but has been psychically convinced to love Tufts, because he’s the guy who can teach her—and the cat-women, by extension—how to fly the spaceship) is perfunctory, but, hey, there are two giant spiders (with visible wires) and completely wonky science (there’s oxygen on the Moon!).  Hilton is an awful director who made his dough in Hollywood as a film editor.  Also with William Phipps, Douglas Fowley (who doubled as dialogue director), Susan Morrow and Suzann Alexander.  Elmer Bernstein, who also did ROBOT MONSTER around this time, composed the score, but was rewarded with a misspelled name (“Bernstien”) in the credits.

CATALINA CAPER (1967)--Directed by Lee Sholem. Stars Tommy Kirk, Brian Cutler, Del Moore, Peter Duryea, Lyle Waggoner, Michael Blodgett. Silly beach movie about a pair of divers (Kirk, Cutler) searching for a valuable Chinese scroll that was knocked into the ocean by bumbling thieves. Lots of go-go dancing, slapstick, and bikini-clad girls. Songs by Mary Wells, Little Richard and the Cascades. Filmed on location in Malibu and on Catalina Island.

 

CATCH THE HEAT (1987)—Directed by Joel Silberg.  Stars Tiana Alexandra, David Dukes, Rod Steiger.  I don’t know what feels stranger:  seeing serious actor Dukes as an action star in a low-budget movie or Stirling Silliphant’s screenwriting credit.  Vietnamese star Alexandra was the POSEIDON ADVENTURE writer’s wife, which explains what she’s doing here.  She isn’t going to make anyone forget Michelle Yeoh, but Tiana is cute and pretty funny and works well doing light romantic banter with Dukes.  The two play U.S. agents who go to Buenos Aires to bust Steiger’s drug ring.  I’m surprised the absurd yet clever plot hasn’t been remade yet.  Steiger recruits female dancers with dreams of becoming big stars in the United States.  He convinces them they need boob jobs in order to make it big and sends them to his personal plastic surgeon, who fits their breast implants with heroin instead of silicone.  The plot isn’t played for camp, although the movie has a lot of humor.  Alexandra does most of the fighting clad in a leotard, and she appears in an early scene wearing a wet T-shirt (she don’t need no implants).  Brian Libby (SILENT RAGE), John Hancock and Professor Toru Tanaka play Steiger’s goons.  Even though Silliphant won the Oscar for writing IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, he also wrote a lot of junk, including Cannon’s arm-wrestling opus OVER THE TOP the same year.

 

CAVEMAN (1981)--Directed by Carl Gottlieb. Stars Ringo Starr, Dennis Quaid, Barbara Bach, Shelley Long, John Matuszak, Jack Gilford, Avery Schreiber. Goofy comedy is unusual in that not a word of English is spoken. Director Gottlieb and co-writer Rudy DeLuca invented the caveman dialogue of fifteen words. Long loves Ringo, who loves Bach, who loves Matuszak, who also loves Bach. Everything works out for everybody in the long run. Lots of sight gags and pratfalls. Also some good stop-motion animated dinosaurs by David Allen.

 

CELLULAR (2004)--Directed by David R. Ellis.  Stars Kim Basinger, Jason Statham, Chris Evans, William H. Macy.  Drive-in legend Larry Cohen (PHONE BOOTH) penned the story for this crisp New Line thriller with an arresting premise.  High school science teacher Jessica Martin (Basinger) is snatched from her home by a group of men led by gruff Greer (Statham) who ask her confusing questions about her husband and where "it" is.  They spirit her away to an abandoned home outside of Los Angeles and stuff her in the attic.  Greer smashes the phone, but with a bit of patience and ingenuity, Jessica manages to make it ring a random number, that of amiable surfer dude Ryan (Evans), who at first dismisses Jessica's pleas for help as a crank, but eventually comes to believe her and tries to keep their phone connection open long enough to rescue her and discover her captors' identity.  Chris Morgan's screenplay runs with the Cohen story, adding as many obstacles to Ryan's plight as possible and managing to keep the far-fetched premise reasonably believable.  The performers are good, including Macy as a sad-sack cop who investigates Jessica's disappearance from a different direction.  The little-tested Evans (NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE) is a likable hero who handles former stunt coordinator Ellis' many chases, fights and stunts with energetic abandon.  Also with Jessica Biel, Eric Christian Olsen, Richard Bergi, Matt McColm, Rick Hoffman and Noah Emmerich.  Music by John Ottman. 

THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (1974)--Directed by John Peyser. Stars Andrew Prine, Tiffany Bolling, Jaime Lyn Bauer, Jennifer Ashley, Aldo Ray, Francine York. Many amazing exploitation actors and many breasts appear in this sleazy low-budget shocker by a veteran television director. The great screen creep Prine, whose dark suit, narrow tie, horn-rimmed glasses and long hair make him resemble a British Invasion reject, plays Clement Dunne, a repressed psychopath murdering the centerfolds of Bachelor magazine. The insipid script by Robert Peete, which is based on a story by Arthur Marks, the director of J.D.'S REVENGE and FRIDAY FOSTER, is oddly structured almost as an anthology, which keeps introducing new characters just to have them killed by Dunne, then moves on to a whole new story. First there's Jackie (soap star Bauer), a nurse spending the weekend at her familys mountain cabin. After being assaulted by a band of vicious hippies I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE-style (but much less graphic), she's rescued by a neighbor (Ray), who attempts to rape her, but changes his mind when she's too shocked to fight back. Dunne slashes her throat while posing as another neighbor. Then there's Charlie (Ashley), whose entire party of six, including two nude models and their photographer, are murdered by Dunne during a photo shoot on a deserted island (her boss, played by York of DOLL SQUAD fame, refuses to cancel the shoot after the first girl's death, saying, "We came here to do a job, and it's not going to get done if we sit around feeling sorry for her."). His final intended victim is Vera (Bolling), a stewardess who's raped by a pair of sailors who pick her up hitchhiking. Posing as a mild-mannered salesman, Dunne offers Vera a lift home, but instead takes her to some burned-out woods (an effective location) to finish her off.

I'm not sure what Peyser's message is supposed to be, but he sure doesn't seem to like women very much. Maybe not men either, since all the major male characters are portrayed as horny opportunists who prey upon defenseless naked women. Dont let the bountiful nudity and blood-soaked storyline fool you though; THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS is duller than it sounds, and is marked by its atrocious day-for-night photography, stupid and unlikable characters, and somewhat crude direction, surprising considering Peyser's two-decade experience in network TV, which should have made him professional if nothing else. It is amusing, though, discovering what new excuse Peyser comes up with to have his characters undress, since nearly every woman in the film appears nude.

Also with Jeremy Slate as a cop investigating the murders who is introduced in one scene and forgotten in the next, Mike Mazurki, Teda Bracci, Ray Danton (who directed PSYCHIC KILLER the following year), Dan Seymour, Janet Wood, Connie Strickland and former Lone Ranger John Hart. One undraped victim has Norman Mailer's THE NAKED AND THE DEAD (ha ha) on her nightstand. Another references MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, a CBS series that Peyser occasionally directed. Originally released by General Films Corporation, Troma has recently put THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS out on videocassette, preceded, of course, by tons of trailers and advertisements (the tape I watched had lousy sound).

CERTAIN FURY (1985)--Directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal. Stars Tatum O'Neal, Irene Cara, Nicholas Campbell, Moses Gunn. Advertised as starring "Academy Award winners" O'Neal and Cara. Well, yeah, but one was eleven years old at the time, and the other won for Best Song. Nevertheless, this remake of BLACK MAMA, WHITE MAMA casts the two "award-winning" actresses as escaped cons out to clear their names. Cara has a topless scene; "what a feeling" indeed! Impressively violent opening courtroom scene. Peter Fonda cameos as a pimp. From the director of PARIS TROUT.

 

CHAIN GANG WOMEN (1971)--Directed by Lee Frost.  Stars Michael Stearns, Robert Lott, Barbara Mills.  The world’s #1 bullshit title.  There are no chain gang women, and no women at all until about 40 minutes into it.  Instead, we get Stearns and Lott as chain gang men who escape from prison and hide out first at Lott’s girlfriend’s house (Stearns rapes her), then at the home of an elderly man and his teenage wife (Stearns rapes her too).  It appears to be Frost and producer Wes Bishop’s attempt at moving out of the sexploitation genre into something more action-oriented (and more mainstream).  It features (advanced for the time) split-screen effects and nudity, and the prison sequences that open the picture attempt to re-create the dull reality of life on a chain gang.  Once you get past the cheat title, CHAIN GANG WOMEN is not a bad little drive-in title.  Also with Bruce Kimball, Linda York and Phil Hoover.

 

CHAIN OF COMMAND (1994)--Directed by David Worth.  Stars Michael Dudikoff, Todd Curtis, R. Lee Ermey, Keren Tishman.  Terrorists invade an American oil facility in the Middle Eastern country of Qumir.  The lone survivor is Merrill Ross (Dudikoff), a former Special Forces officer who finds himself caught up in a battle between Qumir rebels and billionaire oil tycoon Brewster (Ermey).  This Cannon movie, shot in Israel, packs little oomph and is seriously hampered by head baddie Curtis, who wears a laughable wig of long, curly hair that makes him look like the complete opposite of a badass that can go head-to-head with Michael Dudikoff.  This likely played in a few theaters, but Cannon was fizzling out by this time.  Dudikoff continued to star in direct-to-video features for another decade.  From the director of KICKBOXER.

 

CHAIN OF COMMAND (2000)--Directed by John Terlesky.  Stars Patrick Muldoon, Roy Scheider, Michael Biehn, Ric Young, Maria Conchita Alonso.  The star of DEATHSTALKER II directs this direct-to-video action movie, perhaps most notable as the third time Scheider (ALL THE JAZZ) has played the President of the United States.  Has any other actor portrayed the Chief Executive on film that many times?

 

Secret Service agent Mike Connelly (Muldoon), whose lack of respect for skirt-chasing President Cahill (Scheider) finds him unwilling to take a bullet for the boss, finds himself assigned to "football duty".  The "football" is a secure briefcase that contains the codes and keys to the U.S. military's entire nuclear arsenal, and it must remain within thirty seconds of the President 24 hours a day.  A meeting with influential Chinese businessman Fung (Young) aboard his ship hundreds of miles off the coast of Taiwan turns into a trap, and Cahill and the football are taken hostage.  Fung and his security chief, former Secret Service man Thornton (Biehn), plan to fire off a few missiles unless Vice-President Valdez (Alonso) meets their demands.  As the only member of Cahill's staff left alive, it's up to Connelly to get all DIE HARD on Fung's ass and prevent the world's nuclear destruction.

 

A professional cast and a couple of shockingly bleak plot twists inject suspense into Terlesky's film, which is otherwise pretty standard DTV fare.  Without much dough to spend, stock footage from DEEP RISING is (not so successfully) melded with Terlesky's footage, and scenes taking place in Taiwan feature obvious Los Angeles scenery.  Muldoon's action chops are pretty decent for a pretty boy, and Alonso's casting adds an offbeat touch to the tense finale.  Also with super-sexy Korean model Sung Hi Lee, Tom Wright, William R. Moses (FALCON CREST), John Putch, Susan Blakely (still looking beautiful in her late 40's), Pat Skipper, Richard Yniguez, a curiously unbilled John Beck and Terlesky's wife Jayne Brook (JOHN DOE) in a silent cameo.  Music by Joseph Stanley Williams.  From the director of SUPREME SANCTION.

 

CHAIN REACTION (1996)--Directed by Andrew Davis. Stars Keanu Reeves, Rachel Weisz, Morgan Freeman. Call this one THE FUGITIVE-lite. Davis directs another Chicago-set chase thriller, but this one doesn't have THE FUGITIVE's tight script or a credible star like Harrison Ford. This one casts the wooden Reeves as a scientist (!) who discovers a method of using water to create electricity. A group of government bad guys decide that this would be disastrous for the world's economy, so they blow up Keanu's lab with an explosion that takes out eight city blocks, and frame the young scientist for the murder of his mentor. Reeves ends up on the run with a cute British physicist, played by Weisz (yeah, suuuuuuure...), who serves absolutely no purpose in the film whatsoever except as someone to shout "Eddie, look out!" whenever Reeves is ambushed. Fred Ward and Kevin Dunn are good actors, but are given silly things to say and do in the Tommy Lee Jones FBI-agent roles. If you can figure out this plot, you are way ahead of me (and, I suspect, director Davis too). The real reason to see this picture is Morgan Freeman, who plays Reeves's friend and fellow scientist with a slightly ambiguous flair; you spend most of the film's running time trying to decide if Freeman is friend or foe. It's obviously an Andrew Davis film--good use of Chicago locations, slick production values, recognizable supporting players, a complex plot involving government conspiracies--but the script co-written by J.F. Lawton (UNDER SIEGE) seems rushed. Also with Brian Cox. Music by Jerry Goldsmith.

CHAINED HEAT (1983)--Directed by Paul Nicolas. Stars Linda Blair, Sybil Danning, John Vernon, Henry Silva, Stella Stevens, Tamara Dobson, Michael Callan. Great women-in-prison exploitation from Roger Corman's New World Pictures features hilarious dialogue, preposterous plotting, hammy acting, and lots and lots of female nudity. In other words, essential viewing. Blair is the innocent lamb sent to prison for a crime she didn't commit. Vernon is the warden with a hot tub in his office who videotapes his sexual escapades with the voluptuous prisoners; he gives the most over-the-top performance in a movie filled with them. Look for Monique Gabrielle, Edy Williams, Louisa Moritz (as a dumb hooker), Greta Blackburn and Jennifer Ashley as prisoners. Count the number of times the boom microphone drops into view.

 

THE CHALLENGE (1982)—Directed by John Frankenheimer.  Stars Scott Glenn, Toshiro Mifune, Atsuo Nakamura.  John Sayles co-scripted this thriller that could have used less chatting and more slicing.  It would have been better if those involved had taken it less seriously.  I mean, the plot is absurd:  Glenn plays a skinny American boxer who is hired to transport an antique sword to Kyoto.  It’s one of a matched set that has been the object of a blood feud between brothers Toru (Mifune) and Hideo (Nakamura) for almost forty years.  Each sibling has one sword, wants the other, and is willing to kill each other to get it.  Glenn finds himself in the middle as a martial arts student in Toru’s temple.  After just a few days, he’s suddenly a badass American ninja able to wipe out most of Hideo’s private army.  Jerry Goldsmith’s awesome score really holds this movie together, as do Mifune’s registered performance and the Japanese locations.  Frankenheimer cut a shorter version for television called SWORD OF THE NINJA that eliminates the gore and nudity, which must be no fun to watch at all.  There was a bit of a flap among the media concerning THE CHALLENGE’s violence; it does have not one but two head-slicings, but you’ve seen a lot worse.  Also with Donna Kei Benz, Clyde Kusatsu, Calvin Jung and Sab Shimono.

A CHALLENGE FOR ROBIN HOOD (1967)--Directed by C.M. Pennington-Richards. Stars Barrie Ingham, James Hayter, Leon Greene, Peter Blythe, John Arnatt. Hammer Films, better known for its Gothic horror pictures, produced this fast-paced, action-packed, humor-filled romp on a low budget. The familiar story finds Robin (Ingham) framed for murder by his evil cousin Roger (Blythe), ruler of Sherwood Forest. Robin teams up with Friar Tuck (Hayter), Little John (Greene), Will Scarlet, Alan-A-Dale and the rest of the Merry Men to steal from the rich, give to the poor, win the heart of Lady Marian, and thwart the evil reign of Sir Roger and the Sheriff of Nottingham (Arnatt, who played the same role in the TV series THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD), who has the hots for Marian himself. The cast seems to have a grand time by playing straight the exciting script by Peter Bryan, who also penned THE BRIDES OF DRACULA and THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES for Hammer. Also with Eric Flynn, Alfie Bass, John Graham and Gay Hamilton. Pennington-Richards was a seasoned cinematographer who never directed another film after this one. Filmed near a real castle located near Sussex Park, England, with interiors at Pinewood Studios. Music by Gary Hughes.

 

CHALLENGE OF THE TIGER (1978)--Directed by Bruce Le.  Stars Bruce Le, Richard Harrison, Brad Harris, Bolo Yeung.  This Hong Kong flick never quite lives up to the lunacy of its first reel, but then again, what film could?  It’s set in Spain, Hong Kong and Macao, and stars Le and American-born Harrison as globetrotting CIA agents Wong Leung and Richard Cannon.  Assigned to retrieve a stolen serum that can cause mass sterility in the world’s male population, the two men attack their assignment doing what they do best.  For Le, that means showing off his sweet kung fu skills, taking on opponents that include ubiquitous Chinese actor Bolo Yeung (BLOODSPORT), former pepla muscleman Brad Harris and an angry bull, which Le dispatches with an homage to Sonny Chiba’s THE STREET FIGHTER (he clobbers the animal with his fist as the scene cuts away to a cartoon bull’s head cracking).

 

Meanwhile, Harrison’s specialty appears to be taking off his shirt and flexing his mustache.  Director Le introduces him in an amazing scene that finds Cannon lounging around his estate, surrounded by beautiful nude women who swim, shower and even play tennis…in slow motion.  Cannon’s lovemaking prowess makes James Bond look like Jughead Jones.  And if all this isn’t crazy enough, look for Jack Klugman and Jane Seymour in silent cameos that are so bewildering, I’d be willing to bet neither, to this day, knows they’re even in the movie. The musical score is likely pinched from Western films.

 

CHAMPION OF DEATH (1976)--Directed by Kazahiko Yamaguchi.  Stars Sonny Chiba.  The incredible Chiba plays his real-life karate mentor, Masatatsu Oyama, in this violent episodic movie.  Oyama enters a karate tournament in 1949 and wins it, but his unorthodox style and behavior upsets the judges, including unscrupulous fight promoter Nakatsumi, and he is expelled.  He later rapes a beautiful Japanese translator named Choko, and is arrested by U.S. military police, who promise to set him free if he can beat their champion in a fight.  He does.  Eventually he quits karate out of guilt after killing a mobster in self-defense, but eventually returns to the fold to fight Nakatsumi's entire school.  There's a helluva lot more that goes on in CHAMPION OF DEATH, but I grew tired of following the plot and allowed myself to be swept along by the many fight scenes and Chiba's force-of-nature personality.  Yamaguchi unfortunately relies too much on handheld cinematography, meaning the camera is often facing somewhere other than where it should be for maximum effect.  Still, the sight of Sonny literally taking a bull by its horns is one you'll not forget, making CHAMPION a chopsocky recommendation.  United Artists actually released this to U.S. theaters on a double-bill with THE SUPER INFRA-MAN in 1977.

 

THE CHAMPIONS OF JUSTICE (1971)--Directed by Federico Curiel.  Stars Blue Demon, Mil Mascaras, David Silva, Elsa Cardenas.  Surprisingly, El Santo sat out of this “Mexican Wrestler Justice League of America” movie, so Blue Demon’s main partner was Mil Mascaras (“Thousand Masks”), a younger wrestler who had begun a film career a few years earlier.  Also appearing were The Killer Doctor, Avenging Shadow and The Giant, who joined forces with Blue Demon and Mil Mascaras to battle the evil Black Hand (David Silva), another mad scientist with plans to rule the world.

 

Black Hand’s ingenious scheme involves kidnapping five Miss Mexico contestants, all of whom coincidentally are goddaughters of one of the masked wrestlers.  In Black Hand’s corner is his private army of super-powered midgets, each dressed in a superhero costume and able to fight with the “strength of ten athletes.”  You haven’t lived until you’ve seen an epic fight scene with little people in red costumes, cowls and capes trading blows and wrestling moves with five burly shirtless dudes in brightly colored masks.

Even without Santo--and, let’s face it, these guys’ characterizations are pretty interchangeable--The Champions of Justice is an amazing movie, filled with color and fighting and dreamy sports cars and blinking lights and girls in swimsuits and super-strong midgets.  These are superhero movies the way I think they’re supposed to be:  without angst or soap operatics and with great humor, non-stop action and a willingness to stick their neck out and be outrageous.

 

CHANDU THE MAGICIAN (1932)—Directed by Marcel Varnel & William Cameron Menzies.  Stars Edmund Lowe, Bela Lugosi, Irene Ware, Henry B. Walthall.  With cinematography by James Wong Howe (KINGS ROW) and direction by Menzies (THINGS TO COME), it’s no surprise that CHANDU THE MAGICIAN looks great, but it falls down in the adventure department.  Based on a popular radio series, the material is perfectly tailored for a thrilling serial (and, in fact, Chandu did become a serial hero a couple of years later, ironically played by Bela Lugosi, who portrays the heavy here), but this film doesn’t have the pacing or excitement to match its fine production values.

 

Chandu (Lowe), who eschews guns and fists for mesmerism in his battle against evil, goes to Egypt to rescue his brother-in-law (Walthall), the inventor of a powerful death ray, from the villainous Roxor (Lugosi), who has filled his mountain hideout with all sorts of deathtraps.  The concept of a non-violent hero is an interesting twist, though the film should have invented better ways to create suspense than by having Chandu use his Jedi mind trick on all his foes.  Most interesting is the movie’s twist on the old torture-your-loved-one-until-you-talk routine.  Here, Walthall is perfectly willing to let Roxor sell his beautiful blond daughter into slavery before handing him the formula to a death ray that would allow him to conquer the world.  The needs of the many, indeed.

 

CHANGE OF HABIT (1969)--Directed by William A. Graham. Stars Elvis Presley, Mary Tyler Moore, Barbara McNair, Jane Elliott, Edward Asner. In Elvis's next-to-last film, he plays a hip doctor running a free clinic in a New York ghetto. Nuns Moore, McNair and Elliott come to help out. Elvis falls in love with Mary, who must choose between God and Elvis. Not as easy a choice as you may think. Elvis has some hilarious sexist pig dialogue. Elvis sings "Let Us Pray" and "Rubberneckin'" during a rockin' church service. Asner (as a cop) joined Mary on her long-running TV series the next year.

CHARLEY ONE-EYE (1973)--Directed by Don Chaffey. Stars Richard Roundtree, Roy Thinnes, Nigel Davenport. Unusual but pretentious British Western shot on location in Spain. Roundtree is a black Army deserter who teams up with a crippled Indian (Thinnes). A rare movie lead for the star of the TV series THE INVADERS.

CHARLEY VARRICK (1973)--Directed by Don Siegel. Stars Walter Matthau, Joe Don Baker, Andy Robinson, John Vernon. It's funny how movies can manipulate us. I think it was Hitchcock who said that an audience will always love a character, no matter what a louse he may be, as long as he is good at his job. So is the case with Charley Varrick, played wryly by Walter Matthau in Universal's 1973 crime drama of the same name. Varrick is a murderer and a bank robber, he sets up his partner to be tortured and murdered by a Mafia henchman, and he sleeps with a one-night-stand two days after his beloved wife is shot to death by police. But he's clever enough to fake his own death and escape with $750,000 of mob money, and I'll be damned if we don't root for him every step of the way.

 

CHARLEY VARRICK focuses on a bank heist pulled off by Charley, his wife Nadine (Jacqueline Scott), their partner Harman (Andy Robinson, who memorably appeared as Scorpio in director Don Siegel's earlier film DIRTY HARRY) and another man who is killed at the scene. Expecting to make off with $15-20,000 from this small-town New Mexico bank, Charley is stunned to discover their huge haul, and immediately figures out that the bank must be a drop for dirty Mob money.

 

John Vernon co-stars as Maynard Boyle, a Reno mobster who commissions a pipe-smoking hitman named Molly (Joe Don Baker) to retrieve the money. Of course, they're operating under the assumption that the bank was specifically targeted because of the large sum of cash, and don't guess that it was simply a coincidence.  Besides the cast members I've already mentioned, CHARLEY VARRICK also features a sexy Sheree North, William Schallert and the ultimate milquetoast, Woodrow Parfrey, who has a standout scene set in a cow pasture where Vernon explains how their bosses will likely come after Parfrey "with pliers and a blowtorch" to find out who robbed them.

 

Watching Vernon's work in CHARLEY VARRICK is a nice way to remember this powerful actor. If you only remember Vernon as ANIMAL HOUSE's Dean Wormer, watch him in this picture. He dominates nearly every scene he's in, so much so that most of the cow-pasture scene stated above is captured in a single take, during which you can't take your eyes away from him. Another wonderful moment, probably improvised by Siegel on the set, has Vernon pushing a little girl on a swing and, at least for a few moments before getting back to business, basking in the innocence of youth, an innocence he lost long ago when he joined a life of crime.