Norris Is So Tough, He Makes Onions Cry!

 

 (wikipedia)

INVASION USA-1985-Soviet terrorist Rostov (Richard Lynch) wants revenge on retired CIA agent Matt Hunter (Chuck Norris; also one of the screenwriters). After failing to kill him at his home in the Everglades he plots the invasion of America. Hunter agrees to go after him. There's lots of violence and killing (families, teens at party, shoot out at a crowded mall) and ridiculous car chases. The invaders disguise themselves as police and soldiers to cause unrest. A woman reporter (Melissa Prophet) who's life Hunter saves several times isn't even grateful. Billy Drago has a small role as a coke dealer who's killed. 

Director Joseph Zito directed Norris in MISSING IN ACTION the same year and also made the horror movies THE PROWLER and FRIDAY THE 13TH:THE FINAL CHAPTER.

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Billy Dee Williams

 

THE TAKE-1974-Billy Dee Williams is Lt. Terence Sneed a San Francisco cop sent to Polima, New Mexico to investigate organized crime. He's met by Captain Dolek (Albert Salmi) and no sooner are they involved in a bloody shootout. His boss Chief Berrigan (Eddie Albert) seems frustrated. He visits his ex, Nancy (Tracy Reed) and she's not happy to see him. He meets Manso (Vic Morrow), a mobster with a bad heart and accepts his bribe. Dolek is also on his payroll. Manso also has a lawyer (Sorrell Brooke) who helps with his "investments". Sneed and Dolek investigate James (Frankie Avalon) a small time hood who cries because a cop beat him up when he was a kid. Another cop Tallbear (A. Martinez) helps Sneed out. When Sneed disobeys Manso's orders he's beaten up. 

Despite a long chase and shootout this crime action drama isn't very interesting with Sneed's actions not always making sense and a blah ending. John Chandler (MAD DOG COLL) and Kathleen Hughes (IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE) have small roles. Another “all star” action drama from director Robert Hartford-Davies (see last entry).

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Gunn

BLACK GUNN-1972-Gunn (Jim Brown) is the owner of a slick club whose brother Scotty (Herbert Jefferson Jr.) is involved with the Black Action Group, a radical faction run by Seth (Bernie Casey). He also has some stolen mob ledgers. A mob boss (Stephen McNally) puts Russ Capeli (Martin Landau) who fronts as a used car dealer in charge of getting the ledgers back. Psycho thug Krigley (Bruce Glover) and cohort Rico (William Campbell) beat up parking attendant/informer Sam Greene (MLB pitcher Vidal Blue). A congressman Carl Adams (Gary Conway) can't get a table at Gunn's club and his bigoted friend Winman (Keefe Brasselle) starts a fight and gets thrown out. Adams associate Toni (Luciana Paluzzi; THE GREEN SLIME) can't persuade Gunn. After Scotty is killed Gunn wants his killer who turns out to be Krigley. Gunn beats him up. He goes after Capeli but is captured and tortured. Fortunately the BAG Bros come to the rescue. 

The crazed ending features a bloody shootout, a car chase, explosions and Capeli being set on fire. It ends with Gunn being arrested. Deacon Jones plays himself and Timothy Brown is also in it. This all star blaxploitation crime drama by England born Robert Hartford-Davies who before coming to the US had directed CORRUPTION with Peter Cushing. He followed up GUNN with another blaxploitation movie (also made in the US) THE TAKE with Billy Dee Williams.

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Hey Lady!

LADY COCOA-1975-Coco (Lola Falana), an ungrateful street wise bitch is going to testify against her mobster boyfriend (James Watson,Jr.) in Lake Tahoe. Old white detective Ramsey (Alex Drier) and young black cop Doug (Gene Washington) have to protect her. There's a long dumb car chase and “Mean” Joe Greene is one of the hit men. It's pretty low budget with a guessable ending. Director Matt Cimber made his directorial debut in 1966 with SINGLE ROOM FURNISHED, his wife, Jayne Mansfield's last movie.

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Jackie Chan is Back

THE ACCIDENTAL SPY-2001-A fitness equipment salesman in China named Buck (Jackie Chan) inherits a fortune from his biological Korean father but becomes involved with the search for a powerful new drug and a war between Turkish and Chinese drug lords. This has the usual great semi-comic fights but is a lot more serious and violent than most of Chan's earlier US releases. A real crazy but kind of typical scene (at least for a Jackie Chan movie) has him fighting nude in a mall! The superb climactic ending features a flaming gas truck. Director Teddy Chan (no relation to the star) had been an actor, production assistant and wrote BLACK MASK with Jet Li.

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Bolt

THAT MAN BOLT-1973-A Karate expert/professional courier Jefferson Bolt (Fred Williamson) locked up in a Macao prison is hired/blackmailed by a mysterious English man named Griffiths (Byron Webster) to deliver 1 million dollars from Hong Kong. When he lands in Las Vegas some mobsters try to kill him, so after a car chase he gets help from another mobster Connie (Jack Ging). At a casino he meets singer Samantha Nightingale (Teresa Graves) and after they have sex she's killed in an attempt on Bolt's life. He hightails it to Hong Kong where things get a little confusing when an Asian assassin is hired by Javanese merchant banker Kumata (Masatoshi Nakamura) to kill Bolt. 

The acting, dialogue and fights are sub-par but it also features appearances by Karate and kickboxing champions like Mike Stone, Kenji Kazama, Emil Farkus and David Chow. 

THAT MAN BOLT has two credited directors. One Henry Levin made his directing debut in 1944 with semi-horror movie CRY OF THE WEREWOLF. In the 1970's he directed several Matt Helm movies. BOLT was one of his last features. The other was David Lowell Rich who started in TV around 1950 and continuing till the mid '60's when he made some feature films like EYE OF THE CAT and THE PLAINSMAN. He went back to TV making many TV movies and in the early '80's returned to some feature film work including THE CONCORDE-AIRPORT '69. 

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Houdini

THE GRIM GAME-1919-In an elaborate plan to save a newspaper reporter Hanson (magician/escape artist Harry Houdini) and the paper's owner, also Hanson's uncle devise a plan wherein Hanson will be arrested for the (faked) murder of the uncle. Things don't go as planned and the uncle is really murdered and Hanson is arrested and jailed. He spends the rest of the movie eluding his captors and trying to save his kidnapped girlfriend (Ann Forest). Since it's Houdini he escapes from various traps including a straitjacket while hanging off the side of a building. Somehow he and his girlfriend even manage to walk away from a plane crash they are in while looking for the real murderer! 

Once considered a lost film, THE GRIM GAME was restored with the help of TCM in 2016 after a copy had been found a few years earlier. It features an actual mid-air collision that wasn't suppose to happen (no one was hurt). 

This is one of 5 movies the great Houdini appeared in from 1919-1923. He died in 1926 at age 52. Director Irvin Willat also directed FALSE FACES (1919) which features Lon Chaney.  

 

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Arch Halls

THE CHOPPERS-1961-A group of juvenile delinquents strip cars for kicks in this seldom seen low budget teenage crime drama. The leader of the group is spoiled rich kid Cruiser (Arch Hall Jr. in his film debut), assisted by Torch (future director Robert Paget), Snooper (Larry Buchanan regular Burr Middleton), Ben (Chuck Barnes; later OJ Simpson's agent) and Flip (Rex Holman from MA BARKER'S KILLER BROOD). Parts of it are narrated by a reporter named Jim Bradford (producer/writer Arch Hall Sr. in an un-billed role) concerned because  "our greatest national resource is in danger".The gang uses a truck full of chickens and a guitar case full of tools to disguise their operation.

They do business with junk man Moose (Bruno VeSota who had a cameo role in NIGHT TIDE the same year) and harmonica playing Cowboy (Britt Wood who also sings a song). Insurance investigator Tom Hart (Tom Brown) tracks them down with the help of his blonde secretary Liz (Marianne Gaba; also in MISSILE TO THE MOON) and police Lt. Fleming (William Shaw). Cruiser uses a two way radio (while lounging in his cool hot rod) to warn his gang when "the bandits" are closing in.

Arch performs "Monkey In My Headband" and another of his compositions "Konga  Joe" plays on the radio. No matter what anyone says, these songs are cooool! Eventually their car stripping leads to a massive shootout in a junk yard where, after two cops are killed  Cruiser wants to give up but Torch refuses. The cops resort to using a bulldozer to get the gang. After his arrest Cruiser  dejectedly says: "We had a ball. A real ball".

There's a lot of jive talk and it's fairly violent for the time. It was the last movie directed by Leigh Jason who's career started in the late '20's. By the time of THE CHOPPERS he'd been working mostly in TV.

Next up for the father and son Hall team would be EEGAH!

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'70's Cult Film

VANISHING POINT-1971-Former demolition driver (and cop) Kowalski (Barry Newman) has to deliver a 1970 Dodge Challenger he picked up in Colorado to San Francisco. He makes a bet with blind underground DJ Supersoul (Cleavon Little) that he can make it in 15 hours. Kowalski has several car chases with the local police and becomes a real wanted man while Supersoul guides him on the radio. Kowalski has flashbacks, beats up two gay would be robbers, meets a naked woman on a motorcycle (Gilda Texter) and an old snake hunter (Dean Jagger). Thrown in is a desert revival run by Severn Darden whose singers are played by Delaney and Bonnie (with Rita Coolidge, David Gates and Ted Neeley). Paul Koslo and Robert Donner are cops. Val Avery appears uncredited in a flashback and John Amos (also uncredited) gets beat up by some white guys.

This anti-establishment cult film is a little dated and not for everyone but I enjoyed. It was directed by Richard C. Sarafian who also  made MAN IN THE WILDERNESS the same year. Screenwriter Guillermo Cabrera Infante wrote WONDERWALL previously.

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Hong Kong again

INTERPOL CONNECTION-(Zhi zun te jing aka HARD TO KILL)-1992-Nearly an hour goes by and this is a standard cops vs. gangsters drama with Robin Shou as an arrogant Hong Kong government agent tracking a drug smuggler (director Phillip Ko) in Manila. There's shoot-outs, car chases and an annoying comedy relief detective, a real whining buffoon who still acts like a clown even after his partner is gunned down. However late in the story Yukari Oshima (aka Cynthia Luster) shows up as another Interpol agent who teams up with Shou for a decent martial arts finale that almost saves this badly made bore-fest (although Oshima moves are very good).

Stunt coordinator Dion Lam later worked on big Hollywood productions like THE MATRIX and SPIDER-MAN 2.

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Dwan's Last Stand

THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN ALIVE-1961-Gangster Eddie Candell (Ron Randell) escapes his death row prison cell to seek revenge against Damon (Anthony Curuso), a mob boss who double crossed him. While wandering in the desert Candell is caught in the fallout of a cobalt bomb blast. He (and a watermelon) turns into a literal "man of steel" as his body is fused with metal. Bullets can't hurt him. Two police officers (Gregg Palmer & Morris Ankrum) investigate. Debra Paget (who co-starred with Elvis in LOVE ME TENDER in better times) is his ex-girlfriend who testified against him. He takes her hostage and drives around in a truck full of dynamite. Another ex-girlfriend, Carla (Elaine Stewart) is more cooperative. A big manhunt ensues and Damon tries to kill Candell several times and fails. In the end he throws Damon off a cliff and is reduced to dust by flame throwers. This disjointed very low budget Sci-Fi drama, the last by screen director legend Allan Dwan seems like a TV movie missing a scene or two. The story was co-written by actor Michael Pate.

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Night Waitress

NIGHT WAITRESS-1936-Helen Roberts (English actress Margot Grahame) is a waitress on probation. She gets involved with schooner operator Martin Rhodes (Gordon Jones, the future Green Hornet) after he gets mixed up with some “secret cargo”. After some misunderstandings and a quick chase and fight (the whole thing is less than an hour!) Rhodes discovers the “cargo” is an armored car filled with money lying underwater. 

Marc Lawrence and (un-billed) Anthony Quinn are two gangsters after both of them. Western star Don “Red” Barry is a murder victim. Comedian Billy Gilbert is a bar owner. 

Director Lew Landers had previously directed the Boris Karloff/Bela Lugosi horror story THE RAVEN under his real name Louis Friedlander. He went on to direct (as Landers) many B-movies including THE BOOGIE MAN WILL GET YOU (with Karloff) and THE RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE (with Lugosi).

Star Margot Grahame was England's highest paid actress before she came to America to co-star in THE INFORMER and THE THREE MUSKETEERS (1935 version).  

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Bad..James Bad

QUANTUM OF SOLACE-2008-This is the second of the "new" James Bond films and takes up soon after the last one. Daniel Craig returns as the blond haired 007, a violent, no nonsense killing machine who although on the side of good mostly seems like some out of control cyborg from a Jeff Wincott video.

Judi Dench once again plays M, looking a lot less like she's smelling some foul odor than she did in previous outings and leading lady Olga Kurylenko (CENTURION) is pretty forgettable.

Bond is out to avenge the death of his lover from CASINO ROYALE but winds up getting involved with a guy who wants to help a dictator regain power in Bolivia so he can buy up the water rights! Though this is action packed it's ultimately a little disappointing. For one the filmmakers take several shots at the US especially that they are turning a blind eye to the events going on because they want oil. This coming from the country that let the Lockerbie bomber out of jail so it could get an oil deal from Libya?! Two, though Jeffery Wright returns a Felix Leiter, he's more or less a stooge/wimp and most importantly number three: What has happened to the Bond villains?

Toward the end of the Roger Moore series there seemed to be a deliberate shift away from a super villain type bad guy to some ordinary sneering known it all. Once there was Goldfinger, Dr. No, hell even Jaws but at least it was something. In this one we get Mathieu Almaric (THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY) as some bug eyed wimpy whiner who somehow almost manages to beat Bond in the climax with an axe!

Giancarlo Giannini returns from the last film also. The one woman Bond has sex with in this film winds up killed with fuel oil in a nod to GOLDFINGER. The end credits only say "James Bond Will Return". Director Marc Forster had made MONSTER'S BALL and FINDING NEVERLAND.

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