Sunday Morning Trio

Misguided, stilted attempt to make a western that had a more sympath-etic portrayal of The American Indian, GERONIMO (1962) stars Chuck Connors (riding high with his THE RIFLEMAN series at the time) as the proud Native American leader who leads 50 warrirors in a stand off with the US Army. Future WILD WILD WEST TV co-star Ross Martin plays his plain talking second ba-nana who decides to join with him even though he likes farming corn on the reservation. Adam West (who in a mere four years would rocket to TV fame as "Batman") is a sympath-etic officier. The soon to be Mrs. Connors, Kamala Devi plays Mrs. Geronimo (Wonder if she knows a pro-wrestler stole her name?). 

Denver Pyle and Lawrence Dobkin are also in the cast. It's not the laugh-fest it could have been and the filmakers seem to be sincere in their attempt to show the Indians' plight but despite some good action sequences it never really gets off the ground. Still it has it's entertaining moments.


The director, Arnold Laven had made some other movies like the seldom seen THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD but he went on to direct all sorts of TV series in all different genres in-cluding MARCUS WELBY MD, THE PLANET OF THE APES, SHAZAM, ISIS, THE ROCKFORD FILES and many many others.

Unless it's THE MATRIX beware of movies with 2 directors. Such is the case with THE DANGEROUS (1994), a violent disjoined New Orleans based crime drama featuring Cary Hiro-yuki-Tagawa as a ninja like assassin out for revenge on the shits who killed his sister. As I've said before Tagawa should be in better movies but who listens to me? Michael Pare' (who doesn't deserve to be in better movies) is a cop investigating the case. I mean does this guy Pare' really think anyone cares that he has an accent over his name? No wonder he makes crappy movies like this. Nobody wants to bother to spell his name correctly!



Smooth skinned challenged Robert Davi plays an ex-cop (?) who comes back from the Mid-West (?) to help. He teams up with Pare' and gives new meaning to the word "dicks". This plays like two different movies with two different storylines (re-member: two directors!). Juan Fer-nadez (who started his career in movies like Doris Wishman's THE AMAZING TRANSPLANT) is a mob boss. John Savage (who apparently has an agent who cares nothing about his career) is a hitman who guts a guy while opera music plays. Joel Grey (proving that even Oscar winners can hit rock bottom) is a grubby informer named Flea. Elliot Gould is a weird movie projectionist with a hair net. Former Playboy centerfold (an ex-OJ girlfriend) Paula Barbieri is the female lead but doesn't even take off her shoes!! 

Who made this movie? A Bene-dictine Monk???? 

The one good scene takes place in a movie theater. Producer David Winters is responsible for a lot of junk......




Dolph Lundgren has been around for a while. Most film goers remember him as the angry Russian boxer in ROCKY 4 (or 5?). He made a lot of action movies after that including SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO with the late Brandon Lee, the original screen version of the comicbook avenger THE PUNISHER and sci-fi movies like I COME IN PEACE. I always felt he was a little easier to take than guys like Stallone or Bruce Willis (who's so called action movies got big releases then died at the box office) but eventually he became just another direct to video "action guy" and seemed to run out of things to do.

Such is the case with PENTATHLON (1994) which begins in 1988 at The Seoul Olympics. East Germany athelete Erik (Lundgren, also a co-executive producer) shows off his expertise in swimming, fencing, shooting, horseback, eating and smirking. His authoritarian coach is played by David Soul (with a German accent). The secret police won't let Erik or the rest of his team fratentize with The Americans. He decides to defect to the US and becomes a short order cook/drunk. Roger Mosley is his boss who becomes Erik's coach when he decides to come out of retirement ("I'm gonna be your O-lympic fuel"). Soul is still around and is now a neo-Nazi. He wants to wreck Erik's chances and bring him back home. This is kind of a Rocky inspired Don Wilson martial arts/espionage/ action drama without Wilson or martial arts.

Director Bruce Malmuth (who also acts in this) once had a career, making NIGHTHAWKS with Stallone, THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE (a flop comedy with Steve Guttenberg) and HARD TO KILL with Steven Seagal. Though I guess it's not hard to figure out how he wound up doing this!

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Out For The Count!

BODY COUNT is a US/Japanese co-production shot in New Orleans in 1994. It's a haphazard action-revenge flick that's only really redeeming quality is the appearance of Japanese martial arts icon Sonny Chiba!

He plays Macado, a pony tailed assassin responsible for several mob deaths. The porous faced Robert Davi plays an investigating cop who tries to take out Macado at a topless bar. After wrecking the place they manage to capture him (but mistakenly interrogate him in Chinese!).

18 months later he's in prison meditating, doing one arm push-ups and taking flack from guards while serving on a chain gang. He's sprung by former Stallone girlfriend Brigitte Neilsen. Once out, Macado goes around killing cops, trying to find the one who set him up.

At one point Davi's character says "It's the '90's" but the weird disjointed structure of this film makes it seem like something out of the '70's! Com'on! When the highpoint of a movie is that a minor character is wearing a "Residents" t-shirt...well, what more do I have to say???

Actually a lot.

To show how far his career had sunk by this time, Jan Michael Vincent has a small role as a cop who's thrown off a roof. And too much time is spend on Davi's relationship with a female special agent (Cindy Ambuehl). Since Davi looks like his face has been scrubbed with sandpaper why would anyone care whether he gets laid or not???


Despite his bad English Chiba could be a low budget action star (he had a role in KILL BILL VOL.1) but this is too talky and drawn out. He does comandeer a trolley, wreck a bus and kill in various ways (but usually with a samauri sword). Steven Bauer is on hand as a mobster/victim and hardly has anytime to do his usual scenery chewing (I guess that's a plus.....). The topless dancing was ok though......

Many hands were behind the making of BODY COUNT. The weak story is credited to David Prior who has been making his own shitty movies (many of them starring his brother Ted) for untold years. One of BC's producers David Winters has also been on the low budget film scene far too long and even directed ALICE COOPER'S WELCOME TO MY NIGHTMARE TV special and a musical version of DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDE starring Kirk Douglas & Donald Pleasance! Really!!!

Director Talun Hsu also helmed WITCHCRAFT 5 and GEDO and has a small role as the Chinese interpreter.



Beware! There are several movies known as BODY COUNT! This one is also called CODENAME:SILENCER. Chiba also made a movie with wrestler Roddy Piper around this time called IMMORTAL COMBAT where he played a good guy.



Go watch STREETFIGHTER instead..



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