Warren Oates

 

CHINA 9, LIBERTY 37-1978-Weird western (made in Italy) with Warren Oates as Matthew, a miner with a young wife Catherine (Jenny Agutter) who's visited by Clayton (Fabio Testi), a condemned man hired by the railroad to kill Matthew. Of course, Catherine and Clayton have an affair. She stabs Matthew and the two run away. Matthew and his brothers go looking for them. The couple visit a circus where Sidney Lassick works. Sam Peckinpah shows up too as well as Helga Line (HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB (1973))! 

A modern song during a sex scene seems out of place. Cult director Monte Hellman was no stranger to unusual westerns having made THE SHOOTING and RIDE THE WILD WIND (both 1966) earlier.

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Bounty Hunters In Italy

 

 (imdb)

THE GREAT SILENCE-1988-Somewhere in the old west (Italy), bounty hunters like Loco (Klaus Kinski; in I BASTARDI the same year)) are out of control and the governor wants to put a stop to it. Roaming the countryside is Silence (Jean-Louis Trintignant from A MAN AND A WOMAN (1966)), a gunfighter who's hired by families to kill bounty hunters to avenge the deaths of their loved ones. A widow (Vonetta McGee; later in BLACULA (1972)) hires Silence to kill Loco who murdered her husband. Meanwhile, a store owner hires Loco to kill Silence. In recent years critics go on and on about this western allegory that tries way too much to be like Leone (Ennio Morricone scored it) and director Sergio Corbucci (also one of the screenwriters) needs a history lesson.

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Low Budget Western

GREYEAGLE-1977-Rancher Ben Colter (Ben Johnson), and his Indian companion Standing Bear (Iron Eyes Cody who was actually Italian) go after the legendary Indian warrior Greyeagle (Alex Cord) when he kidnaps Beth (Lana Wood), the rancher's daughter. When Greyeagle has trouble with some other braves who want Beth (they were willing to trade 5 horses) he has to fight an adversary who threatens: “I will hang his scalp in the wigwam of the white woman”. Beth winds up saving Grey's life by killing his attacker. A white mad trapper (triple threat behind the camera Charles Pierce hamming it up) leads a group of marauding Indians and Jack Elam lightens things up as a semi-comic cannon toting trapper who helps the rancher find a chieftain named Running Wolf (Paul Fix) who claims to be Beth's real father. In an unrelated to the main story line sequence (typical for Pierce film) the Indian gang kill Elam's dog then subject him to weird combat where he has to fight several braves while tied to a tree by his neck! 

More low budget boredom from the man who gave us THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN (also with Johnson) and THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK.

Pierce

THE WINDS OF AUTUMN-1976-In 1844 Montana, a deranged hillbilly woman (Jeanette Nolan) helps her equally deranged son escape from a chain gang with the help of her brother (Jack Elam) and some other sons (including Andrew Prine). After the break out, they hold up at the home of a Quaker family where sonny boy shows why he should have remained in jail as he kills the couple's  young daughter. Then mom and dad are killed. Only the young son Joel (Chuck Pierce Jr.; son of the director) survives. He gets a mule and a shotgun and follows the demented family. Along the way he meets Rattler (Dub Taylor) who dispenses some advice. Later the brothers rob a whorehouse (a long and useless sub-plot). Although blood thirsty the family is kind of dumb. After nearly freezing to death and being captured by what remains of the family, Joel sort of gets revenge with the help of a family friend. According to the credits the whores were supplied by Playboy Inc. (although one of them is played by TTCSM's Marilyn Burns).

This strange violent western with a kid hero was directed by Charles B. Pierce (he has a small role) who made THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK just a few years before. He directed THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN in 1976 also.

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Cowboy Musical

TERROR OF TINY TOWN-1938-Everyone's favorite little peoples western begins with a narrator addressing the audience.

Billy Curtis is the cheerful hero Buck Lawson. He battles cattle rustler Bat Haines ("Litte Billy" Rhodes), a really mean guy who's trying to cause a range war between Buck's father (John Bambury) and another rancher named Tex Preston (Billy Platt). The highlight for me are the very bizarre musical numbers but it has all the elements of a regular low budget western: shoot outs, runaway stagecoach, crooked sheriff, hired gunslingers, outrageous make-up, bad acting, chiched script. The funniest character is Tex's German cook. Buck (who sings and plays guitar) falls in love with Tex's niece (Yvonne Moray) to complicate matters. Later Haines kills Tex and Buck is blamed. He's almost lynched but Haines' neglected girlfriend (Nita Krebs) clears him. In the climax Buck and Hanes duke it out in a cabin while dynamite burns in the basement.

Some of the cast would appear in THE WIZARD OF OZ the next year.

TERROR was directed by San Newfield who typically made 15 other features in 1938!

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Wild Weird West

FIVE BLOODY GRAVES-1970-I can't believe this is the first Al Adamson movie I'm reviewing here! He was a staple of late night NYC TV viewing in the '70's and '80's. His stuff usually featured aging actors, long fight or chase scenes with no dialogue and bad SFX. Here's his only western! 

I love the cartoon credits too!

Death (Gene Raymond; once a popular star in the 1940's) narrates this low budget weird western tale. Cowboy Ben Thompson (Adamson regular Robert Dix who also wrote the screenplay) is hunting renegade Apache Setago (Adamson regular and future director John “Bud” Cardos) for killing his wife on their wedding day. He starts off by helping save Setago's half brother Joe Lightfoot (also Cardos). Then he saves a former girlfriend Nora Miller (Adamson regular Vicki Volante) but gets into trouble with her jealous husband Dave (Adamson regular Kent Osbourne). 

After Ben leaves Setago's minions kill the couple and burn their house down. Then Death introduces us to Clay Bates (Jim Davis) and his partner Horace (Ray Young) who sell rifles to the Indians. Ben meets up again with Lightfoot now wounded in an attack. Clay and Horace find Lightfoot's “squaw” (Maria Polo) staked to the ground by Setago and Clay rapes and kills her. The Indians then attack a stagecoach. Somehow the passengers manage to hold off the first onslaught. Scott Brady is crabby Jim Wade who's always barking orders at his wife. Paula Raymond (BEAST FROM 50,000 FATHOMS) is aging show girl Kansas Kelly and John Carradine is great as Boone Hawkins, a voyeur preacher. Tara Ashton (later Mrs. Dix) is Althea, another show girl who provides some new love interest for Ben who shows up (with Lightfoot) to help the group survive. 

They meet up with Clay and Horace along the way. After some in fighting Lighfoot gets his revenge on Clay but he is killed by Setago. Then the Indians attack and most of the remaining cast is killed off leading to a final knife fight between Ben and Setago. Death says: “One will come to me. The other will ride on seeking me. Because in violence between men and nations there can be only one victor and that is death”.

I read comments about FBG saying it's the worst western ever made. Well, of course it's not great but it's entertaining. The “oldsters” cast (typical of an Adamson movie) is great but the film is really enhanced by locations (it was shot in a Utah National Park) and the cinematography by future Academy Award winner William (now Vilmos) Zsigmond. Al himself plays an Indian who fights Ben near the beginning of the film and his own father Victor Adamson has a small role. The elder Adamson once made his own low budget westerns in the '30's under the name of Denver Dixon! Besides playing two roles John Cardos was associate producer, production manager, stunt coordinator and assistant director!  

As with most of Adamson's product it was distributed by Independent International, a company founded by former Famous Monsters of Filmland writer Sam Sherman. On the DVD from Retro Shock A Rama there's a commentary track by Sherman and star Robert Dix. (both still alive at the time of this review)

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Note: I just realized I reviewed another Adamson movie:

http://moviemeltdown.blogspot.com/2010/12/talking-chimp.html

 

It's Really His Granddaughter

JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER-1966-A Mexican village lives in fear of the notorious experiments being carried out in a mysterious mansion. It seems Maria (Narda Onyx), the stuck up, power mad, grand-daughter of Dr. Frankenstein is continuing his legacy of monster making, assisted by her cowardly brother (familiar TV actor Steven Geray). 

Meanwhile a bare knuckles fighter named Hank (Cal Boulder) and his partner the famous outlaw Jesse James (James Lupton) team up with “The Wild Bunch” to steal $500,000 from a bank. For some reason the gang leader's drunken brother betrays them to the Marshall (Jim Davis) forcing Hank and Jesse to seek refuge in the Castle of Frankenstein's offspring. Maria decides Hank would be a great subject for her experiments. They want to give him some kind of brain transplant and the tri-color army helmets Maria and Hank wear during part of the process are hysterical! While this goes on Jesse takes time to romance Juanita (Estelita Rodriguez), a local who helps at the lab. 

Hank becomes a hulking zombie with stitch marks around his forehead who is re-named Igor! For a short time he does Maria's bidding but he turns against her in the end. The acting in this one (especially by Onyx as Maria) is far more campy than in BTKVD.

This was the last film made by veteran director William Beaudine who's career started in silent films! He's no stranger to this blog. I figure he deserves his own entry so I'll do that next time! 

Some interesting bits about some of the players: 

Estelita Rodriguez began her career at age 14 in Republic Pictures westerns including several with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. She also had a role in Howard Hawks' RIO BRAVO and was married and divorced from actor Grant Withers. JJMF'sD was her last film. She died at 37 in 1966 of undisclosed causes. (Some say it was influenza..)

Narda Onyx was born in Estonia and was appearing on many TV shows (including a re-occurring role on THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES)  prior to JJM'sFD which is one of her few movies roles. She's also in 1962's HITLER with Richard Basehart in the lead, playing Eva Braun's sister. She died in 1991 at 59.

Cal Bolder was an ex-patrolman who was in some other TV shows and later retired and wrote books. He died at 75 in 2005.

John Lupton was a successful stage actor and star of the TV western BROKEN ARROW. He died at 65 in 1993 of an undisclosed disease...

As for the title..well..Abbott & Costello didn't go to Mars either...

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The Wild Weird West

BILLY THE KID VS. DRACULA-1967-Vampirism in the old west. The legendary count (a very skinny John Carradine) set his sights and fangs on early settlers and American Indians. After killing off passengers on a stagecoach, Drac assumes the identity of James Underhill and takes over the Double B Bar ranch where he takes a liking to his “niece” Betty (Melinda Plowman). Fortunately her fiance is Billy The Kid (Chuck Courtenay). The Count flies around like a bat and whenever he's ready to bite someone a red light engulfs his face. He says things like: “You clumsy idiot” and “How dare you interfere!”. After he kills a squaw, Indians go on the warpath. Virginia Christine plays Eva, a superstitious Swedish woman who tries to convince Billy Uncle James is really King of the Vampires. Bing Russell is stupid jealous ranch hand who aids Drac and Richard Reeves is a bartender. Harry Carey Jr. is also in it as is his real life mother Olivia. The atmospheric finale takes place in an old mine where Dracula plans to make Betty his un-dead companion. This is the penultimate feature length film for veteran director William "One Shot" Beaudine. For more on him and his last film credit, see the next entry!

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The Way!

THE WARRIOR'S WAY-2010-In this surreal Martial Arts Western fable, Yang (Dong-gun Jang), a sword wielding assassin from Korea (with a baby) comes to the US and settles in a western town populated by circus performers including a clown, a bearded lady, a little person (Tony Cox) and a drunk (Geoffrey Rush who also narrates). He gets a job doing laundry and helps knife thrower Kate Bosworth hone her craft. They both have unhappy flashbacks. When the town is visited by The Colonel (Danny Huston), a ruthless killer with a mask, Yang is forced to reveal himself and help the townsfolk battle him and his army.

Yang gets help from Rush's character who it turns out is actually a famous bank robbing gunslinger who gave up killing...until now. The all out climax is great with several excellent fight scenes.

The assassins who are after Yang kind of remind me of the ring wraiths in THE LORD OF THE RINGS series but then one of TWW's producers Barrie Osborne also produced the LORD OF THE RINGS series!

Lung Ti (also in John Woo's A BETTER TOMORROW) is Yang's former mentor. It was written and directed in Auckland New Zealand by first time director Sngmoo Lee, a Korean who studied at NYU. It did poorly at the box office but don't let that stop you from enjoying it!

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Japanese Spagetti Western

SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO-2007-This strange movie is really too much for words! It's like a Italian "spaghetti western" but all the roles are played by Japanese who speak in English ("I don't want to run from the shit anymore") sometimes in weird voices. Everyone acts fairly crazed and there is a lot of bloody violence. But since this organized insanity was directed by Takashi Miike (ICHI THE KILLER, ZEBRAMAN) it is kind of understandable.

The basic plot is like it's Italian counterpart. A gunslinger (Hideaki Ito) gets in between two warring "clans" and plays both sides against the other to his own gain. But after that it's a very weird but well filmed gore fest with over the top acting, stunts and SFX.

A useless pre-credit sequence featuring Quentin Tarantino as a Clint Eastwood/Man with No Name character against a very phony background seems tacked on to interest Western audiences.

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A Hex On Them!

JONAH HEX-2010-More comic book revisionist bullshit. This CGI driven action western reduces the DC comic character into another violent killing machine. It's much like any direct to video junk featuring Van Damme, Seagal or some MMA fighter on the market today except for the western setting.

Josh Brolin (very good in the role) is Hex an ex-confederate soldier who's family was murdered by crazy Confederate general Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich; also very good) who also gives Jonah is distinctive facial scars (in the comic Apaches did it). Somehow he can also talk to the dead and he carries two Gatling guns on each side of his saddle! He also has a sawed off shotgun that shoots rockets. General Grant (Aidan Quinn) enlists Hex to catch Turnbull who Hex believed to be dead. Turnbull wants to build a "super weapon" that Eli Whitney designed for the government. He wants to use it to kill everyone on the 4th of July.

Megan Fox is a prostitute Hex is sweet on. Also with Michael Fassbender, Will Arnett, Tom Wopat, Lance Reddick and Rance Howard.

Strangely director Jimmy Hayward's previous effort was HORTON HEARS A WHO! Despite the nice acting by the leads and the over all excellent direction (there are some stupid parts) there's something missing from this adaptation to make it really entertaining. Oh yeah, it's not really like the comic book character....

Here's the real McCoy!:



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Saturday Morning Trio

RETURNER-2002-This is a great sci-fi/action film with a time travel storyline from Japan. A young girl (Anne Suzuki) from the future (2084) travels 80 into the past to prevent a alien invasion that dooms Earth. She gets help from "Gun for Hire" named Miyamoto (Takeshi Kaneshiro) who is out to avenge the death of a childhood friend at the hands of gangster Mizoguchi (Goro Kishitani in a great performance). Though a few plot holes might show through RETURNER and director Takashi Yamazaki deliver the goods....



RIDERS OF THE WHISPERING SKULL-1937-is a typically cheap and creaky western from Republic Pictures featuring the team known as "The Three Mesquiteers" (Stony, Tucson & Lullaby). This has the unusual feature of a supernatural plot involving a cursed treasure. Of course it's actually those "bad" Native American Indians once again and this particular tribe (described by one character as "a cult") like human sacrifices. The trio are kind of lamebrained if you ask me and seem to stick their collective noses into stuff that's none of their business. Stony is played by Robert Livingston. He played the same character around 20 times and was in about 80 other forgetable films but wound up his career in three Al Adamson movies! Stuntman Crash Corrigan who also specialized in playing gorillas is Tucson.



WEBS-(2003)-I have the unfortunate knack of never learning my lesson. When I saw this movie was being shown on The Sci-Fi Channel as "An Original Movie Presentation" I should have known better. It's happened before. Sci-Fi advertises a movie as being "exclusive" or even "made for Sci-Fi" yet when it's shown words are bleeped out and scenes are obviously cut. Why would they make a movie for TV that needed to be cut for language and content. I mean you'd think the producers would know this right?

Wrong! The answer is the station simply purchases some unreleased crap that no one wants and "presents" it as their own. But why they would want to take credit for such garbage is beyond me! For a while they were "snake crazy". Then it was sharks. I got caught in "Spider Weekend" apparently. Maybe it was a homage to the opening of SPIDER-MAN 2. I don't know...

Except this:

This one is kind of weird. It's almost like a pilot for a TV series though. Some electricians, led by direct to video fodder Richard Greico (did this guy ever have a career?) accidently travel to a parallel universe where the inhabitants battle blood drinking spider-people. It sounds interesting but the premise is really wasted mostly on fights and a few gory killings.

Director David Wu was also an actor, producer and editor in Hong Kong. In better days, he wrote THE BRIDE WITH THE WHITE and it's sequel (which he also directed). After directing episodes of TV shows like POWER PLAY and RELIC HUNTER, he was second unit director for BRIDE OF CHUCKY.

Oh yeah, I forgot the Sci-Fi channel recently changed their name to Sy-Fy! Sorry! They should be too.

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