Category Archives: Movies that take place in the South

The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia (1981)

Posted on January 18, 2023 | 1 comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Not like the song.

Travis (Dennis Quaid) is an aspiring singer with some talent, but little discipline. He’s achieved one hit song,but his drinking and partying keeps getting him in trouble. Amanda (Kristy McNichol) is his younger sister and though she’s only 16 she is more mature and responsible. She tries to manage Travis’ career by getting him to Nashville, so he can cut a record and get an agent, but his wild ways and their lack of funds, keeps preventing them from getting there. Eventually he gets arrested for public drunkenness and in order to pay the fine is forced to get a job at a local bar. It’s there that he meets Melody (Sunny Johnson) and tries to pursue a relationship, but becomes aware that Seth (Don Stroud), the deputy sheriff, has a thing for her as well and he won’t allow any other guy to talk to her as he’ll fly into a jealous rage and warns Travis of this, but Travis being reckless as always doesn’t let this phase him. As this goes on Amanda begins a romance of her own with with Conrad (Mark Hamill) who works as a state trooper.

Although in theory it’s ‘inspired’ by the song of the same name it technically doesn’t have anything to do with it. In other films that were made from songs like Convoy, Harper Valley PTA, and Ode to Billy Joe, the central theme was maintained and then expanded on, but here we don’t even get that. The song, with lyrics written by Bobby Russell and then sung by his then wife Vicki Lawrence, had to do with a man getting executed for killing another man who had an affair with his wife even though it was really his kid sister that did the crime. A plot like that could’ve had great potential for being an interesting movie, so why the producers didn’t just go with that original concept I don’t know, but it seems like a travesty for them to retain the song title and I’m surprised the producers of the record didn’t sue.

The plot, as it is here, is limp and uninspired. It basically feeds off of a lot of predictable shenanigans like Travis getting caught in a hotel bed with another man’s wife and then being chased around both on foot and in a vehicle until both he and Amanda are able to get away. In between we get treated to a lot of songs, which normally I’d say was nothing more than filler, which it still is, but since the rest of it is so lame, it comes off more like the best thing in it. Quaid and McNichol do all of their own singing and even wrote their own lyrics and they give energetic performances when onstage, so if you decide to see this thing then I’d suggest fast-forwarding through the rest of it and just stick with the music and you might be pleased.

The acting by Quaid is excellent and Don Stroud is great as the nemesis. McNichol is alright, at least when she’s singing, but otherwise gets pushed to the background and with her super short hair and nagging personality lacks sex appeal and at times looks almost like she could’ve been Quaid’s kid brother instead. The fact that they’re so close and do everything together would make one wonder if there’s something incestuous going on. In the more innocent times of the early 80’s maybe this wouldn’t be the first thought that would pop into people’s minds, but these days I’d suspect others would be wondering the same thing. There’s also no explanation for what happened to their parents. At one point McNichol mentions that she’s orphaned, so there really needs to be a backstory showing of what caused that.

Spoiler Alert!

The biggest gripe though is with the ending in which Travis gets shot and killed by Seth, who also dies in the gunfight. It then concludes with McNichol getting with Hamill, who quits his job as the state trooper, and the two drive-off in her rickety old truck to God knows where. Since the story was mainly about the brother/sister relationship then I felt that’s where it should’ve ended with them in Nashville either getting the record deal, or not. The Hamill character is bland and seemed to be added in with no other purpose, but to extend the already anemic plot. There’s also the fact that he was 29 at the time while McNichol plays someone who was only 16, so them getting into a relationship doesn’t exactly look kosher. Granted the age of consent in the state of Georgia is 16, so I guess in the eyes of law it’s okay, but many today will consider this kind of romance to be cringey, and I can’t help but wonder if that’s the main reason why this film has never had a proper DVD release nor any streaming option.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: June 5, 1981

Runtime: 1 Hour 52 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Ron Maxwell

Studio: AVCO Embassy Pictures

Available: DVD-R

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Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy/Drama, Movies Based on Songs, Movies that take place in the South, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies

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Tomorrow (1972)

Posted on December 25, 2022 | Leave a comment

 

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Aiding a pregnant woman.

Jackson Fentry (Robert Duvall) is a lonely farm-hand who has never married and lives in a tiny shack on the grounds of the farm that he’s been hired to maintain. One day he comes across a pregnant woman named Sarah Eubancks (Olga Bellin) near the property who’s been abandoned by both her husband and his family. He brings her back to his modest shed to warm her up and since she has nowhere to go he eventually agrees, with the help of a local midwife (Sudie Bond), to assist through the birth of her child. Sarah though dies soon after the baby is born, but not before Jackson agrees that he’ll raise the child. For several years Jackson is able to do just that until the brother’s of the boy’s father arrive and take the child away. Then many years later Jackson is called-in for jury duty on a trial that, known only to him, has a connection to the boy he lost contact with. 

There’s been many movies that have tried to recreate the rural 1800’s, but many for the sake of drama, or to make it more relatable to modern audiences, tend to cheat things. They may make it authentic in some areas, possibly even painstakingly so, but then compromise in others due to the entertainment factor. This though is one film that could genuinely be described as being about as minimalistic as any director could possibly make it. Filmed on a farm in rural Mississippi that was owned by the grandfather of Tammy Wynette the movie gives one an authentic taste of life back then with little to no music and no sense of any staging. The bare-bones shack that Jackson must reside in gives the viewer a stark sense of the grim, no frills existence that many dealt with back then. The slow pacing aptly reflects the slower ways of life and having the camera virtually trapped in the shed, or at most the nearby property, symbolized how people of that era had to learn to endure and expect little.

While those qualities hit-the-mark I felt that black-and-white photography detracted from it. By the 70’s most films were shot in color and only a few like The Last Picture Show, Young Frankenstein, and Eraserhead just to name some, were not, but this was more for mood, or style. Here though with everything already at an intentionally drab level the color could’ve at least brought out the beauty of the outdoor scenery of a southern winter and offered some brief striking visuals and a cinematic presence that was still needed, but missing and kind of hurts the movie. 

Surprisingly I had issues with the acting. One might say with Robert Duvall present that couldn’t be the case, but his overly affected accent, he got it from a man he met once in the foothills of the Ozarks, was from my perspective overdone and even borderline annoying. Bellin is alright though behind-the-scenes she created problems by refusing to take any advice from director Joseph Anthony. She had done mostly stage work up until then and was used to having leverage about how she approached her character once she was onstage and considered that once the camera was shooting meant the same thing. It was okay, like with a play production, for the director to give advice during rehearsals, but when the actual filming started she should have free rein over her craft and having Anthony repeatedly reshoot scenes, like in typical film production, or suggest she do things differently as the filming was going on, was all new to her and not to her liking, which caused numerous arguments not only with Anthony, but Duvall as well making them both later admit that they regretted casting her and she never performed in another movie again. Out of the entire cast it was Sudie Bond as the lady who helps with the birthing that I found to be the most memorable. 

While the story has many commendable moments it gets stretched pretty thin especially since it was based on a short story by William Faulkner and then adapted first as a play and then to the big screen by Horton Foote (the first of two collaborations that he did with Duvall with the second one being Tender Mercies 10 years later). Almost the entire third of the film gets spent on Jackson’s conversations with the woman while his relationship with the son takes-up less than 10 giving the pacing and flow a disjointed feel. It’s also a shame that, like with The Owl and the Pussycat, which came out 2 years earlier, the producers compromised on the elements of the original piece as in Faulkner’s story the pregnant woman was black, but here she gets changed to being Caucasian. Had the character remained black then what Jackson does for her would’ve been more profound as he would’ve been taking great personal risk in helping her in an era and region of the country where racism was high and by no longer being a colored woman it lessens the drama and is not as impactful as it could’ve been.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: March 19, 1972

Runtime: 1 Hour 43 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Joseph Anthony

Studio: Filmgroup Productions

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Plex, Tubi, Amazon Video

 

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black & White, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Movies Based on Short Stories, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies that take place in the South, Movies with a rural setting

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The Prize Fighter (1979)

Posted on November 18, 2022 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Boxer wins rigged fights.

Bags (Tim Conway) is a former boxer who lost all 20 matches that he was in and now helps his former trainer Shakes (Don Knotts) train new fighters, but neither of them is having much luck. Bags decides to go back into the ring during an amateur fight night and this gets the attention of local crime boss Mike (Robin Clarke). Mike is trying to build a convention center, but is stymied by Pop Morgan (David Wayne) who owns a gym on the block Mike wans to build on and he’s refusing to sell at any cost. Mike decides to rig the fights that Bags is in, unbeknownst to both Bags and Shakes, to the extent that it looks like Bags is ‘unbeatable’. He then will entice Pop to bet on the fight that Bags has with the The Butcher (Michael LaGuardia). Pops will be under the presumption it’ll be a ‘safe bet’, but this time Mike won’t rig it and presumably Bags will go down and Mike will be able to get his hands on Pop’s gym and tear it down for his new building. 

While Knotts and Conway had success with their pairing in The Apple Dumpling Gang, this foray, an attempted parody of Rocky, goes nowhere. Instead of being filled with a lot of gags and pratfalls, which is what you’d expect, it’s a slow story filled with every cringy cliche from a fight movie out there. Comedy is supposed to make fun of the cliches instead of propping them up, but unfortunately that’s the approach taken and it bombs massively.

Comedy movies should also have all the characters be funny in some way, but here most of them are not. Possibly that was for vanity reasons as Conway, who also wrote the script, didn’t want to be upstaged, but this forces the viewer to go through long periods of trite drama in every scene that he’s not in. The supporting characters are extreme caricatures of the 1930’s which the film is set in. Robin Clarke is particularly annoying (not necessarily his fault as that was just the way the part was written) as he attempts to channel Al Pacino from The Godfather while speaking like a poor man’s Marlon Brando. David Wayne is cast to resemble Burgess Mereridith who was in Rocky (ironically both men played villains in the 60’s ‘Batman’ TV-show with Meredith as the Penguin and Wayne as The Mad Hatter). Here though Wayne speaks, in an effort to sound like Meredith, in a gravely voice that makes him sound like a duck. I also found John Myhers, who co-wrote the script, put-on Irish accent to be equally irritating.  

Even Knotts gets wasted. Some enjoy the moment where he cracks a bunch of raw eggs in a glass and then tries to force Conway to drink it, but other than that he doesn’t elicit too many laughs. Yes, Conway is amusing at times, but his perpetually clueless shtick gets a bit old by the end. The only performer that had me laughing was Mary Ellen O’Neill who plays Mike’s senile old mother and who does some wildly bizarre things while in Conway and Knotts’ presence. She’s a scene stealer and should’ve been in it more and while she’s at the boxing match as she watches the fight with Mike she should’ve continued to do weird things while the fight was going on, which outside of swearing she doesn’t, and it was a missed opportunity.

I will give credit for the climatic bout, which is surprisingly well choreographed and effectively has a large crowd watching, which gives it an electric atmosphere, but everything else falls flat. The irony I suppose is that the film ended up being a money-maker and in fact was one of the most successful films released by New World Pictures, but I think this was mainly because a lot of people went to it based off the reputations of the two stars more than the movie itself being good. I remember I went with my dad and two siblings to see it at the local theater because we were fans of Conway and Knotts, but all of us, our dad included, were quite bored and went home unimpressed and it clearly hasn’t improved with age. 

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: November 16, 1979

Runtime: 1 Hour 39 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Michael Preece

Studio: New World Pictures

Available: DVD

 

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Posted in 70's Movies, Comedy, Gangster Movies, Movies for the Whole Family, Movies that take place in the South, Sports Movies

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Scalpel (1977)

Posted on October 15, 2022 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Surgeon alters patient’s face.

Dr. Phillip Reynolds (Robert Lansing) is an esteemed plastic surgeon who secretly harbors a dark side. When he sees his daughter Heather (Judith Chapman) making-love to her boyfriend he flies into a rage and kills the boy and then stages it to look like an accident. Heather runs away in terror and is not heard of for quite awhile. In the meantime Phillip’s father-in-law dies and bequeaths his entire fortune of $5 million to Heather, but since she’s nowhere to be found the money remains in escrow until she can come forward to claim it. Later, as Phillip is driving along a city street with his brother-in-law (Arlen Dean Snyder), they come upon a nightclub stripper (also played by Chapman) who has had her face crushed when a bouncer rammed it into a brick wall. Phillip decides to reconstruct the woman’s face to resemble his daughter’s, so she can claim the fortune and the two can split it. Things work smoothly as Philip trains her on all of her daughter’s traits and able to identify member’s of the extended family. Everyone comes to believe she’s the real daughter and the two are able to get their hands on the money only to have the real Heather suddenly reappear.

This movie, amongst IMDb reviewers, gets high marks with most rating it between 7 to even a 10 out of 10. I rate it lower, which I’ll go into, but they’re are things about that I did like. The performance by Lansing is excellent and perfectly conveys a character that seems nice and respectable on the outside, but could turn sinister, sometimes in unexpected ways, all of a sudden. The surgery scenes are realistic and even a bit graphic and the film has a few slick touches including the cinematography by Edward Lachman that nicely captures Georgia’s topography.

The plot has an intriguing premise and there’s no shortage of twists, but the way the stripper character gets handled I had a big problem with. There’s absolutely no backstory as to who this woman is, or why she got into the situation that she did. It doesn’t even seem like a real person, but a transparent entity that conveniently pops-in out-of-nowhere with essentially no past to her. I think the filmmakers were working-off of an old-fashioned belief that a sex workers had ‘no life’ and therefore would be more than happy to walk away from their former existence and take-on a new one without any regret, but this just isn’t true. Sex workers have friends and family and a past just like anyone else and wouldn’t necessarily want to just completely turn their backs on their old connections. The script also doesn’t bother to explain why a bouncer would shove a women’s face into a brick wall as he throws her out of the bar, or what might’ve happened to lead up to that, which to me was a plot hole.

Some may argue that maybe she lost her memory when her head hit the wall. Even if this was possibly the case (it never gets confirmed and in one instance Heather asks the woman about her past and she looks down like she does recall it, but is ashamed of it) it would most likely be temporary amnesia which can happen at times during a traumatic event or accident, but the old memories will usually come trickling back eventually. Either way it would’ve added an intriguing wrinkle to the story, if someone from her past tracked her down and became a part of the plot.

In addition I didn’t feel that Chapman’s acting was so great as she seems to be playing the same person instead of two different individuals. More contrasts needed to be made into the dual character’s personalities other than one can play the piano while the other couldn’t. I didn’t like that both spoke in an extremely distinctive twangy southern accent either. The impostor could’ve put on the affected accent when needed, but in private should’ve spoken in a way that was much different.

Spoiler Alert!

The ending in which the fake Heather takes the inheritance money after signing-off on it and then flying away on a private jet, is a letdown. Her signature would be different than the real Heather’s and during her ‘training’ on how to be like Heather that would’ve most likely been a point they’d overlook. A really cool twist would’ve had her thinking she had gotten away with it only for the jet to land and the police waiting for her as they recognized that the signatures didn’t match, or in her haste she had forgotten and wrote in her real name instead.

There’s another segment, just before the ending, where a hitman, disguised as a policeman, chases the fake Heather through a forest in an attempt to kill her, and he manages to catch-up with her and points a gun in her face, but then the film cuts away. The fake Heather then reappears in the mansion wearing the hitman’s police uniform, but no explanation for how she got away, which should’ve been played-out.

Alternate Title: False Face

Released: January 15, 1977

Runtime: 1 Hour 35 Minutes

Rated R (Reissued as PG with erotic nude scenes removed).

Director: John Grissmer

Studio: AVCO Embassy Pictures

Available: Blu-ray, Fandor, Tubi

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cult, Horror, Movies that take place in the South

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Mirrors (1978)

Posted on October 9, 2022 | Leave a comment

mirrors

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Woman haunted by voodoo.

Marianne (Kitty Winn) and Gary ( William Paul Burns) are a newlywed couple who travel to the French Quarter of New Orleans for their honeymoon. Little do they know that a secret group of people, including the owner of the hotel that they’re staying at, have decided to possess Marianne with the spirit of a dead black woman. Soon after arriving Marianne begins having frightening dreams and the reflections of someone else when she looks in the mirror. Strange occurrences happen around her including the deaths of dogs and even her husband. Eventually she gets taken to a psychiatric hospital where Dr. Godard (Peter Donat) listens to her case and agrees to try and help her.

This was the third feature film of director Noel Black. He attained the attention of film critics with his 1965 movie short Skaterdater, which lead to funding for his second project Pretty Poison, which starred Anthony Perkins and Tuesday Weld and garnered a cult following. Soon after he became highly in-demand, but he made the mistake of deciding it was more important to stay busy in the business than holding out for a good script. He took on directing the notorious Cover Me Babe, which features what may be the most unlikable protagonist in film history, and a movie Black later admitted “should never have been made”. He followed this up with Jennifer on My Mind, which met with equal disdain by both the critics and at the box office. By 1974, when this film was shot, Black was just trying to remain relevant as the studios that initially adored him were now no longer calling. This film was meant to showcase his visual talent, but he and the producers could never get on the same page as to what direction to take the story culminating in a muddled script that goes nowhere.

That’s not to say there aren’t things about this movie that I liked. The music score by Stephen Lawrence is haunting and the on-location shooting of the French Quarter offers a nice ambiance. I liked the point-of-view shots done when Marianne first gets wheeled into the hospital and the scenes inside an abandoned train station are spooky.

The story though lacks focus. The film opens right away with us seeing the notorious voodoo group in action, but it would’ve been more interesting had we not been given this information right away and instead made it more of a mystery for the viewer as to whether she was going insane, like the other characters in the movie think she is, or not. Winn’s performance is good. She’s better known for her part in a much more famous horror movie The Exorcist, where she appeared more youthful while here her hair is cut short and with make-up given a middle-aged demeanor. Her character though is poorly fleshed-out and shows no unique qualities and in that respect she’s quite boring, but as she becomes repeatedly terrorized by the group the viewer softens to her, mostly due to her good acting, and ultimately cares about her fate.

Spoiler Alert!

The story has similar themes with the cult hit Let’s Scare Jessica to Death and had it been better realized could’ve been a minor success, but the ending is too ambiguous. Winn turns to the camera in the final shot and shows a weird expression making us believe, I guess, that she’s been possessed by a spirit, but why was she chosen? There’s many people that come to New Orleans, so why does this group pick her to go through all this and not someone else? What’s the purpose, or end game of the group and what do they hope to achieve? None of this gets answered making the viewer feel afterwards that it was a big pointless waste of time. Black admitted that it didn’t work out right, but blames the fact that it was taken out of his hands and revised in a way that he didn’t approve of. All of this may be true, but in either case it’s best not to come into it with high expectations as you’ll leave gravely disappointed afterwards.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: February 8, 1978 (Filmed in May of 1974)

Runtime: 1 Hour 28 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Noel Black

Studio: First American Films

Available: DVD-R (dvdlady.com)

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Posted in 70's Movies, Horror, Movies that take place in the South, Movies with a Hospital setting, Movies with a Hotel setting, Obscure Movies

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Dark Sunday (1976)

Posted on August 31, 2022 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Preacher versus drug dealers.

Reverend Lowery (Earl Owensby) works to get teens hooked-on drugs off the city streets and sober, which annoys local drug dealers who order a hit on him. When his family are on a camping trip two hit men (Ron Lampkin, Jac Cashin) shoot both of Lowery’s sons (Todd Reep, Jeff Reep) and his wife (Maggie Lauterer). When Lowery tries coming to their aid he gets shot several times, but manages to survive though with a severe limp and inability to speak. Once out of the hospital he goes on a silent mission to get revenge on those that killed his family while also stopping the dealers from selling anymore drugs and getting them off the streets once and for all.

This is third film of Earl Owensby who in 1973 decided to take a stab at filmmaking by building a studio near Shelby, North Carolina and making movies that he deemed to have ‘old-fashioned values’ and away from the sex and violence of Hollywood. While his movies didn’t have any nudity they did have its fair share of violence, which his critics considered to be hypocritical, but in any event they made money especially on the grindhouse circuit and enough of a profit that it allowed him to continue making movies up to 1991. While other regional directors like John Waters and Charles B. Pierce where able to gain enough attention with their movies to ultimately get a Hollywood contract Owensby never did. Some say it was because he labeled himself a conservative, which automatically made him an outsider with Tinseltown.

Whatever the reason this movie really wasn’t all that different from the Hollywood revenge dramas like Dirty Harry and Walking Tall and I was surprised how watchable it was. It does go on longer than it should and the opening features several jump cuts, which gives it an extreme amateur feel. There’s also way too many scenes that take place in back alleys. Granted it works with the plot, but I still got the feeling it was shot at these locations because it was less likely to get noticed by the authorities for shooting without a permit.

The film was controversial for the amount of violence and was banned from several countries. The shootings could be considered extreme when you see little kids shot directly in the chest and then violently thrown backwards. There’s also a nifty death where one of the drug dealers known as Candyman (Chuck Mines) drowns by having his face shoved into a toilet bowl though this would’ve had better effect had it been shot from above versus to the side. In either case the shootings get redundant and there should’ve been more creative deaths instead of just at the hands of a rifle.

What I did like was that the protagonist suffers lasting injuries and doesn’t just miraculously recover like heroes in a Hollywood movie do. However, with that said, the limp that he gets stuck with, which forces him to walk with a cane, completely disappears during the final foot chase where he’s able to climb ladders connected to buildings even better than the able bodied detective who’s chasing after him.

You would’ve also thought that since he was such a well-loved preacher in his community and lead a big  congregation that they would’ve come to his aid after he was injured by finding him some housing and maybe even a job instead of him becoming this lonely homeless person that no one seemed to know. If he had grown bitter and lost his faith due to what happened to his family and thus rejected their offers of help that’s fine, but a scene showing this needed to be inserted.

It might’ve worked better too had it started from the perspective of the prostitute (Monique Prouix) who takes the homeless Lowery into her apartment because she feels sorry for him and considers him harmless. Then the violent deaths of the drug dealers would force the viewer to connect the dots to Lowery and ultimately through flashback show what happened to his family at the end, which then would’ve given the film an element of mystery and more layers. I was also taken off-guard by the very downbeat ending, which I hadn’t expected and didn’t feel was necessary, but does conform to the ‘everything is terrible’ theme, which was a prevalent in most 70’s movies.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: August 17, 1976

Runtime: 1 Hour 42 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Jimmy Huston

Studio: Intercontinental Releasing Corporation

Available: DVD-R (dvdlady.com)

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Posted in 70's Movies, Action/Adventure, Low Budget, Movies that take place in the South, Obscure Movies

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The Farmer (1977)

Posted on August 15, 2022 | 1 comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Country man seeks vengeance.

Kyle (Gary Conway) returns from fighting in WWII a decorated hero, but finds when he gets back home that trying to run a profitable farm to be tough going and risks having it foreclosed on by the bank. One night while swerving to avoid an animal on the road professional gambler Johnny (Michael Dante) gets injured in a car accident near were Kyle lives. Kyle and his friend Gumshoe (Ken Renard) nurse Johnny back to health and for repayment Johnny gives Kyle $1,500, which is enough to help his farmstead survive for a little while longer. Johnny though soon gets into trouble with racketeer Passini (George Memmoli) who permanently blinds him by dumping acid on his face. Johnny wants revenge and hires Kyle, who’s farm continues to struggle, to do it by having him use his superior shooting skills to kill-off Passini and his men while using Johnny’s inside knowledge to track them down. At first Kyle resists, even after Johnny offers him $50,000, but when one of Passini’s men (Timothy Scott) burns down Kyle’s barn, kills Gumshoe, and rapes his new girlfriend (Angel Tompkins) he then decides to go on the warpath.

This has become, especially in the past decade, known as a ‘lost film’. It had never been shown on broadcast TV nor cable and had never received a DVD release, or Blu-ray, or even VHS. It became impossible to find even a bootleg copy and many had become convinced this was the obscure of the obscure. Code Red promised 10 years ago, much to the excitement of rare film collectors, to release it on DVD, but after some promotion the deal fell through, which frustrated many and gave this film even more of a cult status. Some had come to believe that maybe the movie was simply a ‘myth’ and really didn’t exist at all. Just when everything looked bleak Scorpion Rising gave it a Blu-ray release in February of this year and the print is excellent and the film itself isn’t bad either.

It’s noted for its graphic violence, which may have been the chief reason it never got shown on TV or cable. Some of it is quite cruel, particularly the acid scene and the rape is quite intense too. This tough does effectively get the viewer emotionally riled-up making them want to see Kyle get revenge and relishing the third act when he does. The revenge scenes are just as bloody, but I was disappointed that, as graphic as the movie is, the segment where Kyle shoves one of Passini’s men out a high-story window is not shown. The camera cuts away when Kyle pushes him instead of seeing the body drop down which might’ve been hard to film since a parade was going on below, but an effort should’ve been made.

Conway’s acting is only adequate though he does at least convey a stoic quality. Angel Tompkins does better and while some of her other B-movie roles weren’t so great this one is clearly her best and proves she could act versus just looking pretty. Memmoli is memorable as the slimy villain and he should’ve been in it more, but he got injured on the set while riding in a stunt car and was cooped-up in a hospital during most of the production, which also ultimately lead to his career downfall and death. The former comic who graduated into character actor roles had always struggled with weight, but had gotten himself down to 190 pounds when he was in this movie, but when the accident occurred and he was laid-up his weight ballooned out to as high as 490 and causing him to have to turn down subsequent film parts due to his physical limitations.

The review in Maltin’s book claims that there’s a lot of ‘anachronistic errors’ in the movie and having read the review beforehand I kept my eagle-eye out looking for them, but I really didn’t see any. Again I never lived in the 40’s and technically Maltin, who was born in 1950, didn’t either, but to me I felt it came-off okay. I liked the way it approaches the era in a gritty way versus a nostalgic one and the frequent use of the hand-held camera, which was ahead-of-its-time. The surprise twist at the end isn’t bad either.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: March 9, 1977

Runtime: 1 Hour 37 Minutes

Rated R

Director: David Berlatsky

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: Blu-ray

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cult, Gangster Movies, Movies that take place in the South, Movies with a rural setting, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies

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The Baltimore Bullet (1980)

Posted on June 7, 2022 | 1 comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Pool hustlers travel country.

Nick (James Coburn) is an aging pool hustler who’s best days are behind him. Many years earlier he took a young 15-year-old boy named Billie Joe (Bruce Boxleitner) under his tutelage and taught him the tricks-of-the-trade. Now as a man Billie is able to play the game as well as Nick. The two travel the countryside attending pool halls where they hustle patsies for money. Nick though holds a grudge because a ways back he lost a crucial match to The Deacon (Omar Sharif) another hustler whose just been released from jail. Nick wants a rematch, but The Deacon doesn’t think he’s worthy of his time. Nick though got’s a scheme that will get him to change his mind by playing in a nationally televised pool tournament that The Deacon plans to attend.

For a film that has never had an official US DVD release and was only shown sporadically on late night TV I was surprised at how engaging it is. Screenwriters John Brascia and Robert Vincent O’Neill have written a highly amiable script that features funny vignettes and amusing banter. The focus isn’t on the game of pool, which seems almost like a side-light, but more on the scraps they get into along the way. The two also come into contact with those trying to cheat them and this culminates in an almost surreal like confrontation, that comes around the middle mark, inside a house of mirrors at a carnival side show.

The film also has a segment that seemed prolific in movies that came out during the late 70’s and early 80’s which features what would be considered sexual assault now. The scene has Nick betting Billie Joe that the breasts on a waitress at a cafe that they’re in is silicone and not natural. Billie then proceeds to go into the kitchen to feel-her-up without her consent. While what he does is not shown we do hear her scream and drop her tray of dishes before he walks back out with a broad smile on his face, which back in the day was just considered ‘light comedy’.

Coburn is a great actor, but looks horribly aged. He was only 60, but could’ve easily passed-off as 70 or 75 making his fight scenes look inauthentic as I don’t believe in his elderly condition he would’ve been able to hold his own. Boxleitner is dull and seems only able to display a broad ‘good-ole-boy’ smile and not much else. A more dynamic actor, or one maybe more Coburn’s age, could’ve made the buddy angle better.

I found Sharif to be too soft spoken and he approaches his part in a weird way. For instance when he’s playing a senator at poker he displays moments of outward nervousness, but if he’s truly a cocky, confident player that wouldn’t have been the case. Ronee Blakely is weak as well proving that her appearance in Nashville was her only good performance though her singing is nice and she’ll remind one a lot of Shelley Duvall with her looks. Jack O’Halloran, the former boxer who’s best known for playing Non the henchmen to the evil Zod in the Superman movies, is very funny as Max an inept hit man.

Spoiler Alert!

The ending unfortunately gets convoluted. Having the game broadcast and featuring live play-by-play and commenting by pool legend Willie Musconi is cool, but I wanted to see the ultimate match between Nick and Billie Joe to prove which one was truly better. The script teases this idea, but then adds in too many other unnecessary ingredients like having Nick be pressured to dump the game while there’s also a robbery happening and then eventually the place is raided by the feds. By the time it gets to The Deacon taking-on Nick it’s anti-climactic especially since no one else is around (it should’ve been televised on TV for all to witness). Having it focus more on the game and the strategies, which it starts to do slightly near the end, would’ve given it more substance and what little they do talk about I found to be genuinely interesting.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: April 1, 1980

Runtime: 1 Hour 43 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Robert Ellis Miller

Studio: AVCO Embassy Entertainment

Available: DVD (Reg 2 Import)

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Posted in 80's Movies, Buddy Movies, Movies that take place in the South, Obscure Movies, Road Movies, Sports Movies

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The Glass Menagerie (1987)

Posted on May 15, 2022 | 2 comments

glass

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Daughter receives gentlemen caller.

Tom (John Malkovich) returns to the now abandoned apartment of his childhood. It is here that he recollects to the viewer his life living there where he resided both with his handicapped sister Laura (Karen Allen) and overly-protective mother Amanda (Joanne Woodward). Laura is very shy and has no social life, and instead spends her time taking care of her collection of miniature glass animals. Unable to hold down any job and straddled with a limp her mother fears that Laura will never find a man to marry and as a result will be alone and penniless when she gets older. She pressures Tom, who spends most of his free time watching movies in the theater in order to alleviate the boredom of his own life, to find a suitor, or gentlemen caller, who can come to visit and subsequently court Laura. Tom finally finds someone in the form of Jim (James Naughton) whom he works with at his factory job. Unbeknownst to him Jim went to high school with Laura and she was secretly infatuated with him. When he arrives for dinner Laura’s shyness takes over and she retreats to her bedroom, but then later she comes out. The two begin to talk and Jim tries to give Laura more confidence. Will he be her ‘knight-in-shining-armour’, or like with her glass collection will it simply be an illusion destined to shatter?

The film is based on the famous Tennessee Williams play, and to a degree his own life while growing up, that was originally produced in 1944 and was his first successful play that catapulted his career. It was made into a movie in 1950, which got a lukewarm response from film goers and critics alike for the perceived miscasting of Gertrude Lawrence, an English actress, who played Amanda. It was remade as a TV-movie in 1966 with Shirley Booth and then again in 1973 with Katharine Hepburn. Many felt this was the best filmed version of the play especially since Tennessee Williams wrote the teleplay.

This version is okay, but kind of seems unnecessary. Initially I thought director Paul Newman was going to use a different approach by removing it from a stage setting and having more outdoor scenes, which we see during the opening as Tom walks towards the apartment, which would’ve been different from any other Williams play. Ultimately though this one comes-off no different than the others with virtually everything taking place within the claustrophobic apartment. I realize that the point of the story is to show how trapped these characters were in their dismal lives, but putting a variety to the visuals and making it seem more cinematic would’ve helped. Even just adding in some cutaways would’ve been a plus like showing what Amanda and Tom are doing while Jim and Laura are sitting in the living room for an extended period of time talking. You’d presume that Amanda, being the meddlesome mother that she was, would be attempting to listen into their conversation, but actually showing it would’ve allowed an added context instead of just having them disappear and yet remain in the apartment, but doing who knows what.

Malkovich is solid and it’s nice seeing him in an early role before his ego and persona turned him into a caricature of himself. Allen is also quite good with her expressive blue eyes being the emotional catalyst that holds it all together and helps keep the viewer compelled to the story despite its overly talky nature. Woodward though doesn’t come-off as well. She’s played such strong characters in the past in films that were also directed by her husband that this one seems like a letdown compared to those. She’s also, despite the gray hair, a bit too young for the role as she was only 56 and it would’ve been better served had it been played by a more elderly woman in her 60’s or 70’s who could exude a lady completely lost in a bygone era.

The story is still compelling, but the conversations go on longer than they should and more effort should’ve been made to give it a stronger southern feel. The original film’s runtime was only 107 minutes, but this one goes on well over 2-hours. I’m not sure what was cut from that one, or added here, but it could’ve used some editing and still not hurt the basic integrity of the material.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: May 11, 1987

Runtime: 2 Hours 14 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Paul Newman

Studio: Cineplex Odeon Films

Available: VHS, DVD-R

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Posted in 80's Movies, Drama, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies that take place in the South, Obscure Movies

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Conrack (1974)

Posted on May 6, 2022 | Leave a comment

conrack2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: He teaches underprivileged kids.

In the spring of 1969 Pat Conroy gets a job teaching children in grades 5 through 8 in a one room schoolhouse off the coast of South Carolina on an island known as Yamacraw. He soon finds that the students, all of whom are poor and African American, don’t know even the basics of arithmetic, or geography and can’t read. He becomes compelled to change that by instituting unorthodox teaching methods, which he hopes will ‘jostle’ them from their intellectual slumber and get them into learning and enjoying it. Mrs. Scott (Madge Sinclair) is the principal who’s not keen to these methods and routinely lectures him. Mr. Skeffington (Hume Cronyn) is the superintendent who also frowns on some of the things Pat is doing and proceeds to have him fired. Pat tries to win his job back and the students and townspeople help him in his fight, but will it be enough?

The film is based on the novel ‘The Water is Wide’, which was written by Pat Conroy, who later went on to even greater success with The Great Santini, which was based on his father, and also made into a movie. This story was supposedly based on some of Pat’s true-life experiences while teaching on Daufuskie Island. Some of what’s shown is revealing and even captivating, but I couldn’t help but feel certain other aspects were exaggerated. I realize that these kids didn’t have the best education system and certainly might not be as well read as certain other kids their age, but to not know what 2 + 2 was, or that they lived in the U.S.A. came off as too extreme to me. There’s also no real explanation for why the teacher before him failed to teach even these most basic things to them. Was she/he just lazy, or grossly incompetent?

The film also comes-off a bit too much like a vanity project where Conroy is portrayed as being this ‘amazing’ teacher who’s able to get extraordinary results from kids that no one else could simply by his sheer presence alone. All the students bond with him quickly and there’s no trouble-maker, or discipline issues. One could argue that Mary (Tina Andrews) was difficult because she refused to show-up to class, but truancy and in-class disruptions, as well as those students who test authority, are two entirely different things and the fact that Pat is able to avoid that is something few other teachers can say they’ve been able to do as well.

Voight is certainly energetic and engaging, but the students themselves fail to elicit any distinctive personalities and it’s hard to distinguish any of them from the others. I enjoyed Sinclair a great deal and felt she gave a great performance, but her confrontations with Pat could’ve been played-up more. The side-story dealing with Paul Winfield as an illiterate hermit whom Pat teaches to read is a total waste mainly because his character is underdeveloped and not in it long enough to really care about.

I enjoyed Pat’s visit with Edna (Ruth Attaway), one of the elderly townspeople, but his relationship with the other people in town should’ve been shown intermittently all through the film instead of just saving it until the third act where they all attempt to come to his rescue when he loses his job. They seemed to really like him, which is great, but I wasn’t sure they even knew he existed since there were never any scenes showing him interacting with them up until then.

Spoiler Alert!

The ending had me raising my eyebrow a bit, as Pat, once he’s let go of his job, proceeds to drive around the local town and broadcast his grievances through a speaker attached to the roof of his pick-up, which had me concerned that in typical Hollywood fashion he would be able to win his employment back even though in real-life stunts like that usually don’t work. Fortunately that doesn’t happen making the film, which was already idealized to begin with, not seem quite as fabricated. If you can forgive some of these issues, the production as a whole is well down and the always reliable director Martin Ritt perfectly captures the rural setting and ambiance, which is the best thing about it.

conrack1

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: March 15, 1974

Runtime: 1 Hour 46 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Martin Ritt

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: Blu-ray (Out-of-Print), DVD-R

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Posted in 70's Movies, Movies Based on Actual Events, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in the South, Movies with a rural setting, Obscure Movies

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