Tag: c

Carve Her Name With Pride

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★★★
“Worthy, but rather sluggish, retelling of the life of St. Violette of Szabo.”

This is based on a true story, so we know from the start this is going to end in front of a firing-squad – at least until the Hollywood remake, with a happy ending. Given this, the film still tries to crank up the tension, but as written, Violette Szabo comes off as beyond saintly, without flaws or imperfections. Almost as irritating, she is shown as being mostly inspired by the death of her husband, rather than any innate patriotism (Charlotte Gray similarly portrayed a female SOE agent as passive-reactive). Having said that, the movie generally stays true to the facts, though the poem supposedly written by her husband was actually, in far less romantic reality, by her SOE codemaster – interestingly, the SOE’s name is not mentioned at all. Much of the end is fictionalised; details of her interrogation, for example, are obviously unavailable.

The film does take much too long to get going – it’s almost half-way done before she touches French soil – and most of the exposition, especially early on, is unbearably clunky. However, McKenna is solid as Violette and, despite some questionable accents, so are most of the cast (look out for a young Michael Caine as a soldier on a train asking for water; Gilbert would later direct Alfie and Educating Rita, in addition to three Bond flicks). The characters are stereotypical, particularly Ze Germans, but we should remember this was made in 1958, only 13 years after the war ended, and balance was not an issue; Szabo’s torture at the hands of the Nazis still makes uncomfortable viewing. Rather than watching the movie at 11pm on Thursday night (as we did!), a Sunday afternoon slot should fit this admirably.

Dir: Lewis Gilbert
Star: Virginia McKenna, Paul Scofield, Jack Warner, Denise Grey

Charlotte Gray

  By

★★★½
“Despite fine performances, this doesn’t know what it wants to be, and ends up between two stools.”

Love story or wartime thriller? The script here tries to have it both ways, and as a result of this uncertainty, the undeniable potential in the idea is unfulfilled. Gray (Blanchett) is dropped into Vichy France during World War II as an agent, but her bosses don’t realise she is more interested in finding her pilot lover (Penry-Jones), who’s been shot down nearby. While conflict between love, and love of country, would have been interesting, the former is almost ignored, then disposed of in a thoroughly unconvincing manner. Not that this diversion is uninteresting; you get a real sense of the terrors of war, with people being “vanished” in seconds, and the tension of living your life on a knife-edge behind enemy lines.

Mostly, the film is concerned with Charlotte’s protection of two Jewish children, and involvement in a resistance cell led by Julien (Crudup). They’re communists, so the British don’t really like them, but they’re convenient – and can be abandoned when necessary, the revelation of which provides the film with its most chilling moment. Blanchett has the right steely resolve for the role, and the cast is generally excellent; particular credit to Gambon (magnificently surly as Julien’s father), Ron Cook as Gray’s contact, and Anton Lesser, an oily collaborator who had us screaming “Die! Die!” at the TV set.

However, the movie never makes us understand why Charlotte would go to such extreme lengths for someone whom she’s known for only a few days. Also, Armstrong seems to have little or no idea how to direct action – not that you’d expect much else from the director of Little Women [one of only two films I’ve ever walked out of] – and the results fall far short of pulse-pounding. Was pleasantly surprised by the ending though, where the heroine discovers that war does indeed change everything. Pity it couldn’t change Blanchett’s dodgy Scottish accent.

Dir: Gillian Armstrong
Star: Cate Blanchett, Billy Crudup, Michael Gambon, Rupert Penry-Jones

Cat’s Eye

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★★★½
“Some truly great sequences lift this otherwise average manga adaptation.”

Despite an overall rating that is only mildly above average, when this is good, it is fabulous, and that’s why it merits recommendation. The highlight is probably a delirious first ten minutes, in which our three heroines steal a painting, and are pursued by the relentless and dogged Detective Hoshio (Harada), who doesn’t realise the cafe where he eats is run by the thieves he’s after. [If this sounds familiar, High-Heeled Punishers used a very similar idea in an S&M setting] This opening is lovely high-camp, played (as it should be) totally straight, with a beautiful sense of progression – both pursued and pursuers use wonderfully evolving gadgets.

Indeed, all the action is great. Unfortunately, instead of sticking to this simple concept, the major thrust has the trio seeking their father, an artist kidnapped 20 years ago, which brings them against the Chinese mafia and their assassin, Black Flag, played by Sho Kosugi’s son, Kane. This plot is badly-written, and drags the movie down like an anchor. Apparently, beyond basics, it also bears little resemblance to the 18-volume manga and 73-episode anime series which ran between 1981 and 1984, though I’m unfamiliar with them or the previous live-action version, a TV special aired in 1988.

Most fans seemed to hate this; as a neutral, I wasn’t so upset, though neither characters nor acting were exactly memorable – in particular, I found it hard to tell the heroines apart, especially when clad in their PVC cat-suits (complete with little pointy ears!). However, as disposable fluff, the time passed quickly enough, even if I would have loved more heists, and less flaky familial fiddling.

Dir: Kaizo Hiyashi
Star: Yuki Ichida, Izumi Inamori, Morika Fujiwara, Kenta Harada

China O’Brien

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★★★
“Bad, but in a good way. Mindless, harmless fun.”

There’s something charmingly naive about this film. It inhabits, and expects us to believe in, a world where a villain can blow up the sheriff and his deputy with car-bombs, yet federal authorities take no interest. Nor do they apparently care when an election rally is machine-gunned. Mind you, in this same world, a new sheriff is elected five working days after the incumbent dies, but that’s still enough time for a massive parade down main street to be organised by a candidate.

In this kind of milieu, Cynthia Rothrock’s acting fits right in, as China, the daughter of a sheriff who returns to her home town after shooting a kid, only to find home has been taken over by Summers (Kerby) and his mob of gangsters. When they kill her father, she runs for the position, which needless to say does not sit well with Summers. Luckily she has ex-Special Forces dude Matt (Norton, making no attempt to hide his Aussie accent) and crippled Indian Dakota (Cooke) on her side, and the touching loyalty of local high-school kids, willing to follow her into gunfire.

This is, as we say in Britain, bollocks. However, it is at least entertaining bollocks, which is more than can be said for most of Rothrock’s American movies. She, Norton and Cooke all know how to fight, and director Clouse puts these talents to frequent use against a broad variety of Jerry Springer candidates. Despite reusing some shots, particularly at the finale, Clouse falls some way short of replicating his Enter the Dragon work. This is mostly because Rothrock lacks Bruce Lee’s charisma; remarkably, in Lainie Watts (as barfly Patty), they found an actress who makes Cynthia look Oscar-calibre. For a Friday night, this does the job, providing equal portions of genuine entertainment and opportunities for sarcasm.

Dir: Robert Clouse
Star: Cynthia Rothrock, Richard Norton, Steven Kerby, Keith Cooke

Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold

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★★★
“Do not confuse with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.”

In the 70’s, Shaw Brothers hooked up with Western studios, to various effect, e.g. the inept Dracula and the Seven Golden Vampires, made in conjunction with Hammer. Co-production works rather better here, lending genuine exotic locations, and an endless array of stuntmen, prepared to hurl themselves off things. Jones heads to HK after a couple of her minions are captured by the evil, lesbian, sword-wielding Dragon Lady (Stevens), intent on bringing down the operation, with a little local assistance.

We wondered if her astonishingly bad make-up – for which Dobson received a separate credit – was an attempt to distract from other aspects of the movie. In the end, however, we decided that in the 1970’s, everyone applied face-paint by dangling upside down and dipping their head in a vat of mixed cosmetics. It redefines “undercover”, though when you’re a 6’2″ black woman in Hong Kong, you might as well flaunt it. Between her make-up and her dress sense, Cleopatra Jones certainly does that.

Stevens provides a better nemesis for Jones than in the first movie, though everything takes a while to get going. Jones’ hench-girl (“Tanny”, aka Tim Lei – unlike the now-vanished Dobson, she was acting as recently as 1994) provides useful feistiness, despite opening the front-door before having a shower, letting the bad guys in. You just can’t get the sidekicks these days… The finale, however, is mad, with much destruction of property and extras. The sort of film that could only be made in Hong Kong, where stunt-men are cheap.

Interestingly, the HK Movie Database reckons one of them was Yuen Wo-Ping, of The Matrix fame, though there’s absolutely no bullet-time here. But at the start, when the boat is boarded, check out the first guy to climb on – is it Jackie Chan? It’s possible: at the time (1975), he wasn’t a big star. Against this, he was more associated with Golden Harvest than Shaw Brothers and…well, you think someone else would have noticed by now! But take a look.

Dir: Chuck Bail
Star: Tamara Dobson, Stella Stevens, Tanny, Norman Fell

Cherry 2000

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★★★
“In the future, we’ll have sex robots and 3-wheel cars. But toaster ovens will be in short supply.”

Though I hope 80’s hair never makes the comeback shown here, this SF actioner has some nice ideas about the future, amid jabs at human relationships. Sam (Andrews) has opted for synthetic love, in the form of the titular android, largely because dating has become more like a business merger, complete with contracts – a pre-Matrix Larry Fishburne plays a lawyer specialising in sex. When his Cherry breaks down, the only replacement is out in the post-apocalyptic wastes, and he hires the feisty Johnson (Griffith) to keep his ass out of trouble and get him there. On the way, they meet the delightfully evil Lester (Thomerson) and his posse, and there’s an impressive, if illogical, sequence involving a crane, Really Big Explosions, and Really Dumb Villains.

I really wanted to love this: three years later, De Jarnatt directed Miracle Mile, an all-time favourite, and probably the best obscure film ever. Of course, we all know that Sam is eventually going to discover that flesh and blood beats circuitry any day, and the makers know that we know, so don’t make much effort at building the relationship. Brion James turns up briefly, though they missed the chance to have the former replicant (Blade Runner) turn android hunter. I think it’s all probably tongue in cheek, and as such is largely criticism-proof, but a lot of it comes over as bland (Thomerson and his crew of barbecuing yuppies excepted) and it’s hard to relate to a hero basically after a hi-tech puncture repair kit for his rubber doll. More sex, violence and general bad ‘tude could have made it a classic.

Dir: Steve De Jarnatt
Star: David Andrews, Melanie Griffith, Tim Thomerson, Ben Johnson

Chopper Chicks in Zombietown

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★★
“Life’s a bitch and then you see this movie.”

The Cycle Sluts motorcycle gang roar into town, to the consternation and distaste of locals, who drive them off. This decision is regretted soon afterwards, when they come under siege from the walking dead, raised to work in the local mine – a plot stolen from Hammer’s Plague of the Zombies – by the local mortician (Calfa) and his midget assistant. Luckily, the girls are still near, and can assist the townsfolk, including Billy Bob Thornton, who plays a redneck hick, proving it’s possible to be stereotyped before getting famous.

There are two kinds of Troma films: those with fab titles that are fun to watch (Rabid Grannies), and those with fab titles that are unendurably tedious, e.g. Surf Nazis Must Die. Despite a few nice moments, this one leans toward the latter. As a biker movie, it’s pretty tame, though some effort is put into given them background for the characters, and Catherine Carlen is undeniably fun to watch as Sluts leader Roxy. As a zombie pic, it’s nothing special either, there’s no real sense of threat and only the odd effective moment of gore. It works best as a dark spoof, such as when they lure the ghouls into church, using a group of blind orphans singing O Holy Night as bait. The midget (Ed Gale) gets most of the best lines: “If God had wanted me to do normal stuff, He would have made me look like normal people.”

The horror comedy is a tricky genre to pull off properly, and this doesn’t manage it, being neither horrific nor funny enough. File beside Ferocious Female Freedom Fighters and Femme Fontaine: Killer Babe For The CIA in the Troma catalog.

Dir: Dan Hoskins
Star: Catherine Carlen, Jamie Rose, Lycia Naff, Don Calfa

Confessions of a Psycho Cat

  By

★★★½
“The Most Dangerous Game: distaff version.”

psychocatThis 1968 film is totally loony, but none the less entertaining – the subsequent addition of (extremely subdued) sex-party footage to spice it up and increase the running time, is really the film’s weakest ingredient. For the plot is intriguing enough as is: a rich but loopy socialite (Lord) offers three men $100,000 each, if they can survive her hunting them through New York for 24 hours. Easy enough to do, you’d think, but the neat thing is the way the villainess/heroine (it’s hard to say which, really!) uses her targets’ weaknesses to lure them into her sights. For example, one is a former championship wrestler and she taunts him with accusations of cowardice until he charges into her apartment. That victim is played by Jake La Motta, who was the real-life inspiration for Raging Bull, and his demise is entirely fitting, if amazingly surreal.

The acting on view is pretty basic, but does the job, and it lures the viewer in nicely. Lord chews the scenery with extreme prejudice, and there’s a fabulous flashback where we discover the origins of her character’s madness. These help tide you over the frequent and tedious nudity, though amusement can be had by seeing how crudely these scenes have been inserted. It all ends grimly, as you’d hope, and for a cheap exploitation flick, it’s really quite memorable. The DVD from Something Weird also offers other delights, including trailers for Ride the Wild Pink Horse and Olga’s House of Shame, plus an entire second-feature, Hot Blooded Woman, which is so awful as to be unwatchable. In comparison, Psycho Cat is a fine idea, ripe for a Hollywood remake – perhaps starring Liz Hurley or Angelina Jolie…

Dir: Herb Stanley
Star: Eileen Lord, Ed Brandt, Frank Grace, Jake La Motta

Convict 762

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★½
“In space, no-one can hear you dream…”

A good idea – even if one borrowed about equally from Pitch Black and Aliens – gets sucked into the void and drained of all life, thanks to some of the most turgid direction imaginable. A ship with an all-female crew has to land on a prison planet for fuel, but finds only two people left. Which is the mass murderer? Can they find out before they get picked off, one by one…?

It’s a premise with promise, but all the opportunities for tension get thrown away so badly, that the end result is simply dull and plodding. One example will suffice – when they’re exploring the planet, the guard left on board is attacked. Rather than rush to her rescue, in a thrilling race against time, the rest of the crew stroll back at a leisurely pace, all but pausing to admire the scenery. I fell asleep: not once, but three times…

On the plus side – and I confess to struggling here – it’s nice how the fully female crew is not deemed worthy of comment, nor is it exploited in obvious fashion. The actors do what they can, but Drago is such a scenery-chewing psycho, he’s either the world’s most obvious murderer, or the world’s most obvious red herring, and neither would come as any surprise. Let’s lay the blame for this one firmly at the door of Bercovici and sell the tape quickly on Ebay, before anyone sees this review.

Dir: Luca Bercovici
Star: Shannon Sturges, Billy Drago, Frank Zagorino

Coffy

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★★★½
“The godmother of blaxploitation’s debut in the field.”

Neither star Grier nor director Hill were exactly strangers to the world of exploitation when they made this, but their combination here created a whole new subgenre, crossing action heroineism with black cinema. Following her would come Foxy Brown, Cleopatra Jones and the rest, but let it be said, Coffy was the first of any significance.

It’s a robust tale – or at least one reused frequently since with minor changes. Nurse Coffy (Grier) goes after those she sees as responsible for leaving her kid sister a drug-addled vegetable, be they low-level pusher, high-level supplier or the politician in cahoots, who just happens to be her lover. There’s no hanging round here; almost before the credits have finished, we get someone’s head being blown off with a shotgun, and Hill brings a hugely gleeful air to the violence. This is perhaps exemplified best by a marvellous and justifiably classic catfight in which Coffy, razorblades hidden in her hair, takes apart an entire escort agency’s worth of hookers.

Dramatically, it’s less successful, with neither the supporting characters nor the plot holding your interest. It often borders on the painfully obvious; when her cop friend turns down a bribe, you just know he’s going to end up hooked to one of those hospital machines that goes “Beep”, and inside five minutes, yep, there he is. Beep. He then vanishes from the film shortly thereafter, though it’s never clear whether he dies or not. At least this does mean we don’t get the even more painfully cliched “flowers on the grave” sequence. But as a Pam Grier vehicle, it’s fine, and if little more than a vehicle for sex ‘n’ violence, with questionable morality and a hackneyed storyline, it is at least done enthusiastically enough to pull you along with it.

Dir: Jack Hill
Star: Pam Grier, Booker Bradshaw, Robert Doqui, William Elliott