TRUCKER'S WOMAN (1975)

Poster from the theatrical release.

Released roughly a year before the '70's trucker craze really kicked off with the release of #1 Top 40 hit "Convoy," this no-budgeter follows the adventures of a man who drops out of college after his truck-driving father meets his fate in a suspicious accident, and replaces his old man as a trucker. More refined than the average long-haul driver, thanks to him being a college boy (played by Michael Hawkins, an actor who was at least 15 years too old for the role), our hero charms his way into the pants of a mysterious blonde (Mary Cannon, also too old for her role) who is later revealed to be the daughter of the mobster who ordered his father's brakes cut. The action is lackluster, the hero is in no way believable, his "humorous/endearing" behavior toward the titular character would these days be considered stalkerish and rapey, women find him sexually irresistible despite the aforementioned creepy aspects, the soundtrack consists exclusively of generic mid-'70's truckin' music, and there are agonizingly long shots of 18-wheelers pulling into and out of truck stops and motel parking lots. Oh, and Doodles Weaver's in a featured part and is clearly drunk whenever on camera.

What we have here was likely a staple of southern drive-ins that drunk patrons would ignore while engaging in sweaty groping in their station wagons, and in many ways looks and feels like a more competently-made all-white answer to THE GUY FROM HARLEM (1977), which has rightly been described as "the PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE of blaxploitation films." Utter trash, but an interesting time capsule of a trucker movie as seen before the short-lived genre's tropes were fully codified. It was entertaining enough to hold my interest, but virtually every second of it was a textbook example of a movie whose story particulars you will predict well before they happen. 

Wow. Just...WOW.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2013-Day 3: THE MANITOU (1978)

When ancient Native American sorcery meets the 20th century, it's time for some '70's-style psychedelia!

Semi-fraudulent psychic Harry Erskine (Tony Curtis) makes a good living by using his gifts to serve as a paid living horoscope for a clientele of dowagers in San Francisco, but his world is turned upside down when a dear old flame named Karen Tandy (Susan Strasberg) turns up on his doorstep and requests his aid. Understandably concerned, Karen has found that a tumor is swiftly growing on the back of her neck and all medical testing concludes that the growth is actually a fetus. Accompanying that startling revelation are instances of Karen repeatedly uttering a strange phrase in her sleep, the same phrase being spoken by one of Harry's aged clients who appears to be possessed (she does a ritualistic dance and floats two feet off the floor and down the hallway before she throws herself to her death down the apartment building's stairs), and the tumor actively defending itself from removal by controlling the scalpel-wielding hand of the attending surgeon and lethally manipulating a surgical laser in an operating theater full of physicians. 

Realizing that the issue of metaphysical rather than mundane illness, Harry enlists the aid of fellow spiritualists who point him toward Native American shaman John Singing Rock (Michael Ansara, aka Kang from STAR TREK and former husband of I DREAM OF JEANNIE's Barbara Eden), who informs Harry that the tumor is in actuality the spirit — or "manitou" — of Misquamacas (Joe Gleb), a 400-year-old shaman who seeks to once more become corporeal so he can visit righteous vengeance upon the white man for the long list of atrocities committed against the red man. This Misquamacas is a spirit commanding vast maleficent power and he's extra pissed-off because the X-rays used to examine him have warped his regenerating form, rendering him stunted and hideous, so Harry and Singing Rock have their hands seriously full in a race against time to both stop the ancient horror and save Karen before Misquamacas's regeneration kills her. (Plus, not to mention the fact that the fate of the nation hangs also hangs in the balance.)

Misquamacas reborn.

Even five years after all the hoopla, THE EXORCIST remained a viable go-to film to attempt ripping of in hope of cashing in on the "devil junk" zeitgeist that swept the country at the time, and THE MANITOU, though not the flagrant knockoff that many of its contemporaries were, definitely fit the bill. It also added a little extra spiritual spice by throwing Native American mysticism into the mix. The acceptance of and interest in non-Judeo-Christian spiritual/mystical thinking and practices that flourished with the counter-culture movement of the 1960's carried over into the 1970's, which also coincided with all manner of paranormal freakiness, cryptozoological mania, and even the martial arts boom — which engendered curious embracing of Asian "mumbo jumbo" — as well as the re-discovery of the works of pulp horror writer H.P Lovecraft and his concepts of shapeless horrors so vast and terrifying that the mere thought of them would drive mere mortals stark raving mad. Thus,  THE MANITOU and its Mulligan stew of those elements and influences would have been perhaps the perfect distillation of post-EXORCIST 1970's horror...had it not been the baby of hack director William Girdler, the man who gave us DAY OF THE ANIMALS, ABBY — the infamously awful  blaxploitation clone of THE EXORCIST — and the cheesy JAWS ripoff that was GRIZZLY (1976). Working from a novel by U.K. horror novelist Graham Masterton, Girdler crafts a film that looks, feels. and plays out like a '70's-era made-for-TV movie, which is unfortunate because the ideas it presents are simply too grand for a film of its meager means. Though its setup is rife with potential, the film takes a very long time to get going and has such a made-for-TV flavor that its scene transitions seem ready to flow right into commercial breaks. (In fact, I dare say the film got more attention after its initial theatrical run in perpetual rotation on local TV stations than it ever did in theaters, so that aspect is somewhat ironic.)

However, it's not a total loss. Slow-moving though it is, and possessing a climax that almost seems like a tossed-off afterthought, the narrative does have a sweet love story between Harry and Karen that reveals the psychic to be a man of deep feeling and concern for his lover, so we do care about him and his quest. Michael Ansara's also fun as a late-20th century shaman, and the script has the decency not to make him just another rote "noble savage" stereotype. But to me the most interesting thing about THE MANITOU is its Lovecraftian aspect, including the concept of a formless and very evil "great old one" that backs Misquamacas, and the moment when the disappointingly brief showdown between good and evil manitous goes cosmic, causing Karen's hospital room to become a doorway to some sort of infinite void that exists in a dimension apart from our world. The imagery of her bed floating in a limitless star-field while within a hospital room is quite trippy, and the idea of the the manitous found in machinery being channeled through the body of Karen, thus also evoking primal female magic, is both intriguing and right in line with some of the areas of mysticism being popularly explored at the time of the film's release. 

Karen goes cosmic (and topless).

But no amount of good ideas can fully win out when trapped in a film that is otherwise governed by mediocrity. THE MANITOU is worth sitting through as an acceptable time-waster and is fondly remembered, and perhaps even beloved, by many who saw it during their childhoods, but it comes up rather lacking when seen from an adult perspective in 2013. See it for the sake of completism if you must, but you won't really miss much if you opt to skip it. 

Poster for the theatrical release.

ROLLING THUNDER (1977)

NOTE: This is a review I wrote five years ago for my primary blog, THE VAULT OF BUNCHENESS, and I'm reprinting it here, with some minor updating, to honor this film finally receiving a legitimate release on DVD.

After years of hearing about it, when I finally saw director John Flynn’s ROLLING THUNDER, one of the better-regarded B pictures of the 1970’s, I was surprised by what it had to offer. Often lumped in with the ultra-violent action movies that played in the seediest of grindhouses, ROLLING THUNDER comes off as a breed apart from its contemporaries by virtue of it being a film that Sam Peckinpah happened not to make. Possessing far more emotional depth and introspection than you’d expect thanks to Paul (TAXI DRIVER) Schrader’s bleak script, as well as cribbing liberally from Peckipah’s THE WILD BUNCH, STRAW DOGS, and BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA, the film enjoys a certain cult status yet remains somewhat obscure for no adequately explained reason.

William Devane stars as Air Force Major Charles Rane, freshly returned home to 1973 San Antonio, Texas after seven years of traumatizing abuse as a POW in Hanoi, with fellow soldier Corporal Johnny Vohden (Tommy Lee Jones) at his side. During his time in captivity, life in the States continued and Rane’s wife, accepting the possibility that her husband was most likely dead, found love with a local policeman, and being only sixteen months old when his father left for Viet Nam, Rane’s son came to view the cop as a surrogate father, so when faced with the sudden return of the husband/father the worlds of all involved become a quietly-tense emotional hell. Rane’s experiences in Hanoi have left him with deep psychological scarring and a sense of having no idea what to do with himself, but accepting its inevitability, he’s set to grant his wife a divorce but refuses to let go of his son. When his wife’s lover (the cop) shows up to talk things out with him, Rane reveals how “institutionalized” he is in the wake of years of incarceration and torture, demonstrating a masochistic pleasure in reenacting a nasty rope torture and explaining his philosophy toward those who tortured him: “I learned to love ‘em.”

When the town honors the Major for his service to his country, he’s presented with $2555 in silver dollars, one silver dollar for each day he was a captive, by Texas belle Linda Forchet (Linda Haynes), an attractive blonde who wore a bracelet in his honor for the past seven years. As his alienation from his family worsens, Rane again runs into Linda and as the two share a drink at the bar where she waitresses, Linda, a self-professed “groupie,” throws herself at the Major, but Rane politely declines her invitation. Upon returning to his home, Rane finds his house invaded by a group of lowlife redneck thugs — including James Best, aka Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane from TV’s THE DUKES OF HAZZARD — and some Mexican muscle who try to coerce him into handing over the silver dollars. His years of abuse have steeled Rane against getting roughed up, and when he stoically resists their violent efforts, including holding his fist over an open flame, the thugs force his right hand into the kitchen garbage disposal, reducing it to so much chopped meat. 

If you have a phobia about losing your hands, it may be advisable to give ROLLING THUNDER a miss.

At that point his wife and son come home and are threatened with death if he doesn’t give up the cash, but Rane’s son takes the bad guys straight to the silver dollars in an effort to save all their lives. That plan backfires when the thugs shoot all three of them, killing the mother and son while Rane somehow survives. All that over a mere twenty-five-hundred bucks and change. Nice.

Following weeks of convalescence, with the doting Linda a constant presence, and the acquisition of a hooked prosthetic to replace his mangled mitt, Rane hops into his red convertible with an unwitting Linda in tow and heads off to Mexico to exterminate the killers, with no more of a plan than to shake up local beer joints in hope of finding his quarry. Meanwhile, the cop realizes what Rane is up to and launches his own search for the whereabouts of the criminals, a search that results in the deaths of several bad guys and himself. But Rane is unaware of the cop’s fate and after meeting with disastrous results in his own search, Rane leaves a sleeping Linda (who has turned out to be a crack shot with firearms) in a fleabag motel and enlists the aid of Johnny Vohden, who is also having difficulty readjusting to civilian life and seeks to reenlist for ten more years for want of anything better to do with himself. Once again having a mission under a leader he respects, Vohden dons his uniform and displays a sense of happiness and purpose for the first time in the film. Armed for bear, the two track the villains to a Mexican whorehouse and sort the place out in a hail of bullets straight out of Peckinpah’s THE WILD BUNCH and scripter Schrader’s own finale from the previous year’s TAXI DRIVER.

That’s the basics of the story but the narrative is compellingly driven by the character studies of people who are tortured in both the literal and figurative senses of the word. Rane’s situation, Vohden’s need for purpose, and Linda’s history are all fascinating and elevate the material far above its perceived grindhouse categorization. If you’re looking for a vengeance yarn full of wall-to-wall carnage, you may be disappointed by ROLLING THUNDER, especially considering its reputation, and while it does have a couple of nasty moments and the Peckinpah-esque conclusion, the film has for more human concerns on its mind. All of the performances convey fully fleshed people rather than action movie clichés, and when stacked against many of it shooting gallery cinema contemporaries, ROLLING THUNDER is something very special indeed. I found my first copy of the film at the NY Comicon some five years ago, obtained from one of the usual handful of dealers in hard to find movies, and I would have gladly paid to buy a legitimate DVD, with the hoped-for extras of commentary and such, but at the time the film is not available on disc. That glaring omission in DVD availability has finally been rectified, and I intend to pick up the legitimate version as soon as possible.

BUFFALO RIDER (1978)

If you’re of a certain age — specifically, a middle-aged American whose childhood/adolescence occurred between roughly 1973 through 1980 — you are likely to recall the spate of cheapjack "family" films featuring some random white dude or family of white folks, either in the past or the then-present, who lived in the woods or on the prairie with a legion of animal friends from assorted species. Those flicks did decent box office and were mostly marketed as children's matinee fodder, and god knows I saw several of them, most notably BROTHER OF THE WIND (1973), THE LIFE AND TIMES OF GRIZZLY ADAMS (1974) and THE ADVENTURES OF THE WILDERNESS FAMILY (1975). However, despite my regular attendance at Saturday afternoon movie matinees, one of that brief period's films that I never heard of until about a week ago is 1978's BUFFALO RIDER, and if I'd seen its trailer at the time, I would likely have gone to see it. I mean, just look at this:



A feature-length exercise in padding out a movie’s running time as much as possible, the film opens with an eight-minute “In Search Of…”-style history of the decline in the once-voluminous buffalo population and confusingly alternates between narration from some unidentified individual who claims to have heard the movie’s details from his grandfather, and the grizzled tones of a secondary narrator who is apparently meant to represent the common buffalo hunter (it’s never actually made clear). Tons of nature/animal footage unspools as the audience is filled in on the year 1871 seeing a new tanning process that made buffalo hide as easily rendered into numerous products as simple cowhide, thus escalating the already ruinous and wasteful efforts of sleazy buffalo hunters who skinned the beasts and left their carcasses to rot, leading to the tragic and staggering figure of some forty-million buffalo being slain between 1871 and 1875. This sequence also introduces us to a trio of scurvy buffalo hunters who serve as the flimsy story’s villains, and these guys would easily fit in as the standard unwashed human vermin common to Spaghetti Westerns and certain Sam Peckinpah horse operas, but more on them later.

According to the narrator, Jake Jones, the titular character, was (apparently) a thoughtful and silent former buffalo hunter who sickened of the slaughter and left to live as a buckskin-clad mountain man in the wilderness of Utah and Wyoming, until the Fall of 1881, when he encountered a baby buffalo whose mother had been killed by some scumbag hunters and was under attack by a pack of hungry coyotes. Jake and the buffalo fight off the coyotes and Jake decides to care for the orphaned calf, rather than let it fall victim to the assorted predators in the area (this despite Jake clearly having been established as one of those hardcore crunchy, bearded at-one-with-nature types). Deciding he would have to care for the buffalo until its wounds healed, Jake immediately ties up the poor beast and embarks on a long period of breaking the wild buffalo in a homemade corral. Despite already having a totally serviceable horse, Jake soon chucks a saddle on the buffalo — which eventually grows into a 2000-pound behemoth named Samson (a name the narrator oh-so-helpfully reminds us is “from the Bible”) — and learns to ride the clearly-unwilling shaggy bulldozer in a lengthy, slo-mo-accented sequence replete with “stirring” ‘70’s faux-frontier music and the frequently repeated and awful theme song, a tune that evokes ‘70’s-era TV commercials for pickup trucks and beer, and the lyrics of which bestow upon Jake the heroic nickname of “Buffalo Jones,” thus cementing him as a legend or something.

Once man and beast forge themselves into a clumsy team, the wafer-thin plot finally gets underway. In fact, calling it a plot is something of an overstatement since what we really get is mostly a series of sporadic events, punctuated with footage of animals that are meant to make the film’s kiddie audience “ooh” and “aah” at the wonders of nature, and counterpointed with occasional looks at the douchebaggery of the bad guy buffalo hunters. Said douchey hunters encounter Buffalo Jones when they try to kill his horned mount and end up shooting Jones in the process. Samson runs away from the hunter with Jones on his back and the pair stumble upon the conveniently-located home of another mountain man/minor-league gold-panner and his wife, who nurse Jones back to health and welcome him into their household. From there, the highlights (?) include:

• An uneventful encounter with a “Grizzly” that’s actually clearly a standard black bear.
• A feeble run-in with an Injun who wants to kill Samson because he’s perceived the beast as “big medicine” thanks to there being some crazy bearded hippie on its back. The Injun proves to be quite incompetent at his task and ends up with his jaw broken by Buffalo Jones’ rifle butt. Remember, this is supposed to be a family film.
• Buffalo Jones’ friendship with a raccoon named Bandit, a creature whose presence is included solely to stretch out the running time. Once introduced, the focus of the narrative completely shifts to Bandit and his adventures in the desolate winter landscape as he faces a hungry cougar (featuring moments where I would have sworn the cougar was about to eat the poor raccoon’s head), endures an icy flash-flood and, despite having been clearly identified as a male, is suddenly revealed to be a female that gives birth to a pair of adorable babies, thus providing the film with yet more footage of cute l’il animals. All of this Bandit stuff goes on for a solid ten minutes, after which Bandit and her babies abruptly disappear from the film, never to be seen or mentioned again.
• Uninteresting sequences in which we see the buffalo hunters going about their business and basically being a pack of repulsive assholes. Meant to establish character, all these bits do is make us fervently wish these goons were excised from the story because they seem to serve no purpose whatsoever, but our endurance is eventually rewarded (sort of)…
• Buffalo Jones’ mountain man friend goes out hunting for game and runs into two hungry Grizzlies — this time actual bears of the proper variety — who very savagely fight in such a manner as to make me think the film’s animal wranglers had little or no control over what happened when they unleashed the bruins for the shoot. The bears bloodily tear the living shit out of each other and I swear it does not look faked in the least. Again, this is supposed to be a wholesome “family” film.

After all that filler, the plot kinda/sorta begins to go somewhere when the mountain man’s wife mentions her brother, his wife and their infant son are on their way to visit, at which point all that time wasted with the buffalo hunters finally serves a purpose. The hunters bushwack the innocent family, killing the adults and leaving the baby untended on the ground as they ransack the covered wagon for anything they can find, after which they head into the nearest town to trade what they’ve stolen for booze and other assorted frontier distractions. When the family does not arrive on time, Buffalo Jones hops on Samson for the first bit of actual buffalo riding in quite a while, and goes in search of the missing relatives (opting to ride Samson instead of a much swifter and more efficient mount, such as, oh, a horse). It takes Buffalo Jones four days to come across the dead couple and the pillaged wagon, where he finds the baby — who has miraculously held on for all that time without food, water, or a change of diapers, plus to say nothing of somehow managing not to be devoured by the local predators — and clues that incriminate the hunters who had earlier attempted to kill him. But vengeance must wait as the next twenty minutes of screen time are padded with Buffalo Jones’ four-day efforts to make it back to his mountain man friend’s shack, a journey including fending off hungry wolves, getting into a slo-mo fistfight with another cougar, a quick look-in on the squabbling hunters, tons of footage of Samson’s bulk providing difficulty in his making his way through deep snow, riveting close-up footage of Buffalo Jones reloading his pistol, Samson acting as a babysitter, Jones and Samson battling their way across a river’s strong current and, my personal favorite image, Buffalo Jones grabbing a big porcupine by its tail and making off with it so he can make a broth from its meat to feed the starving baby.

After dropping the baby off with the mountain couple, Buffalo Jones rides off on Samson in search of the killers, but first he runs into more film-padding in the form of a pack of wolves who want to eat him and Samson. (Jones does not simply whip out his gun and shoot the wolves because that would be douchey and against nature, something that forcing a buffalo to let him ride it obviously is not.) The hunters have split up, so Buffalo Jones tracks two of them to a saloon where, in the film’s most visually-outrageous moment, Jones rides his buffalo into the place and blazes away with his revolver, executing the two hunters and confusing the living shit out of the assorted drunken prospectors and mountain men in attendance. The remaining hunter is soon located and meets a deservedly horrible slo-mo end when he’s mercilessly trampled by Samson, while Buffalo Jones stoically drives the beastie. With justice served, Buffalo Jones and Samson ride off into the sunset and the narrator announces that the orphaned baby was his grandfather. That revelation was clearly meant to have a certain level of profundity but its desired effect merely elicits a dozy “And I care because…?” from the half-asleep audience.

BUFFALO RIDER is one very odd entry into its genre. Though ostensibly a family feature, the film is an uneasy fusion of the western, the ‘70’s post-hippie back-to-nature zeitgeist, and stoner entertainment that kind of floats from incident to incident in something akin to a dreamlike state. The virtually silent hero who rides a buffalo looks like a mythic figure straight out of a peyote-fueled mystic vision and the film’s whole vibe fairly reeks of good, skunky buds as inhaled in the back of a tricked-out van some thirty-plus years ago. If I still smoked weed, I’m betting this ultra-mellow oddity would not be half-bad to sit through while completely baked, but seen without illegal intoxicants its flaws are glaring. For a movie containing supposedly family-acceptable violence of both the human and animal varieties, it’s not at all exciting, and its story particulars at times feel as though they were communicated by a child randomly dropping building blocks into place and hoping the narrative makes sense and flows naturally. It's worth a look for western completists, but I most strongly recommend it for insomniacs who may find its meager charms a soothing lead-in to solidly nodding off.

MANDINGO (1975)

The sensual. The Shocking. The Sad. The Powerful. The Shameful. Expect all that the motion picture screen has never dared to show before. Expect the truth. Now you are ready for "Mandingo."
-original tag line from the original theatrical release of MANDINGO

I have no idea why I'm so fascinated by the film adaptation of Kyle Onstott's 1957 bestselling epic of the slavery era, but if I had to provide a concrete answer I'd probably say it's because it's arguably the single most offensive film ever released by a major Hollywood studio that also involved a name director — Richard Fleischer, helmer of such classics as 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (1954), THE VIKINGS (1958), and FANTASTIC VOYAGE (1966) — as well as a great thespian spouting some of the most insanely racist and ridiculous dialog in cinematic history, in this case James (A STAR IS BORN) Mason. And this magnificent monstrosity is finally available for the first time in a legitimate DVD release, so there's no need to rely on dodgy "gray market" or foreign copies.

The plot revolves around the pre-Civil War goings-on at Falconhurst, a plantation that breeds fine slaves, and focuses on the adventures of young Hammond Maxwell (Perry King), wealthy and handsome heir to the plantation. Hammond lives like a prince and gets his hump on with every available slave girl since "it's a master's duty to pleasure a wench first time," so the guy ends up with such a colossal case of Jungle Fever that he finds himself totally unaroused by white women. That's a problem because Falconhurst must eventually pass on to one of Hammond's offspring, but obviously not one of his legion of black bastards, so at the urging of his father (James Mason), Hammond goes in search of a suitable wife and ends up marrying his cousin, Blanche (Susan George). While returning home with Blanche, Hammond also buys a beautiful slave girl named Ellen (Brenda Sykes), who ends up becoming the true love of his life (something that does not sit well with Blanche), and also purchases Mede (Ken Norton), a huge and ultra-virile slave whom Hammond wants to train as a "fightin' nigger" and use as prime stud material because his Mandingo blood is the most prized of all the African varieties.

James Mason and Susan George: a two-Brit scenery-chewing juggernaut.

Once back at Falconhurst the story shifts into balls-out crazy mode and soars into the stratosphere of bad movie Nirvana, piling on the racism, torture, bloody human cockfights, interracial shenanigans, good ol' Southern-style incest and more seriously sick soap opera shit than you might think possible, all building to one of the most horrifyingly offensive climaxes in screen history. This crazy quilt of antebellum brutality and sleaziness is ripe enough from the get-go, but the contributions of James Mason and Susan George cannot be overlooked; it almost seems like the two British actors were in a competition to see who could turn in a more ludicrous performance, both making with the worst Southern accents ever committed to celluloid and cracking up the viewer with such unintentional howlers as Mason's deathless scolding to one of his slaves,

"Drop that gun, you LOONY BLACK BASTARD!!!"

and George's incredible performance on the morning after her wedding night when Hammond calls her on the fact that she very obviously wasn't a virgin.

"Hammond! Wherever did you get such a zany notion!"

If you didn't know better you'd swear that MANDINGO was an over-the-top satire of steamy plantation sagas, written and directed by John Waters, but while that isn't the case it is one hell of spectacular train wreck. The odd thing is that even though it's sheer trash, MANDINGO is simultaneously perhaps the most in-your-face-honest American film about the inhuman brutality and horror of chattel slavery, and while I may find the film a hoot from start to finish it's impossible to deny the flick's power to revulse when the going gets nasty. When compared on the basis of its depiction of the subject matter, ROOTS, the television mini-series that served as an eye-opener for much of the American public, is a kiddie movie, and that's really saying something, so while I consider MANDINGO one of my all-time favorite movies (for all the wrong reasons) and highly recommend it to the curious, keep in mind that it's pretty rough and definitely not for the squeamish or easily offended.

Oh, and as for any cool extras, forget it. I just received the DVD and it includes no commentaries, no "making of" documentary, no look at the source novel to set the whole thing into perspective, not even the goddamned trailer. Bubkes. Zip. Zero. The big goose egg. That's a damned shame, because the content of MANDINGO makes for fascinating discussion, especially when you take into account that a movie of its like could never be made nowadays without the studio being burned to ground and armed riots breaking out in theaters. Hopefully this error will be rectified when (or if) the even loopier sequel, DRUM (1976), comes out on disc.

And in case any of you are interested in reading more about the 1957 source novel, check out THE MANDINGO PROJECT, an in-depth examination of the unabridged version that I wrote a couple of years ago. It's long, but I recommend reading it before seeing the movie so you see the differences between it and the novel. MANDINGO is one of those rare cases where the movie is a vast improvement over the book, so make of that what you will.

Poster from the original theatrical release.

EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC (1977)

A portent of impending scares, or an invitation to yucks? You decide!

 

One of the universe's greatest truisms is that whenever anything is successful, a sequel is inevitable, so when William Friedkin's adaptation of William Peter Blatty's THE EXORCIST (1973) raked in the samoleons at the box office (over 66 mil in early-1970's dollars, and that ain't hay!) it was only a matter of time until a followup graced the screen. But any sequel to THE EXORCIST would have been a daunting task. How to follow an instant classic that shattered onscreen taboos regarding language, religious improprieties (Ouch! That crucifix!) and truly creative cussing while maintaining the high standard of quality set by the original would have proved daunting to any writer or director, and as per the nature of sequels one would assume that the general public would have been expecting more of the same, perhaps with the blasphemous ante being cranked up a notch or two. So what to do in order to meet the public's expectations and make an assload of box office at the same time? The answer to that question cannot be found in 1977's EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC, a literally unholy mess of a film whose reputation as possibly the single worst sequel in major motion picture history seems pretty much set in stone. 

Helmed by world-class oddball director John Boorman, the guy who gave us DELIVERANCE (1973) and the jaw-dropping Sean Connery vehicle ZARDOZ (1974), EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC unwisely chooses to focus on the possibility that Reagan McNeal (Linda Blair, reprising the role that made her famous) may still harbor memories of the excruciating details of her exorcism some three years prior to the events of this film. Sent by the Vatican to dig up all the necessary dirt while investigating the death of the priest who performed Reagan's excorcism — Father Merrin (Max Von Sydow, reprising his role as a much younger version of his character in the original film) — Father Philip Lamont (Richard Burton, looking and acting like he's in the midst of a week-long bender) journeys to Manhattan where a high school-aged Reagan lives and volunteers at a bizarro clinic that helps the mentally ill/challenged. The place is run by Dr. Tuskin (Louise Fletcher, here pulling a total one-eighty from her Oscar-winning role as Nurse Ratched in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST), who breaks out this trippy-looking strobe light and bio-feedback headsets that looked like something you'd have found in a head shop at the time and uses it to hypnotize Reagan into remembering her forgotten experience of demonic possession. That turns out to be a bad idea because the second Reagan's fully under she starts sounding like Lucille Ball during her autumn years, her face gets all evil and fucked-up-looking, and the demon identifies itself as Pazuzu, a malevolent ancient Assyrian wind spirit and "one of the lords of the air." 

Whoa, dude! Trippy! But not scary.

  

As of that point the film nosedives into a nigh-incomprehensible mess of questioned faith, misguided attempts at psychedelia, bullshit psychobabble, flashbacks to Father Merrin's first exorcism, all manner of bizarre mystic visions and mumbo-jumbo, accented with Linda Blair performing in an utterly awful chorus line production of "Lullaby of Broadway," and the unforgettable sight of James Earl Jones as an African holy man in a ridiculous locust costume. It all culminates in a confusing fistfight between Father Lamont and Pazuzu in the form of Reagan's evil twin, a bout settled when the good Reagan arrives and fends off a swarm of demonically-controlled locusts by imitating the movements made by Jones' character during his youth as he used a bull-roarer to drive the evil bugs from his village, all while father Lamont literally tears out Pazuzu's heart.  

Now this is what the audience craved to see: Linda Blair battling locusts.

  

A lot more crazy shit happens, and if any of this sounds coherent, let me assure you that it isn't. 

When I first saw EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC during its network television premiere — the night after THE EXORCIST, so the edited-for-TV version of that was fresh in my mind — I watched it with my mom, and the two of us nearly laughed ourselves to death. To this day we can still crack each other up with random quotes from the film ("Pazuzu will help me find Kokumo!!!"), and while it is an unmitigated turd storm, I must confess to finding it entertaining as hell, and loaded to the gills with visuals that bring to mind Alejandro Jodorowsky in his more accessible moments. Boorman's visual imagination was given free reign, and the film is replete with beautiful and bizarre imagery and gorgeous cinematography. Too bad there wasn't a script good enough to properly complement Boorman's vision. Perhaps the saddest thing about EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC is that when it is carefully examined, there are the building blocks for what could have been a genuinely good and scary film that could have used the original flick as a starting point and really run with some of the story's themes. My two major points on this are as follows:

• The first thing they should have done was lose Reagan entirely; she was successfully rid of demonic influence at the end of the first story, and not much the worse for wear thanks to having psychologically blocked out the entire hellish experience. By bringing her back when her arc was clearly over and done with for audiences who demand more of the same — or at the behest of studio execs who can't think beyond the immediately familiar — , the film renders Father Merrin's heroic efforts and sacrifice, as well as Father Karras', without meaning or impact, pissing all over the power of Catholicism that supposedly saved Reagan's soul. And when we find out that demons like Pazuzu run around possessing folks like Reagan because they are so pure and good that they have what amounts to superpowers, it throws a cheesy X-Men kind of vibe over the proceedings.
• The film should have focused on Father Lamont's investigative efforts and his own crisis of faith in the face of the returned Pazuzu (who, by the way, was not identified in the original, but was implied to be the Devil himself; by having Pazuzu turn out to be pretty much just a badassed grasshopper, his terror level is considerably diminished). Lamont's tracing of Kokumo, the kid long ago exorcised by Merrin, could have gone down many fascinating and potentially terrifying avenues, all of which could have been well served by Boorman's imagination. The interaction between the Christian, specifically Catholic, powers that be and their opposite numbers has fueled horror stories from day one, and it wouldn't have taken too much effort to have come up with a great Campbellish "hero's journey" for Lamont that would have seen him lose his faith only to have it restored in the aftermath of the throwdown with Pazuzu. The long-running Vertigo comics series HELLBLAZER pulled off many such stories as a matter of course, so there's really no excuse, especially when tons of money are thrown into such a project (yes, I know HELLBLAZER was bastardized up the ass for the awful CONSTANTINE movie, so I won't even go there).

So, yes, EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC is a spectacular misfire, but there's too much good material to be found amidst this cinematic dog's breakfast to fully write it off as one of the worst films ever made. I've certainly seen far worse, both from low-budget schlockmeisters like Al Adamson and from the major studios, and unlike many other bad films, at least EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC entertained the crap out of me, something I cannot say about would-be blockbusters like SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW, PEARL HARBOR, or LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD. Give EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC a second chance, and this time while you're laughing take note of the cool shit it possesses (sorry) and grieve for what could have been a glorious entry in the horror genre.

Poster from the original theatrical release.

BAT PUSSY (1973)

 

 You know the scenario: You’ve had a shit-ass day at work. You’re flat broke. There’s no beer in the fridge. Your cable TV is suffering technical difficulties that only afford clear reception to a sixteen hour FARM REPORT marathon on Lifetime. Sarah Palin is allowed to speak in public forums. Your only hope of momentary happiness is to “relax the gentleman’s way.” “Shake hands with the unemployed.” “Have one off the wrist.” “Rub one out.”

I’m talking about the time-honored hobby of jackin’ off. Oh, yeah.

You drop trou, your manly gristle falling victim to gravity and dangling like obscene Christmas ornaments, and you peruse your stash of well-watched porno. What shall aid in the draining of the wank-tanks today? INSIDE VANESSA Del RIO? VAGINAPALOOZA? BIG WET SLOPPY HOLES Vol. 37? AMAZING PENETRATIONS WITH AMAZON WOMEN? The Bangkok backroom live eel excesses of IMPETUS FIRE 2?

No, none of those will do; it’s time to check out the DVD a friend gave you, a seventies-era tenderloin rarity. All you know is that it’s a parody of the old Adam West BATMAN show with some horny chick in the cape and cowl, so, aching Johnson in hand, you decide to let DNA fly fast and furious to images of a distaff Caped Crusader getting drilled and milking man-poles.

Well, just when you thought your day couldn’t get any worse, you realize you’ve discovered the colossal hard-off that is 1973’s BAT PUSSY, frequently cited on the Internet as “anti-porn,” and widely hailed as the worst porno film ever made. By the end of its running time your would-be boner is well and truly extinguished, but you sit there all by your lonesome, utterly gobsmacked by a carved-in-stone example of exactly how NOT to make a skin flick. But be that as it may, BAT PUSSY's Chernobyl-level porn awfulness has unexpectedly turned it into a must-see chunk of bad cinema that actually inspired the following letter to Something Weird Video, the company that resurrected this horror on VHS back in 1996:

To: Mike Vraney/Something Weird Video

As a vanguard in the preservation and continued promotion of exploitation films, Something Weird Video holds the fate of many key works in its hands. Many of the better regarded films from the Golden Age of Exploitation have been given "Special Edition" treatment by Something Weird. Movies such as Blood Feast, House on Bare Mountain, and The Godmonster of Indian Flats have been remastered and released on DVD in the past, boosting their profile among a wide range of film enthusiasts and providing fans an opportunity to own a copy of these films that they can view again and again. 

It is this treatment that we feel should be bestowed upon a little film that would benefit greatly from the exposure. This film is BAT PUSSY, arguably the world’s worst adult film. It is not often that one comes across a film that fails as miserably at attaining the goals implied by its genre status. BAT PUSSY is without a doubt the most unappealing XXX film in the history of adult cinema and has been referred to by some as “anti porn”. It is because of it’s uniqueness that we feel BAT PUSSY deserves to be given a full, “Special Edition” DVD treatment from the good folks at Something Weird Video.

Sincerely,
The Undersigned

What could possibly be so difficult about making a viable stroke movie? All you need are two “actors,” maybe some interesting props for possible closeup insertion into a chosen orifice, a script with a line like “Gosh, Mister pizza delivery guy! I have no money. How will I pay for this tasty, four-topping large pizza?” as a preamble to the action, a relatively comfortable location for the participants to fuck on, and a camera (video or film, it’s your call). That’s pretty much it. BAT PUSSY has all of these elements in place, so how does it earn its rep as “anti-porn?” Allow me to explain.

The Something Weird Video print of the movie opens abruptly with no titles, no credits, no music, no nothing, just a grainy closeup of a fat, freckled, ginger-beehived, drawling and naked example of the most HEE-HAWed-out trailer park slag imaginable, kind of like a trashy Kate Pierson from the B-52's, but far less appealing.

Trust me, this still is a lot more flattering than what we get in the actual movie.

Before we’re given more than a second or two to process that image the camera cuts to a nude, out-of-shape blonde redneck sitting at a table perusing the latest issue of SCREW magazine.

This gurk-gurk whoops and hollers over the things he sees in the tabloid, amazed and titillated, but allegedly reluctant to inflict such “degradations” as blowjobs and pussy-eating upon his corpulent concubine. But, since this is allegedly a skin flick, the Jerry Lee Lewis lookalike ends up in bed pawing his wife anyway in a display certain to make the viewer lose all interest in BAT PUSSY as a fuck movie and just stare open-mouthed at this rutting pair of hillbillies.

Their pork rind-flavored groping is staggering to behold, and at one point there’s even a tight shot Jerry Lee’s hand probing what at first appears to be the space between a pair of seat cushions but is soon revealed to be his partner’s lady-parts. The beehived behemoth then administers the first in a series of the sorriest B.J.’s I’ve ever seen, and her technique certainly isn’t helped by Jerry Lee’s complete and utter lack of anything resembling an erection for the entirety of the film.

Nope, that ain’t a Vienna sausage…

Jerry Lee reciprocates with some out-of-focus lapping at the gal’s flappy bits, along with some awkward fumbling about with her goat-like udders, all while the two of them drone on and on, trading amateurishly-delivered insults, unintentionally turning the whole mess into some sort of live sex show revival of Edward Albee’s WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINA WOOLFE?, only minus any trace of a script, artistic value, or talent.

This goes on for about twenty solid minutes (at least it felt like it did) and then we’re suddenly in the cinder block-walled headquarters of one “Dora Dildo,” aka stalwart crime fighter Bat Pussy.

We know this because of the crudely-drawn HQ sign and an embarrassed who narrator clues us in on it, as well as the vital fact that “her twat begins to twitch” at the first sign of trouble.

"Dora Dildo" in repose with a can of air freshener and a tall-boy of brewski.

Dora’s easily the hottest thing in the whole sordid work, but even as such she’s about on par with a skank you might find in a bar such as Jackie’s Fifth Amendment, an infamous Park Slope alky bar that caters to hardcore rummies and coffin-dodgers.

After muttering about how “There’s somebody gittin’ ready to make fuck movie in mah holy Gotham City, gaw-dammit!”, Dora dons her superhero gear and ventures forth as Bat Pussy to deal with the redneck humping that has so irked her.

Tremble at the awesome sight of... BAT PUSSY!!!

But there’s no Bat Pussymobile for our bargain basement heroine; instead she bounces along the interstate perched atop one of those inflatable “Hoppity Hop” balls that I so fondly remember from my early years.

I swear you can’t make this shit up.

When Bat Pussy finally arrives to confront the inbred lovers, she rips off her Bat-gear and dives into the fray. There’s no trace of actual sex, a hard-on, or even a gooey cooter, but B.P. and Jerry Lee gamely (and probably gamily) roll around, even up flopping off the bed once or twice, while the redheaded pork princess takes care of herself with a convenient, unworn strap-on. Bat Pussy then exits, and that’s it.

By this point your brain has been utterly roasted and your penis has retreated into your lower abdominal cavity, in effect becoming a “man-gina.” Even the most hard-up desperado on death row couldn’t “raise the flag” for BAT PUSSY, and I urge all of you reading this to witness this hilarious abomination for yourself. It’s even suitable for mixed audiences — a sure sign that it’s a failure as a garden-variety chicken-choker — and is one hell of a crowd pleaser at parties. The groans of horror and disbelief are worth the price of the DVD — I bought it the second it became available, replacing the VHS tape I'd had for the past twelve years — so TRUST YER BUNCHE and order yours today!

CALIGULA (1979)

Here's where this site finally does the world a public service. Despite all you may have heard about the infamous CALIGULA, I'm here to tell you that's it's an overblown testament to across-the-board excess, turgidly dull, and certainly not worth the waste of two-and-a-half hours of your life. It even stars my favorite actor, Malcolm (A CLOCKWORK ORANGE) McDowell, and I still can't stand it! I mean, how do you make a movie so absolutely loaded to the gills with extremely graphic gore and hardcore sex — two elements I adore — and still have it turn out so fucking boring?

The film has no real story — no surprise since the script was penned by that pretentious and overrated A-hole Gore (MYRA BRECKENRIDGE) Vidal — and is just an escalating parade of explicit images that seek to titillate the viewer, and as such it could be considered a success, provided you're just looking for entrails and pussy, but the whole in-your-face experience is simply numbing after its all-too-generous running time. The film also famously roped a slew of A-list thesps to appear in what was originally to be an R-rated look at the mad emperor's rule and eventual assassination, but then money man Bob "Penthouse" Guccione, aided by his pal Giancarlo Lui, shot and inserted majorly-explicit sex stuff while the film was in post-production that pissed off many of the cast and alienated many critics, to say nothing of presumably annoying the piss out of the porno audience who wanted to see just the wet shots with no attempt at anything else. I've seen porn audiences who don't care if a given skin flick is shot in a moldy basement while the talent fuck on a stained mattress just as long as there's action, which CALIGULA certainly has, but it's trying to be way too highbrow while also striving to appeal to the trenchcoat brigade, and that's a recipe that just doesn't work.

The only positive things I have to say about the film are few, but they are strong draws to the curious, so let me break it down for you:

• The sets, costumes, and other related stuff are just as opulent as anything found in the historical epics of decades past, so even if the movie itself is largely boring, you can at least enjoy the pretty images.
• The film barely goes for two or three minutes without something pornographic or violent happening, and the nudity/sex ranges from simple nekkid chicks to full-blown orgies of flesh featuring scores of humpers, complete with the camera practically shoved up every nearby orifice.
• One of my favorite actors, Helen (PRIME SUSPECT) Mirren, is in CALIGULA, and she does get nekkid.
  

Not that she's ever been shy, but I'm just saying. She even has a three-way with Caligula and his sister (that's Helen with the long-assed wig.)

However, I'm only noting that scene because it exists, not because it's all that hot.

• My man Malcolm McDowell gives perhaps his most over-the-top performance here, and that's really saying something. I love the guy and it's a joy to see him chew the scenery with that patented loony smirk upon his face while wearing an assortment of staggeringly flamboyant togas.

But the one thing, — THE ONE THING!!! — that keeps CALIGULA in my DVD collection is the contribution of Lori Wagner and Anneka di Lorenzo, two lovelies who are featured as regulars in Cal's live-in entourage. These benevolent goddesses make the entire film worth sitting through thanks to what is, in my humble opinion, the greatest hardcore lesbian scene ever committed to celluloid.

Lori and Anneka, sittin' in a tree...

Their scene is interspersed as counterpoint with the aforementioned three-way and in every way their bedroom arabesque blows the competition out of the water. Incredibly sensual, tender, and downright steamy, the sequence is commanded by Anneka di Lorenzo, who claims in the unimaginably boring making-of documentary to have never previously had sex with another woman... Well, all I have to say to that claim is, "Yeah, RIGHT!" The girl eats clam like a goddamned sea otter and it's truly a joy to behold. I usually find lesbian scenes, even the hardcore ones, boring as shit, but this sequence is an exception of unparalleled magnitude.

The greatest scene in motion picture history.

The only thing that stops it from being absolutely perfect is the cutting back and forth to Cal's listless threesome, and its relative brevity. Any fool could have seen that the Wagner-di Lorenzo segment was a winner, so why did Guccione fuck it up with intercut hetero stuff? Surely the man was mad.

So now you know all you need to know about CALIGULA, and you can proceed at your own risk. But I'm tellin' ya, that lesbian scene...WOOF!!!

Yes, this is real.

TERMINAL ISLAND (1973)

I first heard of this flick during high school when my friend Kenny told me about the trailer, which was included in the theatrically-released coming attractions collection THE BEST OF SEX AND VIOLENCE and when I saw that collection for myself years later, I was greatly intrigued. Then came my college days and the exchange of sleazy films with fellow connoisseurs, and TERMINAL ISLAND fell into my hands thanks to a freshman who would later gain deserved renown as writer/critic Selwyn Harris (at least I think I got it from him). I remember watching the film (admittedly through a thick fog of bonghit smoke), but if truth be told it happened during the first of what I now refer to as my "lost years," a period where I was perpetually drunk and/or stoned, so my memories of it remained spotty at best until a few days ago, when I got my hands on the film now that it's out on DVD. So was it worth revisiting after over twenty years?

A knife fight over one of the few available females. Just another day on Terminal Island.

TERMINAL ISLAND takes place in what was then the near-future (an element that adds nothing whatsoever to the plot) and brings viewers to its titular location, the San Bruno maximum security penal island, where the most vicious of convicted murderers are sent for life, there to eke out a meager existence or perish, or as the film's trailer so matter-of-factly states, it's "where we throw our human garbage." We watch as Carmen (Ena Hartman) is sentenced to the island, where, to her horror, she discovers she is only one of four females in the place, and is thus doomed to slavery — sexual and otherwise — under the iron hand of the psychotic Bobby (Sean Kenney) and Monk (Roger Moseley), his huge black enforcer. From the moment she arrives in the camp, Carmen is brutalized by Monk while the other female prisoners look on with mute resignation, each having no choice but to accept their status and service a minimum of four men per night on a semi-regular basis (the men outnumber the women roughly ten to to one).

Carmen's arrival: "Welcome to Terminal Island, baby."

After what appears to be a few days of such degradation, Carmen and the rest of the women are stolen from the bad guy murderers by a small group of nomadic good guy murderers who live on the other side of the island. Once among the new group of men, the women are (mostly) treated as equals and no longer forced to give it up on demand. Meanwhile, Bobby and Monk send out men to track down and retrieve the women and kill the dissident good guy murderers in the process. It all builds to a head and the good guy murderers pool their skills to organize themselves into a smart guerrilla army.

The "good guy" murderers.

With casualties on both sides, when the smoke clears it's a brand new day on Terminal Island as the good guy murderers take control and embark on a more pleasant, equality/cooperation-based way of existence.

In answer to my earlier question, TERMINAL ISLAND was not really worth coming back to after twenty-some-odd years and was very much a disappointment after its classic bombastic trailer. For a story with such sleazy potential, surprisingly little is made of it and its gore, nudity and violence are tepid at best. All of the sexual slavery takes place off-camera — which suits me fine, but the audience that came expecting it was certain to be disappointed and pissed off — the characters are pretty much all murderers, so it's kinda hard to root for any of them, and the thrills are quite tepid, especially when measured against the across the board excesses of the film's contemporaries in the exploitation field.

The only thing that's really notable here is the cast, several of whom came from or went on to careers in TV. For most viewers, TERMINAL ISLAND is of interest for early appearances of Roger Moseley and Tom Selleck (as the sole innocent on the island), who would go on to co-star on MAGNUM, P.I. some seven years later.

A pre-MAGNUM, P.I. Tom Selleck (with Barbara Leigh).

For a geek like me, this film is a must-see thanks to the presence of two childhood favorites and veterans of Irwin Allen kids' sci-fi TV shows from the 1960's appearing in a potentially-sleazy R-rated flick. Both Don Marshall, who played Dan Erickson on LAND OF THE GIANTS (1968-1970), and the lovely Marta Kristen, who launched many young lads into puberty as Judy Robinson on LOST IN SPACE (1965-1968), are on hand and of the two it's Kristen who has the more interesting character, specifically that of a radical bomber whose political rampage resulted in the accidental deaths of innocent civilians. During the climactic coup, her character's skills at creating homemade munitions come in very handy and she proves to be the polar opposite of the stereotypical dumb blonde. She's really cool here and displays a presence that was never allowed to flower during her days among the Jupiter 2 gang, and it's a shame that she's only been seen sporadically ever since.

Irwin Allen refugees in da house: Don (LAND OF THE GIANTS) Marshall and Marta (LOST IN SPACE) Kristen.

And just so we're clear on this and to spare you any disappointment upon rental, at no point does Marta Kristen get nekkid or fuck Don Marshall. Pfooey.

So the bottom line on TERMINAL ISLAND is that I don't really recommend it unless you're curious about what the aforementioned TV actors bring to the table. It's only 89 minutes long, so if you choose to see it at least you won't be wasting too much time. Oh, and some critics have made much of the film being directed by a woman, Stephanie Rothman, and how the film apparently has some sort of political message, but neither aspect helps make TERMINAL ISLAND anything other than a footnote in the annals of '70's exploitation cinema.

THE DIRTY HARRY SERIES: A STUDY IN "SEQUELITIS"

If you're a fan of violent mainstream action films, it's a good bet you enjoy yourself a Dirty Harry movie or two and no doubt know the following quote by heart:

I know what you're thinking. "Did he fire six shots or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?

Clint Eastwood's always been cool as fuck, but none of the badasses he's played in his impressive career have attained the downright iconic status held by Inspector Harry Callahan of the San Francisco Police Department (although there's a case to be made in favor of the Man with No Name in those Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns). Spanning a series of five feature films, the series kicked off in 1971 with the eponymous DIRTY HARRY and its box office success guaranteed a sequel would appear not long after. But like most film series it soon fell victim to the dread disease of "sequelitis," in other words the subsequent films just couldn't hold a candle to the root entry. That said, let's examine the five films one by one.

DIRTY HARRY (1971)

Director Don Siegel — who helmed the excellent 1956 version of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS — crafted a tense thriller with this first film, and the results are justly considered one of the classics of the genre. We meet "Dirty" Harry Callahan (so called because he gets "stuck with every dirty job that comes along") as he hunts Scorpio (the superb and completely underrated Andrew Robinson, later former Cardassian spy Elim Garak on STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE), a serial-killing sniper who has no agenda other than to cause terror and murder innocent people.

Andy Robinson as the chilling serial killer Scorpio.

Over the course of the film we see Harry's rather cynical and nihilistic worldview through the eyes of his new partner, Chico Gonzalez (Reni Santoni), the latest in a line of partners who never last long, and in no time we realise Harry's pretty much the old school, tough as nails western sheriff transplanted into the modern day of the Vietnam era, and as such he's the walking antithesis to the "peace and love" generation. Harry's psychologically agonizing battle with Scorpio is a nerve-wracking back-and-forth conflict of equally clever and tough opponents, with Scorpio having a slight advantage by virtue of his sociopathic insanity, and as it plays out we see that Harry's outright savagery in his handling of matters is the only thing that can possibly bring down the psycho in question. Waging an endless war against the "creeps" and "punks" that infest his city, Harry simply does not give a fuck about such piddling considerations as due process or even basic human rights when it comes to criminals, and the audience is right there with him because the judgment he passes down upon those he blasts into oblivion with his expertly-wielded Smith & Wesson revolver is never wrong. And let's face it, people understandably hate vicious criminals who prey upon society, and the figure of the righteous Harry Callahan "taking out the trash" is bound to strike a chord within the viewer, no matter how seemingly fascistic such a character may come off as. I'm not in any way down with vigilante cops in real life, but when it comes to fantasies writ large across the big screen, I'm glad to know Harry's there to do what the legal system can't — or won't — due to its own bureaucracy and respect for its own sometimes self-restricting legal statutes. An extremely odd film to have come out when it did, DIRTY HARRY pretty much invented and defined the "cop on the edge" archetype that has since been beaten to death (even within the series itself) and is one hell of an engrossing cinematic effort. If you only see one film in this series, the initial DIRTY HARRY is the absolute "must see" of the lot.

MAGNUM FORCE (1973)

Following the events of the first film Harry is no longer working homicide and is instead stuck doing stakeout duty (with new partner Felton Perry, who would later turn up in ROBOCOP), but Harry's a veritable trouble-magnet, so when assorted "untouchable" criminals and assorted other human vermin keep turning up very dead, Harry comes to realize the victims were dispatched by a motorcycle cop, someone the victims would not have anticipated as a potential murderer. At first the spotlight of suspicion falls on one of Harry's old cop pals, but it soon becomes obvious that a quartet of motorcycle cops with extraordinary marksmanship skills have taken it upon themselves to mete out vigilante justice as they see fit and, seeing Harry's way of thinking and acting as being in line with their own, the psycho cycle fuzz ask Harry to join their cause (oh, and by this point Harry's been brought back into homicide). What they definitely don't count on is Harry not being down with their murderous plan, and once he refuses their offer it's only a matter of time until he becomes number one on their hit list... There's more going on behind the scenes with the "magnum force," as Harry discovers to his horror, and this entry is hands-down the most visceral and violent of the bunch. It's also sadly pedestrian in its direction, especially when considering how intriguing the premise is and how it tests Callahan's own code of ultra-violent justice with a story by John (CONAN THE BARBARIAN and RED DAWN) Milius and screenplay by Milius and Michael (THE DEER HUNTER) Cimino. While not brilliant, the film's moral ambiguities and shattering, exploitation movie-style ultra-violence make it my favorite of the sequels.

THE ENFORCER (1976)

Here's where the sequels' precipitous nosedive in quality commenced, or rather the sequelitis began its insidious infection in earnest. THE ENFORCER feels like the pilot for a Dirty Harry mismatched "buddy cop" TV series, thanks largely to a by-the-numbers threat — a motley terrorist organization called the People's Revolutionary Strike Force — and Harry's latest partner, Inspector Kate Morse (played by Tyne Daly of THE ROOKIES and later CAGNEY & LACEY renown), a nine-year veteran of the Personnel department with no prior homicide experience who is included to provide Harry with endless opportunities to display a sexist attitude that predictably mellows as he warms to his sidekick's pluckiness.

Tyne Daly as Inspector Kate Morse.

As this was the mid-1970's, Morse is very much in "I am Woman, hear me roar" mode, and in those days I'd guess the character was somewhat revolutionary for a mainstream action movie (but certainly not for the exploitation genre, which had cornered the market of tough females not long previous), but now the earnest stridency and gumption the screenwriters gave her is dated, trite, and kind of embarrassing to endure. Plus, since she's one of Harry's partners, she's the equivalent to a "red shirt" on STAR TREK, so it's much ado over an inevitable casualty; at least her dying words weren't "I love you," because that would have made the average viewer puke and sent the action movie fans in the audience into a litany of booing and Bronx cheers. THE ENFORCER is watchable, but only just, so approach with discretion.

SUDDEN IMPACT (1983)

Prior to the days when the house where I grew up had a VCR, this was the first Dirty Harry movie I ever saw and I was curious to see what the big deal about the character was. Following what I saw here, I'm surprised I was interested enough to delve back to the series' origins. The only film in the series to be directed by Clint Eastwood, this is an ugly throwback to the rape/revenge movies that were popular in the grindhouses during the previous decade and is considered by many to be the most violent film in the franchise (my vote unequivocally goes to MAGNUM FORCE in that department). Looking like a garden variety exploitation actioner from a company like Golan-Globus, SUDDEN IMPACT finds a fifty-something Harry on the trail of a revenge killer (Sondra Locke, who was romantically involved with Clint Eastwood for some fourteen years) who's blowing the genitals off her male victims before murdering them outright in retaliation for a gang-rape that she survived while her sister was so traumatized that she was left catatonic. Once the gang of rapists and their stereotypical dyke cohort figure out that they're targets, it's only a matter of time until a final showdown, with Harry on the fence as to whether he should allow the killer retribution or bust her along with the rapists. This film is routine in every way and is notable only for Harry's new gun, a hand cannon called an AutoMag, and for introducing the catch phrase "Go ahead, make my day" to the lexicon. Wildly popular and deeply unpleasant — not that one would expect a Dirty Harry movie to be pleasant, but you know what I mean — this one is best enjoyed by sadists, those who get off on sordid rape fantasies, and folks who have no better action film to watch at the moment. More like SODDEN IMPACT, if you ask me. Or as the British might say, "SODDING IMPACT."

THE DEAD POOL (1988)

The final film in the Dirty Harry cycle sees the series fizzle out utterly as our hero finds himself on "the dead pool," a list of famous people whom participants in the game predict will die. This film is just more of the same, to ever-diminishing returns, and is worth seeing only to note Liam Neeson in a Dirty Harry movie, and an early appearance of a then-unknown Jim Carrey as a junkie rock star asshole who lip-synchs Guns 'N' Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle."

A young Jim Carrey (credited as "James") as junkie rock star asshole Johnny Squares, two years before his breakout work on IN LIVING COLOR.

But when all is said and done, this series really should not have continued past the initial entry because once it had invented the archetype where else was there for the series to go? MAGNUM FORCE made a valiant attempt at doing something interesting, scriptwise anyway, but from there on the patient succumbed to a virulent case of sequelitis and could not be saved. Or at least that's my take on it. What sez you?

"Keep reading CINE-MISCREANT, asshole, or I'll blow your head clean off!"