Noirvember: Point Blank (1967)

In case you somehow missed the memo, Lee Marvin is one tough sonofabitch. If you didn’t know that before watching Point Blank then you should sure as hell know it by the time it’s finished. This is a film that starts with Marvin’s character, Walker, being shot multiple times and left for dead, but it doesn’t take him long to get back on his feet and start on a path of bloody revenge.

Based on a novel, “The Hunter”, by Donald E. Westlake (who has had a number of his works adapted into movie form), this is an enjoyably simple tale of one man cutting a large swathe through a criminal organisation as he looks to collect his share of a rewarding plot that he was a vital part of. He isn’t being unfair, yet everyone seems to think that as they try their best to avoid giving him what he is due.

Director John Boorman, working from a script written by Alexander Jacobs, and David and Rafe Newhouse, delivers what could well be a perfect mix of violence, intrigue, and ultra-cool in this classic neo-noir. It is another film I regret not seeing sooner, especially since I already saw Payback (the Gibson-starring remake from the late ‘90s) a couple of decades ago.

The script is brilliant, if often economical with words (Boorman adds so much with visual details, and excellent editing from Henry Berman, throughout), and you have a mostly excellent cast getting themselves in trouble while a fine, dreamy/nightmare-ish, soundtrack from Johnny Mandel accompanies their actions.

I would say this is Marvin’s best role, but that would suggest I have seen him in many other movies (I haven’t, he’s a bit of a blind spot for me). It’s tough to think of anyone doing better work here though, and he’s a perfect mix of smooth and rough. A young John Vernon is enjoyably spooked, knowing that his betrayal could cost him his life, and there are enjoyable performances from Keenan Wynn, Carroll O’Connor, and Lloyd Bochner. Although very male-centric, both Angie Dickinson and Sharon Acker get to be front and centre in a couple of surprisingly impactful scenes.

Having enjoyed this from start to finish, I am now struggling to find any fault with it at all. Maybe I have been too generous with my ratings lately, or maybe I have just finally got around to watching some classics that should have been marked off the list a long time ago. I think the latter is correct. People may not like how brutal and “ugly” Point Blank is, I can understand that, but I loved it. A large part of that is to do with Marvin, playing his character like some ever-moving shark that has sensed blood in the water and knows that it’s time to eat, but there’s nothing here I would change. 

I will now plan to rewatch Payback next week, and I’m interested to see what I think of that nowadays.

10/10

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Prime Time: Curtains (1983)

I'll be honest, I thought I was going to either end up bored with Curtains or frequently laughing at it. It's a film I have been aware of for many years, mainly thanks to a famous clip that has been shared around the internet again and again, but didn't think was supposed to be any good. It turns out that it actually IS pretty good, although there are still chuckles to be had (mostly thanks to the wonderful performance from John Vernon as a director with an eccentric approach to casting).

Anyway, here's the plot. In order to prepare for the role she has wanted for many years, a mentally unstable woman in a film called "Audra", an actress, Samantha Sherwood (played by Samantha Eggar), conspires with a director (Stryker, played by Vernon) to get herself committed to an insane asylum. Her plan seems to be working out, until she hears that Stryker is letting a group of six young actresses visit his home to audition for the part. Before you can say "professional rivalry", a killer wearing the mask of an old hag decides to get rid of most of the wannabe-stars.

Despite the fact that the production of this film was a troubled one, apparently director Richard Ciupka and producer Peter Simpson clashed over the ultimate aim of the film, Curtains still manages to do enough to keep it in the top half of the many slasher movies released at this time. The mask worn by the killer is a large part of that, it's creepy and memorable, and the plotting works well enough to allow the corpses to pile up, it's both silly and plausible in all the right ways, especially as the auditioning actresses like to assume that everyone else is just trying to inhabit the role of Audra.

Writer Robert Guza, Jr also does enough to make all of the main characters memorable enough, simply allocating each one with a main talent that allows you to keep track of who is who when they start to be pared down. There's the comedienne (Patti, played by Lynne Griffin), the actress with more experience than the rest (Brooke, played by Linda Thorson), a ballet dancer (Laurian, played by Anne Ditchburn), a musician (Tara, played by Sandee Currie), and an ice skater (Christie, played by Lesleh Donaldson). There's also a woman named Amanda, played by Deborah Burgess, but *spoiler* she doesn't even make it along to the actual auditions.

The standouts in the cast are Vernon, Eggar, and Griffin, although very few of them do a terrible job, especially considering some of the scenes that they have to take part in (and it's almost impossible to watch Eggar in another movie that features a man yelling at women to free themselves and get in touch with a dark part of their psyche without thinking of The Brood). There's also a very small role for Michael Wincott, if you're a completist who needs to see everything he ever did.

It's often slightly daft, it's far from the bloodiest slasher movie you could watch, and it even decides to forego the many opportunities it has for gratuitous nudity, which is a surprise (considering how the subgenre so often uses that to distract from other weaknesses), but Curtains is also a very enjoyable, and even memorable, little slasher film. And the end scenes cap everything off very nicely.

7/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy the movie here.

Chained Heat (1983)

The Women In Prison movie. It's not for everyone, but certain viewers with a taste for the trashy will know that these movies often practically overflow with gratuitous nudity, sadism and sleaze. Which makes them very entertaining.

In this movie, Linda Blair plays Carol, the new girl in the prison. It doesn't take her long to get the attention of Ericka (Sybil Danning), one of the more powerful inmates. Ericka is involved in a bit of a feud with Duchess (Tamara Dobson), but the two women have mutual enemies, of course, in the shape of the warden (John Vernon) and his staff (mainly Stella Stevens). At least there's the suave Lester (Henry Silva) to help the ladies take part in a lovely care in the community scheme. Well, actually, to be completely truthful, he gives some of them nice dresses to wear and then makes them work as prostitutes.

With its great cast, hilarious lack of anything that makes sense (for example, the hot tub in the warden's office), and pleasing mix of, yes indeed, nudity, sadism and sleaze, this is a particularly fan-pleasing film that takes the recognised components of the niche sub-genre and ramps them all up for maximum entertainment value.

Blair does fine in her role, despite the fact that I don't think she's ever been that great an actress. Her fresh face, and willingness to remove clothing, stand her in good stead to play the innocent girl who may struggle to survive her spell behind bars. Danning is as mesmerising as she usually is, perfect for the queen bee role that she's cast in. It's a sin that she was never cast in a movie role opposite, or alongside, Dyanne Thorne (or am I on my own with that thought?). Dobson holds her own, admirably, whenever facing off against Danning, and makes for a worthy opponent. Robert Miano is a rapey guard, Kendal Kaldwell is a nasty guard who isn't averse to helping the rapey guard get his victims, Stevens is a decent villain, and both Vernon and Silva are enjoyably cringe-inducing in almost every scene they feature in.

Paul Nicholas cobbles everything together well enough. It's all a bit careless and loose, rough around all of the edges in a way that just makes it more endearing, and the script (co-written by Nicholas and Aaron Butler) is as crude, at times, as it is juvenile.

I had a lot of fun watching Chained Heat (hey, I didn't mean THAT . . . . . behave), and I think that anyone else with previous experience of this kind of film, as long as they know exactly what they're letting themselves in for, will find it equally enjoyable.

7/10

http://www.amazon.com/Prison-Triple-Chained-Jungle-Warriors/dp/B004XIWRW4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406070962&sr=8-1&keywords=chained+heat

Ani-MAY-tion Month: Heavy Metal (1981)

An interesting, quirky, sci-fi anthology movie, Heavy Metal, with its gratuitous nudity, wish fulfilment moments and title-appropriate soundtrack, is pretty much designed for teenage boys. That's not to say that it's a bad film, but it does seem to fill many sequences by going for easy options and rather juvenile moments.

The stories in this movie are all connected by a deadly, glowing orb. The orb has intelligence, and also the ability to voice its thoughts, and the framing device of the movie is the orb relating some cautionary tales to a scared young girl. The stories all tend to show how the orb affects those it comes into contact with, for better or for worse, and violence occurs frequently.

Mostly based on material from a long-running magazine of the same name, Heavy Metal is easy to enjoy, even if it's not so easy to love. The stories often have a nice, old-fashioned feel to them, they're all pulp pleasures taking place in different environments, and sometimes developing interesting mythologies in the limited time they have. Screenwriters Daniel Goldber and Len Blum have a great selection of stories to work with, including some written by the great Dan O'Bannon, and they manage to keep the tone consistent while hopping from one story to the next, mainly by populating the tales with a mix of robots, space travellers and topless women.

Director Gerald Potterton keeps everything moving along nicely, helped by a voice cast that unexpectedly includes John Candy, Eugene Levy, John Vernon and Harold Ramis, among others, and it never quite outstays its welcome (running at just under 90 minutes), although it comes close during the last section.

And then there's the soundtrack, which caused the film to be unavailable for a number of years due to problems with the music licensing, apparently. The bands/artists getting to invade your ears include the following: Blue Oyster Cult, Stevie Nicks, Journey, Cheap Trick, Nazareth, Black Sabbath, and more. Okay, none of the songs will appear on any greatest hits album, but they're an extra part of the appeal to the target demographic.

It's not a great film, and the love that some people have for it surprises me, but it's enjoyable enough. And has plenty of those robots, space travellers, and topless women to keep me happy. Which may just be yet another sign of my struggle to keep wearing the disguise of a mature adult.

6/10

http://www.amazon.com/Heavy-Metal-Collectors-Richard-Romanus/dp/0767836316/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1400860259&sr=1-2&keywords=heavy+metal

Savage Streets (1984)

Linda Blair gets to be tough and sexy in this wild exploitation flick that's one of the more memorable entries in the rape 'n' revenge subgenre. Well, she tries to be tough and sexy. The fact that she can't quite manage to convey any real toughness is one of the many failings that works, somewhat perversely, to make this film more endearing and enjoyable than it has any right to be.

Blair plays Brenda, the top dog in her group of gal pals. She doesn't care about anything, except for her deaf sister, Heather (Linnea Quigley). She certainly doesn't care about the local gang of tough guys who try to occasionally pester her, and she shows that lack of care by taking their car for a joyride. Understandably irked by this lack of respect, the gang decides to get revenge in the only way they see fit. Yes, they rape Heather and land her in hospital with very serious injuries. That leads Brenda to snap. If people thought she was a badass before then they'll rethink that when they see just how badass she can be. In theory.

There's some nasty stuff on display here. For an exploitation film, a gritty revenge movie, this occasionally delivers the sordid content required. The rape scene is a particularly tough sequence to watch, yet it's clumsily juxtaposed with a gratuitous fight scene in a shower room that features Blair and Rebecca Perle as the centre of attention. This highlights the fact that Blair's character wasn't there when needed most by her sister, but it's obviously not done JUST for that reason.

Director Danny Steinmann (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Norman Yonemoto) follows the standard template for this kind of movie. Characters are introduced, with the villains clearly marked out as villains, and confrontations occur, leading to acts of violence that escalate, all the way to a finale that lets everyone go way over the line to get their own bit of justice.

Unfortunately, the whole thing is let down by some horrible dialogue, and some horrible acting from Blair. To look tough and/or sexy, Linda Blair obviously thought that she could act everything out by widening and narrowing her eyes, and smoking cigarettes. Oh, she's also given some swearwords, of course. But that's her whole performance. Robert Dryer, Johnny Venocur, Sal Landi and Scott Mayer are much better as the bunch of baddies, Quigley is very good in one of her first feature roles (as opposed to roles such as "Blonde In Spa" or "Model"), the other girls onscreen don't do too badly, and John Vernon gets to play the most hilariously inappropriate Principal in the history of cinema. The fact that he tells someone to "go fuck an iceberg" is the cherry on top.

If you like this subgenre then you'll like Savage Streets. If you don't then, well, maybe you'll still find something to enjoy here. It veers between the grimy and the hilarious in a way that creates a surprisingly enjoyable end product, although you may find yourself viewing it more as a comedy than a straight thriller.

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Savage-Streets-DVD-Linda-Blair/dp/B004TJWGUK/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1390837151&sr=8-2&keywords=savage+streets