Latitude Zero (1969)

Stop me if you have heard this one already. Two scientists and a journalist are stuck in a submarine, trapped underwater until they are rescued by another submarine. Okay, it's not actually the start of a joke. It's the beginning of Latitude Zero, another film directed by Ishirô Honda, with a screenplay written by Shin'ichi Sekizawa (based on source material by Ted Sherdeman).

Dr. Ken Tashiro (Akira Takarada), Dr. Jules Masson (Masumi Okada), and Perry Lawton (Richard Jaeckel) are the three men rescued by Captain McKenzie (Joseph Cotten). They end up on a super-sub, Alpha, which is apparently much older than it looks, as are the captain and crew. While that seems difficult to believe, Captain McKenzie soon proves what superior technology can do for the health and lifespans of those on board the Alpha. There's a rival trying to destroy them though (Dr. Malic, who has a super-sub named Black Shark), and Tashiro, Masson, and Lawton find themselves in the middle of an ongoing undersea battle.

While certainly not on a par with other films from Toho in this era, Latitude Zero is a fun adventure film, helped by a decent cast and a selection of crazy creatures that liven up the second half of the film. You get giant bat-humans, giant rats, and a winged lion with a human brain placed inside it. There are also the scenes that just show off the subs moving around underwater, a real treat for those who enjoy practical effects and model work (even if it's far from the best examples of either).

While the cast has a good mix of both Japanese and American players, it's the latter getting to have more fun here. Cotten is as stolid and decent as you'd expect in the role of Captain McKenzie, and his crew is brightened up considerably by Linda Haynes in the role of Dr. Barton. Takarada, Okada, and Jaeckel are largely used as witnesses, they have the information conveyed to them that is therefore also conveyed to the audience, but they're fine. The Black Shark is more fun though, with Cesar Romero playing Dr. Malic in a very fun performance, accompanied by his lover (Patricia Medina) and the captain of the sub (Hikaru Koroki). The film moves back and forth between the two subs in a way that helps the pacing of the whole thing while it punctuates the dry science chat with scenes of Romero growing impatient and irate as he aims to close in on his prey, not entirely dissimilar to the way he would perform his most iconic villain role on a show that also featured at least one Batman.

Honda remains as capable behind the camera here as he was on so many other projects, and the screenplay maintains a consistent "boys adventure" tone throughout that will allow most viewers to know whether or not they are going to be able to relax and have fun with this in the first 5-10 minutes. I thought this was great, even if the very last scene seemed a little bit abrupt and lazy, and it's got me hankering for a deep dive (no pun intended) into many other submarine movies I have neglected to watch/rewatch over the past decade. So don't be surprised if you start seeing more reviews from me that are sent up from the watery depths of various ocean trenches.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share

Noir-vember: The Lineup (1958)

A spin-off from a TV series that was itself based on a popular radio show, The Lineup is a solid little noir that takes a little while to find its feet, allowing viewers to see a little bit of actual police work, but finally settles in and buckles up for a speedy journey along some dangerous roads on the way to a superb, and inevitable, confrontation.

It all begins with a crash, one that results in death and the discovery of some smuggled heroin. The police eventually accept that a number of people entering America are unwitting drug mules, with the heroin often inside some souvenir. Viewers are then introduced to the decidedly dangerous Dancer (Eli Wallach) and Julian (Robert Keith). Driven around town by Sandy (Richard Jaeckel), these two men are going to be responsible for collecting drugs and delivering them to their next destination. Things don't go to plan, as is so often the case in any crime movie, and Dancer and Julian end up trying to make use of an unsuspecting mother and daughter (played respectively by Mary LaRoche and Cheryl Callaway).

Directed by Don Siegel, who is probably best known for his work with Clint Eastwood, this is an enjoyably unflinching slice of crooked unpleasantness. Written by Stirling Silliphant, a writer with a hell of a lot of entertaining hits in his filmography, everything works when viewers are eventually shown that Dancer and Julian are the main characters. Their actions allow us to see the criminal operation that has been described in dialogue between different authority figures, and they don’t have any edges softened as they start to interact with innocent people who don’t deserve to be drawn into their plans. It may not be as good as any one of the movies Siegel made during the last full decade of his career, but The Lineup definitely benefits from his ability to make slick entertainment featuring some tense set-pieces that give most of the screentime to people you wouldn’t ever want to meet in a dark alley.

Wallach and Keith are excellent, generally cool and business-like, but also able to act relatively normally when they are trying to put someone at ease in their company. LaRoche and Callaway are also very good, completely oblivious for a while to the danger they are in without seeming annoyingly stupid. Everyone else does what is asked of them, and Emile Meyer and Marshall Reed as the main cops trying to crack the case, but the film is at its best whenever Wallach and Keith are front and centre, which is fortunately for most of the runtime.

Get through those meandering early scenes, tolerate the supporting characters that you won’t really care for, and the film turns into something much better (about 15 minutes in, although I wasn’t clock-watching). It’s not one of the greats, lacking any real twists and turns on the way to the tense final sequence, but it’s certainly one I would recommend.

7/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing, and ALL of the links you need are here - https://linktr.ee/raidersofthepodcast
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share

Mako: The Jaws Of Death (1976)

If you're a film fan who will watch anything then you inevitably start to work your way through a lot of films that others may consider . . . not very good. Some films are so infamous that you assume you've already seen them, and finding out that you haven't can end up being quite a surprise. That's what happened here, the result of me confusing Mako: The Jaws Of Death with The Last Shark. I have finally corrected my error.

Richard Jaeckel plays Sonny Stein, a man who wears a strange medallion that allows him to have a telepathic connection with sharks. This makes him angry at the humans who try to profit from hunting the creatures, and he can either deal with the situation by confronting the shark killers himself or he can ensure that they end up in the water alongside some ferocious fins. Jennifer Bishop plays Karen, a woman who is about to end up swimming with sharks as some kind of weird attraction in a bar, run by a man named Barney (Buffy Dee). Various people interact with Sonny, who becomes more and more irate about the way sharks are being mistreated, and it all leads to an impressively downbeat third act.

Directed by William Grefé, who also came up with the idea that was turned into a screenplay by Robert W. Morgan, Mako: The Jaws Of Death is somehow both exactly what you expect it to be and also quite different from almost every other "sharksploitation" movie I can think of. You get all of the underwater footage, and the quality of it varies wildly, you get business interests clashing with the local ecosystem, and you get a potential bit of romance between Sonny and Karen, although it's really more about just setting up the chain of events in the third act.

Jaeckel isn't the best actor to ever appear onscreen, but he doesn't do too bad in the role of Stein. He's certainly better than Dee, who feels like he belongs in a very different movie (maybe something with Burt Reynolds as a charming rogue getting the better of him). Bishop isn't bad as Karen, although she's required to be understandably confused by Sonny's obsession. The other main stars are the sharks and Harold Sakata, billed as Harold 'Odd Job' Sakata (because of his most famous role).

It's just a shame that the script cannot do a better job for the cast of characters because the main premise, as silly as it seems, is at least interesting and unique enough to help this stand out from a crowd of movies that came along in the wake of Jaws (no pun intended). It's a pro-shark movie that still has them featured as a main threat, and it juxtaposes their uncomplicated shark ways with some of the uglier aspects of human nature.

I liked Mako: The Jaws Of Death, yet I also see it as a cheap and crude work. It's a low-budget exploitation movie with some great ideas being explored. That puts it ahead of many other, more polished, films you could choose to watch instead.

6/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share