PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 1008

Sisu 2022 Written and directed by Jalmari Helander. 

I watched this a couple of months ago, then I bought the Blu-ray, no one else had seen it but we'd all seen the director's first feature, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale.

Second time around I enjoyed the music more and and the Glorious Carnage about the same. Like the first time I saw this I was a bit sad that they'd run out of Nazis to slaughter. Oh, well.

Samurai Wolf 2 Hell Cut 1967 Written by Hideo Gosha, Norifumi Suzuki and Kei Tasaka, directed by Hideo Gosha. This is the sequel to the 1966 film Samurai Wolf we watched last week.

Kiba is traveling when he encounters some prisoners being transported in baskets to court. He tags along and helps keeps one of the prisoners from being assassinated. He gets hired to keep the prisoner safe from future attack. He's offered a couple of gold pieces so he takes the offer. A traveling ronin always needs some cash.

There's a whole cast of characters that are more trouble then they're worth, you can't trust the gold mine owner, the swordsman, the bad lady or the dojo master. All are likely to kill you if you get in their way. One thing we were reminded about by both movies tonight, gold mining is well dangerous. Mind you, I had already learned that from the hundreds of Westerns that use that same plot device.

There's a good bit of fighting and sword play. I enjoyed the movie about as much as the other one. Worth seeing for the fan.

Friday Night Movies 1007

Samurai Wolf 1966 Written by Hideo Gosha and Kei Tasaka, directed by Hideo Gosha. The movie is packed in a recent Blu-ray with Samurai Wolf 2. Gosha has directed a good number of movies. I've only seen the 1971 Yakuza film The Wolves and that was fairly good. It's a modern day story and nothing to do with the Samurai Wolf series.

A ronin who calls himself Wolf gets caught up in a fight between the blind lady who runs the postal station and the local baddie. The blind lady has to move 30,000 pieces of gold from her station to the next station. The local baddie and the horrible woman who runs the brothel want that money. Many die before the story ends.

It's very similar type of story like you'd find in Zatoichi movies. Isao Natsuyagi is OK as the Wolf and the rest of the cast is fine. There's plenty of fights and a stack of bodies when the movie is done. Plenty of vacancies for new baddies the day after the movie. The score is heavily influenced by Italian Western music, it's rather noisy. Over all I liked the movie. Looking forward to the second Wolf movie.

Monster Party 2018 Written and directed by Chris Von Hoffman.

Casper, Iris and Dodge are three house robbers who steal from the rich. Casper is in dire need of $100,000 to pay off his father's gambling debts or the baddie will light his dad on fire. The trio decide to rob a mansion posing as replacement catering staff for a fancy dinner party. They figure out where the safe is and create a plan of action.

Things don't go so well once they start the plan. Turns out the house is filled with psychopaths and murders celebrating their not murdering anyone in a while. Like addicts who haven't had a drink or taken some drugs the urge is still inside. The urge takes over and poor Dodge is the first to go. The fight for survival is on and Casper turns out a dab hand with a katana. It's touch and go for Casper but he has some help from the daughter of their host.

It starts off a bit pokey and I didn't care that much for the trio of robbers. It picks up once the house guests start showing their true colors. I wound up enjoying it more than I thought I would. I did enjoy the movie's sense of humor but I don't think I'll pick up the Blu-ray.

Friday Night Movies 994

Eight Men To Kill 1962 Written by Tatsuo Honda and Kôji Takada, directed by Shigehiro Ozawa. The third in the Bounty Hunter series with Wakayama Tomisaburo. The three film Blu-ray box set is from Radiance.

Shikoro Ichibei takes on the job of getting a huge stock of gold back from some bandits. He's got til the day of the eclipse and that's only 4 days away. He chases down the members of the gang only to find them empty handed, someone else in the gang has taken the gold. No honor amongst those thieves. There are a good number of sword fights and plenty of horse riding, bodies dot the landscape.

Ichibei barely survives the mission but he gets there in the end. Most everyone else is dead. A constant reminder of the short and dangerous life in feudal Japan. All in all a good trilogy with plenty of action and stabbing. Highly recommended.

Neon City 1991 Written by Ann Lewis Hamilton (as Buck Finch), Jeff Begun and Monte Markham, directed by Monte Markham. A Canadian post apocalypse film that was filmed in Utah.

Bounty hunter Micheal Ironside captures Vanity in the out lands, she turns out to be a valuable captive, big reward offered for her capture. At the local town they tell him he has to take her to Neon City, that's where the warrant was issued, that's where the reward credits are payed out. It's a few days away but he'll go, he wants his credits. The local officer has Micheal's jeep blown up. That officer hates Michael and that forces Michael to take the stagecoach transport to Neon City. The movie is Hamilton's update of John Ford's Stagecoach. Instead of native braves the passengers have to fight off the local mutant raiders. They've been damaged by the residual radiation in the out land. 

There's some action scenes and a bit of dull time before the action picks up again. They get to Neon City where Michael has to kill one of the passengers for murdering another. He lies to the authorities when he tells them Vanity died on the road. Michael and Vanity leave Neon City with Lyle Alzado.

It's pretty much average, nothing too new or exciting. Richard Sanders as the comic relief machine reminds one how sad it is when the apocalypse wipes out all the really talented entertainers. That's why I'm saving DVDs. Hope I can get some electricity and a working DVD player.

Friday Night Movies 993

The Fort Of Death 1969 Written by Kôji Takada, directed by Eiichi Kudô. The sequel to Killer's Mission. Here's a picture of the Radiance box set released under the title The Bounty Hunter Trilogy.

The first film in the series was a mix of samurai and James Bond, this film is a mix of samurai and spaghetti western. Despite being in Italian the poster above is for this movie. This is the best image I could find of what could be the original Japanese poster.

This time the Ichibei bounty hunter gets hired to defend farmers who are staging an upraising against the local lord. The farmers are tired of the high taxes and bad treatment from the local lord. They've holed up in a makeshift fort. Feudal Japan is a horrible era, hardly any chance of getting old if you're poor, if you're lucky you'll get stabbed to death and die quickly. That's what happens here. Many of the local peasants are killed before Ichibei gets there. After his arrival a lot of the lord's warriors are slaughtered. Ichibei has a nice surprise weapon. By the end of the movie most everyone is dead. We know Ichibei survives because there's a third movie. 

It's got good fights and a fair bit of slaughter. We see a softer side of Ichibei, he works as the local doctor in his town. He works as a bounty hunter to help finance his practice. I enjoyed it and will want to watch it again sometime.

Prey 2022 Story by Patrick Aison and Dan Trachtenberg, screenplay by Patrick Aison, directed by Dan Trachtenberg. A Predator movie set in 1719 featuring an encounter with the Predator and a local tribe living in the Northern Great Plans. That's northern Nebraska going well into Canada. At one point the tribe is identified as Comanche by some French trappers. That might be a mistake on the part of the characters, the Comanche didn't live on the North Great Plains, they lived on the Southern Plains. It also might be the film writers at fault.

A young woman in the tribe wants to be a hunter but she gets a lot of push back from the tribe and her brother. One day she sees something in the sky. We know it's a Predator space ship. The Predator is dropped off and starts hunting. He watches the local tribe and hunts a few of them. There's plenty of fights between the Predator, the local warriors and some good number of animals.

The young warriors of the tribe are picked off one by one as they venture into the forest looking for one person or another. Most of them can't get a handle on the Predator as he's invisible. The young woman gets to see the Predator, she wants to hunt him but he doesn't think she's much of a threat to him. She proves him wrong by the end of the movie.

I liked the movie. There's plenty of fight and lots of running through the woods. I'd be happy to add it to my collection. Someday I could have a nice Predator film festival.

Friday Night Movies 992

Killer's Mission 1969 Written by Masaru Igami, Norimichi Matsudaira and Kōji Takada, directed by Shigehiro Ozawa. The first of The Bounty Hunter Trilogy with Tomisaburô Wakayama. We watched the Radiance Blu-ray set.

Tomisaburô is Ling Fung, he's a secret agent for the Shogunate, his new mission is to stop a secret deal between the Satsuma clan and the Dutch. The Satsuma clan want the guns that the Dutch are selling. There's trouble within the Satsuma clan, not everyone is for the plan. The most powerful members are the worst people of course. There's plenty of fights, double crossing and back stabbing.

I thought it was entertaining and I'm always interested in seeing Tomisaburô. The new Blu-ray looks good and there's two more movies to go. I ordered one soon as I got home.

Specters 1987 Story by Marcello Avallone, Andrea Purgatori and Maurizio Tedesco, screenplay by Marcello Avallone, Andrea Purgatori, Maurizio Tedesco and Dardano Sacchetti, directed by Marcello Avallone. An Italian horror movie set in the catacombs under Rome.

The city of Rome is excavating for the Metro. Archeologists are searching the uncovered catacombs, Donald Pleasence plays Professor Lasky, the group find a stone casket and uncover some evil. Soon after the killing starts. Strong magical winds blow things about underground. A good number of people get slaughtered. Reminds me to stay out of the catacombs. Even ones with electric lights.

It's not great but it was better than some of the Italian horror films I've seen. It becomes a bit too talky in the middle and that slows the movie down. It picks up in the last act but it's not enough to get a better score on the IMDb where it's average is 4.2. There's a ridiculous bit near the end where the music gets all frantic. I laughed when nothing much happened. It's not something I'd need to see over, so, no need to buy the Blu-ray.

Air Patrol 1962

Air Patrol 1962 Screenplay by Harry Spaulding and directed by Maury Dexter.

A valuable painting is stolen with the help of a helicopter and a crooked pilot. The police spend the rest of the movie is trying to find them. There's a fun chase with a police helicopter involved. New for the time, so common place now.

Mostly a decent film but not more than average. You can catch it on YouTube, link in the title.

Sasaki Kojirō 1967

Sasaki Kojirō 1967 Screenplay by Hiroshi Inagaki, Takeo Matsuura and Genzo Murakami, directed by Hiroshi Inagaki. A Japanese biography picture about the battle between Sasaki Kojirō and Miyamoto Musashi. Inagaki was the director of the Samurai Trilogy in the mid 1950s. That series stars Toshiro Mifune as Musashi. It's well worth watching. 

Sasaki Kojirō is a 2.5 hour bio film about the life of Sasaki Kojirō. He's a swordsman who has a famous battle with Musashi. The movie fills in a bit of Sasaki's life and ends with their famous battle on Gunryu Island. It's a bit slow paced but mostly it's enjoyable. I enjoyed watching it and plan to watch it again someday.

Agent 077 Trilogy

Agent 077: Mission Bloody Mary 1965 Written by Sandro Continenza, Marcello Coscia and Leonardo Martin, directed by Sergio Grieco. All three films are Italian, Spanish and French productions.

Ken Clark is Dick Mallory, a spy on the trail of the Black Lily, a bunch of criminals who've just stolen a nuclear bomb code named Bloody Mary. Dick tracks the gang from France to Spain and to Greece. I remember a lot of water and plenty of running.

Agent 077: From The Orient With Fury 1965 Written by Sandro Continenza and directed by Sergio Grieco.

Dick's trying to keep a disintegrator gun out of the hands of some baddies. They chase Dick from France to Spain and onto Istanbul in Turkey.

Agent 077: Special Mission Lady Chaplin 1966 Written by Sandro Continenza, Marcello Coscia, Giovanni Simonelli and Hipólito de Diego, directed by Alberto De Martino and Sergio Grieco.

This Dick is on the trail of a man who tried to sell a dog tag from crew member of a sunken nuclear submarine. The man is killed and Dick has to find the submarine on his own. When he does he finds the sub nukes are all missing. Oh oh!

They're all about the same production wise, the actors are good enough for dubbing. There's a fair bit of action, baddies fall left and right but there's nothing overly exciting about them, they aren't James Bond quality and not as entertaining as the OSS 117 series. You can find them all on YouTube, see links above.

Friday Night Movies 934

Where The Spies Are 1966 Based on the novel Passport To Oblivion by James Leasor, screenplay by James Leasor, Wolf Mankowitz and Val Guest, directed by Val Guest. Niven and Guest optioned the next five Leasor novels but only two of them ever got written. I've not read any of them.

David Niven plays Doctor Jason Love, he's been recruited by MI5 to go to a medical conference in Beirut to contact another doctor. John Le Mesurier plays the MI5 guy MacGuillvray, he'd worked briefly with Doctor Love in WWII when they both were in Military Intelligence. Love is reluctant to go but MacGuillvray offers to buy him a rare Cord automobile to get him on board.

Françoise Dorléac plays a spy called Vikki, her day job is that of international model. She's Love's contact at the airport. They start a bit of a romance. Love misses his plane only to see it explode on take off.

There's plenty of spying activity as the Russian spy Stanilaus, played by Ronald Rudd, gets ready to assassinate the pro-British Prince of Zahlouf. Love turns up and nobbles the Russian's plan. The Russkies kidnap Love and plan to take him to Russia.

Vikki turns out to be a double agent. She does redeem herself by shooting Stanilaus but sadly her modeling career comes to an end when Stanilaus returns the favor. I figured she'd die, it's the mid-60s, there's usually payback for blowing up a plane full of people. Doctor Love escapes and returns home.

I liked the movie well enough, it's more a spy movie like Our Man In Havana than a James Bond thriller. The Wikipedia says it's a comedy adventure film, it does OK on the adventure but it lacks a good supply of jokes. Despite that it's got a fairly decent script, perhaps a bit too long at 112 mins, and cast of good British actors. I recognized Cyril Cusack, Eric Pohlmann, Paul Stassino, Noel Harrison, Alan Gifford, Bill Nagy, Basil Dignam and Nigel Davenport. It's different enough from the average spy film that I'd watch it again.

Dr Renault's Secret 1942 Written by William Bruckner and Robert F Metzler and directed by Harry Lachman.

I wasn't certain that I had seen it before but the title was familiar. I looked at my Watched Movie List but I couldn't see it. Well, I couldn't find it due to a typo when I entered the movie in November 2017. The post I did then is linked in the title above. I still feel the same about the movie.

Friday Night Movies 925

The Unknown Man Of Shandigor 1967 Written and directed by Jean-Louis Roy. A Swiss spy film originally titled L'inconnu de Shandigor about a scientist who creates an invention that can incapacitate atomic bombs.

That's Daniel Emilfork, he plays the baddie Herbert Von Krantz. He's created the bomb stopper and he's a mad mad scientist. He holds up in a big house with his daughter Sylvaine and an albino assistant called Yvan. Herb keeps everything locked up and he watches over the property with his surveillance cameras. There's also an unseen and under used creature living in his pool. Occasionally someone stops by the pool to throw bits of dry ice into the water. Disappointingly we never see the creature.

Several countries have spies watching him. Sylvaine runs off and is kidnapped by one of the spy groups. She spends a lot of time running around places with Gaudi architecture with one of the spy guys.

It's an odd film, someone commented it was shot like a Berman film and I could se that. One of the two reviews on the IMDb said:

The Unknown Man of Shandigor is far more whimsical than any James Bond film. Yet, it is neither a parody nor a satire of spy films. It is just a bizarre take on one. I would compare this film to Alphaville in the way the film is a delirious style piece. It even shares one actor from the Godard film, the always welcomed Howard Vernon. I might also mention Branded to Kill and Tokyo Drifter, director Seijun Suzuki's two takes on the yakuza film from the same time period as The Unknown Man of Shandigor.

It's an unusual film, not for everyone. I liked it well enough and I am tempted to pick up a copy.

The Liquidator 1965 Based on the novel of the same name by John Gardner, screenplay by Peter Yeldham, directed by Jack Cardiff. Not a series I ever read. I think I've only read the first of Gardner's James Bond sequels. Like a Bond movie it opens with a big song. Shirley Bassey's alright singing wise and the music by Lalo Schifrin isn't that bad. The problem is the poor lyrics, not good.

Rod Taylor is Boysie Oakes, he saved the life of a man called Mostyn, played by Trevor Howard, in Paris during World War 2. He killed a German soldier who was about to shoot Mostyn. He killed that man by a lucky accident but Mostyn didn't see that, he just saw the dead Nazi. Years later Mostyn is a Colonel in British Intelligence. He's given a project by his boss, played by Wilfred Hyde-White, who wants Mostyn to eliminate security leaks in the agency with deadly force. It's a totally secret and illegal operation but Trevor goes ahead with the project.

He hires Boysie thinking he's a stone cold killer. Tempted by the spy game, the fancy car, the ladies and the lavish apartment Boysie goes along with the program until he learns he's going to be an assassin. Boysie wants to quit but Mostyn has him over a barrel and he can't resign. Boysie doesn't want to kill people, he fails in his attempt on that lady in the hat. Boysie wants keep his lavish lifestyle, so he does the next best thing, he farms out the killing to Griffin, played by Eric Sykes, a freelance professional assassin.

It all works well enough for a while but Boysie is a bit of a rule breaker and he wants to get closer to Mostyn's secretary Iris, Jill St John plays her and she's a handful. The problem that keeps cropping up is there are rules about spy's dating the agency civilian staff. Serious rules that could get rule breakers 10 years in prison. Despite that Boysie and Iris take a trip to the Côte d'Azur on the French Riviera. They get tumbled before the plane leaves the runway and Mostyn is on their trail. Meanwhile in France a secret plan to kill the Duke Of Edinburgh is formulating. Boysie is set up by a fake agent and believes his story about a training exercise. The baddies really have another goal, they want to steal the new test plane that the Duke was to inspect, they nearly get away with it before Boysie finally comes through.

I don't think it's humorous enough to be a spy spoof, it's more a thriller with a dark comedic core. People commenting on the IMDb and reviews can't seem to agree on what it is. Boysie doesn't want to kill people but he's OK with Griffin doing the job. Daniel Emilfork, Krantz in the first film tonight, has a small role as a spy.

I enjoyed it most of the time. It moves along fairly well until the last act when it starts to lag a bit. It's 104 mins could have been cut by 10 mins and it would have tightened it up nicely. I picked up a copy from Amazon for a tenner and I'm not sad about that. I'd watch it again.