The B-Masters Cabal

When was the last time that the FBI was presented as (a) entirely competent, and (b) scrupulously upright?  You may have to go all the way back to F.B.I. Girl (1951) for an example.

I’ll never forget the look on my dog’s face when one of our guests at a barbecue fed her a veggie burger when she was expecting the real thing. That, and the ptoo! that followed.

I bring this up because it’s so close to my reaction to Mega Shark versus Giant Octopus. Never judge a film by its trailer!

The movie is Framed. The star is Joe Don Baker. Do I have to say any more? (Well, yeah, I did also write a full-length review of the movie that I hope you’ll read, but you know what I mean.)

The quickest way to describe Mask of the Dragon (1951), a cheap Chinatown-flavored suspense thriller, is this: You know you’re scraping the bottom when Lyle Talbot is your most accomplished cast member.

(That’s not him in the picture.)

TRIP TO MOON
It appears that what these apparent scientist types are doing is plotting out some kind of a moon landing, but they are soon distracted from that task by a flash outside the window. One of the scientists wanders off to investigate, and is soon greeted by a bewitching melody sung by a ghostly female voice, wafting toward him as if carried on the bitter mountain winds. Soon the voice is given unlikely form in the shape of a woman in a bejeweled floor-length gown, shoulder-length lace gloves and a tiara, who proceeds to perform a fairly standard Bollywood item number while lithely prancing about the craggy, blizzard-swept landscape. This mildly surreal sequence ends when the old professor, having completely fallen under this siren’s spell, is suddenly confronted with her true form: that of a cackling, helmeted spacewoman in a mini-dress, leggings, and high-top sneakers. Soon thereafter, a gang of thuggish moon minions appear and hustle the fellow into a waiting flying saucer, which then shakily takes off toward the heavens.

THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY (1954)

Well, here it is, folks: the first honest-to-God modern disaster movie, brought to you by the Duke himself.

Halfway between Hawaii and San Francisco, a commercial airliner loses a propeller, suffering engine damage and the loss of critical fuel in the process. Over time, it becomes increasingly clear that the incapacitated plane may not be able to reach its intended destination. As the passengers reflect upon their lives, their fate is in the hands of two men: an older pilot whose stoic demeanour masks a tragic past, and a younger one suffering from a crippling case of nerves.

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(I’ll leave it to the rest of you to look at that screenshot and figure out which is which.)

The Blood Shed (2006)

Does cannibalism lead to inbreeding, or does inbreeding lead to cannibalism? Oh well, as long as it’s all in good fun…

DIRTY PAIR: PROJECT EDEN
I don’t know exactly what sort of conversation was transpiring between Chandler, Takachiho, and the two female “assistants” (Tanaka Yuri and Otoguro Keiko) in attendance with them, but being a sci-fi nerd myself, I can hazard a guess. Whatever the case, at some point Chandler made the comment that, while the wrestlers in the ring might be known as the Beauty Pair, the two people with Takachiho (the assistants) should be known as the Dirty Pair. This comment inspired Takachiho to come up with the idea of grafting the theatrical mayhem and violence and pro wrestling onto the world of science fiction. Basing the friendship of his two main characters on the camaraderie (sometimes somewhat tense) of tag-team wrestling partners, not to mention the penchant of wrestlers for massive amounts of destruction, the sci-fi comic creator came up with his latest creation. Drawing upon the names of the assistance who had, through some mysterious way we may never fully know, inspired Chandler to call them the Dirty Pair, Takachiho named his new duo Kei and Yuri.

Erotic Diary of a Lumberjack (1974), which, as is only to be expected of a movie with that title, has practically nothing to do with lumberjacks,

In the Sign of the Virgin (1973), which has nothing whatsoever to do with virgins,

The Living Ghost (1942), which, come to think of it, has nothing to do with ghosts– am I on a roll here, or what?

RoboCop 2 (1990), which breaks the streak by being about not only RoboCop, but another cyborg actually called RoboCop 2 as well,

The Sinful Dwarf (1974), which is exactly what it says on the package,

and…

Truck Stop (1978), which is an extremely revisionist adaptation of the Odyssey.  No, really.

Underworld Beauty
Nikkatsu described their brand of action films as “borderless”, which in part meant that, because of the great extent to which they were modeled upon American gangster and noir films, they did not exhibit a distinctly Japanese identity. However, there is, in fact, something very Japanese about Underworld Beauty. And that is how, with that uniquely Japanese eye for detail, it so expertly distills the noir sensibility to its very essence, cutting away any distracting nuances and reducing it to only the most potent elements of its visual iconography. In this sense – though perhaps out of different motivations – it bears some similarities to a far more well known film from the same year, Orson Welles’ Touch Of Evil. In taking the visual aspects of the noir style to their very limits, both Underworld Beauty and Touch of Evil make obvious fetishes of the deep chiaroscuro compositions, expressionistic plays of shadow, and off-balance camera angles that most previous noir filmmakers had simply used as individual elements of a more varied palette.

And the shrimp chips have been fryin’ up as well:

• Incubus
• Werewolves on Wheels
• And God Said to Cain
• The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3
• City of the Living Dead
• Mad Monster Party
• The Devil’s Partner
• Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster

It happened to me again. I admit it, I was suckered. This happened recently when I was in my local used video store, and I came across a copy of Treasure Of The Lost Desert. You would think I would have learned not to trust the box art of a movie, but this movie’s box art somehow made me think I would be getting an action-packed adventure. Plus, there was the title of the movie, sounding very much like the title of one of my favorite movies, Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Well, if I manage to convince at least one reader not to be suckered by box art or titles, then my pain from watching this cheapo will have been worth it. Please, someone tell me my pain was not in vain…

In The Man From Cairo (1953), A WWII veteran (George Raft) touring his old stomping ground in Algiers gets drawn into a hunt for a lost shipment of French Gold.

CLAWS (1977)

Proving that there’s nothing so crappy it can’t inspire someone, this cheap knock-off of Grizzly tells the tale of one man’s Ahab-like quest to rid the Alaskan wilderness of what might be a supernatural being, or a gigantic grizzly bear, or a smallish black bear, or the taxidermist’s handiwork, depending on what shot we happen to be looking at.

Those new to this film should be warned that it features a particularly tragic ending, from which this viewer is yet to recover…

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