The B-Masters Cabal

A Turkey of a Bond Rip-Off

KeithA — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:37:01 +0000

Funny thing about the James Bond movies is that, while they are models of conspicuous consumption, their basic tropes are so much just that –- basic –- that one could recreate them in a backyard home movie and still have them be easily identifiable. Make your bald headed uncle wear his shirt backwards and put him in a high-backed chair with a cat in his lap and you have your villain. Get the babysitter to dance around in a swimsuit to a Ventures record and you have your credit sequence. Make sure that your hero’s suit has at least been recently pressed, and that he can hold a cocktail glass in a somewhat rakish manner, and you’re good to go. Then you can have your mom… Well, that got weird awful fast, didn’t it? Anyway, you see my point.

You’d think that it would be this aspect of the Bond films that made them ideal fodder for the make do, cash poor cinema of 1960s Turkey. But the fact is that’s not the reason that Altin Cocuk, Turkey’s answer to James Bond –- aka Golden Boy –- was made at all. Altin Cocuk was made because it was 1966 and, in 1966, every country on Earth with a functioning movie industry was constructing their answer to James Bond.

Send more paramedics!

Andrew — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 01:07:36 +0000

RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD

“Return of the Living Dead” is one of the movies that my teenage self considered awesome that has withstood the test of time. Counter to the movie’s oppressive feeling of dread is a ghoulish sense of humor. “Send more paramedics” is a perfect example. The zombies are preying upon the living by asking for more help. We, the audience, know what is going to happen to the next ambulance that arrives at the graveyard. It is ghastly, but we laugh because it is also clever and diabolically unfair.

Lesson Learned:
Lysol destroys 99% of the germs that cause the smell of death.

Love me tender

lyzard — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 06:40:06 +0000

While waiting for an interlibrary loan to help my research into my next new piece, I thought I’d do a little house-keeping:

First up, I have recovered, revised, re-formatted and added a few screenshots to:

THE DEVIL BAT (1940)

In which Bela Lugosi, kindly village doctor by day, mad scientist by night, disposes of his enemies by (i) creating giant killer bats; (ii) teaching his bats to home in on a certain ingredient in an experimental shaving-lotion; and (iii) persuading his enemies to rub some of the lotion on the tender part of their neck. It’s foolproof!

I have also given a similar makeover to the film’s sequel-in-name-only, DEVIL BAT’S DAUGHTER (1946).

Plus, I’ve re-formatted REVOLT OF THE ZOMBIES (1936) and ROCKETSHIP X-M (1950), and fixed up the screenshots in THE WALKING DEAD (1936). (Sort of; they’re still a bit dark, I think.)

Defective detective movie

Greywizard — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:32:32 +0000

When I was younger, I was fascinated by the private eye profession. In television shows about private detectives, they always seemed to have a colorful life. They would charge fees running up to several hundred dollars an hour – which seemed like a fortune to me as a youngster. TV private detectives also always seemed to keep meeting sexy women, and they always seemed to need to use their firearm on creeps who really deserved getting shot. But as I got older, I learned the hard truths about private detectives. For one thing, I remember when MAD Magazine revealed to me that private detectives in real life mainly worked on getting provocative pictures for their clients who were involved in messy divorces – not a very glamorous thing to be doing. When I recently spotted the private detective movie Hollywood Harry at my local used video store, my first thought was if it would show me a sanitized look at the private detective life or something closer to the real thing. It also interested me in that Robert Forster was the director as well as the star.

Charlie Band’s making crap faster than I can review it.

Nathan Shumate — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 05:06:45 +0000

Skull Heads (2009) — A creepy family in an Italian castle confronts the outside world when the teenage daughter falls for a handsome film director. Also, because this is a Charles Band flick, there are killer dolls running around.

Related: I goofed. Reader Revenge Month is in April. It’ll be sort of like the time lag between Election Day and the Inauguration. (I’m a lame duck!)

Well, SOMEONE has to review Beastmaster

KeithA — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 20:35:45 +0000

BEASTMASTER
The success of this first wave of sword and sorcery films paved the way for a second wave. Amongst this crop was The Beastmaster. The Beastmaster, like the others was not a runaway hit when it was released. To be fair though, it was up against some pretty stiff competition, including ET – the Extra Terrestrial, An Officer and a Gentleman and The Road Warrior (or Mad Max 2 as it will always been known to me). But the film did reasonable business, making around three-million dollars in the United States, which was about a third of the films production costs. The film did well in Europe, on video, and became a mainstay on cable television. It has been reported that a comedian remarked that the meaning of HBO was not ‘Home Box Office’, but ‘Hey, Beastmaster’s On’.

It turns out I don’t like Gor flicks, either

kbegg — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:12:09 +0000

Once upon a time there was a college professor named John Norman. He wrote a large batch of paperback novels about a fantasy planet named Gor, whose primary trait was the literal sexual slavery of women and their ultimate fulfillment therein. (The men seemed happy with it too.) This inspired first a real-life subculture, then a movie. Two movies, in fact, but we haven’t gotten to the second one, yet.

Who left theaters more unsatisfied, the fans of Norman’s books, or those who had never heard of them and just wanted to see another sword and sorcery movie? The debate rages to this day…

Abandon all hope of entertainment, ye who choose to travel to the planet of Gor.

Lady Gaga’s male fan club has gone too far this time.

Andrew — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:27:26 +0000

STAR ODYSSEY

If there is one genre that can be compared to low budget Italian zombie flicks, it must be bargain budget Italian space operas. Both of them are the mental equivalents of $.29 frozen burritos, and both of them cause my wife serious anguish (as do cheap frozen burritos). Katie is more likely to complain about the zombie movies than the space operas, but that is splitting hairs. While I refuse to eat any burrito that costs less than $1.50, I have finally come to the realization that the movies I watch are not good for me.

Oh well.

Well, there’s blood and there’s thunder, but it really doesn’t fit the theme…

Nathan Shumate — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 06:19:06 +0000

I mentioned in my review for The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (1970) the love/hate relationship I have with Dario Argento and his “visuals first, storytelling second” approach to filmmaking. That goes double for Argento’s progenitor Mario Bava. Bava was incredibly influential in his use of color and framing, using his background as a painter to design tableaus that are evocative and enthralling. Unfortunately, his regard for film as a primarily narrative art was somewhat lacking. By the end of Blood and Black Lace (1964), the viewer certainly remembers distinct scenes and shots, but not so much the whole of what they have just experienced for the last 90 minutes. And if you know me, you know that’s a problem for me.

Plus: The last week to vote for Reader Revenge Month! This week’s options are The Arena (1973), The Giant Gila Monster (1959), and The Vision (1987).

Swords and sorcerers, boobs and barbarians

lyzard — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 03:07:28 +0000

THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER (1982)

I needed a sword ‘n’ sorcery film for our sword ‘n’ sorcery Roundtable, so I picked The Sword And The Sorcerer.

Not one of my more inspired moments, I agree.

However, apart from being the first of the true sword ‘n’ sorcery films of the 1980s, this also has the distinction of being in all probability the best film ever directed by Albert Pyun.

Contemplate that on the Tree Of Woe.

Speaking of which—

CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982)

This Roundtable also gave me the chance to recover and revise my old review of Conan The Barbarian – and to remind myself what an astonishingly good film it is, too.