The Ultimate Warrior

Director: Robert Clouse
Writer: Robert Clouse
Producer: Fred Weintraub, Paul M Heller
Cast: Yul Brynner, Max von Sydow, William Smith, Joanna Miles
Year of release: 1975
Country: USA
Reviewed from: UK TV screening

It’s not a widely held belief, but for this writer the period 1969-1977 was a golden age for SF movies, bookended of course by 2001 and Star Wars. Because relatively few science fiction films were made in the 1970s, those that did hit the screens tended to be well-crafted, well-thought out, imaginative, serious works. A Clockwork Orange, Rollerball, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green... classics all, and now here’s another one, although The Ultimate Warrior seems to have faded into unjustified obscurity.

The film is set in a large US city (probably New York) in some sort of post-holocaust aftermath. Unless there was some sort of prologue (the old video recording I watched was missing the opening titles), then we’re left to guess at why society has broken down. But broken down it has, leaving pockets of civilisation among the lawless streets. Max von Sydow plays ‘The Baron’, leader of a peaceful society of 50 or 60 people, barricaded into a city square to keep out ‘the street people’ and violent rival groups such as the gang led by Carrot (William Smith: Hawaii 5-0, Conan the Barbarian, Hell Comes to Frogtown). They have a water supply, a few children (The Baron’s grandson is imminent) and fresh vegetables thanks to his son-in-law, horticulturalist Cal (Richard Kelton).

Yul Brynner, in a magnificent performance which is right up there with The King and I and Westworld, plays Carson, a fighter for hire who is persuaded to join The Baron’s settlement. He does his best to hold back the encroaching anarchy, but an attack by Carrot’s men and rumblings of dissent within the compound spell the end of The Baron’s dream. He sends Carson, with his pregnant daughter (Joanna Miles) and a bag of precious seeds, into the abandoned underground railway system in the hope that they can make it to a rumoured peaceful island. Carrot and his men pursue the fighter, who stands off against them, knowing that the healthy seeds are the most valuable thing in the city.

This is a powerful, serious film which (along with Battle for the Planet of the Apes) is a very obvious precursor to both Escape from New York and Mad Max 2, the two movies generally regarded as kicking off the whole post-holocaust subgenre. The gradual collapse of civilisation within The Baron’s compound is terrifying, as is his way of keeping order: a man falsely accused of stealing a tomato from the rooftop garden is left to the mob, who tie his wrists, blindfold him and throw him outside where he is swiftly dispatched by the cannibalistic street people, who swarm up from basements like rats. The final stand-off between Carson and Carrot is brutal, savage and culminates in one of the most horrific things you’re ever likely to see.

I am amazed that this film, with a good cast and crew, remains so obscure, especially given that it reteamed the director and producers of Enter the Dragon. The Ultimate Warrior is not only a great action movie, but an excellent social drama which deserves recognition as the inspiration it so clearly was.

MJS rating: A

Thundercrack!

Director: Curt McDowell
Writer: George Kuchar
Producer: John Thomas, Charles Thomas
Cast: Marion Eaton, Ken Scudder, Melinda McDowell, Mookie Blodgett
Year of release: 1975
Country: USA
Reviewed from: UK festival screening (Far Out 2002)

This riotously funny, black and white, ‘old dark house’, hardcore sex comedy used to play regularly at the Scala in London. It has never been given a BBFC certificate but occasionally local councils are broadminded enough to allow a screening - so kudos to Leicester CC for giving Phoenix Arts permission to show a 16mm print imported from Denmark.

On a terrible, stormy night, three men and three women seek shelter at the isolated home of batty Mrs Gert Hammond, a faded Southern belle with too much make-up and a dead husband buried in the wine cellar. They change out of their soaking clothes and indulge in various sexual activities with each other or alone, while discussing where they’re going and how they might get there. Then a fourth man (writer Kuchar, who scripted only one other film but directed more than 60 from 1957 to 1986) arrives, who was transporting a horny female gorilla for a local zoo - the beast has escaped and is very dangerous unless placated with bananas.

A simple synopsis like that doesn’t begin to do justice to this unique film. It is a hardcore porn flick, yet would be just as entertaining without the hardcore shots (well, almost!). Extraordinarily, it includes not only straight sex and lesbianism, but man-on-man buggery as well, along with both male and female masturbation. One chap uses an odd-looking device which, in a post-Austin Powers world can only be described as a Swedish-made penis enlarger, and another shags a blow-up doll while sticking a dildo up his arse. What sort of audience was this aimed at?

Throughout it all there is the clearly demented Mrs Gert Hammond (Marion Eaton - also in Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat), a sort of Miss Faversham of the Southern States who clearly hasn’t spoken with another soul for years, and who constantly stresses that her husband is dead but her son “no longer exists.” She gets off on watching both men and women undress, spying on them through peepholes in a portrait of George Washington. One of the men (it’s difficult to tell which one as all display the obligatory 1970s porno hairstyle and moustache) is going to burn down his father-in-law’s corset factory; his wife died when her rubber foundation garment caught fire at a party, and he has turned to men ever since.

When Medusa the gorilla appears, it is (understandably) a man in a hairy suit, and an elephant is represented by a silhouette at the kitchen window. This is not a big budget production, something evidenced by the opening titles’ ability to spell ‘Original score’ with three ‘i’s. Several other names in the credits raise amusement among modern audiences, notably producer ‘John Thomas’, which probably means nothing to American (or Danish) audiences!

The storm and the gorilla-as-monster keep this just on the border of the horror genre - but the eventual unlocking of a mysterious door and the revelation of who/what is inside (a brief but unforgettable shot) tips it over into real Edgar Allan Poe territory. It also has some remarkable monochrome cinematography, some accomplished editing (especially of the flashbacks, some of which are shown split-screen) - both credited to director McDowell - and a fantastic ‘originial score’ which really adds to the comedy. The version shown at Far Out ran two hours; there are also 110 minute and 152 minute versions, apparently.

I can certainly see why this has such a reputation and cult following - there really is no other film even remotely like it (though comparisons can be made to Walters, Warhol and Wood). See this if you ever get the chance - but do be prepared for close-up shots of men and women enjoying themselves...

MJS rating: B+

Lips of Blood

Director: Jean Rollin
Writers: Jean-Loup Philippe, Jean Rollin
Cast: Jean-Loup Philippe, Anni Belle, Nathalie Perrey
Year of release: 1975
Country: France
Reviewed from: UK DVD (Redemption)

Think of the Redemption video label and you think of lesbian vampires. Think of lesbian vampires and you think of ever-so-slightly obsessed French director Jean Rollin (Le Viol du Vampire, Lost in New York etc). So it seems entirely appropriate that Redemption should kick off their long-awaited rebirth with Rollin's Levres de Sang. Having said that, although there are girlie vampires in this film and there is a hint of lesbo action via a bisexual female photographer and her naked subject, there are no actual lesbian vampires (unless they're in a stronger edit somewhere).

In the manner of 1970s European horror films, this is enjoyable nonsense from the first shot in which a woman wearing what appears to be Edwardian garb gets out of the back of a minibus. With a couple of blokes, she carts a pair of coffins down to a crypt where a tiny wooden cross in the doorway will keep their occupants constrained. It's a surprisingly well-lit crypt with sunlight streaming through a window even though it's night-time outside.

Our main story concerns a young chap (co-writer Jean-Loup Philippe: Pussy Talk) who has memories of having spent a night in a ruined castle as a boy with a young woman (Anni Belle: House on the Edge of the Park, Anthropophagous 2). His mother has always denied that this happened, but when he sees a photo of the castle he recognises it and sets out to investigate.

After that it all get a bit bonkers. He meets the young woman again, unchanged, but also an older version of her who may be the real one. The tiny wee cross gets kicked over and four young blonde vampiresses in various states of diaphanous undress emerge from the two coffins and start overacting madly. The man's mother has him drugged and kidnapped, not unlike the opening title sequence of The Prisoner. It's yer typical Euro-horror schlock.

Like most Rollin films, the movie makes up for in stylistic touches what it lacks in sensible storyline, good acting or decent production budget, not least because of some classy cinematography by Jean-Francois Robin (Belphegor: Phantom of the Louvre and - blimey! - Betty Blue!). Several of the cast were in other 'Rollinades': Paul Bisciglia (The Nude Vampire, Requiem for a Vampire), Nathalie Perrey (Two Orphan Vampires) and twins Catherine and Marie-Pierre Castel (The Nude Vampire).

A special mention must be made of the vampire fangs which really look like they were bought for a couple of Francs down the local joke-shop.

MJS rating: B-

review originally posted before November 2004

Bruce Lee Against Supermen

Director: CC Wu (on screen), Wu Chia Chun (on box)
Writer: Yao Ching Kong (on screen), Yiu Hing-Hong (on box)
Producer: Wu Men Chao
Cast: Bruce Li, Lung Fei, Lu Lu Wen
Year of release: 1975
Country: Hong Kong
Reviewed from: UK video (Inter-Ocean Video, early 1980s)

Quite gobsmackingly, this casts Bruce Li as Kato, assistant to the Green Hornet! In the opening scene, he’s wearing the chauffeur’s uniform, mask and cap and all. It’s quite blatant copyright infringement but presumably designed to appeal to all those folks in Hong Kong who felt that Kato was the real star of the series.

The story itself concerns Dr Ting and his new formula which will end world hunger (it involves extracting albumen from petroleum apparently!). Dr Ting is kidnapped, and so is his daughter Alice. Kato (which everyone pronounces like 'Carter') and his friend spend a lot of time chasing the bad guys, who work for master criminal Tiger. So we have the world’s dullest car-chase, as two small cars hurtle along the roads of Hong Kong at about 30 miles an hour, and a similarly mind-numbing and overlong foot-chase. There’s also a ridiculous sequence where Kato follows the car - on foot, pulling a rickshaw!

Where do the Supermen come into all this? Well, the bad guys hire two acrobats in the pay of 'Superman' - but this isn’t Clark Kent. Superman and his assistants (who call him 'teacher') wear black outfits with thin white stripes across the chest. Superman, who has a silly moustache and a hilarious bouffant hairstyle, also has a ludicrous little white cape. The two henchmen wear red, monkey-like masks. We also know that this Superman is a bad’un because for the loan of his two henchmen, Tiger pays him “Nine thousand dollars, ten women and a crate of booze”!

Kato battles various black-garbed henchmen, then eventually fights Superman himself, whose only superpower seems to be extravagantly high leaps. This is quite a violent scene, with Kato left bleeding from multiple wounds. And this being a pre-VRA tape, the nunchuck action is intact. Most of the fights are passable, and there’s also a brief cat-fight between Alice and another woman, which ends with them tearing each other’s clothes in a shower - but it’s not as exciting as it sounds.

Throughout all this, the Green Hornet himself is kept off-screen due to some injury. When he finally appears, he has a beard and a bright-red superhero costume; Kato changes into a similar costume for the final scene.

Bruce Lee Against Supermen (the actual on-screen title) make no sense whatsoever and is massively padded, yet it’s also strangely entertaining. Can this really have been intended for international distribution? The on-screen English title suggests so. Sheer surrealism through and through.

MJS rating: D+
Review originally posted before November 2004