Once upon a time — let’s say 1997 — Sylvester Stallone agreed to a cameo appearance in his brother Frank’s passion project, a film about three golfers who move from New Jersey to Miami, with two of them killing the third. It was called The Good Life. And if you can’t remember it, that’s because unlike nearly every movie that eventually leaks and is released, it’s just gone. Poof. Thin air. Beyond the curtain invisible, as it were.
According to this amazing article on Little White Lies, this film from producers Alan and Diane Mehrez focused on the three main characters being involved with organized crime, such as an unpaid debt to Mr. B (Dennis Hopper). Most folks associated with the film compare it to The Sopranos and it was to start with a disclaimer about how often the characters would swear.
Other than the aforementioned Stallone brothers, the film also featured Andrew “Dice” Clay, Peter Dobson (Elvis Presley in Forrest Gump), David Carradine, Beverly D’Angelo (National Lampoon’s Vacation), Frank Vincent (Phil Leotardo from The Sopranos), Tony Sirico (another character from The Sopranos, Paulie “Walnuts” Gualtieri), Burt Young (Rocky, sure, but I love him from Amityville II: The Possession), former boxer Vinny Pazienza, stuntman Erik Betts and David Anthony Pizzuto (the voice of Willem Dafoe on Family Guy).
Even when the film hit production snags and moved from Miami to Mexico, bringing in Alan Amiel (Shootfighter: Fight to the Death) to help, the crew was impressed with the footage they were getting. However, by the time filming was done, Frank Stallone and the Mehrezes were not getting along. Then, the worst thing that could happen happened.
A promotional reel featuring clips from Sylvester Stallone’s scene — making him seem like the main character — started making the rounds of Hollywood.
If we’ve learned anything about Sylvester Stallone over the weeks that we’ve explored his films, it’s that he takes no shit. He agreed to do this film for two sets of custom-made Kenneth Smith golf club. And he worked hard — a ten-hour day — on his lone day on set, longer than all of the other principal actors. But he also had a clause in his contract that limited the use of his name and likeness in the film’s advertising. Once that got invalidated, he hit the movie with a $20 million dollar lawsuit — 4 times its overall budget.
A month later, Frank Stallone sued and then the Mehrezes countersued — O.J. Simpson trial prosecutor Chris Darden was on their legal team — both Stallone’s for $50 million dollars. There was supposedly an amicable settlement but the film has never escaped afterward. In a day and age where everything is available on blu ray and streaming, the fact that a movie made within the last 25 years — one starring known name actors — has disappeared is pretty astounding.
This grainy clip is all the world has seen:
It’s not Sly’s The Day the Clown Cried. But it’s close.
Remember how in the last Hart to Hart reunion movie where Mrs. H was a noted journalist? Well, now she’s also a playwriter, bringing her college script about Jack the Ripper to the Great White Way. Mr. H, Max and Freeway come along for the ride, with Max nearly getting married to an old flame. And yes, many people die.
Richard Belzer plays Det. Frank Giordano here. No, he’s not Detective John Munch, but you can forgive yourself if you think he is. He’s only played that role on Homicide, Law & Order: SVU, The X-Files, The Beat, Law & Order: Trial by Jury, The Wire, Arrested Development, 30 Rock, the regular Law & Order and Jimmy Kimmel Live! Munch is the only character to appear on ten different shows on five different networks, which is pretty cool.
Audra Lindley (Mrs. Roper from Three’s Company), John Stockwell (who would go on to direct Blue Crush and Kickboxer: Vengeance) and Lew Ayres (Dr. Klldare from the film series) all show up, too.
The bad guy has a mannequin of Jennifer in his basement with her photo stapled to it, so that’s pretty creepy. He almost kills Jonathan in a basement that feels like Mario Bava lit it, but everything — as it always does — works out just fine.
You can get this movie — along with seven others — as part of the new Mill CreekHart to Hart Movies Are Murder Collection. We’ve been loving it all week long.
DISCLAIMER: This set was sent to us by Mill Creek, but that has no impact on our review.
My fool’s errand to watch every single Sylvester Stallone movie has brought me here to 2003’s Shade, a movie made by Damien Nieman, a real-life sleight of hand card magician who created a DVD called Fast Company detailing all of the many ways to cheat at cards. Those are his hands doing the cuts at the beginning along with card mechanics R. Paul Wilson, Jason England and Earl Nelson. These three men also taught Sylvester Stallone and Stuart Townsend how to properly perform their card manipulation in the film.
Many years ago, Dean “The Dean” Stevens (Stallone) played in an illegal underground poker game that was attacked by thugs. As he put his hands up, he revealed that he was concealing a winning card. A firefight broke out with only Dean and one mobster surviving.
Today, Tiffany (Thandie Newton), Charlie (Gabriel Byrne) and Larry Jennings (Jamie Foxx) — nearly every character in this movie is named for a famous magician — are planning on taking down an illegal game. They bring in a blackjack dealer named Vernon (Townsend) — named for noted sleight of hand master Dai Vernon — to take a casino for $40,000. They’re shaken down by Scarne (Bo Hopkins), a crooked cop, but still escape with most their cash. He’s named for John Scarne, who was best known for exposing crooked gambling to the public and doubling for Paul Newman’s hands in The Sting.
Unfortunately, Larry gets too greedy and runs afoul of Malini (Patrick Bauchau) and his men Marlo (Roger Guenveur Smith) and Nate (B-Real from Cypress Hill), who kill him.
This triggers a flashback, where we see the mobster and Dean draw cards to decide who takes home all the money. The man cuts a King and Dean an Ace, but there’s a double cross. The mobster pulls his gun, Dean shoots him first and the Ace gets sprayed with blood.
Malini’s men are after our heroes, but they hide out at the Magic Castle, a venerable magic club, where The Professor (Hal Holbrook) discusses magic with them before they head to the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel for Malin’s five card stud poker game. Dean’s former lover Eve (Melanie Griffith) arrives and they discover that Dean is using a marked deck, but even then, he’s able to win the final $3 million dollar hand, before the next double cross, which reveals that the Dean and Vernon were in on the game all along as the master of cards flips the bloody Ace card to Vernon.
This is part of Stallone’s attempt to push himself in more dramatic directions and he’s quite good in the film. It’s not a slam bang action affair, of course, but interesting nonetheless. You can watch it for free on Amazon Prime.
Saturday Night Fever producer and writer Robert Stigwood and Norman Wexler dreamed of a sequel to the film pretty much since the original was released. What they came up with, Staying Alive, was a script that John Travolta disliked. It was too much of a downer and he couldn’t be convinced to do the film for several years.
Finally, after four years of this, Travolta and Stigwood met. The star had an idea. What if Tony Manero became a dancer on Broadway? And what if he was a big star? Wexler thought that it would be better if Manero ended up in the chorus and the two reached an agreement to start the film.
Travolta had just seen Rocky III and wanted the same energy for Staying Alive. Paramount got Sylvester Stallone on board, Travolta told him his idea of the happy ending and toned down the rawness of the original film.
What emerged was…well, whatever this movie is.
Tony Manero was once the king of 2001 Odyssey, ruling the disco dance floor. Now, he lives in poverty and works on his dream of being in a modern dance musical. When he isn’t teaching or dancing, he’s a waiter that’s constantly beset upon by beautiful women. Ah, the sad life of Tony Manero — constantly getting laid and dancing his heart out.
Our hero has changed — moving away from Brooklyn has matured him somewhat and toned down the levels of profanity he used to freely toss around. But he’s still horrible to women, particularly his dancer and rock singer girlfriend Jackie (Cynthia Rhodes, Tina Tech from Flashdance and Penny from Dirty Dancing; she’s also in Xanadu, but let’s cut her some slack). He can go after anyone, but she has to be his alone. Speaking of guys that surround Jackie, Richie Sambora and Frank Stallone play in her band.
Tony’s really into Laura (Finola Hughes, who was nominated for both the Worst New Star and Worst Supporting Actress Razzies for her role in this film; she’s also in The Apple, pretty much damning her soul to bad dance movie hell for all eternity). He pursues her right into a one night stand and can’t understand why that’s all it ends up being. She replies, “Everyone uses everybody.”
Jackie and Tony break up just in time for the two of them — and Laura — to try out for the biggest dance musical to ever hit Broadway — Satan’s Alley. They get small parts and our villain gets the lead. Look for Patrick Swayze as one of the other backup dancers.
This leads Tony into his very own walkabout spirit quest, where he takes the 16 mile walk from Manhattan to Bay Ridge. The 2001 Odyssey is now Spectrum, a gay club, and this makes him realize how much his life has changed. He apologizes to his mother for how he was. She tells him that being so selfish is how he escaped a dead-end life. Of note, Donna Pescow was to return in the audience of Tony’s Broadway show and Tony’s father (Val Bisoglio) filmed scenes that were deleted. Now, the film implies that he is dead.
Tony and Jackie get back together, with her helping him work hard and take over the vacant lead male role. While he and Laura openly hate one another, they have as much chemistry dancing vertically as they once did horizontally. Tony takes things too far on the sold out opening night and kisses her at the end of the first act; she responds by slashing at his face.
Backstage, the director flips out on Tony and Laura tries to lure him back into bed. The second act is everything of the 1980’s — fog, lasers, glitter, silver lame and probably metric tons of white flake. Our hero throws away Laura at the end and goes wild with his very own solo dance before she jumps back into his arms to a standing ovation. He reunites for good with Jackie and celebrates as only he can — by recreating the strut from the beginning of Saturday Night Fever.
Despite being a critical failure — that’s putting it mildly — Staying Alive was a commercial success. The film opened with the biggest weekend for a musical film ever with a gross of $12 million dollars, finally earning $127 million on a $22 million budget.
I have my own theory on this film: it’s a Jacob’s Ladder situation.
Some time after Saturday Night Fever, Tony died. As dance was the most important thing in his life, his limbo — the time between heaven and hell — is spent trying to get a role as a dancer. The play Satan’s Alley is quite literally the place he could go to, if he makes the wrong choice. His apartment building is filled with other dead people; his life of constant temptation is the devil trying to convince him to follow him and give up on purity, just as Satan once led his brother Frank Jr. to renounce the priesthood.
Tony’s walk back to his hometown is literally a journey to the land of the dead — his mother is the one who has passed on and that’s why she can now forgive him. 2001 Odyssey, once a place full of life, has now become Tony’s worst fear, a loss of his masculinity. The place where his racist, gay bashing friends once called home has become their hell.
When Tony dances on to the Broadway stage, he must choose — heaven or hell. Or, as he does, making one’s own choice. He tosses Laura — the scarlet woman, the temptress — down to joyously dance and realize his full potential. He offers a hand in forgiveness to her before realizing his one true love — no, not Jackie. Himself. He struts down the street and on his way to heaven, which is embodied in the alpha and omega of Saturday Night Live and Staying Alive as that strut, down the street, to the Bee Gees.
Sometimes, a movie is so bad that you have to invent your own mythology to get through it. This, obviously, would be one of those films. Just don’t ask me to explain that Stallone cameo in the beginning.
When Jonathan and Jennifer Hart attend the funeral of the newspaper publisher who helped Jennifer start her journalism career, they uncover some sinister secrets about her hometown of Kingman’s Ferry. Honestly, you can’t take them anywhere!
This film has Maureen O’Sullivan (she played Jane in the 1930’s Tarzan films), Alan Young from the original The Time Machine, Roddy McDowell (Peter Vincent from Fright Night and Caesar from Planet of the Apes amongst so many other roles), Mitchell Ryan (Dr. Wynn from Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers) and Charles Tyner (the founder of Hamburger University in Hamburger: The Motion Picture).
It was filmed in the very same area where Hitchcock shot The Birds. There are all manner of secrets to be found when Jennifer inherits the town where she grew up and no one is as they seem. I always wonder, who stays friends with the Harts? Everyone they know dies. Well, except for Max and Freeway Junior. They always seem to survive no matter what shenanigans happen.
You can get this movie — and seven others — as part of the new Mill CreekHart to Hart Movies Are Murder Collection. If you’re nostalgic for the fun of old TV mysteries, it’s a must buy.
DISCLAIMER: This set was sent to us by Mill Creek, but that has no impact on our review.
Editor’s Note: This is part of our week-long tribute to the films of Sylvester Stallone. You’ll find links to several more reviews of his films, within. If you don’t see your favorite mentioned, enter the title into the search box to your left; chances are, we reviewed it.
Mention “Sylvester Stallone” in the same breath as “mafia” and your mind dreams up a hitman-action flick in the tradition of The Transporter. You might even flash back to his own F.I.S.T, his first post-Rocky film.
If it was ‘80s Stallone, yes. But this is 21st century Stallone 2.0.
Avenging Angelo is a mafia rom-com in the tradition of Prizzi’s Honor (1985, Jack Nicholson), Married to the Mob (1988, Michelle Pfeiffer), Stallone’s own film, Oscar (1991), and director Billy Wilder’s hit starring Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis, Some Like It Hot (1959). Opinions vary on this Stallone-fronted parody of The Godfather and Goodfellas having an analogous chemistry to those earlier mob comedies, but the one absolute truth of the film: Stallone once again shows he’s a skilled actor who deserved to have a breakout hit with one of the dramas, thrillers, and comedies he attempted in the early 2000s.
Avenging Angelo was one of six films released between Cop Land (1997) and Shade (2003) when Sly valiantly—and skillfully—attempted to shed his he-man action image with more insightful and introspective characters. Sadly, all of those attempts failed at the box office and Sly saw his career sliding into direct-to-DVD territory alongside the careers of Bruce Willis, Eric Roberts, and Nicolas Cage (see Precious Cargo, Lone Star Deception, and Arsenal, respectively). So when Avenging Angelo became the second straight-to-video U.S release for Sly after D-Tox, the writing was on the wall: he returned to the action films that made him famous: Rocky Balboa, Rambo, The Expendables, Bullet to the Head, and Escape Plan.
Avenging Angelo, which returned Stallone to his previous action-comedy attempts of Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992) and Tango & Cash (1989), received a limited theatrical release in Italy and Greece—thanks to it starring Anthony Quinn, who’s highly revered throughout Europe (his career went from an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1956’s Lust for Life to a Golden Raspberry for Supporting Actor in 1992’s Mobsters). Sadly, Quinn was dying of terminal throat cancer while Avenging Angelo was being filmed—and died before it was released. So when Quinn utters the line “Everybody’s going somewhere” in the film’s initial restaurant scene, it becomes one of the saddest scenes in cinema—on par with Edward G. Robinson’s turn in Soylent Green, in which Robinson hid his terminal bladder cancer during filming and died shortly after the influential apocalyptic flick was completed.
Stallone is the kindhearted (remember, this is a comedy) Frankie Delano who takes offense at being called a bodyguard: he’s a “watcher” who fails in his duties protecting mob boss Angelo Allieghieri (Anthony Quinn) against a hitman named Bruno (Pittsburgh’s (!) Billy Cardell of CBS-TV’s Mike and Molly . . . getting the drop on Sly Stallone? No way, Sly!). Guilt ridden over Angelo’s death, Frankie comes to protect Angelo’s screwball daughter, Jennifer, who now has a contract put out on her by the same people who wanted her father dead. The comedic chase—with a smattering of blood n’ bullets . . . and kisses n’ babies—is on.
And as another example of a film being whatever a distributor wants it to be, the overseas trailer markets Avenging Angelo as a Terence Hill-styled (see 1980’s Super Fuzz) screwball Italian comedy, while the U.S version markets the film—because of Stallone’s presence—as an action film. And speaking of its domestic distribution: DEJ Productions, who saved Stallone’s D-Tox from the Universal vaults, distributed the DVD version in Blockbuster stores, along with additional airings on the Starz and Showtime cable channels (I got my DVD copy from my local library’s annual Book Fair for a buck).
So what is the film, really?
Some have said, because of Madeleine Stowe’s comedic tour-de-force, Avenging Angelo is a chick-flick bordering on the sometimes groan-inducing slapstick (which plays better in Europe than America), more so than a male-appealing action flick, which plays better in America.
How far does the zany and madcap tomfoolery go?
Sly blames a fart on “bloated squirrels suck in the walls” (CLIP) and Madeleine Stowe gets revenge on a mob boss by stripping out of a tight red dress (no nudity, natch) and gives the old dude a heart attack (CLIP), complete with a rising-beeping heart monitor. So, if you liked Stallone’s celluloid nemesis ArnoldSchwarzenegger in Kindergarden Cop, and your mobsters mixed with comedy, then Avenging Angelo is for you. It’s not an award winner . . . and it’s not a Razzie winner, either. Stallone fans won’t feel cheated.
Film geeks, especially budding screenwriters and directors, who supplement their film school studies with DVD commentaries, will enjoy the passionate, entertaining and education commentary track provided by director Martyn Burke, which really gets into the nuts and bolts of the film. Digging even deeper is the unproduced, raw footage vignettes that go behind the scenes of the shoot (Part 1 and Part 2). Yes . . . we are talking about the same Martyn Burke who gave us the abysmal, Canadian early-slasher The Clown Murders (1976) starring John Candy , in addition the Lee Majors post-apoc bomb, The Last Chase.
Considering the studio and producers behind the project lost faith in the film and eschewed a U.S. domestic theatrical release or Euro-theatre plays beyond Greece and Italy, instead selling the film to DEJ Productions for non-theatrical distribution, the DVD is exceptionally well packaged beyond just burning the film to disc and calling it a day, as is the case with most low-budget films dumped into the home video marketplace. If anything, Avenging Angelo is worth watching for Anthony Quinn’s final screen performance.
You can reminisce with Anthony Quinn as he wins The Golden Globes’ 1987 Cecil B. DeMille Award, along with his interview with Jay Leno in 1991 and Johnny Carson in 1983, and Eileen Prose for Good Day!, Boston’s long-running morning show on WCVB-TV.
This Raymond Chandler novel had already been filmed as The Falcon Takes Over with George Sanders in 1942 and Murder, My Sweet in 1944 with Dick Powell. But for me, Robert Mitchum is Phillip Marlowe. He just exudes a weariness with the world and the perfect grim mindset that works for film noir, much less neo-noir. And by returning to the role three years later in The Big Sleep, he became the only actor to play Marlowe twice.
Los Angeles, 1941. The police are corrupt. Life is cheap. And Phillip Marlowe is exhausted by it all. He doesn’t have much left. But then he goes through a string of cases, like being hired by Moose Malloy (Jack O’Halloran, Superman) to find his missing girlfriend Velma, whose trail only brings death. And then there’s Lindsay Marriott, a client killed over a jade necklace.
Those cases are connected and then there’s the very married and even more dangerous Helen Grayle (Charlotte Rampling), who Marlowe falls for. Plus, you get Joe Spinell, Sylvester Stallone and Harry Dean Stanton all showing up. And Judge Grayle is played by Jim Thompson, who wrote hardboiled fiction just as brutal as Chandler (The Grifters and The Getaway were made from his books).
In an interview with Roger Ebert, Mitchum minced no words about working with Rampling. “She was the chick who dug S&M in The Night Porter. She arrived with an odd entourage, two husbands or something. Or they were friends and she married one of them and he grew a mustache and butched up. She kept exercising her mouth like she was trying to swallow her ear. ” played her on the right side because she had two great big blackheads on her left ear, and I was afraid they’d spring out and lodge on my lip. There were no tea breaks on THAT set.”
Mitchum was back on the very streets he’d been on as a teen making this movie. One night, as Mitchum gave money to the homeless, an old beat cop walked up to him, took one look and said, “So you’re back”.
Hart to Hart aired from 1979 to 1984 and was all about Jonathan and Jennifer Hart, a married rich couple who — much like The Thin Man or McMillan and Wife — solved mysteries together. Much like Jessica Fletcher, every single person they come into contact with usually dies.
Screenwriter and novelist Sidney Sheldon created the show — it was originally going to be a CBS TV movie called Double Twist — in the 1970’s before it was finally bought by Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg. Tom Mankiewicz, who directed the Dan Aykroyd version of Dragnet and also wrote Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die, The Man With the Golden Gun and Superman: The Movie, was brought in to update the script and get it ready to be a prime time show. Mankiewicz made his directorial debut with the pilot episode and remained a creative consultant throughout the shows original run.
Spelling and Goldberg’s initial choice for the role of Jonathan Hart was Cary Grant, but since he was retired, they felt that Robert Wagner had the same style. Wagner wanted his real life wife Natalie Wood to play his wife, but the producers suggested Suzanne Pleshette, Kate Jackson and Lindsay Wagner before they settled on Stefanie Powers.
Wagner wanted boxer Sugar Ray Robinson to portray Max the butler before Lionel Stander was cast. He’d worked with Wagner on his older series It Takes a Thief, also playing a lifelong friend named Max. Strongly liberal and pro-labor, Stander was an outspoken political activist and helped found the Screen Actors Guild. He also spent nearly twenty years blacklisted from Hollywood, a true tragedy that served no purpose other than to advance political careers. While in Europe, he was in Leone’s Once Upon a Time In the West and Boot Hill. Hart to Hart was actually the reason why he moved back to the United States. He’s also in one of my favorite ridiculous TV movies, the Larry Cohen written and directed, Bette Davis starring Wicked Stepmother.
As Jonathan Hart contemplates what to give Jennifer for their anniversary, a murder is committed and Jonathan is being set up to take the fall. There’s some corporate espionage and all manner of red herrings thrown about before our loveable heroes resolve things and kiss.
This episode has plenty of fun guest stars. Just like Murder, She Wrote half the fun of these shows is seeing if you can name who everyone is. Mike Connors — Mannix himself — plays Johnathan’s old Air Force buddy Bill McDowell and Lance Guest — yes, from Halloween 2 — pays his son Peter. Paul Williams shows up in several of these Hart to Hart films as a tipster and Kevin Brophy (Hell Night and the wolf-themed 1970’s quasi-superhero show Lucan), Ken Howard (The White Shadow) and Dakin Matthews (Colonel Cochrane from Childs Play 3) all show up.
Sadly, Freeway the dog is deceased, but his son Freeway Junior shows up. Obviously, Lionel Stander is really old in these. It’s kind of sad, but it’s also great that he got to be in five of these movies before he passed on.
You can get this movie as part of the new Mill CreekHart to Hart Movies Are Murder Collection, along with seven other Hart toHart mysteries. I love this set and definitely recommend that if you love made for TV murder shows, you should totally pick it up.
DISCLAIMER: This set was sent to us by Mill Creek. That said, we probably would have bought it.
It stars a cast of people that honestly, only someone like me would care about, and it’s made by people just as colorful, a crew of folks that would go on to dominate the film industry after emerging from the Roger Corman film cycle. It’s everything great about Cannonball Run, but both more serious and ridiculous, sometimes within the very same scene.
This is everything I want to watch.
Much like the aforementioned Cannonball Run, as well as Speed Zone and The Gumball Rally, this movie was inspired by Erwin G. “Cannonball” Baker, who raced across the United States several times and by the race named after him, the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash. This illegal cross-continent road race was started by Car and Driver editor Brock Yates to protest the 55 MPH speed limit.
David Carradine plays Coy “Cannonball” Buckman, who has just been released from serving time for the death of a girl while he was driving drunk. He’s been entered into the illegal Los Angeles to New York City Trans-America Grand Prix in the hopes that he can get his racing career restarted.
That’s because Modern Motors has promised a contract to either him or his arch-rival Cade Redman (Bill McKinney, Deliverance, First Blood). Meanwhile, Coy has to somehow convince his lover/parole officer Linda Maxwell (Veronica Hamel, When Time Ran Out) to allow him to race.
Redman doesn’t have it easy either — his expenses are being paid by Sharma Capri (Judy “The Ozark Nightingale” Canova, who hosted her own national radio show from 1942 to 1955) and client, country singer Perman Waters (Gerrit Graham, amazing as always, just like he is in Terrorvision and Phantom of the Paradise).
Other racers include:
Young lovers Jim Crandell (Robert Carradine, Revenge of the Nerds) and Maryann (Belinda Balaski, every Joe Dante movie), who take her daddy’s Corvette and enter the race
Terry McMillan (Carl Gottlieb, one of the writers of Jaws!), a middle-aged man driving a Chevrolet Blazer
Beutell, who has taken a Lincoln Continental from a kindly old and rich couple and promised to get it to New York City safely
A tricked out van driven by three waitresses — Sandy (Mary Woronov you have my heart), Ginny (stuntwoman Glynn Rubin) and Wendy (Diane Lee Hart, The Giant Spider Invasion)
German driver Wolfe Messer (James Keach, Sunburst) in a De Tomaso Pantera
Zippo (Archie Hahn, who was one of the Juicy Fruits in Phantom of Paradise), who is Coy’s best friend and drives a Pontiac Trans Am just like his buddy.
What Coy doesn’t know is that his brother Bennie (Dick Miller) has bet that he will win and will do anything to ensure that happens, including killing Messer. Meanwhile, McMillan has his car — and mistress Louisa (Louisa Moritz, Myra from Death Race 2000) — flown to the finish line.
Redman kicks Perman — who becomes a big country star when his song about the race takes off — and Sharma out of his car, but in his final battle with Coy, a piece of Perman’s guitar gets stuck in the gas pedal and he dies in a big crash. While all this is going on, Zippo is in the lead, so Bennie sends out a hitman to off him. Coy had put his girl in that car as he felt it was safer — actually it was Zippo who did the drink driving and Coy covered for his friend — but a major crash ensues and Linda is taken to the hospital by Jim and Maryann.
Terry and Louisa arrive first at the finish line, but Louisa accidentally tells the judges that they flew most of the way. The girls in the van get lost and crash, while Coy makes it to the finish line. Just before he’s about to win, he learns Linda is in the hospital and races off to see her. This leaves his brother to be killed by gangster Lester Marks (Paul Bartel, who also directed the film) and his men (Sylvester Stallone makes a cameo, as does Martin Scorsese, as mafioso).
Jim and Maryann win the race and the $100,000, while Coy gets his racing contract and the girl, and Beutell delivers the now destroyed Lincoln to its owners.
Other actors who show up for the madness are John Herzfeld (who was in Cobra and wrote and directed the films Escape Plan: The Extractors and 2 Days In the Valley), Patrick Wright (Wicked Wicked, Caged Heat, Graduation Day), future directors and at the time Corman assistants/editors Allan Arkush (Rock ‘n Roll High School) and Joe Dante (more movies than I can name, all of them wonderful), Roger Corman himself as a District Attorney, Jonathan Kaplan (director of White Line Fever, The Accused and The Student Teachers), Aron Kincaid (who was the voice of the Iron Sheik and Bobby Heenan on Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘n’ Wrestling and Killer Croc on Batman: The Animated Series), Joseph McBride (writer of Rock ‘n Roll High School), Read Morgan (The Car), John Alderman (New Year’s Evil) and even superproducer Don Simpson, who co-write the movie with Bartel. This movie is what happens when everyone working for Corman at the time all gets together so the budget can have extras.
Paul Bartel did not enjoy making this film because he felt he was being typecast as an action director. But after he only made $5,000 after spending a year of his life making Death Race 2000, it was the only kind of movie people wanted from him. “Corman had drummed into me the idea that if Death Race 2000 had been harder and more real it would have been more popular. Like a fool, I believed him.”
Bartel wasn’t a fan of cars and racing, so he loaded the movie with cameos and character gimmicks. His favorite scene was when he plays the piano and sings while two gangsters beat up Dick Miller. And the end is pretty rough for a movie that’s so funny, so star David Carradine tried to talk to Bartel about how disturbing he intended it to be.
When Joe Bob Briggs did his How Rednecks Saved Hollywood show, he mentioned that this movie destroys The Cannonball Run. As always, he was right.
Marriage — especially the ceremony itself — can be terrifying. The best horror movies take a frightening moment in our lives and show how “what’s the worst that can happen” explodes outward into a spiraling miasma of sheer madness. In a year sadly bereft of many great — or even halfway decent — horror films, Ready Or Not has arrived to squarely punch you right in the face and spit blood in your eye.
For generations, the wealthy Le Domas family has remaining in power by conducting a ritual on the night that anyone new enters the family. Tonight, prodigal son Alex has returned home to marry Grace (the niece of Hugo Weaving, who also appeared in The Babysitter and Mayhem), an orphan who has been raised in foster homes.
Years ago, the great-great-grandfather of the Le Domas family made a deal with Mr. Le Bail and the family must play one game — they’re pretty much Hasbro in real life — at the end of the wedding cerenomy. It could be something as simple as Old Maid. Yet it ends up being the worst card — Hide And Seek.
Now, the entire Le Domas family is hunting down Grace, who only thinks that she’s playing a game. Maid after maid gets caught in the crossfire and the entire extended family — children included — are armed, dangerous and after our heroine.
Henry Czerny shines as Tony Le Domas, the crazed leader of the clan, and Andie McDowell is wonderful as his somewhat conflicted wife Becky. One of the relationships at the center of this film is between good brother Alex and bad sibling Daniel ((Adam Brody, Seth from The O.C.). Of course, this being horror, what is good and what is evil will change throughout this long night of the soul.
There are parts of this film that aspire to be more than mere slasher or modern horror. That’s a good thing. It may be me reading into things, but the scene where Grace escapes into the fields was reminiscent of the framing and pace of Suzy Kendall being chased in Sergio Martino’s Torso. And without giving too much away, the close finally delivers on the levels of gore and supernatural menace that has been slowly hinted during the film’s run time. Joyously, this feels like a movie with no dead spots, growing tighter and taunter as the slowly more blood-caked and torn wedding gown that Grace wears throughout.
I have to single out Nicky Guadagni, who was in Cube, for her portrayal of Helena. The loss of her husband at the film’s start has warped her into the twisted center of this family, despite what the male head would have you think. She’s turned her loss into less than sacrifice and more of a reason for being. Drug addict sister Emilie (Melanie Scrofano, the lead on SyFy’s Wynonna Earp) is pretty great, too.
So often, modern horror hasn’t been certain how to combine humor and terror. Ready Or Not gets it right. Then again, I have a weird sense of humor, so I laughed joyously at moments that no one else found funny. Too bad — I would have preferred to see this in a much rougher theater than the comfortable place where it unspooled so that people would have been unafraid to scream and yell at the screen. After all, that’s what movies are for.
Ready Or Not was directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin (V/H/S) and Tyler Gillett (Devil’s Due), who are part of the Radio Silence film collective. It was written by Guy Busick (Stan Against Evil) and Ryan Murphy (Minute’s Until Midnight).
I will spoil one part of the film. At the close, as Grace draws a drag of cigarette despite being covered in grime, gore, viscera and her own blood, there’s an echo of a movie from the past, Heathers. That made me clap in the theater — despite the machinations of family, the man she loves and even fate, Grace is not going away without a fight. Her spirit is one that even the devil must sit up and take notice of — quite literally.
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