“(A) versatile and underrated B-movie Renaissance man.”
— IMDb, about actor-director John “Bud” Cardos.

That’s the understatement of the century, ye IMDb database scribe. Look at that short — but hit-packed director’s resume: Kingdom of the Spiders (we need to review that one!), The Dark! The Day Time Ended! Mutant! Gor II: Outlaw of Gor! (well, they’re hits for the B&S About Movies crowd). Then there’s Bud’s cable and VHS potboilers that star friggin’ Ernest Borginine, Robert Vaughn, Oliver Reed, and Herbert Lom in the same friggin’ movie: Skeleton Coast (1988), and Act of Piracy (1988) with Gary Busey and Ray Sharkey kicking ass. Then there’s Bud’s acting resume with Al Adamson and the films Hells Angels on Wheels (1967), Psych-Out (1968), The Road Hustlers (1968), The Savage Seven (1968), Killers Three (1968; starring Merle Haggard and a very young Lane Caudell of 2020’s Getaway), Blood of Dracula’s Castle (1969), Satan’s Sadists (1969), Five Bloody Graves (1969), and Hell’s Bloody Devils (1970).

After entering the annals of Bikerdom with his third acting gig in Hells Angels on Wheels (he had support roles in 1965’s Deadwood ’76 and Run Home, Slow), and paying attention on all of those Al Adamson sets and Roger Corman AIP productions, Bud Cardos transitioned behind the lens for the blaxploitation-spaghetti western (Uh, oh. Here we go again with the genre mixin’: Hey! Harry Hope and Harry Tampa of Smokey and the Judge and Nocturna fame, hiya!) with The Red, White, and the Blue, aka Soul Soldier (1970).

And the burgeoning, becoming “hot” and “trendy” drag racing genre was next on Bud’s resume with the youth-oriented (as were all of the ’60s racin’ flicks that simply substituted asphalt for sand) action-drama starring John Davis Chandler?

“Who?”

Seriously? The dude is iconic in a Richard Lynch-amazing kind of way.

Now do you know him?

Let’s not even get into his extensive ’60s and ’70s television resume . . . just look at the movies: John Frankeheimer’s The Young Savages (1961; a more violent The Blackboard Jungle, if you will) with Burt Lancaster. Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) with Kris Kristofferson, James Coburn, and Richard Jaeckel. Clint Eastwood’s The Outlaw Josie Wales (1976). Across 100-plus credits, JDC was everywhere, and he was nowhere. No truer “dark man” actor was he.

Here, John Davis Chandler stars alongside Jeremy Slate (Do we really need to get into is resume?) and beach-snow flick bunny mainstay Deborah Walley in this not-a-Frankie-Avalon-Fabian racing flick that stars Mark Slade alongside (as you can see by the drive-in flyer, above) the nation’s top drag racers. (Mark has too many ’60s and ’70s TV series to mention, but by 1967, starred for three years on The High Chaparral; before that, the McHale’s Navy rip, The Wackiest Ship in the Army; he got his start as co-star on Gomer Pyle: USMC.)

Drag Racer is simple tale: Mark Slade is a young man who dreams of tearin’ down the quarter mile with the big dogs that, while it has (it must have) romance, there very little of that dramatic yakity-yak that bogged down the likes of Red Line 7000, Thunder Alley, and The Wild Racers. As with David Cronenberg’s lone non-horror film, Fast Company, Drag Racer is about gritty realism that puts the actors into the pits to mix it up with the real racers (Bill Schultz, John Lombardo, Norm Wilcox, and Larry Dixon) at famed West Coast racetracks Irwindale Raceway, Lions Drag Strip, and Orange County Int’l Raceway.

Is the acting a bit rough in spots? Is the editing and cinematography amateurish? Sure. (It adds to the film’s realistic, documentary quality.) This is one of those films that was once embraced by UHF-TV in the early ’70s (watched it twice), temporarily embraced on VHS (watched it once), then jettisoned. Considering Bud Cardos’s pedigree, this one — is in desperate need — of a full restoration (and not just a rip n’ burn) to DVD. Hint! Kino Lorber, Arrow Video?

This is a classic must-watch for racing fans — even with a muddy, washed-out blurred print. It really is one of the best drag flicks out there. And whadda ya’ know: You Tube comes through again — and with a VHS and not a TV rip! Sweet!

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

Okay, so this is more grindhouse . . . than fast. And it’s more hicksploitation . . . than furious. But this Smokey and the Bandit, drive-in rush job by Lawrence Woolner’s — an exhibitor who had made a number of films, including several with Roger Corman — Dimension Pictures under the thumb of Warner Bros. is rife with all of the fast and furious car chases and crashes we came for.

And besides: we’re talking Dimension Pictures here. Do you realize how many Lawrence Woolner drive-in flicks you’ve seen: Invasion of the Bee Girls, ‘Gator Bait, and Dolemite are a few. And how can we forget Scum of the Earth and The Redeemer: Son of Satan (aka Class Reunion Massacre).

And if that doesn’t entice you: Quentin Tarantino “Easter Eggs” the Dixie Dynamite theatrical one-sheet in Deathproof. And, for you Steve McQueen fans: he’s an uncredited motorcycle stuntman on the film. (Hey, $200 bucks is $200 bucks.)

You still never saw Dixie Dynamite? Well, you surely saw its stunts recycled as stock footage (as with Flash and the Firecat; also reviewed this week) in the Lee Major-starring TV series The Fall Guy. (Opps! Lee starred in his own fast n’ furious romp: The Last Chase; also reviewed this week).

Oh, yeah, the plot (such as it is): When their moonshiner pappy is killed by a corrupt deputy, two curvaceous young girls of the Daisy Duke-variety (the smokin’ Jane Anne Johnstone and Kathy McHaley as Dixie and Patsy) take over daddy’s business and set out for revenge in a Dukes of Hazzard meets Robin Hood tale. (Do you know your Dukes roots? No? Check out our review of Moonrunners.)

Hey, wait a cotton pickin’ minute ya’ll. Isn’t this just all a trial run for Thelma and Louise made 15 years later.

Oh, hell, yes, Bocephus!

But we’z all gits Warren Oates (Two-Lane Blacktop) as a motocross racer and old family friend that helps the girls, and we get our Sheriff Buford T. Justice in the form of Sheriff Phil Marsh played by Christopher George (Mortuary!, Day of the Animals! City of the Living Dead!, Grizzly!). And there’s the always welcomed R.G Armstrong, again, who’s been down this road before with Burt Reynolds in the rednecksploitation influencer, 1973’s White Lightning.

This is out in a couple of different reissue-imprints as an easily attainable DVD, but you can check it out on You Tube.

Don’t forget: We had a huge “Redneck Week” blowout back in August 2019, which we recapped — and explore even more films — with our “The Top 70 Good Ol’ Boys Film List: 1972 to 1986” featurette. There. Finally! We did it, Sam! We reviewed Dixie Dynamite! Cross it off the list!

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

We’ve talked quite a bit about writer-director-producers Ferd and Beverly Sebastian in the paragraphs of our reviews for ‘Gator Bait and AC/DC: Let There Be Rock (which they imported and recut) and Rocktober Blood* (four times!). The drive-in oeuvre of their Sebastian International Pictures was a studio that was second-to-none in churning out one Roger Cormanesque ‘make ’em-fast-make ’em cheap hit film after another.

This crime caper tale — primarily written by Beverly with Ferd as her co-writer; she, in turn, served as a co-director to Ferd — we’ve got two reformed, California “Summer of Love” hippies in a tricked-out dune buggy pulling heists. Ah, but this is lighthearted caper, so if it sounds a lot like Smokey and the Bandit — two years before we knew anything about a gold eagle-blazed black Trans Ams — it probably is.

“The Flash” of these proceedings is the affable Tricia Sembera, who, while on her way to becoming the next Claudia Jennings (‘Gator Bait) courtesy of getting her start with the Sebastians, retired from the business after making this, her lone film. After continuing her 20-year successful overseas modeling career with Ford Models, she came out of retirement to do one more film: the 1980 ABC-TV movie The Ivory Ape starring Jack Palance.

“The Firecat” of these crime caper shenanigans is TV actor Roger Davis, who you know for his two year, 120-plus episode run as Charles Delaware Tate on TV’s Dark Shadows, as Jeff Clark in the 1970 House of Dark Shadows theatrical film, and the scuzzy redneck romp, 1976’s Nashville Girl. (And I remember him as the human-Cylon hybrid “Andromus” from the awful-dreadful Galactica: 1980. Sorry, Rog.)

Together, as the Flash and the Firecat, they concoct an idea to use The Flash’s blonde bombshell wiles to seduce Tracy Walley, the teen son (Tracy Sebastian, aka Trey Loren, aka Billy Eye Harper) of a bank manager (ubiquitous TV actor Phil Burns**), and ride the dopey, love-struck puppy around town in her “cool” dune buggy and buy him an Orange Fanta, etc. Meanwhile, The Firecat calls in a ransom demand and walks out of the bank with $30K large — without pulling a gun. Of course . . . Tracy Walley isn’t kidnapped because, going back to our Smokey and the Bandit analogy: he’s “Frog,” aka Sally Field, who was “kidnapped” by the Bandit. And, as we say often around here, “the chase” ensues.

Hey, wait a minute. I know this footage! Yep! STOCK FOOTAGE ALERT! It was used on The Fall Guy! Thanks to SCL Stunt Fan You Tube for the upload.

The chase comes courtesy of Sheriff C.W. Thurston, played by the always welcomed Dub Taylor (known for 1972’s The Getaway and 1969’s The Wild Bunch, and too many other films — 260 — across film and TV to mention). Also on their trail is Milo Pewett, played by Richard “Jaws” Kiel (The Humanoid), who could care less about the kid and more about the cash.

Hey! There’s Newell Alexander (who also appears in 2012’s Easy Rider: The Ride Back, which we reviewed for our first “Fast & Furious Week”). And there’s George “Buck” Flowers! YEAH! So, basically all of the underdog actors from the ’60 and ’70s we care about here at B&S About Movies are in this movie.

You can watch Flash and the Firecat for free on You Tube, as well as a few other Sebastian International Pictures flicks on their official You Tube page.

* Yeah, we love Billy Eye and Rocktober Blood around here . . . a love only matched by our admiration for Sammy Curr in the other “No False Metal” classic of our youth: Trick or Treat.

• No False Metal: Rocktober Blood
• Box Office Failures: Rocktober Blood 2: Billy’s Revenge
• Rocktober Blood: A Second Look: Remembering Nigel Benjamin
• Seven Notes of Terror (the Euro-Italian reimaging of Rocktober Blood reviewed for our “Giallo Week“)

** Sorry Sam: Don’t fire me, man. But Phil Burns was Marty Seinfeld, Jerry’s dad for one episode. He was soon fired and replaced by Barry Frank. So, you may want to ban Phil Burn and Barry Frank movies, so as to stop my Seinfeld insanity.

Ferd Sebastian
July 25, 1933 — March 27, 2022
Obituary

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

<In a deep “movie trailer” announcer’s voice>: Starring D.B Sweeney as Paul Walker and Charlie Sheen as Vin Diesel in an explosive tale about a cop infiltrating a street-racing car theft ring . . . in No Man’s Land . . . a tale about a rookie patrolman (that “doesn’t act like a cop”) assigned to an undercover job that utilizes his car skills. Also starring Randy Quaid as Ted Levine and Lara Harris as Jordana Brewster. Playing now on HBO and Showtime. Also available at your local mom n’ pop video store.

The best we got for a freebie online stream is a 12-part upload on You Tube, as it was pulled from TubiTV — and it is no longer offered as a free-with-ads stream on Vudu, either. The good news is that MGM has made this readily available as a DVD and VOD across multiple platforms. As they should: this is a classic. Seriously, this is an enjoyable Sheen-starrer from his Wall Street heydays. Watch it and enjoy its King of the Mountain (1981; yep, also reviewed this week week, look for it) vibes.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

“I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living or get busy dying.”
— Andy Dufresne

In 1998: It was the battle of the Earth-destroyed-by-asteroid epics Deep Impact vs. Armageddon.

In 2008: Award-winning Spanish director F. Javier Gutierrez got Hollywood’s attention with Before the Fall (Tres días, aka Three Days), his debut feature film produced by Antonio Banderas. The Daily Telegraph‘s Rebecca Davies opined in her review of the film’s U.K. theatrical release that Gutierrez’s lower-budgeted, introspective disaster-drama sci-fi, thriller, and horror amalgam proved armageddic meteorites crashing into the Earth could be both intelligent and moving.

And Davies was right, for the brilliance of Before the Fall was in its reality of a fait accompli-world: In 72 hours — it was all over. There would be no retrofitted space shuttles delivering drilling teams to plant nuclear warheads. No satellite grids of the Geostorm variety would repel the devastation. No “planet engines” of The Wandering Earth class would be built. There would be no secret nuclear weapon platforms from the Star Wars dropping Meteor* to save us. Instead, Gutierrez asked us the deeper, non-CGI question (sans Liv Tyler’s ever-perfect glycerin tear drops): What would you do in those last three days of your life? And, if you’re besieged by evil during that time, would you go to any lengths to save yourself and your family? During the inevitable end of all existence on Earth, would you still fight back?

Before the Fall was a box-office smash across Europe, so much so that Wes Craven — courtesy of the film’s horror-cum-slasher elements — wanted to remake it. And, as with most Hollywood projects (whatever happened with the 2008-announced prequel and the 2012-announced sequel to I Am Legend?), the remake met with the usual project development problems. However, as a consolation prize, F. Javier Gutierrez booked a mainstream Hollywood gig with Rings (the 2017 one that starred The Big Bang Theory‘s Johnny Galecki). And Gutierrez, with modern-horror maestro James Wan, co-produced the Maria Bello-starring Demonic.

And as our consolation prize: Instead of a remake of Before the Fall, we get this less introspective, more CGI’d and somewhat similarly-plotted — and unfortunately COVID-scuttled and PVOD-saved** — Greenland starring Gerald Butler, he of the previously mentioned world-disaster romp, Geostorm. And as with Geostorm, Greenland deserves — needs, as with Tom Hanks’s recently streaming-scuttled Greyhound — the BIG SCREEN for its art to be fully appreciated.

Now the smarmy critic inside will say: Goodbye, introspection. Hello, CGI.

And the fan of the always-delivers Gerald Butler will say: Hello, best of both worlds.

So, while we have a bona fide action star with our leading man, gone are the physics-defying, space-bound feats of strength. What we do get with Butler’s heroic-father John Garrity is John Cusack’s Jackson Curtis from Roland Emmerich’s 2012, as the gruff, straight-laced Garrity attempts to transport his family to safety with the world falling apart. However, unlike the cartoonish improbability tropes of 2012 (e.g., long black limousines jumping highway crevices), we have a patriarch that deals, not with the ubiquitously cocky, mission-compromising astronauts or failing nuclear warheads (or, in Gerald’s case: planet-killer storms, terrorists, or angry Egyptian gods), but the best and worst of humanity as he attempts to reach the film’s titled landmass that offers sanctuary to those intelligent enough (and their lucky family members) to rebuild society.

So, is Greenland as weird, i.e., unique, as Before the Fall?

No.

Is Greenland disaster-trope laden with the check-off-the-list characters we’ve seen before — and expect — in an A-List world destruction?

Sure.

Before the Fall was War of the Worlds of the Tom Cruise-remake variety — sans the aliens and a lower budget — with Cruise’s Ray Ferrier dealing with Tim Robbins’s deranged, inferred-pedophile Harlan Ogilvy for the entire film. And while many reading this review may not know of the film, this reviewer is reminded of the philosophical talk-cum-action of No Blade of Grass*˟, with that film’s John Custance (a great Nigel Davenport) who flees with his family from a devastated London on a Mosesesque quest to a Scottish-bordered safe haven, as well as the equally-obscure Richard Harris-starring Ravagers. However, courtesy of its $35 million budget, while we get a little bit of the “why we’re here and what are we gonna do now” yakity-yak in the proceedings, we get a lot of the CGI set-design scope of the I Am Legend variety — sans the we-didn’t-mean-them-to-be-campy Beatles’ Blue Meanies blood-suckers-who-always-manage-to-keep-their-pants-on tomfoolery.

Butler’s John Garrity, a Scottish structural engineer living in Atlanta, Georgia — with an estranged wife and diabetic son, natch — attempts to reconcile with his family as they host a backyard party to watch the “harmless” passing of Clarke, a recently discovered comet. Only, Clarke turns out to be not so harmless. And courtesy of John’s knowledge — which will be needed in a post-apoc world, natch — he receives an automated phone call, informing him that he and his family have been selected for emergency sheltering.

Then a comet fragment hits Tampa, Florida, and the state is laid waste — for starters. And the natural disaster logistics race to the world’s largest island — against the freaked-out, greedy hoards of humanity — is on.

Written by Chris Sparling, who wrote Gus Van Sant’s (Last Days) Sea of Trees, as well as the Spanish horrors Buried, The Warning, and Down a Dark Hall, Greenland was to be directed by acclaimed South African director Neill Blomkamp (District 9, Elysium). Then the film fell into the equally-capable hands of reformed stuntman Ric Roman Waugh (Universal Soldier, Gone in 60 Seconds, Days of Thunder). Waugh came into his own as a screenwriter and director with the Gerald Butler-starring Angel Has Fallen. The duo is currently in production on the latest Mike Banning adventure, which begun with Olympus Has Fallen, titled as Night Has Fallen. And to Waugh’s credit: based on the trailers and poster that forgoes artsy-impact images, he may have given us a large-scale B-Movie, but one that ditches the grandiose and the bombast for realism that harkens back to Before the Fall. This ain’t no Bay-os strewn Armageddon or Deep Impact, my fellow apoc rats.

Making its theatrical debut in Belgium in July 2020, Greenland exceeded its COVID-era box office expectations as it rolled out across France, China, and Mexico. Here, in the U.S., we can watch Greenland as a $19.99 PVOD beginning December 18. Those bypassing the PVOD platforms will have to wait until the early months of 2021 to watch it as a HBO Max exclusive, and in the U.K., Canada, and Australia via Amazon Prime.

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S Movies.

Disclaimer: We didn’t receive a screener or review request. We just love apoc-cinema and Gerald Butler around the B&S offices and wanted to kibitz about the film.

* Be sure to check out our “Exploring: After Star Wars” featurette with links to over 30 reviews of post-Star Wars films.

** A fate also suffered by Aneesh Chaganty’s recently released and reviewed Run.

*˟ Be sure to join us in our month-long tribute to apoc-cinema with our two-part “Atomic Dust Bin” round-ups with links to over 70 film reviews.