AUTHOR’S NOTE: This movie originally ran on the site a year ago, but it’s so related to James Bond week — and such an unappreciated film — I decided to bring it back.

The last time I saw this movie, I was 7 years old and watching it under the stars at the Spotlight 88 drive-in theater in Beaver Falls, PA. Sadly, that theater was destroyed by a freak tornado that tore through the Pittsburgh/Southwestern PA area on May 31, 1985. This was a seminal location for my childhood, a place where I saw tons of double features and built memories that would provide the foundation for the movie love that I still hold dear today.

Woodrow “Woody” Wilkins (future Andrew Lloyd Webber Phantom Michael Crawford) is a comic book artist whose devotion to realism extends to creating his own Condorman suit and attempting to fly off the Eiffel Tower. Instead of arresting him, his friend Harry (James Hampton, Uncle Harry the werewolf from the Teen Wolf movies), a CIA file clerk, asks him to exchange papers with someone in Istanbul.

Woody finds KGB spy Natalia Rambova (Barbara Carrera, Wicked Stepmother), who he tells that he is really Condorman. Impressed by how he protects her and how poorly she’s treated by her KGB boss Krokov (Oliver Reed!), she defects to the U.S., but only if Condorman helps her.

Woody’s already in love — he’s added Natalia to his comic as Laser Lady. When he’s asked to help her defect, he only agrees if the CIA designs him gear like his comic. Amazingly, they agree and the adventure is on.

Imagine James Bond crossed over with the Adam West-era Batman and you have an idea of how Condorman plays. For a Disney movie, Carrera is really sultry, which probably had an effect on my nine-year-old mind.

Before the days of licensing, Condorman had two cool tie-ins. A daily strip by Russ Heath and an ice cream flavor at Baskin-Robbins!

For Your Eyes Only was inspired by not just one Ian Fleming book. It has parts of Live and Let Die, Goldfinger and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, as well as the short stories For Your Eyes Only and Risico. It was an attempt to move away from the silliness of Moonraker and get Bond quite literally back down to Earth.

John Glen was promoted from editor to director. His plan? “We had gone as far as we could into space. We needed a change of some sort, back to the grass roots of Bond. We wanted to make the new film more of a thriller than a romp, without losing sight of what made Bond famous – its humour.”

The movie begins with Bond laying flowers at the grave of his wife Tracy, whose inscription is her last words: “We have all the time in the world.” Soon, he’s attacked by a bald man in a wheelchair holding a cat. Is it Blofeld? Glen said, “We just let people use their imaginations and draw their own conclusions … It’s a legal thing”. After all, Kevin McClory owned the film rights to Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the organization SPECTRE and other material associated with the development of Thunderball. Bond bests his arch-nemesis and dumps his wheelchair down a giant factory chimney. Consider this scene a middle finger to McClory, as producer Albert Broccoli wanted the world to know that he had no use for Blofeld ever again.

This time, Bond must take an ATAC system that could be misused for controlling British military submarines back from Aristotle Kristatos (Julian Glover, who was almost Bond before Roger Moore was selected). Assisting our hero is Milos Columbo (Topol, Flash Gordon) and complicating matters are ice skater Bibi Dahl (Lynn Holly-Johnson, Ice Castles) and Melina Havelock (Carole Bouquet).

This is the only Bond movie not to feature M, as Bernard Lee was dying of stomach cancer during filming. Q has an expanded role as a result.

Directed by Hal Needham (Megaforce, Smokey and the Bandit), this movie was based on the 1979 running of an actual cross-country outlaw road race — the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash — which began in Connecticut and ended in California. Or, you know, Cannonball, the 1976 Roger Corman produced film that tells the exact same story. Or The Gumball Rally.

That said, screenwriter Brock Yates came up with the actual race while writing for Car and Driver. The race had only one rule: “All competitors will drive any vehicle of their choosing, over any route, at any speed they judge practical, between the starting point and destination. The competitor finishing with the lowest elapsed time is the winner.”

Yates’ team was the only participant in the original 1971 running, which was named after Ernest “Cannonball” Baker, who in 1927 drove across the country in just 60 hours.

This is pretty much my dream idea of what a movie should be.

A very simple premise: a cross-country race for lots of money.

Add in plenty of actors you love.

Let hijinks ensue.

The players:

The ambulance: JJ McClure (Burt Reynolds) and Victor Prinzi (Dom DeLuise) are driving a souped-up Dodge Tradesman ambulance, the very same vehicle Needham and Yates used in the 1979 race.

The Ferrari 308 GTS: Driven by drunken former race star Jamie Blake (Dean Martin) and his gambler Morris Fenderbaum (Sammy Davis Jr.), who are both dressed as Catholic priests.

The Lamborghini Countach: Driven by Jill Rivers (Tara Buckman) and Marcie Thatcher (Adrienne Barbeau), who are using their looks to get ahead. This is pretty much the horror genre car, as Buckman would go on to appear in Silent Night, Deadly Night, Xtro II: The Second Encounter and, of course, Night Killer. Barbeau would live on in our hearts thanks to appearances in Creepshow, The Fog and Escape from New York.

The Subaru GL 4WD: Producers Golden Harvest demanded some Asian stars in the film. They got Jackie Chan in his second American film — after The Big Brawl — and Michael Hui.

The Laguna/Monte Carlo: This Hawaiian Tropic NASCAR car somehow switches makes throughout the film. It keeps the same drivers: Terry Bradshaw and Mel Tillis.

The Aston Martin DB5: Driven by Roger Moore, who is really James Bond, who is really Seymour Goldfarb, Jr., the potentially crazy heir to the Goldfarb Girdles fortune.

The Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow: Driven by rich old sheik Jamie Farr.

There’s so much more — DeLuise is also a superhero named Captain Chaos, Farrah Fawcett hooks up with Burt, Dr. Van Helsing (Jack Elam) wants to inject everyone with his medicine, Bert Convy gets into a fistfight with bikers led by Peter Fonda, Valerie Perrine shows up as a state trooper, stuntman Robert Tessler (Chief Thor from Starcrash, Verdugo from The Sword and the Sorcerer) fights Jackie Chan, all of the Bond girls are dubbed just like the real films and all manner of car stunts take up much of the running time.

Burt Reynolds did this movie for $5 million, a percentage of the profits and a promise he’d only work 14 days. He later said, “I did that film for all the wrong reasons. I never liked it. I did it to help out a friend of mine, Hal Needham. And I also felt it was immoral to turn down that kind of money. I suppose I sold out so I couldn’t really object to what people wrote about me.”

This movie is also the reason why seatbelts are required on all stunts now.

24-year-old German American stuntwoman Heidi von Beltz, who was a former championship skier and aspiring actor, was critically injured driving the Aston Martin car during a stunt. She had no previous stunt driving experience and was behind the wheel of a car with defective steering, clutch, and speedometer. Even worse, it had bald tires.

Her vehicle collided head-on with a van and made her a quadriplegic. Her personal injury lawsuit exceeded all available primary insurance coverage, so the production’s excess insurer, Interstate Fire sued von Beltz and her employer, Stuntman Inc., claiming that the lawsuit was not covered under its policy.

After years of court cases, she was eventually awarded $7 million although the judge later reduced that amount to $3.2 million or just enough to pay her medical and legal bills. She died in 2015.

Here’s something good out of this movie: It inspired Jackie Chan to always include bloopers at the end of his films. Hopefully that makes up for the fact that Needham didn’t know the difference between Asian races and cast Chan as a Japanese racer.

Ernesto dela Cruz was born in poverty and with primordial dwarfism and underdeveloped intellectual capacities. However, despite his start, he fell in love with martial arts. As he was working with a stunt team, he was noticed by actor and producer Peter Caballes. Working with his wife Cora, they would play the roles of his guardians, agents, producers and writers of some of his greatest roles. Weng Weng was born, but outside of his native Philippines, he wouldn’t become famous until after his early death.

Weng Weng plays Agent 00, who is pretty much James Bond. Equipped with gadgets, his job is to stop Mr. Giant and rescue Dr. Kohlet before the N-Bomb is set off.

From an anti-poison ring to a bladed remote control hat, a miniature machine gun and even a jetpack, Agent 00 romances women, kills henchmen and gets into Hidden Island, Mr. Giant’s base — just like Bond.

Mr. Giant is revealed to be a dwarf himself, which has some poetic meaning, one assumes.

With the tagline “Bigger than Goldfinger’s Finger – Bigger Than Thunderball’s …” this is a movie that has no interest in being subtle or politically correct. It does, however, reference past Filipino Eurospy films, as Agent OO’s commanding officer is played by Filipino actor Tony Ferrer, who played Agent X44 in the 1960’s.

At 2’9″, Weng Weng is considered to be the shortest man to star in an action movie. The world is sadder that he is no longer in it. Any movie where the lead spy is referred to as being “cute as a potato” is one for me.

This is why I have insomnia. Because I try to sleep, but then I start worrying about being able to pay the bills and what will I do next and how am I going to take care of my wife and then I realize, “Hey! Fabian made a movie with Marilyn Burns from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Marvin Miller, who was the voice of Robbie the Robot…”

And now I’m awake.

Otherwise known as Revenge of the Zombie, this movie was directed by Patrick Regan, who also wrote the lost slasher movie — seriously, someone help me find it, The Farmer. This is his only directing credit, though he did second unit on a bunch of movies, like The Phantom.

It starts his kids — Nell and Patrick — as Beth and Michael Nicholas, psychic kids who have been homeschooled by their dad, Guy. He runs afoul of some bikers, who kill him, so the kids keep him alive Weekend At Bernie’s style so that the Board of Education employee Nora Dennis (Burns) doesn’t put them in an orphanage. Also — Fabian plays a local sheriff, outdoing his work in Disco Fever. 

Chester Grimes plays the leader of the bikers and if you wanted a biker in the 1980’s, you called Chester. From CHiPs to Electra Glide in Blue, The Rockford Files, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, Bosom Buddies, The Garbage Pail Kids Movie and Dragnet, there he is.

And look out! There’s Robert Dryer, who if you watched lots of movies like I do at 4 AM, you’d recognize as Jake from Savage Streets, the titular character in The Borrower and Lord Barak from The Sisterhood.

Is that Jon Cedar from The Manitou as a shady land owner? Yes it is.

Kids that raise dad from the dead, so that he can kill bikers and bury himself in the sand, while Fabian and Sally Hardesty make eyes at one another. Yeah! This movie makes no sense, so I advise you to see it as I did: on a VHS tape uploaded to YouTube with obtrusive Spanish subtitles. Trust me — it makes it all so much better.

We included a second look at Kiss Daddy Goodbye as part of our weekly “Drive-In Friday” featurette with a “Musician Slashers Night.”

Riccardo Freda was the first director of an Italian horror movie, 1956’s I Vampiri. He left the production midway to have it completed by Mario Bava, which he would also do on the film Caltiki – The Immortal Monster. He’s also known for Iguana with the Tongue of Fire, The Horrible Dr. Hichcock and The Ghost.

Before Michael became an actor — when he was but a child — he stabbed his father to death. Today, he’s visiting his mother for the weekend and has brought along his girlfriend Deborah (Silvia Dionisio, Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man) and the crew of his latest movie. The sins of the past, however, are waiting for all of them.

Martine Brochard (Mannaja), John Richardson (The Church, Frankenstein ’80), Anita Stringberg (who is in everything from A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin to The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail, Who Saw Her Die?, The Antichrist, Almost Human and Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key) and the always welcome Laura Gemser (Black Emanuelle herself!), who is menaced by some of the largest and most fake spiders this side of Fulci.

In the early 70’s, this film’s writer, Fabio Piccioni, wrote a comic book story called The Cry of the Capricorn, which he sold to Dario Argento. Elements of that story would appear in The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and Deep Red.

Piccioni would reuse elements of this story again years later, along with scriptwriters Antonio Cesare Corti and Riccardo Freda, to help create this film, which is also known as Fear and The Wailing.

For what it’s worth, none of the actors recall this picture very fondly. Gemser referred to it as a nightmare and said that Strindberg almost stabbed her with a real knife, while the chainsaw that decapitates Brochard’s character nearly killed the actress.

While this isn’t the best giallo you’ll find, there’s still plenty to enjoy here, even if it’s just ogling Ms. Gemser. There’s also the best reason why the cops don’t get involved — a character says that they meant to call them, but forgot.

This is available from Raro Video and on Amazon Prime.

Have I ever told you how much I love Lucio Fulci?

Oh, I have? Like, thousands of times?

Like when I talked about this movie a few years ago?

And when I talked about Don’t Torture a Duckling?

Or when I talked about his deeper cuts, like Conquest, Murder Rock and The Devil’s Honey? Aenigma, Contraband and Perversion Story?

Yeah, I love me some Fulci.

So this review isn’t going to objective.

You have no idea how happy I am to own the 4K version of Fulci’s classic Quella Villa Accanto al Cimitero. Blue Underground has been releasing some astounding versions of Fulci’s masterworks this year, such as Zombie and The New York Ripper. Now, they’re giving the same high quality treatment to Dr. Freudstein and, of course, little Bob.

Norman and Lucy Boyle (Paolo Malco, Thunder and Catriona MacColl, who is also in Fulci’s City of the Living Dead and The Beyond) have just left New York City behind to live in the country, which Norman will work on the same research that his friend Dr. Peterson was undertaking — you know, before he went nuts and killed his mistress and himself.

Why should Norman tell his family that they’re moving into such a frightening house? He can just scream at his wife and demand that she start taking her pills again when he isn’t exchanging sex eyes with Ann the babysitter (Ania Pieroni, Mater Lachrymarum!).

70’s scream queen Dagmar Lassender (The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire, Hatchet for the Honeymoon) shows up as a real estate agent, Fulci himself appears as a professor and Giovanni Frezza owns the film as the female-voice child Bob Boyle. You’re either going to hate Bob or love him. I belong to the latter camp. Frezza also shows up in Warriors of the Wasteland, Demons and Manhattan Baby.

Hey Blue Underground — I’m the only one asking for it, but where’s the 4K Manhattan Baby?!?

I adore this movie because it’s really all over the place. It’s kind of, sort of The Amityville Horror by way of The Shining while also being a zombie picture and at other times, becoming a slasher. Dr. Freudstein is a mess, falling apart, losing his hand and killing everyone Bob loves for reasons that are left up to you — the viewer — to define.

It also ends up a great quote — “No one will ever know whether the children are monsters or the monsters are children” — that is attributed to Henry James but really came from Fulci. I have no idea how it ties to this movie at all and I’ve watched this film potentially hundreds of times.

I’ll be honest — I first discovered this movie at an all-night drive-in series of zombie films. I wondered why it was part of the show and thought that it surely would suffer compared to the other movies shown that evening. I was completely wrong.

You can watch this on Amazon Prime, but really, you owe it to yourself to purchase the Blue Underground set. Beyond the best that this movie has ever looked — and will probably ever look, until they figure out how to beam it directly into your skull — you get an entire disc full of extras, such as new audio commentary by Troy Howarth, author of Splintered Visions: Lucio Fulci and His Films, interviews with MacColl, Marco,  Lassander, Carlo De Mejo, Giovanni De Nava and child stars Giovanni Frezza and Silvia Collatina.

But this set goes even further, spending time with co-writers Dardano Sacchetti , Giorgio Mariuzzo and Elisa Briganti, as well as interviews with cinematographer Sergio Salvati, effects artists Maurizio Trani and Gino De Rossi. There’s also a new Q&A with MacColl and an interview regarding the film with Stephen Thrower, author of Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci.

Is that enough? No. It’s not. Blue Underground also throws in a lovely book — which has much better printing than the one inside The New York Ripper set — and a CD of the film’s soundtrack.

Now, do you aleady own this film? Are you someone like me who has purchased it more than twice? Do you really need another copy? Do you need the good doctor to come to your house and seep maggots all over your hardwood floor to convince you?

Take one look at the lenticular cover of this gorgeous set and try and say no. It’s impossible.

DISCLAIMER: This movie was sent to us by Blue Underground, but we were going to buy it regardless. I love this movie so much that there’s no way I wans’t going to love this. Sorry guys. I promise to be more objective in my non-Fulci reviews.

Made in 1981, this movie didn’t come out until 1986, when Troma would pick it up for distribution. Don’t worry — this odd little film has none of their horrific in a bad way hackwork infesting it.

Yvonne Decarlo plays Hester, a wealthy heiress who was jilted years ago when her boyfriend married her sister. Now, she’s out to not only get them, but their children too. And she has a 200 pound Rottweiler ready to make it happen.

Just imagine — Yvonne Decarlo electrocuting, stranging, crushing skulls and poisoning people when she’s not letting a dog bite and main everyone in its path. There’s also a scene where the detective on her trail gets drain cleaner dumped into his seltzer water. What a way to go!

Somehow, this came from the same director as 1984’s sex comedy Ellie, Peter Wittman. It has Stephanie Dunnam (Silent Rage) in it, in case you were all into that Chuck Norris vs. a slasher film and wanted to see more of her work. It’s also known as Satan’s Dog, which is not a better title.

Spoiler: I didn’t like how Hester gets rid of her dog. I mean, I’m totally into a movie that has dogs repeatedly killing humans, but leave the dog alone!

You can watch this on Amazon Prime.