If you need to see another film starring Amy Lynn Baxter, the adult actress-model who posed for the inside cover of Howard Stern’s book Private Parts — who also turned up in the also Florida-shot Golfballs! . . . but lets not forget Karate Warrior 2 and Cyber Vengeance — then you’ve found your film. And if having that Penthouse Playmate isn’t enough incentive . . . if you wanted to know where Sherrie Rose, the star of Giannetto De Ross’s Cy Warrior, Sergio Martino’s American Rickshaw, the really fine Me & Will, and David A. Prior’s Relentless Justice, got her start, then you’ve found your movie.
Ugh, is this another trivia-cum-backstory heavy review with no plot information?
Nope. But there ain’t much of one to tell.
The “plot,” such as it is, concerns the usual gaggle of four dumb n’ hot college coeds out for a vacation of sexual discovery and a bit o’ Animal House-styled college revenge — in between their summer job duties at a Miami resort. Then things, as we say to wrap it up, ensues . . . such as pranks, laughs, humor that’s not too raunchy but a whole lot of groan-inducing by way of rim shot sex jokes about “crabs” and “polar bears,” people accidentally dyeing their whole body in blue, and out of shape lifeguards. The guys our nubile college quartet are teasing follow the usual ’80s comedy tropes of being a cowboy, a geek, a fat dude, and a buff jock, you know, the eclectic types who are only friends in the movies and never in real life.
And that’s pretty much it as far as the plot goes. It’s a movie about horny guys and horny girls that we stumbled upon by way of USA’s Up All Night weekend-overnight film blocks. So collect your empty soda and popcorn paraphernalia on your way out.
Now, onto the more interesting film soundtrack.
Yep. This movie was a pretty big deal in South Florida, back in the day.
So, how did two ex-ELO members — bassist Kelly Groucutt and violinist Mik Kaminski — become involved in an ’80s T&A comedy?
Well, Peter Kuys, who was Kelly Groucutt’s executive producer for his solo album, Kelly (1982), and the debut album, Beyond the Dream (1991), by his band OrKestra, served as the soundtrack consultant for Summer Job. Teen comedies were a hot commodity at the time, so Kuys seen it as a great way to promote the band, convincing Groucutt and company to provide six tracks from the album to the film (“Some Kind Of Magic,” “Bring On The Dancing Girls,” “Hold On To Love,” “Don’t Give Up,” “Don’t Turn Away,” and “Rock & Roll Fever”). The band also appears towards the end of the film as a band hired to play at a pool party (to promote the single “Some Kind of Magic”). A Croucutt solo tune, “Old Rock & Roller,” also appears in the film.
There’s more flicks with real life band cameos to discover in our “Ten Band Cameos in Movies” featurette.
A solo bound Jack Green — a Scottish musician who served as the bassist in classic rockers T.Rex and the Rolling Stones-related the Pretty Things — provides four more songs with “Sweet Lover,” “Win Your Love,” “Another Day, Another Dollar,” and “I Really Love Your Money,” which appear on his third RCA solo album, Mystique (1983). (Several of Green’s tunes also appears in the Lynn Redgrave-fronted low-budget comedy-horror, Midnight (1989), which also appeared on his forth album, Latest Game (1986). Members of Rainbow — with whom Green briefly toured as their bassist — guested on Green’s albums, most notably, Ritchie Blackmore.)
Keyboardist Ike Stubblefield, who also appears on the soundtrack with four songs, served as a Motown studio and touring keyboardist for their artist roster throughout the ’60s and ’70s, as well as touring and recording with Eric Clapton.
Okay, enough soundtrack trivia, let’s back to the movie.
Director Paul Madden made his feature film debut with the only other film of his we really care about, Medium Rare (1987), since it stars a pre-Rocky Burt Young . . . and Brad Dourif (!) . . . and Sy Richardson (!!). If you want a movie about pet poodles dying by microwave (it’s a comedy, after all!), then you found your movie. Writer Ralph Gaby Wilson gave us one more flick, again, the only one we care about since it’s a ’70s TV movie starring Yvette Mimieux, CBS-TV’s Outside Chance (1978). Oh, Pamela Collyer of Evil Judgement and Meatballs III (itself subtitled “Summer Job,” so don’t confuse the two) is in the frames, as well.
You can watch the full movie on You Tube and enjoy the complete soundtrack on You Tube. Here’s Orkestra’s big scene at the pool, on You Tube.
Oh, and fans of the old USA Network programming of the ’80s may want to pop on over to our “Drive-In Friday: USA’s Night Flight . . . Night!” featurette as we discuss the USA-ran films Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains, Liquid Sky, The Brain, and Kentucky Fried Movie. Fans of ’80s comedies may also want to surf on over to our “Exploring: ’80s Comedies” feature.
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.
Bono Zorro is a famous music producer, or so this movie tells us, but most of the time he’s bringing new ladies into his apartment which is under the control of the proto-Alexa unit named Sensual Environment Control System. Yes, she’s called SEXY and she’s definitely a she. That’s because she’s in love with Bono and she’ll murder every other band aid, groupie and woman in his life to keep him.
This sounds like it could be a very exciting movie but this thing is the very definition of plodding and for some reason, I kind of love that it’s so slow and pointless, a movie where models just lounge around and the dialogue sounds like the first time anyone has ever seen the script.
Writer/director Derek Ford made British smut like Secret Rites; I Am a Groupie; Keep It Up, Jack; The Girl from Starship Venus and was the uncredited director of Blood Tracks. He made this for Dick Randall, whose career has the kind of moments that we can only hope to live through. Starting as a joke writer for Uncle Miltie, it took a failed George Jessel Broadway play to send him to Italy where he figured out that Americans wanted to see some sleaze. So he sent us stuff like Primitive Love, The Wild Wild World of Jayne Mansfield, The French Sex Murders, The Real Bruce Lee and so much more. He was the writer of Pieces and Lady Frankenstein as well as the writer/director of The Girl In Room 2A and Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks. Man, just when you think you have scratched everything Randall made, he surprises you with more — Slaughter High, Death Dimension, For Your Height Only, Don’t Open ‘Til Christmas, Crocodile, King of Kong Island…what an amazing contribution to our lives he has made.
Anyways, this movie features a woman being killed by a laser to the nipples, another burned by an acid shower and yet one more woman finding her doom at the bristles of an electric toothbrush before SEXY somehow possesses Bono and makes him drown his girlfriend in the hot tub, which is the most 80s way to die.
SEXY is also kind of like Synergy from JEM because she can manifest herself as a body-painted woman and run people over with her car. I don’t think Synergy ever did that, but trust me, it’s a good comparison.
Also: SEXY could be CECS and stand for Central Environment Control System. This movie is so brain-destroying that either answer is correct and you know, this movie is such a mess that you can just sit back and enjoy it. I mean, a naked woman who looks like she has makeup out of Liquid Sky kills and kills and kills in-between ladies taking bubble baths and having BDSM finger-licking sessions that are grosser than watching Peter Hooten eat the Colonel’s eleven secret herbs and spices in Night Killer.
Obviously, this movie has my highest recommendation.
Well, as with the previously-reviewed-this-week Corey Feldman-fronted Round Trip to Heaven, this Down Under car flick is a doublesploitation whammy: we all know what makes a carsploitation movie . . . but what makes a teensploitation movie, now that’s the question.
Well, for me, it’s when your film has 30-year-old teenagers — in this case, our stars of Matt Lattanzi, Loryn Locklin, Grant Heslov, and Billy Morrissette (Severed Ties!), who were 30 and 21, 26, 27, respectively — and no matter the filmmaker’s intentions — you’ve made a teensplotation movie. Yes, even when your film is loaded with classic cars, hot-rods, and muscle cars and qualifies it as a carsploitation movie.
The filmmaker in this case . . . isn’t the usual, expected filmmaker. No, it’s not Albert Pyun. It’s not David DeCoteau. It’s not Fred Olen Ray.
It’s Stephens Sommers.
Yes. The same Stephen Sommers — in his writing and directing debut — known as the writer, director, and producer behind The Mummy, The Scorpion King, and G.I Joe franchises. Meanwhile, actor Grant Heslov became a producing partner with George Clooney and received four Oscar nods and one win (2012’s Argo).
As with the countless teen movies dating back to the ’50s, we have a gaggle of teens who — in addition to not being teenagers and are far more intelligent and resourceful than your typical, goofy teenagers (at least when I was in school) — work together in the ‘ol “Let’s save the teen center, gang!” plot of old. Only this time: it’s the ol’ “save the school” plot.
Of course, the school will be saved by resident “bad boy” Dylan (Matt Lattanzi of Xanadu and My Tutor) who sidelines between the reading, writing, and arithmetic as an illegal street racer. Dylan convinces the school’s resident goody two-shoes (Loryn Locklin, in her acting debut; her next was the inane Jim Belushi comedy Taking Care of Business) to bet the $3000 already raised on an illegal race he knows he can win — and turn that 3-grand into the needed 200-grand to save the school.
That’s right. He doesn’t win.
Explore the soundtracks of Tangerine Dream!Catch Me If You Can is one of their many scores.
Now, the adults — school board administrators, mind you — are sanctioning an illegal, winner-take-all road race, with Dylan against the town legend. You know, just like any school board would handle a funding crunch that’s closing a school.
Look, the proceedings are cliched and utterly unbelievable. The teens don’t behave like teens (as in my Bruno Kirby guilty pleasure with the high school politics comedy, 1978’s Almost Summer) and the adults don’t carry themselves as roll models (of which Almost Summer had none, well, except for the adult-as-teens actors). But we have M. Emmett Walsh (who runs the local gambling syndicate backing the races) and Geoffrey Lewis (our principal) as the “responsible” adults, Loryn Locklin looks great in saddle shoes, there’s no cheese in thespin’ department, the driving and stunts (an old Chevy jumps through the school’s football field goalposts in a highlight) are top notch, and the ’50s and ’60s tunes (Elvis, Del Shannon, the Platters, Danny and the Juniors; but Tangerine Dream scores) give this homage to Sommers’s old hometown days of growing up in St. Cloud, Minnesota (where this was shot), a nice retro-juvenile delinquency flick of the ’50s feel — which is the whole point of the movie. And a fun movie to watch.
Sure, even at a production budget at $800,000, this car flick still bombed in the U.S., but cleaned up in the overseas markets — especially in Australia — where it made $7 million, courtesy of Matt Lattanzi then being the first husband of singer-actress Olivia Newton John. Meanwhile, in the U.S., it was HBO and Cinemax to the rescue, turning it into a cult classic.
Oh, and by the way, don’t confuse Catch Me If You Can with the other Aussie car flick we’ve reviewed, Freedom, which stars Matt Lattazni lookalike Jon Blake. That’s a whole other, carsploitation movie (and carries the soundalike “grab it while you can” tagline on its one-sheets).
Need more car flicks? Check out two-part Fast and Furious tribute weeks!
We had this writing and directing debut by Stephen Sommers on our review backburners for quite a while (sorry, Steve) and never managed to fit it into our two “Fast and Furious” weeks of reviews (HERE and HERE) of, well, Carsploitation films. We’re also guilty of passing over Catch Me If You Can (again, sorry, Steve) as part of our “Exploring” tribute to the film soundtracks of Tangerine Dream. So, we do get them, eventually.
You can stream this really great car flick on Vudu without commercials. But we found a copy on You Tube — here’s the trailer. As you can read from the You Tube upload comments, everyone loves this movie. Why it didn’t click with theater audiences and turn Matt into the next Tom Cruise is anyone’s guess. So goes the power of HBO and Cinemax endlessly replaying movies back in the ’80s.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Movies.
Scarlet Fry — Walter Ruether — was 19 when he wrote, directed and starred in this anthology movie. It has Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby’s Got Back” in the middle of a movie that feels nu metal before that was a thing, which kind of wildly non matchy-matchy.
Somehow, they got six stories into twenty-six minutes, none of them all that good. But hey, Scarlet Fry tried. I mean, as much as a tale where a lumberjack eats a human being and the title is “Manwich.”
Look, I’m all for shot on video junk but even I have my limits. You may feel differently and I’d love to hear what people love about this film, because it even got a twenty-fifth anniversary release on DVD.
This feels like the kind of movie that sat on the shelves of a video store just waiting to surprise attack people that rented it and somehow thought that it was a real movie. I mean, it is a real movie in the thought that it was sold and has credits and appears to be a movie. But you know what I’m saying.
In a class called The Psychology of Fear, Allison and Cheryl (Pamela Segall, the voice of Bobby Hill!) learn all about being scared by Professor Edward Derek, who teaches class with a loaded revolver that causes a jock to wet himself. The college shuts him down after that, but he still offers private lessons in his home where he tells his students three stories all about being frightened.
In “The Old Dark House,” Kevin (Marc McClure) and Joan (Nadine van der Velde, Critters) are separated inside a haunted house but there’s a surprise for, well, both of them. “A Night on the Town” has four women battling a deranged gas station attendant with a pack of trained dogs ready to kill for their master. “All Night Operator” has Alex (Marg Helgenberger) taking calls for a woman who is being stalked before the caller* turns his attention on her.
After these tales, we’re back in the home of the professor, who is attacked by the disgraced athlete before he turns the tables on the man and murders him with an axe. His entire house becomes a literal hell on earth, dragging everyone into the flames before Allison wakes up in his class all over again.
After Midnight didn’t have many fans when it came out, but like I enjoy horror anthologies. Obviously, I’m doing an entire week of them. There are some big shocks in this and it goes to some interesting places, even if the wrapup is kind of an easy ending.
*He’s played by Alan Rosenberg, her real-life husband.
Editor’s Note: We first reviewed this movie on September 15, 2018. We’ve brought it back for our “Philippines War Week” tribute of reviews.And we always want to talk about a Mark Gregory movie as much as possible.Over and over, again and again, because, again, it’s Mark Gregory! Why else would we do a full week of his movies.
When I was a very young child, my grandfather would come home from working night shift at the J&L Steel Mill and sit in front of the TV drinking Pabst and watching war movies. The entire house would be bathed in blue light and the sounds of machine gun fire. Forty some years later and here I am, doing the same thing. I’m not slaving away in the furnace, but I am writing a project for my real job while watching war movies. I’d like to think the films my grandpa watched were better than the junk I end up watching.
Yes, this is a movie where John Vernon and Mark Gregory somehow end up in the same frame. This blew my mind and made me wonder if I was on my death bed and my brain was attempting to calm me as my soul transitions to the next plane with the kind of Jacob’s Ladder scenario that I have heard so much about.
This time, Mark is playing Johnny Hondo, a special forces commando who never dresses in any form of camouflage whatsoever. I mean, the dude dresses all in black for daytime missions and all in white for night missions. He kills lots of people all over the world when he isn’t chillaxing on his Montana ranch. That’s where General Ross (Vernon) finds him and arranges for Johnny to meet his estranged and dying father.
It turns out that Johnny’s dad once drove a school bus filled with the Shah of Iran’s gold from that country to Afghanistan. With my poor US school system education, I never realized that that’s only a distance of around 800 miles. To get his father’s honor back, he has to complete the mission. And if you’ve seen any 1980’s post-Rambo films, you know that the system is corrupt and against our hero Johnny Hondo.
Luckily, Johnny has backup. There’s a plucky young Dondi-like child and his sister. The moment we meet her, we know that she has only been placed in this movie to die. And then there’s the mechanic who gets the war bus moving again. He’s played by Bobby Rhodes from Demons and Endgame, so he instantly becomes my favorite person in this movie. Literally, every line of his dialogue is profanity, much like talking to me in person.
This movie also has some of the most chipper 1980’s synth on its soundtrack, to the point that you forget that we’ve basically been waging war in Afghanistan since this one was made back in 1989.
This one’s directed by Pierluigi Ciriaci, who brought us pretty much all of the Mark Gregory war movies that we’ve covered this week. And much like every Italian movie made in the 1980’s, it was written by Dardano Sacchetti.
Much like the films that entertained my grandfather, this is filled with explosions, gunfire and plenty of people being riddled with bullets. Unlike the movies that he enjoyed, it also has a hero that has decided to wear a white turtleneck with a beige coat and drive a schoolbus into a warzone.
Want to experience all the action and bus driving for yourself? Then I recommend you head to Amazon Prime, a place where there is nothing but Mark Gregory films as far as the eye can see!
June 26: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is 80s horror.
Midnight (Lynn Redgrave) is a horror hostess who wears low-cut outfits, makes bad puns before the movies she shows and looks like an undead mistress of, well, the night. Pretty much exactly like Elvira, which seems weird, because they could have just hired Elvira to be in this movie.
She’s fighting station owner Mr. B (Tony Curtis) for the rights to her name, who keeps throwing things in her way to screw up her life, like trying to lure away her boytoy Mickey Modine (Steve Parrish, Scanners III) by introducing him to Missy Angel (Karen Witter, Playboy Playmate of the Month March 1982, as well as Mortuary Academyand Popcorn).
Then, everyone around our protagonist — like her agent(Frank Gorshin) — starts getting murdered and all fingers point to Midnight.
This was written and directed by Norman Thaddeus Vane, who wrote and directed Frightmare. Before that, he was a contributing writer for Penthouse, working on the letter to Forum.
I really need to make a Letterboxd list of Wolfman Jack movies one of these days. He’s in this for a bit and is a welcome addition to the proceedings.
According to Stephen Thrower’s Nightmare U.S.A., this movie was a complete nightmare behind the scenes. Karen Black was originally going to play Midnight — I am so into that casting choice — with George Segal playing opposite her. Yet when she quit the film and Redgrave came on, Segal refused to be in the movie due to “agent conflicts.” As for Ms. Redgrave. she locked herself in her trailer and wouldn’t do any ADR after the film wrapped. Then Sont cut ten minutes and barely released it in theaters.
You know what? She’s awesome in this movie, acting like she’s playing for people in space, not just the back row of the theater. It’s a role that literally defines over the top. That said, she’s still no Cassandra Peterson.
What a great, three-day rally of films from Bernard L. Kowalski (thanks for allowing me to free range, Sam) as we wrap it up with a TV movie that pays tribute to a great TV series from the ’70s. To say I am stoked to review this BK entry is an understatement: the development of this tribute week to ol’ Uncle Bernie centers on this flick. And we get Kent McCord, who never got the due he deserves, some props.
Let’s roll it!
By the late ’80s, the cable networks began eschewing their UHF-styled, bread-and-butter reruns format by going for the throat of the “Big Three” over-the-air networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC — with their own, original programming. The national “superstations” TNT and USA each began producing their own TV movies (many of which we’ve reviewed at B&S), so why not the all-new basic cable and satellite network The Nashvillle Network?
You don’t remember that logo? It’s okay, most TV viewers — not county-centric — don’t remember it either.
Put some good ol’ down home twang in your life.
Going on the air in March 1983, the network operated from studios on located on the grounds of the now-defunct theme park Opryland USA in Nashville. But, as with the major movie studios creating competing ripoff films for the marketplace (e.g., Armageddon vs. Deep Impact, White House Down vs. Olympus Has Fallen) The Nashville Network was beat on the air — by two days — by Country Music Television.
After the dust settled: The Nashville Network lost the ratings war.
TNN began its life as a country music alternative to Warner-Amex’s MTV’s rock and VH-1’s contemporary music formats by airing music videos; the programming soon expanded into concerts, game and talk shows, and country-eccentric movies (such as Smokey and the Bandit). By September 2000, the channel dumped their “southern” identity by ditching the “Nashville” moniker for “National” to become The National Network. Then, to the holier-than-thou, law-suitin’ and hissy fittin’ dismay of Spike Lee (“They’re stealing my brand!”), National transformed into the male-centric Spike TV in 2003. Today, you know the channel as the upper-tier cable dumping ground for all things Paramount-produced: The Paramount Network.
So, with that backstory out of the way . . . let’s polish off our three-day tribute to the films of Bernard L. Kowalksi (that began all the way back in 1956 with Hot Car Girl) and dig in to some slip-smackin’ BBQ with Bernard’s last film — and TNN’s first made-for-television movie — Nashville Beat.
Now, if you’ve been following along the Kowalski beat this week, you’ll know that his last theatrical film was the drive-in horror classic, Sssssss (1973). And, since we love our Six Degrees of Separation of actors and directors in the B&S cubicle farm: that turn-man-into-snakes-mad-scientist romp starred Dirk Benedict, later of Battlestar Galactica . . . and Kent McCord ended up on that failed Star Wars TV series ripoff’s second season, aka Galactica: 1980, as the all-grown up Boxey, aka Troy (we reviewed the overseas theatrical version of the series, Conquest of the Earth; look for it).
Anyway, after Sssssss (Who decided the title only needed six lowercase “S”; why not eight?), Kowalski returned to television — where he got his start — with multiple episodes of Perry Mason and The Untouchables, as well as Banacek starring George Peppard (more “Six Degrees”: he was in the fellow Star Wars dropping, Battle Beyond the Stars), and Columbo. In between, Kowalski developed the MGM Studios/CBS-TV series pilot for the Starsky and Hutch-precursor, The Supercops (1974), which aired on March 21, 1975, and continued the adventures of (real life cops) Dave Greenberg and Bobby Hantz. That series was quickly derailed by the (more powerful, due to Charlie’s Angels) TV production powerhouse of (Aaron) Spelling-Goldberg Productions’ TV movie-to-series pilot for Starsky and Hutch, which aired on the competing ABC-TV network on April 30, 1975. And, since we love our Six Degrees of Separation of actors and directors in the B&S cubicle farm redux: David “Ken ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson” Soul starred with Kent McCord in the CSI TV series-franchise precursor (and, in my opinion, superior), the all-too-short-lived TV Movie-to-series, UNSUB (1989).
While we didn’t get around to reviewing all them (or finding copies of most of them), other post-Sssssss and The Supercops TV movies Bernard Kowalski directed are Flight to Holocaust (1977), The Nativity (1978), TV’s response to Rocky with Marciano (1979), Nick and the Dobermans (1980), Turnover Smith (1980), Nightside (1980; with Doug McClure, from Kowalski’s Terror in the Sky), and Johnny Blue (1983).
Image courtesy of the Kent McCord Archives (with more pictures and article on the show.)
So, if you know if your ’70s TV: You’ll know Nashville Beat is the 14-years-in-the-making reunion of actors Martin Milner and Kent McCord after their successful, seven-season run on Adam-12 that aired on NBC-TV from 1968 to 1975. The final episode of that series ended in a cliffhanger, somewhat: we never knew what happened with officers Pete Malloy (Milner) and Jim Reed (McCord), as the series closed with Reed’s rookie copy readying to take the detectives exam and leave his seasoned, veteran partner and the streets. . . . Instead of NBC-TV giving us a late ’80s TV movie version of Adam-12, we got the closest thing to an Adam-12 TV movie: Nashville Beat, which was developed, produced, and co-written by McCord with the intention of becoming TNN’s first original drama series.
Milner and McCord — while pretty much the same cops, only older-but-wiser and in plain clothes — are Captain Brian O’Neal and Lieutenant Mike Delaney, both who started out like their Adam-12 counterparts: on the streets of Los Angeles. Even after his old partner left for a job as a detective in Nashville, Delaney and O’Neal remained close friends. Upon become a widower, Delaney heads to Nashville to help his old partner on a case with ties back to Los Angeles. And the case works out well, and Delaney’s heart is ready to love again with the sexy, big-haired owner (it was the ’80s, natch) of the honkytonk where O’Neal and his copy buddies hangout. So the movie ends with Delaney deciding that he just might move the kids out to Nashville to start over . . . which would set off the new series that never happened.
Meanwhile, TNN’s faux Adam-12 reunion got the folks at MCA Television (a division of Universal that supplied NBC-TV programming) to reboot Adam-12 in September 1990 to fill the UHF-TV blocks of the new, weekend syndicated programming crazy (ignited by Star Trek: The Next Generation and Xena: Warrior Princess). The syndicated revival, The New Adam-12 (1990) was cast-headed by John Wayne’s son, Ethan (who made his debut in his dad’s Big Jake). The series, which ran for 52 consecutive episodes, was cancelled after one year. No one (including moi) cared: Milner and McCord were never invited back to appear. But, we did see Milner and McCord share the screen again in a 1997 episode of Diagnosis Murder with Dick Van Dyke, playing, yet again Los Angeles police officers.
And that’s a wrap on our three-day tribute to the career of Bernard Kowalski. Discover his films with our reviews and enjoy!
You can watch a VHS rip of the home video version of Nashville Beat on You Tube. And look for our reviews of Hot Car Girl and Sssssss — this week — as we continue our tribute to Bernard L. Kowalski.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Movies.
Phew. We did it! Twelve Ron Marchini films in two days. You know the drill! Yee-haw, let’s round ’em up!
Born in California and rising through the U.S. Army’s ranks to become a drill sergeant, in his civilian life, Ron Marchini earned the distinction as the best defensive fighter in the U.S.; by 1972, he was ranked the third best fighter in the country. Upon winning several worldwide tournaments, and with Robert Clouse’s directing success igniting a worldwide martial arts film craze with Enter the Dragon (1973), the South Asian film industry beckoned.
After making his debut in 1974’s Murder in the Orient, Marchini began a long friendship with filmmaker Paul Kyriazi, who directed Ron in his next film, the epic Death Machines, then later, in the first of Ron’s two appearances as post-apoc law officer John Travis, in Omega Cop.
Ron also began a long friendship with Leo Fong (Kill Point) after their co-staring in Murder in the Orient; after his retirement from the film industry — after making eleven dramatic-action films and one documentary — Ron concentrated on training and writing martial arts books with Leo, as well as becoming a go-to arts teacher. Today, he’s a successful California almond farmer.
In the annals of martial arts tournaments, Marchini is remembered as Chuck Norris’s first tournament win (The May 1964 Takayuki Kubota’s All-Stars Tournament in Los Angeles, California) by defeating Marchini by a half a point. Another of Chuck’s old opponents, Tony Tullener, who beat Norris in the ring three times, pursued his own acting career with the William Riead-directed Scorpion.
You can learn more about Ron Marchini with his biography at USAdojo.com. An interview at The Action Elite, with Ron’s friend and Death Machines director Paul Kyriazi, also offers deeper insights.
Ron, second from right, with Chuck Norris, shaking hands, 1965. Courtesy of Ken Osbourne/Facebook.
Black tee-shirt image courtesy of Spreadshirt.Art work/text by B&S About Movies.
We love ya, Ron!
About the Review Authors: Sam Panico is the founder, Chief Cook and Bottle Washer, and editor-in-chief of B&S About Movies. You can visit him on Lettebox’d and Twitter. R.D Francis is the grease bit scrubber, dumpster pad technician, and staff writer at B&S About Movies. You canvisit him on Facebook.
“Hell just froze over.” — The killer theatrical one-sheet tagline that never was to a movie that may . . . or may not . . . exist.
I’m not really sure how Sam and I are friends: while he ponders his disdain for the new Wonder Woman flick on the eve of the New Year, here I am pondering a 30-year lost Ron Marchini movie.
American martial artist champion, instructor, and author Ron Marchini fought Chuck Norris in 1964 at the Takayuki Kubota’s All-Stars Tournament in Los Angeles, California, and went on to make eleven movies. (Yes, we know that match is disputed as ever taking place, so spare us the comments.) Sam and I are reviewing them all this week — and I’ve seen them all, more than once, sans one: Ron’s follow up to Return Fire (1988), the final mission of Steve Parrish, with Arctic Warriors.
Yes, in utter desperation — and taking cues from all of the art work recyclin’ and ripoffery of the promotional artwork for the VHS boxes of my cherished Michael Sopkiw and Mark Gregory* Italian and Philippines action movies, I pinched the art work from Marchini’s Jungle Wolf(1986) and made my own retro-cheesy VHS sleeve. And yes, according to ye digital content warriors of the IMDb, what is (or should have been) Ron’s eighth film, was financed and distributed by Crown International Pictures and Film Ventures International**. Now, if we have to review the resume of those two studios’ influences on 90 percent of our cloud content at B&S, then you need to trade in all of your Mill Creek box sets, for you have shamed us. Turn in your Blu-ray deck.
Text courtesy of PicFont/graphic by R.D Francis.
In all my years of swirling down You Tube digital rabbit holes. All of my years surfing the shelves of home video stores — with multiple memberships, mind you — and my analog archeological digs at vintage vinyl outlets and second-hand stores, I’ve never encountered a copy of Arctic Warriors. It doesn’t appear in any video guides dedicated to the preservation of ’80s action films, martial arts, or trash cinema. And this snowbound karate adventure is no where to be found on the World Wide Web. Not a photo, a poster; nary a clip, a trailer, or review. Not an off-mention on a fan’s blog-homage to Ron Marchini. For all we’ve got to go on is a blank IMDb page — a page with no art work, no stills, no character names for the actors, and no plot synopsis. (This fact has — and we are convinced, as result of our review link posting — changed; the page has since been updated. . . .)
Meanwhile, I can find a wealth of information and streaming uploads on a wealth of Filipino-Rambo action retreads (we could literally do a B&S 7 day/28-film tribute week on the genre without breaking a sweat) with titles like Black Fire (1985) and Jungle Rats (1988) starring Romano Kristoff, and Ten Zan: The Ultimate Mission (1988), and Just A Damn Soldier (1988), in which Kristoff starred with our beloved Mark Gregory. You want to find more info or watch a Filipino “Awful Blood” war romp from Cirio H. Santiago (Fighting Mad), Jun Gallardo (Slash Extermintor), or Godfrey Ho (Devil’s Dynamite): no problemo, sensei. I mean, I get it: Arctic Warriors isn’t exactly Italian schlockmeister Antonio Margheriti’s Philippines-shot war romp Tornado (1983), but come on, now! There’s Filipino war-cum-karate action romps archived and digitized across the dustiest corners of the web. . . .
And yet . . . Arctic Warriors eludes my ten-figured QWERTY-grasp.
Calling Adventure Team Joe! Only your “Kung Fu Grip” can save us.
The mind races . . . Arctic Warriors. What could it be about? Is it akin to Sly Stallone’s snowbound shoot ’em up Cliffhanger(1993), with Ron thwarting a bank robbery? Does Ron evade terrorists by barreling down the slopes to ski off a cliff and escape-by-parachute like James Bond in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)? And since this film falls between the fourth — and final — adventure of Steve Parrish in Return Fire (1988) and the first adventure of John Travis in Omega Cop (1990) . . . is Arctic Warriors the lost, next adventure of Steve, or the missing, first adventure of John, with Ron out-tugging Tugg Speedman? Does Arctic Warriors shamelessly stock footage pillage Roger Corman’s snowy-disaster boondoggle that was Avalanche (1979) for added production value? Did the producers wardrobe-match Marchini and swipe all of the James Bond franchises snowmobile and ski scenes?
Considering the budget of Ron’s films, and knowing the Crown and FVI business model, we can correctly assume Arctic Warriors did not film in the Antarctic. And it was shot in-camera with practical effect and nary a snowy-CGI shot to be greened. A more probably location would be the white-capped highlands of California. Does Ron’s winter bonebreaker take place at an “arctic” ice station? Are we dealing with a hostage crisis at Ski resort in Colorado? Was the President’s daughter kidnapped from her Utah ski vacation? Is Ron out to rescue his scientist-girlfriend, whose newly discovered cold-fusion formula can save the world?
Well, wait. Since we’ve learned (April 2022) we have an Italian actress in the mix: did this shoot on The Dolomites and the French, Swiss, and Savoy Alps that form Italy’s borders on the north and west? That country’s snow-covered slopes are home to Europe’s most famous ski resorts. Did Ron Marchini get himself a free Italian ski vacation with what seems to be a lot bigger and expensive “Sly Stallone” move that we anticipated?
Ron, you left the fridge open and Tugg is pissed.
I know: calm down the excitement level, R.D.
Anyway . . . if we are to believe the digital content managers at the IMDb, the screenwriter behind this snowbound Marchini flick — in his only credit — is a filmmaker by the name of Jim Brown.
Brown got his start in the business as a first assistant camera man on The Hot Rock (1972), which is a pretty decent start, considering it was written by screenwriting legend William Goldman, directed by Peter Yates (Krull), and starred the biggest leading man of the ’70s, Robert Redford. And Jim Brown held the same job on the what-in-the-hell-is-Henry Fonda-doing-in-a-hicksploitation-flick The Great Smokey Roadblock, and Stallone’s Rocky II (1979). As an executive producer, Brown guided director Kevin Connor’s Warlords of Atlantis, aka Warlords of the Deep, starring Doug McClure.
Now, we know you know Kevin Connor (if you don’t, you shame us at B&S): Does the Amicus-produced From Beyond the Grave ring any bells? Motel Hell? How about The Land That Time Forgot, At the Earth’s Core, and The People That Time Forgot (also starring Doug McClure). Jim Brown also served as executive producer on the a-bit-wee-too-late-to-the-woods slasher Berserker (1987), which earned enough of a reputation on the home video circuit for Vinegar Syndrome to reissue it to disc. And keep in mind that Berserker shot in Utah — a state synonymous with white powder. Thus, Brown has the connections to shoot Arctic Warriors on location — no Les Grossman-ranting required.
So, who was the director on Arctic Warriors? Jefferson Richard from Berserker? Kevin Conner? Jim Brown himself? Jim certainly had the skill set to make his directorial debut. Your guess is as good as ours: the IMBb lists no director — and we lost Jim Brown in 2006 at the age of 55 in Vienna, Austria.
As for the Ron Marchini’s supporting cast: The two leading names listed are Michael James and Thomas Striker (but never trust the IMBb’s digital packing order, as their algorithms list background actors on top, above the leads, half the time).
While the film is Thomas Striker’s only credit, Michael James made his acting debut with a support role in Stoney Island (1978). In a sidebar: That film was written by Tamar Simon Hoffs, the mother of the Bangles’ Susan Hoffs; both gave us The Allnighter. The director on Stoney Island, in his debut, is Andrew Davis, he of the Steve Seagal and Harrison Ford box office bonanzas Under Siege (1992) and The Fugitive (1993). James then went on to have character parts in The Fugitive and Brian Bosworth’s Stone Cold (1991).
Okay, that takes care of Micheal James.
Now, where the casting on Arctic Warriorsgets really interesting and, based on his resume, he’s obviously the star-antagonist: James Ryan. Now, sure, we know (and kid) Mr. Ryan for the South African Star Wars abortion that was Space Mutiny (1988). But Ryan made his epic start in karate flicks alongside his friend Ron Marchini, with his leading man debut in Kill or Be Killed, aka Karate Killer (1976), and the sequel . . . oh, man, when those commercials came on TV (as with Nine Deaths of the Ninja) for Kill and Kill Again (1981) . . . we couldn’t RUN to the duplex quick enough. And, what’s this . . . friggin’ Stephen Chang from Fury of the Shaolin Fist (1979) co-starring with Marchini and James (Chang is still at it, with six films is various states of production!!).
Dude, I don’t even need an Arctic Warriors trailer. I’m there . . . but the movie ain’t there.
Uh, oh. There’s celluloid tomfoolery afoot. Hey, it’s those analog hucksters at FVI: Film Ventures International, the studio that brought us the aforementioned martial arts epics Kill or Be Killed and Kill and Kill Again, and turned their $100,000 investment in Beyond the Door into a $9 million dollar box office hit. Obviously, Arctic Warriors was in production for an extended period of time, when you consider FVI closed its doors and filed for Chapter 11 protection in 1985. Meanwhile, Crown International Pictures, which produced Ron’s second film, Death Machines (1976), hung on for a little bit longer, dissolving in 1992.
So, where in the hell is Arctic Warriors!
According the digital purveyors of the IMDb: DMEG, a Sweden-based film distribution company, whose resumes includes many a B&S About Movies favorites, such as Horror Express (1972), Eyeball (1975), and Cannibal Holocaust (1980), distributed Arctic Warriors overseas in 2004. . . .
And all we can do is watch this Ron Marchini fan-tribute video (Ugh, again? It’s been deleted). Anyway, just imagine it’s snowing . . . as we ponder what might have been those 30-plus years ago in the wintery wilds of Colorado or Utah, with Ron and Stephen Chang kickin’ James Ryan’s ass — and he, their frozen asses — up one slope and down another.
Update: August 3, 2021: We’ve seem to have inspired a Ron Marchini fire! After posting a link of this review to the IMDb page for Arctic Warriors, the once-barren page was updated — with what looks like a DVD sleeve. Does this mean an alternate title for this lost Marchini film is Air Power? After all of our assumptions, is this, in fact, a faux Top Gun actioner?! The plot thickens!
Image courtesy of the IMDb/ECM Productions, uploaded by others, not B&S About Movies, to the film’s IMDB page.
Nope. No plot thickening, here. In reality, the above cover is from “Arctic Warriors,” part of an Aviation Week & Space Technology series issued by McGraw-Hill, Inc., in 1989, then on the Time-Life Video imprint as part of their “Air Power” series in 1991. The documentary features jets flying out of Galena AFS in Alaska, thus the “Arctic Warriors” title. You can watch it on You Tube.
Update, April 2022: The Ron Marchini fire continues as the IMDb updates just keep on coming . . . as someone (one of the actors, crew?) has taken to expanding the credits to Arctic Warriors — even if the above image is wrong.
Thanks to frequent B&S About Movies’ reader George White for the heads up, we now know that esteemed British actors Ralph Michael and Roy Holder, also star — which leads us to believe Arctic Warriors is a U.S.-British co-production. Well, and the Swiss. And the Italians.
So who are Ralph Michael? Roy Holder? You’re kidding, right? Turn in your B&S rental card.
Michael starred in the consummate omnibus — the one that all anthology films inspire to be — 1945’s Dead of Night, as well as the 1964 horror classic Children of the Damned, just to name a few. Roy Holder’s long career has taken him from Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet (1964) to the early ’80s Peter Davison-era of Dr. Who to Russell Crowe’s version of Robin Hood (2010).
Courtesy of those IMDb updates (thanks, whomever you are), we also now know the cast features Gene LeBrock: he made feature film debut with Arctic Warriors and came to star in the popular home video renter, Metamorphosis (1990). And what the mothers of hell? Mary Sellers, the acclaimed, Kenya-born British-Italian stage actress who got her start in Michele Soavi’s StageFright (1987), Umberto Lenzi’s Ghosthouse (1988), and Lamberto Bava’s The Mask of Satan (1990), stars alongside Ron Marchini? What the sweet baby Jesus? Ron Campbell from Kidnapped Coed (1976) is in this?
Holy freakin’ crap and a bag of cowpies! This movie peaked to-the-power-of-ten cooler. Where is this friggin’ movie? I want to see it . . . and we now know, was, in fact, released on August 18, 1989. But theatrical or video. Again, the plot thickens. . . .
So yeah, I want a DVD and Blu-ray reissue. And please: give ‘ol R.D. the pull quote on that sleeve. Would I be pushing my luck asking to do an audio commentary track? Come on, Dark Force Entertainment . . . where are you Vinegar Syndrome and Arrow Video? Make it happen.
Sorry. Yeah, sometimes a fan-boy just has to go there . . . begging.
* Aficionados of ’80s action B-flicks will enjoy our retrospectives on Michael Sopkiw and Mark Gregory, both complete with review links to all of their films. (It’s just been learned, in March 2022, that Mark Gregory, in fact, passed away in 2013.)
** Get the inside skinny on Film Ventures International with our “Drive-In Friday” tributes (Night 1 and 2) to the studio shingle. Yeah, we did one on Crown International Pictures, as well.
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.
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