This is one of the best movies ever made. Upskirt karate rules!

Ghidorah from Chainsaw Maintenance

THE MACHINE GIRL

2008/Director: Noboru Iguchi/Writer: Noboru Iguchi

Cast: Minase Yashiro, Asami, Kentaro Shimazu, Honoka, Nobuhiro Nishihara

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THE MACHINE GIRL TRAILER

WHAT DOES MINASE YASHIRO LOOK LIKE WITH TWO ARMS

AND NOT DRENCHED IN BLOOD AND BRAINS YOU ASK?

ICE STATION ZEBRA

1968/Director: John Sturges/Writers: Alistair MacLean (novel), Douglas Heyes (screenplay)

Cast: Rock Hudson, Ernest Borgnine, Patrick McGoohan, Jim Brown, Tony Bill, Lloyd Nolan, Alf Kjellin, Gerald S. O’Loughlin

My dad was stationed on Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio Texas in the late 60’s. One of the little perks of being the son of a military dad was having the ID card that got me onto the base and then into some cool places, like the bowling alley, the PX (base exchange), the cafeterias and of course the various bland looking movie houses. With my ID card it cost me all of 35 cents to see assorted spaghetti westerns, horror and sci-fi films, comedies and once in a while a real movie. Such was the case with Ice Station Zebra, a film I saw all alone in the base theater at about the age of eleven. Shot in stunning 70mm  with a dramatic score my Michael Legrand (restored in full with intermission music on the version I have) it was awesome to behold on the big screen and if I remember right I saw it about three times in a week.

The film is based, somewhat loosely I understand, on the 1963 spy thriller of the same name by Alastair MacLain. His earlier The Guns of Navarone was made into a successful movie with Gregory Peck and David Niven and MGM hoped to turn this new novel into another box office winner. The film in fact did well and earned a couple Oscar nominations for special effects and cinematography but lost out to 2001: A Space Odyssey. It also revived the career of Rock Hudson as an action star after he had become somewhat typecast in his pillow talk movies with actresses like Doris Day. Charlton Heston was originally slated to play Hudson’s role as Captain Ferraday but declined saying the script was too weak. While Heston would have shone in the role Rock does just fine as the capable Captain of the USS Tigerfish as it heads towards the North Pole on both a rescue and top secret mission that involves British spies, Russian defectors, U.S Marines and not one single female character in the entire film.

The story begins in Scotland where Submarine Captain Ferraday (Hudson) is given the mission of taking the USS up under the polar ice caps to rescue the scientific team stationed at Ice Station Zebra following a reported series of explosions there. An overland, or ovger ice pack, route is ruled out and Ferraday is none to pleased to receive orders that his command is second to a British spy named “Mr. Jones”, played by Patrick MacGoohan who took some time off from his The Prisoner TV series to do the film. Jones is brilliant but slightly jumpy and sleeps with a gun under his pillow and drinks plenty of “medicinal” whisky to balance himself out. The rescue mission is actually a cover for retrieving a capsule that was ejected to Earth from a satellite. The capsule contains something that both the Americans and Russians are racing to the North Pole to get first. The Tigerfish later receive by helicopter two unexpected visitors. One is a constantly smiling and helpful Russian defector named Boris Vaslov (Ernest Borgnine) and the other is tough and disciplined Marine Captain Anders (Jim Brown).

Sabotage becomes a concern on the Tigerfish after a torpedo tube that is being used to launch a torpedo through the ice becomes filled with sea water and floods the torpedo room when it is opened, killing one sailor. Of course we know this guys is totally dead since right before they open the hatch he is talking about his wonderful future and the girl he wants to marry. Never talk about that stuff before a dangerous mission. Suspicions bounce from Mr. Jones to Vaslov and even to Anders.

The scenes of the Tigerfish under the ice look spectacular really. Finally a thin enough layer of ice is found and the Tigerfish surfaces only to find Ice Station Zebra in smoldering ruins with scientific team all near death from exposure. In no time both Vaslov and Jones are looking for something and Ferraday wants to know what it is. We find out soon enough that Vaslov (and how can anyone trust a smiling overly helpful Russian, defector or not, during the Cold War period) is the saboteur after he waylays Jones with a crowbar. Jones mistakingly. shoots Anders when he wakes up groggy and sees the two mean fighting. It is soon learned that the capsule that landed at Zebra contained a Russian made camera with highly advanced American film inside, and soon the Russians, led by the serious and determined Colonel Ovstravsky (Alf Kjellin) arrive they and the Americans have a stand off over who goes home with the goods. In the end Ferraday detonates the canisters as it is hoisted upwards by a weather balloon, thereby symbolizing a draw between the two super powers. I have never read except in reviews and understand MacLean had a tenser and less optimistic ending.

A great movie for people who like Cold War thrillers and submarine dramas. The Artic sets looked wonderful, and all the more wonderful since they are in fact studio sets. I love old movies sets and if this film is ever remade they will probably film it on location somewhere and while it will look more realistic it will lose that magic, perfect appearance that sets often provided a scene. There of course are some problems such as the fact that while we hear wind effects no one’s hear is even blowing, the lack of frozen condensation when people exhale and I read that keeping the parka laden actors free of perspiration was a difficult task. Really happy I found this one and highly recommend you give it a shot.

ROMPER STOMPER

1992/Director: Geoffrey Wright/ Writer: Geoffrey Wright

Cast: Russell Crowe, Daniel Pollock, Jacqueline McKenzie, Alex Scott, Leigh Russell, Daniel Wyllie, James McKenna,    Eric Mueck, Frank Magree,

Romper Stomper was early on in Russell Crowe’s movie acting career and when I first saw the film on VHS back in the 90’s he had yet to achieve the level of stardom he has since attained. Had I known Crowe already and some of the Hollywood work I have seen of his lately, such as A Beautiful Mind and Cinderella Man I would have thought something like “wow, he really made some wild movies way back then, not like Gladiator at all”. But when I first saw the film I really knew very little of the guy and doubt that I even knew his name, which only added to the intensity of this already riveting drama about angry skinheads in Melbourne Australia. Crowe is simply mesmerizing as Hando, the leader of a band of skinheads who at the moment are focusing their plentiful hatred and violent behavior on the local Vietnamese community. The film was written and directed by Geoffrey Wright and has a blood pumping soundtrack of instrumental music as well as the “Oi” type skinhead punk rock music. The photography  is often rawand grainy and the editing fast at the right moments but not overboard and constantly jerky, as it often can be with this type of film. Along with Crowe are Australian actress Jacqueline McKenzie and actor Daniel Pollock, who had played a small role with Crowe in 1991’s Proof, another great independent Australian film.

The film opens up with Hando and his band of neo-Nazi misanthropes intimidating and beating some Vietnamese skateboarders in the train station of a blue collar neighborhood in West Melbourne. The scene quickly set the tone and pace for the rest of the film and there is little let up as the tensions between Hando and his gang and the local Vietnamese escalate as the immigrants seek to find business opportunities in their community. Hando is the dangerous yet charismatic leader of the group and his best mate is Davey, a brooding, thinking type who has a softer nature. He hides his tattoos from his German speaking grandma and collects matchbook covers his father sends him. He seems to have roots the rest of the band lack, including Hando, who reads quotes from Mein Kampf and hurls Italian pasta rather than eat “wop” garbage. The friendship seems solid and deep until Gabe (McKenzie) is introduced into the story as a sexual diversion for Hando. Gabe is really screwed up herself as she is running away from her incestuous father Martin, played well and creepy by Tony Lee.

Gabe is more educated than the thugs she throws herself in with but she falls under the spell of Hando and is even excited by the violence and vandalism the gang dishes out on anybody  or anything that crosses them. This becomes really apparent than when it is discovered the local Vietnamese are going to buy the pool hall they hangout in and turn it into a restaurant. The skinheads become immediately enraged and their racial loathing becomes utterly apparent. They go and beat a couple teenagers nearly to death and perhaps would have, if not for the fact one boy who escaped the beating returns with carloads of Vietnamese youth, already fed up with the skinheads, who soon begin to outnumber and over power Hando and his gang. A really great chase and fight sequence develops with great sound effects and film score. In the end the skinheads are driven back to their warehouse hangout and are driven out and it is sacked and burned.

Seeking refuge the gang boot out some squatters from another warehouse and during their time there it is found out that Gabe is an epileptic after she has a seizure. The uncultured and crass skinheds mock her and call her “spazz” and imitate her seizures and only Davey has any sympathy. It is this incident that drives a wedge between Davy and Hando. Hando kicks Gabe out, both because he is put off by her epilepsy, but also because of her sarcasms about him and the gang botching an easy job the night before, that of robbing her father’s house.

Davey tells her to seek him out as soon as she can. She is totally pissed and in the heat of anger calls the cops and tells them where Hando and the gang are hiding and they are the ones responsible for the attack on the Asians and the robbery and assault on her father. The cops show up and the youngest member who waves a fake gun at the cops. Gabe spends the night with Davey (and there as a couple really wild sex scenes in this flick) and when Hando shows up the next day they all flee the police search. Hando kills a convenient store clerk who looks Indian or Pakistani with his bare hands and the three are fugitives for murder now. The film ends with Davey fighting Hando on the beach after Hando tried to choke the life out of her when he finds out she was the one who called the cops. Hando dies violently with the Nazi dagger he loaned Davy the money for earlier in the film.

The movie is simply powerful and Crowe is chilling as the sociopathic Hando. The acting and direction is excellent from start to finish. The film was shot on 16mm and has a look much older than 1992. Actors Daniel Pollack and Jacqueline McKenzie had an off screen relationship during the filming of the movie. Problems with the relationship as well as Pollock’s attempts to manage his heroin addiction may lhave contributed to his horrific suicide by jumping in front of a train shortly before the film was released. The incident was made into a song by Crowe’s rock band at the time 30 Odd Feet of Grunts and called The Night That Davey Hit the Train. McKenzie went on to a fairly respectable career in Australian film and TV, with some roles in Hollywood as well,  and Crowe to international superstardom.

Below is an MP3 sample of one of the catchy Aryan pop classics from the film.

A LITTLE NEO NAZI BOOGIE WITH

PULLING ON THE BOOTS

DOWNLOAD THIS NAZI FOOT STOMPER HERE

TARZAN AND THE AMAZONS

1945/ Director: Kurt Neumann/ Writers: Edgar Rice Burroughs (characters)/ John Jacoby (writer)

Cast: Johnny Weissmuller, Johnny Sheffield, Brenda Joyce, Henry Stephenson, Maria Ouspenskaya, Barton MacLane, Shirley O’Hara

Tarzan and the Amazons was Johnny Weissmuller’s ninth outing as Edgar Rice Burrough’s jungle lord and his youthful and Olympian physique of 1932’s Tarzan and the Apes have long disappeared, though he is still sturdy and imposing. Also gone is sexy Maureen O’Sullivan as Jane. O’Sullivan quit her role as Jane and Tarzan stayed in the jungle with Boy playing Mr Mom while the film makers sorted out what to do. They needed to replace the irreplacable Maureen O’Sullivan. After a couple films absent a Jane Porter (who is abroad in her home of England, though the original Jane was American) she returns to the film series in Tarzan and the Amazons and is now played by the lovely and capable (but not smoldering, as Ms O’Sullivan certainly was) model Brenda Joyce, who it seemed did much like her stint as Jane all of the time and had a short lived movie career. The film was produced by film maverick Sol Lesser and co-produced and directed by Kurt Neumann. The pair would churn out the last of the great, classic Tarzan films for RKO, from 1945 to 1954, the latter ones starring Lex Barker as the ape man. Tarzan and the Amazons is considered by many fans of the Weissmuller films to be one of the better ones technically and certainly the sets and photography are a notch above many of the earlier films. Under RKO and Lesser the Tarzan films worked on much less of budget than they did under mighty MGM, but the films seem to look and feel more authentic for some strange reason. Though Weissmuller is obviously not inclined to want to do sit ups or skip on second helpings he still does a fine job as the monosyllabic Lord Greystoke. Also returning is Johnny Sheffield as Boy who is getting bigger and less boyish and yet is still curious and susceptible to trusting white men from the outside world.

While rafting with Boy and Cheetah, on their way to greet Jane who has returned from England, Tarzan rescues an Amazon girl named Athena from a black panther. She is injured and he must carry her all the way back to the lost city of Palmyria. It is a city inhabited completely by shapely, beautiful white women, except for the high priestess, played by Russian actress Maria Ouspenskaya, who is weather worn and wise to the ways of the outside world. However they trust Tarzan and so his life is to be spared for entering the forbidden city. Of course Tarzan tells Boy to stay put but he follows and discovers the secret passage through the immense mountain range that surrounds Palmyria.

Tarzan and Boy later meet Jane who is accompanied by the “good archeologist” Guy Henderson and his expedition, which of course contains the necessary quota of greed filled guides who will later do anything for gold, including throw knives in the back of pretty Amazons. The expedition becomes interested in a bracelet worn by Jane, which was dropped by Athena and then given to Jane by Cheetah, and link it to a lost civilization and possible untold riches. Jane, fresh back from Britain and tainted still, argues with Tarzan that he is narrow minded and a poor judge of character after he refuses to lead the expedition to the lost city. This is enough to get boy thinking and he decides to lead the expedition there, as he has, once again, become beguiled by western people and their gadgets. The expedition is course captured and will be sacrificed but noble Sir Guy convinces the high priestess of his sincerity and she agrees to release them all. But the bad guys screw it all up and kill Sir Guy and a few Amazon girls and make off with arm loads of gold. The booty helps to slow them down enough so that they get killed off one by one and a couple wind up in quicksand while a stone faced Tarzan watched them sink.

You would have to be a fan of the Weissmuller Tarzan flicks to really get into it all, and I certainly am. I watched about five of them over the last week and loved them all and will try to get a couple more reviews up over time. The movies were simple, usually aimed at an audience of kids, but always had a clear and direct message about  honor and loyalty to the people who trust you as well as the pitfalls of greed and avarice. And of course, never trust civilized white people, just half naked ones of royal descent who now live in the jungle, or sexy ones of a lost tribe of Anglo Amazons. And of course, always trust your faithful chimp

Tarzan the Apeman

1932/Director: W.S. Van Dyke / Screenplay: Edgar Rice Burroughs (novel) Cyril Hume (adaptation)

Cast: Johnny Weissmuller, Neil Hamilton, Maureen O’Sullivan, C. Aubrey Smith, Doris Lloyd, Forrester Harvey, Ivory Williams

I recently picked up all the Tarzan movies on DVD here in Beijing and have watched them all a couple times except for Tarzan’s New York Adventure which I never really liked even as a kid, but one night I will pop it in and give it a go. Tarzan the Ape Man was the 1st of the Tarzan films from MGM and Johnny Weissmulller at the time was under contract with the BVD underwear company and MGM had to do some quick bargaining to allow BVD’s spokesman to appear clad only in a loincloth.

The movie only generally follows the Edgar Rice Burroughs narrative of the adventures of Lord Greystoke who is the sole infant survivor of a plane crash in the African Jungle, near the fabled Mutia Escarpment. Rather this movie takes up with the arrival of Jane Parker, played perfectly by Maureen O’Sullivan, in Africa to assist her aging father in his duties there. A safari is soon set up to go to the escarpment in search of the elephant’s graveyard, a veritable Fort Knox of ivory. Tarzan comes in to the story gradually and the direction by W.S Van Dyke in some instances is pretty good, but in others pretty shoddy. For instance in the early scenes where the characters are talking about images that are obviously being back-projected as the proportion and contrast is utterly wrong.

Johnny Weismuller plays a great Tarzan, the greatest of them all in the first three films by MGM. This went not without protest from Burroughs who objected to the dumbing down of his character and the fact there were no plans for Lord Greystoke to be anything other than a monosyllabic Adonis. And Weissmuller does look great, as does Maureen O’Sullivan. It is a great little movie that caused a stir in its day. Some interesting things to look for are the trapezes Tarzan uses for vines and the men in ape costumes that resemble in some way the costumes that Stanley Kubrick used for the apes in 2001: A Space Odyssey. We are also introduced the recurring “bad bawana” and “good bawana” characters. Some other cool tidbits is that in no film did Tarzan ever utter the oft quoted line: Me Tarzan. You Jane. Also, there is no such thing as an elephant’s graveyard despite the perpetually generated myth that there is. It was a concoction of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and last, the famous Tarzan yell is the voice of sound man Douglas Sheaer. It is a normal call that is monkeyed with electronically then played backwards.In all these movies my favorite parts are usually the elaborate sets and backgrounds that look simply surreal in black and white.

Tarzan and His Mate

1934/Director: Cedric Gibbons / Screenplay: Edgar Rice Burroughs (characters)Leon Gordon (adaptation)

Cast: Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O’Sullivan, Neil Hamilton, Paul Cavanagh, Forrester Harvey, Nathan Curry

Tarzan and his Mate was the next Tarzan movie from MGM and it surpasses the original by far. It is considered by many Tarzan fans to the best Tarzan movie of all time, hands down. While Weissmuller still plays a simple minded Tarzan there can be no denying the sexual energy between him and Maureen O’ Sullivan. O’ Sullivan appears so scantily clad it is exhilarating for any time in history, much less 1934 The DVD contains the infamous deleted nude under footage of Jane swimming with Tarzan. It is not, unfortunately, really Maureen O’Sullivan. She (ora body double I believe) does flash her breasts as she emerges from the water and the nude silhouette undressing in a tent scene. Her costume was so skimpy and revealing it prompted the creation of the now notorious Hayes Office, a censorship committee that soon had influence over the entire industry. The jungle scenes are more elaborate and the action is directed better by the more visionary Cedric Gibbons though there were conflicts and in early films two other directors were listed at different times. Some people claim that James McKay actually directed the bulk of the film but on the new DVD version Gibbons is the credited director. It was his first directing job, as he was MGM’s brilliant art director prior to this film. To be honest, along with the blatant sexuality of the film there is a rather strong violent aspect to the movie as well and the next two movies were toned down in both areas considerably. There was not much being done in 1934 that was like this one.

The bad bawana is played creepily by Paul Cavanagh. He is looks down on the savage Tarzan as no more than a real ape and spies on Jane as she undresses in her tent. The action involves a return to Africa by good bawana (although in the 1st film I did not think he was so good really) Harry Holt, played again by Neil Hamilton.The “natives” are stereotyped to the point of comedy and makes for many unintentional laughs. Most definitely a great movie with lots of history behind it. Check it out if you like ape men and jungle girls… and who doesn’t?

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