Impasse

One of the biggest stars of the 1970s, Burt Reynolds was the Man, plain and simple. He was the breakout star in 1972's Deliverance, made the fan-favorite Smokey and the Bandit in 1977 and parlayed his success into the even bigger 1980s with all its bad sequels and awful flicks in general. Before he was a known star though, Reynolds worked his way up the ladder in the 1960s with some starring TV roles and a handful of leading roles in films, like 1969's Impasse.

So I've mentioned before there's nothing wrong with a B-movie, right? There really isn't.  Think of a low-budget movie made without any hopes of turning out a classic finished product.  The cast will almost certainly feature some big names, and some other names of actors you might not know but you'll certainly recognize them from other supporting roles. Throw in a mix of humor, action and sex, and there you go. You've got your B-movie.  All those elements are there with Impasse, but I didn't end up enjoying the movie anywhere near what I thought I would.

Heading his salvage business in the Philippines, Pat Morrison (Reynolds) has possibly stumbled onto the biggest find of his career. He has found out the location of a hidden cache of World War II gold on the island of Corregidor where retreating US forces in 1942 hid anything they couldn't ship out. The only problem? Pat has the general location, but four army vets all hold the clues to the exact location. He's spent months assembling the group (Lyle Bettger, Rodolfo Acosta, Clarke Gordon, and Vic Diaz) and now stands poised to get his hands on the gold if he can get just get past a ring of Filipino security on Corregidor which is easier said than done. His plan becomes murkier when Pat meets, Bobby (Anne Francis), the daughter of one of his crew.

My head kept going back to the same thing repeatedly as I watched this movie. It should have been better. It just should have. A B-movie about a heist of long-forgotten WWII gold in the Philippines sounds like the perfect schlock of a story. And Burt Reynolds is starring in it?!? Oh, count me in.  But in turning that story into a feature length movie, director Richard Benedict instead opts to add all these disparate elements that don't work together.  In a movie that isn't particularly long at just 100 minutes, but with all these wide-ranging subplots, I'm guessing maybe 30 minutes is actually spent on the gold heist.

So let's have some fun with all these pointless asides the story takes, shall we?  Let's start with Reynolds and Francis who have little chemistry together.  Francis looks confused in general, seemingly questioning how she ended up in a movie like this.  Then there's Penny (Joanne Dalsass), a young lesbian hippie who stalks Francis's Bobby. She's really nice about it though so don't worry. Bobby is a pro tennis player, and Penny follows her around spouting hippie mumbo-jumbo. Bobby's father (Gordon) is kidnapped so Reynold's Pat has to track him down from evil "journalist" (<---you read that right), Wombat (Jeff Corey). Oh, right, the gold heist. There's gold hidden in artillery shells in a maze of underground bunkers, and each of these vets knows part of the location. The heist ends up feeling like a forgotten piece of the story, and then the movie ends in about as anti-climactic fashion as is possible. Yeah, good times.

A known name if not quite a star yet, Burt Reynolds is a bright spot here.  He certainly shows off the potential he had to play a leading role, especially in an action movie with some comedy here and there. His Pat Morrison is that conniving rogue you can't help but like, doing whatever he can to make some cash. The anti-climactic ending is somewhat funny because of Reynold's reaction, but only to a point. As for the crew, all-around reliable bad guy Bettger is the racist Hansen, Acosta is the stereotypical Apache, Draco, spouting 'Ay Chihuahua' whenever possible, and Diaz is the sniveling black market dealer, Jesus, who does nothing when he finds out Pat is sleeping with his wife, Mariko (Miko Mayama). Corey I suppose qualifies as a straight bad guy, looking to be having some fun as Wombat, a shady fella who is up to no good in whatever he's doing.

While this is by no means a classic, the movie isn't all bad.  In all the departures and asides from the story at hand, the movie is set in the Philippines and thankfully was filmed there instead of a Hollywood backlot.  So the story may drift too much for my liking, but it's nice to look at. The Philippines are beautiful. That's something, right? About midway through the movie, there is a very long chase sequence -- just a foot race basically -- between Reynolds and one of Wombat's henchmen. There's nothing fancy about it, just two guys going absolutely nuts running through the back alleys and dingy Manilla streets. Reynolds also does most if not all of his own stunts the whole movie, adding to his badass quota.

The movie is a stinker, if a moderately entertaining stinker. Just don't expect a classic. Sorry, I couldn't find a trailer or clip of any kind.

Impasse (1969): **/****