Chuka

I've been in a bit of a movie funk of late. I've given some newer flicks a try and couldn't/didn't get through them. The same for some older entries, movies that just didn't pull me in quick enough. Well, it is as good a time as any to revisit some reviews and give them an old-fashioned update. Today's review, 1967's Chuka, an underrated western I caught for the first time as I was just starting my reviews here at Just Hit Play.

Out of the snow-capped, frigid mountains of the north, a man named Chuka (Rod Taylor) rides south into the desert. A hired gun and a saddle bum, he has not set destination but is quickly realizing he's riding into the beginnings of an Indian uprising. As he rides across the desert, Chuka stumbles across a waylaid stagecoach carrying two women, one a woman from his past many years ago, the beautiful Senora Veronica Kleitz (Luciana Paluzzi). He agrees to escort them to the nearest outpost, Fort Clendennon but has no idea what he's heading into. The fort is commanded by a former English army officer now serving in the U.S. cavalry, Colonel Valois (John Mills), who is ignoring all the telltale signs of the coming uprising. Can Chuka convince the stubborn colonel to do something or is the entire outpost doomed to be wiped out by the warring Arapaho warriors?

This was a Netflix find for me way back in 2009. I'd never heard of it despite its impressive cast, much less seen a single minute of it. It left quite an impression on me then, and it did again on this recent revisit courtesy of Encore Westerns. The biggest reason? Made on the relative cheap, it is B-L-E-A-K. This is one dark, nasty western from director Gordon Douglas. It has the feel of a TV movie, but my goodness, it doesn't pull any punches. 'Chuka' is a tough guy movie for guys. Plain and simple. There aren't heroic good guys or even despicable villains, just flawed folks in a hellish situation looking for some way -- any way really -- to get out unscathed and keep on living. If there's no way out? Well, hell, let's have a bloody finish.

One of Hollywood's more underrated tough guys and one of my favorites, Rod Taylor passed away this past January at the age of 84 after a long, distinguished career. This is a dark role even for Taylor, ranking up there with Dark of the Sun as one of his more highly charged tough guy roles. I like his Chuka character, a reflection of where the western genre was in 1967. He's not particularly heroic, thinks of himself for the most part and has a reputation as a brutal gunslinger. It's a cool part because it is so brutally efficient. He is the anti-hero, a flawed figure, and as far as westerns go, you don't see a lot of main characters who are just what they seem. Chuka is a saddle tramp, a drifter, a killer and trying not to get shot in the back because of his bloody, body-riddled past. Taylor is always an above average screen presence, and he looks to be having some fun with this darker part.

How about the rest of the cast? It isn't a huge cast -- that whole B-movie feel -- but what's there, it's pretty preemo. John Mills is the flawed outpost commander, his checkered past floating over him at all times. Redemption? You bet, no matter the cost. Ernest Borgnine has some fun too in a role he specialized over the years, the tough as nails right hand man, playing Sgt. Otto Hahnsbach, Valois' loyal NCO who's served next to him for years. The always reliable James Whitmore plays Lou Trent, the fort's drunken scout who forms a fast friendship with Chuka upon his arrival. Paluzzi unfortunately isn't given much to do other than look worried/distressed, but dang, she's gorgeous. Also look for Victoria Vetri as her traveling companion, Louis Hayward as the cowardly Major Benton, and Joseph Sirola as Baldwin, the stagecoach guard who finds himself trapped in the fort with all the others.

So that whole bleak angle....yeah, this is one rough western. There are some slower portions -- Taylor and Paluzzi reuniting just ain't as interesting -- but the focus is this isolated, lonely outpost with a small army of Arapaho warriors waiting to attack. The odds are (to say the least) stacked against them. The fort's garrison? From Mills' Valois and his officers down to the enlisted men, these are the dregs of the army, all of them screw-ups, foul-ups, thieves, killers and deserters. A massacre seems impossible unless something is done and done quickly. A brutal knockdown fight between Taylor and Borgnine is an exhausting affair and a testament to the two actors who didn't appear to use ANY stunt doubles. When the action does come along, it is surprisingly graphic. It isn't bloody, but it is quick and hard-hitting and uncomfortable. It's quite an ending.

A hidden gem of a western. Sure, it has some flaws, but I'm glad I caught up with it (again). The claustrophobic fort set is a gem, really giving a sense of being closed in by the surrounding Indians. You get a sense of the coming doom, all of it building to quite an ending. Solid cast, surprisingly dark, a refreshingly brutal change of pace. Well worth catching up with.

Chuka (1967): ***/****
Rewrite of March 2009 review

The Klansman

It seems pretty simple if you ask me. You're making a movie so you want to assemble the best group of talent you can to make a successful movie. Right? Well, sometimes even that isn't enough. Sometimes even a ton of talent can't prevent a stinker. Here we are with another iTunes discovery I found, 1974's The Klansman.

In a small Southern town during the Civil Rights movement, Sheriff Track Bascomb (Lee Marvin) constantly has his hands full keeping the peace. His work is cut out for him with the KKK boasting a strong contingent in the county, but a majority of the population is African-American. The problem? It's the whites who control his job security come election time. It's a lose-lose battle, and it's about to be much, much worse. A white woman is raped by a black man and soon after the bodies begin to pile up until ultimately part of the KKK rapes a black woman. An upcoming demonstration to get the African-Americans in town to get out and vote is fast approaching, and the county has turned into a powder keg just waiting to be set off. Track is in trouble and his saving grace may be a rich local man, Breck Stancill (Richard Burton), who has absolutely no use for the KKK or its "objectives." The problem though...Stancill may be too extreme in his counter to help.

I was born in 1985 so it's difficult for me to get my ahead around the Civil Rights movement. Sure, I can read books, watch movies, shows and documentaries about it, but I'll never really know horrific the time truly was. It is a time period often explored through film, recently with movies like Selma but also including Malcolm X, In the Heat of the Night, Mississippi Burning and many more. This may sound obvious, but if you're going to take on a Civil Rights movie, it should probably have...well, a serious tone. Or at least I'd think so. You don't want to get too over the top. Just let the story and characters speak for themselves. 'Klansman' decided not to go down that route.

Yikes. What a stinker. This racially-charged drama is from director Terence Young who directed far better movies like Dr. No, Thunderball, From Russia With Love, Triple Cross and several others. This is just a lousy movie. It starts with the tone. Frighteningly enough, the racism we see on display from our KKK members was probably pretty accurate. On the other hand, it plays out here in almost cartoonish fashion to the point I was laughing out loud at this dreck. The n-word is used so many times by sneering, driveling hillbilly yokels you become numb to it. And that becomes the issue. 'Klansman' is so overdone and over the top that any potential impact or message is beyond muddled. Instead, it plays out like a spoof of sorts. If the message is 'No one wins with racism'.....well, thanks. Quite the message.

Searching through the iTunes movie library, this one caught my eye because of the cast assembled. Unfortunately, that's as far as it went. I didn't look any further into it, and I most definitely should have. There goes $2.99 (even off a gift card) I'll never get back. The production stories indicated that star Richard Burton needed three bottles of vodka a day to get over a back injury. It shows. Delivering his lines in an odd Southern(ish) accent, Burton mumbles and stumbles his way through the movie in a really bad part. The scary part? Co-star Lee Marvin supposedly matched Burton drink-for-drink and ends up delivering the movie's best performance. His Sheriff is torn between his duty, what he believes, what the job means in support of his family, and what he knows is right and wrong.

Too bad then that Marvin's pretty decent performance is lost in a winding, kinda episodic story that doesn't really know where it's going or how to get there. There are too many characters, too many subplots that go by the wayside. The rest of the cast includes Cameron Mitchell as Deputy Butt Cutt Cates, hamming it up with hate, O.J. Simpson (taking a break from football) as Garth, a rifle-wielding vigilante, Lola Falana as Loretta, a friend of Breck's who becomes a KKK target, David Huddleston as the mayor and KKK head honcho, Luciana Paluzzi (obviously dubbed) as Trixie, the police secretary who has a thing with Breck, and Linda Evans as Nancy, the white woman raped in the movie's opening scenes.

It's just a bad movie that doesn't deserve too much more analysis. Bad script, out of place soundtrack, and an ending that would have been halfway decent if the build-up wasn't so painful. I wouldn't have continued watching if I hadn't paid $2.99 to rent it. Watch at your own risk!!!

The Klansman (1974): */****

The Italian Connection

Yes, I'm pretty cool when it comes to watching movies. Because I've got an odd memory for movies I'd like to see, I have an ever-growing list of films (literally, I've written down a list) I stumble across at Netflix, Amazon, IMDB, Turner Classic Movies and on and on. Usually I limit it to harder to find movies that aren't readily available, movies you're glad you find and usually by accident. I stumbled across 1972's The Italian Connection years ago and was finally able to find a halfway decent, watchable copy.

A low-level pimp, Luca Canali (Mario Adorf) has gotten on the bad side of the wrong people. An American mob boss has put a hit contract on the pimp, claiming that he helped steal millions of dollars worth of heroin as it was being shipped. The boss has hired two American hired guns, Dave Catania (Henry Silva) and Frank Webster (Woody Strode), to kill Luca and to do so slowly, painfully and graphically as a message to anyone else doing the same thing. The hired guns head to Italy to hunt Luca, but the pimp isn't even aware he's in trouble. Has someone been setting him up?

This was a movie that was worth the wait in an odd way. Part of director Fernando Di Leo's unofficial Italian crime trilogy, it's gritty, low-brow in most instances and entertaining in almost all instances. There's just something oddly appealing about the forthright nature of these Euro crime movies. They don't seem to care that at some point in the film, they will almost certainly insult or offend someone. Gratuitious violence, random bits of nudity, the definition of politically incorrect, and the best part is that Di Leo and Co. just don't give a damn. Either you like it or you don't. Simple as that. If you do, sit back and enjoy. If not? No skin off the Italian director's back.

One of the same appeals here for me in these Italian/European crime flicks is a similar feeling I have watching spaghetti westerns. When things weren't always going well in the U.S., many American actors -- some past their prime, others rising stars -- headed to Europe for these audience friendly cult favorites. A German-Italian actor, Adorf really seems to relish the part here as Luca, a pimp but gosh darn it! Just an all-around nice guy! All he wants to do is hang out with his daughter and be civil with his ex-wife (Sylva Koscina). Now that wouldn't be an interesting movie to watch, would it? No, not at all, so we've got to piss off Luca and give him a reason to go on a murderous rampage. With a part that could have been too exaggerated (like his part in Caliber 9), Adorf does a good job of keeping the character grounded in some sort of reality. I only knew him through Peckinpah's Major Dundee, but another solid intro to Adorf.

Years ago when I found this movie via IMDB, it was because of the rest of the cast -- no disrespect to Mr. Adorf. Silva and Strode as American hit men taking it to the road? How can you go wrong? Not surprisingly, Silva is the more showy of the duo, a hard-drinking, hard-living, womanizing killer. Strode is just the opposite, all business with no distractions. Moral of the story though, they work well together as a killing duo. In fact, the story suffers when they're not around, and unfortunately through the middle portions, there is a lot of those situations. A whole movie could have been devoted to them, and I'd be cool with that. Also look for Thunderball co-stars Adolfo Celi and Luciana Paluzzi as an Italian mob boss and the hit men's tour guide of sorts.

Building the story, Di Leo seems to revel in lulling you to sleep...to a point at least. The first 45 minutes are painfully slow at times as characters, setting and background fall into place. The last 45 minutes are an adrenaline rush, one crazy action sequence after another piled on top of each other. Watch one of the truly adrenaline-pumping chases HERE, via car and on foot. The finale too lives up to expectations, Luca playing cat and mouse with Dave and Frank in a junkyard. A flawed crime flick, but a good flawed crime flick and highly entertaining.

The Italian Connection <---trailer (1972): ***/****

The Green Slime

As much as possible, I try to be fair when it comes to reviews. At the same time, so-called and/or believed classics get judged more harshly and more critically because they strive to be better than the norm. Then there's the definite bombs, movies that are awful and revel in their badness. That's why in the end, I feel comfortable giving 1968's The Green Slime a positive rating. Yes, it's bad -- even awful -- but it is amazingly bad.

When an asteroid is spotted careening toward Earth, astronaut and all-around badass Commander Jack Rankin (Robert Horton) is called upon to save mankind. He's quickly transported to a U.S. space station, Gamma 3, commanded by his old nemesis, Vince Elliott (Richard Jaeckel), who's now engaged to Rankin's old flame, Lisa (Luciana Paluzzi), the station doctor. But that's for later! Rankin, Elliott and a team knock out the asteroid in time, but transport a foreign green substance -- yes, the green slime -- back to Gamma 3. The substance grows at an astronomical rate, and nothing seems to stop it. The bodies mount up, and Rankin, Elliott and Co. must figure something out quickly.

Read that plot synopsis and tell me that's not going to be the greatest movie you've ever seen. I defy you to. Supported by MGM and made in Japan, 'Slime' has that cheesy, half-baked look of a movie that cost about $7.38 to make. Any "outdoor" scene is clearly a miniature. When astronauts "fly" I swear you can see the strings holding them up. The set-up shots of Gamma 3 or the asteroid are laughable, and that's what makes this movie great. Making this movie, it had to be known that it would be a steaming pile of mediocrity. Thankfully, the cast, crew and screenwriters (bless their hearts) seem to commit to the badness. It looks cheesy, it is cheesy, and it embraces that cheeseball quality that makes awful movies especially memorable.

It really has it all. You know you're in for a treat when the 1960s rock theme -- listen HERE to the Green Slime theme -- starts blaring over the credits. It is truly an amazing song that hasn't been topped in the 40-lus years since its initial release. As for the story, it's nothing new in the schlock department, combining monsters, stock characters and situations like nobody's business. If you thought the plot sounded oddly familiar, it should. The first 30 minutes are basically Armageddon, and the last hour is The Blob meets The Thing From Another World. That is a deadly trifecta of amazing if you're rolling it all into one movie.

The Green Slime monsters are a sight to behold upon reveal. Originally starting off as slime, they transform by absorbing energy into slow-moving but aggressive killing machines. I'm trying to come up with a fair comparison as to their look, and this is the best I got. Imagine R2-D2 from Star Wars, roll him in with a crazy, one-eyed Oscar the Grouch, and give him a bunch of appendages like an octopus. There you've got your Green Slime monsters. Their appearance makes it seem like a majority of the budget was spent creating them. When the monsters begin to reproduce quickly, the fun....I mean PURE TERROR escalates to alarming levels. The simple solution? Blow them up, well, after running away from them and trying to corner them for 60 minutes or so.

The acting -- used lightly -- is about what you'd expect from a B-movie like this. A TV star, Horton is the wooden Commander Rankin, desperately trying to show emotion....oh, and saving the world. His hair would have made Steve McGarrett from Hawaii Five-O jealous, a perfectly maintained hairstyle no matter how hard he fights the monsters. Poor Richard Jaeckel, he could be a solid actor in the right part, and he's one of my favorites, but this is one of his worst ever parts. Paluzzi too is there as eye candy because in space you wear shiny mini-skirts and look like you're in pained at all times. And of course, what would a bad B-movie be without a ridiculously forced love triangle that lacks any real chemistry? Not an official movie! Also look for Bud Widom as General Thompson, the worried officer back on Earth, Ted Gunther as Dr. Halverson, more interested in the discovery than the danger, and David Yorston and Robert Dunham as subordinate officers on Gamma 3.

Still with me? Congratulations for making it this far. Basically, my message is this. The Green Slime is without question the best movie ever made. Every other film ever made pales in comparison to it. How couldn't it make other movies look bad? It's called The Green Slime! Best watched with a few beers and some friends. Do a shot every time someone gives a thumbs up. It's a can't miss movie, a true classic.

The Green Slime <---trailer (1967): ***/****

Tank Force

Running for two season in the 1960s, The Rat Patrol was a fun, little show following the exploits of the real-life Long Range Desert Group. Yes, it was ridiculous, four men taking on seemingly the entire German army in North Africa without taking casualties, but it was entertaining and a lot of fun to watch. Released in 1958, British war flick Tank Force seems almost like a dry run for the short-lived TV show.

Caught up in a chaotic back and forth battle, two British tank crews, one commanded by an American, Sgt. Thatcher (Victor Mature), and the other by Sgt. Kendall (Leo Genn), are captured by German forces. They are transported to a makeshift prison camp where hundreds of other Allied prisoners are being held in the Libyan desert. Kendall goes along with the flow, joining the escape committee and joining in on the effort to pull off a successful escape. Thatcher on the other hand is looking out for himself, planning his own escape without checking in with the rest of the camp. His efforts piss off the other prisoners, but he has his reasoning. An SS officer is headed to the camp to interrogate Thatcher who has no intention of being around for that questioning.

Directed by future James Bond director Terence Young, 'Tank' is a forgettable if entertaining WWII story. I enjoyed it, but didn't love it and probably won't feel the need to revisit again anytime soon. Part tank battle, part POW escape story, it's heavy on action and short on story and any sort of reality. It is entertaining though, and a WWII story that focuses on the 1942 North Africa campaign is rarely dull. Desert warfare always makes for interesting, unique viewing, and an escape across that desert with murdering Arab tribesmen, Italian and German forces on patrol and waiting is a cool premise.

American and British, a natural and historical rivalry, so in step Mature and Genn. Their dynamic is easily the best thing going in 'Tank.' They both want the same thing but go about it in polar opposite fashion, Mature's Thatcher on his own and Genn's Kendall as part of the team. Only when their backs are against the wall do they decide to work together. Their rivalry actually consists of a handful of scenes where they argue back and forth, but seeing the brooding intimidating American -- with an interesting backstory at that -- and the stuffy shirt, prim and proper British soldier going at it certainly keeps the action going.

Filling out Tank's Rat Patrol is a small but international bunch, starting with Anthony Newley as Pvt. 'Tiger' Noakes, Kendall's driver and all-around optimist. Nothing seems to rattle him, and he's always ready with a joke like most of Newley's supporting parts were. Bonar Colleano plays Walewski, the Polish POW who teams up with Thatcher in his escape efforts. Ready and willing to kill to preserve his own well-being, it certainly adds a darker dimension to the group. Some other familiar faces include Sean Kelly, Percy Herbert, David Lodge and Alfred Burke as the other British prisoners. Future Bond-girl/villain Luciana Paluzzi has a small part to as Carola, an Italian woman aiding the escape effort.

Not surprisingly, the action is what will draw most viewers in. Escaping the prison camp, Thatcher, Kendall and crew cut a swath through North Africa a mile wide, taking out Germans and Italians wherever they go. It's a fun movie overall that isn't great and isn't bad. Entertaining and forgettable but not much else. Probably worth a watch if nothing else.

Tank Force (1958): ** 1/2 /****

Captain Nemo and the Underwater City

First introduced to the world in Jules Verne's classic novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Captain Nemo is one of those great mysterious characters in literature.  In films and television, he's been portrayed by James Mason, Herbert Lom, Omar Sharif, Michael Caine, Patrick Stewart and in 1969's Captain Nemo and the Underwater City, he is played by Robert Ryan. The character as Verne intended it is a mysterious one to begin with, but in basically all of the castings, the character is badly (sometimes very badly) miscast.  As much as I love Robert Ryan, this is one epic case of miscasting.

One of Hollywood's more underrated actors, Ryan was a legend, starring in countless classics, able to play both good and bad alike. He specialized in torn tough guys, men with checkered pasts and fiery emotions. He's one of my favorites, but having him playing Nemo was just a bad idea.  For starters, there's that whole physical resemblance thing. Nemo is the son of an Indian Raja, and Ryan is very, very American-looking. None of this is meant to rip on Ryan as an actor. Far from it, mostly because this is an awful movie, and Ryan's casting is just one of many huge holes this movie has.

A ship sailing off the coast of England late in 1864 sinks, the passengers desperately trying to cling to wreckage in the rough waters. A handful of survivors, including a United States senator, Robert Fraser (Chuck Connors), are rescued by several scuba divers under the water. They're brought on-board the Nautilus, the submarine of the mysterious and highly intelligent, Captain Nemo (Ryan). Glad to be alive but confused as to Nemo's intentions, Fraser and Co. go along with the captain as he returns to an immense underwater city he's constructed on the ocean floor.  Nemo insists that no one ever leaves the city, no one returning to the cruel, hypocritical world that they've left behind. Is this life so bad though? Fraser struggles with the decision, going back and forth on what to do.

I was mostly drawn to this movie -- which I'd never even heard of before seeing it at TCM's schedule -- because of the cast, but it took about 10 minutes for me to figure out this wasn't going to be a very good movie.  Some money was clearly spent on the production, but director James Hill just doesn't know what he's doing here. This lavish underwater city looks ridiculous, the costumes and sets are some weird mix of futuristic and bad late 1960s style, and the script is so all over the place that the movie never gets into any rhythm.  That enough for you? It's not campy enough to be so bad it's good, and it is so dull at times that you can't just go along for the ride.

No saving grace here from the cast, but I don't think it is their fault.  It's hard to believe Ryan starred in The Wild Bunch the same year he did 'Nemo.' As great as he was in that movie, he's equally bad here, phoning in his performance. Connors too is miscast as the U.S. Senator on some highly important, secret and dangerous mission for the U.S. government. His hair is about 12 feet high, and he just doesn't work as a Senator. There's also Nanette Newman as Helena, one of the survivors and a single mother, the beautiful Luciana Paluzzi as Mala, a school teacher in Nemo's city, John Turner as Joab, Nemo's right-hand man, Bill Fraser and Kenneth Connors as the gold-hungry Swallow brothers, and Allan Cuthbertson as Lomax, a claustrophobic survivor looking for any way out of this paradise city.

What works against the cast (because there is talent here) is a story and a script that just doesn't know what it wants to do or where to go. A long 10-minute sequence has Nemo giving the survivors a scuba-tour of his city, pointing out fish and fauna in his best Jacques Cousteau impression. Nemo and Helena have a budding relationship as the mysterious captain possibly looks for a wife. The Swallow brothers spent most of their time looking for gold mined from the ocean floor, planning how to escape with as much as they can. Fraser falls for Mala and debates staying with her, also watching out for Joab who sees the senator as competition. There's both too much going on and not enough. I suppose none of these storylines are enough to carry a movie on their own so instead we get tidbits of all of these less than interesting stories.

Mostly though with this movie I was just bored. A movie can be really bad, but as long as it is somewhat entertaining I'll go along for the ride.  Not a long movie at just 105 minutes, I found myself fast-forwarding through basically every underwater sequence. The miniatures of Nemo's city and submarine are pretty poorly handled, and the submarine chase in the finale should have been so much cooler. Instead, the movie limps over the finish line.  Bad, bad and bad. Steer clear.

Captain Nemo and the Underwater City <---trailer (1969): */****

Sea Fury

Most well-known for his performances in a handful of John Ford movies, Victor McLaglen was one of the great character actors to come out of Hollywood's Golden Age. In the Ford movies, his theatrics were often a little too much, a little too jokey for my liking, but it doesn't take away from a great career.  It was one that saw him star in over 100 movies (silent and sound), even winning a Best Actor Oscar for his performance in The Informer.  He died in 1959 from a heart attack, just a year after completing his final film, 1958's Sea Fury.

It can be sad watching actors and actresses in their last films, and for McLaglen, that's true on several levels.  In his 70s by the time this movie was made, he looks every inch of 70 if not more.  He's playing a character he often played, a rough, brawling and boozing man who's led a tough life but plans on going out kicking, not lying back in bed.  McLaglen just doesn't look himself though right from the start. What makes it worse is that through all his trademark blustering is that's nearly indecipherable, mumbling his way through lines to the point it's hard to comprehend a thing he says. The performance is far from bad, but it's not up to his standards that he established over a 30-plus year career.

Captaining the Fury II, a tugboat salvage vessel, Captain Bellew (McLaglen) leads his ship into port in the Bay of Biscay hoping to get help for his long-time first officer, severely wounded in an accident.  It's in port that he meets Salgado (Roger Delgado), a poor man who tries to set up Bellew with his very beautiful young daughter, Josita (Luciana Paluzzi). The weathered old captain tries to buy young Josita's affections with many gifts and presents, but she wants nothing to do with him, much less marry him as her father intends.  Instead, she falls for Abel Houston (Stanley Baker), a new crew member aboard the Fury, who returns her affections. Going behind the captain's back, Abel starts to see Josita, knowing that eventually everything with come crashing down. As the confrontation comes to a head, the Fury receives a radio report of a wrecked ship carrying a valuable cargo. It's a race to the wreck with a rival ship, the tension momentarily thrown by the wayside.

A film generally forgotten over the years, 'Sea Fury' is an interesting piece for several reasons. If nothing else, it is McLaglen's last film, the last chance viewers have to see him before his death a year later in 1959.  More than just that though, it's dark look at action on the high seas through the eyes of a salvage vessel (a shady occupation if there ever was one). Director Cy Endfield's film has not aged well over the years, but that could just be the print I saw on TCM. Shot in black and white, 'Fury' still is a pleasure to watch. The little, tucked away coastal village in Cataluna is idyllic, like a picture of a time long since past. The musical score is Spanish-themed, a Spanish guitar playing lightly in the background, giving a soothing feeling to the story that will not end well. More on that later.

I've made no cover-up about my dislike for the love triangle plot-line in movies, TV, books, and generally...pop culture.  It's a lazy way to create conflict among a group of characters, and is about as hackneyed a topic as one you'll come across.  If you are going to go down that route, at least do it the right way, and 'Fury' definitely tries.  It is clear from the start that Paluzzi's Josita is only going along with her father's wishes to make him happy. She has no intention of ending up with McLaglen's much older, unattractive brawler.  There's the tension because Baker's Abel clearly knows it too.  This isn't a lovey-dovey triangle where the cute girl has to decide who she'll end up with. You fear for Baker's life, knowing if McLaglen's Captain finds out, he's going to take him out.  The tension and fear is genuine, even if the execution in the end disappoints.

The three main leads -- McLaglen, Baker, and Paluzzi -- are an interesting bunch. McLaglen was the most established, Baker a rising star, and Paluzzi was fast-becoming a sex kitten on-screen.  The dynamic among the three of them drives the movie, always keeping the story flowing along.  I talked about McLaglen's performance already, disappointing for a last hurrah.  Baker is the more prototypical lead, young, handsome, and strong.  Paluzzi -- at 21 years old -- is drop dead gorgeous, plain and simple.  As an actress, she's still raw, but the potential is there.  Also look for Gregoire Aslan as Fernando, a fellow member of the crew, a young Robert Shaw as a conniving officer on board, and British character actor Percy Herbert as an insubordinate member of the Fury's crew, among others, none of whom I recognized.

The tension is there, the potential for a great ending just waiting to be tapped, and then? Nothing. Happy ending. Everyone walks off into the sunset, happy with how things turned out.  As Mr. Cynical, I Love Downer Endings, it seemed obvious to me to kill Baker's character during a dangerous salvage mission near the end (there's some great footage here of an open sea rescue, very exciting and expertly handled). Even Endfield shoots the action like Baker's Abel will be killed, but he ends up making it. Happy with his big score, Bellew gives Josita to Abel, and credits roll. It was a wasted effort in my mind only because the build-up keeps working toward a downer ending, and then pulls the rug out from under you.  Still a decent enough movie, but not nearly what it could have been.

Sea Fury (1958): ** 1/2 /****

Thunderball

Catching up with all the Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton James Bond movies I'd never seen straight through over the years, I watched each and every one last year, reviewing many of them here.  Some were good, one or two classic Bond, and the others pretty bad.  I came to like Moore and Dalton as 007, and I've always been a fan of Pierce Brosnan and more recently Daniel Craig.  But no matter how many more Bond movies there are to be made, Sean Connery will and always will be the best James Bond around, including one of his best entries and one of my favorites, 1965's Thunderball.

This would be Connery's fourth movie in the franchise and also the first one after the hugely successful and still very popular Goldfinger, regarded by many as the best movie in the entire franchise.  So right away, the stakes are raised.  Director Terence Young does not disappoint here with that perfect mix of action and humor, exotic locations, gorgeous Bond girls, and crazy gadgets.  It is an underrated Connery Bond movie, often lost in the shadow of Goldfinger, but it is a strong example of what the Bond movies were before Moore came along and turned it into a more cartoonish series.  It is certainly better than the next two Connery entries and remains one of my favorites.

A NATO plane transporting two nuclear bombs has gone off the radar and disappeared, and it's not long before SPECTRE has delivered an ultimatum to the world; deliver $280 million dollars in a week or both bombs will be detonated, one in an American city, the other in Europe.  MI6 calls in all their 00 agents to investigate with James Bond (Connery) sent to scenic Nassau in the Bahamas.  He's following a hunch that the sister of the pilot of the missing plane may know something.  The girl's name is Domino (Claudine Auger), the mistress of a mysteriously rich man, Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi), who owns a luxurious seaside villa where the missing bombs may have been hidden.  But with time running out, can Bond find the bombs' location and save thousands of lives in the process?

Besides the obvious positive of Connery playing Bond, the earliest entries into the Bond franchise -- mainly the 1960s movies -- are just better movies overall.  They have that great retro feel to them, giving a window into a past decade that just can't be duplicated.  Of course, the Nassau locations don't hurt in the least too.  If a plan to take over the world can be feasible, these earlier movies buy into that.  The Connery movies are serious without taking themselves too seriously. There is that humor throughout with some great one-liners, but never too many of them.  Add in John Barry's phenomenal Bond theme and an all-around great soundtrack (genuinely one of the series' best) with Tom Jones' title song (listen HERE) and you've got a winner all around.

With any series where multiple actors have played the same role, you're going to get varying opinions on who was the best.  A majority seems to agree that Connery was the best Bond, myself included.  If possible, you could take bits and pieces from Lazenby, Moore, Dalton, Brosnan and Craig to make the perfect Bond.  On his own, Connery does a fine job.  He's tough as hell, able to fight his way out of any situation he gets himself into.  He's funny, able to throw one-liners whenever needed like 'I think he got the point' after killing a henchman with a harpoon.  And because he is the original ladies man, Connery is smooth with the ladies.  By Thunderball, he's got the character down to an art and knows what works and doesn't work.  And through all the craziness Bond movies offer, that lead has to be good, and Connery's the best.

For his supporting cast, it's one of the more underrated ones.  The SPECTRE villains were always great, and Celi's Largo certainly qualifies.  Unlike later Bond villains, he's not a lunatic, just a mastermind able to coordinate highly-involved plans with split second timing.  As for the Bond girls, Thunderball has quite the trio, starting with Auger as the very sexy Domino (she should just wear the black and white bikini at all times) and continuing with another Italian beauty Luciana Paluzzi as Fiona Volpe, a curvy SPECTRE assassin, and Martine Beswick as Paula, Bond's Nassau assistant.  And what would a 007 movie be without the support staff including Bernard Lee as M, Lois Maxwell as Moneypenny, Desmond Llewelyn as Q, and Rik Van Nutter as Felix Leiter, CIA agent and Bond accomplice. A typically solid supporting cast for James Bond.

Where Goldfinger started the trend of the slam-bang finish, Thunderball kicks the door wide open with its finale, an extended underwater sequence as Largo's henchmen fend off the attacks from American/MI6 agents, harpoons, knives and weapons galore available.  Watch the whole thing HERE if interested. There is some great stuntwork on display in the underwater battle, and it provides one of the better endings for a Bond movie.  Not quite Goldfinger overall, but Thunderball is still one of the best.

Thunderball <---trailer (1965): ****/****