Highway 301

I was worried about 90 seconds into 1950's Highway 301. Real worried. This crime thriller from the Age of Film Noir looked to be diving into the genre flick...with a warning that crime is BAD. Oh no! Worse? Those warnings come from the real-life governors of three states. So immediately a story that sounded like it had a ton of potential was turning into something not so appealing. Did it drive out of the nasty detour? Thankfully, YES.

It's the early 1930s and a gang of vicious killers and bank robbers are cutting a swath across a three-state area including Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. No job is too big or small and no life is worth more much to this small gang of gangsters that's been dubbed the Tri-State Gang. At their head is an escaped convict, George Legenza (Steve Cochran), who leads the gang with a brutally efficient, sinister hand. If anything (ANYTHING) gets in the gang's way, he'll plug it with a bullet and move on no questions asked, no emotions hanging in the air. The gang's dubious exploits and a trail of dead bodies has caught the eye of the F.B.I. and law enforcement agencies all over the three state area. Legenza and his gang haven't been too interested in hiding their faces, and that decision may come back to bite them. Time is running out and the gauntlet is getting tighter and tighter.

Right up there with war, western and sci-fi flicks, one of my favorite genres is and has been the film noir genre. This 1950 crime thriller from director Andrew L. Stone isn't an out-and-out film noir entry. Instead, it has that distinct noir feel -- mood and style against a dark, often nighttime backdrop -- mixed in with a more straightforward crime thriller. This is based on a true story (read more about the gang HERE) so 'Highway' has the distinct feel of a crime thriller documentary, almost like something TV's Dragnet would focus on in the next two decades. We get that fly on the wall feel. We see both sides, crooks and cops, with characters often addressing the camera directly, especially those on the law enforcement side. It is a style that finds a groove between the noir genre and the more straightforward crime thriller angle, and all for the better.

That blending of genre works because....well, this is a particularly nasty movie for a 1950 audience. Yeah, 1950s film noir and crime thrillers were particularly dark, but there was almost always some flawed, imperfect anti-hero who you could slightly root for. The focus here in 'Highway' does detour some from the gang but not a lot. This is a movie about a murdering, ruthless bloody gang. Cochran is a vile, nasty scene-stealer. An actor who never became a huge star, usually starring in B-movies and appearing on countless TV shows, Cochran is the perfect villain here. His Legenza -- an escaped convict with murder and burglary raps on his record -- is emotionless, his brutal crimes not fazing him in the least. He kills because he doesn't want to get caught. It is a business decision and little else. Something in his way? With the snap of a finger, Legenza will knock you off. Just a terrifyingly effective bad guy who doesn't get the attention he deserves in the genre.

Watch out for the rest of the Tri-State Gang too though. Cochran's Legenza is the head of the snake, but this isn't a bunch to take on lightly. Also look for Robert Webber and Wally Cassell as the most visible of the gang, Legenza's most trusted men. Neither man is as efficiently and brutally cold as their gang leader, but it's close. Adding an interesting angle to the gang is the wives of the members, including the cynical, smart-mouthed Virginia Grey (with Cassel) and innocent Canadian woman Gaby Andre who marries Webber not knowing what her newlywed husband's occupation truly is. It's a cool change of pace within the genre-bender, showing female characters amidst the gangland chaos. Not as visible as the other parts of the game, also look for Richard Egan and Edward Norris to round out the gang.

Director/writer Stone is at the helm of a surprisingly good, interesting flick here. It crackles along at 83 minutes, covering a lot of ground and mixing in some robberies and heists with some shootouts, betrayals and chases along the way. It's never really in doubt how this will end once law enforcement (including lead officer Edmon Ryan) gets heavily involved, but it remains solid throughout as we see exactly how this gang will meet its end. When it comes along, it is a very satisfying finale. Not a well-known film, but one that's easy to recommend. A very dark, cool change of scenery for an at times familiar genre.

Highway 301 (1950): ***/****

Wild Geese II

Stumbling across the DVD for 1978's The Wild Geese about five years ago, I was one happy movie fan. An all-star cast and wall-to-wall action in a men-on-a-mission movie, it quickly became one of my favorite movies. A sequel was made some seven years later, but it received generally negative reviews and hasn't even approached the cult status of the original. It is one hard to find movie, but I kept on looking just the same and found it, 1985's Wild Geese II.

A former soldier, Lebanese-American John Haddad (Scott Glenn) has become an effective if high-priced mercenary. Working out of London, he is approached with a seemingly suicidal mission. One of the last remaining Nazis, Rudolf Hess (Laurence Olivier), is wasting away at Spandau Prison in West Berlin having lived in almost complete isolation for 40-plus years. This group is willing to pay whatever it takes to get Hess out, basically offering Haddad a blank check for his services. Looking over the layout of the prison while also planning ahead for what he hopes is an easy getaway, Haddad agrees to take the job. He recruits an old friend and fellow mercenary, Alex Faulkner (Edward Fox), to help him with the job, but upon arriving in Berlin, the duo finds out that their mission isn't so secret. Several underworld types and other intelligence representatives are very aware of what they're up to. Can they still pull off the job?

If I love a movie -- maybe even just really like it -- I'm usually psyched to find out there's a sequel out there for my viewing pleasure. Without giving away any major spoilers, I can say that the original didn't seem to leave much room or storylines for a follow-up story. The only real link (other than an oddly pointless prologue showcasing the original) is that Fox's Alex is the brother of Richard Burton's character from the first movie. Other than that? It's just your typical mercenary action movie, this one from director Peter R. Hunt. While it is far from a classic action movie, I did enjoy it for what it is; a somewhat deliberately paced men on a mission movie with a unique location (the Berlin locations especially stand out). Maybe it's better if it was a stand-alone film, but it ain't so here we sit just the same. Don't expect too much and you should get some entertainment out of it.

Besides the differences in story, the biggest gap between the original and sequel is the lack of star power. Where the first movie had Burton, Roger Moore, Richard Harris and Hardy Kruger among others, the follow-up doesn't have many names that jump off the page. Glenn is solid if unspectacular as Haddad, the chiseled, efficient mercenary who hasn't met a job he won't take on. It's a good anti-hero part, but I never found myself rooting for him. Fox is more of a scene-stealer, hamming it up as the malaria-ridden Alex, a fellow mercenary who always seems to be in the right place at the right time. Robert Webber makes a quick appearance as McCann, the leader of the group who wants Hess with Barbara Carrera as his on-site specialist working with Haddad.

Enlisted to write a follow-up novel to his Wild Geese, author Daniel Carney turned around and wrote The Square Circle, the basis for this sequel. I've yet to read it (currently seeking out the novel), but I'm very curious to see how much the movie differs from it. For starters, the reasoning here for busting Hess out of Spandau seems forced to say the least. Webber's McCann works for a major TV news network who wants to interview Hess about people he worked with, people with higher up positions in other country's governments. Really? A TV network organizing a prison breakout? I don't buy it. There had to be a better choice to reason paying a mercenary to bust a Nazi war criminal out of prison. Second, the ending is brutal. It basically washes away the previous two hours, throwing it in the nearest garbage can. It is a lazy ending, wrapping things up because....well, because. It just ends. Weak stuff.

There is the potential here for a pretty decent movie, and I say that having liked it in spite of its flaws at times. All the intrigue and suspense works well as Haddad must elude hired Russian killers while also dealing with Russian (Robert Freitag) and English (Kenneth Haigh) officials, juggling it with how to manage the breakout and getaway. Even look for future Capt. Picard Patrick Stewart as a Russian general! The mission itself over the last 40 minutes is the high point by far, Haddad's intricate plan coming together detail by detail. Too bad the follow-up is just plain bad.

One other thing, more wasted potential as Haddad puts his team together to pull off the mission. Along with Fox's Faulkner, there's Ali (Stratford Johns), the well-connected underworld member, Hourigan (Derek Thompson), the hateful IRA gunman, Murphy (Paul Antrim), the drill sergeant, Michael (John Terry), the TV network rep, Pierre (Malcolm Jamieson), the driver, and Joseph (David Lumsden) and Jamil (Frederick Warder), two Middle Eastern men. Little background is given to any of these characters unfortunately, leaving more untapped potential.    

Wild Geese II (1985): ** 1/2 /****

Dollars

I think heist films can unfairly get criticized at times. They're not quite low-brow, but there's something simple and straightforward about them. Now with that said, there have been some very talented directors who have taken a crack at a heist flick like Jean-Pierre Melville, Jules Dassin, Stanley Kubrick, Quentin Tarantino, and in a surprising twist, Richard Brooks in 1971's Dollars (also released as $).

An American banking consultant working in Hamburg, Germany, Joe Collins (Warren Beatty) has helped one highly respected and well-regarded bank install a state of the art security system. German banking allows individuals to keep security deposit boxes that no government or police enforcement agency can examine, a law that several shady characters are taking advantage of....and Joe knows it. He's working with a call girl, Dawn (Goldie Hawn), who has done some "recon work" to root out some of these shady types with deposit boxes at Joe's bank, and together the duo has found three such individuals. Joe knows all the ways around the newly-installed security features, but he also has an ace up his sleeve. If they can pull off the job, the victims aren't going to be able to go to the police with their stolen money now....well, stolen. If only they can pull it off.

I thought I was in for it early on in this Brooks-directed heist flick. The reviews I'd perused claimed this was a comedic-drama, a spoof of heist films. Spoofs? Oh, no, I'll pass thank you very much. With the cast and director involved though, I had to give it a chance. I was then even a little bit more confused when the movie starts, and it didn't feel like a spoof AT ALL. It seemed like the polar opposite, a twisting, turning story involving an opening segment with countless characters and situations that were completely unexplained. Who's that?!? What's he up to?!? I'm confused!!! Well, thankfully things right themselves, and this ended up being a very enjoyable, smart heist flick with just a touch of humor to keep things light.

In 1971, there weren't too many people around cooler than Warren Beatty. Okay, check that. That's true now too -- Beatty is awesome no matter the age, year -- but it was especially true in 1971. His cool was an effortless one, an ability to put an audience at ease almost at will. So while his part as Joe Collins isn't a flashy part, it's a cool part. He has a couple noteworthy scenes including his explanation of the intricate security system and later a rant about the science and percentages of bank robbing. As his co-star, Hawn was the weak link here. She's a little too shrill, a little too goofy for her own good. Cute as a button? Yes. As the duo's three targets, we've got Sarge (Scott Brady), a longtime Army soldier stationed in Germany working the black market, Attorney (Robert Webber), a lawyer who's been shorting a Las Vegas casino for years, and Candy Man (Arthur Brauss), a smuggler who specializes in everything from drugs to cash. Also worth mentioning is Auric Goldfinger himself, Gert Frobe, as the trusting bank manager Joe works with.

So while I liked this heist flick -- and more as it developed -- there's some flaws I have to bring up that bothered me. For one, the spoof criticism isn't valid in my mind. For the most part, it's a pretty serious movie. Why then have Little Richard sing two songs on the soundtrack? They feel out of place and reek of early product placement to me. I usually like composer Quincy Jones' soundtracks, but this one fell short for me. And then there's just the general weirdness. In one scene, we see Hawn's Dawn with Webber's character pre-hook-up. She dresses as a fireman to "put out his fire" while also spraying him with a water bottle. Maybe it's just the angle (and/or my dirty mind), but the angle Brooks chooses to shoot from sure makes it look like Miss Hawn is peeing on Mr. Webber. Oh, the Candy Man also gives his cat a dose of acid -- I suppose to see if its the real stuff....it is -- and disposes of the body in his apartment heater. Weird much?

Now that we've got that unpleasantness out of the way, let's get back to the positives. I liked that Brooks shot on location as much as possible in Hamburg, Germany and Sweden. It feels authentic. The best thing going though is two separate set pieces that help bring the movie up a notch or two. The first is the actual heist in Joe's bank vault. The plan is ingenious, and without giving away any spoilers, an extended sequence that is dripping with tension. Okay, here's a hint. He actually pulls the job with hundreds and thousands of people watching him do it. Confused? Don't be. It's a gem of a scene with a great payoff.

Then there's the finale. If an epically well-done and choreographed heist/robbery scene wasn't enough for you, the ending should satisfy your desire. Joe and Dawn are on the run with two of the three bad guys hot on their tails. In a sequence that runs an entire 30 minutes, we see a chase with barely 15 words spoken. It sounds simple, but a chase with two people chasing one person can be an incredibly exhilarating sequence to watch. No frills, no crazy twists, just one person running for his life with two people chasing him close behind. It rivals a similar chase in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid but with a seriously darker edge. It keeps going and going to the point you feel a little tired just watching it. Credit to Brooks, Beatty, Brady and Brauss for keeping the momentum going, never wavering at any point. A few oddities aside, I liked this one a lot. Highly recommended.

Dollars (1971): ***/****

Harper

I grew up watching Paul Newman in classics like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, Cool Hand Luke and several other movies that I still check in with every so often. But as I've been writing these reviews over the last year-plus, I realized I just hadn't seen a lot of Newman's 60-plus feature films.  What was to blame?  The type of movies had something to do with it, otherwise I would have stumbled across some of them here and there.  But I think the biggest reason, and it hurts to say it is because a fair share of Newman's movies in the 1960s and 1970s were real stinkers.  Sorry for the harsh language.

The only other Newman flick I've reviewed here was an awful biblical epic, The Silver Chalice, so I don't want it to seem like I'm ragging on the man.  Where The Silver Chalice was just all around awful, 1966's Harper is all around bad, but it's not Newman's fault.  Anything but really because he's basically the only positive I took away from this convoluted mystery that not surprisingly receives good reviews from fans and has achieved a bit of cult status over the years.  It's the type of thing where I finish a movie, read up on it afterward and am completely thrown off by fans' love of the movie.  Did I miss something?  Maybe, but I don't see myself revisiting this one anytime soon.

Tipped off by a lawyer friend (Arthur Hill) about a possible case, private investigator Lew Harper (Newman) begins to look into the background and evidence.  A rich woman (Lauren Bacall) claims her husband has disappeared -- she doesn't really care, just curious -- under some mysterious circumstances and wants to know what happened to him. Harper somewhat unwillingly agrees to the job offer because after all, a payday is a payday, and the rich wife promises to pay handsomely.  But with an odd, eccentric cast of characters surrounding the husband in his daily life, Harper quickly figures out that there is more going on than meets the eye.  He's stumbled into something that is bigger than he ever thought.

Pretty straightforward plot review, don't you think?  It's also one of the most vague reviews I've ever written because this movie just doesn't know where it's going or how to get there.  Director Jack Smight has made one of the most convoluted stories I've ever seen. Countless characters are thrown at the screen, and Smight sees if they stick before dispatching them or keeping them involved.  Harper follows "the clues" which I never saw and inexplicably pops up in random places, no explanation provided.  At 121 minutes, the story had plenty of time to develop somewhat coherently, but that never comes to fruition.  As a topper, convoluted isn't enough.  It's also dull in its chaos, and still somehow easy to predict.  A real doozy of a story.

The saving grace is Newman as Lew Harper, a role he would play once more in a 1970s sequel.  Newman is at his best -- for me at least -- when he gets to do the anti-hero with a touch of humor and drama, that feeling of frustration with the world.  He's mainstream, but he's got a bit of a rebel streak in him, like Cool Hand Luke, Hud, Butch Cassidy, or John Russel in Hombre.  That's what Harper is, a man frustrated where his life has ended up.  He's good at the job he does, but what does he ever really accomplish?  He tracks down cheating spouses, works in seedy motels, and generally hates what he does.  This possible kidnapping/disappearance case is different and maybe could give him a shot at something bigger, something better

I can't add another saving grace (can there be two?) because what I'm about to mention is only partially positive.  Newman is the star, and the opening credits proceed to introduce a long alphabetical list of guest stars.  Count me in, I'm all for glorified, extended cameos, and this list is impressive.  Along with Bacall and Hill, there's Robert Wagner, Shelley Winters, Strother Martin, Pamela Tiffin, Julie Harris, Robert Webber, Harold Gould and Janet Leigh along for the ride.  How great is that cast in support of always reliable Newman?  Pretty can't miss, right?  Well, for the most part this impressive cast is given nothing to do.  They drift aimlessly through the story, and Newman's Harper somehow pieces all these weird events together until there's some sort of resolution that didn't really make sense to me.  Great cast, sure, but a wasted one.

So what else to say? Not much. This movie is dull, confusing, a waste of the talent involved, and almost completely worth ignoring other than Newman's title role.  It took me a handful of viewings to get through it because I struggled sticking with it for more than 15 or 20 minutes at a time.  Thank God for the fast forward button.  I'd have never made it otherwise.

Harper <---trailer (1966): */****

The Silencers

Last month I reviewed Murderer's Row, the second of four Matt Helm movies.  Starring Dean Martin, these were spoofs that had some fun with the spy movie that was at the height of its popularity thanks to the success of the James Bond franchise.  In the last week or so, TCM had a spoof night and wouldn't you know it, another Matt Helm movie was on.  Having already jumped into these movies mid-series, I caught up with the first Helm movie, 1966's The Silencers.

Mulling over what to write about this one, all I could come up is that this wasn't going to be a very long review.  Judging by the two movies I've seen in the series, these are basically cookie-cutter variations on themselves.  To a point, the Bond movies are like that too, but there's almost always something unique, something different in each entry.  Not so much with the Helm movies.  I didn't think Murderers' Row was that good, but I gave it a lukewarm positive review because it was still mildly entertaining.  As for The Silencers, it wasn't nearly as good, not even close.

Brought out of retirement, ICE agent Matt Helm (Martin) is given a dangerous mission that involves the prevention of the destruction of the world....well, sort of.  Supervisor MacDonald (James Gregory) informs him that an organization called Big O (oh, that's too easy) has a plan to explode an atomic bomb over an American nuclear site in Alamogordo, and that Helm must stop the plan.  Working with an old partner/fling, Tina (Daliah Lavi), Helm heads to meet an agent who may have key information on the plan, but she's killed and the only suspect is a ditzy redhead, Gail Hendricks (Stella Stevens). Working with Gail, all Helm has is a phrase mumbled before the agent's death to work off of and time is running out.

This is one of the more pointless plotlines I've ever come across in a movie.  It takes quite awhile to even get the story to a point where something is revealed, and then Helm spends the next half hour seducing every woman he meets.  Then with 15 or 20 minutes left, it seems director Phil Karlson remembered they had to wrap things up and gets back to the story.  Everything is wrapped up nicely with a bow, and voila, let's move on to the next 3 Matt Helm movies.  I'm not looking for a Bond-esque twisting and turning storyline, but something, anything at all would be nice.

This was Martin at the absolute height of his popularity with his Rat Pack fame turning into a variety show that aired for almost 10 years.  The same thing I wrote for Murderers' Row applies here with Martin playing himself and doing a lot of drinking and seducing whenever he gets the chance and singing much of the soundtrack -- including one good dig at Frank Sinatra.  I'd have to go back and watch, but I'd bet no more than a minute goes by whenever he meets a woman from being introduced to kissing her.  If you thought James Bond got around, all I can say is check out Matt Helm.  And then there's the drinking, including one very dated scene where Helm is guzzling scotch while at the wheel of his -- wait for it -- secret agent station wagon dubbed 'the sex wagon' by Stevens' Gail.  Not exactly an Aston Martin if you ask me.

With that flimsy storyline, it seems a waste to misuse this great cast.  Gregory is the straight man, always shaking his head at Helms' antics, and Lavi is the sex kitten with a past with Helms.  In the few movies I've seen with her, Stevens shows a knack for comedic timing, but here she's the clueless ditz along for the ride.  Of those movies, this does continue a trend of having her in the slinkiest costumes around.  Also here for this debacle are Robert Webber and Arthur O'Connell as O agents with Victor Buono as an Asian O mastermind behind the diabolical plan.  None of these typically solid actors is given much to do and are generally wasted.

There are some funny moments, like a gun that fires backwards and turns Stevens into a hardcore spy too once she figures it out, but overall this movie is easily forgettable.  All I'm looking for in a spy spoof is some laughs here and there, but even in that department this one fails.  Now I'm wary of checking out the other two Matt Helm movies.  If nothing else, they can't be as bad as this one.

The Silencers <----TCM clips (1966): * 1/2 /****

Don't Make Waves

When it comes to movies, I can B.S. my way through a lot of different films, westerns, war, action, adventure, and comedy to sound remotely intelligent. Then there's those genres that I've never really had much of an interest in and typically avoid the bubonic plague, stuff like musicals, horror, musicals, torture porn, and even musicals. One I've always been aware of but had no real interest in investing any time was a staple of the 60s (so I hear) was the beach/surfing movie. My previous knowledge extended to a Family Guy spoof so really involved as you can see.

Not having ever sought out a beach movie, I stumbled across one on TCM last night called 'Don't Make Waves' released in 1967. The listing sounded stupid enough -- a swimming-pool salesman gets mixed up with beauty queens and bodybuilders when he falls in love -- and the cast didn't sound half bad so I gave it a shot. That's not fair I guess, the two leads sounded interesting, Tony Curtis who I wouldn't typically associate with a light-hearted beach movie, and Italian beauty Claudia Cardinale, an actress I often associate with darker, more serious movies. So with little expectations, I jumped right in.

Traveling to California in his beaten-up, broken down VW Bug, Carlo Cofield (Curtis) pulls over at a hillside rest stop overlooking the Pacific for lunch, only to have his car roll down the mountain and blow up when a woman's car's bumper hooks his and carries it away. The woman, Laura Califatti (Cardinale) offers to bring Carlo to her apartment while she finds the insurance papers. Of course, she can't find the papers so he stays over that night and is woken up by some incessant knocking at the door. Laura opens the door for Rod Preston (Robert Webber in top form a-hole mode), the married man she's having an affair with.

Rod wastes little time kicking the half-naked Carlo out of the apartment, forcing him to sleep on the beach. He wakes up early the next morning and decides to go for a swim, only to be knocked out by a surfboard belonging to a bikini-clad skydiver, Malibu (Sharon Tate). Waking up to see her, Carlo is quickly head over heels and decides he's got to break Malibu and her bodybuilding boyfriend, Harry (David Draper), up so he can swoop in. Carlo's best option? Blackmail Rod into giving him a job with his swimming pool company and begin to woo Malibu. That enough for you? I just wrote two whole paragraphs about the plot in a beach movie, and I'm pooped.

That's just skimming the surface of what's going on in this always entertaining and often ridiculous 97-minute beach movie. Director Alexander Mackendrick made some good movies in his short career, Sweet Smell of Success and The Ladykillers among others, but this one is all over the place. The first 30 minutes are a good start that provides some actual laughs, but once Carlo's plan goes into action the story goes all over the place. Famous ventriloquist Edgar Bergen makes an odd appearance without his dummy as an astrologist going by the name Madame Lavinia, and then Joanna Barnes pops in here and there for a few scenes as Rod's ignored wife.

There are some genuinely funny scenes, but the story bounces around so much it's hard to remember them. Everything leads up to an uniquely bizarre ending as the various storylines come together to be resolved, in where else? A seaside house about to slide down the hill end over end into the ocean. Let's face it, you get some good thinking done in a situation like that. With all this craziness going on, it would have been nice for even a little background. Curtis' Carlo goes from down on his luck dupe to a sophisticated con man in the matter of a scene or two, no explanation given. What gives?

As for what pulled me in, Curtis and Cardinale are good leads. I've always been a fan of Curtis as a comedic actor, and he doesn't disappoint here. Cardinale is drop dead gorgeous, and this is one of the few early movies where she wasn't dubbed so you get to hear her heavily accented English. Mackendrick also displays Cardinale in various stages of undress throughout, but one-ups himself with Sharon Tate. Almost always in a bikini, Tate gets an extremely subtle trampoline jumping scene that goes on for nearly two minutes. Before her career was tragically cut short when she was murdered by the Mansons, Tate clearly made an impact judging just by the amount of fan videos put up on Youtube for her part as Malibu.

Now with all this said, complaints, bitching, criticisms, I was entertained from start to finish. It's a stupid movie with so much going on that a fair share of things gets lost along the way. Come on now, there's Tony Curtis, Claudia Cardinale, gorgeous southern California locations, body builders, bikini-wearing skydivers, Edgar Bergen 'playing' a girl, and Jim Backus playing himself. How can you lose? Scary thought, this was based on a book which I might just have to check out. If curious at all about this odd little gem, here's Part 1 of 10 at Youtube with the Byrds singing the theme.

Don't Make Waves <----trailer (1967): ** 1/2 /****