Bert I. Gordon poster art

The internet tells me that today is director Bert I. Gordon's birthday and who am I to argue? I love so many of his movies regardless of their variable quality that I'm shocked to learn that he seems to have completed a new film set to be released this year! How did this happen? It titled SECRETS OF A PSYCHOPATH and sports what looks like a typical straight-to-video cast so I'm not expecting much, but that was always a good rule of thumb for checking out one of Mr. BIG's efforts.  Fingers crossed! 

THE RIFT (1990) - Wait- What!

How did I not know about this film? Holy Crap! This is the film the amazing (if you know what I mean) director Juan Piquer Simón made after the incredible (if you know what I mean) SLUGS (1988) and I didn't even know it exited! How I managed to look over his IMDb page and not gravitate to this tale of a damaged submarine and its rescue from the bottom of the sea I will never know.  J.P. Simón created the brilliant (if you know what I mean) PIECES (1982) which left an indelible mark on the young me and I can only expect the same thing from this film. Right? It stars R. Lee Ermey,  Ray Wise and even has Spanish actor Tony Isbert who popped up in several Paul Naschy films.  Plus, its streaming on Amazon Prime for free so I cannot avoid it and its awesomeness. I'll report back!

It was also known as ENDLESS DESCENT! Look at the poster art! There are tentacles! I cannot wait! 

Matt Helm - MURDERERS' ROW (1966)

Coming off the (relative) high of enjoying the first Matt Helm movie a few days ago I jumped into the second one with a certain amount of enthusiasm. MURDERERS’ ROW came out only a few months after THE SILENCERS showing that the studio money people figured that the public was hungry for more spy movies – and they were. But I suspect that if most spy movies were as lifeless and insulting as this sad effort the genre would have collapsed much faster than it did.

I had been warned that the general consensus was that the first of this series was the best of the four and I fear they may be right.  The level of quality drop-off on display here is embarrassing. Not that the first film was brilliant but at least it hung together and, although overlong, it had SOME forward momentum. MURDERERS’ ROW is one of the most lackadaisical spy adventure movies I have ever seen. The story doesn’t even really get underway until forty-five minutes have crawled by! The script is so half-assed that there are moments when the way we are lead from one plot point to the next is by Dean Martin spouting a charming (?) quip. At times the movie seems to have contempt for its audience’s intelligence with the highlight being when Martin and Ann-Margret switch from driving a black convertible to Helm’s pimped out spy-mobile IN THE MIDDLE OF A CHASE! No – they didn’t stop one car, get out and get into the other car- they are just magically in the tricked out spy car in the space of an edit!  Did they expect us to miss this? Was it an in-joke? Were we supposed to laugh? If so there was no indication in the movie as it is never referenced at all! And this idiocy is on top of several instances of Martin just magically knowing things that he has no way of possible knowing such as the location of other characters, the likelihood of certain illogical actions and the motivations of people he has never met. This is incredibly sloppy freakin’ screenwriting or filmmaking (if this was done in the editing process instead of baked into the words on the page) and it shows that they were not trying to make a credible movie. Damn, this movie is irritating for anyone with a brain.

Don’t get me wrong- I don’t mind a silly spy movie every now and then. A spy spoof or a completely comedic take on the genre can be great fun and my love of the Euro-Spy sub-genre is public knowledge. But this film compounds the error of the first Helm film by pretending it’s a serious spy thriller while having nearly every detail played for laughs. Karl Malden as the head bad guy seems to be making a serious attempt at villainy but the efforts of his organization and its goal are stupid. Ann-Margret as the daughter of a kidnapped scientist is energetic and earnest (and mind bendingly gorgeous, of course) but her peril is played as a punchline more often than not. The film seems to be trying to slide a lot of its offenses past us by relying on the screen charm of Dean Martin and the delectable body of the lovely Ann-Margret. I like both of these things – in different ways, of course – but neither of them can carry an entire film. Ugh! I wanted this to be a fun film but what I got was an exercise in frustration. Dammit! Are the other two movies in this run as damned bad as this?

Music from THE SILENCERS (1966)

As I just can't get the cool score for this film out of my head - and am frustrated by a hunt for it online - here is a cool video of scenes from the film with a fun bit of the the music. Yeah, baby!

Matt Helm - THE SILENCERS (1966)

I recently picked up used copies of the first two Matt helm spy novels from 1960. Author Donald Hamilton's terse, engrossing stories have turned out to be excellent and serious examples of espionage adventure and really are perfect for the movies. I intend to gather the rest of the series and read them as I can. They are a great alternative for me since I've read the original James Bond books several times over and this character could be seen as the American answer to Fleming's creation. Truth to tell, I had been curious about them for years because of the four Dean Martin films made from the series in the late 1960's. The movies occasionally popped up on television when I was a kid and they looked like exactly what they are- jokey Bond rip-offs with Martin having a high old time shooting bad guys and bedding lovely ladies. I have decided to give the movies a serious watch to see what I think of them and how they stack up to the books.

THE SILENCERS was the first of the series and although I find it very entertaining it shows that the producers had no real desire to craft a serious DR. NO style film. Well- at least most of the time. The film's biggest flaw is that it has some odd tonal shifts that keep it from being as good as it could be. The script takes elements from the first Helm novel Death of a Citizen and later entry The Silencers, jumbles them together and slings it out there. The story they come up with works for the most part giving Martin ample time with ladies, plenty of chances to smoke & drink and, on a few occasions, smack around gun happy criminals. The women on view are gorgeous (Daliah Lavi, Stella Stevens, etc.), the sets lavish, the characters fun and the cinematography colorful but the aforementioned tone shifts are off-putting. The swings into silly ideas and sillier set-pieces makes it impossible to get too invested in the supposedly dangerous goings on so the film has to please by keeping us dazzled with its other elements. For the most part it does amuse but I think the running time is a bit excessive and the movie could have been about ten minutes shorter. If some of Stella Stevens' clumsy comedic pratfalls had been deleted things might have seemed less unrealistic and we might have worried about her fate.

Overall, a fun start to the series but these are certainly not going to be in the same league as the novels or the competing Bond series from the same period. 

Paul Naschy DVD Releases in Spain

This is a look at the Spanish DVD releases of eight of Naschy's films by VellaVision. These photos come to us from The NaschyCast's third man - Dan Fisher, who is lucky enough to have these discs. Of course, the only problem for those of us without fluency in Spanish is that these DVD (as amazing as they are) have no English language options at all! Surely some American based company would be willing to partner with our European friends to bring these mostly never released in the USA movies to the Region 1 market! I'm looking at you Scream Factory. 

NaschyCast # 48 - COMANDO TXIKIA (1977)

Sometimes it’s the Principle of Moments that rules the day. This episode marks the first Docu-Drama we’ve covered and since I can’t imagine a reason we’d ever cover another one it is also probably the last. I mean, do we need to cover ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN or SWORD OF GIDEON? Then again – what other podcast is covering those movies? That's food for thought. Anyway! Back on point!

This time we cover a crime film that plays as close to a documentary as the filmmakers could get. COMANDO TXIKIA relates the year long story of the ETA terrorist team that carried out the 1973 assassination of Spain’s president Luis Carrero Blanco. The film strives to stick rigorously close to the known facts and presents its tale with interesting detail. Perhaps too much detail at times? Well- we will discuss that. This was Naschy’s third collaboration with the film’s director and we get another good performance from actor Tony Isbert who we praised in CROSS OF THE DEVIL last month. The lovely Julia Saly makes an all too brief (and pointless) appearance which causes a verbal detour that your silly co-hosts have travelled before. We also delve into the surprising historical fidelity of the explosive end of the movie while making absolutely no attempt to avoid spoilers – so you have been warned.

The mailbag section is overflowing again this month but feel free to add your voice to the program at any time. The email address is naschycast@gmail.com or we can be reached over on the FaceBook page as well. 

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