The Gumball Rally

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Director: Charles Bail
Written by: Charles Bail, Leon Capetanos
Cast: Michael Sarrazin, Norman Burton, Gary Busey, Raul Julia

Year / Country: 1976, USA
Running Time: 102 mins.

In the seventies, the classic ‘Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash Run’ took place. One long run from New York to Los Angeles, organized by Brock Yates who later wrote a movie script about it. This became The Cannonball Run, a 1981 comedy starring Burt Reynolds. Two films about this race preceded it; Cannonball! and The Gumball Rally, both released in 1976.

This movie is the best of the three. It beats The Cannonball Run because it lacks the corny jokes. It is actually pretty funny at times and features some great characters. Most memorable are Gary Busey as a crazy mechanic and Raul Julia as the overly romantic Italian driver Franco. There are female drivers as well. One of them is a young Susan Flannery AKA Stephanie Forrester from The Bold and the Beautiful. Yes, really!

Besides the effective use of humor, the driving action beats that of Cannonball!, because you get an actual sense of high speed. Especially during a spectacular sequence in New York, where the race begins and in which the contestants drive through the city with at least 100 miles per hour. All the drivers use amazing cars, including a Cobra, Ferrari, Porsche, Dodge, Rolls, Mercedes, Bentley and Camaro. One guy, Lapchick the Mad Hungarian, even drives a Kawasaki bike. An awesome sight for racing fans as this movie is to the fans of this movie genre.

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Biography: Charles Bail AKA Chuck Bail (1935 – 2020) has an impressive show business career that spanned from the fifties up until the nineties. He basically did everything from performing to directing and being a stunt coordinator. He started his career as stuntman and guest star on many famous western shows. After that, he directed episodes for famous television series such as Knight Rider and Dragnet. He also directed several films, such as the blaxploitation classic Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold. Bail is currently retired and lives in Texas.

Filmography: Black Samson (1974, short), Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold (1975), The Gumball Rally (1976), CHiPs (1981-83, TV episodes), Manimal (1983, TV episodes), Knight Rider (1985/86, TV episodes), Choke Canyon (1986), Dragnet (1989-91, TV episodes), Adam 12 (1990/91, TV episodes), Baywatch Nights (995/96, TV episodes), Street Corner justice (1996)

Crime Guys (2005)

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld


‘The true story of the original Kings of Cool’

Directed by:
Trevor King

Written by:
Trevor King

Cast:
Ray Wise (Sam), Andrew Divoff (Eddie), Jay Acovone (Molina), Trevor King (Rick), Shadoe Stevens (Steve Skylar), Nick Di Brizzi Jr. (Joey), Harry Karp (Ralphie), Bob Bennett (Jerry), Michelle Pierce (Dawn Skylar), Jenna Lee (Mrs. Skylar)

I picked up this DVD because I am a gangster film completist, not because it looked particularly good. It defied my expectations…in the worst possible way.

The main character is Sam, a charismatic performance by Ray Wise (Robocop, Twin Peaks, best thing about the movie). He is part of an unlikely idiotic gang of criminals, who come up with the plan to kidnap the daughter of a gameshow host.

Then Sam gets the unexpected visit from Rick, his son from an unmarital affair he had. He takes an immediate interest in father-son bonding, which seems peculiar for a sociopathic gangster who we’ve just seen eating a pizza after murdering a police officer. When Sam involves Rick in the kidnapping plot, things get really ridiculous really fast.

How come Rick is given all the crucial jobs in the kidnapping scheme just to name one thing? He has to seduce the target Dawn (who was gonna do it before Rick joined?) and he has to play a detective to convince the gameshow host to pay up. And how come these guys are so immensely stupid? They make those black robbers from Snatch look like criminal masterminds. There are way too many mistakes to list them all.

The actor who plays Rick is writer / director Trevor King. It is a miracle he got funding for this failed Reservoir Dogs rip-off, which is also known as Sharkskin 6. That aside, how did he get a cast and crew? Did nobody read the script and ask some critical questions? This movie should only be viewed as a curiosity. Trust me, it is U-N-B-E-L-I-E-V-A-B-L-E.

Rating:

Quote:
JOEY: “You sure this guy is not an undercover cop? I’ve seen that shit on Reservoir Dogs.”

Trivia:
Ray Wise’s daughter makes a cameo appearance in the film as one of the store robbery witnesses.

Four of the Apocalypse

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Director: Lucio Fulci
Written by: Ennio De Concini, Bret Harte (Story)
Cast: Fabio Testi, Lynne Frederick, Michael J. Pollard, Harry Baird

Year / Country: 1975, Italy
Running Time: 104 mins.

Lucio Fulci delivers a stylish and accomplished entry into the spaghetti western genre with this gripping tale of survival and vengeance. The story begins in a Utah jail cell, where four unlikely companions find themselves thrown together: card shark Stubby Preston, a pregnant prostitute named Bunny, a perpetually drunk Clem, and the enigmatic Bud, who claims to see spirits.

Their uneasy camaraderie is soon tested when masked men unleash a massacre in the local saloon, forcing the quartet to flee into the desolate frontier. Along the way, they encounter the sadistic bandit Chaco (played with chilling intensity by Tomas Milian), who subjects them to harrowing acts of brutality. As they navigate this land of the damned, their journey transforms into a desperate search for salvation – and ultimately, revenge.

Once banned in the U.K. for its purportedly extreme violence, the film’s shock value seems relatively restrained by today’s standards, particularly within Fulci’s notoriously graphic oeuvre. However, it still stands out as one of the maestro’s finest works, largely due to its compelling narrative and strong performances from the ensemble cast. Fulci expertly balances moments of stark brutality with a hauntingly subdued atmosphere, enhanced by the light yet unsettling musical score.

Rather than approaching this film for its controversial reputation, viewers should appreciate it as a showcase of Fulci’s skill when paired with the right material. For anyone doubting his craftsmanship, this is a vivid reminder of his ability to tell a gripping, multilayered story with style and conviction.

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Biography: Lucio Fulci (1927, Rome – 1996, Rome) originally studied medicine but quickly turned to filmmaking instead. He started his film career with directing comedies, musicals and spaghetti westerns. Later he turned to Italian shock horror films and made a name for himself as the goriest director ever. His international career came off the ground in 1979 when he directed Zombi 2, an unofficial sequel to George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, which had been released in Italy under the title Zombies. Fulci died from diabetes in 1996.

Filmography (a selection): The Thieves (1959), The Jukebox Kids (1959), Getting Away with It the Italian Way (1962), The Strange Type (1963), The Maniacs (1964), 002 Operation Moon (1965), How We Stole the Atomic Bomb (1967), The Conspiracy of Torture (1969), A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (1971), Don’t Torture Donald Duck (1972), White Fang (1973), Challenge to White Fang (1974), Four of the Apocalypse (1975), Silver Saddle (1978), Zombi 2 (1979), City of the Living Dead (1980), The Beyond (1981), The New York Ripper (1982), Evil Eye (1982), The New Gladiators (1984), Dangerous Obsession (1986), Zombi 3 (1988), Demonia (1990), Door to Silence (1991)

Django Kill… If You Live, Shoot!

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Director: Giulio Questi
Written by: Franco Arcallo, Benedetto Benedetti, María del Carmen Martínez Román, Giulio Questi
Cast: Tomas Milian, Ray Lovelock, Piero Lulli, Milo Quesada

Year / Country: 1967, Italy / Spain
Running Time: 117 mins.

This spaghetti western by director Giulio Questi has nothing to do with the popular Django series. The studio just called it that to cash in on the success of the Django household name. However, its quality is certainly equal or better than most of the Django cash-ins.

Tomas Milian plays half-breed gunslinger ‘The Stranger’, who is betrayed and left for dead by his fellow outlaws, after they stole a considerable amount of gold. With the help of two Indians, he is brought back to life and he heads to the town ‘The Unhappy Place’ to take revenge on the bandits who double-crossed him. This is the beginning of a bizarre, surrealist journey filled with torture, graphic violence and sexual depravity.

Django Kill… If You Live, Shoot! is perhaps best described as Django on peyote. It features homosexual cowboys, scenes of brutal horror and many weird images, such as ‘The Stranger’ rising from the ground. Somewhere I suppose, it includes some sort of message about how gold causes greed and death, a bit like The Treasure of Sierra Madre. This never becomes exactly clear though, due to the weird hallucinatory editing.

The film goes on a bit too long and its shock value is perhaps a bit overdue. However, this is worth a look for spaghetti western lovers with a taste for the bizarre. The cinematography by Franco Delli Colli (Rocco and his Brothers) is excellent and so is the unique atmosphere created by director Questi. The uncut version is now available!

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Biography: Giulio Questi (1924, Bergamo, Italy) is an Italian director, screenwriter and cinematographer. He started his movie career with an uncredited role in Fellini’s La Dolce Vita. He is considered an original filmmaker, who performs a lot of tasks alone. He has worked in different genres such as thriller and horror, but is most famous for his spaghetti western escapade Django Kill… If You Live, Shoot!.

Filmography: Giocare (1957, short), Latin Lovers (1961, segment: ‘Viaggio di nozze’), Nudi per vivere (1964, doc), Amori pericolosi (1964, segment ‘Il passo’), Django Kill… If You Live, Shoot! (1967), Death Laid an Egg (1968), Arcana (1972), Vampirismus (1982), Quando arriva il giudice (1986, mini-series), Don’t Open the Door for the Man in Black (1990, TV), Il segno del commando (1992, TV)