The Wicked Lady (1983)

"Not quite as historically accurate as CARRY ON DICK"

Where to start with Michael Winner’s remake of THE WICKED LADY for Cannon Films? For many the words ‘Winner’ and ‘Cannon’ in the same sentence will be (more than) enough. The 1945 version was panned by the critics on release, made a star of Margaret Lockwood, and was a huge financial success for Gainsborough Pictures. Over the years it has come to be regarded as a bit of a classic of a bodice-ripper, with Lockwood’s cleavage being deemed too racy for the American audience who had a more covered-up version shot for them. 

Michael Winner’s THE WICKED LADY is not a classic of anything.

"Don't worry, you won't be in this film for much longer"

That doesn’t mean you won’t have fun with it, though. Jack Cardiff’s photography is excellent, the locations are great and Winner has put together an interesting cast. Sadly, that cast isn’t given the best direction, the framing of shots doesn’t have the best direction, and all those naked young ladies running around have I presume had some kind of direction. But not the best.

We’re in a slightly bizarre version of seventeenth century England where normally single-firing muskets can shoot several times without needing reloading, rich men and women wear the most enormous hats, and naked girls come running right at the screen if Michael Winner’s name appears.

For goodness' sake, Michael...

Glynis Barber plays Caroline, except for the bits where she has a stand-in. You’ll be able to tell these because the shots are filmed from what Michael Winner thinks is far enough away (it isn’t) and because we keep cutting to the stand-in’s much bigger breasts and then back to poor old Glynis obviously with her bra still on.

Caroline is getting married to Ralph (Denholm Elliott). To celebrate this union she books an overdressed pantomime dame to come and overact in a melodramatic manner whilst wearing a variety of outrageous over the top outfits that can barely fit inside a carriage, presumably as after-wedding entertainment. Faye Dunaway arrives instead but nobody seems to notice. 

"I'm the Wicked Lady!" "Oh no you're not!" "Oh yes I…" etc

Soon wicked Faye has seduced Ralph with the old ‘I’ve fallen off my horse’ routine and is enjoying the life of a posh wife, which includes putting up with dotty old Joan Hickson (mouthing her own dialogue I suspect) and manservant John Gielgud (you can almost see the tears in his eyes when he’s not almost but not quite successfully looking for the odd cue card). 

When Prunella Scales wins Faye’s brooch in a card game, and Winner’s use of repetitive voice-over reminds us of facts we were only told a couple of minutes ago, Faye decides to dress up as a highwayman using yet another outfit she must have brought with her in a massive furniture lorry that has to be parked around the back of the building, and off she goes to get it back.

Michael Winner attempts 'interesting' shot. Joan Crawford looks on.

Thus her adventures in Michael Winner land get underway, including hooking up with highwayman Alan Bates, whipping a topless Marina Sirtis (all uncut in this version for those ‘sophisticates’ among you), slowly poisoning John Gielgud (Gielgud Still Lives! should ideally be shouted out regularly during viewings of this), and having a final scene of which Joan Crawford would have been proud and extremely envious. 

Once again Mr Winner effortlessly emphasises the most important component of this scene

Second Sight’s disc comes with no extras, but to be honest with all that going on you really don’t need any. THE WICKED LADY is quite possibly the most fun you can have with a Michael Winner film. It’s much funnier than his comedies and no doubt the inspiration for numerous late-night drinking games. If not then it should be. Like I said, the cast is great but they aren’t reigned in at all, with Dunaway in particular so over the top (emulating her hairstyles in many scenes, in fact) that it’s impossible to take anything she says or does seriously. Definitely one to watch over and over again. With the right sort of friends, of course, or they won’t be your friends anymore. 

Michael Winner's version of THE WICKED LADY is out on DVD from Second Sight on Monday 4th July 2016

The Ninja Trilogy (1981 - 1984)

A glorious slice of 1980s exploitation entertainment comes to UK Blu-ray and DVD courtesy of Eureka, who have managed to provide us with three sparkling transfers of films many of us will only have seen on rather blurry VHS.

Before you tuck into the films, however, make sure you read C J Lines’ booklet notes, which will contextualise nicely for you the general looniness that was Cannon Films and the reasons why they made three films they called a trilogy despite there being no continuing characters, no connecting plot situations or anything else other than the word ‘Ninja’. Oh, and Sho Kosugi, who is very good, even if he is playing an entirely different character in all three.

We begin with ENTER THE NINJA (1981) in which Franco Nero comes to the aid of his old war buddy by turning into a stunt double and fighting the forces of evil Ninjadom. And what evil Ninjadom! Well actually it’s just Sho Kosugi but he’s bloody good and the fight sequences are superbly choreographed (also by Kosugi). Christopher George shines as the campest of villains while Susan George looks rather bewildered to be there (but not as bewildered as she actually would be a couple of years later in Kevin Connor’s peculiar HOUSE WHERE EVIL DWELLS). Overall, ENTER THE NINJA is a perfectly respectable action piece, poor old Franco’s dubbing and stunt doubling aside.

It’s the ‘sequel’, REVENGE OF THE NINJA, that alone is worth the price of this set. The acting is terrible, but here we have an exploitation movie that gives its audience exactly what it wants: lots and lots of ninja action, superb stunt sequences, plenty of fights, and every ninja accoutrement in the (probably made up) ninja book. Kosugi is the hero this time, pitted against evil American ninja (non-actor and frequently replaced by stunt doubles whenever the mask is on) Keith Vitali. First-time director Sam Firstenberg gets everything right, showing off the talents of the crew who had honed their skills on the first film. There’s also a great buzzing synthesiser score from several people, including W Michael Lewis who worked on the music to SHOGUN ASSASSIN.

So, one good movie and one great movie. NINJA III: THE DOMINATION isn’t so much a case of the quality going down, but the quite exemplary and lunatic way in which it manages it. Combining elements of ninja movies (of course) with the star of Cannon’s two BREAKDANCE pictures (because they’d been very successful) and adding dollops of POLTERGEIST and THE EXORCIST (what?), NINJA III is a very odd beast. Indeed we shall never see its like again, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t exquisitely entertaining to the right kind of perverted palate. Telephone repairwoman and aerobics instructor (I’m not making this up - but someone at Cannon did) Lucinda Dickey becomes possessed by the spirit of the dying Black Ninja after he’s gunned down by police. 

Driven by a vendetta, bad eighties music, a hairy boyfriend and some painful-looking bikini bottoms, Lucinda is soon looking a bit pasty-faced as she bumps off the Black Ninja’s killers. Of course, (all together now): Only A Ninja Can Kill A Ninja! So back comes Sho as yet another different character to do the decent thing and look as bewildered as we already all are when the Black Ninja’s spirit leaves Lucinda, enters his own dead body and reanimates it in time for a final smackdown. There is no NINJA IV

Eureka’s triple movie set is spread over two Blu-rays. The films look marvellous. ENTER THE NINJA comes with a trailer as extra, while both REVENGE and NINJA III have Sam Firstenburg commentaries.  REVENGE has a little filmed introduction from him and there’s a trailer as well. 

A guilty pleasure, (and absolutely a pleasure), THE NINJA TRILOGY is a fine presentation of a very peculiar ‘trilogy’ of films, from a very peculiar company. 

Eureka Films are releasing THE NINJA TRILOGY on dual format Region B and Region 2 Blu-ray and DVD on 18th January 2016

Electric Boogaloo: The Wild Untold Story of Cannon Films (2015)

The Cannon Group, Inc Presents: A Golan-Globus Production. 

        If you’re a film fan who grew up in the 1980s you probably saw that credit more than a few times, usually on video rather than at the cinema, and if you were a fan of exploitation oddness Cannon's movies probably formed part of your regular viewing. Loved (by fans) and loathed (by critics, other film companies and pretty much anyone who despised their anything-goes attitude to film), there’s no arguing that the Cannon name, like Hammer before them, became a byword for a very particular and unique kind of product, one where the quality varied as enormously as the quantity of movies they produced during their existence.

Menahem Golan does Ken Russell, or at least he thinks he does

This entire review could consist of just a series of stills from the worst, craziest and most bizarre of Cannon’s output and it still would not do justice to what it was like growing up in a decade when video was young and every other cassette in the rental shop seemed to feature ninjas, breakdancing, Chuck Norris, or the promise of all three - in a sequel to a part one you’d never even heard of. Now Mark Hartley, the man responsible for the excellent documentaries NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD (about Ozsploitation) and MACHETE MAIDENS UNLEASHED (exploitation cinema in the Philippines ) as well as the cracking remake of PATRICK from a few years ago, has put together what may well turn out to be the ultimate talking heads documentary on this near-legendary film company.

What Cannon thought people wanted to see in the late 1980s

 
We kick off with the roots of Cannon (before it was bought by the infamous team of Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus), when all the company did was produce English language version of Swedish softcore porn films like Joseph Sarno’s INGA. Then it hit serious financial difficulties and was bought by the man who directed THE APPLE, and his cousin. You might like to go and read my review of THE APPLE to give you some idea of how utterly insane it was to allow someone who had that movie in their head to run a movie production company. 

Victim of BREAKDANCE 2 ELECTRIC BOOGALOO!

After that Cannon went nuts producing everything from Chuck Norris action pictures (MISSING IN ACTION, INVASION USA, DELTA FORCE), Ninja movies (ENTER THE NINJA, RETURN OF THE NINJA, NINJA III: THE DOMINATION & AMERICAN NINJA), crazy big budget SF (LIFEFORCE), and a string of actually rather good movies (RUNAWAY TRAIN, Zefferelli’s OTHELLO) before plunging all their money into SUPERMAN IV and a film about arm-wrestling lorry drivers starring Sylvester Stallone.

A true star. The director was truly something else.

With such material to talk about it would be virtually impossible not to make a fascinating documentary about all of this, but we all know that worse has happened in the past. Happily, however, Hartley’s documentary is just excellent, relying very heavily on numerous interviewees that include actors (Lucinda Dickey, Sybil Danning, Bo Derek, and Laurene Landon actually setting fire to a Cannon film to show what she thinks of them) directors (Sam Firstenberg, Boaz Davidson, Luigi Cozzi and Pete Walker) and many others. 

Everyone wants to see Franco Nero as a ninja! 

Over the course of nearly two hours Hartley paints a picture of a remarkable, and remarkably bonkers, movie company that constantly stared up at the stars even though it barely made it out of the gutter, ending up by flushing itself down the drain with its own financial mistakes. It’s never less than fascinating, and completely essential viewing for anyone who watched and loved  Cannon product in their heyday. It may even have you hankering to watch some of Cannon's movies again, or possibly feeling relieved that you don't have to.

Metrodome are releasing ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: THE WILD UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS on Region 2 DVD on 13th July 2015

The Delta Force (1986)

      Who are you going to call when a planeload of American tourists is hijacked by Arabian terrorist Robert Forster (?) and his hirsute sidekick? Why, Chuck Norris’ DELTA FORCE of course! Not that Chuck’s in charge - that honour belongs to Lee Marvin in his final film role. In fact at the beginning, after a sequence presumably filmed to reassure us that the film is going to have some action in it (it takes a while to get going after that) Chuck resigns from his post. But it only takes the power of network television and ten minutes of missing his old buddies for him to come back. I suspect the lure of his motorcycle with rockets on that he gets to use in the climax has something to do with it as well.

In many ways, THE DELTA FORCE reminds me of Euan Lloyd’s production of WHO DARES WINS - the British movie about the SAS that starred Lewis Collins. Both are based on real-life events, both give the terrorists a fair old bit of screen time, and both take a little bit too long to get going. While it’s commendable to spend a while on the plane establishing the hostages as real people (and getting your money’s worth out of Martin Balsam, George Kennedy, Susan Strasberg, Shelley Winters and the like) there’s a lack of balance here that made me feel I knew and understood the terrorists better than I did the good guys, who have absolutely no character development at all. 

THE DELTA FORCE is a Cannon production, and is actually directed by co-producer Menahem Golan - he of THE APPLE infamy. Apart from the pacing issues he actually manages a pretty good job, with some well-staged action sequences, getting the most out of his stellar cast (most of whom I imagine were available for a day) and making very good use of the aeroplane he must have borrowed. Sadly, once the action kicks in, the movie is rather hampered by one of the most repetitive and inappropriate music scores I have ever heard in an action film. While many scenes in THE DELTA FORCE are crying out for the suspenseful strings of a Jerry Goldsmith, or even a James Horner, what we get is Alan Silvestri’s electro-disco pop tune that sounds like the theme to some awful cartoon super-hero TV series. Sorry Alan, but at the end of the day, you are the reason THE DELTA FORCE isn’t quite as good as it could be.

Arrow Films presents THE DELTA FORCE on Blu-ray in a transfer that has a few speckles here and there but looks very fine overall. Extras include Mark Hartley talking about Cannon Films and their lasting influence on popular cinema (I’m not sure if we should be thanking Cannon for movies like THE EXPENDABLES, though). There’s an interview with screenwriter James Bruner, and in May the Delta Force Be With You! Commandant Christian Prouteau talks about the formation of the first Delta Force.

There’s also a trailer, a reversible sleeve, and cover artwork by Graham Humphreys. 

Arrow Films brought out THE DELTA FORCE on Blu-ray on 5th May 2014