007 Week: Live and Let Die

Welcome back Bond fans to Day 2 of 007 Week.  As we acknowledge Connery's success as Bond we need to observe the other fellows that claimed this title as well.  Today I thought we would focus on another kind of Bond.  A dapper gentleman with the same strive and need to serve Queen and country.  Referred as a dandy, I would disagree with that term.   While lacking the rough and tumble standing that Connery had, Roger Moore is no lesser Bond and completely worthy of the title.  This is Live and Let Die.

I really have no desire to work for UNCLE.

Mr. Big: Is THIS the spoiling mother who tailed you uptown?
James Bond: There seems to be some mistake. My name is...
Mr. Big: Names is for tombstones, baby! Y'all take this honky out and WASTE HIM! NOW!

While this is the 8th Bond movie, this is the first Moore film as James Bond.  Three MI-6 agents working in junction with the CIA have been killed within 24 hours of their assignment.  The only comment denominator is was Dr. Kananga (Yaphett Kotto of The Thomas Crown Affair, 5 Card Stud, Bone, The Limit, The Running Man and Homicide: Life on the Street) a dictator of the island San Monique making his way to the UN building in New York.   Deep in Harlem a drug kingpin known only as Mr. Big plans to release no less than two tons of heroin through New York as such a cut rate cost to put all other drug czars completely out of business and making him top dog without firing a shot.  

Carribbean Comcast runs things a little differently.

James Bond (Roger Moore of Ivanhoe, The Miracle, Maverick, No Man's Land, The Saint, The Persuaders!, The Man with the Golden Gun, A View to a Kill and Alias) has arrived in New York and his contact with CIA agent Felix Leiter (David Hedison of A Man About a Dog, Crime Club, Adventures of the Queen, The Power Within, Romance Theatre and Fantasy Island) which personally I feel the role has become nothing more than a straight man for Bond's pithy comments or puns.  Remember when Jack Lord handled this role?  Yeah think on that.

Leiter lets Bond in on the scam in question that Kananga and Mr. Big may been in cahoots with one another given San Monique's tropical climate is ideal for poppy growth. Ensuring his empire Kananga seeks solace in his lovely tarot card expert Solitaire (Jane Seymour of The Only Way, The Strauss Family, Our Mutual Friend, Captains and the Kings, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Smallville and Modern Men) and she gauges the course of his journey as one would the course of the river.  Bond must uncover the heroin connection and put Kananaga's plot on hold.

Now a few facts about the movie.  This is deemed a bit of a groaner for puns as many of Bond's comments are that.  This film fell into the Blaxploitation and broke race barriers for the Bond Franchise as his first romantic encounter with a black woman, CIA agent Rosie Carver (Gloria Hendry of Hell Up in Harlem, Black Caesar, Black Belt Jones, Savage Sisters, Seeds of Tragedy and Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings).  While the previous films focused on meglomaniacs bent on world domination, this movie fixated with drug trafficking  and organized crime.

With a 7 million dollar budget our film cleared $35 million payoff and an Academy Award for Best Original Song "Live and Let Die" by Paul McCarthy and the Wings.  Not too shabby.

Hmm, lovely view.

400th BLOG!!! Blaxploitation Week: Black Mama, White Mama

Howdy boys and girls and welcome back to Blaxploitation Week and boy did I find a winner to some, an abomination to others and folks undecided on it as well.    Our film has prison riots, corrupt, abusive guards, revolutionaries fighting with the existing government and more than a few sultry ladies.  Sadly, it is a less than flattering scenario that seems to have more than 400 incarnations.  Yes kids, this is a women in prison film so brace yourself.  This is Black Mama, White Mama.

Waking me up before the sun....grr...

Lee Daniels: Some jive-ass revolution don't mean spoiler to me!








Straight from the Phillippines our prisoners are brought to the gulag in this tropical country.  Our leads Lee Daniels (Pam Grier of The Big Doll House, Women in Cages, Coffy, Scream Blacula Scream, The Arena, Foxy Brown, Bucktown and Jackie Brown) a former harem girl and Karen Brent (Margaret Markov of Run, Angel, Run!, Pretty Maids All in a Row, The Hot Box, The Arena and There Is No 13)  a wide eyed revolutionary are dragged into crooked system leading to a world of utter disdain.  No sooner have the ladies have been delivered for a 5 minute shower scene.  The warden (Laurie Burton of My Friends Need Killing, My Breakfast with Blassie, Perfect and Our House) slaps Lee around with a leather glove. Yeah that was clearly needed to progress the storyline.  

Vas is "Spin the Bottle"?

Lee and Karen end up getting into a riot fight and literally were back to back wailing on these gals.  Both women are tossed in lock boxes to broil in the merciless sun.  Feeling these two troublemakers will ruffle more feathers they are shackled together and sent to the maximum security which involves a long drive into the jungles when revolutionaries hit the truck and takes off with the girls.

Lee is in hotter water than Karen with her former pimp/boyfriend being the biggest drug dealer lifting 40 large off him and hid it.  With their attempts to find her bearing no fruit and looking foolish, a rival gang lead by Ruben (Sid Haig of The Big Bird Cage, The No Mercy Man, Coffy, Foxy Brown, Jason of Star Command and House of 1000 Corpses) who wants the trades of drugs and human trafficking and gun-running under his thumb and his thumb alone.

I had just a few comments to make with this film.   Once again this film is shot in 35 mm Spherical and its cinematography is glorious to be had, the multiple units offering coverage from tri-pod mounted, vehicle mounted and some decent crane work and up pans.    So if you feel you need scantily clad or nude women running about, cat fights,  love the women in prison or just a big Pam Grier fan you might get some enjoyment out of this.  I will say that the pace and speed of the film does keep steady and means to keep the audience guessing and gripped.  Not a bad script but the content just feels juvenile to watch.

Oh stop arching.  You got the movie deal.

Blaxploitation Week: Cleopatra Jones

How do my readers?  Greetings to Day 2 of Blaxploitation Week and this time around we are not gonna wait for the man of action to rescue the day.   This time we need a foxy lady of 6’2” butt kicking ferocity to handle the scum of the Earth and we are going to find her employed by the DEA perhaps???  Yeah her link to the government is sketchy at best but by God she is stomping a mud hole into narcotics and crime waves.  This is Cleopatra Jones.

Claim check this!!

Doodlebug:  Hair’s like a spoiler.  You treat it good and it treats you good.  Ain’t that right honey? You hear what I am saying” Yeah, you got to hold it, caress it and love it, And if your hair gets out of line you take a scissor and say, “Hair, I’m gonna cut you.”

From the biker films of the 60’s to TV Movies, actor/director Jack Starrett (Run, Angel, Run, Nam’s Angels, Slaughter, The Gravy Train, Starsky and Hutch and Survival of Dana) takes actor/writer Max Julien (Thomasine & Bushrod and Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold) screenplay and gives it life with the leading lady herself Tamara Dobson (Fuzz, Cleopatra Jones, Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold, Murder at the World Series, Jason of Star Command and Chained Heat) with our opening scene she is commanding a napalm strike on a huge acreage of poppy fields in Turkey thus putting a huge stop gap on heroin flow via the villainess drug lord Mommy (Shelly Winters of A Place in the Sun, The Night of the Hunter, Lolita, Alfie, Touch of a Stranger and Stepping Out).

Now that Mommy is out a little over a hundred million dollars she calls in her markers to her bought police and has Cleo’s boyfriend Reuben Masters (Bernie Casey of Guns of the Magnificent Seven, Black Gunn,  Maurie, Sharky’s Machine, Spies Like Us and On the Edge), who runs B&S House, a half way house for recovering addicts to look the fool when one of his reformed addicts has a big ole baggie of smack in his pocket.  Convenient for a pat down, don’tcha think? 

NEVER TOUCH THE HAIR!!!

Cleo flies back after a mission well done (burnt to the ground really) and beats the crap out of the cops that were responsible for the raid.  They flip on Mommy ASAP but that is nowhere near enough payback for Ms. Jones.   She proceeds to raise hell in Mommy’s operations, illegal and legal and driving those sizes 9’s in the behinds of Mommy’s lickspittles.

And this would not be a true 70’s action film without a good car chase and showdown.  Ms. Jones’ ride is a tricked out black and silver 1973 Corvette Stingray with a T-bar panel in the roof so she does not squash her afro.  That and machine gun headlights, some serious suspension and brakes to outdrive Bullit, our lady is hell on wheels and packs a Colt 1911 .45 to distribute justice.

I had just a few points I wanted to make.   I noticed a flub during the chase scene that the Mustang trailing her had no hubcaps one scene and then the next a hubcap goes flying off one wheel but magically there were three caps remaining.   Continuity director was asleep for a few shots here and there I guess.   The role for Cleopatra Jones was initially written up for Vonetta McGee (The Big Bust Out, Blacula, Detroit 9000, Foxbat, Repo Man and L.A. Law) and no offense to the lovely lady I feel Ms. Dobson brought her “A” game.   

The violence level is actually pretty mild with the Kung Fu beatings and some shoot outs it doesn’t look like Reservoir Dogs.  The language will make you cringe given most exploitation film show the racial tensions better than most films and yes my readers that infamous “N-word” is used like a comma so heads up there.   Still, all in all I rather enjoyed seeing the movie.

You sassin' me? Best not.

His name was Jason...

And there on the handle was a hook…OoOoO… ah we all enjoy our campfire tales while toasting marshmallows but some stories can be more than a little spooky.   So grab your pup tent, let’s make s’mores and settle in.  This is Friday the 13^th Part 2.

Legend tells of a spoiler that resurrects from the beyond.

It is five years later after the massacre of Crystal Lake and Pamela Vorhees has been killed and the young girl that survived, Alice (Adreinne King of Friday the 13^th, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and While You Were Sleeping)attempts to live her life beyond that nightmare only to feel as though she is being watched. Her small apartment is filled with drawings of a disfigured boy that drug her underwater. She peers into her refrigerator to find the severed head of Pamela Vorhees , then has an ice pick driven in her right temple.    A group of teenagers come to Crystal Lake to reopen the site and set up a new camp and the head counselor Paul Holt (John Furey of A Killing Spring, The Gali’ndez File and A Little Thing Called Murder) his wacky sidekick Ted (Stu  Charno of Christine, Just One of the Guys and Once Bitten) and his psychologist girlfriend  Ginny (Amy Steel of All My Children, Guiding Light and April Fool’s Day) this camp will be good for the upcoming children’s summer.   Unbeknownst to our happy campers that Jason Vorhees somehow survived his drowning and was lost in the woods, living off wild life and vegetation like a confused creature of the wild.   Could he be fact or fiction?  Is he right behind you even as you read this!!??  No dummy he is the stuff of fiction.  

As most of the camp crew head into town for a little partying a smattering of counselors remain at camp to keep the home fires burning.  Obviously to have sex, smoke some local reefer and have a few beers; which as we all know this is a recipe for disaster via the killer’s perspective.  One by one they are being systematically slaughtered without provocation as Jason is a big time moral crusader against pre-marital sex, drugs and alcohol.  You would think the MPAA and he would be natural allies but I digress.

Steve Miner (Friday the 13^th Part 3, House, Soul Man, Warlock and Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken) takes over for Sean Cunningham (Friday the 13^th, A Stranger is Watching, Spring Break, The New Kids and DeepStar Six) after the first movie from his former associate producer title he held.  The tagline alone is worth viewing.  The body count continues.  Granted the murder effects of Tom Savini is not in this film but in fact done by Carl Fullerton (Friday the 13^th Part 3, The Hunger, Spasms, The Return of Swamp Thing and Warlock) and as always the musical score but Harry Manfredini ( Scores for Friday the 13^th 1 through Jason X, Wishmaster, Bad Karma, the Omega Code and Terminal Invasion)The acting was not over the top, the lighting and sound was phenomenal and frankly there were some real scary moments rather than the expected point of countless jump scares.  Feel free to give this one a viewing if you are a slasher fan.