SUDDEN DEATH

d. Eddie Romero (1977)

We’re back in the Pearl of the Orient Seas* again, this time finding out about the hitherto hidden world of ruthless sugar barons, greedy, amoral men who are prepared to displace native people and destroy the environment in order to make a dollar, a sweet, sweet dollar. These men are so cartoonishly evil that, when their nice managing director tries to make reparations to the native people for the wholescale destruction of their homes and habitat, they have his entire family, including two little boys and a baby, shot to death, leaving the badly injured executive for dead.

Out of danger, but still full of grief and shotgun pellets, the man tracks down the legendary Harrison ‘Duke’ Smith (little Robert Conrad, wiry and in very tight trousers), a man who has had an illustrious career as a state sanctioned murderer, terrorist and all round good guy / undercover bastard. Now living out an idyllic retirement in a shack on the beach, he initially refuses to help, giving his about to graduate teenage daughter and a beautiful young girlfriend as reasons to stay alive.

When the man is subsequently burned alive, and Duke’s daughter tuts at him in disapproval, he finally decides to get involved, although his motivation is far from clear. I mean, firstly, teenage girls tut all the time and, even so, the guy is now a charcoal briquette and the rest of his family are already dead, and Duke didn’t know any of them, so what’s the point apart from the fact that feature films aren't usually twenty seven minutes long?

Enlisting the help of his old friend Wyatt, a sharp black martial arts expert, he roots out the conspiracy and takes out the nasty Sugar Barons one by one, at first almost by accident and then with accelerating zeal and sadism. Towards the end, you realise that this noble mission has unleashed a psychopath, a man who is so used to killing that it has become his default setting.

The film’s pacing is glacial for the most part, but then culminates in a spectacular last ten minutes, where even the camera struggles to keep up with the action. The last third of the film is greatly enlivened by the addition of ex-surfing champ and all round lunk / hunk Don Stroud, here playing a dandyish but socially awkward Corsican hitman called in to take Duke out before he can murder everyone in Manila. I like Stroud, but he often makes strange acting choices, here speaking in a weird, cotton-mouthed way, as if he wants to try an accent but is embarrassed by it. The battle between two professional killers ends in a bruising and very bloody encounter in an icehouse, where quick cutting is used to convey violence and to disguise the fact that Stroud is at least a foot taller than Conrad.  

The final moments are not entirely unexpected but are genuinely gut-wrenching, and the use of carousel music to accompany the horror is a masterstroke, symbolising both the grotesque tableau and the breaking of a over-stretched mind. It’s tough stuff.

*The Philippines, mate.

SAVAGE SISTERS

d. Eddie Romero (1974)

Another blog entry, another low budget, high entertainment Filipino made exploitation film, this time a broad romp about a proposed revolution in a fascistic 'banana republic' and the hunt for a briefcase containing a million dollars that will help finance the whole thing. That's the whole plot. 

Inconsequential but fast moving, the film looks like it was fun to make, although post-production stories of having to use the jungle as a bathroom and a cave filled with bats as a dressing room perhaps put a different perspective on it. It's mainly a lot of running around, gun play, martial arts and John Ashley showing off as an amoral but endearing entrepreneur who wears leopardskin underpants and has sex with everybody.   

As is often the case in these films, the female characters are at the forefront, and the three stars are black, white and Asian, which accounts for the film's alternate title, Ebony, Ivory and Jade. Yes, these women are there to be looked at, but they also kick arse and are always one step ahead of everybody else, and their motivations (greed; revenge; freedom) are clear and believable. The Ebony element is provided by Gloria Hendry, a striking looking and talented actress whose greatest performance was pretending to find Roger Moore irresistible in Live and Let Die. 

The usual suspects show up to support the stars: Sid Haig (as a sadistic panto Mexican) and the ever-present, always welcome, inexplicably still alive Vic Diaz (he looked close to death forty five years ago), here playing a bandit called One Eye who wears a tight t shirt that sits atop his pot belly and, when he turns around, reveals far too much bum crack, i.e. any.

The once all-conquering cycle is clearly running out of steam, but is still a good way of passing the time. Life is short, my friends, you must take your meagre pleasures while you may. The body count is ridiculously high, by the way, but even torture scenes are played for laughs so you don't really notice. Good times.  

THE TWILIGHT PEOPLE

d. Eddie Romero (1972)

Edgar ‘Eddie’ Romero was a legend of the Filipino film industry. Working from the late 1940s up until 2008 (he died in 2013, aged 88), Eddie produced, wrote and directed dozens of films and TV shows, eventually attaining a respectability and artistry that few non-auteurs achieve. For the narrow purposes of this weblog, we’ll concentrate on the hugely entertaining English language exploitation films he made in the 1970s, specifically his shoestring take on The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Twilight People.

The film stars John Ashley, a recurring presence in Romero films of the period. Ashley had been a minor teen idol and even more minor pop star, playing eternal youths in AIP horror and beach films well into his thirties. He happily relocated to Manila when US roles dried up, eventually working behind the scenes of Apocalypse Now for an extended period: he was the guy who arranged to borrow the helicopters. Here he plays Matt Farrell, a slightly pudgy playboy and renaissance man who is kidnapped by a mad scientist who wants to splice his superior genes with wildlife, thereby creating a super race of human-animal hybrids that he believes will form the next stage of evolution. 

It’s not working too well so far, as all he’s managed to do is to create a menagerie of unhappy freaks: apart from his mad, mutated wife, he has a man bat (disturbing), a goat man (perplexing), a monkey boy (randy and annoying) and a young woman who has a very furry face who I eventually realised was supposed to be part dog. Oh, and he also has a constantly miaowing Panther Woman, played by the magnificent Pam Grier (underused). It’s all a bit disorganised and deeply unethical, and Farrell is the sort of straight up guy who inspires confidence, so he very quickly turns the mad scientists daughter against her Father and breaks out the hybrids, who make their way into the jungle in search of freedom, closely pursued by the scientists hired thugs, led by a peroxided sadist who only drinks milk. 

As you might expect, the film is no masterpiece but it is surprisingly well written, well directed and mainly well-acted, as well as being shot in a number of interesting locations. For all its quiet competence, however, it is sometimes marred by abrupt edits, as if material has been removed or added at the last minute, leading to jarring and sometimes noisy transitions. The monster make up is okay (lots of stick on fuzz and silly teeth), and the special effects, including spurting blood and some animation, are about right. In the end analysis, it’s a cheaply made but ambitious film about strange and fantastic things, kept from tipping into silliness by a matter of fact and professional approach - which sounds slightly dull but actually never is.