Recent Viewings, Part 2

[FatFreddysCat]

The Chuck Norris Memorial Film Festival continues...

"Invasion U.S.A." (1985)
Chuck is a former CIA agent who's called back to active duty when his old enemy (Richard Lynch) leads an army of terrorists in a series of attacks on U.S. soil.
"Invasion U.S.A." was pretty much Chuck's peak of bearded bad-assery. It's probably the biggest budget Norris film, and the mayhem is non stop and impressive. A gloriously absurd action packed epic that's still a ton of fun today.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Code Of Silence" (1985)
Chuck Norris had a great year in 1985. In addition to saving America in "Invasion USA," he also starred in this cool, gritty, down-to-earth cop thriller as Eddie Cusack, a straight arrow Chicago detective who gets caught in the middle of a war between two rival Mob families, while also dealing with a cover-up within his own department.
This movie was originally pitched as a potential "Dirty Harry" sequel, but when Clint passed on it, it fell into Chuck's lap. Apparently this was one of his favorite films, because it gave him a chance to stretch as an actor instead of playing yet another mindless butt kicker (though he gets to do plenty of that, too!)
Directed by Andrew Davis, who would go on to do "Under Siege" with Steven Seagal and "The Fugitive" with Harrison Ford. Quality stuff, well worth revisiting.

[chainsaw midget]

Naked Zombie Girl

Actually a misleading title.  The girl is not a zombie.  She is, however, naked for most of the flick.  It's just a short, about twenty minutes or so and filmed with a grindhouse style that sometimes seems to fight back and forth between Romero and Evil Dead.

The main character is attacked by zombies, looses her dress, and fights them off with a chainsaw.  Not a lot of story.  Considering she's naked for most of it, there's not a lot of actual nudity either, as most of the time she's shot from the waist up and has her hair covering her chest. 

Lots of film distortion though, like you're watching a film reel that's been kept in the trunk of somebody's car for the last decade or two.

[M.10rda]

THE FIEND WHO WALKED THE WEST (1958):
Another offbeat Philip Yordan screenplay, 'cause THE CHASE was decent. This one's a very noir Western, which automatically makes it more interesting to me than the standard-issue John Wayne-type stuff of the era. Officially it's a genre-switching remake of KISS OF DEATH (remade again in the 90s under the original title and urban setting, w/ Nicolas Cage as the psycho bad guy). I didn't recall that when I started watching and had to Google to confirm it, as THE FIEND takes a lot of liberties with KOD's plot, and probably for the better.

Really it's a post-heist thriller w/ the craziest member of a gang of bandits (the eponymous "Fiend") rounding up the proceeds of the last big job, with no partners or elderly ladies or unborn fetuses safe from his sadistic killing spree. One former affiliate yearns to escape his past and settle down as a rancher, but the long arm of the law presses him into service to help put an end to the Fiend's one-man crimewave. Things get slightly more complicated than that, w/ better dialogue and a bit greater psychological complexity than most westerns of the 50s. Crisp widescreen B+W photography makes TFWWTW look like a grander, more serious film than it actually is. (Some shots recall Welles or Kurosawa flicks.) The acting is mostly across the spectrum from competent to dull to bad. (The female lead kinda' sucks.)

But! If you're gonna' make a movie called THE FIEND WHO WALKED THE WEST, you gotta' have a compelling, watchable title character....... and if TFWWTW is remembered at all today, it's solely on account of that central performance. "The Fiend" is a high-pitched, whiny, unstable, neurotic, psychotic, totally loathsome piece of work... played by none other than legendary Hollywood producer Robert Evans in one of his few early onscreen gigs and only lead role. His performance feels straight out of the Actors' Studio - Evans' antagonist could easily pass for the annoying younger brother of the twitchy nut played by (Evans' associate) Jack Nicholson in THE SHOOTING. Maybe Evans' wasn't ever going to be a Hollywood leading man, but he did a good job making me hate the guts of the guy he plays here.

3/5    Directed by Gordon Douglas of THEM! fame.