To answer these trivia questions, please email me at scinema@earthlink.net.
Brain Teasers:
Which Italian crime movie was released in the U.S. with the ending cut off suggesting that the "hero" was killed?
No one has answered this one yet.
By what name is Jose Martinez Martinez better known?
Bertrand van Wonterghem and Angel Rivera knew that it is Daniel Martin.
Which Italian actor born on December 30, 1940, died on July 29, 2021?
Bertrand van Wonterghem and Angel Rivera knew that it is Bruno Corazzari.
Which Italian actor worked for directors Costa-Gavras, Jerry London, Giuliano Montaldo, Lucio Fulci, Mario Gariazzo, Sergio Garrone and Gianfranco Parolini?
Bertrand van Wonterghem knew that it is Bruno Corazzari.
And now for some new brain teasers:
By what name is Carlo Pederoli better known?
What future actor was the first Italian to swim the 100-meter freestyle in less than a minute?
Which actor was married to Maria Amato?
Name the movies from which these images came.
Bertrand van Wonterghem and Angel Rivera identified last week's frame grab of Bud Spencer, Peter Graves, James Daly, Nino Castelnuovo and Tetsuro Tamba in UN ESERCITO DI CINQUE UOMINI, aka THE FIVE MAN ARMY.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
No one identified the above photo yet.
Can you name from what movie it came?
Bertrand van Wonterghem and Angel Rivera identified last week's photo of Roberto dell'Acqua and Bud Spencer in PIEDONE LA SBIRRO, aka FLATFOOT THE COP, aka A FISTFUL OF HELL, aka THE KNOCK OUT COP.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
No one has identified the above photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
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I am interested in knowing what movies you have watched and what you enjoyed or not. So please send me an email at scinema@earthlink.net if you'd like to share. Here's what I watched last week:
Mildly enjoyed:
THE DEVILS (1971) - I first tried to see this film in 1973. I was camping out at Yaka Beach and thought that the film was playing in Ishikawa. After walking along the unlit highway in the dead of night,I discovered that it was no longer at the theater. I was successful on my next attempt, at a revival theater in Austin, TX in 1975. It was the X-rated version. I liked half of the film. Most of the stuff with Oliver Reed, but I hated all of the caricature portrayals of the bad guys. Is there any historical justification for Michael Gothard looking like a mad hippie? Now I've seen the NC-17 "restored version" and I feel that the X-Rated version was more effective since it had less of the over-the-top hysterical stuff. Oddly, I remember the torture scene being more graphic. If nothng else, seeing this again reminded me of what a compelling screen presence Oliver Reed once was.
Did not enjoy:
THE SON OF TARZAN (1920) - When I began my investigation of Tarzan movies I never intended to force myself to watch a 15 chapter serial, but in 2009 Alpha Video put together a reconstruction which someone put on YouTube. While 1920's THE REVENGE OF TARZAN still hasn't popped up, SON was number three on my list to watch. Now this was never intended to be watched as a four hour plus feature, but I didn't have the patience to wait a week to watch the each chapter separately. As with most serials, the script, credited to Roy Somerville, is always heading to a cliffhanger and there is a lot of repetition in order to fill the required running times. I wouldn't have minded the repetition so much if the editing of the sequences was sharper so as not to be so confusing. The film begins with a brief synopsis of how the future Lord Greystoke, played by P. Dempsey Tabler, grew up in the jungle among apes. In future films, the apes were represented by chimpanzees, but here they are men in costumes that look like gorillas. One day he sees Jane, and eventually she convinces him to return to his ancestral home in England. At Greystoke Manor, Jane, played by Manila Martan, gives birth to a boy, Gordon Griffith. Jane is so afraid that young Jack may have inherited his father's instinct for the jungle, so she forbids both her husband and the boy's tutor to ever mention Africa. However, the boy has found a book on Africa which he loves to read while sitting in a tree. Meanwhile, Sheik Frank Morrell tries to buy the freedom of his brother from a French Captain, but the Captain refuses. So Morrell has his men murder the Captain's wife and takes her baby girl to raise as his own daughter. Complicating matters, a villain named Ivan Paulovich, played by Eugene Burr, whom Tarzan helped to send to prison, has escaped. Tarzan's ape buddy Akut, inadvertently helps Paulovich to get to the coast, where the villain gets transport to England, taking along Akut, whom he renames Ajax. Jack wants to see the ape show starring Ajax, but his parents forbid it. He warns them that he will go anyway, but they are surprised when he does. Ajax sees Jack in the audience and recognizes Tarzan in him, which causes an uproar.
Anyway, let's see if I can shorten this synopsis.
Paulovich uses Jack's interest in Ajax to attempt to kill Jack, but fails. Jack finds the travel ticket and money Lord Greystoke gave the villain to return the ape to Africa. Paulovich ends up on a ship smuggling opium, but convinces the crew to mutiny promising them the reward that the French Captain will pay for the return of his daughter, that Paulovich know in being kept by an abusive Sheik. In the following intertitles, the mutineers are called The Swedes. Ajax/Akut ruins his disguise as an old lady bundled in a blanket, so Jack and he escape confinement by jumping overboard and swimming to Africa. Jack quickly takes to living in the jungle, and when he sees the sheik abusing the girl, played by Mae Giraci, now called Meriem, he rescues her by taking her into the trees. Eventually, Jack becomes Kamuele C. Searle, and is referred to as an adult called Korak the Killer. Meriem grows to be Mailla Martan, aka Nita Martan, whose jungle costume shows quite a bit of side boob, which is so fetching that it is not surprising that she has to survive a number of attempted rapes. Paulovich keeps the script moving by switching from trying to gets the reward for Meriem from the Captain, to raiding a village for ivory, from trying to blackmail Jane for information on Jack, to getting the sheik to promise a reward for returning Meriem to him and even kidnapping Jane. After about three hours, the bad guys start getting killed one by one, until Korak is tied to a post by the sheik's men who want to burn him alive. Thankfully, Korak, who has spent much of the show riding on the elephant's forehead rather than around his neck, is rescued by the elephant, Tantor, who is an old friend of Tarzan as well. The whole subplot in which a fancy man from London visits the Greystoke African ranch and romances Meriem, who has become a ward of the Greystokes, is very tiresome, but, thankfully, one of the Swedes shoots him in the back. Reportedly this was directed by Arthur J. Flaven and Harry Revier. It was so successful that another 15 chapter serial, THE ADVENTURES OF TARZAN, followed. Interestingly, Tarzan never swings on a vine in this show.
TARZAN ESCAPES (1936) - This, the third of the Johnny Weissmuller MGM series, works as a sequel to the second in the series, TARZAN AND HIS MATE. Because of the reaction to MATE, Maureen O'Sullivan's costume now covers more skin, and there is no nudity. Interestingly, there is understated gore with an evil native tribe shooting arrows into people's foreheads. There is also a scene of execution in which the victim is tied to two bent trees and is ripped apart when the trees are untied. Reportedly James C. McKay, who is said to have rescued MATE, was the original director for ESCAPES, but was replaced at one point by John Farrow, who ended up being replaced by Richard Thorpe, who got sole on-screen credit. Brother and sister cousins of O'Sullivan, Benita Hume and William Henry, have come to Africa hoping to get O'Sullivan to return to England and help them claim an inheritance. Safari guide Captain John Buckler tells them that part of the country to which they want to go is out of the question, until Hume mentions that are seeking Tarzan. Buckler then agrees to lead the safari, and intends to bring his new gorilla cage. We soon realize that Buckler is a bad sort when Hume stupidly picks up two lion cubs. Naturally, the mother lion attacks, and Buckler coldly kills the mother. A similar situation will occur in TARZAN'S REVENGE, but in that film, Tarzan reunites the cubs with the mother - which may have been a scene inspired by what happened in ESCAPES. In any case, the safari soon runs afoul of a vicious native tribe which is stopped when Tarzan's yell stops the villains in their tracks. Cheeta steals a piece of Hume's clothing which tips off O'Sullivan that there are other white people in the area. Since Weissmuller is still monosyllabic, our hero kidnaps Hume and brings her to visit with O'Sullivan. Much of the film is taken up with O'Sullivan wrestling with the idea of going back to England with her cousins and Weissmuller being upset that his mate is going away. He doesn't quite understand the idea that she will come back. To make her happy, Weissmuller allows O'Sullivan to leave, and the two of them spend a last day together in their "own private Eden" where they do a lot of swimming. After O'Sullivan and her cousins set off on their journey, Buckler returns to lie to Weissmuller that O'Sullivan doesn't want to come back to him, and then hopes to lead our hero into a trap. After Weissmuller foils the trap. Buckler lies to Weissmuller that O'Sullivan wanted the trap, so our hero locks himself inside the gorilla cage. Buckler thought that he had made a deal with the vicious tribe, but they betray him thinking that with Weissmuller in the cage that they have the upper hand. Weissmuller is able to tip the cage over a cliff, which is then taken away by a friendly elephant. While in REVENGE, Tarzan is able to bend cage bars with his own strength, here Weissmuller needs the help of two elephants to bend the bars allowing him to escape. The vicious tribe is going about executing all of Buckler's safari, including O'Sullivan, when Weissmuller calls upon an herd of elephants to break up the tribe's village. Racing into a cave that is "bad juju", where the vicious tribe won't follow, Weissmuller leads what is left of the safari to safety, but refuses to allow Buckler to join them. The villain goes back into the cave to get something with which to attack our hero, when lizards pull him into something like quicksand. O'Sullivan is again prepared to return to England, when her cousins admit that they lied. O'Sullivan only has to sign a paper to solve the inheritance problem. So, when a dejected Weissmuller returns to his tree house, he is ecstatic to find O'Sullivan there cooking dinner. There is no doubt that the MGM "Tarzan roar" is the best I've heard, but, again the overuse of stock animal footage and Cheeta's antics often drag the movie's pace to a crawl. This film also seems to reuse footage from MATE as well as TRADER HORN Cyril Hume gets screenplay credit. The MGM special effects department doesn't spend as much time trying to hide that Tarzan's vine swinging is often played by a trapeze artist.
TARZAN'S REVENGE (1938) - Since Buster Crabbe moved on from TARZAN THE FEARLESS to great success as Flash Gordon, producer Sol Lesser had to find a new guy to fill the title role. He chose 1936 Olympic decathlon champion Glenn Morris. Again Tarzan sports an hairless body. For the female lead, Lesser chose 1932 Olympic swimmer Eleanor Holm. Figuring that Holm was already famous as Eleanor, he decided that her character would be named Eleanor rather than Jane. It suddenly dawned on me while watching this movie that all of that swimming in Tarzan movies was a metaphor for sexual intercourse. Of course, TARZAN AND HIS MATE wins the competition for best underwater swimming as Jane is naked under water, but in REVENGE, after a vigorous swim, Tarzan and Eleanor are found sleeping on the river bank. The plot credited to Robert Lee Johnson and Jay Vann, is a reboot of TARZAN OF THE APES with American George Barbier mounting a safari in Africa to stock his zoo with wild animals. He drags along with him his wife Hedda Hopper (who had already started her gossip column in 1935), his daughter Eleanor and her fiance George Meeker as well as various servants. We quickly know that Meeker is a louse as he spends his time on the riverboat shooting crocodiles for fun. On the riverboat, Eleanor catches the eye of would be Pasha C. Henry Gordon, who tries to woo her into his harem with a beautiful ruby. Eleanor rejects him, so he finds out that Joseph Sawyer is to lead Barier's safari and bribes him to help set a trap to kidnap the woman. When Tarzan discovers that Barier's safari is putting wild animals in cages, he - like Maciste - bends the iron bars of their cages to set them free - especially as a mother lion is trying to get back her two cubs. Tarzan kidnaps Eleanor for a bit and they go swimming without any danger. Later, after reuniting to the safari, Eleanor coaxes Meeker into going for a swim, and they are quickly set upon by crocodiles. Before Tarzan and respond to her screams, Eleanor is kidnapped by natives hired by Gordon. Eventually, Tarzan storms Gordon's palace to rescue Eleanor and stops those pursuing him by cutting the support ropes to a wooden bridge over a deep ravine. In the end, Barier and his people are preparing to leave, but Eleanor isn't so certain that she wants to go. (We can see that Barier was able to secure a number of wild animals in cages that Tarzan hadn't freed.) Jealous, Meeker shoots Tarzan, but only grazes his arm. Our hero pounces on top of the creep, but Eleanor's scream stops our hero from giving the fool TARZAN'S REVENGE. The film ends with Barier and his wife lamenting the loss of their daughter on the boat paddeling away, while Tarzan and Eleanor go for another swim and finally kiss underwater. Filled with cute shots of African wildlife, TARZAN'S REVENGE is a chore to get through. Hedda Hopper provides the most compelling performance as the complaining wife who finds that she is allergic to Africa. Veteran B-movie D. Ross Lederman - who worked with both John Wayne and Tim McCoy - is the credited director here. These filmmakers never try to use a trapeze performer in place of Crabbe swinging on a vine.
TARZAN FINDS A SON! (1939) - A better title for this is JANE MAKES ANOTHER BONEHEAD DECISION. This is the fourth of the MGM/Johnny Weissmuller series. In the second film, TARZAN AND HIS MATE, Jane falls in with the ivory hunters who tried to kill Tarzan. In TARZAN ESCAPES, she is seduced into thinking that she should go back to England without Tarzan. Here, she is seduced into thinking that she should allow Ian Hunter and Frieda Inescort to take the boy, Johnny Sheffield, that she and Tarzan have raised from infancy, back to England to claim yet another family inheritance. Obviously screenwriter Cyril Hume is just recycling plot points from other films in the series. However, the first 40 or so minutes of this film is mildly enjoyable as we see Weissmuller and Sheffield frolic in their jungle paradise. Not only does Jane, played by Maureen O'Sulliavn, have a more modest costume in this film, she and Tarzan do not go swimming together. She also introduces Tarzan to the arriving whites as her husband. Of the new arrivals, Henry Stephenson is the only pleasant one, but he also the one who states that Sheffield is obviously the surviving son of parents Laraine Day and Morton Lowry who were killed in a plane crash. Because of this, the villainous Hunter and Inescourt collude with guide Henry Wilcoxon to take the boy away from the only home he's ever known. Their reasoning is that if they leave the boy in the jungle, someone else might discover his identity and come for him, ruining their plot to tell everyone that he is dead and that the inheritance should be their's. Jane maroons Tarzan at the bottom of a grotto as part of the plot, knowing that such an act of betrayal is unforgivable. After Stephenson tells Jane that the others are only after Sheffield's money, Hunter shoots the old man in the back. So, when the vicious African natives torture and kill Hunter, we in the audience applaud - though we might wish to actually see what they did to him. In any case, O'Sullivan gets a spear in the back helping Sheffield escape, so everyone thinks she's dead. After leading another elephant stampede to destroy another evil native village, Weissmuller find a bleeding O'Sullivan, and, of course forgives her, which seems to instantly heal her wound. Reportedly she did die in the original version, but test audiences reacted badly, so the new "happy" ending was contrived. Richard Thorpe returns from TARZAN ESCAPES to get the director's credit. Once again, the MGM Tarzan is not identified as Lord Greystoke.
TARZAN'S SECRET TREASURE (1941) - Or, as I like to call it, BOY JOINS JANE IN MAKING BONEHEAD DECISIONS, or BOY FINDS A FRIEND. Myles Connolly and Paul Gangelin may have taken over screenwriting duties from Cyril Hume, but the result is like a remake of TARZAN FINDS A SON! Tarzan and Jane, Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan, go for a swim, only this time they are joined by Boy, John Sheffield, and Simba the elephant. Sheffield finds some shiny stones on the bottom of the river which he shows to O'Sullivan. She explains that they are pieces of gold. In the civilized world, gold can buy anything. Including cars and airplanes. Meanwhile, this jungle family can have caviar for free. Sheffield wants to see the civilized world, so he sneaks out at night to find it. Naturally, he is soon menaced by a rhino, who is also attacking native boy Tumbo, played by Cordell Hickman. Sheffield teaches Hickman the meaning of the English word "friend", and he follows his native friend to the friend's village. The village has been hit by plague, which the witchdoctor attributes to bad "juju". After Hickman sees his mother die, Sheffield is identified as the reason and is soon to be burned at the stake. Thankfully, a white safari, led by Professor Reginald Owen, stop the burning and with a truck driven by Irishman Barry Fitzgerald, the evil natives are all scared away. Eventually, Weissmuller shows up. Owen explains that they are looking for a mysterious tribe. Weissmuller explains that they can find that tribe on the other side of the escarpment which is his private domain. Sheffield convinces Weissmuller to invite the safari into their home - reusing footage from many of the previous MGM movies. Along the way, Sheffield shows safari members Tom Conway and Philip Dorn his piece of gold explaining that he wants to buy an airplane.. Conway and Dorn convince him that they will help him get that airplane if he shows them from where the gold came. Of course, when Owen discovers that Conway and Dorn want to change the scientific expedition into a gold hunt, he forbids it. But then Fitzgerald falls ill with the plague, which Weissmuller can cure with a natural mixture. Owen assures Weismuller that the safari will leave in the morning, but then Owen falls ill, too. Back at home, Sheffield falls ill, too. Conway prevents Owen from having any of the medicine and after he dies, Conway tricks O'Sullivan into sending Weissmuller away to get the medicine kit back in the truck left at the foot of the escarpment. When Weissmuller returns, Conway informs our hero that he's kidnapped O'Sullivan and Sheffield, and will only release them if Weissmuller shows him the mountain of gold from where came the nuggets. Naturally, after being shown the gold, Conway attempts to murder our hero. Rather than being trapped in a grotto as in SON!, this time Weissmuller is trapped on the other side of a deep ravine. Rather than escaping with the help of two elephants felling a tree into the grotto, Weissmuller is able to get Simba to help bend a tree which works as a catapult sending Cheeta with enough vine for our hero to climb to safety. Of course, in an attempt to find a quick escape route, Conway and Dorn lead their safari, with the captive O'Sullivan and Sheffield into the land of the most vicious tribe in Africa. After all of their native bearers are executed with the two tree method first seen in ESCAPES, the white prisoners are being taken down the river in canoes to the native village. Weissmuller attacks the flotilla from underwater, by tipping over their canoes, allowing the crocodiles to feast. There probably isn't another movie showing more men in the mouths of crocodiles as this one. Of course, Weissmuller is able to rescue his family, and the suggestion is that the villains are eaten by the crocs. Meanwhile Weismuller calls for his army of elephants to block the river escape by the natives. The film ends with Fitzgerald getting a fond farewell aboard Simba with a gourd filled with gold, which Weissmuller and Co. are convinced that he won't tell anyone about TARZAN'S SECRET TREASURE. At one point in this movie, Weissmuller and O'Sullivan do get a romantic night time swimming sequence alone. Who knew that individual humans were considered prey for solo rhinos? And that MGM only had the same footage to a charging rhino to use again and again? Richard Thorpe seems to have gotten the job to make MGM Tarzan movies from now on.
TARZAN'S NEW YORK ADVENTURE (1942) - Myles Connolly came up with this story for which William R. Lipman was hired to flesh out the screenplay. Those who were hoping that finally going into "civilization" would reveal Tarzan's identity as Lord Greystoke were severely disappointed as MGM seemed dead set to never take the character where Edgar Rice Burroughs intended. While Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O'Sullivan and John Sheffield were having a leisurely swim, they suddenly hear a weird noise which the eventually discover is a plane. Villainous Charles Bickford has come to the African jungle to get lions for a circus owned by Cy Kendall. Weissmuller knows that white men always bring trouble, so he orders them to leave, which they agree to do in the morning. However, Sheffield wants to see the plane, so he rides over with three baby elephants in the morning while the whites are packing up. When Bickford witnesses how Sheffield can command the elephants to do tricks, he hatches a plot to kidnap the boy in complicity with assistant Chill Wills. However, pilot Paul Kelly objects to the plot and tells Sheffield to go home. As Sheffield leaves, Wills go to check on another lion trap, and ends up caught in a net. A lion is about to attack Wills, when Sheffield doubles back to save him. As they recover from this situation, the whites are attacked by a vicious native tribe. Weissuller and O'Sullivan hear the battle and swing over to help. However, one of the natives sees which vine they are on and cuts it sending the couple down a cliff into some bushes. The natives set fire to the bushes and celebrate that they have finally ride themselves of the hated "Tarzam juju". Bickford seizes Sheffield, tells Kelly that the parents are now dead, and that they had all better leave before the natives get any closer. After helping Weissmuller and O'Sullivan to recover from their fall, Cheeta explains that Sheffield is gone. Venturing down to the coastal city, our heroes learn that Kelly had taken off with the circus people and a small boy to America. After sending the pair to Chinese tailor Willie Fung for city clothes, the helpful transit official arranges for transportation to New York City. In New York, our heroes seek about Kelly and interrogate Kelly's girlfriend, night club singer Virginia Grey. She sends them to Long Island where Kendall's circus is. While plotting to sell Sheffield to a circus in South America, Bickford and Kendall see Weismuller coming and so get Sheffield out of sight. As the circus roustabouts encircle our heroes, Kelly arrives with some friendly cops to keep the peace. Everyone ends up in court, where Weissmuller handles himself well on the witness stand, but O'Sullivan admits that she is not Sheffield's biological mother. When Lawyer Charles Lane accuses O'Sullivan of not having any legal claim on Sheffield, Weissmuller loses his temper and throws Lane into the jury box. Told to wait in the other room, Weissmuller and O'Sullivan begin to doubt that The Law is good, so O'Sullivan tells Weissmuller to find Sheffield his way. After escaping an high rise building like Spider-Man, Weissmuller jumps into a taxi to get to the circus. He is stopped on the Brooklyn Bridge, but dives off it rather than surrender. While everyone thinks that the jump killed her "husband", O'Sullivan insists on going to the circus. Wills tries to stop the villains from forcing Sheffield to leave with them, but he falls after his gun goes off. Sheffield runs into the Big Top and performs like a seasoned aerial artist. Weissmuller eventually arrives, but the roustabouts are able to trap him in a safety net. Tossed into an animal wagon cage, Weissmuller is able to talk to the elephants, two of whom help him to bend the bars to escape, while the others prevent the villains from driving away with Sheffield. Weissmuller is able to pull Sheffield out of the car before it turns over into a ditch. We do not learn if the villains survived the crash, or if Wills survived the gunshot, but the judge allows our heroes to leave for Africa together. Kelly says that he will transport them there, where he will marry Grey, and the judge plans to go fishing in the future. There is yet more Cheeta antics where he plays judge, with gavel, to an audience of three elephants. O'Sullivan had wanted to leave the series after TARZAN FINDS A SON! in which she was originally going to die before test audiences rejected her death. Although she didn't die in NEW YORK, this was her final appearance as Jane as MGM gave up the rights to make another one to producer Sol Lesser at RKO, and O'Sullivan was under contract to MGM. Reportedly the 1918 Tarzan, Elmo Lincoln, appears in this as a roustabout extra. Mantan Moreland as a small bit as a night club janitor who gets a phone call from Cheeta and complains that he doesn't understand what the animal is saying. Why do the people in these movies call Cheeta a "she" when the dangling between his legs mark him as a "he"? Of course, Richard Thorpe is the credited director.
TARZAN TRIUMPHS (1943) - TARZAN AGAINST NAZIS could be a more exploitative title for this, the first Sol Lesser production for RKO starring Johnny Weissmuller and now Johnny Sheffield. Sheffield is able to read a letter from the absent Jane, who is in England tending to her sick mother. She writes about the awful Nazis, but doesn't say anything about the Blitz. Weissmuller's philosophy is "if they leave Tarzan alone, he'll leave them alone". This film introduces the audience to a "lost city" called Palandrya hidden in a valley and inhabited by what appears to be white people. While Weissmuller is away, Sheffield decides to disobey the instruction to not leave home and goes to look at the lost city. Unfortunately, the tree limb on which he climbed for a better look breaks. His fall down the cliff is stopped by another tree jutting out of the rock. Seeing Sheffield's distress, a princess of Palandrya, Frances Gifford. climbs over to help him. Weissmuller hears Cheeta's grunts and our hero ends up saving both Sheffield and Gifford. Not long after, an airplane is heard, but it doesn't try to land. Instead, it disgorges a force of Nazi paratroopers. Captain Philip Van Zandt had been saved by the people of Palandrya in the past, and has now returned to exploit their natural resources. Complicating matters, the troop's radio operator, Lieutenant Rex Williams, had a parachute malfunction and got separated from his comrades. Weissmuller finds the wounded Nazi and brings him home to treat his wounds. Cheeta takes a liking to a coil on the radio, and steals it. Eventually, Williams tries to kill Cheeta to get back the coil, but a friendly elephant pushes Williams off a cliff to his death. While Colonel Stanley Ridges takes over Palandrya and makes the inhabitants work as slaves to build a temporary airplane runway, Sergeant Sig Ruman is sent out with two men to find the missing radio. Weissmuller gets rid of the two men by leading them into a pond filled with "cannibal fish". Ruman reports back to Ridges to say that Weissmuller has the radio. After her brother, Stanley Brown, is murdered by Ridges, Gifford escapes the city. Eventually, she ends up staying with Weissmuller and Sheffield. Weissmuller reiterates his "if they leave me alone, I'll leave them alone" philosophy. Sheffield suggests that Gifford try to change Weissmuller's mind the way Jane would, by swimming with him and cooking him dinner. When Weissmuller accuses her of trying to bribe him into fighting Nazis, she sets off to return to Palandrya. Weissmuller goes after her to bring her back to safety, while Ridges leads a group of men to Weissmuller's home. Ridges gets the radio but notices the missing coil. He slaps Sheffield around trying to get the coil, which, or course, Cheeta has hidden. When Weissmuller attempts to swing to the rescue, the Nazis shoot him down. Some friendly monkeys shake the tree under which Weissmuller has fallen, so that when the bad guys search for his body they can't find it. Gifford, with Cheeta's help, finds Weissmuller and when he learns that the Nazis have kidnapped Sheffield, he picks up his knife and proclaims "Now, Tarzan make War!". While Weissmuller never picks up a gun to fight, he does take a fallen weapon from a Nazi and gives it to one of the men of Palandya and says, "Go kill Nazis." Sheffield ends up picking up a pistol, and when he shoots dead a German about to shoot at Weissmuller, our hero seems to approve. When Cheeta understands that the bad guys are beating Sheffield trying to get back the coil, he races off. I was hoping that he was going to get a herd of elephants to attack, but instead he retrieves the coil and puts it back on the Nazi radio. Ridges is attempting to call Berlin when the revolt occurs, so he fails to give his message. Later, after the action ended, Berlin calls the now dead Ridges but Cheeta answers. At first the Berlin operator complains that he can't understand what Ridges is saying, so his commander takes over. The commander exclaims that the person on the radio speaking gibberish is not Ridges, it is The Fuhrer, so everyone in the room salutes "Heil Hitler". Writing credits go to Carroll Young and Roy Chanslor, while the direction is credited to Wilhelm Thiele, an Austrian Jew. This is the first of the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan films to not use footage of a trapeze artist in place of Tarzan swinging on a vine. And there is not a single black African to be found.
TARZAN'S DESERT MYSTERY (1943) - Carroll Young gets the story credit, while the screenplay credit goes to Edward T. Lowe Jr. Wilhelm Thiele is again listed as the director. Someone decided that it was time for Tarzan, played by Johnny Weissmuller, to leave the jungle. So when an airplane flying over the escarpment drops a letter by parachute to the jungle family, Boy, played by Johnny Sheffield, eagerly reads Jane's new letter to Weissmuller. Jane is working as a nurse back in England, where many patients suffer from jungle fever. She asks Weissmuller to send her the medicine Weissmuller made as a cure. To get the plants needed to make the medicine, Weissmuller will have to cross the desert to get to a dangerous jungle in which the plant grows. Sheffield lies, with his fingers crossed behind his back, that Jane says that Sheffield and Cheeta must make the trip as well. All along the trip, Weissmuller says that now Sheffield must go home, but events keep the team together. On the way to the dangerous jungle, our heroes must pass through the Arab city of Birherari. Also on the way to Birherari is American vaudeville magician Nancy Kelly, who is given a secret message for Prince Robert Lowery by Prince John Dehner. (While Dehner is reportedly playing this uncredited roll, I didn't recognize him.) Meanwhile Lowery is telling his father, Sheik Lloyd Corrigan, that he doesn't trust the two foreigners with whom the Sheik is doing business - Otto Kruger and Joe Sawyer. While Kruger tells Sawyer to not call him "Heinrich", no one in the movie refers to anyone as being German or being a Nazi, though many synopsis on the internet report that this is another Tarzan Against The Nazis plot. Corrigan tells Kruger that he really liked the wild horse they saw crossing the desert, so Sawyer sets out to capture the horse. While Sawyer's men hogtie the horse, the villain gets ready to use a whip on the animal to try and make him complacent. Weissmuller sees this, and using a bow and arrow shoots the whip out of Sawyer's hand. When Sawyer pulls a pistol, Weissmuller fires another arrow to knock that away as well. Oddly, this is the only time in a Weissmuller movie that Tarzan uses a bow and arrow, and he doesn't do it again in the movie. Our hero forces the bad guys to leave without the horse, but the horse refuses to leave as Weissmuller and Sheffield are now his friends. Meanwhile, Kelly is trying to explain the "saw a woman in half" trick to her Arab porters, which Weissmuller comes upon the scene and, thinking that Kelly is in danger, scares away the porters, who also take her horse and gear. One of the porters is played by Frank Faylen, who would become famous as the dad on the TV series The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Discovering that Kelly is also going to Birherari, Weissmuller invites her to join his group, but she must ask the horse's permission before the horse will let her ride him. In Birherari, Kruger accuses Weissmuller of stealing the horse from Sawyer, and our hero is jailed. Weissmuller makes Kelly responsible for Sheffield, which causes her confusion. Kelly wonders how to get Lowery's attention without her gear, but Sheffield suggests an act featuring Cheeta on a wire. When she sees that Lowery is watching, Kelly sings the Yale fight song, knowing that both Lowery and Dehner attended that school. Lowery arranges to meet Kelly that night, which Kruger and Sawyer observe. So does Cheeta,of course. Kelly gives Lowery the message hidden in the bracelet Dehner gave her, and then she leaves. Sawyer throws a dagger into Lowery's back while the villains scramble down to get the paper message. Cheeta steals the message and Lowery burns another piece of paper to get the bad guys to think the message as been destroyed. Kruger and Sawyer frame Kelly for the murder of Lowery and she is soon sentenced to hang. Sheffield and Cheeta visit Weissmuller in jail, where Weissmuller overpowers the guard. The guard, however, throws the keys across the room where Weissmuller can't get them. Rather than have Cheeta go after the keys, Weissmuller tells him to steal enough turbans to make a rope so that they can escape though the open window - which the jailers seem to feel is too high up for anyone to escape through. Weissmuller gets his friend the horse to break out of the stable, stampeding the other horses through the city, and he gets Kelly to jump on his back while Sheffield and Cheeta jump on another horse - without asking permission. The villains give chase, but lose our heroes during a sand storm in the desert. Getting the message from Cheeta which would prove her innocence, Kelly wants to return to Birheran, but Weissmuller insists that they get the medicine in the dangerous jungle to send to Jane. In the jungle is soon becomes apparent why it is considered dangerous. It is crawling with giant lizards as in THE LOST WORLD or ONE MILLION B.C. The villains follow our heroes into the jungle, but they aren't killed by the lizards. Instead, Sawyer gets it from a conventional lion. Weissmuller is detained for a bit by a giant carnivorous plant, but he gives out a jungle roar is rescued by a herd of elephants. Meanwhile, to escape Kruger, Kelly and Sheffield duck into a cave, only for Sheffield to be caught in a giant spider web. Kelly's scream directs Kruger into the cave, but he is prevented from shooting Sheffield by Weissmuller swinging in for the rescue. As the giant spider eats Kruger, Weissmuller cuts Sheffield out of the web and the good guys escape. Back in Birheran, the Sheik thanks our heroes for straightening everything out. Kelly promises to deliver the medicine to Jane back in London along with her family's best wishes. Meanwhile, the Sheik prevents Cheeta from stealing his turban. Reportedly, Ben Johnson doubled Weissmuller for the horse riding shots, and the Arab village was originally built for the 1927 KING OF KINGS and would be used again in the 1965 HARUM SCARUM.
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Angel Rivera Watched:
SOLDIER BLUE" (1970)
I don't know if I can say I enjoyed this film as it is based on the infamous "Sand Creek massacre" where Cheyenne and Arapaho were butchered by the Colorado Territory militia in 1864. Having read about the massacre which is featured in the book, "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" by Dee Brown, I knew a little bit about the massacre. It was one of the most horrible attacks on Native Americans because mostly unarmed women and children were horribly killed and their bodies savagely mutilated. I first saw this film when it played at the student center at my college and then I watched it again when I bought the DVD of the film. I had just watched a video on YouTube that purported to list the most graphic and violent Westerns ever made. So I took out my copy of the film and watched it again. The video stated that a lot of the film had been edited to show less of the violence against the Native American tribes. The film was directed by Ralph Nelson who had also directed "Lilies of the Fields." (1963). It starred Candice Bergen and Richard Strauss. Not for the weak-hearted.
Enjoyed:
"TARZAN AND THE LOST SAFARI" (1957)
The first Tarzan film to be made in color and filmed partially on location in Africa. Gordon Scott is Tarzan, who rescues a small plane load of passengers and leads them through the jungle when they have landed in the territory of the white hating "Opar" men. One of Scott's co-stars was Betta St. John who was also featured in Scott's last Tarzan film, "Tarzan the Magnificent" (1960)
SINATRA: ALL OR NOTHING AT ALL" (2015)
An interesting documentary and biography of Frank Sinatra that minimizes his association with the American Mafia. Highlights many of his songs, especially from his younger years to his popular songs as an older singer.
"FIREFLY" (2002) S1.E 14 "Objects in Space"
The last episode of the series. It's an interesting little episode as it features Richard Brooks of "Law & Order" fame as a bounty hunter out to get River Tam; who out smarts him and he is left floating in space.
Mildly enjoyed:
"SOYLENT GREEN" (1973)
I didn't catch this film when it was first released and only caught it recently. Charlton Heston in his last sci-fi role is friends with Edward G. Robinson (in his last film role) and watches him die and discovers what the food substance "soylent green" is made of. Heston's love interest in this film is played by Leigh Taylor-Young. At 50, when he made this film, Heston looks and is much too old for Taylor-Young who was 28 when she made this film. Heston also appears long in the tooth to be an action star for this movie. Only mildly interesting.
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David Deal Enjoyed:
DEEP RED (76) - Is this the best introduction to Argento?
MAN, PRIDE AND VENGEANCE (67)
SO SWEET, SO PERVERSE (69)
THE BODY SNATCHER (45) - One time I saw this with Robert Wise in the audience. He gave an interesting talk afterward.
SLEEPY HOLLOW (99)
OSS 117 PANIC IN BANGKOK (65) - Check the Eurospy Guide book.
LE SAMOURAI (67) - Perhaps my favorite hit man movie.
HOUSE OF FEAR (45)
THE MUMMY (32)
THE SAINT IN PALM SPRINGS (41)
Mildly enjoyed:
S.O.S. PACIFIC (59) - Don't get me wrong, this is a good Eddie Contantine flick. I've just seen it enough times.
CONVOY BUSTERS (78) - This late cycle Maurizio Merli cop thriller is okay, but his earlier entries are better.
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Bertrand van Wonterghem Highly enjoyed:
I cento passi (2000, Marco Tullio Giordana)
Enjoyed:
Fargo (2013, season 1) – episodes 1 to 6
Kim Kong (2017, Stephen Cafiero) – episode 3
Mildly enjoyed:
Enrico IV (1984, Marco Bellocchio)
The unholy Trinity (2024, Richard Gray)
Prefiero la muerte (2025, Sebastian Sarinan) (season 1)
Naeildo chulgeun / See you at work tomorrow ! (2025, Jo Eun-sol) – episodes 8 to 12
Did not enjoy:
I gabbiani volano basso (1977, Giorgio Cristallini)
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