'Les caïds' (1972) AKA: The Big Shots / The Hell Below. - Robert Enrico.

Director Robert Enrico's gripping, twist-laden French 70s crime drama remains a thrillingly vivid exemplar of Gallic crime noir. Much like a refined vintage cognac, a great number of these enigmatic 70s French crime thrillers improve with age! This hard-boiled yarn successfully maintains a palpable tension all the way until its pulse-quickening climax. Including the compelling performances, and Roubaix's idiosyncratic score, I thought the shadow-steeped photography was excellent, and the talented director did a terrific job with the nervy heist itself. I admire doomy, existential crime thrillers, wherein the onus is on substance, rather than style, and grit, rather than quick to tarnish veneer. Avid petrol heads might care to note that legendary automotive daredevil Rémy Julienne provides the expert vehicular thrill-spillage. François de Roubaix's memorable themes complement the page-turning plot, earthy performances, and zesty action, with sublime elfin beauty Juliet Berto's sex appeal being a veritable force of nature! Robert Enrico's electric 'Les caïds' is a muscular, downbeat, briskly told, outstandingly well-made 70s policier that readily rewards repeated viewing.

 

 

 

'Lady Iron Monkey' aka 'Zui hou nu' (1979). Dir. Chen chi Hwa.

'Eagle Claw is VERY dangerous, but I have my secret Kung Fu!!!'

Raised from infancy by apes, her natural ability for deadly Kung Fu is frequently the cause of flamboyant jackanapes! So, it is with great shame that I openly admit to having only just recently discovered the acrobatic antics of sultry simian sired Chop Socky siren Lady Iron Monkey! Where has she been all my Kung Fu-loving life? As the great poets so often claim, love can be found in the most unexpected of places! This pacy, enchantingly silly Kung Fu fantasy stars Kam Fong Ling, Chen Sing, Lo Lieh, Wong Tai Liang, and is fuelled by dynamite electro funk, fabulously acrobatic fights and a fearsomely feral protagonist you certainly don't want to monkey about with! Festooned with oddball characters, a consistently goofy vibe, and boisterously interspersed with playful episodes of broad slapstick tomfoolery. While I think it is entirely fair to say that the more noisome comedic interludes get lost in translation, on the whole, Lady Iron Monkey's jocular shenanigans are pretty fun! This magnificent monkey girl sets my heart in a whirl, a dazzling kung Fu pearl, heroically hirsute, button cute, a ready match for any bellicose brute, Lady Iron Monkey is a bona fide hoot!

 

 'Soul Brothers of Kung Fu' (1977) – Hwa I. Hung.

Hugely affable HK action hunk, Bruce Li, and fiesty newbie Carl Scott make for a dynamically quad-fisted, thug-thrashing team in this heroically hectic, combat crazy Kung Fu spectacular! Soul Brothers of Kung Fu is a truly epic Brucesploitation brawler, and, happily, there's little in the way of a plot to dilute the street tough, skull shattering, solar plexus punishing action!!!! Excitingly choreographed fight sequences, super amplified Foley, minimal clowning, Bruce Li's Iron Finger'd insanity, righteous coming back from a near-fatal beating power-training, plus a bone-crunching final act make this some objectively top-tier Brucesploitation. 

 

 

'The Challenge' (1970) – Allan Smithee (Joseph Sargent).

During an escalating conflict, in an attempt to avoid a present nuclear threat, two hardy combatants from the opposing nations are tasked to fight one another on a small, somewhat inhospitable pacific island. 'The Challenge' is another exemplary, compellingly acted, rewardingly cerebral, hard-hitting, 70s TV Sci-actioner. The Challenge has a fine cast: Darren McGavin, Mako, James Whitmore, Paul Lukas, Broderick Crawford, a young Sam Elliot, with leads, McGavin, and Mako proving wholly convincing. This gripping, agitprop ABC movie-of-the-week highlighting the innate futility of war has a robust narrative that remains entirely relevant to this very day. With the constant threat of jungle-borne malaise, booby traps, toxic water, sudden death by ambush, and military duplicity, the tension is relentless, as the two fatigued warriors reach the unjust, and inevitably nihilistic endgame.

 

'The Girls of Huntington House' (1973) – Alf Kjellin.

I very much enjoyed this touching TV melodrama about a bustling maternity home for unwed, teenage mothers-to-be and their new, kindly, somewhat oversensitive English teacher Miss Baldwin (Shirley Jones). A well-written, soulful, thought-provoking story that is given additional zip by the quality of its believable performances. I must say, The Girls of Huntington House really does have an exemplary cast: Sissy Spacek, Mercedes McCambridge, Shirley Jones, and pretty Pamela Sue Martin. Unsurprisingly, the effervescent Spacek is quite lovely as the spirited folksy songbird Sarah. Earnest, quirky, saccharine-free, and pleasingly lachrymose at times, there's something about this vintage Lorimar production that I found curiously soothing.

 

 

 

'Dynamo' (1978) - Hwa I Hung.

One for avid Brucesploitation aficionados, and neophytes alike, and I think it is entirely fair to suggest that the snappy moniker is ably earned!! An honourable, fleet-fisted cabbie (Bruce Li) is groomed to stardom by an increasingly unscrupulous ad agency until they push him too far! Charismatic, devastatingly-agile Kung Fu practitioner, Bruce Li is on dynamite form, and many of his whirlwind fight scenes are crisply choreographed with no lack of satisfyingly crunchy Foley! Right on!!!! The talky gubbinz of warring ad agencies provides an unwelcome distraction from Li's exciting, evermore devastating combat skills. I must openly admit to getting an additional frisson of 'Fu-freak-out pleasure whenever lighting swift, steel-sprung, head-knocking Dojo-destroying hero Li righteously don's the iconic yellow & black Game of Death tracksuit! Overall, Hwa I Hung's highly-charged Dynamo remains a pretty electrifying old school 'Fu extravaganza, the brusingly bellicose battles being frequently boosted by some killer funk riffs, and the strenuous training sequences are pretty dope. Bruce shows no fear in Korea, proves he's the No.1 man in Japan, delivers a dynamic display in the U.S.A., and never puts a foot wrong in Hong Kong!

 

 

 

'Hauser's Memory' (1970) – Boris Sagal.

NBC's Hauser's Memory is a gripping, well-made Euro-Sci-spy thriller with Robert Webber, Lili Palmer, Leslie Nielsen, Susan Strasberg, with another compelling lead performance from the consistently excellent, David McCallum. A noted Scientist working with laboratory animals is asked to utilise his, as yet untested, procedure upon a human subject in order to transfer one deceased individual's memory into another living human subject. Needless to say, once the potent psychoactive serum has been administered, the pell-mell story provides a wealth of exciting, twist-laden incident. I simply can't get enough of these smart, well-acted, inventively written 70s TV movies! Anything but disposable entertainment, Hauser's Memory is a bustling hive of delicious intrigue, excitingly directed by the enormously experienced TV dramatist, Boris Sagal! The terse, increasingly sinister Cold War thriller is given additional production value by its handsome exterior location shots in Copenhagen, Berlin and beautifully baroque Prague.

 

'The Swiss Conspiracy'. (1975)- Dir. Jack Arnold.

Right off the bat, this (mostly) entertaining, glamour/glossy, visually appealing 70s Euro-thriller has a wealth of awesome Euro-cult credentials! Ably directed by B-Scion, Jack Arnold, and thrillingly framed against the alpine splendour of Switzerland, The Swiss Conspiracy is additionally bejewelled by some hefty thesping talent. Aggrieved clients of a highfalutin Swiss bank are being blackmailed, and sleepy/gruff alpha dude David Janssen is tasked to sleepily unmask these shady perpetrators. Like its somnolent star, the plot isn't exceptionally rigorous, yet the dazzling exterior locations are sublime, and the charismatic supporting cast provides a welcome distraction from the frequently undernourished text. My only gripe, and it is only a gripe-let, I feel that David Hess was greatly underused as a disposable rent-a-thug. That being said, scintillating siren, Senta Berger is distractingly luminous, and German music maestro Klaus Doldinger's inhumanly funky score is a real banger!