The Incredible Melting Man (1977)

HIS NAME WAS DENNIS, and he was my best friend in 3rd grade.

One Monday morning, Dennis couldn’t wait to tell me about a movie he saw over the weekend: a horror flick called The Incredible Melting Man, about an astronaut named Steve West (Alex Rebar) who comes back from space after flying through the rings of Saturn, causing his body and mind to disintegrate, making him kill.

I had seen ads for The Incredible Melting Man in the paper, and the shot of the man’s decomposing face terrified me. But Dennis proceeded to tell me all the details about the film, from the melting man’s goriest kills to his ooey, gooey demise.

It sounded like the greatest film ever made.

Over the years, I began to hear just how wrong I was. The Incredible Melting Man is panned in virtually every review you read. It even got the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment in 1996. But it still gnawed at me that I hadn’t seen this film for myself. So recently I decided to try and watch it through the eyes of a third grader, and see if it would have been cool to my inner 9-year-old.


Dennis better pray I never see him at a high school reunion.

The Incredible Melting Man is excruciatingly bad. Less than ten minutes in, the cheesiness envelops you, much like the gelatinous goo swallowing up West, our tragic hero turned mindless monster. When he’s not busy ripping people apart, West spends a lot of time wandering across hillsides, sometimes with a beautiful sunset behind him.

The acting in The Incredible Melting Man alternates between wooden and melodramatic. As Dr. Ted Nelson, the man trying to track down West, Burr DeBenning is dreadful. He looks clammy and emaciated, and delivers every line like he was told his dog died just before writer/director William Sachs yelled “Action!”

Sachs’ script doesn’t help matters. Here are a few doozies from the dialogue:

“Steve escaped.”
“He what?”
“Did you get some crackers?”

“You mean he’s radioactive?”
“Just a little bit.”

“Don’t call me baby.”
“Ok, sorry, honey.”

The Incredible Melting Man’s score by Arlon Ober sounds like something from a ‘70s cop drama – right down to the dramatic “DUM-dum-dummm” when something “shocking” happens. The only reason, if any, to sit through the film is to witness the early work of Oscar-winning special effects legend Rick Baker (An American Werewolf in London).


Contrary to what I thought of Dennis’ word-of-mouth review, The Incredible Melting Man is not great. It’s not good. It’s just bad. It’s not even “so bad it’s good.” There are no scares. No suspense. Like the melting man himself, the film aimlessly lumbers from one scene to the next until it mercifully ends.

Rating:

Is it suitable for your kids?

The Incredible Melting Man is rated R, and for good reason:
Violence/Scariness: A nurse’s mutilated face is shown. The melting man tears off a victim’s head off-screen, then we see it tossed into a river, where it cracks open on a rock like a melon (the victim’s bloody, headless corpse appears in a later shot). The melting man rips apart and dines on an elderly couple. There are several scenes of the melting man, well, melting – all gooey with random body parts falling off. A potential victim chops off the melting man’s arm with a meat cleaver. A sheriff repeatedly shoots the melting man, who shows his appreciation by tossing the sheriff onto high voltage power lines, frying him. A major character is shot in the head. The melting man’s final demise is a gooey, crunchy mess.
Sex/Nudity: A model gets topless at a photo shoot in the woods.
Smoking: Three kids share a cigarette behind a house.

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

Unless she’s got a soft spot for low-budget horror cheese, highly unlikely. The Incredible Melting Man is a bloody, gooey affair with little redeeming value.

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The Incredible Melting Man
* Director: William Sachs
* Screenwriter: William Sachs
* Stars: Alex Rebar, Burr DeBenning, Myron Healey, Michael Alldredge
* MPAA Rating: R


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Westworld (1973)

MENTION THE NAME “MICHAEL CRICHTON,” and most people think of the best-selling author of thrillers such as The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Disclosure, and Rising Sun.

But in the early 1970s – after witnessing the animatronic people at Disneyland’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” ride – Crichton wrote and directed his feature-film debut, Westworld.

In the near-future of Westworld, people can spend $1,000 a day to visit Delos, an adult-themed amusement park where guests live out their wildest fantasies. Comprised of three worlds (Medieval World, Roman World, and Westworld), Delos is inhabited by robots who look, act, sound, and even bleed just like the human guests. Like Disney World, Delos is supported by an elaborate underground control center, where a staff of technicians controls the robots and the scenarios, and provides repair to robots damaged in the action taking place.

It’s Westworld where our leading men are headed: manly man John (James Brolin) and nebbish Peter (Richard Benjamin). Once they arrive, the two have lots of fun with saloon whiskey, loose women, bar fights, and jailbreaks. They even engage in shootouts, often with a steely-eyed troublemaker dressed in black (Yul Brynner). Everything’s good-time, rootin’-tootin’ fun – until the robots start malfunctioning and killing the guests.

Throughout Westworld, Crichton teases at the potential breakdown of the Delos parks: the supervisor (Alan Oppenheimer) voices his concern, a malfunctioning robo-rattlesnake bites John, and a Medieval World wench (Anne Randall) refuses a guest’s seduction. These minor glitches soon develop into to deadly attacks on the guests, with a fatal swordfight in Medieval World, a violent riot in Roman World, and Brynner’s gunslinger coldly gunning down a Westworld guest.

While Brynner is in Westworld for less than half its running time, his robotic gunslinger steals the film. In an homage to his character from The Magnificent Seven (he even wears the same outfit), Brynner portrays the perfect blend of ice-cold killer and calculating humanoid, with a piercing stare made extra chilling by Brynner sporting light-reflecting contact lenses.


After shooting one of our leading men dead, Westworld’s gunslinger methodically pursues the survivor through all three Delos parks – thumbs hooked in his gun belt, eyes fixed on his target, and using thermal vision (shown in POV) more than a decade before Predator.

Yes, Westworld has its plot holes, it dips into camp on occasion, and a lot of the dialogue (especially between Brolin and Benjamin) is disposable. But it’s still a very entertaining film that’s essentially the blueprint for Crichton’s more ambitious themepark-run-amok story: his 1990 novel Jurassic Park.

Rating:

Is it suitable for your kids?

Westworld is rated PG, though if it was released today it may have been PG-13.
Violence/Scariness: Several people and robots are shot or stabbed, with blood pouring from the wounds; a robot is set on fire and fully engulfed in flames; John and Peter shoot a robotic rattlesnake; the Delos technicians suffocate after the park’s breakdown cuts off their air supply.
Sex/Nudity: John and Peter sleep with robot hookers at the saloon; one of the hookers is shown topless from the back.
Profanity/Language: Two occurrences of “God damn it.”

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

Westworld feels like a film you’d enjoy by yourself, with friends, or possibly with your tween or teen son. Unless your FilmMother is a sci-fi fan, or a Crichton fan who wants to see his filmmaking debut, I’m guessing she’ll pass.

Boy, have we got a vacation for YOU!

 Westworld
* Director: Michael Crichton
* Screenwriter: Michael Crichton
* Stars: Richard Benjamin, James Brolin, Yul Brynner, Dick Van Patten, Alan Oppenheimer
* MPAA Rating: PG


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Starcrash (1979)

IT’S NO SECRET that after the blockbuster success of Star Wars in 1977, a glut of quickie, low-budget space sagas flooded the market over the next few years, all looking to cash in on the phenomenon.

And probably no one in the history of motion pictures has successfully mastered the art of “quick” and “low-budget” like the legendary Roger Corman. So it’s a no-brainer that he entered this stampede of sci-fi schlock by producing the 1979 turkey Starcrash.


Marjoe Gortner (Bobbie Jo & The Outlaw) and Caroline Munro play a pair of interplanetary smugglers recruited by an emperor (Christopher Plummer) of a nearby planet to help defeat the evil Count Zarth Arn (Joe Spinell) of the League of the Dark Worlds (DUN-DUN dunnn…), who’s planning to use The Doom Machine (DUN-DUN dunnn…) to destroy the emperor and his planet (dun, dun, DUNNN!!!).

Picking the best worst element of Starcrash is like trying to pick a favorite color of the rainbow. There are so many to savor: unconvincing miniature spaceship models, jarring editing, poor matting, the dated use of wipes and lap dissolves, melodramatic dialogue with expired phrases like “we’ve studied all the videotapes,” and cheesy stop-motion animation that immediately makes you yearn for anything by Ray Harryhausen. (Irony alert: Munro faced off against Harryhausen’s classic stop-motion creatures in 1973’s The Golden Voyage of Sinbad.)

The cast’s ham-fisted performances make it obvious they’re in on the joke. Gortner plays leading man Akton as part hero, part guide: Much of his dialogue consists of explaining oddities or advancing the threadbare plot. As space vixen Stella Star, Munro’s sexy British voice is removed and dubbed by American actress Candy Clark (Gortner’s then-wife). To compensate, Munro is scantily clad for much of the film – which is an additional blessing since her acting consists mostly of a raised eyebrow, scowling, smoldering stares, or a head-shake-and-grin combo.


As the Emperor, a slumming Christopher Plummer (who shot all his scenes in one day) gives as much regality and class as possible to his role, while Spinell (Rocky, Maniac) does such a good job hiding his Noo Yawk accent that is sounds like someone else dubbed his lines. And since everything can use a little Hoff, the Emperor’s son Simon (David Hasselhoff) shows up around the one-hour mark to help with the cause. However, it’s soon after Hasselhoff’s appearance that Starcrash starts to lose its playfulness – lumbering into a mundane, anemic third act despite lots of stuff getting blowed up real good.

Directed by Italian schlockmeister Luigi Cozzi (under the name Lewis Coates) and originally released in Italy as “Scontri Stellari Oltre la Terza Dimensione (Stellar Clashes Beyond the Third Dimension),” Starcrash wasn’t Corman’s only entry in the post-Star Wars sci-fi boom: He also produced the far superior Magnificent-Seven-in-space epic Battle Beyond The Stars.

In the finale of Starcrash, the Emperor orders his imperial battleship, “Halt the flow of time!” At many points during this clunker, it does indeed feel like time is standing still.

Rating:

Is it suitable for your kids?

Starcrash is rated PG: Several people are shot dead by laser guns; victims of a spaceship crash are shown frozen in the snow; Stella, Akton, and Simon engage in hand-to-hand combat with enemies at various points; and there is one utterance of “damn.” Basically, if your kids have seen Star Wars, there’s no reason they can’t watch Starcrash.

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

The two of you could have some fun with Starcrash by goofing on it MST3K-style, but the novelty may wear off before the end credits roll. You’re probably better off exploring it alone as a morbid curiosity to see what makes it such a talked-about train wreck.

Yes, that’s a light saber. No, nothing is sacred.

Starcrash
* Director: Luigi Cozzi
* Screenwriters: Luigi Cozzi, Nat Wachsberger
* Stars: Marjoe Gortner, Caroline Munro, Joe Spinell, Christopher Plummer, David Hasselhoff, Robert Tessier, Judd Hamilton
* MPAA Rating: PG


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American Swing (2008)

AS A CHILD OF THE ‘70S, I sometimes have trouble relating to the fact that while I was enjoying the most innocent years of my life, many adults were engaging in some of the most hedonistic and debauched behavior of modern times. Casual and open cocaine use, key parties, and “swinging” by married couples were apparently taking place across America.

One avid swinger, a former deli owner named Larry Levenson, believed so much in catering to the swinger scene and bringing it to the mainstream that he opened Plato’s Retreat, a sex club in New York City during the late ‘70s and early ‘80s where couples could indulge in spouse-swapping, anonymous sex, and group orgies (not to mention the free buffet).

It’s the ascension, heyday, and eventual decline of Plato’s Retreat that’s the basis for the documentary American Swing.

Plot:
Mathew Kaufman and Jon Hart direct this documentary about the legendary sex club Plato’s Retreat, which catered to adventurous heterosexual couples in the 1970s and beyond. Featuring frank interviews with former members and graphic footage of the club's activities, the film explores how a once-thriving center of free love imploded amid drugs, tangled relationships, and the rise of AIDS.

Critique:

Kaufman and Hart certainly have done their research in order to create an informative and accurate-as-possible account of Plato’s Retreat – American Swing features dozens of interviews with former employees and management, friends and relatives of Levenson, regulars of the club, journalists who covered the scene, celebrities who visited the club, and archive footage of Levenson himself from appearances on Donahue and local New York City public access TV shows.

In addition to the sheer volume of interviews, Kaufman and Hart also provide unprecedented imagery of what went on inside the club – with dozens of photos and many video clips, both showing in very graphic detail the sexual escapades that took place (Swing is unrated, but would have easily been NC-17).

It’s oddly intriguing to listen to people who now qualify for AARP talk about Plato’s Retreat and the anonymous sex, spouse-swapping, and orgies that went on there – especially in the club’s notorious “mat room,” where only the most hardcore attendees would gather.

For the second half of American Swing, Kaufman and Hart put aside the titillating footage and focus on the people impacted by the club’s decline and eventual closing due to IRS woes and the looming threat of AIDS. (Watching Levenson and his cronies argue with callers on public access TV in 1985 as to what does and doesn’t cause AIDS is both laughable and sad, considering how little was known about the disease at the time.)

After three decades of being able to mostly only read and hear about what went on at Plato’s Retreat, American Swing blows the proverbial doors off the place – giving unprecedented access to the people who were there, showing what went on via uncompromising footage, and telling the story of yet another overconfident pioneer who believed his own hype, believed he was above the law, and fell victim to both.

Rating:

Is it suitable for your kids?

Ah, no. No, no, no. The frank talk and visual evidence in American Swing regarding the sexual activity that dominated Plato’s Retreat is strictly for grown-up folk – and even some of them might be taken aback by what’s discussed and shown. There are copious amounts of nudity and several scenes of multi-partner or group sex, and recollections by former patrons about what they did or witnessed is sometimes as explicit as what’s shown.

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

If she likes documentaries, American Swing is very well-made and more thorough than the average doc. But she’ll need to have an open mind to the subject matter.

See? Even casual, anonymous sex with group partners has its rules.

American Swing
* Directors: Mathew Kaufman, Jon Hart
* Stars: Bryce Britton, William Davidson, Dan Dorfman, Donna Ferrato, Jamie Gillis, Al Goldstein, Dian Hanson, Buck Henry, Ron Jeremy
* MPAA Rating: NR


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Black Samurai (1977)

AFTER RECENTLY FINISHING Michael Adams’ excellent book Showgirls, Teen Wolves, and Astro-Zombies: A Film Critic’s Year-Long Quest to Find the Worst Movie Ever Made, I found myself with a list of supposedly terrible movies I felt I had to see in order to truly savor their awfulness.

First on the list: the 1977 kung fu/blaxploitation flick Black Samurai.

Plot:
Special agent Robert Sand (Jim Kelly) is asked by the CIA to save his girlfriend Toki (Essie Lin Chia) after she’s kidnapped by a voodoo cult led by the evil Janicot (Bill Roy). It turns out Toki is also the daughter of a top Eastern ambassador, and Janicot's ransom demand is top-secret information for a new weapon, the “freeze bomb.” Sand’s search takes him from Hong Kong to California to Miami, facing bad men, bad women, and bad animals (Janicot's pet is a killer vulture!).

Critique:
Black Samurai has all the trappings of the ‘70s action genre: groovy opening credits, a funk-tastic soundtrack, sketchy audio, poor looping, stiff acting, overdone karate sound effects, bad editing, lots of Aviator sunglasses, and sideburns a-plenty. But despite all that tasty kitsch, the film as a whole isn’t as satisfying.

In terms of performances, Kelly – who had a memorable supporting role in Bruce Lee’s smash Enter the Dragon – is the lead plank in the wooden cast. (According to Jim Brown, the makers of their film Take a Hard Ride made Kelly’s character mute because he simply couldn’t act.) Dialogue is delivered either in monotones or with misplaced emphasis; the only exception is Bill Roy, who effectively relishes his role as Janicot with proper inflection and smarm.

Low-budget grindhouse filmmaker Al Adamson – whose films weren’t “fun” bad movies as much as “bad” bad movies – doesn’t provide an even or energetic pace to the proceedings. Fight sequences are either quick and done, or drawn-out and lackluster. (Though Sand’s jet-pack sequence left me in a mix of hysterics, jealousy, and how’d-they-do-that intrigue.)

The framework of Black Samurai is a direct lift (read: rip-off) of Enter the Dragon: a debriefing of our hero by government agents who need him for a mission; the hero’s journey to a mysterious island to bring down the big boss; a climactic battle where our hero wipes out dozens of the boss’ guards almost single-handedly; and a cat-and-mouse finale between the hero and boss (instead of a maze of mirrors as in Dragon, Adamson uses a maze of catacombs beneath Janicot’s mansion lair).

In fact, everything in Black Samurai is second-rate – not just to the classic Enter the Dragon, but to the ‘70s kung fu and blaxploitation genres in general. I watched the first hour in one sitting, but having to finish the last 25 minutes a few days later felt like having to do homework I’d been putting off.

While Black Samurai is nearly unwatchable, it should earn an award for Most Ironic Line of Dialogue: After Janicot forces Sand’s CIA buddy (Biff Yeager) at gunpoint to lie to Sand over the phone and lure him into a trap, Janicot declares: “The government even trains its agents to be very good actors.” Hmm. Maybe Adamson should’ve gotten a government grant from the NEA and sent the entire cast of Black Samurai to The Actors Studio.

Fun facts:
* In Kelly’s opening scene, he’s playing tennis. After his acting career faded, Kelly became a professional tennis player, rising to number two in California in the senior men's doubles rankings and reaching the state's top ten in senior men's singles. He now works as a professional tennis coach.
* Adamson’s death is the stuff of one of his films: He was bludgeoned in 1995 at age 66 and cemented in the Jacuzzi at his home by the contractor he had hired.

Rating:

Is it suitable for your kids?

Black Samurai is rated R for language (including a baddie declaring Sand will be “one dead n**ger” and Sand calling another bad guy a “Whitey faggot”), chopsocky violence, and other acts of aggression (people are shot, poisoned by snakes, stabbed, and blown up via car bomb). Also, partygoers ogle a stripper during a party at Janicot’s mansion (no nudity, but she gets down to a bikini top and thong).

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

Moot point; it’s not worth watching. If she likes ‘70s kung fu and/or blaxploitation, I’d recommend Enter the Dragon for the former and either Pam Grier’s Coffy or Isaac Hayes’ Truck Turner for the latter.

If I cropped this shot any closer, you’d think
they were doing something besides fighting.

Black Samurai
* Director: Al Adamson
* Screenwriter: B. Readick
* Stars: Jim Kelly, Bill Roy, Roberto Contreras, Marilyn Joi, Essie Lin Chia, Biff Yeager
* MPAA Rating: R


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The Cat from Outer Space (1978)

AS I HINTED at the beginning of my last review, there’s not much love (or nostalgia) for Disney films of the ‘70s. But as a ‘70s child, my movie-going memories and the Disney films of that decade are largely inseparable.

To wit: I remember my mom and aunt taking me to see 1978’s The Cat from Outer Space and loving it; then two years later, my sixth grade class watched it on a rainy day, erupting in applause when it ended.

Dash often balks when I want to watch movies from my childhood with him; sometimes they just don’t hold up. But I found an “in” through his love of the Binky the Space Cat books (left) by Ashley Spires; he really loves Spires’ comic-book illustrations as she tells the funny tales of Binky’s imagination and exploration.

Well, this is a movie about a cat and outer space…the timing couldn’t be better, right?

Plot:
A UFO is stranded on earth and impounded by the U.S. government. Its pilot is an extraterrestrial cat (voiced by Ronnie Schell) with a collar that has special powers, including the ability to allow the cat to talk with humans. The cat, nicknamed “Jake,” enlists the help of scientists Frank (Ken Berry), Liz (Sandy Duncan), and Link (McLean Stevenson) to reclaim and repair his ship to get back home.

Critique:

As with several favorite films and TV shows of my childhood, it seems The Cat from Outer Space is a situation where I’ve loved my memories of the film more than the film itself.

It takes 45 minutes into TCFOS until any true attempts at comedy take place, which is a mixed blessing since nearly all attempts at comedy fall flat. Out-loud laughs are at a minimum, and so is the barely-present musical score by legendary film and TV composer Lalo Schifrin. Essentially, the script and action make TCFOS feel as if it was written more as a light-hearted adult caper than a kids’ Disney film.

Berry, Duncan, and Stevenson try to keep things moving with frenzied actions and bewilderment about the whole situation (Stevenson offering the most entertainment as Berry’s mooching friend and colleague) as they try to keep Jake from falling into the hands of pursuing U.S. army troops led by Harry Morgan, here basically doing a more gruff variation of his Colonel Potter role from TV’s M*A*S*H. It all culminates in a plane-chase climax that, while sounding cool, takes for-ever to conclude.

The Cat from Outer Space is typical of the ‘70s lot of Disney live-action movies: pedestrian and slow-paced, but with just enough of a Disney touch to make it watchable (though it’s eons better than Superdad).

Tidbits:
* Sandy Duncan is allergic to cats.
* Stevenson and Morgan both played commanding officers on the TV series M*A*S*H, with Morgan replacing Stevenson when Stevenson left to star in his own show, the ill-fated Hello, Larry.
* Screenwriter Ted Key also wrote other Disney live-action films of the ‘70s, including Gus and The Million Dollar Duck. He also created the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman for the “Rocky and Bullwinkle” cartoon series.

Rating:

What did Dash (and Jack-Jack) think?

Dash liked TCFOS just enough to stay with it, though he and I were wondering if the plane-chase climax was ever going to end. Jack-Jack lost interest near the one-hour mark, which is no surprise: a slow-moving, 105-minute live action movie can’t compete with the attention span of a four-year-old. (However, he did chime in during a foot chase involving an elevator: “I like elevators. They’re fun.”)

Is it suitable for your kids?

While The Cat from Outer Space is rated G, it’s a “’70s G,” as I call it. (The MPAA was a little less scrutinizing back then.) Depending on your sensitivities, there are a few scenes involving alcohol and tobacco, as Stevenson’s cigar-chomping character constantly barges into Berry’s apartment to steal beers and watch sports; and in a pivotal scene in a pool hall, there’s plenty of beer-drinking and cigar-smoking. Also, the climax includes some gunplay and mild peril as Berry and Duncan nearly fall out of the planes during the drawn-out plane chase.

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

As much I may be betraying my childhood memories by saying this, I wouldn’t bother her with this one – even if she likes Disney films and/or cats.

The casting for Easy Rider 2 was looking less than promising.

The Cat from Outer Space
* Director: Norman Tokar
* Screenwriter: Ted Key
* Stars: Ken Berry, Sandy Duncan, Ronnie Schell, McLean Stevenson, Harry Morgan, Roddy McDowall
* MPAA Rating: G



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