The Bloody Fists ( 1972 )
This week I decided to pick a film at random, basically closing my eyes and putting my pointing fingers on a DVD on the shelf. What I picked was The Bloody Fists, an independent film which is only remembered for being one of the first films Woo Ping choreographed the fights in. The star is Chen Sing, a martial arts star who is memorable simply because he was the lead in a lot of successful independent films. In this film he plays a notorious bandit wanted by the law, who's signature move is to begin combing his hair when confronted by enemies, then break the comb in half after which he attacks. Hunted by the police, he takes refuge in a small village. The farmers there grow something called Dragon Herb, which has the ability to cure sickness, and more important, somehow stop famine. When famine hits North China, they send one of their farmers to aquire the Dragon Herb. However, the Japanese also want the Dragon Herb because they don't want the famine cured and want the Chinese to starve. And since the village is still in an occupied part of China, send a group of their evil Karate masters to take over the town and force the farmers to tell them where they are hiding the Dragon Herb. Being a wanted man, Chen doesn't want to get involved, and plans to leave town after he has recovered from a bout of plague ( which is cured by Dragon Herb tea ). But after the Japanese have killed one too many villagers, including the kindly old man who nursed Chen back to health, he realizes defeating the Japanese is his patriotic duty, and has a comb breaking final showdown with them on the beach.
This movie has every cliche you'd expect from a 70s anti Japanese martial arts film. There is the traitorous Chinese collaborator, the Judo expert with the Hitler mustache ( a not very subtle reminder as to who the Japanese we're allied with around this time ), the Karate expert who rapes and kills Chinese girls, and even continues raping them after he has killed them, and last but not least, a town full of heroic Chinese villagers who refuse to give in to the Japanese demands even upon torture or facing execution. Chen Kuan Tai, who a year later would become a major star at Shaw Brothers, plays the long haired leader of the Japanese. This genre of martial arts film has never really worked outside of China. While it is clear the Japanese in these movies are evil villains who must be stopped, only the Chinese had enough hatred of the Japanese for their occupation of China during WWII that they would take a film like this seriously. I could even imagine them cheering screen every time a character did or said something heroic. For the rest of us these films were over the top and cartoonish. So I could never appreciate this film as much as the Chinese did. It is still a pretty good film despite the fights being far below the standards Woo Ping would set for his choreography only a couple of years later.
Witchblade ( 2000)
As I am getting close to completing my Superhero movie collection, I continue to scrape the bottom of the barrel. Witchblade was originally a television movie for TNT. Soon after there were two seasons of a Witchblade television series for the same network. Now here is the problem. The movie is not sold separately. You have to buy the entire Witchblade series to get it.
It is an above standard television movie which is basically the pilot for the series that would come a year later. The basic plot, a woman police detective goes after a suspect in a museum, and during the shootout ends up with one of the artifacts on her arm. A sort of glove called a Witchblade that not only deflects bullets and occasional produces blades of varying lengths, but also gives her supernatural powers.
The Story of Mankind ( 1957 )
You would this that when I finished watching the Marx Brothers Paramount Films set last week I would be done with the Marx Brothers. But I still have three other films.
Humor Risk ( 1921 ) was the Brothers first film, and their only silent movie. It went missing just before it was set to be released. One legend has it that Groucho set the only print on fire after watching a screening. And is it any wonder. The silent movie is a vastly inappropriate medium for the Marx Brothers, where you wouldn't hear Chico's fake Italian accent, or any of Groucho's puns, and you could not tell that Harpo was silent on a movie where everyone is silent. If by some miracle a print of this film does turn up and is released on home media, I would gladly add it to my Marx Brothers collection.
The House That Shadows Built ( 1931 ) was a Paramount short the Brothers made a guest appearance in. As far as I know the entire film has never been released on home video, yet. That leaves The Story of Mankind which is considered by some to be the final Marx Brothers film as all three are in it.
Except that while Chico, Harpo and Groucho are all in this movie, they are all in separate scenes. This was the first feature film directed by Irwin Allen, who would become a sensation two decades later for directing many successful disaster movies. What this movie had in common with those disaster films was an all star cast. Allen pulled this off by casting actors in scenes no longer than two minutes, and could all be shot within a couple of hours. Allen used existing back lot sets, leftover costumes and props from other films, a tons of stock footage culled from past Warner Bros historical epics. In the film, Heaven finds out that man has invented the Super-H bomb, capable of blowing up the entire planet. So a tribunal is held to determine if they should interfere and prevent the bomb from exploding, or allow man to destroy themselves. Vincent Price plays Scratch, a.k.a.The Devil, who is advocating to allow man's destruction. Ronald Colman plays a character called The Spirit of Man who advocates for man to be saved. Both Scratch and TSOM are permitted to make their cases, and are both given the ability to time travel so they each can show historical examples that will bolster their arguments.
As I said, the three Marx Brothers are in separate scenes. Chico has the shortest role as the father of Christopher Columbus. Groucho plays the diplomat who bought Manhattan Island for $24. And Harpo plays Sir Issac Newton. Chico is not given any funny lines, and I suspected Allen cast him in that tiny part after he got both Groucho and Harpo in the cast. Groucho's part is the longest of the three. He is given a lot of Groucho style one liners, none of which are funny. Harpo is giving a Harp, barely playing a couple of notes before an apple drops on his head. Predictably his character doesn't talk, and like Groucho, isn't funny. At least since this film was Technicolor, you got to see Harpo's hair color for the first and only time. While not identified as The Marx Brothers, they are given third, fourth and fifth billing, which I am sure was done so that patrons would assume this was another Marx Brothers film.
This is one of the films listed in the book The Fifty Worst Films of All Time ( And How They Got That Way ). As I have already mention, while that book was the first major all time worst list, and was the first to identify films like Robot Monster ( 1953 ) and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians ( 1964 ) which have been on every worst movie list ever since, not every movie belonged in that book. Certainly not The Omen ( 1976 ). While this film failed when it came to it's Marx Brothers cameos, I couldn't call it bad. Cheap perhaps with all the stock footage, a rip-off for the major Hollywood stars in the cast who got top billing to only appear on screen in cameos, got a lot of historical facts wrong and an ending that would piss anyone off. But it passed my ultimate test on if a film is bad. It never had me wanting to check the counter to see how much time it had left. Amazingly, where in all rights this film should have dragged, it never felt like it did. Perhaps due to none of the scenes being on screen for more than a couple of minutes.
And unless The House That Shadows Built ever gets a home video release, this movie completes my Marx Brothers movie collection. Although I am not quite done yet. Next week I will be watching one of Groucho's solo films. There are a few other of their solo films out there which I intend to eventually add to the collection, but I am in no hurry to do that. The summer of Marx Brothers movies, which began Memorial Day weekend, ends this Labor Day weekend. Something I had never planned, but just happen on the spur of the moment on discovering the MGM box set was going OOP.
Topic: What was the last movie you watched? (Read 1680151 times)
