Return of the Killer Tomatoes (1988)

Alice, Darling (2022)

Death Line (1972)

A couple of college students, American Alex Campbell (David Ladd, brother of one of the films executive producers, Alan Ladd Jr.) and Brit Patricia Wilson (Sharon Gurney), are returning from a date late one night, and notice a seemingly well to do man lying unconscious on the stairs leading out of the subway station. Alex doesn't want to get involved, but Patricia insists they tell someone, so they tell a policeman, but by the time they get back to where they saw the man he's gone. Alex had taken a peek at the man's wallet, so passed the name on to the police. The local Inspector (Donald Pleasence) is initially uninterested in the report (as there's no body, and no missing person reported), but when a check is run on the name and it is discovered to belong to a holder of the Order of the British Empire, a senior civil servant in the Ministry of Defense, the inspector becomes much more interested. 

The film follows the Inspector and his associates in the investigation, the couple who first found the man, and his murderer. Christopher Lee stops by in a camo role (which he agreed to do for scale as he had never worked with Pleasence before and wanted to) as a member of MI5 who shews the Inspector away from the case. But whatever secret goings on the missing man was involved with turn out to be unrelated to his disappearance. 

The "twist'' of the film is that the missing man (James Cossins) was knocked unconscious and later retrieved by a cannable (Hugh Armstrong). The station in question is located near a long-abandoned tube line that had collapsed in on itself during construction, back in the Victorian era. At that time, it was standard practice not to dig the dead workers out as it was deemed not worth the effort. Here however a number of the male workers and for some reason some women survived the collapse, and again for some reason they didn't dig themselves out and return to the world but formed a small colony that survived for eighty-odd years, picking off as needed fellow members of the lower classes to eat. This apparently didn't attract attention because those that the cannibals picked off were deemed unimportant by the police and upper classes. The class commentary here is heavy handed. 

The colony was at last down to one member, and because by chance he abducted someone deemed important (who was down there trying to hire a prostitute), the larger mystery finally came to light. The killer was essentially a caveman, who could communicate only in grunts and slivers of English that had survived underground. The "good guys" kill him in the end, but projecting forward this case would have become a tabloid sensation and prompted investigations into the better part of a century's worth of crappy police work. 

So yes, the mystery proves to be silly, but the film does a good job of maintaining tension and boasts some interesting characters. For me the most interesting by far is Pleasance's Inspector Calhoun, there is a lot of implied backstory to the character and Pleasance elevates  

him with the particularities of his performance. He's a man who given his age would almost certainly have served in The War. He lives alone and apparently never married, he's very particular about his tea, is kind of a grump, has some sort of ongoing beef with Lee's MI5 character, and as an investigator, I'd give him a B -. 

This is another movie I didn't expect to finish, just wanted a taste of it. However, it proved interesting enough to catch me and hold my attention for its 87 minutes. Smarter than it needed to be, its exploitation far that is just enough off the expected path to be memorable. **1/2 

Entrapment (1999)

 Sorry, can't say I liked this one much, though I probably would have liked it more had I seen it closer to when it came out. A 29 year old Catherine Zeta-Jones is an insurance investigator who is really a thief herself. She arranges things to give her boss a reason to send her after a famous thief played by a 68 year old Sean Connery. Tasked to stop him, she really plans to team up with him for a series of daring robbery's, culminating with a night time break-in at the Petronas Towers in Malaysia as the world rings in the new Millennium.

The sexyness of the April - December couple was really played up at the time. I thought the plot was really basic and pretty uninteresting. Though the extended heist sequence at the end is very well done and frankly made me feel dizzy and scared. However for the most part this felt like a mah of a movie, for me the chemistry of the leads just wasn't enough to carry this blah and ridiculous, auto pilot of a 90's action movie. *1/2

Dr. Minx (1975)

 'Dr. Minx' is a sexploitation film helmed by the Iraq born exploitation auteur Howard Advedis (born Hikmet Labib Avedis), who I know from 'The Teacher', in which TV's 'Dennis the Menace' Jay North sleeps with his teacher. 'Dr. Minx' opens with Dr. Carol Evans (Edy Williams) in bed with Gus Dolan (William Smith). Gus was an employee at her late husbands construction firm, said late husband had passed away in a work accident three months before and Carol has just sold the firm, the affair between the two started prior to his death. With the firm now sold Gus thinks it would be a good time for the two of them to get married and share in the bounty. Carol doesn't want to rush things, Gus says 'then why did you have me kill your husband'. Carol says she didn't know it wasn't an accident, that she didn't want her husband killed and kicks him out of the house.   

Carol doesn't have much time to ruminate on these revelations, she has a shift at the hospital. On the way to the hospital she happens upon a bike accident, and takes the victim Brian Thomas (Randy Boone) and his dorky friend David Brown (Harvey Jason) to the hospital (these two are supposed to be high school students on summer vacation, though both actors are in their 30's (though look early to mid 20's)). Brain's injuries are minimal, but he's going to have to stay in the hospital a couple of days, they notify his parents.

David has noticed how sexy Dr. Evans is, so he shows up at her house that night with the pretense of checking on his friends condition. Carol is amused by his moxy, so while in her sexy robe invites him in for a little bit and they talk, but no more then talk, David leaves disappointed. While Dr. E isn't interested in David, she is interested in his friend Brian, and upon his release invites him over to her house for some follow up, so he doesn't have to go all the way to back to the hospital, wink, wink. Brian will find his visits with the doctor more satisfying then David did. 

Carol and Brian's relationship is complicated by the fact that its statutory rape, David's jealousy, and Gus's efforts to blackmail her. Gus shows up one night (this forces Brian to hide) and claims to have audio tape of Cindy telling him to kill her husband. Cindy says she said no such thing, but agrees to meet Gus at his house the next day and see what he does have. 

Brian tags along in case things go south; he hides in the car, then sneaks out to spy on them through the sliding back door. Carol accuses Gus of doctoring the tape, there is a short struggle and then Brian comes in and in a panic shoots Gus dead. The two put Gus's body in the back of the car, and then burry him in Carol's backyard. Only David, still perving on Carol, see's this, he later puts pressure on Brian to turn Carol in or he'll tell the police where the body is buried. So Carol and Brian have to move the body again, so by the time David convinces the sheriff to come investigate, there's no corpse there (the sheriff tells the youth to stop bothering nice Dr. Evans). 

So having to move the body again, (Carol has a place out in the county she wants to dump it (this movie is filmed and set in California)), necessitates a spur of the moment trip, which necessitates crafting a late excuse for Brian's parents; which they don't believe and send David out to the country to bring him home, and on and on, escalation after escalation, and you won't be surprised to find this ends in further tragedy.  

I didn't intent to finish this, I just wanted to watch a little bit of the "hot doctor" movie. But as you can tell there is a lot going on here and it sucked me in. Edy Williams is gorgeous, and while no one here is a great actor, they are good enough. The plot is constantly unfolding new information and complications and it covers a lot of ground in just 94 minutes. I was never bored. It's always nice to encounter an exploitation film that is better then it needed to be, and I'd class this movie in that category. Rough around the edges, but compelling. ***

The Fury (1978)

Spoilers

 'The Fury' is Brian De Palma's rather on point adaption of the 1976 John Farris novel of the same name, published by Playboy Press. Kirk Douglas is Peter Sandza, a successful businessman who has been raising his son alone abroad since the death of his wife. He plans to change that however, leaving his long time employer with plans to move back to the States and get a proper education for his (late teens?, the actor is in his early 20's) son on how to handle his vaguely referenced 'special abilities'. They are at a beach resort in Israel saying goodbye to Peter's business associate and best friend John Cassavetes, but they are betrayed by him, a terrorist attack on the resort was set up with the express purpose of killing Peter. Peter's son Robin (Andrew Stevens) is spirited away before the bad guys learn that he survived. Peter then begins his quest to locate and rescue his son. 

Robin was abducted by the CIA, who Cassavetes secretly worked for. The youth had begun manifesting psychic and telekinetic powers which he doesn't know how to use, the CIA wants to train him as an asset. For a time Robin is kept at a once legitimate psychiatric facility, The Paragon Institute in Chicago, which the CIA has taken over, to the growing chagrin of the main doctor there played by an endearing Charles Durning. After several escape attempts Robin is relocated to a remote mansion facility (in Virginia?), where they assign a sexy doctor (Fiona Lewis, who had modeled for Playboy) to keep him sexually satisfied and under control. 

Meanwhile Chicago private school girl Gillian Bellaver (Amy Irving) has begun manifesting psychic/telekinetic abelites of her own, she agrees to a stay at The Paragon Institute for further testing. Durning quickly discovers that her powers are legitimate, but wants to pretended they are not to keep her out of CIA custody. Peter meanwhile is hiding out in Chicago and has initiated a sexual relationship with a nurse at Paragon (Carrie Snodgress) to get the inside dope. Carrie advises Peter of the CIA's plans to move Gillian to another facility, and the two engineer an escape in which Carrie is killed. 

Peter and Gillian are now on the run together and make their way to the mansion facility with the intent of freeing Robin. Robin however has mentally deteriorated in custody, becoming more violent and moody as his powers increase. The escape attempt will leave 2 of the three of them dead. 

There is some 'Carrie' here, there is some 'X-Men', I bet it makes more sense in the book, as details in the movie are slim and imply more then is fleshed out. It feels like there is story missing, though at the same time the uncertainties of the film help it to keep your attention as you try to piece things together. There are some good set pieces here, it's well enough paced, though the narrative bifurcates between Douglas and Irving and we see so little of Robin between the beginning and end of the film, that his character changes feel jarring and unexplained. On the whole this is a pretty good supernatural horror/mystery in the De Palma tradition. ***

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)

 

In his first film (fourth over all) after making the movie that made his name, 'Mean Streets', Martin Scorsese left a dirty, night time New York, for the sunny daylight stretches of the desert south west in 'Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore'. This dark comic character study, became the unexpected source material for a much more light hearted situation comedy called 'Alice', which ran on CBS for 9 seasons and 202 episodes.  

Our Alice here is an excellent as usual Ellen Burstyn. Alice Hyatt (nee Graham) grow up near Monterey, California with aspirations of becoming a professional singer, she got as far as performing regularly at a local club, where she meet Donald Hyatt (Billy Green Bush) who charmed her into marriage and relocated her to his home town in New Mexico. More then a decade later she is a housewife in a somewhat abusive marriage with an 11 year old son called Tommy (Alfred Lutter), who while generally not mean spirited is more then a little bit of a trial, bratty, short sighted and selfish as kids that age often are.

Alice's husband works as a delivery driver for Coca Cola, and is killed in a rather bloody traffic accident. Not well off to begin with, after the expenses of the funeral Alice and her son head off to California with their meager belongings. They decide to stay for a time in Phoenix and try to raise some money. Alice is able to talk her way into a singing job at a bar and becomes an unexpected success, though the job doesn't pay much she attracts the attention of a younger man (Harvey Keitel) who seduces her into a relationship, but turns out to be an already married psycho. Alice and son flee the city, then the car breaks down near Tuscon.

Alice gets a job as a waitress at a dinner populated by colorful characters such as Vic Tayback (who would return for the series), Valerie Curtin and an especially memorable Diane Ladd. Tommy falls under the bad influence of a very young Jodie Foster and Alice is - at first reluctantly - romanced by a divorced rancher played by Kris Kristofferson.

Wry, grounded and bittersweet 'Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore' is  solid, affective and endearingly rambling, with flawed characters who very much don't know what they're doing, and who we root for in no small part because of this. Scorsese shows early on a willingness to try new things and is a natural at a story which might seem out of his wheelhouse. I was impressed. ****