Just another week of dementia and demolishing of the U.S.A.....
Wishing all BQ visitors a fun, relaxing weekend....wishing all "But I didn't vote for this!" Trump voters a colonoscopy with a rusty chainsaw.....just to give you an idea of the world you've plunged us into.....
Who Killed Teddy Bear? (1965)
Often we've grown nostalgic and soft hearted remembering how Hollywood depicted New York City, especially in the romantic films of the 1960's.
Ah....New York....the Big Apple....Central Park....the Plaza Hotel....the skating at Rockefeller Center.....and that towering Christmas tree....
What a place for comedy and romance.....and audiences delighted in movies like 'Breakfast At Tiffany's', 'Barefoot In The Park', 'Sunday In New York' and 'The World of Henry Orient',"Lover Come Back", "Boys Night Out", "That Touch of Mink"
All that came to an end at the start of the 70's, with the release of "The French Connection" and the slew of action-crime thrillers that followed in its wake. NYC, financially crumbling, riddled with rampant street crime and an entire populace working on their last nerve, became the East Coat version of a wild west frontier....gritty, gory and gruesome.
But this was no breaking news to the city's community of actors, writers and independent filmmakers.
Smack in the middle of the 1960's, when Hollywood had turned the city into a technicolor rom-com playground, the hardy bunch who concocted "Who Killed Teddy Bear?" showed the cinema world a side of New York that big studios wouldn't exploit for another 6 years or so.....
In short, a violent hellhole.
In this trim and grim little black-and-white psycho-sexual tale, Norah, a young dance club DJ (Juliet Prowse, of "G.I.Blues" and "Can Can") is relentlessly stalked on the phone by a cuckoo-for-coco-puffs pervert.....and who's actually the club's young waiter Larry (Sal Mineo, really embracing the crazy.)
Norah gets some help from her tough-as-nails boss Marian (veteran stage actress Elaine Stritch) until Marian's hugging becomes....uh..a little too up close and personal. Our poor girl's main protection comes from single-dad vice cop Dave (a rare dramatic turn from comedian and game show host Jan Murray).
But Lt. Dave's got problems of his own. His single minded obsession with hunting down sexual predators has him literally taking his work home with him......playing back recordings of victims' experiences where his little daughter can hear them while she's trying to fall asleep....wow, some bedtimes stories.....
And meanwhile the mad, mad Larry's trying to find a release for his desires as he tours 42nd street, the city's now long gone Mecca of sleaze and porn......(which you'd never catch sight of in the Hollywood NYC movies). His home life offers no comfort either, as he copes with his 19 year old sister Edie (Margot Bennet), afflicted with the mind of a 7 year old.
Sorry to report that all of this dysfunction and and dread offers no real surprises or shocks in the film's conclusion but that didn't stop 'Teddy' from developing a cult reputation over the years, even finally a DVD and Blu-Ray release. (Though its startling presentation of a grimy, hellish NYC marked the film as well ahead of its time.)
(Some film pundits think of 'Teddy' as a gateway to the ever more graphic psychological thrillers of the 70's and beyond, even the Italian Giallos which took audiences in their grip five years later with Dario Argento's "Bird With the Crystal Plumage".)
Sadly, the star-crossed career of Sal Mineo was cut short 12 years later when he was randomly stabbed to death in the street. The charismatic and strikingly beautiful Juliet Prowse, a talented singer and spectacular dancer, could find only moderate success in her brief TV sitcom, Mona McLusky and in nightclub and theater appearances. We couldn't take our eyes off her in any scene she appeared in and wished she could've gone on to bigger and better projects. 'Teddy Bear' was one of her last film credits.
Seekers of oddball cinema and fans of the two leads might want to hunt this one down.......but don't expect too much. 2 stars (**).
Breakheart Pass (1975)
Though probably remembered as just another Charles Bronson action-packed shoot-'em'-up vehicle, we always found Bronson merely one of many interesting participants in this movie.
Charlie fans, don't get upset with us....we like him just fine and he gets to scowl and Bronson-ize lotsa bad guys......but we're here to talk about the folks who made this film two or three steps above the usual stuff he was grinding out every 6 months of so.
Let's start with a rip roaring Jerry Goldsmith score, filled with Wild West fervor and the promise of high adventure comin' down the tracks.....(for almost the entire film, we're aboard an 1870's train chugging through snowy landscapes...). Leave it to Jerry to immediately put us in the right frame of mind.....
And now to the plot.....way above average for a medium-budgeted western and courtesy of the acknowledged master of high adventure himself, Alistair MacLean ("The Guns of Navarone", "Where Eagles Dare").
Taking a rare excursion from his usual stories of European espionage and World War 2 derring-do, MacLean's trip into America's Wild West still bears all his signature trademarks.......a large cast of characters concealing two or more of them who are villainous traitors and a dauntless, determined hero whose steely understated courage brings about their undoing.......
'Supposedly' a notorious wanted outlaw, Bronson's taken aboard a train loaded with an Agatha Christie-like coterie of suspects racing to deliver medical supplies to a diphtheria-stricken frontier outpost......or so they say....(heh, heh, heh)
But in true MacLean fashion, absolutely nobody and nothing are what they seem and the perilous trip ends up littered with plot twists and dead bodies tossed around (and sometimes off) the train) with equal abandon.
Then about halfway through the film, MacLean throws in one of his favorite tropes....in which his utterly fearless hero engages in a nail biting mano e mano death struggle....(a la Richard Burton's brutal duel with two double agents atop a mid-air cable car in "Where Eagles Dare")
Therefore, on top of the 'Breakheart' train as it chugs across an impossibly towering bridge, Bronson squares off with the train's duplicitous cook (former boxer Archie Moore) with both men hanging off the side, each only some slippery fingers away from oblivion. It's thrilling to the max, with seamless blending of Bronson, Moore and their stuntmen so we can hardly tell the difference between them.
Which brings us to the next legendary cinema icon who propels this film far above the mere routine.....the masterful veteran stuntman and stunt coordinator Yakima Canutt, who'd been leaving audiences gasping in awe since the silent film era.
You can thank Canutt for the astounding action-stunt sequences in "Ben Hur", "Spartacus", "Where Eagles Dare", "A Man Called Horse", "El Cid", "Khartoum" and many many more. He finished his long celebrated career with 'Breakheart Pass' and his hold-your-breath train fight and the furious satisfying final battle (featuring cowboys, indians, cavalry and exploding train cars) provided a worthy finish to a legendary career.
And we don't want to wrap up this review without mentioning, the sturdy, muscular, no nonsense direction of Tom Gries who passed away too young at only 54 just a few years the release ot this film. Gries graduated up from directing episodic TV to become a talented craftsman equally capable of handling drama and action with credits such as Bronson's "Breakout", "100 Rifles", "Will Penny" "The Hawaiians", "Number One" (the last three with Charlton Heston.
All together, Gries, MacLean, Goldsmith, Canutt, and Bronson made 'Breakheart Pass' a richly entertaining B-Plus western that's always worth returning to from time to time.....(and by the way, that to-die-for supporting cast!.....Ben Johnson, Richard Crenna, Charles Durning, Ed Lauter, David Huddleston Bill McKinney and those all too familiar bad guys, Roy Jenson and Robert Tessier......what a lineup.
A fun watch anytime....4 & 1/2 stars (****1/2).
The Fall of Iris Henley by Jennifer Graham (2026)
In Her Defense by Philippa Malicka (2026)
Everyone's chance to curb the madness, to put a leash on the slobbering mad dog posing as President of the United States comes on November 3rd, 2026...
Think of it of America's true 'liberation day'.....
For the rest of the world: prepare to break out champagne and fireworks if we in the USA do the right thing......
The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)
Like millions of others, we'd grown weary of Marvel superhero movies.....with their convoluted multi-verses, repetitious smackdowns and tiresome end credit teasers that made us realize the 150 minute movie we just sat through was really just an elaborate trailer for the next 150 minute movie we're supposed to salivate for in anticipation.
Audiences let out a collective yawn, all of us suffering from SES....Superhero Exhaustion Syndrome. (Probably also brought on by those crappy Warner Brothers DC comics movies and Disney's never ending parade of mediocre Marvel series on their Disney Plus streaming site.)
So we approached this newest Disney-Marvel version of 'The Fantastic Four' with more than little dread......and found ourselves, dare we say it. surprised, engaged.....and yep, entertained.
Holy Spandex, the damn thing's actually kinda fun to watch. There's a whole tongue-in-cheeky 1960's vibe to it that coats the movie with a sheen of playful innocence.
The new bunch of actors brought in to play the Quad Godz bring some much needed humanity and humor to the usual smash 'em-bash 'em razz-ma-tazz. There's the inevitable but reliable Pedro Pascal as rubber limbed Science Guy Reed Richards. Vanessa Kirby adding some mature sexuality to Reed's wife, the invisible, multi-powered Sue Storm, Joseph Quinn as her younger brother, the impulsive flying fireball Johnny Storm and Ebon Moss-Bachrach (of "The Bear") as the massive, clobberin' orange rock Ben Grimm.
Together, the gang's up against super-gigantic outer space planet eater Galactus (Ralph Ineson) and his equally lethal Silver Surfin' minion Shalla-Bal (Julia Garner). Earth is next on their demolition schedule but the Galacinator's willing to give us a pass if Sue gives up her and Reed's newborn son, Franklin. Galactus, tired to exploding and gobbling planets, thinks little Frankie has some awesome superpower he needs that the Four haven't figured out yet.
And what a problem facing Sue, who as a new fierce mama bear, won't sacrifice her baby boy. At first, that doesn't sit well with everybody on Earth, viewing as just a tad selfish on Sue's part. (Now there's a problem never discussed in books for new parents.....)
But never fear, when Galactus, who makes Godzilla seem like a baby salamander, comes a stompin' into NYC, the four mix it up with him in a titanic battle that, for a refreshing change, doesn't overstay its welcome like most Marvel destructive derbies.
We fully admit to having a jolly good time with this Fantastic Four - it reminded us of why we all became bedazzled and amused by comic book movies to begin with......before they took a slide into bloated self-importance and same-old-same-old. And we didn't even mind the usual end-credits teaser, which of course promises the next villain stepping up to the plate.
The Four next appear in the upcoming Avengers movie and since they're included in the mix, we're willing to give it a try.
4 stars (****).
