SHARON TATE, ONCE UPON A TIME........SIFTING THROUGH "THE WRECKING CREW" DEBRIS.......

The Wrecking Crew (1968)    We all know by now that if Quentin Tarantino was running the Universe, Hitler would have gotten the spectacular death he deserved........and Sharon Tate would still be alive.......

              Alas........

               In "Once Upon A Time In Hollywood", QT imagines Tate (Margot Robbie) sitting in a theater, wonderfully entertained as she watches herself as a ditzy babe in "The Wrecking Crew", the last of Dean Martin's four outings as Matt Helm, the exhausted, distracted, lounge-lizard Bond wannabe.......

               Fate, as everyone knows, dealt Sharon Tate an obscene, monstrous death.......and even in the wreckage of "The Wrecking Crew", a rock-bottom piece of Hollywood sausage, you could see the makings of a sparkling talent........a girl who could potentially combine a gift for comedic timing and slapstick with an off-the-charts  Marilyn Monroe-like sexuality.......

                Or to paraphrase Marlon Brando from 'On The Waterfront'......she coulda been a contenda.....

                The movie itself?  Oh Lordy.........if nothing else, Dean Martin and the Matt Helms provided a wellspring of inspiration for Mike Meyers' Austin Powers.......

                 Director Phil Karlson, the veteran warhorse who provided a modicum of pulp-action life to the first of these things, "The Sliencers", was brought back for "The Wrecking Crew".....

                Yes, I know how beloved Karlson was for his brutal, tough-as-nails noirs like "Kansas City Confidential" and "The Phenix City Story"......but when he took whatever was thrown his way, he functioned as just another clock-puncher.........you wonder if Karlson was even awake when directing this......if it was any more deadened and inert, it would qualify as still life......

                You'd never know it, judging from the slo-mo, arthritic karate fights, that Bruce Lee choreographed them.......and you can only wonder Lee's reaction to the film's title song, where the chorus does a sing-song Chinese 'Ah So!' and 'Velly Velly nice'.......

                Speaking of inert and still life.........long before Burt Reynolds discovered the joys of giggling and coasting through "Smokey" and "Cannonball" movies, Dean Martin already perfected the art of wandering through films in which he showed no earthly interest.  You can almost catch him counting the minutes till quittin' time.......

                 But enough space wasted on Dean, let's return to Sharon Tate, who took on the same kind of adorable screwball role that "The Silencers" gave to Stella Stevens.  And like Stevens, Tate knew a golden, steal-the-movie chance when she saw one.......and went for it full throttle.    Funny and sexy as hell, she's up against an A-Team of Va Va Voom 60's sexpots......Elke Sommer and Nancy Kwan.

                  Years ago, BQ flipped through a book filled with brief bios of 1960's starlets.........when they hit their inevitable starlet expiration dates, a few survived into middle-aged film careers, some ended up as trophy wives to millionaires, and a vast amount of them became busy, successful Southern California real estate agents.....go figure.

                 I'm with Quentin Tarantino.....I'd like to believe Sharon Stone would've enjoyed a career similar to Michelle Pfeiffer, Sandra Bullock , Meg Ryan or Charlize Theron........(we can all dream, can't we?

               For the Sharon Tate that might have been, 4 stars (****), for "The Wrecking Crew".....zero.