Shout At The Devil (1976).....probably arrived a decade too late for the kind of film it was and the mass audience it was designed for....
An expansive, expensive, sprawling action-adventure, it delivered an overstuffed package of spectacular action, low comedy, exotic lush locales, international cast members and robust roles for its two big stars as brawling frenemies.
We gleefully gorged on a plentiful supply of movies like this throughout the 1960's, But amid the eclectic, groundbreaking cinema of the 1970's, this film came off like an antiquated, out-of-touch relic, with all its obvious flaws visible.
And it certainly didn't help that the pace dragged throughout its 150 minute length and that the film took a wild swerve in its last third......from rollicking hijinks to grim 'men-on-impossible-mission' territory.
We're back in 1914 East Africa, suffering under the dictatorial thumb of Germany. This state of affairs doesn't sit well with renegade ivory poacher Flynn O' Flynn (Lee Marvin in full 'Cat Ballou'/'Paint Your Wagon' ham-it-up' mode) Flynn's constant smuggling and poaching bedevils local German commander Fleischer ( Rene Kolldehoff, blustery, bloated and decked out like a cartoon Bismark, complete with the spike atop his helmet)
Through crooked means, Flynn recruits Stiff Upper Brit Sebastian Oldsmith (Roger Moore) to join him on his nefarious elephant hunting safari and float the harvested ivory tusks up the river patrolled by German gunboats.
(A word here about the rather disturbing Elephant hunt, with Moore and Lee felling dozens of the majestic beasts. A title card proudly proclaimed that no animals were harmed in the making of the film.......if we take the producers at their word, then somebody evidently trained the elephants to collapse on cue......but we still have our doubts.....)
The stalwart Moore then follows the drunken loquacious Marvin on further random capers, further enraging the sputtering, close to comical Kolldehoff. (Along the way, the storyline introduces mediocre TV actress Barbara Parkins as Marvin's daughter and naturally, a love interest for Moore.)
(We're way too saddened to discuss poor Ian Holm's role as Marvin's mute Arab sidekick. We're pretty sure he erased it from his memory and in honoring this gifted actor, so will we....)
What truly disappointed us - given the film's directed by Peter Hunt (the editor of the first five Bond films and director of 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' ) the ragged, uneven pace of the film left us shaking our head. Completely missing here is the propulsive energy and precise cutting that Hunt brought to the Bonds. The film feels more like it was directed by a connect-the-dots journeyman like Andrew V. McLaglen.)
The script gives its superstars little too work with, so Moore glides through it with his usual dapper cool and Marvin shamelessly chews up the scenery as he performs entire scenes bulging his eyes and slugging down gallons of gin. At one point, the film allows them a lengthy John Ford-ish comic fistfight that leaves them both unconscious. These guys really could've used an actress to match them in charisma but Parkins is never more than barely adequate.
As we mentioned, the film's third act tosses in a startling, brutal tragedy, which sends Moore, Lee and Parkins on a do or die mission to destroy a German battleship and personally send Kolldehoff to the hell he richly deserves. It's by far the best part of the film, suspenseful, dramatic, loaded with action and might make you forget the random wandering it's been afflicted with through most of its running time.
For those viewers still woke-stricken, we give fair warning. The film was made in apartheid South Africa and still holds on to the attitudes of 1950's/1960's films set in Africa. The natives get regularly killed off in droves and the film thinks nothing of covering Moore in blackface so he can sneak on to the battleship as a native minion.
"Shout At The Devil" ends up as a mixed bag of pleasures and gaffes. With a tighter script, faster editing and a female lead to more than match the boys, it coulda been a contender.
2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2)
No comments:
Post a Comment