Works Well with Whiskey #3

 WWW: Robocop, The Sea Wolves, Sign of the Gladiator, and The Hill

ROBOCOP (1987) --- Outlaw action thriller they’d not dare today, Robocop silly on surface, a title giving exclamation to that, but don’t confuse with safe spandex  served over twenty years past (really, that many?). Robocop runs rapid, tawdry in the cut-price doing. Used to be flummoxed by those calling the eighties a golden era, or “last” golden era, but hang if things like Robocop don’t open my eyes, being fun in near-disorienting ways. No wonder it made a star director of Paul Verhoeven, forever young in maverick spirit it seems, yet the man is now eighty-five. I call Robocop pre-CC, that is Current Code. There are more of those than expected, Robocop near top for trashiness (seen Starship Troopers? Great), yet with plenty bold to say, nothing like CC compliant always safe and spineless. Robocop shines like a beacon from distant past (thirty-seven years anyway) to remind us there once were wolves in sci-fi clothing to challenge status quos rather than remain in resolute service to them. Robocop and kin are refreshing rebuke to chains binding now-Hollywood, good start to hang up super-suits or give same back to children where they belong. But what of baby teeth too sharp for marshmallows latterly “heroes”? I venture it is kids getting bored with recent stuff, not just grown-ups. An “Unrated Director’s Cut” Robocop can be had on Blu-Ray. See it for a bloody good time.

THE SEA WOLVES (1980) --- Watched this plus The Guns of Navarone and what dispiriting difference mere nineteen years made. Old folk actioners were a late seventies staple, visible into the eighties, a final stand for stars once major stars who could fight and die convincingly for war or western purpose. Action in the end was all vets were saleable for, as what else would an international market support? Gregory Peck in drama might float TV-movie boats, but on a big screen, he, like others, must pack a gun where starring, or character-support where not starring. It was work, the best a player of venerable age could expect, many of comparable years finding reassurance in Peck, David Niven, giving good account of themselves in a scrap. From the producers of The Wild Geese, said trailers, and so indeed was this more of same, us left to wonder whose appetite was best served by should-be retirees buckling up again to quell international villainy. What I noticed of these Wolves was caution at movement and firing of arms, Niven uneasy with his pistol for lately being more-less sedentary on screen. We expected Gregory Peck to always be battle-ready, for hadn’t he been so just last night on a late movie? Concept is for Boer War colleagues, formed of late as “Calcutta Light Horse” members, to rouse themselves toward sink of German shipping for King and Country, much of two acts played for comedy except for junior recruit Roger Moore (in his fifties, but junior among these) whose mission is to seduce a could-be Axis operative after 007 fashion. Part of separating men from well-spent men was this group standing for camera inspection, which could be pitiless, for instance Trevor Howard, once reliable soldier in greasepaint now greased by years of tipple and damage that did him. Be patient re pace, forgive sluggish script (Reginald Rose) and direction (Andrew V. McLaglen), and you’ll get by. What is the word they use for stuff like this … elegiac?

SIGN OF THE GLADIATOR (1959) --- Rome --- long ago … the Liberty, almost as long it seems, since we sat for what is called “Peplum” by fans of such. I mainly recall men tied between horses whipped toward opposite directions, or Gordon Scott fighting Steve Reeves (Romulus/Remus), maybe Reeves piloting a Trojan Horse, which I persuaded our Sixth-Grade teacher to let us attend for extra credit. Did it have scholastic value? Don’t remember, but the idea seemed viable. Sign of the Gladiator streams on Amazon Prime, Italian-spoke, but there is menu of subtitles from which to choose, and ratio is scope-correct. True value of viewing enterprise is Sign’s status of earning biggest-to-then rentals for American-International, $883K (hold my toga, Horrors of the Black Museum). Goliath and the Barbarians would do even better, an astounding $1.818 million. This was the best money Jim and Sam saw till Beach Party in 1963. Admiring Sign of the Gladiator and sitting through it, however, are two different things. There is no principal “strongman,” Georges Marshal more wiry than muscle-bound, and he’s no gladiator either, that just to sugar marquees. What we get for strength is Anita Ekberg, zaftig to nines and barely clad aboard steed (wouldn’t that itch after a while?). She is referred to alternatively as “Bathsheba” and “Zenobia” --- in either case, the “Virgin Queen” of Palmyra, or whatever place she ruthlessly rules in opposition to Rome itself. I had fun at isolated moments even as they became increasingly isolated over 98 minutes which seemed like more and maybe was. I hope Jim/Sam gave this one a haircut before release, Amazon tendering not their version, but presumed “original” from Euro source.

THE HILL (1965) --- Star all of sudden Sean Connery had pick of properties by the mid-sixties and so chose The Hill, meat-on-bone recite of conditions within a military stockade in desert deep fry and shot in a spot parched as what story depicted. Connery wanted out of Bond-age early on. They hadn’t treated him well, saying no to percentage terms he sought, major burn coming of conversation with Dean Martin where SC learned the Matt Helm series got Dean much more than 007 brought its portrayer. But who fielded outside projects for Connery? We, at least me, wanted more Bond, not A Fine Madness, Woman of Straw, or The Hill. Woman of Straw is actually OK, especially so The Hill, neither fare for youth wanting more of Aston-Martins and jet packs. The Hill was of sort that might not have got American release were Connery absent. Makes one thirsty just watching, which explains WWW placement. Connery was to large extent a misplaced British actor, despite his being Scots, and you could say the Bond thing was, if a happy accident, anyway an accident. He was startled and made largely miserable by fan frenzy the product of 007. What could have prepared journeyman Brits for worldwide celebrity? So few had experienced it, none to degree Connery now did. He couldn’t chuck Bond quick enough once his contracted five were done, even if there was reluctant return with Diamonds Are Forever, which he did for extraordinary fee donated to Scottish charities, then a much later Bond accepted with personal control strings attached. The Hill is grim, sweaty, frankly hopeless, one of military setting that might appeal to vets who said such themes were too often fairy-tailed by movies. Directing was Sidney Lumet, whom Connery respected a lot, MGM back of the project with finance and US distribution. They surely did not expect much from it, but lo/behold The Hill did well in an otherwise bleak season, modest $1.5 million spent on the negative bringing back $3.9 million in worldwide rentals for ultimate profit of $706K.