THE AMSTERDAM KILL (1977)

Robert Clouse (ENTER THE DRAGON) directed and cowrote (with Gregory Teifer) this routine narco-crime thriller that casts Robert Mitchum as Quinlan, a disgraced ex-DEA agent now working in the private sector. Somebody is punching the tickets of Hong Kong’s drug barons and one such baron, Chung Wei (Keye Luke) decides now is a good time to get out of the business. He contacts his former nemesis Quinlan to facilitate this, with a promise to feed tips for lucrative drug busts to Quinlan who in exchange will pass the information to his former DEA boss Odums (Bradford Dillman). Quinlan recruits an ex-NY cop (George Cheung) to keep Wei safe in Amsterdam so that he can focus on the raids in Hong Kong. However one such raid leaves several DEA agents dead in an ambush. Is Chung Wei setting up Quinlan, or is another player at work using Quinlan as a pawn in a larger power struggle?

There’s a fair amount of action in AMSTERDAM KILL but the film seems curiously flat, as if most of the people involved behind and in front of the cameras just were feeling a bit too tired to inject much life into the film. The movie feels somewhat like a 1960s film that wanted to emulate the kind of cinematic thrills a movie like THE FRENCH CONNECTION brought to the genre, only it wasn’t up to the task. Mitchum is just okay in this; the supporting cast of Bradford Dillman, Richard Egan, and Leslie Nielsen (all of whom are fine) give this a “movie of the week” feeling. I did like the fact that George Cheung, a fine character actor usually regulated to guest shots and villain roles (recently he’s been on E.R. as Ming-Na’s ailing father) is given a substantial good-guy role here. Clouse does make good use of his locations in Hong Kong and Amsterdam, and orchestrate an admirably energetic climactic shootout Despite the HK elements and his own experience in martial arts cinema Clouse skips including any such action in this. AMSTERDAM KILL was a Golden Harvest production; Clouse would team up with producers Raymond Chow and Andre Morgan later on for GAME OF DEATH (1979) and THE BIG BRAWL (1980).


ARABIAN ADVENTURE (1979)

Kevin Connor made a series of fantasy adventures whose ambitions were considerably larger than their allotted budgets. Despite being derided by stop-motion purists for utilizing rubber monster suits to recreate dinosaurs his movies like THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT (1975) and THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT (1977), both issued recently by MGM as a double-feature DVD, Connor’s movies still have their admirers. His final fantasy film of the 1970s was the zesty ARABIAN ADVENTURE, a mythic fantasy that is even more of a family film than his earlier pictures. Penned by the late Brian Hayles (who also wrote WARLORDS OF ATLANTIS for Connor), ARABIAN ADVENTURE stars Christopher Lee as Alquazar, Caliph of the Middle Eastern City of Jadur. He uses sorcery to maintain power and has imprisoned his own soul within a magic mirror. Alquazar seeks to make himself all-powerful, unstoppable – and to do so requires the power of the fabled Rose of Elil. This is an object beyond the reach of most mere mortals, yet Alquazar has foreseen the arrival in his city of an innocent child who can complete the task. Majeed (Puneet Sira) is a little orphan, wandering the markets and alleys of Jadur and enduring the torment of local thugs. His good deed of helping a blind beggar woman is rewarded with a jewel through which a genie offers him her protection. Majeed sets off across a perilous landscape to find the Rose. Joining him will be Hasan (Oliver Tobias), an exiled Prince seeking the hand of Alquazar’s stepdaughter Princess Zuliera (Emma Samms), and Khasim (Milo O’Shea), a wily spy & assasin in service to the Caliph. The service of a flying carpet makes the journey much smoother, but once the boy finds the Rose it is stolen by Khasim. The boy is abandoned, and Hasan left for dead. You can’t count the forces of good out however – the heroes enlist the aid of the rebels out to rescue Jadur, and with a small army of flying carpets launch a battle against Alquazar’s forces before he can obtain the power of the rose.


Whereas these days such films are realized with an abundance of CGI, you need not worry about such things when you sit down to enjoy this film – and enjoy it I did. Flying carpets soar and zip through the city streets, and even though they tend to look like Hasbro dolls on a bathroom rug I still had a great deal of fun watching this. The production only had a meager budget to work from, yet the design and effects crews (most of who went on to work on the INDIANNA JONES sequels) put some hard work in on this so visually the film is quite appealing. Connor keeps everything bouncing along nicely, showing both more vitality and a pleasingly wry nature in his direction than he had done so on his earlier fantasy films. The film’s ace among the cast is little Puneet Sira, completely charming as Majeed and believable as a steadfast, pure of heart hero. Milo O’Shea seems to enjoy his role as Khasim, with Christopher Lee being his usual professional self. Oliver Tobias (who cavorted with Joan Collins as THE STUD) is unfortunately wooden as Hasan – his performance lacks the charisma the part requires, though physically he’s spirited in the film’s action scenes. There is a marvelous chase sequence when Hasan escapes imprisonment within the Palace and must race through the catacombs battling guards. Tobias handles this perfectly, but he brings little enthusiasm to the non-action scenes. Likewise Emma Samms (later of DYNASTY but here making her debut) brings little to her part. Peter Cushing, Mickey Rooney, Capucine, John Wyman, Art Malik, Suzanne Danielle, Shane Rimmer, Hal Galili, Milton Reid, and John Ratzenberger (as a nasty gang leader who continually torments Majeed) are also featured.


A CHOICE OF WEAPONS (1977)

Another Kevin Connor film! This oddball comedy thriller is one of his less-seen movies, known also by the titles TRIAL BY COMBAT and DIRTY KNIGHT’S WORK. Connor had been working extensively with producer John Dark during the 1970’s, but he was recruited by ENTER THE DRAGON producers Fred Weintraub & Paul Heller to make this film. It seems a culprit known as the Red Banner Butcher is progressively doing in the criminal elements of London. Scotland Yard assumes it is a serial killer doling out retribution, but in reality the deceased have fallen under a vigilante justice system. The Knights of Avalon is a historical order that live and breathe a code of life centuries old; the criminals have been kidnapped and subject to “trial by combat” – medieval battles they inevitably lose. One of the Knights, Sir Edward Gifford (Peter Cushing) has been murdered at direction of Sir Giles Marley (Donald Pleasence) to protect their secrecy. Gifford’s estranged son Sir John Gifford (David Birney), who grew up in America and has been working in the oil industry, returns to England to investigate the murder. He’s assisted by Gifford’s longtime friend and former Scotland Yard chief Colonel Cook (John Mills), a man always with a sugar cube handy to help manipulate the will of animals. Sir Giles is worried that their meddling will expose the order, so he sets out to hopefully dissuade Sir John by any means necessary. Aiding Sir John and Colonel Cook are Cockney hood Sidney Gore (Brian Glover) – next on the list for “trial by combat”, and American architectural student Marion Evans (Barbara Hershey), an employee of Sir Giles. Collectively they’ll either put an end to the secret society or wind up skewered in the process.

It’s a fairly silly film and you half expect a Monty Python song & dance number in the middle of the movie, but Kevin Connor always seems to infuse his pictures with an admirable level of enthusiasm that help make them more entertaining than they probably should be. The cast of seasoned performers on display here (including Margaret Leighton, John Hallam, Bernard Hill, Neil McCarthy, and John Savident) is a considerable draw. Brian Glover and John Mills seem to be enjoying themselves the most, and there is an amusing scene where Mills’ efforts to feed pigeons from an office window help decimate a Scotland Yard office in short order. Julian Bond, Steven Rossen, and Mitchell Smith wrote the screenplay from a story concocted by Weintraub & Heller, with a “suggested by” credit given to HAWK THE SLAYER director Terry Marcel. Connor’s films always look good, and his regular collaborator Alan Hume is once again behind the camera.


COPS AND ROBBERS (1973)

Author & screenwriter Donald Westlake had already penned the very entertaining heist comedy THE HOT ROCK the year before tackling another satirical heist yarn in COPS AND ROBBERS. Set during a sweltering New York summer, the film explores how corruption has permeated society to such an extent it is almost an accepted norm when it comes to day to day survival. The film opens with Joe (Joseph Bologna), a beat cop who casually walks into a corner liquor store and holds it up while in uniform. He confesses this to buddy Tom (Cliff Gorman), a detective in the same Precinct. His four kids needed four pairs of shoes. The reaction is not one of shock, but curiosity – when asked if he’ll do it again, Joe honestly replies “I don’t know”. During a backyard barbecue the subject of corruption is being discussed, and Tom comments “everybody hustles, nobody likes it” while someone else observes “you’ve got to steal a little to make up the difference.” The cops have grown sick of risking their lives for small change, and concoct a plan to rob a Wall Street firm of $10 million in bearer bonds. They’ve already contacted mobster Pasquale Aniello (John Ryan) to fence the bonds for 20 cents on the dollar. Joe & Tom plan to use the cover of a parade down Wall Street for the Apollo 11 astronauts as a distraction to commit the robbery then escape in a radio car. Nothing ever does go exactly as planned – while they are successful in obtaining the bonds, sort of, it turns out Pasquale doesn’t have the necessary cash as promised. He’s got to obtain funding from HIS boss, with no intention of allowing the cops to walk away with the money when they try to make an exchange in Central Park.

This isn’t quite as much fun as THE HOT ROCK is, but COPS & ROBBERS still proves to be pretty entertaining. Director Aram Avakian, a film editor who also directed END OF THE ROAD (1970) and 11 HARROWHOUSE (1974), finds the right tone in this satire so that you can better understand the frustration of its two lead characters who have been swimming against the tide and now need to swim with it. The film’s humor tends to be more subversive than obvious, and Avakian gives the film a visual flair only as much as the movie requires. Both Bologna and Gorman give good performances, and among the supporting cast you’ll find Richard Ward (who is terrific ), Joe Spinell, Shepherd Strudwick, Lucy Martin, Gayle Gorman, Delphi Lawrence, Randy Jurgensen, Walt Gorney, Charlene Dallas, Martin Kove, and Dolph Sweet in the frightening spectacle of plaid shorts and knee high red socks. The jazzy score is by Michel Legrand.


INFERNO (2000)

Jack (Ray Liotta) wakes up in the Mexican desert, suffering a nasty head wound and complete loss of memory. He stumbles across artist Vicky (Gloria Reuben), who helps him out. They find he’s got a room in a rundown beach motel, but when he returns there he finds a bloodied corpse in his bathroom. It seems Jack is one bad dude, a hard core criminal who participated in an armored car heist then ripped off his partners as well as his boss (Armin Mueller Stahl). Everybody’s looking for him and the missing money – the problem is Jack’s memory is in tatters thus he can’t be sure of anything or anybody. He just knows that he’s got a short amount of time to fill in the blanks and find the loot before his past catches up with him.

Director Harley Cokliss (who cowrote the script with Peter Milligan) previously made the action movies BLACK MOON RISING (1986) and MALONE (1987). INFERNO is an intriguing & atmospheric mystery for the first half of the film, developed with some care by Cokliss. Unfortunately he allows it to become a routine chase n’ shoot’em up crime yarn for the second half, undoing his fine work to that point. Ray Liotta contributes a solid performance as a very confused man, and this is the most recommendable asset of the film. Gloria Reuben is lovely but really serves no purpose other than to be the girl, while the other cast members (Daniel Kash, Lisa Owen, Phillip Jarrett) are all right but nothing special. It’s an okay time waster but nothing memorable, though if you’re a Liotta fan you may get more out of it. Also known as PILGRIM, which is a title that works better for the film than INFERNO.

THE AMSTERDAM KILL is pretty much as you say. I don't know how many times I have been suckered into watching something because of reading Robert Clouse's name on the video box. ENTER THE DRAGON is a very good film, but I don't think I would classify any other Clouse movie as "very good", although a few are mildly entertaining (like THE BIG BRAWL, for instance). THE AMSTERDAM KILL is pretty bland with Mitchum giving a lazier performance than usual.

I haven't seen ARABIAN ADVENTURE, but anything that pairs Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing would seem a must-see for this crowd. Has WARLORDS OF ATLANTIS ever received a domestic home-video release? I saw it at B-Fest two years ago and thought it was great fun. Heck, it even has not one, but two, giant octopus attacks! John Ratzenberger (CHEERS) is in that one too; he was living in England at the time, and also appeared in SUPERMAN.

I don't disagree with you on INFERNO either. This is the same hardboiled crime thriller that has been done over and over again. Liotta is good and Reuben appealing, but there's not really too many reasons to watch this. For a better guys-with-guns-chasing-some-hidden-loot movie, I recommend MADE MEN, which stars Jim Belushi, Michael Beach (THIRD WATCH), Vanessa Angel (KINGPIN) and Timothy Dalton, marvelously and unexpectedly cast as a Southern redneck sheriff. MADE MEN is played as much for laughs as thrills, and is a very entertaining picture.

I don't recall if WARLORDS OF ATLANTIS did ever have a home video release in North America. Doesn't Columbia have the film? The movie had a nifty one-sheet, but the most oft-used PR shot I saw for the film had Lea Brodie wrapped up in a giant tentacle.

You can find a lot of the same personnel behind the camera on Kevin Connor's fantasy films, and he was fond of using certain character actors over & over. Peter Cushing's role in ARABIAN ADVENTURE is limited to two scenes, neither which I recall Christopher Lee being in. Coincidentally the author of the film, Brian Hayles, had scripted the earlier Lee / Cushing team-up NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT (1972), the one and only outing of the production company Lee set up with Anthony Nelson Keys.

The Robert Clouse film I really want to see is DARKER THAN AMBER (1970), his Travis McGee thriller starring Rod Taylor. It's supposed to be a pretty peppy adaptation. I enjoyed GOLDEN NEEDLES, THE PACK, and THE BIG BRAWL, but his post-1980 work didn't do anything for me.

It's too bad that INFERNO's second half doesn't match the set up, because it could have been a good, fun pulp-fiction thriller. When I first saw the title I thought perhaps they'd remade the terrific Robert Ryan suspense film, but alas, no.

Regarding ARABIAN ADVENTURE (1979)

I saw part of this on cable one night. Only a half hours worth but this is a fun yarn. This movie had a painter's touch the color scheme that is missing from current films. Even the colbalt nightime skyline had a warm glow to it.

I saw both AMSTERDAM KILL and ARABIAN ADVENTURE at neighborhood theaters when they came out and haven't seen them since. I don't remember liking ARABIAN ADVENTURE at all. I had THIEF OF BAGDAD (1940) fresh in my mind from a big-screen revival theater showing (in gorgeous Technicolor) and ARABIAN ADVENTURE was just too generic and too low-budget. Emma Samms was pretty hot stuff, though. She would turn up on "Dynasty" a couple of years later. I thought the distinguished cast members like Lee and Cushing were wasted and that Oliver Tobias made a bland hero. (He was better in THE STUD, which I'd seen at the same theater a year or so earlier, but only because of Joan Collins, who was pretty hot stuff there also--and who ALSO turned up on "Dynasty." Hmmm...)

AMSTERDAM KILL wasn't very good either, but I liked the idea of being able to go to a Bronx theater in 1977 to see a new Mitchum movie, especially one that co-starred Bradford Dillman, Richard Egan, Leslie Nielsen and Keye Luke! But my enthusiasm was tempered by one audience member's loud comment about how fat Mitchum had gotten. And this was a neighborhood where Mitchum was revered. If I had to pick one star from the golden age that stood out more than any other in my old neighborhood, it would have to be Mitchum. Sure, Cagney and Bogart had their fans, but Mitchum really held a special place in our hearts.

But let's get back to Leslie Nielsen. Who knew at the time that Nielsen would reinvent himself as a comedy star three years later? (He's now been a comedy star for 24 years, exactly half his career, the exact length of time betwen FORBIDDEN PLANET and AIRPLANE.)

Robert Mitchum would have been in his late fifties when he made AMSTERDAM KILL, so perhaps he could be forgiven for hardly looking like Joe Toothpick. To me he always looked thicker, even in earlier films like CAPE FEAR and EL DORADO, yet when he'd strip down, so to speak, he looked pretty burly. He was just a big guy. His age served him well during his string of crime thrillers that he made in the 1970s - THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE (1973), THE YAKUZA (1975), FAREWELL MY LOVELY (1975), and THE BIG SLEEP (1978). Mitchum was just at the right age to play these parts (especially EDDIE COYLE), and in the opening voice over for FAREWELL his Marlowe describes his fatigue, attributing it to both aging and also the lack of joy in the world (apart from following Joe DiMaggio).

I didn't like the contemporary version of THE BIG SLEEP when I first saw it, but after watching it recently found myself being more tolerant. Mitchum was made for speaking Raymond Chandler's dialogue. The film concludes with his voice over as he departs the Sternwood estate:

"What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on the top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now. Far more a part of it than Rusty Regan was. But the old man didn't have to be. He could lie quiet in his canopied bed, with his bloodless hands folded on the sheet, waiting. His heart was a brief, uncertain murmur. His thoughts were as gray as ashes. And in a little while he too, like Rusty Regan, would be sleeping the big sleep. "

It's Chandler's dialogue but Big Bob sounds so perfect speaking it; once he's in his car the camera becomes a POV shot all through the end credits, matched to a sharp Jerry Fielding score.

As for Leslie Nielsen, the great irony is that how he delivers many of his comedic performances and how he delivered many of his dramatic performances (especially during his TV guest shots and B-movie roles) are almost one and the same. Having Nielsen, Robert Stack, Peter Graves, and Lloyd Bridges just play it essentially straight in AIRPLANE! was one of the reasons it was so funny.