I've been catching up on the Onar releases this week and I was especially excited to watch CASUS KIRAN (Spy Smasher). This is the first Yimaz Atadeniz film I've seen since I co-wrote an article about him for Video Watchdog a number of years ago. It was like old home week - Irfan Atasoy plays Spy Smasher, Suzan Avci plays the same character she plays in the Kilink films, Erol Günaydin is the goofy sidekick (see him in Mondo Macabro's DEATHLESS DEVIL for more of the same.).

I've seen a lot of these Turkish superhero films now and no one made them quite like Atadeniz. He took all of the heroes and villains from his childhood and put them up there with a splash more sex and violence. The original Spy Smasher character made his first appearance in Whiz Comics #1 as a backup feature to C.C. Beck's Captain Marvel. He later became the hero in a Republic serial. Atadeniz's version has a costumed girlfriend who sports goggles and short-shorts. In typical Turkish fashion, she doesn't have a superhero name, but goes by Sevda, whether she's disguised or not. Spy Smasher's costume is actually identical to the costume worn by the fumetti character Mr. X, who was adapted into a film by Pier Vivarelli and released in the States as AVENGER X. Got that?

The villains of the piece are an average looking thug with the name "The Black Glove" and a wonderfully pulpy character called "The Mask" who dresses in a topcoat and fedora with a long, white mask hanging from the brim. He looks not unlike the original conception of the Green Hornet.

The plot has something to do with, well, spies. But who cares? It's non-stop fistfights and car chases. Atadeniz didn't always go in for the acrobatic flips that pass for fights in a lot of Turkish films. He obviously had great affection for the very realistic-looking fisticuffs from the Republic serials and he successfully emulates those. The music cues are almost identical to those heard in the Kilink films and I noted with amusement the fact that Atadeniz always seems to score Günaydin's foolishness with Henry Mancini music. In this film, it's BABY ELEPHANT WALK. In DEATHLESS DEVIL it's the PINK PANTHER THEME.

Watch enough of these movies and you start to see common locations (the water tower from MASKELI SEYTAN and the caves from KIZILMASKE). I found myself dreaming of a Turkish "Justice League" of sorts - an imaginary movie featuring The Copperhead, Kizilmaske, Casus Kiran and Korsan Adam fighting the likes of Kilink, Fantomas, the Steel Klaw and the Mask. Given the fact that Suzan Avci always plays a woman named Suzy who seems to sleep with all the master criminals and Irfan Atasoy always plays the hero, it's easy to imagine these films as chapters in the same serial - with the hero and villain constantly shifting identities in order to continue their battle to the sounds of poorly recorded music cues from ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE.

Visual quality? Come on. The Turkish film industry in the 60s was similar to the silent film industry in the States at the turn of the 20th Century. No one even considered preserving these things anymore than people considered preserving a copy of Action Comics #1. It was shot in a few days, edited in less than a week, made it's money back in a few weeks, then was tossed aside. It was edited with a carrot slicer and scotch tape and the music cues taken from a half-broken phonograph. And if you don't find that kind of thing charming...well, then Turkish movies aren't for you.

I always find it a little distressing that people are far more interested in the Turkish remakes of E.T., STAR WARS, STAR TREK etc. than they are in these films. Probably because the remakes (which often aren't remakes at all, to be fair) are so open to mockery. The superhero films are difficult to mock because they don't try to be anything that they're not.

Onar's print is okay. It's scratched up, there are skips and jumps and clearly some footage missing. Personally, I find these things to be a part of the film's charm and not at all distracting. It's like trying to piece together a comic-strip story by cutting them out from old newspapers and putting them in sequential order. The menus on the DVD are also a lot of fun.

In the extras is a mouth-watering sequence from Onar's next release KORSAN ADAM featuring Fantomas!!! I can't wait for that one.

I also caught up with TARZAN ISTANBUL'DA. I'm not a big Tarzan fan and I wasn't as taken with it as I was with CASUS KIRAN, but I had fun with it. I know there are alot of Edgar Rice Burroughs collectors that try to track down these unauthorized films and they should consider this DVD an essential purchase.

D.

Sounds incredible. Republic's SPY SMASHER serial, starring Kane Richmond and directed by William Witney and John English, is one of the best ever made, and if the Turkish film is as fun and wild, it should be a good time.