Jaguar Lives! (1979)

A dunderheaded take on James Bond-style international espionage with a heavy element of martial arts, Jaguar Lives! is roughly the equivalent of a second-rate television pilot, thanks to adequate production values, a blandly handsome leading actor, several faded stars playing vapid cameo roles, and a nonstop barrage of noisy action. The story is as stupid as it is trite, so not one frame of the picture is likely to lodge in the viewer’s memory. Jaguar Lives! is not even fun to watch ironically, excerpt perhaps for the snarky thrill of noting how many of the film’s macho moments come across as accidental homoerotica. In fact, viewers who enjoy watching leading man Joe Lewis perform martial-arts rituals while his naked, sculpted torso gleams in the sun may be the only ones who can derive uncomplicated pleasure from Jaguar Lives! The movie begins with secret agent Jonathan Cross, code-named “Jaguar” (Lewis), conducting a mission with his buddy, Bret Barrett, code-named “Cougar” (Anthony De Longis). The mission ends in tragedy, sending Jaguar into seclusion. He licks his spiritual wounds by doing martial arts in the desert under the watchful eye of his sensei (Woody Strode), whom the filmmakers helpfully adorn with the character name “Sensei.” Then intelligence operative Anna Thompson (played by onetime Bond girl Barbara Bach) arrives with a new mission, and—oh, forget it. International locations are visited, stuff explodes, and villains get their asses kicked. Beyond Bach and Strode, others collecting paychecks for playing pointless roles include Capucine, John Huston, Christopher Lee, Donald Pleasance, and Dr. No himself, Joseph Wiseman. Lewis, who enjoyed a hugely successful career in competitive karate and kickboxing, is impressively athletic, and that may be the only reason to associate any form of the adjective “impressive” with Jaguar Lives!

Jaguar Lives!: LAME

1980 Week: Up the Academy

Following the success of Animal House (1978), which was associated with National Lampoon, another venerable humor publication saw its brand attached to a lowbrow comedy about kids making mischief. Yet while Animal House benefited from a clever script, an ingenious director, and a strong cast, the Mad magazine movie, Up the Academy, sprang from a terrible script, a presumably uninterested director, and a weak cast. Instead of the outrageous food fights and panty raids and toga parties of Animal House, this lifeless dud includes offensively stupid vignettes of flatulence, homophobia, stereotypes, and so forth. Admittedly, Mad’s comic strips and movie satires were never avatars of sophistication, but there’s infinitely more wit inside a single panel of, say, Spy vs. Spy than there is in all 87 interminable minutes of Up the Academy. As the title suggests, the picture takes place at a military academy, where several ne’er-do-well boys—all of whom have been sent to the school as punishment for misbehavior—clash with the institution’s demented commander, Major Liceman (Ron Leibman). Per the Animal House playbook, the punks split their time between chasing girls, partying, and scheming against their sworn enemy. The movie’s dimwitted tone is set right in the first scene, a riff on the famous opening of Patton, because the punchline of the first scene is a loud gaseous emission. Similarly, the scenes with weapons instructor Bliss (played by former Bond girl Barbara Bach) are beyond tacky. Wearing a shirt open to the navel, Bliss gives sexualized descriptions of weapons while stroking phallic objects including missile casings. Meanwhile, the boys in her classroom moan and squirm, and when a clueless student tries to ask a relevant question, his neighbor says, “Shut up—some of us are trying to come.” Yep, that’s what passes for a joke in these here parts. Overseeing this unfunny business is director Robert Downey Sr., a long way from his bold avant-garde movies of the ’60s and ’70s. One hopes he was paid well for demolishing his credibility.

Up the Academy: LAME

Black Belly of the Tarantula (1971)

          A sleek thriller from the bloodier end of the giallo spectrum, Black Belly of the Tarantula is very similar in style and tone to the many Hitchcock-inspired thrillers that Brian De Palma made—it’s a highly sexualized and nearly operatic melodrama about a psycho who mutilates and kills beautiful women. Accordingly, the same question that one can ask about De Palma’s ugliest movies can be asked about this Italian production. Does Black Belly of the Tarantula justify its own existence? Not really. Although noteworthy for certain elements, including a parade of gorgeous starlets and a truly eerie score by the great Ennio Morricone, Black Belly of the Tarantula is vile for the way it eroticizes the degradation of women. Some psycho-killer movies are worthwhile because they provide insights into the human condition, and it’s true that the people behind Black Belly of the Tarantula follow a fairly true moral compass. Nonetheless, how many images of lovely ladies being sliced open does the world really need?

          Set in Rome, the picture tracks an investigation by Inspector Tellini (Giancarlo Giannini) into a series of strange murders. As depicted in loving detail, each murder involves an unknown assailant stabbing a woman in the back of the neck with an acupuncture needle, thereby paralyzing the women so the murderer can disembowel her while she’s still conscious. Tellini learns that this method of killing is inspired by the way a black wasp kills its natural enemy, the tarantula. In between murder vignettes and scenes of Tellini examining grisly crime scenes, the picture shows Tellini interrogating suspects and also shows Tellini’s home life. The most interesting thread in the movie is a subplot about Tellini questioning whether he’s cut out to be a homicide investigator, not only because seeing savagery wounds his soul, but also because the killer makes sport of Tellini by surreptitiously filming a sexual encounter between the inspector and his wife.

          Despite its formulaic story and sadistic extremes, Black Belly of the Tarantula is interesting to watch for the way it stimulates the senses. Director Paolo Cavara contrives many dynamic images and even a few somewhat erotic ones (for example, the shots of a nude woman viewed through jellied glass while she receives a massage). And even though Cavara’s chase scenes are perfunctory, he exhibits real glee when filming murders, contriving dramatic camera angles and translating peril into something like choreography. European beauties passing before Cavara’s camera include three women associated with the James Bond franchise—Claudine Auger, Barbara Bach, and Barbara Bouchet—while Morricone’s inventive melodies are like aural candy with bitter undertones. Furthermore, Giannini gives a strong performance in the leading role, blending desperation, ennui, fear, and rage into a sympathetic characterization.

Black Belly of the Tarantula: FUNKY

Street Law (1974)

          An Italian-made vigilante picture informed by the same zeitgeist that produced Death Wish—which hit U.S. screens only weeks before Street Law debuted in Europe—this nasty little movie has gained a minor cult following. It’s an exciting thriller with tremendous forward momentum, and leading man Franco Nero gives a relentless performance that approaches self-parody, especially because the film’s dialogue was shot in phonetic English and then dubbed during post-production. Other significant flaws include the perfunctory and sexist portrayal of the protagonist’s wife, a greasy musical score shot through with disco colorations, and a fetishistic portrayal of violence. Nonetheless, energy is energy, and Street Law has plenty of that. Accordingly, even though Street Law is so simplistic from a narrative and political perspective that it makes Death Wish seem subtle by comparison, the picture has a crude sort of visceral power that cannot be denied.

          When the movie opens, straight-laced engineer Carlo (Nero) visits a bank for a simple business transaction. Three armed robbers enter the bank, beating anyone who stands in their way, including Carlo. While making their getaway, the criminals abduct Carlo as a hostage, beating him even more along the way and forcing him to endure a terrifying car chase. Eventually, Carlo gets away, only to discover that the police have little hope of catching the crooks and that Carlo’s wife, Barbara (Barbara Bach), expects Carlo to move on with his life. Ashamed and humiliated at the way the criminals treated him, Carlo vows to find and kill his attackers. Yet instead of taking the Death Wish route of annihilating random thugs like they’re symptoms of a disease, Carlo gets methodical. He uses deception and surveillance to infiltrate the underworld, eventually identifying the bank robbers. Later, in a plot twist that strains credibility, Carlo bonds with a crook named Tommy (Giancarlo Prete), who provides Carlo’s ultimate entrée into the world of the bank robbers.

          Street Law is almost a mood piece in the way it strings together larger sequences, some of which are aimless driving montages, and some of which are symphonies of suffering. Carlo gets his ass kicked repeatedly, somehow emerging more resolute each time. The movie offers very little in terms of characterization (Bach, for instance, is barely in the movie), and the whole narrative stems from the iffy notion that a man who won’t fight back isn’t a man. Still, some of Carlo’s resourceful moves are quite clever, and director Enzo Z. Castellari knows how to generate brutal excitement, so nearly every scene in Street Law feels as if it concludes with an exclamation point.

Street Law: FUNKY

The Humanoid (1979)

          At the height of Star Wars mania in late 1977, enterprising American musician Domenico Monardo, using the stage name Meco, released a single titled “Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band,” which set pieces of John Williams’ familiar movie score to a thumping disco beat. The tune was a smash, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard pop chart and selling more than two million copies. Musically, however, it was dreadful—and yet it was merely a hint of the awful Star Wars rip-offs yet to come. Released around the same time as the equally terrible European production Starcrash, the Italian atrocity The Humanoid jumbles together assorted visuals copped from Star Wars (a black-helmeted villain, a land speeder, light arrows instead of lightsabers) while telling a nonsensical story that seems like a combination of a childhood fantasy and a drug hallucination.

          In the kingdom of Metropolis (formerly Earth), Lord Graal (Ivan Rassimov) works with the loopy Dr. Kraspin (Arthur Kennedy) and the vampiric Lady Agatha (Barbara Bach) to build an army of genetically altered “humanoids” with the goal of seizing a throne. Meanwhile, intrepid heroine Barbara (Corinne Cléry) teams with magical youth Tom Tom (Marco Yeh) to marshal supernatural forces for the side of good. Caught in the middle is outer-space pilot Golob (Richard Kiel), whom Graal’s people transform into a humanoid. If any of this sounds remotely interesting, rest assured it is not. Even with certain visual distractions (of which Bond girl Bach’s cleavage is the most noteworthy), The Humanoid is nearly unwatchable. The characters are insipid, the costumes are ridiculous, the special effects are tacky, and the storyline is unintelligible. Virtually the only element that creates interest is the energetic score by Ennio Morricone, who blends classical and disco elements into a pungent aural stew.

          It’s hard to select any single aspect of The Humanoid as being the dumbest, though contenders include Bach’s bizarre hair helmets and the presence of a chirping robot dog. Unsurprisingly, the acting is awful—after all, the big selling point of the movie is the onscreen reunion of Bach and Kiel, the worst actors from the 007 smash The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). That said, The Humanoid has a small measure of kitsch value, as seen in the kinky vignette of Lady Agatha watching a nude lady get impaled by a high-tech iron maiden so she can consume the lady’s blood. Yet the most unintentionally amusing moments in The Humanoid involve dialogue. Consider Lady Agatha’s attempt at sexy patter upon seeing Lord Graal after a long separation: “It is very gratifying to know that I have been in your thoughts all this time—as you can see, you have been in mine as well.” Hot! Even better, consider Barbara’s desperate proclamation: “Out lives are in danger and I can’t find the counter-humanoid notes I took—they’re my only hope!” That’s The Humanoid in a nutshell, shameless and stupid all at once.

The Humanoid: LAME

Force 10 from Navarone (1978)

          An unnecessary but harmless sequel to a classic action movie, Force 10 from Navarone slots replacement actors into the leading roles from The Guns of Navarone (1961); it also substitutes the simplistic men-on-a-mission vibe of the earlier film with a convoluted storyline comprising rampant double-crosses. As a result, Force 10 lacks the clarity and star power of its predecessor. At the end of The Guns of Navarone, World War II British commandoes Mallory (Gregory Peck) and Miller (David Niven) head home for England after blowing up an enemy installation in Nazi-occupied Greece. Force 10 picks up a short while later, when Mallory (Robert Shaw) and Miller (Edward Fox) are recruited to kill a dangerous double agent embedded with rebel forces in Yugoslavia.

          For reasons that are never particularly clear, the duo gets attached to “Force 10,” an American commando unit headed to Yugoslavia for a mysterious mission, and this understandably irritates Force 10’s no-nonsense leader, Barnsby (Harrison Ford). Thereafter, the movie’s narrative gets really contrived. First, an American soldier under military arrest, Weaver (Carl Weathers), escapes captivity and sneaks onto Force 10’s plane. Then, upon arrival in Yugoslavia, Mallory and Miller must track the shifting allegiances of a monstrous Yugoslavian (Richard Kiel), a beautiful rebel fighter (Barbara Bach), and the man who may or may not be their assassination target (Franco Nero). Oh, and there’s also the whole business of Force 10’s mission, which involves blowing up a bridge.

          Force 10 from Navarone is so over-plotted that character development is a casualty, but the movie zips along nicely thanks to attractive location photography and crisp direction by Bond-movie veteran Guy Hamilton. The picture has some enjoyable macho highlights, like Weathers’ duel with Kiel—how totally ’70s to see a knife fight between Apollo Creed and “Jaws” from the 007 movies! Additionally, Bach provides the requisite sex appeal, Nero smolders as we try to determine whether he’s a hero or a villain, and Fox scores a few laughs as a pip-pip Brit with a perpetual even keel. The climax has some groovy miniature effects, too.

          However, the movie hinges on the leading performances, and they’re a mixed bag. Shaw, apparently enjoying his post-Jaws run of action-hero roles, is atypically lighthearted, but Ford is lifeless. Shooting his first big action movie after Star Wars, he seems determined to present a characterization with more gravitas than his Han Solo performance, but this movie is far too slight to support understated acting. Nonetheless, Ford’s participation is probably why Force 10 from Navarone has been a cable-TV staple since the early ’80s, and it’s interesting to see the actor finding his way before Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) secured his status as a cinematic icon.

Force 10 from Navarone: FUNKY

Diamonds Are Forever (1971) & Live and Let Die (1973) & The Man With the Golden Gun (1974) & The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) & Moonraker (1979)

          After scoring in the ’60s on the strength of Sean Connery’s he-man swagger, the James Bond franchise spent the ’70s creeping toward self-parody with a series of gimmicky films that tried to latch onto then-current trends, often with embarrassing results. Luckily, two solid entries appear amid the dreck. Having previously ceded the Bond role to the underrated George Lazenby (the franchise’s only one-time 007), Connery was lured back with a big paycheck for the forgettable Diamonds Are Forever. Also returning to the series was Goldfinger director Guy Hamilton, who helmed Diamonds as well as the next two 007 flicks. Dull and garish, Diamonds features an overused Bond villain (Ernst Blofeld) in one of his least interesting incarnations, a vulgar choice of setting (Las Vegas), and crass flourishes like Bond’s showdown with two high-kicking kung fu babes. The movie is also incredibly mean-spirited, right down to the offensive characterizations of two gay hit men who trail Bond across the globe. Even leading lady Jill St. John’s outrageous body, which is on ample display, can only sustain interest for so long. Especially since the previous film in the series, the Lazenby-starring On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), is one of the best-ever 007 flicks, it’s depressing to watch Connery sleepwalk through an entry as halfhearted as its leading actor’s performance.
          Then came Roger Moore, the debonair British actor previously known for the Bond-ish TV series The Saint. Moore cut a great figure with his raised eyebrow, tailored wardrobe, and velvety speaking voice, and at least at the beginning of his run he seemed intense enough to wield 007’s license to kill. Unfortunately, along with Moore came a new style largely set by screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz, who inserted so many verbal and visual winks that Bond started to become more of a joke machine than a killing machine. Moore’s first Bond outing, Live and Let Die, was designed to piggyback on the blaxploitation craze with a turgid story that begins in drug-infested Harlem and continues down to the voodoo-drenched Caribbean, but the producers hedged their bets by featuring a Caucasian leading lady, Jane Seymour, whose presence in the storyline makes no sense. The combination of a rotten musical score (excepting Paul McCartney’s kicky theme song) and stupid puns (Bond visits the “Oh Cult Voodoo Shop”) makes Live and Let Die feel flat, and main villain Yaphet Kotto was miscast as a speechifying mastermind. Worse, the insipid “comedy” scenes featuring Clifton James as a redneck sheriff illustrate how far the film deviates from what makes a Bond movie a Bond movie.
          Team 007 got back to basics with the next entry, The Man With the Golden Gun, which flips the usual Bond formula by making 007 the hunted instead of the hunter. Hammer horror stalwart Christopher Lee costars as suave assassin Francisco Scaramanga (whose distinguishing characteristic is a third nipple!) and future Fantasy Island sidekick Hervé Villechaize plays Scaramanga’s diminutive henchman, Nick Nack. When Bond lands on Scaramanga’s hit list, 007 begins an unauthorized investigation, taking place mostly in Hong Kong, to smoke out his would-be killer. Hamilton stages several stylish sequences, notably the bookend scenes in the assassin’s funhouse hideout; the picture features colorful locations including a fortress inside a half-sunken ocean liner; and the focus on a worthy mana-a-mano duel keeps the storyline tight. The movie gets a bit logy during the climax, but Moore plays the material straight (for once) and Lee actually musters enthusiasm during several scenes, a rarity for the generally stoic performer. Best of all, The Man With the Golden Gun eschews the distractions of gadgets and murky subplots, focusing instead on the core elements of death-defying escapes, exciting fight scenes, and smooth seductions. Happily, the reprise of Clifton James’ redneck character is fleeting.
          When Bond returned to the big screen three years later in The Spy Who Loved Me, producers added tremendous visual opulence in the form of grandiose location photography and cutting-edge special effects. By far the most visually impressive of Moore’s 007 flicks, Spy has a silly plot and a forgettable villain (something about stolen nuclear submarines and an international extortion scheme), but it boasts one of the best opening sequences in the franchise’s history. That spectacular bit, a ski chase concluding with an amazing skydive, is complemented by a moody foot pursuit through the Egyptian pyramids, as well as an exciting shootout in a submarine bay (at the time the largest set ever constructed for a movie). And then there’s Jaws (Richard Kiel), the towering assassin with the metallic mouth; he’s such a preposterous character that he’s amusing every time he walks onscreen. Spy also features one of the series’ best attempts to match Bond with a woman who equals him in every way. Lovely Barbara Bach, who in real life later became Mrs. Ringo Starr, appears as a Russian agent out to avenge her lover, who died at 007’s hands. Bach isn’t up to the task of portraying the character’s shadings, but it’s still a relief to see a woman in the franchise who is more than a sexual plaything.
          Sadly, everything that went right in Spy went wrong in Moonraker, a pathetic attempt to capitalize on the success of Star Wars by sending Bond into space. Poor Lois Chiles has to play a character named “Holly Goodhead,” and during the climax, extras limply float around the exterior of a space station while shooting laser guns at each other. The highlight, if that's even the right word, is a scene of Moore getting trapped in a G-force simulation chamber, his jowls flapping as his capsule zooms around a circular track at insane speeds; in addition to the way the scene demonstrates the series’ growing reliance on production values over narrative inspiration, the scene’s unflattering closeups illustrate how quickly Moore was aging out of the 007 role. It all got much worse in the ’80s, but Moonraker represented the nadir of the franchise up to that point. Still, Bond’s ’70s adventures are fascinating when screened in sequence, because viewers can see the production team trying to completely rethink the series with each new movie.

Diamonds Are Forever: LAME

Live and Let Die: FUNKY

The Man With the Golden Gun: GROOVY

The Spy Who Loved Me: GROOVY

Moonraker: LAME