This film is pretty good, in fact it has a lot of the characteristics that are in all of Downey's best work: the weird dialogue, the almost rhythmic way in which certain characters repeat phrases throughout the film, not so much a real plot as an assemblage of vignettes involving eccentric characters, and just the way a joke's punch line can leave one as much bewildered as amused, like coming in after the joke has already started...you don't get what the punch line refers to but it sounds funny in an absurd way. My favorite character was the main anchor man, played by Earl Thomashefsky, with the over the top hair piece, who still lives with his mother, always needs $10 for reasons never divulged, and yells as he reads the news. Michael J. Pollard as a womanizer is a hoot as well. Plus, Zack Norman really does pull off wearing a skirt and still looking manly and ready for "Action News". What drags this film down is the music which is straight up trite, especially the theme song. The score almost ruins certain scenes, silence would have been preferable. Plus Richard Belzer's comedy routine after he drives through the studio's brick wall during the news cast is not very funny, and it takes up way too much time, killing the rhythm mentioned earlier. Nevertheless, the film is not nearly as bad as many reviews would have you think. Downey's worst effort is still more enjoyable than a lot of other people's best films and it may not be PUTNEY SWOPE or even MOMENT TO MOMENT but AMERICA is very much worth checking out.
Reviews
3 Reviews
Hell's Bloody Devils
(1970)
Hell's Bloody Confusing
12 February 2003
One of Al Adamson's rarer features and the print I saw was worn out with Portuguese subtitles. I got it for Greydon Clark's appearance but he's in it for all of about five minutes and with two different hair styles. That's because, just as with Adamson's MEAN MOTHER, this film appears to have been started and never finished and then scenes were added years later to make some sort of assemblage of a plot. The problem is, it is hard to gather what is going on. Characters appear out of nowhere, the aforementioned change in hair styles sometimes makes them unrecognizable, Hell's Bloody Devils - the biker gang - serve less purpose in plot structure than the Russ Tamblyn led crew did in DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN, and the print was so choppy that whole bits of dialogue were missing. Nevertheless, it's still quite enjoyable to watch, with John Gabriel as a FBI agent posing as a member of the syndicate who gets involved with counterfeit money and in the end comes to blows with a surviving member of Hitler's inner circle as well as a flirtation with the high ranking Nazi's daughter. Broderick Crawford and John Carradine appear in small roles and the music is even catchier than Harley Hatcher's score for SATAN'S SADISTS. The camera work and direction seem more than competent and one can only imagine how solid the film would have been had it not ended up as a salvage job. Well worth checking out for the Al Adamson/Greydon Clark completist or if you are interested in movies with Colonel Sanders cameos (he has less screen time here than in THE BLAST-OFF GIRLS though).
Stargames
(1997)
Greydon's family affair
8 February 2003
Greydon Clark is doing sci-fi again, but unlike DARK FUTURE, this one's for the kids. It's also a family affair with both of Clark's sons (Trevor and Travis) starring, along with the maestro himself and his wife Jacqueline (formerly Cole), who played April in ANGEL'S BRIGADE. Tony Curtis is the latest in a long line of show biz legends (Neville Brand, Peter Lawford, George Kennedy) to be in one of GC's films and Darby Hinton (who also co-produced) rounds out the cast of Clark regulars. The special effects come off like someone with limited budget was forced to be very creative. The costumes are a mixture of the futuristic and something out of Roman times. Nicholas Josef von Sternberg does his usual reliable DP work and the villain's space ship kind of looks like a floating VCR. There's a computer who appears in a hologram like apparition as a clown and most of the action takes place in the woods...not the first locale that comes to mind for a science fiction narrative - but yet it all comes off like a million bucks. It's nice to see the young human protagonist use his diabetes to help save the universe. Plus the ending leaves it open for a sequel. It took me a long time to track down a copy of this film but here's hoping there more to come. The world needs another Greydon Clark production right about now, especially something as good as STAR GAMES.
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