Secret Agent Superdragon & Danger Death Ray: These are two imitators that were on MST3K. They both feature a Sean Connery-type secret agent who
The Girl From Rio: This was a fairly recent Rifftrax but the movie is from 1968. Instead of Sean Connery the Bond guy looks more like Timothy Dalton and instead of a tuxedo he wears a gaudy plaid suit. He goes to Rio and is accosted by gangsters and then kidnapped by a secret city of scantily clad, armed women who have gold piled up and plan to rule the world...somehow. It's all really confusing and there's little explanation of who this guy is or why he's doing what he's doing. And in the end he doesn't even do a lot. But there are boobs! So take that Bond. The Riffers and I were actually on the same wavelength a couple of times where they said something that I'd already thought to myself. First, if it's in Rio why do they never show that famous Jesus statue? I mean that's like saying you're in New York but never showing the Statue of Liberty or Empire State Building. Second, the guy goes into what looks like a waiting room and we're told it's an airport. Ed Wood could have come up with a better airport set. But still, boobs!
Code Name Diamond Head: This was a TV movie in the 70s that was maybe supposed to be a pilot for a series. It's like Magnum PI without the Ferrari, guy with a helicopter, Higgins, or Tom Selleck's mustache and Tigers hat. There's some former Navy guy in Hawaii who works as a covert agent. He has to stop a scheme by Ian McShane to steal some valuable secrets or whatever with the help of an Asian madame. It's pretty cheesy and while it's supposed to be Hawaii they use no glamorous Hawaiian settings; most of it looks like it was filmed in southern California or something. Anyway, at the time Ian McShane was known for Lovejoy, which Mike and the bots make reference to about a thousand times, though since then he went on to be known for Deadwood, so if there were a Rifftrax they'd probably reference that instead.
Swamp Diamonds: This MST3K episode features a movie by B-movie king Roger Corman. In the 50s, a female cop goes undercover as a prisoner. She escapes jail with three other women to find a treasure in the swamps of Louisiana. They take a guy named Touch Connors and his girlfriend hostage. There's less mayhem than just long, boring shots of trekking around the swamp. It's not really a terrible, terrible movie but it's far from a good movie either. Like a lot of Corman pictures it's competent but unimpressive.
Wonder Women: This is an early 70s movie made in the Philippines on the cheap. It "stars" Ross Hagen of a couple of 60s biker movies as a guy named Mike who goes to the Philippines to investigate the disappearance of a famous jai alai player, which seems like an oxymoron to me. He uncovers a scheme by a female brain surgeon and her henchwomen to steal the bodies of athletes and the like to put the brains of rich old people in them. So Jordan Peele totally ripped this off for Get Out. (Um, no, probably not.) Anyway, there's a lot of hammy acting, cheesy effects, and a general lack of story logic. And no Wonder Woman anywhere. The most hilarious (and gross) part is during a chase through a market the camera shows this weird snake-like thing slithering down the sidewalk. I have no idea what the hell it was supposed to be or why the hell the cameraman felt the need to put it so prominently in the shot except he was probably trying to get the hell out of its way. Why wouldn't you edit that out? Editing, we ain't go no money for some fancy-schmancy editor. You think we're millionaires?!
Angel's Revenge: This late 70s shlockfest was a cheesy attempt to cash in on Charlie's Angels. A teacher whose student is accosted by a drug dealer played by Jack Palance gets together a bunch of sexy women who raid a compound and then Peter Lawford's mansion. Gilligan's Island stars Alan Hale Jr and Jim Backus appear, the latter in a particularly shameful role as a racist, right wing militia commander. The whole thing is pretty corny and cheesy, as you'd expect from Greydon Clark, the genius behind Star Games, Dark Future, and Final Justice. This movie first appeared on MST3K in 1994 but a couple of years ago there was also a Rifftrax version with commentary by Mary Jo Pehl and Bridget Nelson. There's a bit of irony in the MST3K version at the end when it freezes on a picture of the women all together and Crow asks, "Which one is Bruce Jenner?" And Tom Servo says, "He's the one on the left." 20 years later that really could have been true.
The Wild, Wild World of Batwoman: Much like Wonder Women doesn't feature Wonder Woman, this doesn't feature any of DC's Bat-people: Batwoman, Batgirl, Batman, or anyone else. This is actually a cheap Mexican movie from the mid-60s about someone called Batwoman who has an army of go-go dancing bimbos who try to foil the scheme of a bad guy called Ratfink who's going to take over the world with mind control or something. Like Wonder Women the plot is mostly an excuse to show scantily-clad girls dancing and flouncing around. I'd have put it under the Superheroes entry if there were actually any superheroes but since Batwoman just wears a black corset and feather boa with a funny hat and her minions all wear normal clothes and none of them have powers it seems to fit more under this. The most uncomfortably hilarious part of the movie is when Batwoman holds a seance and whoever she's talking to keeps talking in "Chinese" that's basically the old racist "Ching Chong" noise. Ugh. Ratfink also has a lair of monsters taken from another MST3K movie: The Mole People. It's a small, horrible world after all.
The Guy From Harlem: This was an early 70s blaxploitation movie that's also really, really bad. The titular "guy from Harlem" is a PI named Al who as you'd expect works in Miami. There's a long, pointless "adventure" of him protecting "the wife of an African president" who as you'd expect has no kind of accent and sounds like she might be from Harlem too. Al and Donald Trump have one thing in common: ordering well done steaks from room service. Finally we get to the crux of the movie, which is Al being hired by a manic-depressive drug dealer to save his daughter from a gangster named "Big Daddy." The drug dealer steals every scene he's in by being so, so, so awful at acting. He starts off telling Al's secretary "You got two questions and I got one answer: none of your damned business!" Then he tells Al he has TWO REASONS for coming in but just starts babbling. Then he says no one knows what Big Daddy looks like except...he's real big and got lots of muscles with bands on them and curly blonde hair...so you seem to know what he looks like. Poor acting, badly choreographed fights, awful music, and just terrible 70s fashions in general make this offensive to all the senses.
Missile X The
Radical Jack: The most recent movie on this list, it's from the turn of the century from our good friends at Edgewood Studios. It "stars" Miley Cyrus' father Billy Ray "Achy, Breaky Heart" Cyrus as the eponymous Radical Jack. He infiltrates a
Trucker's Woman: Trucker movies were a 70s staple, though this has a lot in common with the biker movies from the B entry. A middle-aged college student's dad dies when his big rig's brakes are cut by a young Larry Drake (who went on to more villainous roles like Robert G Durant in Darkman). The "college student" then goes "undercover" at the trucking company. But in Mitchell style almost immediately drives up to the head bad guy's house and pushes him, his henchmen, and his daughter into a pool. The daughter is I guess the trucker's woman by default; he stalks her in his big rig and later leaves her stranded at a rest stop. Our hero! For MST3K/Rifftrax fans a good tagline would be: it's like Mitchell--with a truck!
1 comment:
I haven't seen any of them but they sound so far fetched and funny !
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