Mr. Wong, No. 4 - The Fatal Hour (1939)

What is the purpose of Mr. Wong? Sure, the character is merely an opportunistic copy of other period Chinese detectives, like Charlie Chan or Mr. Moto, but with one notable difference – Mr. Wong’s characterization is not racist. (I can’t yet speak for Moto, but Chan is defined wholly by a “fortune cookie say” persona.) To avoid gross, broad stereotypes, instead Mr. Wong is defined by not seeming overtly Chinese – not too difficult, when actor Boris Karloff is himself the last person anyone would ever mistake for an Asian. Thus sometimes Monogram’s Mr. Wong series is surprisingly progressive, respecting non-white culture and doing other things that were mostly unheard of in 1939.

Too bad Mr. Wong, as the “Chinaman who isn’t a Chinaman,” doesn’t have a lot of other characteristics. The Mystery of Mr. Wong did well enough by being about stolen Chinese artifacts, where Wong’s normalcy could serve a point, but no longer. By Part Four, The Fatal Hour (as evidence of Wong’s boringness, his name no longer even appears in the titles), Wong’s a-Chineseness (or however you’d put it) is entirely dried out…Its only remaining use is a single incident where a racist thug calls Wong “that Chinese copper.” Karloff’s Wong responds with subtle indifference – or blandness, rather. Otherwise, there is no element in The Fatal Hour which informs Wong in any way. He admits so much himself, stating that this latest murder mystery has basically nothing to do with him.


So Mr. Wong fades into the background of his own series. He remains, not as a human personality, but entirely as an anthropomorphized plot device. These murder mysteries ain’t gonna solve themselves, and the cops are pretty worthless, so we need Wong to selflessly steer everyone in the proper direction. Then the climax comes along, and Wong can reveal the murderer, exposit a little in retrospect, the end. These movies wouldn’t end without him, but they wouldn’t even function were he the focus.


Instead, the true star of the Mr. Wong films, more and more, is his San Francisco PD counterpart, Bill Street (Grant Withers). Street is free to be as ineffective as he wishes, without any complaints about misrepresentation – except from police officers. He is the most engaging character of the series, which isn’t actually saying much. Street’s disposition can vary wildly from film to film, going from a hot-headed, tactless rabble-rouser to a well-meaning detective who’s simply in over his head. With the plots increasingly perfunctory, and Wong MIA more and more, Street reverts to his jerkass ways – this isn’t ideal, but it’s better than nothing.

Actually, promoting Street up to unofficial “lead” status (only with Wong’s name forever ahead of his in lights, the poor douchebag) is sort of like creating an entire movie out of Paul Gleason’s Die Hard character (you know, the stupidest of the cops, who was still somehow in charge…until the Johnsons showed up). It’s kind of telling that The Fatal Hour coasts on that sort of characterization, with Boris Karloff that ineffectual.


Ostensibly aiding Street – not necessarily in the investigations, but in being remotely entertaining – is his female reporter counterpart, “Bobbie” Logan (Marjorie Reynolds). In fact, since her introduction in the previous Mr. Wong in Chinatown, Ms. Logan has been the best thing about the series. Basically, she’s Lois Lane, only with a habit of saving others. Sadly, The Fatal Hour doesn’t really know what do to with her – which should be to place her and Street into something like a cheap-ass version of His Girl Friday meets The Thin Man. This doesn’t happen in The Fatal Hour, which relegates Bobbie almost as badly as it does Wong – I suppose respecting women and the Chinese through competent characterizations is one thing, though it leaves a B-movie studio of the era rather ill-prepared to do anything with them. Sigh.

Actually, it seems the majority of The Fatal Hour’s efforts are wasted on new characters, the suspects of today’s murder mystery – which is such a desultory affair, the first line of dialogue (that is, the first scene as well) simply announces by fiat that some guy Grady is dead, yadda yadda. It’s more efficient even than Mr. Wong in Chinatown’s introductory princess murder (!), but in a way which removes all dramatic impetus.


The Fatal Hour is dramatically anemic, because director William Nigh no longer has any idea (or inspiration) for how to use his three recurring characters. Instead, as said, it’s all so much attention lavished upon the lesser one-off supporting characters. Now…the plot of The Fatal Hour is, assuredly, nothing too complex – something to do with murder, naturally, on top of personal politics, dance clubs, and radio (that astonishing new space age invention of the future!) – I’d’ve been able to follow this story most easily, had I been willing to do so. The fact is that murder mysteries are often the least important detail of murder mystery movies (again, look to The Thin Man for the highly entertaining reason why). Thus, between overexposure to Wongs (such as it is) in a short time (plus over 40 Chans previously under my belt), I am somewhat apathetic to the prosaic concerns of a mystery film. This is an admission that most film reviewers, even fly-by-night blogger types, should rarely admit to: Actively not paying attention to a movie.


Really, there’s not much to say about The Fatal Hour which I haven’t gone over in former Wongs – at this rate, my final post on this series will be in the negative word count. Maybe it’ll just be pictures. For now, though, there’s at least one final bit of scripted strangeness which I cannot help but comment upon…

Again, the lone detail by which Wong solves the case is a mightily prominent hangnail. This time, it concerns radio technology of 1939. Specifically, Wong takes minutes (a waste, given his reduced screen time) to learn from a salesman all about Victrola’s latest toaster-sized remote controls. It’s the wonder of the ages, now you can change between the three old-timey pre-rock ‘n’ roll radio stations from a distance, like a spaceman or a wizard! I understand the tech was new in ’39, and required exposition to an incredulous mass of filmgoers, but it dates The Fatal Hour something fierce! (Oh, like The Fatal Hour was ever not going to be dated.) I’d wager many a “CSI,” so enamored of the latest nanotech gobbledygook or whatnot, will share this same fate.

What’s interesting is just how radio remotes figure into cracking the case. You see, it concerns the timing of a murder, which coincides roughly with the radio being turned on. Now, the villain turned on this radio from two–hundred feet out (thus somehow expanding the murder window by several hours, which I do not understand), but why?! Well, because in 1939, when a radio turns on, anywhere, if you hear it, you run to it, slobbering obediently like one of Pavlov’s dogs, eager for the latest pap from the shimmering voice box. Again, yeah, new technology and all, it’s old hat now, though I suppose people at E3 or wherever act similarly idiotic at its latest quivering gewgaws. Still, if I heard my neighbor’s radio turn on really loud, my first instinct wouldn’t be to rush over so as to stand docily before the machine in awe. I would demand he turn the damn volume down already – sorry, I’m working through some personal issues here.


Um…and that’s The Fatal Hour, a movie so disposable and boring, my writing quality has devolved to 2010 levels. Huzzah!

The Tramp, No. 4 - The Circus (1928)

The Circus was Charlie Chaplin’s release for the back half of the ‘20s. Happily toiling for his very own United Artists, features starring the Tramp were now all Chaplin was putting out, and he hadn’t done anything since 1925’s The Gold Rush. This is not even remotely problematic, for though The Circus underperformed relative to The Gold Rush (finishing 7th for the decade financially, as opposed to 5th), its more modest scope and ambitions fit that.

The Circus is the result of a long-term thought, dating back a decade: What if the Tramp went to a circus? This is a simple idea, deceptively so, more in line with the mentality which produced the shorts of the ‘10s – change up the location, and in each film explore the new comic possibilities it presents. The Circus feels, with no insult intended, like an old Chaplin short stretched out to three times its length. There are barely any plot complications one couldn’t find in some of Chaplin’s superior shorts – in fact, both The Tramp and The Vagabond provide the dramatic backbone which The Circus then elaborates upon.

Here is the plot, in total: The Tramp (Chaplin, duh) goes to the circus. He gains employment, falls in love with a nameless Girl (Merna Kennedy), and ultimately leaves dejected upon learning her heart belongs to a more traditionally manly suitor (here, Harry Crocker). For reference, it’s pretty close to the plot of Big Top Pee-Wee as well.


The meat of this story is obviously the romance, same as it is not only in the majority of Chaplin’s filmography, but in that of practically every silent era comedian. A love interest makes for a great MacGuffin for all the ridiculous stunt sequences filmmakers cooked up in the ‘20s. And with the circus setting, nicely hermetic and self-contained, a love story does not distract from the setting’s promise in the way it does in The Gold Rush. Any zaniness the Tramp gets up to under the big top can be traced back to his desires to impress the Girl – that is, when he’s not engaging in tomfoolery in order to eat, because hunger remains the driving force in the Tramp’s universe, which really makes one worry about living conditions in the 1920s. (Gags such as stealing away the apple from a William Tell performance would, in today’s climate, be obesity jokes. Here, it’s a joke on paucity, not abundance – an interesting distinction.)


The broad strokes of The Circus are absolutely nothing unique in the Tramp’s playbook, and for that reason it gains the same advantages as the shorts. One advantage is that the story is preset, formulaic in the way which benefits comedy, because it creates anticipation, can then subvert it, all in an intimately familiar framework. Like a short, The Circus excels around that basic story, because the cloying love scenes between the Tramp and the Girl are nothing new whatsoever, and I’ve said my peace on this side of Chaplin’s game. So it’s a good thing that the circus is a rich setting, wholly capable of sustaining a short film’s formula for feature length, with a varied series of individual comic sequences:

- First, a cop chases the Tramp through the fairgrounds, which is another way of saying “Silent Comedy 101.” This particular cop chase stands out through the clever use of a Mirror Maze, long before The Lady from Shanghai or Enter the Dragon did so more seriously. Moving outside, Chaplin also gets the opportunity to fashion an animatronics-inspired pantomime routine, all the better to fit in with the Noah’s Ark robots on display actively violating God’s laws and the Uncanny Valley.

- The chase continues into the big top, along the way passing over Gravitrons and other such spinning amusements. Unintentionally taking the circus’ center ring, the Tramp upstages the traditional (and purposefully unfunny) clowns – surely a bit of self-congratulatory meta commentary on Chaplin’s part, and indeed the start of a thread. The gist of it is that the audience (the circus’ audience that is; people at home may be of more wildly divergent opinions) find the Tramp hee-la-ri-ous, and thus our hero is employed.


A few more random scenarios:

- The Tramp performs as the magician – and screws it up royally. An attempt to pull a rabbit from his top hat (which he traded his traditional derby out for) results in the mass escape of bunnies, piglets and doves. Furthermore, the Tramp exposes the trick’s entire secret – the Alliance isn’t going to be too pleased with this.


- The Tramp is locked in the cage with a sleeping lion. He tries to escape without waking the great beast, resulting in a silent symphony of noises nearly made, then avoided – slamming doors, falling pots, barking dogs, even a tiger at one stage just in case lions aren’t your particular big cat of choice. (This moment has its ancestor in “Don Quixote,” which is an automatic way to curry my favor. Mmm, curry…)

- Climactically, the Tramp performs on the high wire trapeze – to impress the Girl, natch. Anticipating future developments in Hong Kong cinema, the Tramp hooks himself up with a safety wire, to prevent falling…and Chaplin is among the few situational comedians who can actually make the inclusion of a safety device the cause of greater danger. (There isn’t, overall, the same sort of devotion to danger here as in The Gold Rush, but those unexpected moments are most impressive indeed – Hell, I’d wager Chaplin’s tightrope performance is even the closest he’s come to approximating the more death-defying stunts of Keaton or Lloyd.) And all this is before the scene inundates with monkeys, because like with “Don Quixote,” monkeys automatically make anything better.


So it goes for The Circus’ major set pieces, individual encapsulations of joy which best represent their movie.

Then there’s the question of Chaplin’s meta commentary – and relax, there’s nothing particularly up-its-own-butt with medium awareness here (we leave that to Keaton’s utterly indispensible masterpiece Sherlock, Jr.). Recall the ringmaster (Al Ernest Garcia) hired the Tramp because he was funny. Naturally, the Tramp is made a clown, though he’s never put into the traditional clown makeup, possibly because everyone realizes that the Tramp’s classic appearance is in fact Chaplin’s makeup. Or something – it made more sense in my brain. The only issue is that the Tramp, as a clown trying to be funny, isn’t. Not that the other clowns are funny either (creepy, yes, but you already knew that), but a self-aware Tramp cannot reach even their level of schmaltzy, trite slapstick. To give Chaplin the credit, he (and not his Tramp) remains funny – a guy trying to be funny and failing, portrayed by a guy trying to be funny and succeeding, it’s all pretty good.


…The Tramp cannot be intentionally funny – His whole persona was built upon a poor man with awkward physical delusions of class, hence his cane and derby and ill-fitting pants. (A question arises: How do we get our mirth from the Tramp? Do we laugh with or at him? For all his human desires, he feels wholly unreal, down to the almost ceremonial body language which no longer carries anything identifiably “funny” about it.) To rectify this problem, the ringmaster realizes that the Tramp is funny in non-comic performances – leading chiefly to his magic act (the trapeze scenario is more something of the Tramp’s own devising). There is a potential farce to be had in this notion, to continually reinvent a performer’s act without his own knowing – a farce Chaplin is rather disinterested in, as it butts heads with the growing romantic subplot (which I won’t examine). But it boils down to this: The Tramp brings the circus untold success.


The Circus was originally intended for a 1927 release – a mere two years after The Gold Rush. This was on the dawn of the sound era, and legend has it that some of Chaplin’s more moving trapeze scenes were filmed immediately following the release of The Jazz Singer (the first big deal sound picture). It then becomes easy to read the circus as a microcosm of Chaplin’s greater Hollywood career – Its initial rabble of grotesque, undisciplined clowns clearly a parallel for Keystone Studios. And when the classic ending from The Tramp replays –the Tramp walks alone down a deserted road – it comes when he and the circus part ways, the fallout of his doomed romance. Could it be Chaplin was declaring his hostility towards sound cinema, a movement he proved obstinately opposed to?

Well, there’s a great deal of personal darkness informing The Circus, for as disposable and light as it is (certainly after all the abject starvation of The Gold Rush or the emotional apocalypse of The Kid). That its release was delayed for a year speaks volumes – of Chaplin’s struggles with the IRS, who were on a training run for Capone, demanding back taxes from fat cat celebrities.

Chaplin wound up owing the Federal Government…uh…I actually don’t know, so let’s just say a million dollars. (That’s a rounded estimation, but the most common number cited in any Chaplin biography.) Around the same time, he owed something similar to Lisa Grey, his second wife he was in the middle of divorcing. For you see, Grey was at one time a sixteen-year-old, which is what attracted Chaplin to her, but now she was a doddering old hen at nineteen! Chaplin the humorist was truly his era’s Woody Allen, for he persisted in his public demand for nubile young flesh, reportedly whoring himself around with underage girls repea– What am I, the “TMZ” for 1927?! (For what it’s worth, Nabokov’s “Lolita” was inspired by all this mess. What a legacy!)


Okay, the main point is Chaplin’s life was incredibly crappy while The Circus was being made, well in contrast with his Tramp character – and that’s to say nothing of the film studio burning down, or Chaplin’s mother dying. In light of my repeatedly-stated preference for Buster Keaton (Keaton’s The General is perhaps my favorite film of all time), it’s easy to think harshly of the Chaplin in this era. Basically, he seems desperate for attention. There’s mugging going on, with little grins and sideways glances at the camera. For over the past decade, he’d been the unquestioned comic star of the universe, who could do no (artistic) wrong, and it’s likely brilliance doesn’t best thrive while being actively hailed. I fear I’m largely repeating an old Roger Ebert argument here, and obviously stating it worse.

What I’m saying is that there’s a disconnect between the Tramp and Chaplin, one living hand-to-mouth, the other making movies only when it damn well suits him. Chaplin still expects our opinion of the Tramp to be our opinion of him, the hard-working underdog with millions of dollars and multiple barely legal love slaves. Thus, to regain our trust, the Tramp ends The Circus as aimless as he began, sans success or love or even an apple. (Oh, and he steals from a small child, which I trust was “relatable” to the average American in 1928.)

What little effect assorted scandals had upon Chaplin’s art or public reputation, all things considered! Many of his greatest masterpieces are yet to come, as proof that certain child-impregnating artists (see also Roman Polanski) can somehow remain forever divorced (as it were) from their scandalous real lives. The fictional Tramp, if separated from Chaplin, still has value.

X-Men, No. 4 - X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

Following a Part Three that was then the most expensive film ever made, overstuffed with characters and complications and grotesquely dangling plot threads, Part Four was conceived as a pared down simplification, ditching ongoing escalation for a contained story focusing more wholly on the breakout character, in hope of recapturing part of the original’s charm.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides thus makes Wolverine front and center, ditching the rest of the mutant cast that – My mistake, this movie is actually called X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

To Fox’s credit, they realized that what X-Men: The Last Stand did couldn’t be sustained further. To their fault, they insisted upon continuing this cinematic X-Men tradition nonetheless – not that the “X-Men” cannot yield assorted worthwhile adventures borrowed from their storied comic run, but the motion picture universe is more specifically Bryan Singer’s. Asking a newbie director to continue on in that style, minus legitimate passion for the endeavor (or possibly even the larger genre), hinders much of what could otherwise be done. No longer, by 2009, was the X-Men franchise predicting the path of future superhero movies. Now, with Batman Begins having legitimized the idea of multiple filmic incarnations of one hero, maintaining fidelity to the trumped-up continuity Brett Ratner largely queefed out seems a self-defeating act.


In concept (cooked up by producers, then tossed over to creative types to make something – anything – of it), X-Men Origins was to be a new pseudo-series spun-off from the “central” X-Men backbone. Thus X4 might still come to be, if executives meet Halle Berry’s latest unrealistic requests for a satin-lined castle of gold filled with acolytes. Rather than weather that storm, the Origins label would cut through the chaff of inflating X-Men rosters by focusing solely upon individual mutants, whomever deserves a solo outing as a proper, name-recognition superhero.

Really, this is a roundabout way of admitting that Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine was undoubtedly the fan favorite, so why limit him to a single scene of animalistic slashing? Plus, with reputable storylines like Wolverine in Japan – No, wait, they’re just making it a prequel. How…redundant. It’s all there in the Origins label – The one thing that the X-Men movies didn’t do, among the clichés of the 21st century superhero movie, was tell an origin story. And all the better for those movies! As the nominal lead of three movies, Wolverine’s past is sufficiently filled in – his creation as Weapon X under William Stryker, and subsequent amnesia. That amnesia really seals the deal, since this new Wolverine – directed as if at gunpoint by Gavin Hood – is contractually fated to lead in to 2000’s X-Men. Prequels are challenging enough, when filmmakers fail to advantage of prior knowledge about inevitabilities. Making an entire movie of introductory character development, only to reset it at the very end – this is contemptible, the clearest sign that there was no point in making this beyond the financial.

Still, a prequel has the potential (one I’ve rarely seen acted upon) to use inevitability in the form of a Greek tragedy, maybe highlighting the pointlessness of Wolverine’s pre-Weapon X-istence to fashion an X-istentialist X-amination. Nolan could do it! If Hood could, Fox doesn’t want to know, because they’d rather willingly antagonize their new director – Wolverine has so many willfully perverse X-amples of X-ecutive meddling (when it works in other movies, we don’t even notice it), one truly gets a sense that the old ‘90s fashion of comics contempt has returned. Treading lightly for now, there’s no reason to introduce brand new beloved mutants, then completely misrepresent them all simultaneously.

With so many handicaps against Wolverine from the get go, it can only manage to entertain on the most superficial of levels, as an actioner. With a whole film to bask in, it’s a shame Wolverine isn’t allowed to rampage anywhere near X2’s glorious army assault, still the character’s grandest moment in film. The PG-13 rating is partly to blame, as is Wolverine’s inclination to be as generic an action movie as possible, serving up CGI-assisted throw downs with little sense of character. It even has Wolverine walk casually away from an explosion, done with a sense of obligation, not playfulness. Sorry, but though I do love that action cliché, it isn’t an end in itself.


So for the second time, there is an X-Men movie with many glaring fundamental issues, yet made (by certain team members, at least) as if at least trying to be good. Hood is a big question mark, who perhaps meant well enough, though his utter apathy towards superhero stories prior cannot be to Wolverine’s benefit. The MVP is, with a complete lack of surprise, Hugh Jackman himself, even if – with completely no justification – Wolverine is less ferocious than ever in this, his creation myth, where ferocity is to be most expected. Even so, Jackman knows the character almost too well, and brings in just the slightest hint of a young Clint Eastwood in his performance. Honestly, if someone were to pointlessly remake Dirty Harry, or any early Clint, Jackman would be perfect for it.

Jackman is equaled by Liev Schreiber, bulking up to play Victor Creed, aka Sabretooth (the mutant names are, fittingly, not the focus in this prequel). This character is needed; Sabretooth is another of the supersoldiers turned out by the Weapon X program, and Wolverine’s longtime comics nemesis. He represents what Wolverine could be: his purely animal side…conceptually, at least. It’s a little lost in film, as though they were afraid to commit to these concepts. And for as well as Schreiber counters Jackman, the fact remains that he’s being asked to play the earlier version of pro-wrestler Tyler Mane. Asking De Niro to channel Brando in The Godfather: Part II was a meaty challenge; asking a studied thespian to mimic the future Michael Myers is not.


The half-brother duo hales from the 1840s, with mutation so assumed now in Part Four that their incredibly early emergence isn’t even commented upon. It barely matters anyway, because it takes X-Men Origins: Wolverine all of eight minutes to gloss over more than a century of storyline. So desperate to get right to Weapon X, are we? The credits chronicle this passage of time, rushing Wolverine and Sabretooth (or, I should say, Logan and Creed) though every major war. This is the best part of the movie, taking advantage of the canvas it’s given, even if it accidentally recalls something Zack Snyder had already done better with Watchmen (d’oh!).

The movie is indeed impatient to get to Weapon X, so we can all act surprised when Wolverine (er, Logan) volunteers for Stryker’s (Danny Huston, no Brian Cox) adamantium skeletal graft. This creates a weird structural dilemma, because logic dictates that Wolverine’s present story ends when he becomes Weapon X, simultaneously gets amnesia, then runs off only to eventually discover Rogue, and we’re back at Part One. There’s one problem: No one cares about that Wolverine.


I don’t mean just that this story is thankless (it is), but that fans want berserker Wolverine, gifted with his iconic adamantium claws, and otherwise exuding all those powers of omnipotence and immortality which make for such compelling drama (sarcasm). There isn’t enough material in a pre-clawed Wolverine to sustain an entire movie.

The movie “resolves” this problem in a couple of ways. First of all, Logan, on top of being a super-healer (recall, his only original God-given strength), already possesses retractable bone claws. This is asinine on the surface of it, and embarrassing to boot. No such thing happens in the comics, to my knowledge, and altering a character’s biology is a pretty fundamental change. I suspect Spider-Man’s switch to organic web-slingers goes a way towards legitimizing this move, in Fox’s collective hive mind; it’s hard to argue for what’s wrong with claw-bones, though there is something wrong with it. Forced decisions like this should be the first sign that this isn’t a story worth telling.

But claw-bones must’ve seemed pretty stupid even to those who invented them, because they’re traded out with all due haste for the classic adamantium deal. Actually, the movie’s barely half over by the time Wolverine as we know him emerges indestructibly from Stryker’s sci-fi glass coffin – and escapes. No amnesia, though, not yet, though Stryker already promises such things in Logan’s (er, Wolverine’s, now) future.


The rest of the movie is living on borrowed time, squeezing in a few mediocre fight scenes until inevitable amnesia – courtesy, incongruously, of an adamantium bullet. (In a deleted scene, Stryker wipes away C3P0’s memory.) And the movie takes on a strange metamorphosis. Previously, Logan sought Stryker’s experiment on the promise it would help him overcome Creed – because Logan seeks revenge (how novel!) over the murder of a loved one (Lynn Collins). (The quarter hour devoted to this chintzily lovey-dovey romance is time wasted, because it highlights most egregiously the tragedy that might have been made of Wolverine’s past, here rendered generic instead.)

So, Wolverine wants to kill Sabretooth…until Stryker gives him the means to do so, then promptly (and with an utter lack of foresight) betrays Wolverine. Now Stryker is the designated bad guy, and Wolverine’s new target. Even when half-brothers meet up again in the interim for more fights (where one grows truly tired of their unvaried scrapping tactics), it feels desultory, as though Wolverine has forgotten all about his revenge ahead of schedule. Could be brotherly love – that could be another promising emotional avenue, so naturally it’s addressed in the broadest possible terms. And regardless of whatever conflict the movie is concerned with now, it’s inevitable (by continuity) that Wolverine, Sabretooth and Stryker all must survive. Because Wolverine’s functional immortality doesn’t already put the stakes precipitously low, there’s that narrative immortality to go with it.


The climax attempts to reconcile these disparate threads – Logans’ dead love, Sabretooth, Weapon X, assorted things I haven’t mentioned – into a satisfying whole. It does nothing for the bipolar film so far, and I feel bad for those tasked with trying to make something of this. Stryker thus becomes a standard supervillain, with a Weapon XI and an evil lair and whatnot. That lair is Three Mile Island, meaning…

Oh right, as a prequel this is a period piece, isn’t it?! Yeah, the 1979 core meltdown was actually caused by dueling mutants, didn’t ya know. That’s cheeky enough, no more than an udating on the old time travel joke where someone knocks off the Sphinx’s nose. Too bad period is never otherwise addressed. It’s as though, with all the claw-bones and odd characterizations and plot holes, the filmmakers were embarrassed of the past itself! Stryker’s computer technology, for instance, is made to look roughly modern, and a complete disregard for the greater historical context doesn’t help matters. That’s because X-Men Origins: Wolverine has zero, zilch, nada, bupkis to do with the “mutants-as-minorities” metaphor which Singer made his own. Boy, what could’ve been done with historical civil rights movements explored alongside mutant parallels. What says “we didn’t really care about this project” more than that? Wolverine is only a delivery system for juvenile action (and distractingly CGI metal claws, a problem even the 2000 version didn’t contend with – why?!).

Oh man, the things they focus their hard work on. Computer-rendered metal, when prosthetics worked just fine. And all these cutesy little prequel hints, not even remotely to do with Wolverine himself, just to remind everyone that, yes, this is a part of those movies you loved so much (also The Last Stand). A young Cyclops appears to get smacked around (his only movie function, seemingly), and the Three Mile Island nonsense concludes with Professor X recruiting a motley crew of anonymous mutants filling out space. This being days of 1970s yore, X possesses the undeniably creepy hovering de-aged face of Patrick Stewart – that they actually considered this technique for an entire movie is laughable. It looks worse than the CGI Arnold in Terminator Salvation!


As for that paring down which seems to be the Origins modus operandi? The piles of sideline mutants here say otherwise. Gambit, The Blob, Silverfox, John Wraith…Deadpool. At times the movie becomes a travelogue, sending Wolverine to fight/chat each new mutant, tossed in just in case someone, anyone without interest in Wolverine might spend money to see Gambit instead. After a while, this X-Men compulsion to wedge in as many extra cameos as possible just becomes tiring, and it no doubt hinders potential future continuity to some extent.

The truth is that they’re sowing the seeds for future Origins past, spinoffs of this spinoff. In that interest, any X-man or otherwise unaffiliated mutant from throughout the series is eligible for a one-off. Quick, who wants a Blob movie? Okay, more pertinently, who wants a Deadpool movie? Ah hah! And that one wouldn’t even need to be under the X-Men label! Surely, back in the enlightened days of 2003, when X2 was doing the series proud, it was Ryan Reynolds’ proud honor to headline this would-be movie (good casting). Then…nothing came of it, and I dunno why, leaving a dangling Deadpool retooled by uncool fools. Yup, Deadpool is in Wolverine, even serving as the “last boss,” in perhaps the juiciest example of producer perversity. The Merc With the Mouth, far from a motor-mouthed destroyer of fourth walls, is made wordless, and otherwise nothing like his inspiration. (Makes ya wonder why they did it at all.) It doesn’t help that Deadpool, mouth sewn shut, lumpy and bald, perfectly resembles the big bad in Uwe Boll’s House of the Dead.


They knew this one was a mistake immediately after fans proved surprisingly hostile towards the wholesale misappropriation of a beloved icon. Therefore, Reynolds is still onboard for a proper Deadpool movie (Dead Pool, that’s another Dirty Harry movie!) – it won’t be for a while, though, because against all odds DC got its shit together and put Reynolds in Green Lantern first!

As for other Origins? Merely two years later, it’s hard to pronounce this intended label dead, though the release of X-Men: First Class (being neither an X4 nor a proper Origins, but something indefinably other) suggests the idea has been abandoned. There had been talk of an X-Men Origins: Magneto, a notion with some potential, because of Magneto’s pertinent history (no amnesia for that magnetic personality). This project is now inarguably forsaken, reportedly with much of its material going towards First Class.

Boy, there are a lot of so-far nonexistent movies somehow tied in with X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The brand is schisming without clear guidance. Though with multiple projects in the works, splitting apart like an inverse of the Avengers situation, there are nuggets of hope. Such as the eventual Deadpool simply ignoring this movie’s missteps altogether. Or like The Wolverine, the movie the original Origins ought to have been – Logan in Japan! Development seems pretty well along by now, with Darren Aronofsky directing. All involved, including Jackman, seem politely inclined to move as far from Origins as possible. So perhaps this seemingly purposeless movie did what it needed to – kept the franchise active. Enough that decent things may come yet – and I’m moments away from discovering what is largely reputed: That First Class is indeed the salve this franchise so desperately needs.

The Wrestling Women, No. 4 - Las mujeres panteras (1967)

Well, Las mujeres panteras opens with a ceremonial paganistic underground ritual concerning panther-worshipping ‘60s ultra-babes, making it automatically a better film than Las lobas del ring.

And it sticks with that exploitative angle throughout, the proper phantasmagoric extremes to offset the interchangeable wrestling scenes of lucha libre cinema.

In fact, there’s little point for establishing sequel context within the larger Wrestling Women series, because what this is is simply a delivery system for whatever pulpy lunacy the Mexicans could come up with, so away we go. It solely behooves me to address the recasting of the lead character, Ms. Venus…or maybe not, considering she is renamed, from Loreta to Gloria…Though she was named Gloria originally, before the cast and crew got confused as started calling her one letter off from actress Lorena Velásquez. Well, with Velásquez vanished, enter Ariadna Welter, lookin’ not quite as buxom or comely (really, the one reason a female lucha series exists at all). Not that Velásquez was ever noteworthy enough for her star power to be predicated upon anything more than the strength of her hairspray, creating that bouffant mane. So be it, returning Anglo costar Elizabeth Campbell (as Golden Rubi) is, for me, the more enticing feminine option, what with her Amazonian ways and atomic-strength brazier (it was just becoming the 1950s, evidently, in 1967 Mexico).

Plus, series masterminds Guillermo Calderón y René Cardona hedge their bets, cheesecake-wise, by focusing upon a demonic cult comprised seemingly entirely of underwear models (and this one really lucky older dude…plus the interchangeable fedora-clad goons whenever a fight scene breaks out…consistency and logic have no place in lucha libres). These titular panther-women open their film up on a wonderful note, worshipping their almighty world destroyer Eloim with the sort of verve one associates with Manos – only vaguely halfway barely almost semi-competent.


Because every decent Mexican horror movie I’ve seen so far is a rip-off of a much older Hollywood product, this one takes on Cat People. In fact, it plays as you’d imagine Cat People would from that title alone – not the subtle, eerily elegant exploration of psychosexual repression as in Val Lewton’s final masterpiece, but what his studio masterminds had in (master)mind when feeding him that contextless title in the first place. Wooo, I am so hopped-up on coffee right now!! Namely, Las mujeres panteras takes Cat People into the heady realm of…well, I’m running out of synonyms for “pulpy, ridiculous craziness.”

Meanwhile…wrestling match! It’s a truism of the luchadore movement that wrestling matches make up at least 40% of a film – such an expected regularity, there is no more to say about these, really. Which is why a heady horror story is so welcome. A match reintroduces us to Gloria and Golden (or should I call her Rubi?), a formulaic lucha standard. This reminds us how awesomely undefeatable our protagonists are, before they’re soon thrust out of the sane world of professional Mexican wrestling into terror and crime fighting and whatnot.


Today’s random justification for embroiling Gloria and Golden (okay, G&G) in insanity? Their boyfriend’s uncle is a victim of the Panther Society. (…Hmm, Panther Society, 1960s, counter-cultural, clad all in black…A more socially clever horror film – i.e. something by George Romero – could’ve done something with that!) It’s always a sister, or an uncle, or a cousin or niece or mother-in-law-twice-removed, as each sequel necessitates a new family member to jumpstart silliness – though given how prodigious Mexican families are, this isn’t too hard to credit.

Now, about G&G’s boyfriends…They’ve had paramours in each entry, each time a duo of detectives of, charitably, variable competence and intelligence. Both are usually comic relief (in order to not undermine the chicas, but still maintain essential B-movie gender inequality in some subtle way). Beginning in Rock ‘n’ Roll Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Ape (which remains one of the coolest, craziest titles in ages), one of these doofs was played by Chucho Salinas – a profoundly unfunny Mexican “comedian,” many steps regressed from the cricket-clad Bumblebee Man-inspiring Chapulín Colorado.

Chucho’s been thankfully MIA ever since Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy, but his type remains consistent – a consistency which doesn’t seem to extend to the cop duo’s identity at any given time, who enjoy such a loosey-goosey anti-continuity it’s not worth tracking. Replacing Chucho’s functional role now (as Leocadio) is Manuel “El Loco” Valdés, given to pratfalls so eye-buggingly abstract, it’s on a merely intellectual, archeological level that I understand this to be komedy. I mean, “El Loco?” The actor’s name?! It seems each B Mexican movie identifies a designated buffoon, who behaves wholly out of sync with the other characters’ temperaments (i.e. acting wildly terrified of everything, in a manner 1940s Hollywood movies reserved for black actors).


But then again, all lucha characters are equally archetypal, like stock figures out of a Middle Ages pilgrimage story. We got the evil woman, the dumbass, the innocent child, the moral wrestler, the professor, etc. Combined with the narrative shorthand which states masks may be worn publically and professionally and while sleeping any time a character’s identity isn’t worth knowing, one gets a good sense of Mexico’s storytelling conventions. It’s like how most early luchadores seem to have names derived from lotería (The Boot, the Hand, The Moon, The Bird, The Drunk).

It’s kinda fun, in a mentally deficient sort of way, though it’s hard to credit the characters are unable to identify Torgo (Yolanda Montes “Tongolele” – not sure what that nickname’s all about), the Queen of the Panther Women. I mean, the gal roams the streets in an Eartha Kitt Catwoman suit, with a Rogue-like streak of white hair and other such obvious evil telltale signs. Well, if the pre-literate children watching can immediately ID her as the villainess, it works, and we accept (by these films’ artificial rules) that the in-film characters cannot.


Oh right, seems I roundabout referenced the “Batman” TV show there with Eartha Kitt. That comparison extends to a lot of these films’ tone, though they’re largely without the intentional kitsch komedy of that Adam West saga. The plentiful fight sequences are staged much like the ones Batman would have against the Penguin’s minions, Burgess Meredith quacking on the sidelines the whole time. Every time (and I mean in every lucha epic in existence), characters duke it out in a barrel-filled warehouse lair, the same Churubusco set they’ve never even had to redress. We only lack the comic booky visual sound effects to complete the effect – eh, that and vibrant Technicolor, as these things are depressingly black and white (which does benefit the horror feel).

Actually, Las lobas del ring as a huge exception, I kinda really love the texture of these movies, their uniquely Mexican concept of horror and superheroism and whatnot. The panteras dwell in a mausoleum in a creepy cemetery (the same mausoleum Popoca called lair in The Aztec Mummy vs. the Human Robot) – this graveyard is so wonderfully Mexican, with a Day of the Dead vibe that just permeates the movie…that is, when it’s not stalling in some antiseptic stagebound apartment set, like all of Las lobas, screw that movie! Plot doesn’t matter, which is just as well seeing as I’m watching these things in Spanish now. Going off of those which have been dubbed, things’d be pretty strangely convoluted anyway, so it’s just as well to simply bask in the strangeness, when suddenly a mummy arises out of a coffin without lead-in and holy schnikeys this is nuts!


From what I can gather about the plot (beyond the general luchadore formula about fights interspersed with wrestling interspersed with unnecessary belly dancing sequences), the Panther Women seek to CONQUER THE WORLD…by killing one single little girl. Apparently, they need to kill all of the Santa family (not that Santa, just some normal folks), and this girl is the last one. Yup, it’s the Halloween IV – VI thing. Like Michael Myers’ anti-Strode policy, the Panther Women are profoundly unable to harm the girl, even while their mummy shoulder-slaps dozens of police officers to death along the way. And because the girl just barely escapes each time, thanks be to G&G, well, it is determined that in order to kill the girl, first they must kill G&G.


Really, this is to allow for what seems to be a commonized luchadore element – somewhere nearing the climax, in order to maintain the wrestling milieu, the villains enter certain masked henchmen in the ring to take out the heroes. Yes, masked mystery applicants with no experience and no background checks are let to face the nation’s champions. This is a regular thing, and with repetition, one accepts it just as a necessary scene, and basks in the whateverness of it all. So it is here, two masked chicas (now called Las Sombras) attempting to maul G&G on national Mexican TV with their cat claws. It’s all so weirdly specific, so very committed to a form of zaniness other cultures would never even consider!


Now…about the franchise. It’s called Wrestling Women, and amongst lucha libre cinema, these flicks distinguish themselves by that gender. Therefore, it’s something of a niche notion, and doesn’t engender endless sequels in the same way as the mainstream Santo series does. Hence it takes a couple of years between entries, in a production environment where several sequels could be made in a single year. This also limits the potential longevity of the series.

Guillermo Calderón seems aware of this fact, sensing his flagship series’ shortening lifespan (just one sequel to go after this), and takes steps to alleviate this. So Las mujeres panteras, rather surprisingly, features a masked male luchadore – the expected common element of this subgenre, so far unseen in Wrestling Women. El Ángel is your standard masked man fighter (that’s even the name the luchadore in The Curse of the Aztec Mummy boasted) – a crime fighter given complete access to the Crime Lab and cooperating most casually with the police. It’d be like a movie nowadays where Morgan Freeman’s world-weary captain seeks aid from Kobe Bryant!


El Ángel (actor unknown, to preserve the public appearance of anonymity so many luchadores thrive upon – and unlike G&G, it’s likely this guy is a real wrestler) is a boringly commonplace type. What’s more, his sub-Batman routine takes away from time we could spend in G&G’s exquisite feminine graces. Stripped of much of their superheroic antics, the gals are reduced to just looking pretty – quite a reversion for a series which started (oh-so-ostensibly) as equal opportunity idiocy. It seems kind of useless to saddle a Wrestling Women flick with something you could find anywhere (circa then), but methinks there is an explanation…

It’s all about Calderón. This series is not long for the ring. In a pre-bout bout of doubt, producer Calderón attempts sowing the seeds for a spinoff, an Ángel franchise which would never actually materialize. Not that Ángel movies would’ve distinguished themselves whatsoever in the competitive luchadore movie market, what with Santo and Blue Demon and cronies all enjoying the king’s share of attention. What might guarantee some success would be landing a notable wrestler. I am unaware of any fighter historically known in the ring as El Ángel (though I wouldn’t be surprised at all if there was one) – eh, could be Calderón was trying to form another non-wrestler wrestler series, which simply doesn’t work when not otherwise peddling T&A. So, no, there’s nothing all that valuable about El Ángel.

But that’s all minor pondering in light of Las mujeres panteras’ greater welcome sins against logic. And while Calderón still cannot deliver a “mummy vs. wrestling women” fight that lasts over three seconds (anticlimaxes are the name of his game), there’s just too much strangeness around the edges to be wholly upset. Hell, the mere set decoration in the panteras’ clubhouse is worth mentioning, for no reason except to end this on a note of oddity. Dried stuffed iguanas, gourd husks, voodoo figurines, assorted discarded luchadore masks, flames emerging randomly from wherever, a snake-filled coffin just because, some Aztec stuff, all and more combined into a heady mixture of whatever!

*******************************************************************************

Then there’s the series’ final entry, Wrestling Women vs. the Robot (1969). The video self-destructed on me halfway through, so it doesn’t warrant its own posting, but we are beholden to consider it.

Any doubts about the series’ growing uselessness are silenced by vs. the Robot – pretty much a concentrated combo rehash of The Aztec Mummy vs. the Human Robot and Rock ‘n’ Roll Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Ape (and those two titles have more entertainment value in them than the whole of this latter Robot riot). The Wrestling Women formula is well cemented: Take one B-movie style random villain prone to monologuing, intersperse with wrestling matches and desultory exposition in someone’s apartment. The lone change is the villain type, and we’re repeating mad scientist now…worse, he even has Carfax, neither a vehicle history report nor a “Dracula” setting, but an ersatz Gomar, The Aztec Ape’s Aztec ape.


He also has a robot!...Which looks like one of Pizza the Hutt’s companions from Spaceballs, so basically the robot is a silvery spray-painted dude with a taste for 1930s gangster fedoras. His torso is seemingly made from a keg, with a Videodrome-esque VCR slot so the mad doc can upload, er, people’s stolen brains. Yes, even the brain burglary story is aped from Aztec Ape.


This aping extends to G&G themselves, but not those G&G. The entire cast is new today, and in light of that we get wholly new characters – Gaby and Gemma (Regina Torné y Malú Reyes). Boy, the Wrestling Women franchise is really stretching its luck with this one, again inserting two non-wrestler actresses into the mix, now when the series can no longer coast on mere tight outfits, gams and big hair. It’s no wonder this was the last of the bunch, and no amount of brand new color cinematography – so washed out and pale it makes 1969 Mexico look like the worst of 1959 Italy – can make this loopiness novel again.

Overall, what a strange series! Granted, lucha film was staggeringly popular during that time, but this is a uniquely formulaic, bastardized variation on that format, and simultaneously mired in the long-outdated tropes of old Hollywood. There is joy in Wrestling Women – B-movie spectacle for fans of both cheese and cheesecake. Plus, the proportions are all so off from the more famous exploitation genres, making every triumph and mistake seem genuine. As a historical window into a time and a place, these movies are invaluable.

The Aztec Mummy and The Wrestling Women, Nos. 4 and 2 - Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy (1964)

It’s crossover time!, betwixt the Wrestling Women (a franchise so strong, it hasn’t even had a sequel yet) and The Aztec Mummy (which has had sequels, but only because they were made before Part One was released). Meaning this is the first naturally occurring sequel in either enterprise.

Given producer Guillermo Calderón’s track record, one doesn’t exactly expect elegance from this effort. So as crossovers go, this one follows the Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man format – namely, that it’s not so much a combination of film series as it is a mere sequel to one, with a little bit of the other tossed in at the end. Only much worse, naturally, than the old Universal example, because that’s Mexico’s cinematic prerogative. And since Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy is, for 80% of its existence, a mere Wrestling Women movie, let’s just treat it at that, and dive right in.


The first order of business is determining just how the Wrestling Women can have more adventures. How Gloria Venus and Golden Rubi (Lorena Velásquez and Elizabeth Campbell), two mere professional wrestlers, continue to have adventures dropped right in their lap. By having an adventure dropped right into their lap! A tormented archeologist, fleeing the mob (as archeologists do), directly seeks out Gloria and Golden for help. (Wrestlers: Mexico’s superheroes!)

(Sorry, I forgot…Gloria Venus, though the same character, is now officially renamed Loreta Venus, for absolutely no reason whatsoever!)

Why not just go to the police?! Well, A) in this universe they are as useless as the boar’s proverbial teats and B) the police are right there next to the Wrestling Women anyway! That’s right, it really is a sequel, with the Women’s purposeless police paramours (Armando Silvestre and Chucho Salinas) returning. They exist solely to support a 1960s Mexican’s idea of comic relief, in a movie which is damnably hilarious without help. All they do is fall down and say stupid things. Since it’s remarkably difficult to say amusing things about bad comedy, I now take my leave of the cops.

Back to the archeologist. He dies. Turns out those Wrestling Women weren’t much help after all.

Ah, but here comes a second archeologist, himself bearing plot. Dr. Tracy, he is, and he’s played by Victor Velásquez, presumably the lead actress’ father, or relation of another sort, or Velásquez is simply a common last name. Whatever it is, Dr. Tracy tells of a recently discovered codex, leading directly to that most Mexican of McGuffins, Aztec treasure™. The codex has now been split into several pieces, simply because that’s what is done in these sorts of stories. And now villains, specifically in the form of the Black Dragon Gang, seek it.

Now…everyone’s motives are the same – to obtain the treasure for their own material gain (and that goes for the Wrestling Women as well, who have now teamed up with Tracy) – so you can’t fault one party over another. That is to say, the villain is arbitrary. Except the Black Dragon Gang is doing it evilly. They’re killing archeologists, while the Wrestling Women are killing…Black Dragons. How is this okay?! Well, the Black Dragons are Japanese, see, therefore…Oh, I don’t like where this is going.


Let’s look into this. The Red Dragon himself (actor unknown, thanks to the vagaries of the English dubbing process) is your standard Fu Manchu affair, a white guy (in this case, Hispanic) made to look like an outdated Asian stereotype thanks to squinted eyes and other yellowface. I’ve seen this sort of thing before – yeah, in movies from the ‘30s. But this is Mexico circa 1964, which really oughtn’t to be trafficking in such pointless racism. This is just more proof that Mexican movies were helplessly indebted to aping archaic Hollywood schlock, and not their famous schlock like Gone with the Wind or Citizen Kane, but Monogram-style Z-grade exploitation. Only now, many decades removed, the initial “Yellow Peril” offense Fu Manchu intended is lost, leaving only a blind, unquestioning copycat mentality, repeating old movies for no reason.

Dr. Tracy, to keep the Red Dragons from getting their hands on the various codex pieces, determines to portion out the pieces over time to a different member of the Wrestling Women gang. This doesn’t make a whole heck of a lot of sense, frankly, so let’s just sum up the next 30 minutes as simply as possible:

Fights!

The Wrestling Women and Red Dragons repeatedly come to blows, each sequence, regardless of context, playing out the same way. The same way I imagine all luchadore epics play out, with fighting phrased in the specific idiom of Mexican wrestling. Mostly, people hurl themselves bodily at each other, and occasionally employ holds. It gets a little repetitive, and that’s not counting the separate moments where Gloria and Golden wrestle in the ring.


The one point of interest is Red Dragon’s (that’s the Red Dragons’ leader’s name, so hello there needless confusion) favorite tactics. It’s all a bunch of arbitrary pseudo-scientific hooey, which is totally in keeping from the team that brought us Rock ‘n’ Roll Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Ape. For one thing, Red Dragon has a television – a magical television – with total omniscience. Wherever the Wrestling Women go, his TV sees ‘em (with perfect audio and everything!). Forget the loony notion he’s got little cameras everywhere, for most likely Red Dragon has somehow realized he’s a fictional character, and tapped into the actual movie footage, ala Spaceballs. This is some Funny Games shit!

Red Dragon’s other technique involves that old exploitation sawhorse: damsels in distress. Welcome, back, cinematic Mexican misogyny, we knew you wouldn’t be gone long! But that’s the challenge of a Wrestling Women flick, that the Wrestling Women cannot be treated like vapid, inane damsels, yet we still want vapid, inane damsels, because that’s the only story type René Cardona et al know. Therefore we’ve a new female character, Chela (María Eugenia San Martin), a new buddy of the Wrestling Women, a living and breathing plot complication. She becomes Red Dragon’s prisoner, then later his slave, via a combination of screwy misconceptions of chemistry and radio waves and psychiatry and about five other branches of science.

So, as I said, the movie just devolves into fight after fight. It’s going nowhere, which Red Dragon at least is wholly aware of (more evidence he’s aware of his own fictionality). Thus he proposes a compromise, that all bad blood between the Red Dragons and Wrestling Women be solved in the ring. Wrestling Women vs. Red Dragon’s two judo chopping twin daughters. Mostly, this is an excuse to wedge in a proper wrestling scene. Whomever wins gets all the codices. And amazingly, this isn’t a sneaky double-cross on Red Dragon’s part, not because the Mexicans doubt the slimy underhanded deviousness of the Japanese (you’d think WWII was still going on!), but because they’re so dismissive of the race they doubt even this degree of competence. Lovely!

Friday night. The National Wrestling Arena. Gloria Venus and Golden Rubi, our vivacious and comely heroines –


- versus these two dour, unnamed Japanese “women.”


Note the subtle cinematic trick by which we’re made to cheer on one group over another.

The following fight is a legitimate unexpurgated ten minutes of pure wrestling. This is no doubt the central highlight of a luchadore movie, possibly in an earlier era where wrestling on television wasn’t yet a thing (excepting Red Dragon’s television). A single, listless master shot from overhead covers all the ringside action, with occasional completely necessary cuts to the other characters watching from the sidelines. Considering the lead actresses were cast for their buxom hourglass forms and not their wrestling skills (as evidenced by the stocky real female wrestlers they regularly slap around), this deathless match isn’t even proper, though it is improvised, and therefore an awkward, stilted, crazy, hilarious thing. But remember, down there it’s a real sport!

The match ends with the Wrestling Women victorious, because this is one of those franchises where the protagonists are always successful, at all times, like a peplum. (Suspense? What’s that?) True to his word, Red Dragon gives them the pieces of codex he’d stolen from all those pre-murdered archeologists, and his notorious gang of ethnic caricatures retires for good.

And…switch!


It’s a new movie now, essentially, as we enter the Aztec Mummy phrase of things, an Aztec Mummy plot told over the course of a mere half hour and change – which proves to be a much more sustainable running time for this exact same story than any of the proper Aztec Mummies.

By that series, we start with human protagonists (here the Wrestling Women) learning of Aztec treasure™, and the whole history around it. Thoroughly eschewing the former forgotten memories, the translated codex reveals this. The tale, same as ever, about forbidden love in Aztec times between a princess and a warrior. We know this one, she’s Xochitl and he’s Popoca – Hold up! Nope, he ain’t Popoca! The mummy-to-be male lover is called Tezomoc. He’s a new character!

So…how is this a sequel to those Popoca mummy movies, when other generic Aztec and Mayan mummy movies (sadly, never an Olmec mummy) aren’t? Well, it’s all about producer Guillermo Calderón. If he’s delivering mummies, it’s technically an Aztec Mummy. Sure, whatever.


Name changes like this, to titular undead, are part and parcel with movies of this quality; it’s possible Calderón simply forgot what Popoca was called. Except Tezomoc is functionally different than Popoca – who was, recall, a mere shambler and a shoulder-slapper. Tezomoc is oh so much more dangerous, a nagual (Aztec sorcerer), able to shapeshift himself into a bat, a spider, whatever rubbery “scary” prop they already had lying around the studio. In other words, vampirism and mummification are intentionally confused for the hell of it. (In all this, it’s heartening to know Popoca’s story really did conclude in The Aztec Mummy vs. the Human Robot, and he’s still chilling out in that mausoleum to this day.)

Now we’re an official Aztec Mummy movie that just happens to involve the Wrestling Women, things fall out as predictably as the Red Dragon section, but according to different rules. The Wrestling Women find Tezomoc’s tomb, steal away the breastplate which reveals the location of the thing which reveals the location of the thing which reveals the location of the Aztec treasure™. Tezomoc stalks them back home, kills whomever, the Wrestling Women return the breastplate, the end.

As always, there are lapses of illogic which warrant at least some examination. Tezomoc kills people, something all these Aztec mummies seem very fond of. Specifically, he kills all the Red Dragons, never mind they’re now genuinely disinterested in the whole story, now that it’s moved them by. Still, they were the “bad guys,” so I guess for no reason they deserved it. It wasn’t gruesome, anyway. They merely see Tezomoc, shot their prop guns to no effect, and he nears them. The end. We don’t even get shoulder-slapping, the usual ceremonial indicator that a death has occurred.


Oh, and Chela, now freed of the Red Dragons’ grasp (that is, in the stages well before their deaths-by-mummy), becomes a new damsel. Tezomoc’s damsel. Not because he, the mummy, has any specific need to sacrifice her, but it’s just what Aztec mummies do, and it gives the Wrestling Women someone to save at the end, even if we’re still a decade away from movies allowing all three women smooch as an ending.

And there’s some randomly humorous dialogue wedged in the proceedings as well. Most of it is in response to Tezomoc’s shapeshifting:

“Look, it’s a vampire now!”

“He’s a mummy again.”

Well, Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy served its purpose…I guess. It solidified The Wrestling Women as a franchise unto itself, with several more sequels to follow. The Aztec Mummy, meanwhile, ends at this stage, not that it was ever really moving to begin with. And interesting that they needed to do a crossover (even if we never really get the glorious “wrestlers fighting mummies” nonsense promised) to justify further movies about spandex-clad vixens. You’d think that sort of franchise could perpetuate itself.

American Ninja, No. 4 - American Ninja 4: The Annihilation (1990)

It’s American Ninja 4: The Annihilation, the final theatrical release for the series, and yet another entry which stars newbie “American Ninja” David Bradley, in the role of Sean Davidson. Returning again is director Cedric Sundstrom. Absent now is writer Gary Conway, meaning The Annihilation has the freedom to be about something other than bio-engineered mutant ninjas. A good thing, because variety is already hard enough to come by in a series about pajama-clad martial artists, third world warlords, and charisma-challenged Caucasian superstars.

It’s been one year since American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt, meaning little shakeup in the Cannon Group’s way of creating films, though the fact remains that the company was on the way out, and The Annihilation is one of their last hurrahs. Perhaps given this air of financial apocalypse, Sundstrom & Co. grew the cojones to be a bit more atypical in their formulaic ninja actioner. Against all odds, Part Four is infinitely superior to Part Three, entirely earning its 3.0 rating on IMDb. It’s weightier, I suppose, certainly in visuals. Budget setbacks again, a shocking boon to an action film, as it demands nothing but location photography, as Sundstrom lacks the funds to create sets – and seeing as Blood Hunt’s interiors looked like something out of the am drams, that’s most welcome. That pastel sheen of eightiesness is gone, too, as are some of the more particularly egregious idiocies.


Plus, ninjas are threatening again! “Again,” did I say? I mean “for the first time in this series,” excepting those of American nationality. There’s nothing more bracing than an opening scene of ninjas triumphing, easily getting the better of SEAL Team Six – excuse me, the Delta Force, out in the deserts seeking America’s greatest Muslim terrorist enemy and – okay, how is it American Ninja 4 is reminding me of recent events?! No matter, these elite U.S. commandos are captured, and lest you think there is actual gravitas to all this, keep in mind ninjas remain (by franchise definition) as unlikely as ever. Though it’s dangnably fun to see ‘em, armed simply with swords, dodging machine gun fire in a way that resembles me on the dance floor.

The Delta Force is now captive of one Scoff Mulgrew (James Booth, and a quick scan of his résumé reveals the mighty flick known as…Rentadick?!). Mulgrew has turned a “whatever nation” into his own murderous fiefdom, and in the interest of Cannon’s foreign relations, this nation is never revealed. (It seems they filmed in South Africa again.) Mulgrew is generically bad, obsessed with killing and power simply to satisfy genre terms. Providing antagonistic motive is his counterpart, Sheik Ali Maksood (Ron Smerczak), who proves just how dedicated Israelis Golan and Globus were to caricaturing the Arabs. If you said “Muslim,” particularly to someone in the Bush compound, they’d picture Maksood, in full turban, sheik-shrieking to no end about “true believers” and “the Great Satan” and “jihad” this and “Allah Allah Allah Allah!” that. It’s as if the generic Middle Easterner villain in the background of so many Cannon efforts was promoted to lead, without a shred of artfulness. I cannot stress fully how ridiculous Maksood is…Mulgrew too, for that matter.


This wicked duo has given a week (and weak) deadline before they arbitrarily execute the commandos. No negotiations or anything; that’s simply how long an action hero needs to resolve the situation. Oh, and M&M also have a suitcase nuclear bomb, with which they inarguably intend to destroy New York City, shortly following this same week. Why doesn’t the UN or some such doesn’t simply bomb their known compound?! It’s ruled out in fear of their mighty nuclear retaliation, except…except they’re gonna bomb New York anyway…oh, and that bomb’s there in the compound now, so…oh never mind, it’s way out of Cannon’s budget.

Nope, this being an American Ninja (or any 1980s action film, despite its 1990 release – so close!), matters fall to a single man. Picture every movie where a beleaguered CIA director barks “Get me _____!” That “_____” this time being [drum roll please] Sean Davidson, CIA. CIA?! Yeah. And a speedy promotion too, considering a year ago Sean was but a civilian “American ninja” battling B-movie druggists. Now he’s “the best of the best”…saddled with a token black operative (Dwayne Alexandre) simply to have someone to exposit towards in the field. No matter the dis-continuity of Sean’s life story, he is a stronger character now, stripped of the faux-Karate Kid nonsense Blood Hunt couldn’t really handle. Besides, a generic leather outfit and gravelly voice, while barely original, do meet the action hero archetype.


Initially, the duo’s adventures in Definitely Not South Africa are pretty generic (I mean, more so than the rest of the film). Because it’s early on, and this film has actual escalation (choke on that, Blood Hunt!), they start out randomly getting into bar fights. This is all in a semi-comical effort to follow a contact to “Sulfur Springs,” an objective with no immediately apparent connection to freeing the hostages. Along the way, they pick up local doctor Sarah (Robin Stille), simply because tokenism demands a female to balance out Sean’s loyal black guy. Though this movie hasn’t even the wherewithal to lump her into a de rigueur romance, of which I am greatly thankful.

Mulgrew remains a presence, hot on the group’s trail, and wantonly executing whichever unlucky locals Sean has previously beaten up. It’s pointless, which is the point – Mulgrew is not a reasonable fellow. …It’s all coming back now…I saw this in my youth! (Well, part of it, at any rate.) Not then understanding ninjas that weren’t in Teenage Mutant form, Cannon-style casual slaughter seemed more curious to me. Kind of weightless and airless even then, for how eager these movies are for their R, but still something which somewhat defines the curious ninja subgenre.

That, and ninjas. Ninjas such as those who suddenly attack Sean in mid-meditation (the gall!), yielding a mostly ho hum fight, nothing we haven’t seen before – crossbows, garrotes, nunchucks (actually, that is a series first), ninja stars (definitely not), one singularly useless pistol. It seems a little more serious than before, maybe just because the soundtrack is laying off of the Casio for once, when…(and now this I did not expect)…

Sean et al are captured! The ninjas win!


Well sure, why shouldn’t they? Especially if we’re to be reminded of our onetime belief that ninjas are the martial end all. And don’t for a moment fool yourself into thinking this is like when James Bond gets captured, only to escape in three minutes. Nope, Sean (et al) are now permanently Mulgrew’s guests, housed in what looks like the producer’s rec room.

This is the midway point, by the way, with The Annihilation cleaved almost perfectly into halves. And now, necessitated like Psycho to switch protagonists in midstream, American Ninja 4 does something else you wouldn’t see coming (unless you read a synopsis, or looked at the cast list in the credits, or glimpsed the poster or the Netflix sleeve)…It reintroduces Michael Dudikoff!


How nice, when a sequel brings back a previously MIA main character, to greater audience appreciation. Dudikoff’s Joe Armstrong is the Coca-Cola to Bradley’s New Coke, even if the two are neck-and-neck in kung fu semi-prowess and non-acting. Dudikoff just feels right, perhaps because the series was initially his. Think to Fast & Furious, for when reinserting Vin Diesel had a similar impact…

It only takes a brief moment for the CIA to coax Joe out of the Peace Corps, where he’s given up violence momentarily much like Stallone in Rambo III. Oh it to Sean’s capture, an ersatz Richard Crenna now – and we’re meant to assume Joe and Sean are good boon friends, despite having never shared screen time, simply because they share a franchise and are both “American ninjas.” (Perhaps a missing Curtis Jackson introduced them following Blood Hunt.)

Joe’s first action upon reaching The Democratic Republic of Wherever is to beat off a dozen ninjas (er, that is, I mean he fights them, not…you know). And while Joe bests them with storied ease, by now we’ve seen ninjas triumph repeatedly, lending them weight. Which assures us that Joe is superior to Sean, something they maybe wouldn’t be able to do with both on screen at once.

Having done one thing Sean couldn’t, Joe then does another and reaches Sulfur Springs.


Here American Ninja 4 chooses a new action subgenre. Counter intuitively enough, by the image above, it’s the Mad Max post-apocalypse we’re now dealing with, even though these people are merely local rebels against the Mulgrew crew. What a curious development this is, possibly the fallout of a prepared but unproduced sci-fi film on Cannon’s part (I’m only guessing here), or possibly Sundstrom merely itched to try some new clichés. And because it’s been nearly two minutes without a fight, Joe briefly thwacks about some big dudes with axes, all the better to convince Dr. Tamba (Ken Gampu) he is just as “American” and “ninja” as he claims.

Brief interlude for Joe to break into Mulgrew’s fort (during a fancy dress gala, for Mulgrew to boast in diplomats’ faces that he’ll soon needlessly explode the entire United States), where Joe steals the plans off Mulgrew’s fort so that he can again, tomorrow, break into Mulgrew’s fort. Huh?! Would that they had a little more budget to simply extend the inevitable climactic assault that’s coming up.


And here it is! With Dr. Tamba briefly channeling/predicting a different Mel Gibson movie (Braveheart) with a “freedom” speech, the Sulfurite post-technological barbarians attack Mulgrew’s fortress – head on. For as much good as Joe’s plans did ‘em. And they handily best assorted ninjas (complete with acrobatic guard tower explosions), the ninjas’ sheen of invincibility now well gone. It doesn’t wholly irk now, since we’ve gone beyond logic, and Beyond Thunderdome.

As meanwhile Joe sneaks in through an old, dried-up dam – a striking location. Inside the aqueduct works…more ninja fights. Notably, Joe catches one ninja’s arrow in his mouth (somehow changing the arrow’s angle as well), then stabs another ninja’s throat out with the same arrow – still in his mouth. All the while a rip-off of Lethal Weapon’s trailer music plays, because here at the desperate end of Cannon (and, not coincidentally, of the ‘80s), you can just steal indiscriminately without fear of repercussion.


The rest goes without saying – Joe rescues everyone, the nuke is disabled anticlimactically, and Joe climbs over a pile of mutilated ninja corpses on his return to the Peace Corps. And ever since first introducing himself to Dr. Tamba, Joe has said at most eight words total. Chat was never Dudikoff’s strong suit, and Joe is more mysterious (and more intriguing) in his willingness to just shut up. Compare him to the now-worthless Sean.

That final walk into the distance marks the last we’ll see of Michael Dudikoff in American Ninja. Actually, it marks the end of what I’ll see of American Ninja as well, for though American Ninja V exists, the “V” is for “video.”

For what it’s worth, David Bradley returns for this final desultory capper. In it, again the American Ninja series bows to the inspiration of The Karate Kid, even featuring a Pat Morita cameo. Bradley’s Sean, randomly yet again, is promoted to the level of sensei, the “last true ninja,” to train 14-year-old Lee Reyes in the ancient ways of “American ninjas.” Cue inspirational training montages, and trade out waxing cars for tarnishing and varnishing a boat. Then multicolored ninjas capture Lee, for some no doubt justifiable reasons. “Ninja fighting ensues” – (direct Wikipedia quote).

This 1993 American Ninja V occurred at the very end of the Cannon Group, released on video alongside final theatrical release Street Knight. Ever since 1990, Cannon was in dire straits, enduring legal suits and countersuits in a tale I do not fully comprehend. Suffice it to say the story includes phrases such as “criminal charges,” “fled to Italy,” and “international extradition,” making it sound just as idiosyncratic as any self-respecting Cannon release. Somehow, all this concerning $1.48 billion, all over a studio that’d been lucky to make under a million dollars per release.

Which marks the end of American Ninja, a series which neither Dudikoff nor Bradley sought to reignite, even while remaining in the sub-Lundgren DTV action miasma of the ‘90s. The Human Shield, Cobra (not the Stallone one), Cyberjack, Soldier Boyz, Strategic Command, Cyborg Cop, Hard Justice, Expect to Die – these are just some of the cinematic marvels the former “American ninjas” touted in years to come. Whatever conclusions to be drawn from that, they’re yours.