"It’s a film buff's dream to give the
theatrical experience to films that might never be seen in this country" announced
Quentin Tarantino in a prepared statement at the launch of
Rolling Thunder Pictures in 1995. Set up under Miramax Films by Tarantino
and headed by Jerry Martinez “The idea of Rolling Thunder was always to
bring attention to a lot of films and directors and performers who we felt had
been overlooked in the past. Not just in the mainstream but in general,” Tarantino
wrote in an LA Weekly article "I
don't want to release new films so much as older exploitation movies and give
them a new life. This is the personality I want the company to have.” It
was intended that Rolling Thunder Pictures, named after John Flynn’s ‘back from
Vietnam’ revenge thriller Rolling
Thunder (1977), release up to four films a year including independent,
cult and foreign movies to theatres but unfortunately the project was short
lived closing in the summer 1997 because the short sighted Miramax refused to
extend their contract putting out a statement that said “Rolling Thunder was no more, due to a lack of interest shown in the
re-released movies.”
To coincide with the release of Django
Unchained (2013) Miramax
and Lions Gate released a special DVD set of 3 films previously
released under the Rolling Thunder Pictures label. It included three American
films from the 1970’s The Mighty Peking
Man, Detroit 9000 and Switchblade Sisters.
The Mighty
Peking Man 1977.
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| The original USA poster. |
In the 1970’s the Shaw Brothers Studio was Hong Kong’s
largest movie production company usually concentrating on martial arts movies.
But they did produce films from other genres and one of these was The
Mighty Peking Man. This was made in 1977 to capitalize on the previous
years remake of the American monster movie King
Kong produced by Dino De Laurentiis and directed by John Gullermin, but
without the large budget. Also its been dubbed for the American market, but
surprisingly enough you get used to it!
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| The Mighty Peking Man. |
The film opens with an earthquake on the Indian side
of the Himalayas and a giant monkey appears amongst the carnage. A group of people soon set out to try and
bring this giant ape back to Hong Kong to exploit it for their own gain. The
party is led by a naïve young man, Johnny Meng (Danny Lee), who is unaware of
the true nature of the trip. On their first day out in the jungle a herd of
elephants attacks the party, trampling to death those not quick enough to
escape, the second day is not much better when their attacked by ferocious
tigers. Two men in fear of their lives jump into the quicksand, another has his
leg bitten off. With greatly reduced manpower they attempt to scale a steep
cliff losing more people in the process and still no sign of the Peking Man.
When Johnny wakes up the following day its not long before he realises that the
remaining members of the expedition have deserted him leaving him all alone in
the inhospitable jungle or is he? You guessed it; the monkey appears and
captures our hero. Is this the last we will see of the intrepid Johnny, well
quite simply no! Down swings a female Tarzan and talks the monkey out of doing
whatever very large monkeys do to their captives. You see, Samantha ended up in the jungle when
the airplane she was travelling in crashed killing both her parents and leaving
the Peking Man to bring her up and I assume teach her the monkey tongue so the
pair could converse. Samantha, played by a very fetching young Swiss actress
called Evelyn Kraft, is dressed in an animal skin fur bikini that must be glued
to her modesty zones because no matter what, it never moves! She also seems to
have power over the other animals, except snakes, and even has a fully-grown
pet tiger. At this point the film goes all lovey dovey with our two main protagonists
running around the jungle like a couple of lovesick teenagers. Any way lets get
back to the main plot. Johnny for some daft reason wants to continue with the
idea of taking monkey man along with Ms. Tarzan back to Hong Kong. But of
course the monkey ends up in the hands of some unscrupulous men with Samantha
regretting she and her pal left the jungle in the first place but thanks to the
script writers keeps wearing her bikini, which incidentally none of Hong Kong’s
general public seems to notice. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you what
happens next but with out giving too much away I can tell you there’s a big
climatic ending to look forward too.
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| Ms Tarzan in that bikini! |
Detroit
9000 1973.
Arthur Marks is American b-movie director who is
probably best known for TV series like Perry
Mason, Starsky and Hutch and Dukes of Hazzard and of course the
second film on this DVD re-release. Detroit 9000 was originally released
in 1973 and has since been described as a police procedural but originally it
was marketed as a blaxploitation movie.
Blaxploitation is a film genre that emerged in the USA
in the 1970’s and was made specifically for an urban black audience but their
appeal soon crossed over to white audiences. The best-known films were probably
Shaft (1971), Cleopatra Jones (1973) Coffy
(1973) and Foxy Brown (1974). The
genre also included films with titles like Boss
Nigger (1974) and Mandingo (1975)
both said to be an influence on QT’s Django
Unchained (2013). He also paid homage to the genre when he made Jackie Brown in 1997. Detroit 9000 certainly has the right ingredients: Set in
poor neighborhoods, the film was shot on location in downtown Detroit in a poor
area close to where the race riots took place in July 1967, which is referred
to in the movie. Ethnic slurs against white characters, one of the tag lines
reads ‘Visit the murder capital of the world--where the honkies are the majority’ and the use of
other such derogatory words. The soundtrack includes funk, soul and jazz with
heavy bass lines and rich orchestration another element of this genre.
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| Sgt. Jessie Williams. |
The film has a basic story that involves two Detroit
detectives, one white and one black. The veteran Detective Danny Bassett is
played by Alex Rocco, who, it is alleged, was mixed up with organised crime
before he successfully turned his hand to acting. The well educated ex football
player Hari Rhodes is the black cop Sgt. Jesse Williams. The two police
officers team up to investigate the theft of jewels and money placed in a ‘war
chest’ at a political fundraiser for a local congressman’s election campaign.
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| Detective Danny Bassett. |
As you would expect from this type of film there is
some great action involving shot outs and lots of bodies. It has dated, but
mainly because it shows a different attitude from what we have come to expect
from our modern police force, it’s a time when if you had important information
for the authorities then you could literally get away with murder, it also
portrays a police force that would rather shoot you down than ask
questions. But the thing that raises it
above many in this genre is that Orville H Hampton’s script succeeds in
injecting a serious side which involves a
social commentary about race relations, the difficulties of a
policeman's life and the corruptive influences power and money can have on
people of any colour.
Switchblade Sisters
1975.
Reputed to be one of the many movies that inspired
Tarantino’s filmmaking this glorious grindhouse nonsense involves ‘the toughest gang of teenage girls to ever
hit the street’s’
After some great opening credits we meet the all female gang The Dagger Debs
who are extracting a wee bit of social justice from a wicked debt collector,
Hammer (Michael Miller), in their own inevitable way. Headed by Lace (Robbie
Lee), whose boy friend Dominic (Asher Brauner) is
the leader of the Silver Daggers the all male equivalent of the Debs, and her
number two the malevolent one eyed Patch (Monica Gayle). When Lace and Patch
find a stranger sitting at their favourite table at the local burger joint they
ask the demure Maggie (Joanna Nail) to move by politely waving their
switchblade’s under her nose. Maggie reacts in a manner that makes Lace respect
her, but it has the reverse affect on the jealous Patch. Things are about to warm up.
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| Gang leader Lace. |
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| New girl Maggie. |
Jack Hill, director of Switchblade Sisters (1975),
is considered a living legend of the American exploitation films, he is known
for such delights as The Big Dolls House
(1971), The Big Bird Cage (1972), Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974) all starring Hill’s discovery Pam Grier.
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| The evil Patch. |
As with all grindhouse/exploitation movies there
enjoyable at a certain level, a sort of ‘Saturday morning at the pictures for
adults’ level! As I’ve said before you can’t judge films without looking at
each genre from a different approach. It’s like that advert on the telly ‘it
does what it says on the tin’ and these three film’s set out to entertain, and
believe me they do just that. The secret is to watch these films with the right
mindset and you will undoubtedly enjoy them. It’s not only obvious but also
interesting to see films that inspired one of America’s greatest exponents of
cool cinema. Tarantino said of the collection “If you like my stuff, you can look at it as – this is where mine came
from.” The DVD is available as an import from America and will require a
multi regional player.
