Video Cheese: COUNTERFORCE (1987)

This piece was originally posted at www.jabootu.net as part of a series called Video Cheese. This version has been edited from that earlier version, and posted here by the kind permission of Mr. Ken Begg.

 

COUNTERFORCE (1987 - color)

   "Elite commando unit must protect middle eastern diplomat from forces that wish to kill him."

 

   Counterforce is sort of lame. Now, when I say that, I mean it in the real sense. It isn't good enough to really be, well, "Good," but it is decent enough that it isn't "Bad." In the end, it sits there like a middle child. There's nothing remarkable to say about it, but there's nothing particularly bad to say about it either. It has plenty of moments that are pretty good, and plenty of moments that are stupid or inept. It just lays there, a reasonably goofy, yet more or less enjoyable B action movie from the 80s.

 

   The cast is full of familiar faces. George Kennedy is the leader/liaison of a super-efficient commando unit known as Counterforce. (This rather comic booky title is never spoken in the film, but the men do wear uniforms with little "Counterforce" patches on them in one scene.) I've always been a fan of Kennedy, who has played both sides of the cinematic street, acting in great films and horrible ones in a way that could let us call him the American Michael Caine. He is probably best known as the plucky Patroni in the Airport cycle. Here, he more or less wanders in once and a while to give Counterforce their orders, although he manages to be a bigger presence than I thought he'd be. As you'd expect from a professional with as many movies under his belt as Kennedy has, George comes off well (considering he was probably just going through the motions on this one).

 

   Top Billed is George Rivero (aka Jorge Rivero). Consider this man's career. He first appeared on the screen in a Neutron (a masked wrestler of the Santo variety) movie back in 1965. The Mexican actor has since racked up 122 IMDB credits, his most famous role being that of "Frenchy" in the John Wayne classic Rio Lobo! Sadly, that high point didn't prevent him from eventually becoming the guy in Arizona Werewolf who has a different style and color of hair in every scene. Here, he's the leader of the Counterforce field team. While not spectacular or anything, he's okay here. The only problem is that whoever trained the actors to hold their guns didn't do a very good job. During the whole thing, these guys never look like a special ops team as much as they look like kids playing in the back yard with squirt guns. That group problem aside, George certainly looks the part with his muscular build and manly wavy hair.

 

   Best is familiar character actor Louis Jourdan as the diplomat Counterforce is assigned to protect. He lends his scenes such gravity that he elevates the whole film. One wonders how he felt, knowing how far Counterforce is from Gigi, although it's a step above playing Dr. Arcane in the Swamp Thing movies. Winning him a certain immortality in a high profile production, Jourdan played Kamal Khan in Octopussy, thus providing the Moore era 007 movies with one of their most commanding heavies. He plays Kasser, the democratic leader of a middle eastern republic. He has been targeted by a rebel leader/dictator played by Robert Forster (!) who escalates his attempted overthrow when the CIA fails to take the troublemaker out with a Samsonite bomb. He thinks Kasser is behind the plot and makes it known he will kill the elected leader. Counterforce is then sent in to protect Kasser, as he represents the best hope for democratic stability in the Middle East. 

 

   From there, we basically sit back and watch as the bad guys get close to Kasser and Counterforce kills them. During a speech, Kasser is shot and taken to the hospital. The bad guys try to get in there, Counterforce moves him out. Unable to get close to Kasser, the bad guys kidnap his wife and son, and Counterforce must go rescue them. Need I really spell it out beyond that? The problem is, the whole affair seems tepid. The action isn't bad stuff, its just not as engaging as it should be. Mostly, you just go through this one on autopilot. It really makes you notice how well Cannon knew their craft when it came to making action movies.

 

   The late Isaac Hayes plays the team's Big Black Guy (c) but the part is one dimensional enough that anybody could have played it. Sheer screen presence might have made the part more impressive if they had managed to get Fred "The Hammer" Williamson instead. Needless to say, this character pretty much confirms how blatantly the film steals from the recent hit show The A Team.

 

   Though modestly budgeted, they do get to include some impressive location photography in (I think) Spain, doubling as Africa. The opening sequence is the least impressive, as we watch Counterforce engage in a training mission like the one that opens License To Kill (but without the traitor in their midst, and actually a point in Counterforce's favor is the lack of a secret traitor). This is so bland and cheap it makes one nervous the following film will be a chore to endure. Because this is the 80's, the men are given those pistols with the big laser scope like we saw in The Terminator, but to show the red dots on someone and rather static red circle is superimposed over the footage! This gets more comical as we continue to see it.

 

  Also pretty farcical is the gunfight that results when Kasser is shot. A good chunk of the movie follows this pattern: Good guy starts to enter room where Bad guy is. Bad guy takes a shot, it comes close but misses. Good guy fires a couple shots back, these hit their mark. This pattern repeats itself endlessly in this scene, whether the good guys are Counterforce or Kasser's guards. Also, despite Counterforce providing security (and these guys are supposed to be the BEST), the bad guys always manage to get close enough to Kasser to almost get him. You'd think Kasser would at least rate a private floor in the hospital where Counterforce needed only to worry about the windows and elevators (but for some reason this idea escapes our heroes and Kasser is just in a normal hospital room).

 

   All in all, not bad, but not as good as one might hope.

Sadie 6 Shot makes the scene!

 The character of lady outlaw Sadie 6 Shot was developed by myself and Jeff Austin for use in Jim Main's *PPFSZT! color annual. Despite what you see, Sadie isn't a western nudist. She has a knack for finding trouble, though..... Inks/colors by Jeff Austin.

Makes it tough when an outlaw is married to a lawman!

Interrupted at the swimming hole!

(to) (move) (fast!)

Scott on Inks...

Scott Shriver, that is! Here are some panels of mine the good Mr. Shriver has inked....

For AC Comics...

 

For Bloke's Terrible Tomb of Terror....

Bond Girls

   I found a series of illustrations for book covers to the Ian Fleming James Bond cycle. I was taken with some of these and I edited them for use as profile pictures (the original versions had the title of the book painted across the back of each girl). Since I like to share things I find interesting, I thought I'd share my versions of these cover illustrations.....

Dr. No

Goldfinger

You Only Live Twice

Moonraker

For Your Eyes Only

Quantum of Solace

Octopussy

Video Cheese no. 3 - CURSE OF NOSTRADAMUS (1960)

Note: This piece is edited from a review originally posted at www.jabootu.net as part of a series called Video Cheese. Re-posted here with the kind permission of Mr. Ken Begg.

CURSE OF NOSTRADAMUS (1960)

    "A vampire has a personal grudge against a scientist for his crusade against superstition."

   If I have my facts straight, there was a Mexican serial about a scientist fighting a vampire. This was bought by K. Gordon Murray and edited into a series of films for AIP-TV. The result is the saga of Nostradamus the Vampire. Curse of Nostradamus is the first of the four films. Given the movies are edited together from the serial, each chapter tends to hit the ground running and end rather flatly. Thus, all our exposition is laid out here, and it's a dilly! 

   The Nostradamus films share much in common with the less-favored Mexican monster pics to reach US screens. The dialog is weird, the actors seem to think they're either on stage or in a silent movie, and things move at a snail's pace. The occasional (though far too rare) nice shot composition just makes the faults all the more evident.

   In short, our story concerns Professor Calderon (I think, after a while I found myself unable to recall the names of these characters, even though I wanted to point out how one character had a completely different name when spoken than when written!). Calderon has set out to remove all superstition from the land so we may progress forward on the wings of science and logic. 

   This all seems to be set at the turn of the century, judging from the clothes and such. At a big party to celebrate the engagement of his daughter to his hunky assistant Tony, Calderon is asked about vampires and monsters. He notes such things are the bunk and we cut to a vampire and a monster approaching an old castle. This is our star and his hunchbacked assistant. 

   (German Robles plays the vampire, and played several similar characters early in his career, seemingly in an attempt to become the Mexican Bela Lugosi. Here, he's one of those vampires from the top-hat-and-goatee school -actually, he wears a high derby instead of a top-hat, but this print is so dark and murky I couldn't see this until I saw the sequel film, THE MONSTERS DEMOLISHER.)

   This gets confusing pretty fast due to the slapdash nature of the dubbing. Murray's imports tended to be direct translations, although this one seems different. At the party, characters have conversations that consisted largely of repeating what they've already mentioned. Facial expressions also fail to match lines, reminding one of an old Carol Burnett sketch about how imported movies are sometimes altered (where we see a scene of lovers kissing with the dialog changed to make this man and woman brother and sister). Calderon at one point bugs his eyes in what looks like fury from an insult, then continues in his genial tone. 

   The back-story on the vampire is one of the most convoluted moments we have. The vampire wanders into an old castle and finds the coffin, and ghost, of the original Nostradamus. I had no clue the European prophet was laid to rest in Mexico, but then I didn't know he was Japanese either (see CATASTROPHE 1999/LAST DAYS OF PLANET EARTH).

   Uhh. Nostradamus was apparently a vicious monster who felt himself superior to all mortal men, not the holy man I'd heard about. Maybe the writers meant this to be Rasputin or someone like that, but thought the name Nostradamus would have more impact? 

   Anyway, the ghost hates science and tells the vampire to destroy it. The vampire is also said to be both the son of Nostradamus and the grandson of Nostradamus! And I guess, other than being immortal, he's still human at this point. He seems to become a vampire here, as the ghost lays out the ground rules and tells his offspring he will sleep in the very coffin the ghost is now occupying. Assuming the mantle of Nostradamus, the vampire reportedly has the power to level entire cities! Obviously, the powers we see displayed will be a bit less earth-shaking, but pretty impressive to us non-vampires. He can turn into a bat, hypnotize people, and take over their bodies. Oddly, we'll never see him drink blood until the climax, and even then it isn't out of a need for nourishment. Who this guy was prior to this, except for being descended from the (now evil) prophet and being immortal because of it (?), we never learn.

   Nostradamus also gets the failings of a vampire, such as being repelled by a crucifix. I don't know if he's in danger from sunlight or not, however, as the sun never seems to rise in this town. He's also amazingly arrogant, as all vampires are, going to Calderon and rubbing his (admittedly smug) scientific face in the fact that Nostradamus is all supernatural and stuff. In a whopper of a scene, Nostradamus tells Calderon that the scientist himself will be the one to stop the vampire's plan! Then, to make sure the Professor knows the gravity of the situation, Nostradamus states he will kill 13 people. From there we see one murder convince Calderon that Nostradamus means business, and then taking action to prevent the other murders, with mostly poor results.

   Being the romantic lead, Tony will do most of the heavy lifting while Calderon figures everything out. In the climax here, Tony chases after Nostradamus and tries to kill the vampire with platinum (?) bullets. He chases the monster down a long series of cramped catacombs, wildly firing each time Nostradamus has just moved out of range. I'm pretty sure he was out of bullets by the time he finally faced off with Nostradamus, but they don't have time to go into this. The chamber they're in caves in and Nostradamus is (for now, at least) buried alive. (I think the idea is that the gunfire caused the old place to vibrate and fall apart, or something.) We don't see Tony go back to his revived love in the main hall, or really get much evidence of his escape. We see Nostradamus' hand poking from a mound of dirt (and it does look dead, I must note) and then its THE END!

  What hurts this one is that it's duller than the dirt Nostradamus is buried in! Ever notice how you can sit in your seat and watch a two or three hour movie without complaint, so long as the movie is really good? And then you pop in a much shorter movie, but it doesn't satisfy, so your tail starts going numb half-way through? This is one of those. For a movie lasting under 80 minutes, it had me squirming and checking the clock from the first murder! Republic serials are noted for their fast pace and blistering action. It would seem Mexican serials played to much less demanding audiences. To think, there are three more of these films! (To be fair, the second film is a step up in quality, and definitely moves much faster, although it's still a Mexican monster movie edited from a serial so it's not fantastic or anything. It's been too long since I've seen the third film to comment, and the fourth installment never came my way, so I can't comment on those two entries.)

Dinosaur Girl in Action!

Some panels I just happen to have scanned, showing Dinosaur Girl in battle. From Femforce no. 156, the story "Mirror Image" written and penciled by myself. Inks are by Mark Heike.

Some Stuff Inked by Jeff Austin

Panel from Betsy the Bookwriter's second episode, the pirate spoof

Ditto

A fresh Preymate

And another

Red pinup as seen in SAY CHEESECAKE 

no.1, published by Jim Main