Reviews

An indescribably crude slice of Danish humor that shocked the prudes in the U.S. in 1967, complete with male and female nudity (including a brief female "full frontal" shot), all of which kept the film in "art house" venues. The plot has a virginal schoolboy Jacob (played by a somewhat overaged-looking Ole Soltoft) visiting relatives for summer and within one month goes from innocence to satyriasis. The family maid attempts to seduce him, and he is drawn into his own sexual awakening by his cousin, in the only truly erotic sequence of the movie, which comes in the final ten minutes or so. ERIC SOYA'S 17 is not subtle, either. It plays as a slapstick comedy and it seems that the actors were instructed to mug and roll their eyes as much as possible. There is even a syrupy title song, "Seventeen," sung in Ed Ames style to an ersatz 101 Strings accompaniment. That said, the film will not appeal to viewers raised on 1980s-style sex comedies, as ERIC SOYA'S 17 is slow-moving and "arty" in the manner of most 1960s cinematic erotica.

In this exploitation flick, Johnny (Robert Walker, Jr.) is a driver for a backwoods moonshine boss, constantly outrunning a pair of inept Feds. Hi Army buddy, Roger (Dick Clark) comes to visit Johnny, wife Carol (Diane Varsi), and their son Tony. The first half of the film is slow-moving and dull, but once Johnny hatches a far-fetched robbery plan that backfires miserably, all four are on the run and the movie picks up somewhat. In the spirit of BONNIE AND CLYDE, which was released the previous year, KILLERS THREE attempts to draw a sympathetic picture of Johnny, Carol, and Roger as they successfully evade the authorities through the underbrush of North Carolina. In the final ten minutes, the movie succeeds on this score, only because in the shadow of overwhelming fire power provided by the Feds and the cops, the running criminals seem almost brave as they fight on. On reflection, though, it is only dumb luck and a contrived script that keeps them going. The stupidity of their crimes and continued killings works against the fragile sympathy evoked here and there during the course of this crude movie. You can tell this film was tailor-made for drive-in showings -- Merle Haggard's repetitive Greek-chorus balladeering reiterates all plot points two, three, maybe four times; when the talk-talk-talk gets too cooked, the makers throw in a car chase. You get the idea.

Walker and Clark fare well despite the ludicrous things their characters are called upon to do; sadly, Varsi sleepwalks through the complex role of Carol, although she does have a surprising nude scene.

Well-made but inconsequential triangle drama, with Raymond Burr playing a brooding, resentful industrialist who may or may not be a terminal case -- resentments are directed primarily at wife Sara Shane, who was responsible for crippling him in a boating accident. (To correct another comment here, it is clearly a boating accident that crippled Burr, as revealed in a tense sequence on the water in which Burr nearly rams the boat carrying him, John Cassavettes, and Shane into some rocks.)

Cassavettes, a jazz pianist scraping out a living at a local watering hole, spends the bulk of the movie trying to untangle from Shane's web of sexual come-ons and neediness, something his character has difficulty with. Burr makes a complex villain/protagonist, filling in his angry cuckolded husband with numerous human qualities that earn audience sympathy. Unlike the claims of an earlier comment, the relationship between Shane and the loyal Cuban servant Valdes is not a mystery. Rather, unlike how current movies might handle such a plot device, the adultery of Shane is always implicit and not explicit. A suggestive and violent scene on the ocean beach reveals their relationship within the boundaries of 1957 censorship -- if this film were remade today, that scene would be excessively sexual and heavy.

The movie's ending is not atypical of programmer features of the era, as Cassavettes nods, returns to his piano -- as in "the show must go on" -- and soldiers on, finally shed of both Shane and the tawdriness that surrounded their relationship. The rushed finale suggests, for him, the best of all possible worlds.

In this routine oater, Larry (Guy Madison) and Phil (Rory Calhoun) are officers in the Army stationed at a remote fort at the edge of Indian territory. The Indian chief (Iron Eyes Cody) represents the native inhabitants near the end of their fight with the white man; therefore, the fort and nearby town of Jackson are populated by mostly settlers and other civilians. Larry is engaged to Kitty (Cathy Downs), the daughter of the fort commander, and Kitty's brother Randy is the mild comedy relief. Although the film's poster promises some violent Army-Indian clashes, there is only one mildly good battle scene and a skirmish near the finale. The bulk of the movie is a leaden soap opera concerned with how Larry jilts Kitty after he falls in love with the hardened co-owner of Jackson's saloon (Carole Matthews). This sets both Phil and Randy against Larry. The divisions this causes leads the death and tragedy in a "character-driven" western which, despite good performances from Madison and Matthews, strains to make us believe that their characters have any sort of believable future together.

JUDGEMENT DAY is not inept, except that the title is misspelled. There are some scenes of good suspense and Gothic atmosphere, and some of the performances (especially Monte Markham) are decent. Four college kids become trapped in Santana, a cursed town in which each year the ol' devil returns to claim some new souls. The college kids are not typically dumb movie teenagers, either, so they try to escape with the help of a priest. You won't find this movie in too many top-10 best film lists (but you won't find The KEEP on these lists, either).