December 1, 2025 • 55 mins
Ian joins Richard to be stricken from the commando record a second time when they discuss Strike Commando 2 (1988), directed by Bruno Mattei and Claudio Fragrasso and starring Brent Huff, Bond girl Mary Stavin, Richard Harris, and Bond girl Vic Diaz! It's a wild time with at least one round of ammunition fired (in the movie).
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
The name is Michael!
(01:07):
Hello, and welcome to Hello, This is the Doomed Show. I am Richard. Folks, I am feeling like Mr. Strike, and just like my guest co-host, we're both going commando. It's Ian. Hello.
Hey, I'm glad to be here to do a review on this movie that I like to call Raiders Romancing the First Bloodstone of the Predator.
(01:35):
Oh, yes. We're talking Strike Commando 2 from 1988. Yes, it incorporates all of those films that you just hinted at. This is directed by Bruno Mattai and Claudio Fragasso.
the power team behind the first strike commando, which we had a great time talking about. And you were like, by the way, there's a sequel. And I said, well, you got to come back. And I would argue that I do think this film.
(02:04):
has i think they may have had a bigger budget to do better action um i think the biggest thing about this film is maybe not necessarily in terms of a drop-off but in terms of a difference is
You have Brent Huff, who I actually think is trying to act. And then in the first movie, you had Rev Brown, who was immaculately terrible. And it added to the entertainment value of the film. Whereas Brent Huff...
(02:28):
can actually act a little bit and it's like does it work that he's in this film i mean he's a guy who went on to direct other films uh he's acted in a bunch of other things he was kind of one of the
you know, late 80s stars of Italian genre cinema along with Daniel Green. It's kind of those two that were in a ton of movies. Brent Huff went on to work with Bruno Mattei a couple other times in...
(02:55):
Born to Fight and Cop Game. And then he was in After the Condor with Daniel Green, actually. That's when it came full circle, when they were in the same movie together after the Condor, directed by Sergio Martino. But I mean, he still acts today. He's directed a documentary.
He has a pretty long recurring role in that ABC cop show called The Rookie. So he's still around doing stuff. It just tells you that he does have a bit of craft to his, you know.
(03:24):
to his work. And it's, it's, it's just a completely different kind of performance from what Rob Brown gave us in the first film. Yeah, he totally brings it. He makes this movie. It's great. This was written by Claudio Fragasso and a
Someone we lost recently in the Italian film industry, Rosella Drudy, who just passed away in February. Yeah, they were long-time...
(03:49):
And this was, you know, he worked with Matei from like the early 80s onwards. Pretty much every movie was one they had done together. I think they had a falling out over.
What's that movie called? The Freddy Krueger knockoff. Night Killer. Yes. I think that's when they had a bit of a falling out in that movie. Which is a crazy movie.
(04:11):
It's crazy, but it's actually not particularly good. That's almost so bad that it's bad and not so bad that it's good. By the way, we're going to spoil Strike Commando 2, which I believe...
I'll spoil a little. We both recommend you check out. So go watch Strike Commando 2. The only trailer I could find was a trailer that has no dialogue and just plays the music.
(04:38):
The terrible Casio music that's used here throughout a lot of this. The music in this is completely crazy. It's insane. So I want to play some of the music that is particularly circus-like from this.
pivotal scene in the movie. I'll play that.
(05:08):
Let me read the IMDB plot synopsis real quick because, of course, there was no Strike Commando 2 VHS in English that I could read from. So here's the plot.
This brilliant action-packed sequel once again centers upon the courageous exploits of a secret elite cadre of American jet fighters.
(05:29):
fighting to keep the world safe from communism and demented despot rulers. This time they must stop an enemy conspiracy to steal nuclear weapons. No, that is not accurate. Would you like to guess what that movie is?
Oh, what it's from? Oh, it's like Delta Force Commando or something. This is Delta Force Commando 2. Oh, wow. Colon.
(05:53):
priority red one. I, that was a complete shot in the dark. That was, I think that's like a Fred Williamson, Bo Svensson movie. Yeah. It's another Italian movie directed by Pierre Lugy. Ooh, this name is going to get me.
It looks like Kiriachi to me, or Siriachi. But yeah, when I was looking up Strike Commando 2, this Delta Force Commando 2 caught my eye, and I thought it would be funny to do that.
(06:18):
Yeah, I've heard it's not particularly good as far as Fred Williams and Bo Spence and collaborations go. I think it's one of the last movies that, oh, what's his name, from Bronx Warriors was in. Bobby Rhodes?
Not Bobby Rhodes, the star of it. Why am I having a hard time remembering his name right now? Richard Hatch? No, the main character. I don't know who the main character is. Yeah, Mark Gregory.
(06:46):
Oh, okay. Yeah, they have almost none of the cast listed on IMDb for this movie. Yeah, I think it was one of Mark Gregory's last movies. Oh, okay. You know, I don't hold a lot of importance to IMDb's scores.
But, you know, Strike Commando 2 has an unfairly low 4.7, while Delta Force Commando 2 has a 3.5. It's like, ooh.
(07:12):
I actually think it could be lower than 4.7, honestly. I would not have been surprised if it was lower than that. That's actually fairly respectable. It's got to be the Richard Harris factor. But anyway, here's the plot. Maybe.
Here's the plot from... I have the Turkish VHS synopsis here, too, that I kind of translated. Ooh. I can do that. Please. That's better than the IMDb. I'd rather have that.
(07:37):
Some of it I couldn't quite get right at the end because it's I am not very good at like highlighting things on my phone or my laptop for whatever reason. So some of it at the end is a little cut off. But Manila today, Michael Ransom, former Vietnam veteran.
is called to Manila to help his old sergeant, Jenkins, who is now a con man and is failing his life trust.
(07:59):
During their meal, Jenkins guards and bodyguards are killed during a violent attack by terrorists and Jenkins disappears quickly. And with the help of the American embassy.
Michael finds out that Jenkins was the CIA's top man, Veniston. What is that? That he is being held captive in an old prison camp by the Viet Cong. Michael goes to Vietnam.
(08:26):
without the bow. I don't even know. That might be the end where it kind of cuts off. I love it. That's perfect.
I mean, it's actually not bad, really. Yeah, it makes sense. Some of the ways that translate it might be a little weird. Yeah, translate it from Turkish to Japanese, then to English. Right.
Then you get the real strange stuff. Oh, boy. Yeah. We're going to cover some of this plot after we talk about some of the characters. You talked about Brent Huff.
(08:54):
in his career. I'm very curious about both Cop Game and Sergio Martino's After the Condor. Yeah, I'm hoping After the Condor gets a better release eventually. With all the Martino movies, I keep getting good ones. Hopefully that's one that's...
Somewhere in the future from like Cauldron Films or something. Brent Huff directed this movie in the 90s called The Bad Pack that I'm kind of interested in. If you listen to this cast, it's got Robert Dobby, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Rafe Moeller.
(09:22):
Brent Huff is in it. Marshall Teague is in it. Vernon Wells is in it. Sven Ol Thorsen is in it. And it's a movie he directed. It says a band of mercenaries are hired.
to combat a militia terrorizing group of Mexican immigrants in a Texas border town. Like, that sounds pretty interesting. That sounds awesome. That cast is sick. Next up, we got Mary Staven. She plays Rosanna Boom.
(09:46):
This is our sort of love interest. Definitely a tough gal. She was a Bond girl, this actress. She had a very small role in Twin Peaks, which I was like...
Who in the world was she in Twin Peaks? Then I looked it up and I was very happy. She was in House, the original House film. And of course...
(10:08):
Howling five, the rebirth, the rebirth, the rebirth in a view to a kill. She's the one sleeping with Roger Moore at the beginning. Oh, okay. Yeah. My, my bond knowledge is terrible. I have no bond. I have no bondage.
We got Richard Harris, the mighty Richard Harris. He plays Major Vic Jenkins. He is just harassing it up as always. I would love to have known what he thought of this movie.
(10:36):
Just if you remembered making it, you know, is it? No, I propose this is kind of a two part question. Is Richard Harris the best actor to ever slum it in an Italian genre film?
at least for this era for sure but also is this like the highest drop-off you'd expect for a great actor to be appearing in a film like this like imagine it like for example if he had appeared in
(11:02):
max von cito's role in sleepless like that would not be as big of a drop-off sure sure because that's a role he could have played as and i'm not that's something against max von cito he's amazing in that role but i'm just saying richard harris could have done that as well
It's like, what is he doing in this film in particular? And apparently, which we have contrasting stories on this from both Claudio Fragasso and Bret Huff. Bret Huff said he didn't drink at the time.
(11:28):
Because I thought, well, maybe he needed more booze money, which apparently he wasn't drinking at least as much at that time. But Claudio Fragasso told a story about how he went to Richard Harris's hotel room because Richard Harris wanted him to tell him.
about the character he was playing, like the character's motivations, that sort of thing. Right. And apparently Harris pulled out a suitcase full of 12 bottles of whiskey that was made by his family. And basically he, he proceeded to.
(11:57):
pour Claudio Fragasso one shot from each bottle and Harris drank the rest of the bottles. Wow.
Yeah. So we have contrasting stories on whether or not he was still drinking at that time. And it's interesting because he's I don't know if he was quite the hell raiser that Oliver Reed was. I don't know if anybody was. Right. But if you look at him at the way.
(12:19):
richard harris age from like the early 70s you can see him on talk shows or we'll see him in movies too like to compare to this in 1988 where he's 58 years old and he looks at least 70 you know
This would be like if Peter O'Toole showed up in Robo War or something. Right, exactly. No, it's that. Because this is right before he gets, doesn't he get nominated for an Oscar or for The Field or something?
(12:46):
I think a couple of years after this and then he's in unforgiven. So like he was about to go on a pretty good part of his, you know, like ladder half of his career run. Yeah, man.
And then he would go on to play Harry Potter. He played a young Harry Potter. Right, right. Wait, what? He did, yeah. They de-aged him and all that stuff. The strangest actor in this movie for me...
(13:11):
is Mel Davidson, who plays the assassin Kramit, which I think is a funny name. He's in Robo War, but I don't remember him.
outside of this movie. Probably one of those non-SAG actors that they just hired to play a part in.
Like if you look at the credits for cruel jaws is another example of this where no one else is in, you know, another movie. Oh man. This character is really funny. Like this.
(13:36):
This assassin, we'll talk about who he's obvious ripoff of, but he's got a funny sense of humor. I like this character. Yeah. Like, what does he say at one point? Are women...
courageous because they are stupid or are they stupid because they are courageous then he does the whole get on your knees and beg which is obviously he doesn't want you to answer that question that is rhetorical
(13:59):
And she answers it. I thought that was funny. Next up, we got the legend Vic Diaz, who plays Juan To, the leader, supposedly, of the largest drug trade in Southeast Asia.
But Vic Diaz, his IMDb picture is from that Cameron Mitchell movie where the ship of fools ends up.
(14:22):
on the zombie island it's got zombies and ninjas sweaty cameron mitchell movie of course it's a sweaty cameron mitchell but he doesn't phone it in he's in almost the whole movie raw force that's it nice that movie's that movie's crazy
Legitimately crazy. We got some stunt men in the form of Ottaviano Delacqua, who is credited with 372 stunt credits. He plays Jimmy.
(14:51):
Love this guy in this movie. But he was in Blast Fighter, Rats, Zombie 3. We've got Massimo. He's the worm zombie in Zombie as well. Yes, that's his claim to fame. Covered in clay.
Also from the stunt field is Massimo Vanni, plays Kelly Sellers, this character. I mix these two up because this movie's insane. But he was also in Zombie 3, Zombie 4.
(15:18):
Robo war and cop game. Amazing. He is like almost in every Mate movie. Yeah. He's one of those guys who was a stunt man, but he would also get put in the movies a lot. Romano Pupo is another guy who was, who did, it was.
Yeah, who did that a lot. He's also in almost every Enzo G. Castellari movie because him and Castellari were cousins. Ah. Yeah. A little family help there.
(15:44):
I'm very sad that, according to IMDb, Luciano Pagazzi, his frickin' scenes were all cut. He was supposed to be smuggler leader.
I think there's another Matei movie where that happens to him as well. It doesn't happen. There's at least one where it doesn't, I think, double target he is in.
(16:05):
But there is at least one other movie where his scenes got deleted. He's, again, another guy who was in all these nomsploitation movies, whether they were Margaritas or Bruno Mattei's movies. He's basically in all of them.
And this is from his beard-o phase, too. He had the big, bushy, gray beard around this time. Where he was always down by Robert Spafford. Alright, let's get into this plot. We see...
(16:32):
our pal, Michael Ransom, in a sweaty hotel room. He's like, oh my god, am I back in Saigon? And he's having a nightmare of his flashback to Vietnam. Good old Vic Jenkins.
uh, rescuing Michael ransom in the field is there's fricking explosions going off. People are getting killed and he's taking the time to dress his wound in the most.
(16:57):
I'm pretending to wrap something around something on your leg. He's just going like, he's just doing like a motion around his leg. And there's like all these fricking explosions going off. I hope they film that first.
To get that out of the way, because that looked like a shitty scene to film. Next thing you know, it's years later, and Jenkins is dead. Later, his buddy comes to tell him, like, hey...
(17:25):
I know who had Vic Jenkins killed or who knows who had him killed. Go talk to this guy. So we meet someone named Peter Rogue.
who was this government stooge that's stationed in- It's like the perfect name for that character, too. Peter Rogue. I've gone rogue. And my favorite moment here, this is one of my favorite moments in the whole movie.
(17:47):
Is he comes to see this guy burst into his office unannounced. And he's like, oh, nice family in the family photo. Then he hits him in the face with the portrait of his family. Made me laugh so hard.
I loved it. Oh, what a nice family you have here. Sure enough, Jenkins is not dead, and Ransom just wants to go in there and save him.
(18:16):
So he does. There's this amazing scene of him getting in there to save him. There's some tomfoolery with some goons that he outsmarts. And next thing you know, there's a big helicopter assault as he and Jenkins escape.
They go to the home base where he is going to get some diamonds because he's now lost Vic Jenkins to the helicopter guys. He's getting some diamonds to go and...
(18:44):
negotiate for his life and my other favorite scene is they're showing him the radio and they're turning a dial and this made me laugh so hard i'm such an idiot ian i'm sorry i have to talk about this dumb scene
one of the cables falls out of the radio. After they touch it, the cable goes, and it just made me laugh. It doesn't even qualify as a movie mistake. It just made me smile and laugh.
(19:11):
But what happens to Ransom when he starts traveling on his little boat? It basically turns into the same scene from Rambo 2, like literally almost shot by shot, where...
You know, it's the same thing that happens on the boat where, you know, the people driving betray him or whatever. And then you see him pulling, you know, basically getting ready to pull out the small knives he has behind his back.
(19:37):
He stabs one guy with one, takes a shotgun, kills a couple. Some really good squibs in this scene, by the way. Probably the best squibbing moments of the movie because Matei doesn't usually go for the squibs as much, but in this scene he does.
you know, takes the shotgun, shoots a couple of them, and then the boat's about to crash, and then he tries to get off, but then the guy grabs him with the rope, again, same thing that happens in Rambo 2, a guy from basically the...
(20:02):
The bunk above the boat grabs him with a rope around his neck, and then he takes the giant knife from his holster and stabs him with it. The blood leaks down. And then I think in Rambo 2, the boat actually explodes. Yeah. I think, yeah.
one that does not do that. He just steers the boat around and then goes to the bar. They couldn't afford to blow up any more than they already do in the movie. And it wasn't a hut either. It always has to be a hut that explodes.
(20:31):
He ends up at, and this blew my mind, ends up at, speaking of huts, at an old bar in the jungle. And what blew my mind was it's called the Moulin Rouge. Unbelievable.
It made me laugh more, just packing in the great stuff here. And there's a drinking contest going on straight out of good old Raiders of the Lost Ark, where our pal...
(20:58):
uh, Rosanna boom. I keep looking at my notes and thinking that's not what's really written there, but yes, Rosanna boom. She's trying to out drink this fricking slob guy. According to the bartender.
The sleazy bartender. He tells Ransom, the first one to belch loses. And he goes, belch? And then the guy burps in his face.
(21:24):
But she wins, the guy actually belches, and then he starts acting like he's going to throw up, but instead he just faints. I thought that was very wonderful. Which I'm guessing is what happens in Raiders. It's been a long time since I watched it. Maybe? Yeah.
And I think, do not quote me on this, or as Bill Simmons would say, don't aggregate this. I think the guy in the bar with her is, I want to say he plays Brent Huff's partner in Cop Game.
(21:52):
I think he does, but I'm not 100% sure. Nice, nice. So then some very special guys show up to end all the fun times. Who shows up at the bar?
The KGB agent played by Mel Davidson. Oh, baby. Yes, good old Kramit shows up, and he wants these diamonds. They're going to do their exchange, but things don't go very well, and of course...
(22:20):
Ransom gives him the fake glass ones while hiding the real diamonds in the bottom of a glass of disgusting whiskey that everyone smells and goes, ugh. Hilarity ensues.
They start doing the shotguns. The place catches on fire, just like Raiders. You have a sword fight as well. And a sword fight. Ransom punches a ninja across the room.
(22:46):
Brad Huff was talking about this too in his interview on the Severin Blu-ray that these Filipino stuntmen knew how to throw their bodies around a lot. They would flip. They were really good at being animated.
you know, in their scenes, and he admired that about them. This is just a joyous scene to behold. This one's a lot of fun. Right, and it also is the start of, like, Mary Stobbins, like...
(23:13):
She's either a 1 or a 10 this whole movie. It seems like that. When she's talking to the KGB guy, she's like... We're close till tomorrow. So hold your ass!
back to the sewer you came from. She'll have random times in this movie where she just starts yelling. In the same scene. She's like Jim Cramer. It's like... Now we get...
(23:42):
My favorite, after they escape this big battle scene with the diamonds and no information about Jenkins, they end up sneaking out of there before the place gets blown up. And they start... going through the jungle, negotiating.
what they're going to do next she wants compensation for her destroyed bar and she's like whoa these diamonds well you know they're going to kill him anyway so we should just rescue him and we'll split these things 50 50 the movie
(24:11):
has come to a complete stop while they do this, these, these interactions and they're playing the circus music that like the meet cute gone horribly wrong at the circus music. It's so bad.
Oh my god. Oh boy. It's fucking crazy. I love it. There's multiple scenes ripped off of Romancing the Stone and what was the other one? Yes, they're doing the Predator thing where they're sneaking.
(24:41):
They're sneaking over to the camp. Yeah, the part when Arnold pulls out the binoculars near the log.
What's amazing about her is not only is she bringing too much to her dialogue, she also doesn't know how to move like a human. All of her motions are super exaggerated, especially when she's crawling.
(25:01):
on the on the jungle floor she's like hitting brent huff in the face with her butt because she's swinging her butt so much i am dying
I'm envious of Brett Huff in that situation, I guess. But in that regard, but I will say this, you know, she does a good job later in the movie. She wields an M16 and she looks really good.
(25:23):
holding the gun i will say that much like sometimes people don't look good you know it doesn't look natural or doesn't look realistic she does a good job with it and huff does as well like whenever he's using the m60 later in the film and like he he looks
to me a lot like almost like a young Clint Eastwood and rawhide like that type of look um you know he has that uh he has you know he looks good with the headband and the cigar as well uh i i think he does good in this and he's only like 26 or 27 depending on when this was filmed so he's
(25:55):
sometimes you know some actors they might be afraid of the guns like they don't want to get hit in the eye with you know some freaking you know like the brent huff said she was and she was willing to do whatever yeah i have this vision of her freaking bicep like
Just undulating with the machine gun fire. I don't know why I said undulating, but I said it. She finds out about Han To, which is another argument. He's apparently a very dangerous man who likes to torture women.
(26:23):
He ignores her, they split up, and he goes in and tries to rescue good old Jenkins. And one of my favorite lines of the movie, Welcome to the world of international drug smolding.
And this is when the, the double cross, I believe a double cross happens and he gets captured. Our, our, our buddy ransom gets captured and we're going to have the first.
(26:50):
of the lethal weapon scenes where he's being electrocuted by Kramit dangling flies dangling from the ceiling. But, um, what happens while he's being tortured? What is, uh, what is our pal Mary doing?
Well, before that, I just wanted to point out you have a lot of Predator stuff in there, like the Scorpion scene for Predator, where he's like Michael, turn around. It's the exact same thing between Bill Duke and...
(27:14):
Carl Weathers in Predator when he, you know, he has a scorpion on his back. Like, you do think, you know, Vic Jenkins is on his side for a minute, but then they, it's almost a combination of, so.
Rambo three came out like three months before this movie. And that was the film where Trotman gets captured. So I think that they were, I think that that was in the air just enough for them to rip that off. At least the plot. Yeah. And then.
(27:39):
I think they're doing the whole lethal weapon thing where the military person turns into a drug smuggler because that's what happened in Lethal Weapon with Mitch Ryan and Gary Busey. So they do that with Richard Harris's character here.
And then, yeah, when so when when Ransom gets captured at the same time, Mary Stevens character.
(28:04):
rosanna boom is it is that what it is yep that's her name yeah yeah uh she sneaks in disguised as a prostitute exactly like julia nixon in
Rambo First Blood Part 2. And she goes to Wanto. At the same time, Ransom finds a way to escape from Stramit. Is that it? Cramit. Cramit.
(28:28):
Okay, I'll have to remember that. Cram it. Okay, that's actually easy enough to remember now that I think about it. Yeah. And he does the same thing that Mel Gibson does in Lethal Weapon by strangling him with his legs.
It's the exact same thing. So, like, were they just storyboarding from the movie? Yeah. I just imagine them. That's crazy. I mean, there's nothing in the world that you could take a shot of.
(28:56):
and not be dead by alcohol poisoning by the time this movie is done. If you're taking a shot every time something is ripped off. If you take a shot of Everclear, you're dying 10 times over. You know, you might as well dig 10 graves for you.
yourself you're you're richard harris at that point oh yeah exactly um i don't even know if he had that kind of tolerance oh my god so funny that would be something
(29:19):
So Ransom escapes, and at the same time, she's in the room with Juan Ho. She stabs him, and Ransom comes in. They kind of have another argument, like, oh, I tried to save your life, and whatever. What are you doing here? Then they begin.
fair escape um he uses an m60 and a bunch of grenades she uses a an m16 of sorts
(29:41):
They shoot a bunch of people. The Filipino stuntmen are going crazy doing flips and moving their bodies in crazy ways. It's all in slow motion, so it looks really cool. What blew my mind here was like...
This felt like the end of the movie to me. I knew I had another 20, 25 minutes to go, but I felt like this is it, right? This is the big moment. Nope.
(30:09):
We're not done yet. What's interesting is so the last 30, well, maybe 25 minutes or so is pretty much all action. And, you know, I'm going to make an argument for Bruno Mattei specifically with this convoy scene coming up that.
He really would have been a good second unit director of just action. Like, I actually think he really does a good job.
(30:30):
directing action scenes especially if you give him some money because it's not like he has too much of it here he has just enough to make something work but if you actually gave him money like
He would be a good second unit director of almost anything if you ask them to do it. I think this convoy scene specifically, it's actually a really good recreation of the Indiana Jones convoy scene.
(30:51):
My favorite part about this is they steal this truck and they break out and all the bad guys are shooting at them like, ah, shit, they're getting away. And then all of a sudden, spoiler or big twist.
there's a shit ton of bad guys and the, like, like one of the leaders of the bad guys just in the back of the truck holding, uh,
(31:16):
holding Miss Boom hostage. Yeah, that I thought was actually pretty hilarious. That's at least enough of a change from the convoy scene where you...
Like, they don't have that moment where you see the people are in the back of the truck before he looks in the mirror. Because in Rears of the Lost Ark, it's Harrison Ford looking in the mirror to see it. And, yeah, it's actually very funny.
(31:36):
You get the great Mary Stavid acting moment when he picks her up and she just goes zeroed over on her and she's like, what the fuck are you doing? It's just wonderful. Yeah, the convoy scene, you got guys climbing all over the truck.
You got people getting knocked off of the truck with driving into a wall of trees and then they're crashing through scaffolding that some workmen are doing stuff on.
(32:04):
And it's just all in slow-mo craziness. It just... Oh, my God. It's so fun. It's so...
These two get away, and the reason she doesn't have the diamonds on her is because Juan To was holding them when she stabbed him, and in his death grip, he held onto them. So they have to go back. I love how she...
(32:26):
As soon as he cuts her loose, she immediately punches him in the face, putting her in the back of the truck. So good.
They have like the exact same argument they had earlier where she says, she's basically like, you asked me if I'm okay. Like after what you just did, it's the second time in the movie she does that. They tied me up like a Christmas turkey, you know.
(32:46):
Oh my God. Yeah. And her accent, she's Swedish, I think. And her accent is so funny. I could have sworn she was Italian just because there's times where you're watching these movies.
And we're used to them being dubbed where everybody's dubbed. And then all of a sudden we fast forward to the late 80s when nobody wanted to do the dubbing anymore because either they were getting laughed out of the theaters in America or...
(33:14):
The live sound had finally gotten so cheap that even the Italians were willing to use it. I'm not sure what the change was in it, but it's like you had a lot of people from multiple countries.
who had been in a bunch of movies acting alongside people who were speaking English as their first language. So if you have this melange of accents from different countries, I just immediately...
(33:41):
assume she was italian it didn't stop mate because even in the 2000s in the early aughts when he was still making his cannibal movies like yeah those are still dubbed like ted russoff is still doing dubbing in those movies oh i did not know that
Oh yeah, if you watch some of those cannibal movies, you can hear Ted Russo's voice playing the main character, and some of them even still.
(34:02):
Good for him. Still making money on that dubbing, you know, well into the, oh, it's good for him. And Matei still making those movies, like movies that are like that, you know, good for him when no one else was still doing it.
With Mary Staben and Brent Huff, apparently they're still friends to this day. They actually, they did a commentary for the Severn release of Born to Fight, which to me is a big deal because you...
(34:24):
You almost never get actors to do commentaries for these cult films. Like, almost never. That was really cool to hear them do the commentary for that on the Severin Blu-ray. That was a big get by David Gregory to make that happen.
Let's see. I definitely have not seen that one. That looks amazing. It's basically Crocodile Dundee and the African Queen mixed with Indiana Jones in First Blood Part II.
(34:51):
They really milked that first blood part tier to death, man. Oh, yeah. Every single ripoff was pretty much had some of that in there. That's so great. He's rampaging.
He's rambunctious. He's rammantic. Rampaging, rambunctious, rammatic, ramble. Scene and action, ramble.
(35:20):
Next. So they go back. Tell us about the grenade launcher, the big money stuff. As Joe Bob Riggs would say, it's just grenade launcher foo.
You know, it's it's he ransom is using that grenade launcher and just using it on like hut after hut on like, you know, like watchtower after watchtower.
(35:43):
There's probably a good five or six explosions and Filipino stuntmen just flying everywhere. Mary Stave just smiling the whole time as it happens. Somehow she can fly the helicopter. I don't know how.
She went into the Matrix and put in, you know, let me learn how to fly this helicopter real quick. And, yeah, and then, you know, he gets out.
(36:06):
And he does the whole Rambo 2 thing where he shoots up the drug lab with the M60 before he confronts Jenkins. Does the same thing that Sylvester Stallone does.
to charles napier at the end of rambo 2 by you know uh stabbing the knife right next to him into the desk i love how we got the two scenes
(36:29):
One from each strike commando where he's shooting up like a radio room or in this case, a drug lab with the M60. Perfect.
Just cut them both together. It's freaking wonderful. Yeah, and again, not Red Brown. Brett Huff looks really good using it, and that's like a heavy gun. To some people, it may not look right.
(36:51):
They use it, but he looks great using it. He looks, you know, he looks awesome using the grenade launcher. Like he does look awesome as an action hero in this movie. Nice. And then we get the exact choreography.
and staging almost of the big fight between Gary Busey and Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon. We even have a burst pipe.
(37:15):
which is spewing water into the air so they can do it in the rain, just like the, I think it was a fire hydrant in Lethal Weapon that they're fighting under. Yeah. Oh my God. This part was so funny. And of course.
if you go back and watch that lethal weapon fight, it is horribly edited. Like it actually does not look all that great. If you try to watch it, it.
(37:36):
really doesn't look particularly great and i like lethal weapon for the most part but that final fight if you try to watch it and like really look at the editing like it's like some of it is kind of indecipherable it doesn't look particularly great i think dawner
did a better job with the comedic aspects of that film that he does with the action aspects. And that particular fight scene is one of them. And Gary Busey is my best friend. So of course I am not being biased when I said Gary Busey.
(38:04):
If you look up my name and Gary Busey's name, you're going to find a ton of search results. So please go for it. I think you need to set up a website. GaryBuseyIsMyBestFriend.com. Well, when Gary Busey got...
accused of all this like sexual assault stuff at a con all these places were using my picture with them so i got a ton of attention for it like people like fox news the daily mail and all these places
(38:31):
my picture it was it was pretty funny because i was getting it was basically my 15 minutes of fame because i was just getting non-stop attention
a couple days because of that. That's why I say Gary Busey is my best friend as a joke. Go Google Ian Urza and Gary Busey. Maybe don't get that website.
(38:56):
Fighting women now, are you, big man? I'd like to dance a few rounds with me. That will be a real pleasure.
He defeats Kramit just in the fisticuffs. But of course, he's about to put his arm around Miss Boom.
And that's when Kramit tries to shoot him. But of course, she takes him out. And it's not just that it's in slow motion. It's that each person holding a gun in this scene has a very long time to shoot first.
(39:29):
and it's trying to build tension and but then she shoots them and you're like okay yeah no i will give the ending a lethal weapon one thing is that part looks pretty good when they
They don't have much time to shoot Danny Glover and Mel Gibson in that particular scene at the end. But you even get the moment where...
you know she's like let me kill him and he's like no and then he gets his face shoved in the mud that's all the same as lethal weapon as well so amazing these weren't just movies isolated to america
(40:00):
And then they were smuggling the tape into Italy. These were international hits. And this was also marketed to the U.S. VHS.
Maybe not as much as the first one, but yeah, people were finding it all the time in video stores. Maybe Quentin Tarantino sold some at some point. I don't know. Maybe cooler heads prevailed. Maybe the producer's like, don't send this one to America, dude. We'll get sued.
(40:26):
The villains are defeated, and good old Rosanna Boom and Mr. Ransom are walking off, and they're getting back into their kooky talking, but now it's like a romantic kind of a thing. I love it.
Well, what's funny is they have, like, the same type of relationship in Born to Fight where it, like, feels acrimonious and then all of a sudden they kind of like each other. It's so good.
(41:05):
The composer, Stefano Manetti, his music for this is bonkers. It reminded me of some of the music from Hong Kong movies, like the...
Like the Lucky Stars films. And it was just such a kooky mix of music. But he also did the music for Zombie 3 and Ratman, which I just saw for the first time recently.
(41:30):
Gotta watch Ratman. I still haven't watched it yet. It's interesting. I like it. I would not say I loved it, but it's definitely got some vibe.
I got that Severin Films Blu-ray, so at least it'll look good. Isn't Radice in that too? Yes. Yes. I'm trying to remember now. I think, what was it? Cauldron put that one out. Yeah. Yeah.
(41:52):
right david warbeck speaking david warbeck okay okay he uh radice is not in it for some reason i thought he was but oh janet agrin's it i like her yeah yeah she's great yeah that radice needed to be in it should have been in it
But yes, the producer of this as a frequent Fragasso and a Thai collaborator named Franco Gaudenzi.
(42:18):
He's produced a ton of their most important shit together. Cuckoo. And then we got a cinematographer, Ricardo Grassetti.
who shot this, of course, double target in the first strike commando, among other things. Nice. And I don't have any trivia on this whatsoever.
(42:41):
I don't think you're going to find much on IMDb. They normally don't have too much for these kind of films. I think the best thing I could do was point out what they were saying about working with Richard Harris.
During that, like, at one point, you know, when Ransom has that sort of emotional outburst after Vic betrays him, after that scene was filmed, Richard Harris came to him and said, hey, cut your acting in half here. You don't need to go.
(43:07):
that all out with it and renoff took it to hardy actually said no that was actually good advice and yeah i agreed with them i probably needed to dial it down a bit so there's some stuff on imdb that's that's fun as far as trivia goes
Brent Huff says that he was in the best shape of his life because of the physical action, saying that he did his own stunts. And during the filming, he ate nothing but fruit and fish.
(43:32):
yep yeah he did talk about that like you can see that he's doing his own stunts in this like the thing on the truck and all the fight scenes yeah he's and he looks good doing the kicks and everything too like yeah he's you know he's
He's agile. He's in good shape. Like, yeah, he does well here. Apparently he was going to be tortured much more in the, in the movie. He was supposed to be being held for two weeks in this camp.
(43:57):
And they had him in a cesspool of pigs excrement. And then they're having him whipped and beaten with bamboo sticks.
They already did enough of that in the first movie. They didn't need to replicate that. Yeah, so they cut all that out of the screenplay and just went for the lethal weapon torture. So, Ian, how do you feel?
(44:18):
about Strike Commando 2, or as I call it, Strike-ic Omendo 2. I love it. I think it might be my favorite of the Bruno Mattei.
like nomsploitation films or macaroni combat films of the i think the five he made i think this one actually might be my favorite i uh i mean the first one's up there for me as well i think it's these two that are
(44:46):
My absolute favorites, but I do. I love the other three as well. Cool. Cool. Yeah, I am in love with this. This is one of my favorite movies of the year. I just love the.
fricking chemistry or whatever that is between ransom and, um, and boom between a Mary, Mary Staven. Is that it?
(45:10):
It's either Stobbin or Staben. Staben or Staben. Her and Brent Huff, the chemistry is just insane. I love when the movie just stops from the action to have them just talk. There's a lot of garbled movie dialogue.
Some people talk real fast in this and you have no idea what in the world they said. I like this one better than the first one. Yeah. Thank you for...
(45:38):
for bringing this into my life. This is great. Awesome. Glad I could be of assistance. Hell yeah. So, before I let you run for your life back into the jungle...
to have a recently seen and loved film that you want to talk about. So with Gene Hackman's passing fairly recently, I decided earlier today I watched The Package, which is sort of a...
(46:04):
maybe a little bit lesser known movie that he did with Andrew Davis directing. It's like the Andrew Davis movie people forget because people usually remember above the law than under siege and the fugitive.
People may infamously remember Chain Reaction after that. But the package is what he kind of made in between in 1989 with Tommy Lee Jones and Gene Hackman. And it's kind of one of those governmental conspiracy thriller movies.
(46:31):
And it kind of ages well because it's about this... A supposed Russian and American peace deal between the two presidents and basically the military industrial complex of both countries, specifically the Americans, wants to break that up and make sure it doesn't happen.
So they're trying to assassinate the Russian president. And he gets on to American soil in Chicago because, of course, that's an Andrew Davis specialty in Chicago. He uses it in a lot of his films. The Fugitive, above the law, Code of Silence specifically. Nice.
(47:02):
Tommy Lee Jones is the one playing the assassin, which is awesome. And Gene Hackman plays like a military police officer who's pursuing him when he finds out about the conspiracy. He's basically in another country at the beginning, attending like the initial.
The initial peace conference that he finds out about it after there's a shootout with two Germans who infiltrate trying to basically assassinate this one American general who doesn't want to go along with the plan.
(47:29):
And they do succeed, actually. So that's an interesting part of it. But the movie, I'm going to list off some of the cast members. It has a ton of the cast members from some of his other movies, but it's got Joanna Cassidy in it. She plays the female love interest. She was in Blade Runner.
She plays Zora in Blade Runner. She's the one who gets into that big chase scene that ends with her going through the broken glass. John Hurd from Home Alone is in it. Wow. Playing the American general. He's one of the main villains of the movie.
(47:58):
Of course, Dennis Franz is in it. It's a Chicago movie, so he has to be there. Pam Greer is in it, a small role. Chelsea Ross, who's in a ton of these films, is in it. Marco St. John, who played the sheriff in Friday the 13th, part five, and he played the villain in the...
Clint Eastwood movie Tightrope is also in it. So you've got a ton of good people in this. I need to see the package. I remember right when you mentioned Tommy Lee Jones, I remembered when it came out, but I did not see it.
(48:23):
He's become one of my favorite actors over time. Just one of my favorite American actors. I watched Rolling Thunder for the first time not too long ago. I thought he was awesome in that when he was younger.
For last year's American Giallo Month on Black Club Mysteries on Land of the Creeps, Greg and I watched Eyes of Laura Mars, and it was really cool to see him in that as well. Yeah, he had the unibrow in that movie, rocking it. That was wild.
(48:51):
Yeah, the movie, a recently seen and loved movie that I watched, I finally got out the Blu-ray of Le Orme, or Footprints on the Moon, starring good old Florinda Balkin.
Absolutely amazing film. Very quiet, very mysterious, and opulent. And it's like...
(49:19):
tone, pacing, and then the cinematography. I think it's Bozzoni. Bozzoni directed it. Storaro did the cinematography for it. Oh, that's why it's so beautiful. Yeah.
greg and i covered that actually fairly recently we did a we did a bizony sort of wrapped up bizony's movies um fairly recently and we
(49:43):
We liked it. We didn't necessarily love it because we thought at the end we didn't really understand what was going on. There wasn't much of an explanation for it. So we kind of lamented that.
I still enjoy the movie for the most part, and it looks amazing. You've got Nicoletta Elmi in it as the little girl as well, who's always great. Klaus Kinski is in it as well.
(50:07):
in kind of one of those weird Klaus Kinski roles where he's probably on the set for like a day or something. Yeah, I always wonder, like, would he be...
an asset to that kind of a role you know like an asset to a production like would it be better to have him just for an afternoon than you know to commit to like the full kinski where you're
(50:31):
who knows what you're going to get. I think for the most part, that's what he did with a lot of these films. He doesn't, he's not really the star of many Italian films. If you think about it, I mean, there's that one spaghetti Western and God said to Kane where he was the star, but for the most part, he's not really a star.
lot of those a lot of films he did a movie um i want to say it was called uh the net dos nets yeah dos nets uh 1975 same year as uh
(51:00):
I believe, as Footprints on the Moon. But yeah, it's a German mystery film. I believe it's German. Of course, it's got Kinski in it. But he does the weirdest thing. He plays this kind of shady...
journalist in it and there's a sequence where i think kinski's like wait i'm just showing up at the apartment and they go yeah because i got an idea you guys go to the top floor and i'll run up every flight of stairs
(51:29):
and come knock on the door. And they were like, okay? Because it happens for no reason. Kinski's character just steals the movie for like three minutes while he runs up.
Like four, five, six flights of stairs. It's so weird. Did you ever hear what he said about turning Spielberg down to be in Raiders of the Lost Ark? Ironically, he was supposed to play Major Ta in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the guy with the glasses.
(51:55):
No. He said, he read the script and he said to Spielberg something like, this script is a boring and yawn inducing pile of shit and turned him down.
I have. As soon as you started saying that, I was like, yes, I have heard that. What a son of a bitch. No, for sure. Well, dude, thank you for hanging out before you.
(52:20):
literally stop talking to me. How can folks find more Ian in the world? So you can follow me at, uh, on Twitter or X, uh, blue sky and Instagram.
at Erzanomics. My name is the same on all of those. You can find me on Letterboxd. If you just type in my name, Ian Erza, no one else has this.
(52:43):
Pretty unique name. You can add me on Facebook if you want. And you can find me on the Land of the Creeps War podcast for their double-double episodes on the Black Glove Mystery segment where...
Greg Amortis and I review mainly giallo and horror, Italian horror films. We also do Italian genre cinema in general. Awesome. Well, thanks for being here, dude. Appreciate it. Yeah, for sure. We'll get to.
(53:08):
We'll get Strike Commando 3 made. Yeah, I would enjoy that very much. Get the Kickstarter going. Yeah. I'm sure we'd have a few people donating. Totally. Maybe like three or four. Hey.
Bye, folks.
(53:43):
Folks, thanks so much for listening to this episode. If you'd like to write into the show, send an email to doomedmoviethon at gmail.
Or hit us up at DoomedMovieThon on Instagram or at DoomedMovieThon on Twitter or at DoomedMovieThon at Discord. Or go to HelloThisIsTheDoomedShow on Facebook and message us there.
(54:06):
If you want more Hello, This is the Doomed show, goto doomedmoviethon.com and click the podcast button for the archive. Or go to YouTube and look up Doomed Moviethon and you'll find...
the classic episodes of Hello, This is the Doomed Show. And if that's still not enough, I have written some books, you know, about my love of movies over on Amazon.com.
(54:32):
Just look up Richard Glenn Schmidt and you'll find Giallo Meltdown, A Movie-Thon Diary, Giallo Meltdown 2, Cinema Somnambulist, or Doomed Movie-Thon, the book.
Hello, this is the Doomed Show. I'm a proud member of the Legion Podcast Network. Goto LegionPodcasts.com and checkout the other great shows over there.
The name is Michael!
(01:07):
Hello, and welcome to Hello, This is the Doomed Show. I am Richard. Folks, I am feeling like Mr. Strike, and just like my guest co-host, we're both going commando. It's Ian. Hello.
Hey, I'm glad to be here to do a review on this movie that I like to call Raiders Romancing the First Bloodstone of the Predator.
(01:35):
Oh, yes. We're talking Strike Commando 2 from 1988. Yes, it incorporates all of those films that you just hinted at. This is directed by Bruno Mattai and Claudio Fragasso.
the power team behind the first strike commando, which we had a great time talking about. And you were like, by the way, there's a sequel. And I said, well, you got to come back. And I would argue that I do think this film.
(02:04):
has i think they may have had a bigger budget to do better action um i think the biggest thing about this film is maybe not necessarily in terms of a drop-off but in terms of a difference is
You have Brent Huff, who I actually think is trying to act. And then in the first movie, you had Rev Brown, who was immaculately terrible. And it added to the entertainment value of the film. Whereas Brent Huff...
(02:28):
can actually act a little bit and it's like does it work that he's in this film i mean he's a guy who went on to direct other films uh he's acted in a bunch of other things he was kind of one of the
you know, late 80s stars of Italian genre cinema along with Daniel Green. It's kind of those two that were in a ton of movies. Brent Huff went on to work with Bruno Mattei a couple other times in...
(02:55):
Born to Fight and Cop Game. And then he was in After the Condor with Daniel Green, actually. That's when it came full circle, when they were in the same movie together after the Condor, directed by Sergio Martino. But I mean, he still acts today. He's directed a documentary.
He has a pretty long recurring role in that ABC cop show called The Rookie. So he's still around doing stuff. It just tells you that he does have a bit of craft to his, you know.
(03:24):
to his work. And it's, it's, it's just a completely different kind of performance from what Rob Brown gave us in the first film. Yeah, he totally brings it. He makes this movie. It's great. This was written by Claudio Fragasso and a
Someone we lost recently in the Italian film industry, Rosella Drudy, who just passed away in February. Yeah, they were long-time...
(03:49):
And this was, you know, he worked with Matei from like the early 80s onwards. Pretty much every movie was one they had done together. I think they had a falling out over.
What's that movie called? The Freddy Krueger knockoff. Night Killer. Yes. I think that's when they had a bit of a falling out in that movie. Which is a crazy movie.
(04:11):
It's crazy, but it's actually not particularly good. That's almost so bad that it's bad and not so bad that it's good. By the way, we're going to spoil Strike Commando 2, which I believe...
I'll spoil a little. We both recommend you check out. So go watch Strike Commando 2. The only trailer I could find was a trailer that has no dialogue and just plays the music.
(04:38):
The terrible Casio music that's used here throughout a lot of this. The music in this is completely crazy. It's insane. So I want to play some of the music that is particularly circus-like from this.
pivotal scene in the movie. I'll play that.
(05:08):
Let me read the IMDB plot synopsis real quick because, of course, there was no Strike Commando 2 VHS in English that I could read from. So here's the plot.
This brilliant action-packed sequel once again centers upon the courageous exploits of a secret elite cadre of American jet fighters.
(05:29):
fighting to keep the world safe from communism and demented despot rulers. This time they must stop an enemy conspiracy to steal nuclear weapons. No, that is not accurate. Would you like to guess what that movie is?
Oh, what it's from? Oh, it's like Delta Force Commando or something. This is Delta Force Commando 2. Oh, wow. Colon.
(05:53):
priority red one. I, that was a complete shot in the dark. That was, I think that's like a Fred Williamson, Bo Svensson movie. Yeah. It's another Italian movie directed by Pierre Lugy. Ooh, this name is going to get me.
It looks like Kiriachi to me, or Siriachi. But yeah, when I was looking up Strike Commando 2, this Delta Force Commando 2 caught my eye, and I thought it would be funny to do that.
(06:18):
Yeah, I've heard it's not particularly good as far as Fred Williams and Bo Spence and collaborations go. I think it's one of the last movies that, oh, what's his name, from Bronx Warriors was in. Bobby Rhodes?
Not Bobby Rhodes, the star of it. Why am I having a hard time remembering his name right now? Richard Hatch? No, the main character. I don't know who the main character is. Yeah, Mark Gregory.
(06:46):
Oh, okay. Yeah, they have almost none of the cast listed on IMDb for this movie. Yeah, I think it was one of Mark Gregory's last movies. Oh, okay. You know, I don't hold a lot of importance to IMDb's scores.
But, you know, Strike Commando 2 has an unfairly low 4.7, while Delta Force Commando 2 has a 3.5. It's like, ooh.
(07:12):
I actually think it could be lower than 4.7, honestly. I would not have been surprised if it was lower than that. That's actually fairly respectable. It's got to be the Richard Harris factor. But anyway, here's the plot. Maybe.
Here's the plot from... I have the Turkish VHS synopsis here, too, that I kind of translated. Ooh. I can do that. Please. That's better than the IMDb. I'd rather have that.
(07:37):
Some of it I couldn't quite get right at the end because it's I am not very good at like highlighting things on my phone or my laptop for whatever reason. So some of it at the end is a little cut off. But Manila today, Michael Ransom, former Vietnam veteran.
is called to Manila to help his old sergeant, Jenkins, who is now a con man and is failing his life trust.
(07:59):
During their meal, Jenkins guards and bodyguards are killed during a violent attack by terrorists and Jenkins disappears quickly. And with the help of the American embassy.
Michael finds out that Jenkins was the CIA's top man, Veniston. What is that? That he is being held captive in an old prison camp by the Viet Cong. Michael goes to Vietnam.
(08:26):
without the bow. I don't even know. That might be the end where it kind of cuts off. I love it. That's perfect.
I mean, it's actually not bad, really. Yeah, it makes sense. Some of the ways that translate it might be a little weird. Yeah, translate it from Turkish to Japanese, then to English. Right.
Then you get the real strange stuff. Oh, boy. Yeah. We're going to cover some of this plot after we talk about some of the characters. You talked about Brent Huff.
(08:54):
in his career. I'm very curious about both Cop Game and Sergio Martino's After the Condor. Yeah, I'm hoping After the Condor gets a better release eventually. With all the Martino movies, I keep getting good ones. Hopefully that's one that's...
Somewhere in the future from like Cauldron Films or something. Brent Huff directed this movie in the 90s called The Bad Pack that I'm kind of interested in. If you listen to this cast, it's got Robert Dobby, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Rafe Moeller.
(09:22):
Brent Huff is in it. Marshall Teague is in it. Vernon Wells is in it. Sven Ol Thorsen is in it. And it's a movie he directed. It says a band of mercenaries are hired.
to combat a militia terrorizing group of Mexican immigrants in a Texas border town. Like, that sounds pretty interesting. That sounds awesome. That cast is sick. Next up, we got Mary Staven. She plays Rosanna Boom.
(09:46):
This is our sort of love interest. Definitely a tough gal. She was a Bond girl, this actress. She had a very small role in Twin Peaks, which I was like...
Who in the world was she in Twin Peaks? Then I looked it up and I was very happy. She was in House, the original House film. And of course...
(10:08):
Howling five, the rebirth, the rebirth, the rebirth in a view to a kill. She's the one sleeping with Roger Moore at the beginning. Oh, okay. Yeah. My, my bond knowledge is terrible. I have no bond. I have no bondage.
We got Richard Harris, the mighty Richard Harris. He plays Major Vic Jenkins. He is just harassing it up as always. I would love to have known what he thought of this movie.
(10:36):
Just if you remembered making it, you know, is it? No, I propose this is kind of a two part question. Is Richard Harris the best actor to ever slum it in an Italian genre film?
at least for this era for sure but also is this like the highest drop-off you'd expect for a great actor to be appearing in a film like this like imagine it like for example if he had appeared in
(11:02):
max von cito's role in sleepless like that would not be as big of a drop-off sure sure because that's a role he could have played as and i'm not that's something against max von cito he's amazing in that role but i'm just saying richard harris could have done that as well
It's like, what is he doing in this film in particular? And apparently, which we have contrasting stories on this from both Claudio Fragasso and Bret Huff. Bret Huff said he didn't drink at the time.
(11:28):
Because I thought, well, maybe he needed more booze money, which apparently he wasn't drinking at least as much at that time. But Claudio Fragasso told a story about how he went to Richard Harris's hotel room because Richard Harris wanted him to tell him.
about the character he was playing, like the character's motivations, that sort of thing. Right. And apparently Harris pulled out a suitcase full of 12 bottles of whiskey that was made by his family. And basically he, he proceeded to.
(11:57):
pour Claudio Fragasso one shot from each bottle and Harris drank the rest of the bottles. Wow.
Yeah. So we have contrasting stories on whether or not he was still drinking at that time. And it's interesting because he's I don't know if he was quite the hell raiser that Oliver Reed was. I don't know if anybody was. Right. But if you look at him at the way.
(12:19):
richard harris age from like the early 70s you can see him on talk shows or we'll see him in movies too like to compare to this in 1988 where he's 58 years old and he looks at least 70 you know
This would be like if Peter O'Toole showed up in Robo War or something. Right, exactly. No, it's that. Because this is right before he gets, doesn't he get nominated for an Oscar or for The Field or something?
(12:46):
I think a couple of years after this and then he's in unforgiven. So like he was about to go on a pretty good part of his, you know, like ladder half of his career run. Yeah, man.
And then he would go on to play Harry Potter. He played a young Harry Potter. Right, right. Wait, what? He did, yeah. They de-aged him and all that stuff. The strangest actor in this movie for me...
(13:11):
is Mel Davidson, who plays the assassin Kramit, which I think is a funny name. He's in Robo War, but I don't remember him.
outside of this movie. Probably one of those non-SAG actors that they just hired to play a part in.
Like if you look at the credits for cruel jaws is another example of this where no one else is in, you know, another movie. Oh man. This character is really funny. Like this.
(13:36):
This assassin, we'll talk about who he's obvious ripoff of, but he's got a funny sense of humor. I like this character. Yeah. Like, what does he say at one point? Are women...
courageous because they are stupid or are they stupid because they are courageous then he does the whole get on your knees and beg which is obviously he doesn't want you to answer that question that is rhetorical
(13:59):
And she answers it. I thought that was funny. Next up, we got the legend Vic Diaz, who plays Juan To, the leader, supposedly, of the largest drug trade in Southeast Asia.
But Vic Diaz, his IMDb picture is from that Cameron Mitchell movie where the ship of fools ends up.
(14:22):
on the zombie island it's got zombies and ninjas sweaty cameron mitchell movie of course it's a sweaty cameron mitchell but he doesn't phone it in he's in almost the whole movie raw force that's it nice that movie's that movie's crazy
Legitimately crazy. We got some stunt men in the form of Ottaviano Delacqua, who is credited with 372 stunt credits. He plays Jimmy.
(14:51):
Love this guy in this movie. But he was in Blast Fighter, Rats, Zombie 3. We've got Massimo. He's the worm zombie in Zombie as well. Yes, that's his claim to fame. Covered in clay.
Also from the stunt field is Massimo Vanni, plays Kelly Sellers, this character. I mix these two up because this movie's insane. But he was also in Zombie 3, Zombie 4.
(15:18):
Robo war and cop game. Amazing. He is like almost in every Mate movie. Yeah. He's one of those guys who was a stunt man, but he would also get put in the movies a lot. Romano Pupo is another guy who was, who did, it was.
Yeah, who did that a lot. He's also in almost every Enzo G. Castellari movie because him and Castellari were cousins. Ah. Yeah. A little family help there.
(15:44):
I'm very sad that, according to IMDb, Luciano Pagazzi, his frickin' scenes were all cut. He was supposed to be smuggler leader.
I think there's another Matei movie where that happens to him as well. It doesn't happen. There's at least one where it doesn't, I think, double target he is in.
(16:05):
But there is at least one other movie where his scenes got deleted. He's, again, another guy who was in all these nomsploitation movies, whether they were Margaritas or Bruno Mattei's movies. He's basically in all of them.
And this is from his beard-o phase, too. He had the big, bushy, gray beard around this time. Where he was always down by Robert Spafford. Alright, let's get into this plot. We see...
(16:32):
our pal, Michael Ransom, in a sweaty hotel room. He's like, oh my god, am I back in Saigon? And he's having a nightmare of his flashback to Vietnam. Good old Vic Jenkins.
uh, rescuing Michael ransom in the field is there's fricking explosions going off. People are getting killed and he's taking the time to dress his wound in the most.
(16:57):
I'm pretending to wrap something around something on your leg. He's just going like, he's just doing like a motion around his leg. And there's like all these fricking explosions going off. I hope they film that first.
To get that out of the way, because that looked like a shitty scene to film. Next thing you know, it's years later, and Jenkins is dead. Later, his buddy comes to tell him, like, hey...
(17:25):
I know who had Vic Jenkins killed or who knows who had him killed. Go talk to this guy. So we meet someone named Peter Rogue.
who was this government stooge that's stationed in- It's like the perfect name for that character, too. Peter Rogue. I've gone rogue. And my favorite moment here, this is one of my favorite moments in the whole movie.
(17:47):
Is he comes to see this guy burst into his office unannounced. And he's like, oh, nice family in the family photo. Then he hits him in the face with the portrait of his family. Made me laugh so hard.
I loved it. Oh, what a nice family you have here. Sure enough, Jenkins is not dead, and Ransom just wants to go in there and save him.
(18:16):
So he does. There's this amazing scene of him getting in there to save him. There's some tomfoolery with some goons that he outsmarts. And next thing you know, there's a big helicopter assault as he and Jenkins escape.
They go to the home base where he is going to get some diamonds because he's now lost Vic Jenkins to the helicopter guys. He's getting some diamonds to go and...
(18:44):
negotiate for his life and my other favorite scene is they're showing him the radio and they're turning a dial and this made me laugh so hard i'm such an idiot ian i'm sorry i have to talk about this dumb scene
one of the cables falls out of the radio. After they touch it, the cable goes, and it just made me laugh. It doesn't even qualify as a movie mistake. It just made me smile and laugh.
(19:11):
But what happens to Ransom when he starts traveling on his little boat? It basically turns into the same scene from Rambo 2, like literally almost shot by shot, where...
You know, it's the same thing that happens on the boat where, you know, the people driving betray him or whatever. And then you see him pulling, you know, basically getting ready to pull out the small knives he has behind his back.
(19:37):
He stabs one guy with one, takes a shotgun, kills a couple. Some really good squibs in this scene, by the way. Probably the best squibbing moments of the movie because Matei doesn't usually go for the squibs as much, but in this scene he does.
you know, takes the shotgun, shoots a couple of them, and then the boat's about to crash, and then he tries to get off, but then the guy grabs him with the rope, again, same thing that happens in Rambo 2, a guy from basically the...
(20:02):
The bunk above the boat grabs him with a rope around his neck, and then he takes the giant knife from his holster and stabs him with it. The blood leaks down. And then I think in Rambo 2, the boat actually explodes. Yeah. I think, yeah.
one that does not do that. He just steers the boat around and then goes to the bar. They couldn't afford to blow up any more than they already do in the movie. And it wasn't a hut either. It always has to be a hut that explodes.
(20:31):
He ends up at, and this blew my mind, ends up at, speaking of huts, at an old bar in the jungle. And what blew my mind was it's called the Moulin Rouge. Unbelievable.
It made me laugh more, just packing in the great stuff here. And there's a drinking contest going on straight out of good old Raiders of the Lost Ark, where our pal...
(20:58):
uh, Rosanna boom. I keep looking at my notes and thinking that's not what's really written there, but yes, Rosanna boom. She's trying to out drink this fricking slob guy. According to the bartender.
The sleazy bartender. He tells Ransom, the first one to belch loses. And he goes, belch? And then the guy burps in his face.
(21:24):
But she wins, the guy actually belches, and then he starts acting like he's going to throw up, but instead he just faints. I thought that was very wonderful. Which I'm guessing is what happens in Raiders. It's been a long time since I watched it. Maybe? Yeah.
And I think, do not quote me on this, or as Bill Simmons would say, don't aggregate this. I think the guy in the bar with her is, I want to say he plays Brent Huff's partner in Cop Game.
(21:52):
I think he does, but I'm not 100% sure. Nice, nice. So then some very special guys show up to end all the fun times. Who shows up at the bar?
The KGB agent played by Mel Davidson. Oh, baby. Yes, good old Kramit shows up, and he wants these diamonds. They're going to do their exchange, but things don't go very well, and of course...
(22:20):
Ransom gives him the fake glass ones while hiding the real diamonds in the bottom of a glass of disgusting whiskey that everyone smells and goes, ugh. Hilarity ensues.
They start doing the shotguns. The place catches on fire, just like Raiders. You have a sword fight as well. And a sword fight. Ransom punches a ninja across the room.
(22:46):
Brad Huff was talking about this too in his interview on the Severin Blu-ray that these Filipino stuntmen knew how to throw their bodies around a lot. They would flip. They were really good at being animated.
you know, in their scenes, and he admired that about them. This is just a joyous scene to behold. This one's a lot of fun. Right, and it also is the start of, like, Mary Stobbins, like...
(23:13):
She's either a 1 or a 10 this whole movie. It seems like that. When she's talking to the KGB guy, she's like... We're close till tomorrow. So hold your ass!
back to the sewer you came from. She'll have random times in this movie where she just starts yelling. In the same scene. She's like Jim Cramer. It's like... Now we get...
(23:42):
My favorite, after they escape this big battle scene with the diamonds and no information about Jenkins, they end up sneaking out of there before the place gets blown up. And they start... going through the jungle, negotiating.
what they're going to do next she wants compensation for her destroyed bar and she's like whoa these diamonds well you know they're going to kill him anyway so we should just rescue him and we'll split these things 50 50 the movie
(24:11):
has come to a complete stop while they do this, these, these interactions and they're playing the circus music that like the meet cute gone horribly wrong at the circus music. It's so bad.
Oh my god. Oh boy. It's fucking crazy. I love it. There's multiple scenes ripped off of Romancing the Stone and what was the other one? Yes, they're doing the Predator thing where they're sneaking.
(24:41):
They're sneaking over to the camp. Yeah, the part when Arnold pulls out the binoculars near the log.
What's amazing about her is not only is she bringing too much to her dialogue, she also doesn't know how to move like a human. All of her motions are super exaggerated, especially when she's crawling.
(25:01):
on the on the jungle floor she's like hitting brent huff in the face with her butt because she's swinging her butt so much i am dying
I'm envious of Brett Huff in that situation, I guess. But in that regard, but I will say this, you know, she does a good job later in the movie. She wields an M16 and she looks really good.
(25:23):
holding the gun i will say that much like sometimes people don't look good you know it doesn't look natural or doesn't look realistic she does a good job with it and huff does as well like whenever he's using the m60 later in the film and like he he looks
to me a lot like almost like a young Clint Eastwood and rawhide like that type of look um you know he has that uh he has you know he looks good with the headband and the cigar as well uh i i think he does good in this and he's only like 26 or 27 depending on when this was filmed so he's
(25:55):
sometimes you know some actors they might be afraid of the guns like they don't want to get hit in the eye with you know some freaking you know like the brent huff said she was and she was willing to do whatever yeah i have this vision of her freaking bicep like
Just undulating with the machine gun fire. I don't know why I said undulating, but I said it. She finds out about Han To, which is another argument. He's apparently a very dangerous man who likes to torture women.
(26:23):
He ignores her, they split up, and he goes in and tries to rescue good old Jenkins. And one of my favorite lines of the movie, Welcome to the world of international drug smolding.
And this is when the, the double cross, I believe a double cross happens and he gets captured. Our, our, our buddy ransom gets captured and we're going to have the first.
(26:50):
of the lethal weapon scenes where he's being electrocuted by Kramit dangling flies dangling from the ceiling. But, um, what happens while he's being tortured? What is, uh, what is our pal Mary doing?
Well, before that, I just wanted to point out you have a lot of Predator stuff in there, like the Scorpion scene for Predator, where he's like Michael, turn around. It's the exact same thing between Bill Duke and...
(27:14):
Carl Weathers in Predator when he, you know, he has a scorpion on his back. Like, you do think, you know, Vic Jenkins is on his side for a minute, but then they, it's almost a combination of, so.
Rambo three came out like three months before this movie. And that was the film where Trotman gets captured. So I think that they were, I think that that was in the air just enough for them to rip that off. At least the plot. Yeah. And then.
(27:39):
I think they're doing the whole lethal weapon thing where the military person turns into a drug smuggler because that's what happened in Lethal Weapon with Mitch Ryan and Gary Busey. So they do that with Richard Harris's character here.
And then, yeah, when so when when Ransom gets captured at the same time, Mary Stevens character.
(28:04):
rosanna boom is it is that what it is yep that's her name yeah yeah uh she sneaks in disguised as a prostitute exactly like julia nixon in
Rambo First Blood Part 2. And she goes to Wanto. At the same time, Ransom finds a way to escape from Stramit. Is that it? Cramit. Cramit.
(28:28):
Okay, I'll have to remember that. Cram it. Okay, that's actually easy enough to remember now that I think about it. Yeah. And he does the same thing that Mel Gibson does in Lethal Weapon by strangling him with his legs.
It's the exact same thing. So, like, were they just storyboarding from the movie? Yeah. I just imagine them. That's crazy. I mean, there's nothing in the world that you could take a shot of.
(28:56):
and not be dead by alcohol poisoning by the time this movie is done. If you're taking a shot every time something is ripped off. If you take a shot of Everclear, you're dying 10 times over. You know, you might as well dig 10 graves for you.
yourself you're you're richard harris at that point oh yeah exactly um i don't even know if he had that kind of tolerance oh my god so funny that would be something
(29:19):
So Ransom escapes, and at the same time, she's in the room with Juan Ho. She stabs him, and Ransom comes in. They kind of have another argument, like, oh, I tried to save your life, and whatever. What are you doing here? Then they begin.
fair escape um he uses an m60 and a bunch of grenades she uses a an m16 of sorts
(29:41):
They shoot a bunch of people. The Filipino stuntmen are going crazy doing flips and moving their bodies in crazy ways. It's all in slow motion, so it looks really cool. What blew my mind here was like...
This felt like the end of the movie to me. I knew I had another 20, 25 minutes to go, but I felt like this is it, right? This is the big moment. Nope.
(30:09):
We're not done yet. What's interesting is so the last 30, well, maybe 25 minutes or so is pretty much all action. And, you know, I'm going to make an argument for Bruno Mattei specifically with this convoy scene coming up that.
He really would have been a good second unit director of just action. Like, I actually think he really does a good job.
(30:30):
directing action scenes especially if you give him some money because it's not like he has too much of it here he has just enough to make something work but if you actually gave him money like
He would be a good second unit director of almost anything if you ask them to do it. I think this convoy scene specifically, it's actually a really good recreation of the Indiana Jones convoy scene.
(30:51):
My favorite part about this is they steal this truck and they break out and all the bad guys are shooting at them like, ah, shit, they're getting away. And then all of a sudden, spoiler or big twist.
there's a shit ton of bad guys and the, like, like one of the leaders of the bad guys just in the back of the truck holding, uh,
(31:16):
holding Miss Boom hostage. Yeah, that I thought was actually pretty hilarious. That's at least enough of a change from the convoy scene where you...
Like, they don't have that moment where you see the people are in the back of the truck before he looks in the mirror. Because in Rears of the Lost Ark, it's Harrison Ford looking in the mirror to see it. And, yeah, it's actually very funny.
(31:36):
You get the great Mary Stavid acting moment when he picks her up and she just goes zeroed over on her and she's like, what the fuck are you doing? It's just wonderful. Yeah, the convoy scene, you got guys climbing all over the truck.
You got people getting knocked off of the truck with driving into a wall of trees and then they're crashing through scaffolding that some workmen are doing stuff on.
(32:04):
And it's just all in slow-mo craziness. It just... Oh, my God. It's so fun. It's so...
These two get away, and the reason she doesn't have the diamonds on her is because Juan To was holding them when she stabbed him, and in his death grip, he held onto them. So they have to go back. I love how she...
(32:26):
As soon as he cuts her loose, she immediately punches him in the face, putting her in the back of the truck. So good.
They have like the exact same argument they had earlier where she says, she's basically like, you asked me if I'm okay. Like after what you just did, it's the second time in the movie she does that. They tied me up like a Christmas turkey, you know.
(32:46):
Oh my God. Yeah. And her accent, she's Swedish, I think. And her accent is so funny. I could have sworn she was Italian just because there's times where you're watching these movies.
And we're used to them being dubbed where everybody's dubbed. And then all of a sudden we fast forward to the late 80s when nobody wanted to do the dubbing anymore because either they were getting laughed out of the theaters in America or...
(33:14):
The live sound had finally gotten so cheap that even the Italians were willing to use it. I'm not sure what the change was in it, but it's like you had a lot of people from multiple countries.
who had been in a bunch of movies acting alongside people who were speaking English as their first language. So if you have this melange of accents from different countries, I just immediately...
(33:41):
assume she was italian it didn't stop mate because even in the 2000s in the early aughts when he was still making his cannibal movies like yeah those are still dubbed like ted russoff is still doing dubbing in those movies oh i did not know that
Oh yeah, if you watch some of those cannibal movies, you can hear Ted Russo's voice playing the main character, and some of them even still.
(34:02):
Good for him. Still making money on that dubbing, you know, well into the, oh, it's good for him. And Matei still making those movies, like movies that are like that, you know, good for him when no one else was still doing it.
With Mary Staben and Brent Huff, apparently they're still friends to this day. They actually, they did a commentary for the Severn release of Born to Fight, which to me is a big deal because you...
(34:24):
You almost never get actors to do commentaries for these cult films. Like, almost never. That was really cool to hear them do the commentary for that on the Severin Blu-ray. That was a big get by David Gregory to make that happen.
Let's see. I definitely have not seen that one. That looks amazing. It's basically Crocodile Dundee and the African Queen mixed with Indiana Jones in First Blood Part II.
(34:51):
They really milked that first blood part tier to death, man. Oh, yeah. Every single ripoff was pretty much had some of that in there. That's so great. He's rampaging.
He's rambunctious. He's rammantic. Rampaging, rambunctious, rammatic, ramble. Scene and action, ramble.
(35:20):
Next. So they go back. Tell us about the grenade launcher, the big money stuff. As Joe Bob Riggs would say, it's just grenade launcher foo.
You know, it's it's he ransom is using that grenade launcher and just using it on like hut after hut on like, you know, like watchtower after watchtower.
(35:43):
There's probably a good five or six explosions and Filipino stuntmen just flying everywhere. Mary Stave just smiling the whole time as it happens. Somehow she can fly the helicopter. I don't know how.
She went into the Matrix and put in, you know, let me learn how to fly this helicopter real quick. And, yeah, and then, you know, he gets out.
(36:06):
And he does the whole Rambo 2 thing where he shoots up the drug lab with the M60 before he confronts Jenkins. Does the same thing that Sylvester Stallone does.
to charles napier at the end of rambo 2 by you know uh stabbing the knife right next to him into the desk i love how we got the two scenes
(36:29):
One from each strike commando where he's shooting up like a radio room or in this case, a drug lab with the M60. Perfect.
Just cut them both together. It's freaking wonderful. Yeah, and again, not Red Brown. Brett Huff looks really good using it, and that's like a heavy gun. To some people, it may not look right.
(36:51):
They use it, but he looks great using it. He looks, you know, he looks awesome using the grenade launcher. Like he does look awesome as an action hero in this movie. Nice. And then we get the exact choreography.
and staging almost of the big fight between Gary Busey and Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon. We even have a burst pipe.
(37:15):
which is spewing water into the air so they can do it in the rain, just like the, I think it was a fire hydrant in Lethal Weapon that they're fighting under. Yeah. Oh my God. This part was so funny. And of course.
if you go back and watch that lethal weapon fight, it is horribly edited. Like it actually does not look all that great. If you try to watch it, it.
(37:36):
really doesn't look particularly great and i like lethal weapon for the most part but that final fight if you try to watch it and like really look at the editing like it's like some of it is kind of indecipherable it doesn't look particularly great i think dawner
did a better job with the comedic aspects of that film that he does with the action aspects. And that particular fight scene is one of them. And Gary Busey is my best friend. So of course I am not being biased when I said Gary Busey.
(38:04):
If you look up my name and Gary Busey's name, you're going to find a ton of search results. So please go for it. I think you need to set up a website. GaryBuseyIsMyBestFriend.com. Well, when Gary Busey got...
accused of all this like sexual assault stuff at a con all these places were using my picture with them so i got a ton of attention for it like people like fox news the daily mail and all these places
(38:31):
my picture it was it was pretty funny because i was getting it was basically my 15 minutes of fame because i was just getting non-stop attention
a couple days because of that. That's why I say Gary Busey is my best friend as a joke. Go Google Ian Urza and Gary Busey. Maybe don't get that website.
(38:56):
Fighting women now, are you, big man? I'd like to dance a few rounds with me. That will be a real pleasure.
He defeats Kramit just in the fisticuffs. But of course, he's about to put his arm around Miss Boom.
And that's when Kramit tries to shoot him. But of course, she takes him out. And it's not just that it's in slow motion. It's that each person holding a gun in this scene has a very long time to shoot first.
(39:29):
and it's trying to build tension and but then she shoots them and you're like okay yeah no i will give the ending a lethal weapon one thing is that part looks pretty good when they
They don't have much time to shoot Danny Glover and Mel Gibson in that particular scene at the end. But you even get the moment where...
you know she's like let me kill him and he's like no and then he gets his face shoved in the mud that's all the same as lethal weapon as well so amazing these weren't just movies isolated to america
(40:00):
And then they were smuggling the tape into Italy. These were international hits. And this was also marketed to the U.S. VHS.
Maybe not as much as the first one, but yeah, people were finding it all the time in video stores. Maybe Quentin Tarantino sold some at some point. I don't know. Maybe cooler heads prevailed. Maybe the producer's like, don't send this one to America, dude. We'll get sued.
(40:26):
The villains are defeated, and good old Rosanna Boom and Mr. Ransom are walking off, and they're getting back into their kooky talking, but now it's like a romantic kind of a thing. I love it.
Well, what's funny is they have, like, the same type of relationship in Born to Fight where it, like, feels acrimonious and then all of a sudden they kind of like each other. It's so good.
(41:05):
The composer, Stefano Manetti, his music for this is bonkers. It reminded me of some of the music from Hong Kong movies, like the...
Like the Lucky Stars films. And it was just such a kooky mix of music. But he also did the music for Zombie 3 and Ratman, which I just saw for the first time recently.
(41:30):
Gotta watch Ratman. I still haven't watched it yet. It's interesting. I like it. I would not say I loved it, but it's definitely got some vibe.
I got that Severin Films Blu-ray, so at least it'll look good. Isn't Radice in that too? Yes. Yes. I'm trying to remember now. I think, what was it? Cauldron put that one out. Yeah. Yeah.
(41:52):
right david warbeck speaking david warbeck okay okay he uh radice is not in it for some reason i thought he was but oh janet agrin's it i like her yeah yeah she's great yeah that radice needed to be in it should have been in it
But yes, the producer of this as a frequent Fragasso and a Thai collaborator named Franco Gaudenzi.
(42:18):
He's produced a ton of their most important shit together. Cuckoo. And then we got a cinematographer, Ricardo Grassetti.
who shot this, of course, double target in the first strike commando, among other things. Nice. And I don't have any trivia on this whatsoever.
(42:41):
I don't think you're going to find much on IMDb. They normally don't have too much for these kind of films. I think the best thing I could do was point out what they were saying about working with Richard Harris.
During that, like, at one point, you know, when Ransom has that sort of emotional outburst after Vic betrays him, after that scene was filmed, Richard Harris came to him and said, hey, cut your acting in half here. You don't need to go.
(43:07):
that all out with it and renoff took it to hardy actually said no that was actually good advice and yeah i agreed with them i probably needed to dial it down a bit so there's some stuff on imdb that's that's fun as far as trivia goes
Brent Huff says that he was in the best shape of his life because of the physical action, saying that he did his own stunts. And during the filming, he ate nothing but fruit and fish.
(43:32):
yep yeah he did talk about that like you can see that he's doing his own stunts in this like the thing on the truck and all the fight scenes yeah he's and he looks good doing the kicks and everything too like yeah he's you know he's
He's agile. He's in good shape. Like, yeah, he does well here. Apparently he was going to be tortured much more in the, in the movie. He was supposed to be being held for two weeks in this camp.
(43:57):
And they had him in a cesspool of pigs excrement. And then they're having him whipped and beaten with bamboo sticks.
They already did enough of that in the first movie. They didn't need to replicate that. Yeah, so they cut all that out of the screenplay and just went for the lethal weapon torture. So, Ian, how do you feel?
(44:18):
about Strike Commando 2, or as I call it, Strike-ic Omendo 2. I love it. I think it might be my favorite of the Bruno Mattei.
like nomsploitation films or macaroni combat films of the i think the five he made i think this one actually might be my favorite i uh i mean the first one's up there for me as well i think it's these two that are
(44:46):
My absolute favorites, but I do. I love the other three as well. Cool. Cool. Yeah, I am in love with this. This is one of my favorite movies of the year. I just love the.
fricking chemistry or whatever that is between ransom and, um, and boom between a Mary, Mary Staven. Is that it?
(45:10):
It's either Stobbin or Staben. Staben or Staben. Her and Brent Huff, the chemistry is just insane. I love when the movie just stops from the action to have them just talk. There's a lot of garbled movie dialogue.
Some people talk real fast in this and you have no idea what in the world they said. I like this one better than the first one. Yeah. Thank you for...
(45:38):
for bringing this into my life. This is great. Awesome. Glad I could be of assistance. Hell yeah. So, before I let you run for your life back into the jungle...
to have a recently seen and loved film that you want to talk about. So with Gene Hackman's passing fairly recently, I decided earlier today I watched The Package, which is sort of a...
(46:04):
maybe a little bit lesser known movie that he did with Andrew Davis directing. It's like the Andrew Davis movie people forget because people usually remember above the law than under siege and the fugitive.
People may infamously remember Chain Reaction after that. But the package is what he kind of made in between in 1989 with Tommy Lee Jones and Gene Hackman. And it's kind of one of those governmental conspiracy thriller movies.
(46:31):
And it kind of ages well because it's about this... A supposed Russian and American peace deal between the two presidents and basically the military industrial complex of both countries, specifically the Americans, wants to break that up and make sure it doesn't happen.
So they're trying to assassinate the Russian president. And he gets on to American soil in Chicago because, of course, that's an Andrew Davis specialty in Chicago. He uses it in a lot of his films. The Fugitive, above the law, Code of Silence specifically. Nice.
(47:02):
Tommy Lee Jones is the one playing the assassin, which is awesome. And Gene Hackman plays like a military police officer who's pursuing him when he finds out about the conspiracy. He's basically in another country at the beginning, attending like the initial.
The initial peace conference that he finds out about it after there's a shootout with two Germans who infiltrate trying to basically assassinate this one American general who doesn't want to go along with the plan.
(47:29):
And they do succeed, actually. So that's an interesting part of it. But the movie, I'm going to list off some of the cast members. It has a ton of the cast members from some of his other movies, but it's got Joanna Cassidy in it. She plays the female love interest. She was in Blade Runner.
She plays Zora in Blade Runner. She's the one who gets into that big chase scene that ends with her going through the broken glass. John Hurd from Home Alone is in it. Wow. Playing the American general. He's one of the main villains of the movie.
(47:58):
Of course, Dennis Franz is in it. It's a Chicago movie, so he has to be there. Pam Greer is in it, a small role. Chelsea Ross, who's in a ton of these films, is in it. Marco St. John, who played the sheriff in Friday the 13th, part five, and he played the villain in the...
Clint Eastwood movie Tightrope is also in it. So you've got a ton of good people in this. I need to see the package. I remember right when you mentioned Tommy Lee Jones, I remembered when it came out, but I did not see it.
(48:23):
He's become one of my favorite actors over time. Just one of my favorite American actors. I watched Rolling Thunder for the first time not too long ago. I thought he was awesome in that when he was younger.
For last year's American Giallo Month on Black Club Mysteries on Land of the Creeps, Greg and I watched Eyes of Laura Mars, and it was really cool to see him in that as well. Yeah, he had the unibrow in that movie, rocking it. That was wild.
(48:51):
Yeah, the movie, a recently seen and loved movie that I watched, I finally got out the Blu-ray of Le Orme, or Footprints on the Moon, starring good old Florinda Balkin.
Absolutely amazing film. Very quiet, very mysterious, and opulent. And it's like...
(49:19):
tone, pacing, and then the cinematography. I think it's Bozzoni. Bozzoni directed it. Storaro did the cinematography for it. Oh, that's why it's so beautiful. Yeah.
greg and i covered that actually fairly recently we did a we did a bizony sort of wrapped up bizony's movies um fairly recently and we
(49:43):
We liked it. We didn't necessarily love it because we thought at the end we didn't really understand what was going on. There wasn't much of an explanation for it. So we kind of lamented that.
I still enjoy the movie for the most part, and it looks amazing. You've got Nicoletta Elmi in it as the little girl as well, who's always great. Klaus Kinski is in it as well.
(50:07):
in kind of one of those weird Klaus Kinski roles where he's probably on the set for like a day or something. Yeah, I always wonder, like, would he be...
an asset to that kind of a role you know like an asset to a production like would it be better to have him just for an afternoon than you know to commit to like the full kinski where you're
(50:31):
who knows what you're going to get. I think for the most part, that's what he did with a lot of these films. He doesn't, he's not really the star of many Italian films. If you think about it, I mean, there's that one spaghetti Western and God said to Kane where he was the star, but for the most part, he's not really a star.
lot of those a lot of films he did a movie um i want to say it was called uh the net dos nets yeah dos nets uh 1975 same year as uh
(51:00):
I believe, as Footprints on the Moon. But yeah, it's a German mystery film. I believe it's German. Of course, it's got Kinski in it. But he does the weirdest thing. He plays this kind of shady...
journalist in it and there's a sequence where i think kinski's like wait i'm just showing up at the apartment and they go yeah because i got an idea you guys go to the top floor and i'll run up every flight of stairs
(51:29):
and come knock on the door. And they were like, okay? Because it happens for no reason. Kinski's character just steals the movie for like three minutes while he runs up.
Like four, five, six flights of stairs. It's so weird. Did you ever hear what he said about turning Spielberg down to be in Raiders of the Lost Ark? Ironically, he was supposed to play Major Ta in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the guy with the glasses.
(51:55):
No. He said, he read the script and he said to Spielberg something like, this script is a boring and yawn inducing pile of shit and turned him down.
I have. As soon as you started saying that, I was like, yes, I have heard that. What a son of a bitch. No, for sure. Well, dude, thank you for hanging out before you.
(52:20):
literally stop talking to me. How can folks find more Ian in the world? So you can follow me at, uh, on Twitter or X, uh, blue sky and Instagram.
at Erzanomics. My name is the same on all of those. You can find me on Letterboxd. If you just type in my name, Ian Erza, no one else has this.
(52:43):
Pretty unique name. You can add me on Facebook if you want. And you can find me on the Land of the Creeps War podcast for their double-double episodes on the Black Glove Mystery segment where...
Greg Amortis and I review mainly giallo and horror, Italian horror films. We also do Italian genre cinema in general. Awesome. Well, thanks for being here, dude. Appreciate it. Yeah, for sure. We'll get to.
(53:08):
We'll get Strike Commando 3 made. Yeah, I would enjoy that very much. Get the Kickstarter going. Yeah. I'm sure we'd have a few people donating. Totally. Maybe like three or four. Hey.
Bye, folks.
(53:43):
Folks, thanks so much for listening to this episode. If you'd like to write into the show, send an email to doomedmoviethon at gmail.
Or hit us up at DoomedMovieThon on Instagram or at DoomedMovieThon on Twitter or at DoomedMovieThon at Discord. Or go to HelloThisIsTheDoomedShow on Facebook and message us there.
(54:06):
If you want more Hello, This is the Doomed show, goto doomedmoviethon.com and click the podcast button for the archive. Or go to YouTube and look up Doomed Moviethon and you'll find...
the classic episodes of Hello, This is the Doomed Show. And if that's still not enough, I have written some books, you know, about my love of movies over on Amazon.com.
(54:32):
Just look up Richard Glenn Schmidt and you'll find Giallo Meltdown, A Movie-Thon Diary, Giallo Meltdown 2, Cinema Somnambulist, or Doomed Movie-Thon, the book.
Hello, this is the Doomed Show. I'm a proud member of the Legion Podcast Network. Goto LegionPodcasts.com and checkout the other great shows over there.
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