BY FRED BLOSSER

Mill Creek Entertainment has released a double-bill of “Fort Yuma Gold” (1966) and “Damned Hot Day of Fire” (1968) in a Blu-ray + Digital edition. Mill Creek notes that the films are two of Quentin Tarantino’s favorite Spaghetti Westerns -- a shrewd strategy to attract fans who may be interested in sampling the same, often hard-to-find genre movies that Tarantino devoured in his formative years. Both pictures are above-average Italian Westerns.

In “Fort Yuma Gold,” directed by veteran Italian filmmaker Giorgio Ferroni as “Calvin J. Padget,” outlaw chief Nelson Riggs schemes with renegade Confederate Major Sanders to steal a million dollars in gold from Fort Yuma, a Union outpost, in the last days of the Civil War. While Sanders orders his troops to make a diversionary, suicidal attack on the fort, he and Riggs will sneak into the post through an abandoned mine and grab the loot. When a Union commander some days’ ride away learns about the plot, he dispatches two of his soldiers, Captain Lefevre and Sergeant Pitt, to warn the fort, guided by Lt. Gary Hammond, a Confederate prisoner of war. As a native Westerner, Hammond knows the safest route to Fort Yuma. The two Northerners don’t. Secretly, Hammond hopes to elude the two Yankees en route, locate Sanders‘ detachment, and avert disaster by warning his friend Lt. Brian, one of Sanders’ adjutants, about the Major’s treachery.

The movie’s traditional plot is reminiscent of Hollywood’s Civil War Westerns like “Escape from Fort Bravo” and “Alvarez Kelly,” reflecting the strategy generally used by Italian studios in the early days of the Spaghettis to make their films look as much like American productions as possible. The actors billed as “Montgomery Wood” (Hammond), “Red Carter” (Sgt. Pitt), and “Benny Reeves” (Juke, Riggs‘ henchman) were actually Italians Giuliano Gemma, Nello Pazzafini, and Benito Stefanelli. Gemma also used the “Montgomery Wood” alias in three other Italian Westerns, and his resemblance to American leading man and future best-selling novelist Tom Tryon may have helped further the impression that “Fort Yuma Gold” was an import from America. The deception probably worked as long as ticket-buyers failed to recognize Ferroni, Gemma, Pazzafini, Stefanelli, Dan Vadis (Riggs), Jacques Sernas (Sanders), and Antonio Molino Rojo (Brian) as homegrown veterans of the Italian sword-and-toga epics of the late 1950s and early 1960s. When the popularity of the toga spectacles waned with the rise of the Italian Westerns, many writers, directors, and actors transitioned easily from one genre to the next. The hammy, WWE-style melees between gladiators and centurions in the Hercules and Samson movies became the saloon brawls of the Spaghettis, with athletic actors like Gemma, Pazzafini, and Stefanelli doing their own stunts. By 1966, in turn, public tastes in the Italian Westerns had begun to favor the cynical, down-and-dirty violence of Sergio Leone’s massively successful Spaghettis over the American model. In Italy, “Fort Yuma Gold” opened as “Per pochi dollari ancora” or “For a Few Extra Dollars.” The moviemakers were clearly hoping to ride the recent smash success of “For a Few Dollars More,” even if Ferroni/Padget’s style bears little likeness to Leone’s. If you don’t expect a polished American picture on one hand or a nihilistic Leone clone on the other, you might enjoy “Fort Yuma Gold” on its own terms as a mostly fast-paced, sincere B-Western.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Just in case you thought the good folks at Vinegar Syndrome only release version of vintage porn flicks, it may come as news that they are also providing another valuable social service: remastering long-forgotten grind house "classics".  Case in point: "The Muthers", a 1976 gem that plays out like the ultimate Tarantino fantasy. It's a combination of several genres: Women in Prison ("W.I.P", for the initiated), chop socky, sexploitation and blaxploitation. It doesn't get any better than this if you were weaned on this glorious type of sleaze that played routinely on 42nd Street. Directed by cult "B" movie favorite Cirio Santiago, "The Muthers" is yet another low-budget flick from the era that was filmed in the Philippines. The movie opens with a memorable introduction to the titular characters. They are Kelly (Jeannie Bell) and her equally sexy sidekick Anggie (Rosanne Katon, Playboy's Miss September in 1978), who are female pirates with an all-male crew ("You go, girls!"). We see them aboard their high speed, armed vessel as they raid a tourist boat and grab the booty. (Since these are good pirates, no one gets hurt). We know the pirates go by the name of The Muthers because their vessel is adorned with a big sign that reads "The Muthers", in what must have been the first case of branding for high seas pirates. When they return to their Hole-in-the-Wall-like village, they are informed that Kelly's teenage sister has gone missing. They start trawling the waterfront bars and learn that she has been abducted by a human trafficking ring. Working with a government agent who wants to bring down the head of the ring, a notorious crime kingpin named Monteiro (Tony Carreon), Kelly and Anggie volunteer to be captured. They are brought to Monteiro's jungle prison camp, which is guarded by a virtual army of heavily-armed thugs. Here they find dozens of young women being kept in brutal conditions. They are forced to perform manual labor and are simultaneously being groomed for sale to a procurer of girls for international brothels. Kelly manages to get a fleeting glimpse of her sister before she learns the younger girl has made a desperate attempt to escape into the jungle- a strategy which goes tragically awry. 

While in the camp, Kelly and Anggie meet Marcie (Trina Parks), another beauty who is regarded as a long-time veteran prisoner who knows all the ropes. Marcie introduces them to Serena (Jayne Kennedy), who is the privileged mistress of Monteiro (who also sleeps with his male guards). Anggie resents Serena for selling out in return for her soft lifestyle at the camp and derisively refers to her as a "house nigger". But Marcie informs her that Serena often provides what human compassion she can towards the prisoners. Ultimately, Kelly, Angie and Marcie enlist Serena in an audacious plan for them all to escape. They do so but Monteiro and his goons are in hot pursuit. As the women hide in the jungle, they face death from the elements, starvation and dangerous critters. In the film's best scenario, Marcie is bitten in the chest by a deadly snake. As Serena sucks the blood out, Marcie gets the movie's best line of dialogue: "Just like every other snake I've met-- won't leave my tits alone!" Although Parks, Kennedy and Katon frustrate male viewers  keeping their clothes mostly intact, Bell delivers the goods with two (not one, but two!) gratuitous topless bathlng sequences. She also saunters around the tropical location clad in a long-sleeve turtleneck shirt, the absurdity of which is overshadowed by the fact that she is conspicuously bra-less. The film climaxes with double crosses, a big shootout between the "good" pirates and Monteiro's forces, with machine gun slinging chicks also going hand-to-hand with the villains. (Yes, everybody is kung-fu fighting.) At one point in the movie, Bell gets to swing vine-to-vine a la Tarzan. As low grade action films go, it doesn't get much lower or better than this- and it's all set to a typically funky '70s disco score. 

Jeannie Bell displays why the questionable choice of wearing a long-sleeve turtleneck in the tropics has its good points.

The Vinegar Syndrome release has undergone a 2k restoration from the original 35mm negative, making it yet another one of their titles that probably looks infinitely better today than it did upon its initial release. An appropriately cheesy trailer is also included that doesn't even credit the actresses, though perhaps they consider that to be a positive.

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BY JOHN M. WHALEN

Back in 1978, Burt Reynolds was still at the beginning of a cycle of six action comedies that he made with director Hal Needham—a cycle that started with “Smokey and the Bandit “(1977) and ended with “Cannonball Run II” (1984).  One of the best of these films was “Hooper”—a tribute to Hollywood’s unsung hero, the Hollywood stunt man. “Hooper” was a very personal film for both Reynolds and Needham who both started their movie careers as stunt doubles. Needham started doing stunt work in the early years of live TV in New York and is best remembered for his stunt driving in Steve McQueen’s “Bullitt” (1968). Reynolds also began in TV and parlayed his athletic ability along with his good looks to become one of tinseltown’s biggest stars. In a very real way, “Hooper” is even more personal film for Reynolds, because one of the characters in the film is based on a legendary, real-life stunt man/movie star, whom Reynolds knew personally and in fact idolized.

“Hooper” begins with opening credits superimposed over Sonny Hooper (Reynolds) putting on braces, ace bandages, and padding over a body bearing multiple scars. “March of the Toreadors” plays on the soundtrack as he dons a motorcycle outfit and strides out into the sunlight to perform a dangerous stunt, skidding a motorcycle under a moving truck. He’s working on a spy movie starring Adam West who appears in the film as himself. That stunt completed, next day he takes a high fall off a roof with a dog. “Make me look good,” West tells him. But it’s after that fall we discover Sonny’s got a bad back. He gets his friend Cully (James Best) to walk him to his trailer, where he gives him a shot of Xylocaine. “You know what I’d do if I ever met the guy who invented Xylocaine?” Sonny asks. “I’d get on my knees and kiss his ass.”

In the meantime, a new younger stuntman said to be the next Sonny Hooper, arrives on the scene. Ski (Jan Michael Vincent) meets Sonny during filming of a chariot race scene. Although he sees Ski as a threat, Sonny can’t help liking the young up-and-comer. For one thing, the kid is damn good at what he does. Maybe too good. As the story progresses, Sonny realizes the new generation of stunt players coming up are smarter and tougher, if not better than he and his contemporaries were. “They don’t take pills,” he tells Cully, “they don’t drink, they don’t take shots, and they carry little pocket calculators. We don’t watch out, they’re gonna blow us right out of the tub.”

The story follows a simple straight line, the old timer trying to keep up with the younger rival even if it costs him his life. His doctor tells Hooper that his vertebrae are torn almost beyond repair. One heavy impact or fall could paralyze him for life. Naturally the film leads to a climax that calls for Hooper and Ski to perform the greatest stunt ever filmed—one that involves jumping a rocket car 325 feet over a collapsed bridge.

In addition to the main plot line there is a subplot that in a way is even more interesting than the rest of the movie, once you know the inside story. Hooper has a sweetheart, a gal named Gwen, played, of course by Sally Field, Reynolds’ main squeeze at the time. Gwen has a father, Jocko Doyle (Brian Keith) who was once known as the greatest stunt man alive. It’s no coincidence that in real life Sally Field’s stepfather was none other than Jock Mahoney one of the greatest stuntmen who ever lived. Keith first appears on horseback wearing a fringed buckskin jack, the kind that was Mahoney’s trade mark when he played the Range Rider, a Gene-Autry produced TV series that aired in the 1950s. Mahoney, who was known in the trade and by his friends as “Jocko,” had been a stunt double for Charles Starrett in the Durango Kid features. He played Yancy Derringer on a CBS series and went on to play Tarzan in two features that were filmed in Asia. Unfortunately, he contracted dysentery and dengue fever while on location in Thailand and his general health took a heavy hit. During the filming of an episode of the Kung Fu TV series in the seventies Mahoney suffered a stroke and was confined to a wheel chair for some time.

I mention all this because near the end of Act Two of “Hooper,” Jocko Doyle also suffers a stroke, mirroring the same fate suffered by Mahoney. In Gene Freese’s biography, Jock Mahoney, The Life and Films of a Hollywood Stuntman, the author tells us that both Reynold and Needham were Jocko fans, and of course he was Sally Field’s stepdad. Freese says the part of Gwen’s father was “based on Jock Mahoney himself.” Both the star and the director wanted Mahoney to play the part, but the studio didn’t want him. Some fans, who knew the Mahoney/Doyle connection thought that perhaps he wasn’t physically able to play the part. But that wasn’t it. He was fit enough, Freese writes, but the studio wanted a bigger name. However, Mahoney was on hand during filming in an advisory capacity and provided some of the “Mahoneyisms” that the actors used in their dialog.

“Hooper” is one of those special movies that really deserved to be released on Blu-Ray. For one thing it’s the kind of movie that they don’t make any more, and probably never will again. As Hooper said, the boys with the calculators and computers have taken over. A lot of stunt work has been replaced by CGI. “Hooper “is light hearted and fun to watch because everyone in it seems to be enjoying themselves. Reynolds does his usual mugging and winking into the camera, and there was real chemistry between he and Field back then. But more importantly, “Hooper” pays homage to the men and women who made the stars look good, as Adam West said. And it shows the price these legendary people paid, in terms of broken bones, chronic pain, in some cases permanent injury and even death. Yet despite the odds of surviving a career like that intact, the film conveys a sense of good humor mixed with bravado that’s hard to find in movies these days. It’s no Range Rider, but it’s a damn good movie.

Warners Home Video released “Hooper” in 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The picture is excellent. The soundtrack contains the usual country western tunes, but is in mono with too much shrill high end and not enough bass. The only extra is a standard format trailer. This is another case where an iconic film significant at least of the time period in which it was released, is presented with no commentary or documentary features. I would really have enjoyed hearing Reynolds or Field talk about it.

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(John M. Whalen's latest book is "The Big Shutdown". Click here to view promotional trailer. Click here to order from Amazon.)