Three Days to a Kill (1992)

We have a bad tendency of losing Fred Williamson for long stretches here at the DTVC, but with his last post coming back in October, I don't know if this stretch is that bad. For example, Seagal went from September to January between posts, so October to February is almost the same thing. Anyway, I saw this was on YouTube, it was directed by Williamson as well, and had some other great names, like Bo Svenson, Chuck Connors, and Henry Silva. In addition to us, our friends Ty and Brett at Comeuppance have covered this too--almost a year to the day that we're writing this one--so you can go there to see what they thought.

Three Days to a Kill is not a movie where Steven Seagal plays an ex-CIA or whatever in Eastern Europe, but instead is about a US ambassador getting kidnapped ahead of a big speech, and Navy big wig Chuck Connors calling in ex-CIA guy in Chicago Fred Williamson to get the ambassador back. Williamson needs a demolition expert if he's going to do this right--whatever this is--so he has bank robber Bo Svenson sprung from prison so he can help with the job. Turns out the guy holding the ambassador hostage is none other than drug cartel head Henry Silva. What is his connection to sexy dancer Yolanda (or as Williamson calls her, "Yo-LANN-da")? And can they trust her?

 

It's difficult to say how much we have here beyond Williamson and some of the other cast members, but the question is, how much does it matter? No one props ups scenes on his mere presence alone the way Williamson does, and we get enough of him here for that to really count. Yes, the plot is uneven with some dead spots in the middle, and the way they treat Yolanda's character at the end is pretty rough; but when you're coming for a late 80s/early 90s Williamson flick, this has enough of what you want to make it work. I feel like in this day and age, that counts for a lot.

Beyond the fact that this is 22 films for Williamson now at the DTVC, this is also the eighth film directed by him that we've covered here. While that still puts him behind a lot of directors here on the site, other than Albert Pyun, he's not behind many of them by a lot. That for me is one of the biggest things about him, it's not just that he makes the movie often by just being in it, often he's the one making the movie, which is a reason why he's one of the greatest DTV stars ever. If you check him out on Tubi, he has a ton of stuff on there, so not only do I not have any excuse to get him in more posts, but no one has any excuse--at least not here in the US--to not catch more of his films.

 

Initially I thought this was my first Chuck Connors film on here, and I had this whole thing lined up about how I watched The Rifleman with my dad growing up, but it turns out he was on here before in Last Flight to Hell with Reb Brown, and I covered all of those points then--including his short stint with the Boston Celtics. If you look at his bio, he has a lot of DTV films around this time, many of which haven't been covered by us, but have by our friends at Comeuppance and The Video Vacuum. Unfortunately not as many of them are available on Tubi or YouTube, so I need to find some way of tracking them down. I don't know if I'd say Connors is good in this, but what does good or bad look like when it's Chuck Connors in a Fred Williamson late 80s/early 90s DTV flick? Exactly, we're just happy he's there.

Two other big names in this, Bo Svenson and Henry Silva, have made a couple appearances here on the site before, but for some reason neither had been tagged like Chuck Connors had. I'm not really sure what prompts me to tag an actor or not when I'm writing a post. Often if it's just their first post, I won't tag them, even if they're really big--which doesn't explain Chuck Connors, but I didn't say it had to make sense. Both of these guys, like Connors, had a pretty prolific late 80s/early 90s DTV run that I haven't really scratched the surface on yet. I think, though, that the appearances in these movies by guys like this was another reason why we enjoyed them so much. They added an extra flavor to the proceedings that bolstered the films' charm. While many of the issues plaguing modern DTV are things we can blame the industry on, I think this is one they can't do anything about. In the late 80s/early 90s, we had a cadre of great actors from the past who came into these films and delivered professional performances. Svenson isn't as old as the others, so he's more in the Williamson category; but guys like Connors, Silva, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, and Klaus Kinski--among many others--could be counted on to show up, deliver on the scenes they're in, and remind us of who they were in the older stuff we remembered seeing them in as we were growing up. The equivalents today would be a Bruce Willis or a Robert De Niro, but it doesn't seem to work the same with them as it did with these guys back then. Is it really just that those older guys cared more?

 

Finally, one thing I love about a Williamson-directed film, is when he includes shots like these of the local area he's shooting in. How do you not love the idea of 2 all beef hot dogs with trimmings, hot tamale, and a 12 oz. soda for $2.79? I mean, even if you're a vegetarian, the concept still has to be great, right? The thing is though, this is just a special, you can't just get this every day--though the permanence of the sign leads us to believe differently--which makes me wonder what this normally would set us back? $3.79? $4.79? It has to be a ".79" so the left digit bias kicks in. "What, you want $3 for 2 all beef hot dogs, with trimmings, hot tamale, and a 12 oz. soda? Sorry, that's a little too rich for my blood." But set it at $2.79, and I think, not only is that not $3, but significantly cheaper than $3, so when I pass that sign, say while I'm hip-deep in a chase scene, I'm sufficiently swayed to stop in and try them out for lunch.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently this is only on YouTube, which means you can watch it, but it really needs to be on one of the major streaming sites with a higher-quality version. This isn't anything that would make a Williamson top five list, but it's a fun time between him and the rest of the cast involved.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101253

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, A Girl and a Gun, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

 

 

 

 

Last Flight to Hell aka L'ultimo volo all'inferno (1990)

A friend of mine hooked me up with a copy of this from his VHS.  It looked fantastic, especially with Reb Brown and Chuck Connors, plus it's and AIP flick.  Let's see how it turned out.  Also, our friend Ty at Comeuppance Reviews has hit this one.  It definitely looks like a Ty kind of flick.

Last Flight to Hell has Reb Brown as a DEA agent in the Philippines(?) working to take down drug dealer Mike Monty.  His boss, Chuck Connors wants him brought in alive, but when he's close to catching him, some Chinese drug lord scoops him up and holds him for ransom.  So now poor Reb Brown has to go into the jungle after him, where he meets up with Monty's daughter, who has been sent in to pay the ransom.  Will they get Monty and get out alive?



Maybe my one complaint is that it's light on the Reb Brown screaming, but otherwise this delivers.  Brown is awesome, Chuck Connors is awesome, Mike Monty is awesome-- the whole thing is awesome.  Plenty of action-- they get the chopper explosion out of the way quickly--, plenty of silly low-budget moments, and tons of hallmarks you expect from Italian exploitation flicks shot in the Philippines.  We had exploding huts, we had jungle chases, and myriad local stuntmen shimmying through hails of gunfire.  The best moment comes near the end, when Brown shoots the baddie between the eyes as the guy is driving a truck to him.  The truck veers out of control, into an abandoned shack, causing it to explode, to which Brown says "just like the fourth of July" in the calmest, soberest voice possible.  Not quite as iconic as Strike Commando or Robowar, but still plenty of fun.

This is some great Reb Brown.  I think he's supposed to be more of a maverick type, with his unkempt hair and five o'clock shadow.  It doesn't come off, Brown is too good a guy, but that doesn't make you want to root for him any less.  As I said above, he doesn't really have any great screaming moments, but he has a few near ones that were nice.  The thing is, this script was cobbled together, so just watching his earnest attempt to make the most of it was plenty for me, and I'm sure you'd enjoy it too.  Depending on how big you wanted your Reb Brown film fest to be, this is a potential inclusion.



The Rifleman Chuck Connors is great in this as well.  Growing up my father used to watch The Rifleman, and I watched it with him, so that made it really cool to see him in this and get a film of his on the DTVC.  Also, I'm not entirely sure, but I think he now joins Rick Fox, who was in Resurrection, as the only two former Boston Celtics to have films on here.  Oh wait, that's right, I did Steel with Shaquille O'Neal, and he finished his career with the Celtics too.  Anyway, Connors brings that imposing screen presence to this film, and it works so well with him opposite Brown.  It must've been an honor for Brown to work with him too, and I think, while we want to mock these movies and act like being in them must be the worst things ever, I imagine for someone like Brown, to have moments like that, he must feel very lucky, and I think that's pretty cool.

The great Italian/Philippine exploitation mainstay Mike Monty is in this as the drug dealer Brown is sent to bring in.  He's not in it much after he's kidnapped early on, though he makes up for it near the end.  Still, it was disappointing, because he's so great, and I would've loved to have seen him in it more as a menacing, evil kind of figure.  He has a rather prodigious filmography, but we've only done two others of his to this point: Strike Commando, and then the Miles O'Keeffe flick Phantom Raiders.  Here's to you Mike Monty, you were one of the good ones.



Finally, I wanted to discuss the way this film handled the exploding hut element.  Instead of it being innocent villagers suffering as collateral damage, it's Brown blowing up the huts on the baddie's compound.  I've seen other films go this route before, and I have to say I like it much better.  Why blow up an innocent person's home-- or give the illusion that you are in a film-- when you don't have to?  It's much less problematic this way.

This is a really fun film, but as far as I know used VHS is the only way to go.  Amazon does have it, but it's a little pricey, so maybe for collectors in that case, but if you see it in a bargain bin I wouldn't hesitate to jump on it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102270/