Masterminded by Rene F. Rangel
This week in The B-Action Thread
Once again we can tell death to go fuck itself since now its taken Elmore Leonard. The creator of 3:10 To Yuma, Mr. Majestyk, 52 Pick-Up, Justified, Out Of Sight, Rum Punch (Jackie Brown for the film crowd) and many other great novels. He was still active having just written another story with Justified’s main character, Raylan, and was also active in the show. So yeah. FUCK YOU, DEATH!
In The B-Action Thread there has been a lot of activity as is usual. If you read the thread and don’t post, please do, or join the site. We’re always happy for more people to join up.
Recently we had a Bond film top list that a lot of us contributed to. Of course I put Licence To Kill as my favorite and there was a discussion on why Skyfall is good, but not the amazing miracle that so many think it was.
felix mentioned whether Speed should be regarded as an action classic and new thread member Gamera vs. Rodan thought it was just “okay”. duke fleed didn’t care much for it either and then it spurred a 90’s action classics list. nagboy92 did say he loved Speed, and I myself can attest that it is damn great.
A new poster for The Escape Plan is posted. We all are anticipating it as we’re finally going to see Stallone and Schwarzenegger as the co-leads in an action film.
A brief discussion on The 13th Warrior is brought up and how some of us feel that it is sorely underrated and under appreciated. Vacuum Jockey and Jox discuss why Dolph Lundgren hasn’t been in a Viking film, and how he’s got a book that he’d love to have made eventually. It is pretty
Engineer saw two Ralph Bakshi films Coonskin and Heavy Traffic. Interesting takes on them as I’ve seen neither, but perhaps one day I will.
A Martin Scorsese top films list also happens. Quite a few of us (including me) place Bringing Out The Dead very high up.
We all went crazy over the names of Wesley Snipes, Harrison Ford, and Antonio Banderas’ characters in The Expendables 3 when they are announced. They are DOC SURGEON, MAX DRUMMER, and EL MATADOR.
This week’s B-movie Death Hunt.
Death Hunt and I go way back. I first saw it around 1994 on USA (back when USA was worth watching and was a genre film fan’s fantasy come true.) as at that age I had already been an action fan for several years, and I was also already a fan of Charles Bronson. Death Hunt tells the “true story” of one Albert Johnson a man who at that time led the Canadian Mounties as well as as various other hunters out to collect a reward on his head on the largest manhunt in Canadian history.
I said “true story” because this film is HIGHLY FICTIONALIZED just like most “true story” films but probably even more so. The actual story behind the film is worth reading. “Albert Johnson” may have really been a man of Scandanavian origin and that probably wasn’t his real name either. Still to this day his real identity is unknown and there have been countless theories and even his body exhumed for a dna test. No dice. We may never know who he really was.
There really was an Edgar Millen who pursued Johnson, but unlike the man that Lee Marvin plays, he was killed by Albert Johnson during a pursuit and was the only fatality during the manhunt. Albert Johnson also was the one who instigated the manhunt by opening fire on two Mounties who came to his cabin with a warrant. Not the other way around during the film and not over a dog either.
Of course with that depressing reality, we have the fictional version which is much more palatable. Charles Bronson plays Johnson as a man of principle and honor. Everything is spurred off of him buying a dog that is half dead from being in a dog fight from a guy named HAZEL (brilliantly played by Ed Lauter) and Hazel has second thoughts so he and his friends (which includes Maury Chaykin) take it upon themselves to go to Johnson’s cabin to get the dog back and THEY instigate a fire fight. Hazel then goes to Edgar Millen (Lee Marvin), a veteran Mountie who knows that Hazel isn’t telling the truth. he goes to investigate, and then we have a siege on the cabin, as well as a subsequent manhunt across the frozen Canadian wilderness.
Death Hunt has a whole slew of character actors in fairly large supporting roles. I’m talking William Sanderson, Len Lesser, Carl Weathers, former starlet in the process of a career rejuvenation, Angie Dickinson, the already mentioned Ed Lauter, Maury Chaykin, and Andrew Stevens.
Interestingly enough the film is also a Golden Harvest and co-produced by Raymond Chow. Death Hunt has lots of wild action, and is also fairly graphic in some scenes showing the back of a man’s head blown off, another getting his arm stuck in a bear trap, and various other gunshots that are almost “Woo-ian” in their blood splatter.
The film also has a light tone to it in parts, such as the revelation of Carl Weathers’ character’s name as GEORGE WASHINGTON LINCOLN BROWN, an over the hill “Buffalo woman” who wants to make it with Andrew Stevens’ fresh faced Mountie, and hey, the film also has Ed Lauter kissing Andrew Stevens and telling him he’s pretty. Its got something for everyone.
Definitely check out Death Hunt. It’s worth a look.
