Reviews

This episode is clearly a remake of the classic movie "The Wages of Fear," which was remade by William Friedkin as "Sorcerer." Different context, of course, along with different topography, climate, etc., but very much the same premise. In this instance, there are three trucks, and the race against time is to save a group of trapped miners in the middle east, rather than to extinguish an oil well fire in South America. Frankly (no pun intended; okay, maybe a bit), I'm not wild about these stories that take Transporter Frank Martin out of his natural elements of a high-powered car on a stretch of highway or navigating tricky city streets, literally racing the clock. Without offering a quote, it's worth pointing out that Frank himself comments on how this particular "assignment" is taking him out of his element, as he must navigate marginally undriveable roads with slow, cautious, care. That said, if you haven't seen either of the films mentioned above, it ought to be a pretty riveting episode for you to view. There was a scene in "Sorcerer" (not replicated here) where the suspense became so intense I nearly had to get up and leave the theater.

One of my two favorite Martin & Lewis films (the other being Artists and Models), this one was originally released in 3-D. I had the pleasure of seeing it that way a few years ago at the first 3-D fest held at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, but the added depth really didn't make that much difference in being able to enjoy it.

Based on material by Damon Runyon (Guys & Dolls), much of it is typical Martin & Lewis fare, re-teaming them with heavy Robert Strauss and with Sheldon Leonard thrown into the mix for good measure. This may not be their absolute best, but it would be worth seeing if only for the scene that spoofs Cyrano de Bergerac to hilarious effect as Dean croons "I Only Have Eyes For You" before things go off the rails for Jerry.

I'm another one who saw the original production. Embarrassingly bad, though with one or two decent songs, as I recall. At one point, I thought I'd accidentally stumbled into a Chippendale's show. Kilmer can sing acceptably, but the songs are mostly, to say the least, thin and uninspired, and the choreography at times is just plain silly.

I later decided I had to buy a copy (used) of the DVD, just so when I tell people how bad this show was, I'll have proof. When watching the DVD, take note of the unenthusiastic, "polite" applause. And I'm figuring it was probably a conscious choice not to show the audience.

My wife wasn't able to join the rest of us to see the show, so I bought her a souvenir t-shirt, telling her that she got the better deal.

Finally got around to picking up a copy of this on DVD. Maybe my thoughts turned to it in part because Halloween is approaching.

I was surprised to discover a commentary track on the disc, especially the fact that on it, Christopher Lewis repeatedly talks about the quality of the script. I couldn't help but respond out loud "Then why did you treat it like one of the Ripper's victims?" In fairness, some of the discussion regarding budgetary limitations (for instance, in the area of lighting) explains why certain elements of my original drafts were eliminated, but it's still a frustrating watch for me to see the way certain things were thrown into the final shooting script that either had no story justification, changed the nature of one or more characters, incorporated lines that only made sense in connection with eliminated scenes from prior drafts, or just generally turned the premise of the thriller I'd written inside-out.

Let me just say this. Dance scene, among other things, not mine. In script, his fiancée was a theatre professor, and Harwell walks in during the first day's class during which she is teaching her improv class using an exercise known as "The Asylum," wherein the students spend the hour adopting some sort of fake psychosis. Hence, the Nurse Ratchet line. Harwell's dream sequence was more complex and of greater significance, and there were no actual murders occurring prior to Harwell putting on the ring.

Also, business and dialogue involving brass bed, not mine. I simply had her convincing him to join her in browsing an antique store near where they were having lunch.

The driving force of my original story was that the protagonist became increasingly aware that he had some connection to the series of murders, but in ways that were only evident to him, so there was a lot of internal torment going on. At the urging of Lewis, a later draft did introduce the notion that Steve was picking up on things. And Steve, incidentally, was essentially a younger version of Harwell, not the annoying geek in the final version.

There are too many differences between my climax/ending and what was in the final version to go into here. I'll just mention one. In my original, Jack had no dialogue. I wanted him to be akin to an evil spirit, with his silence actually reinforcing the fear, like the shark in "Jaws" or the vampire in the silent "Nosferatu" (yeah, I know he had title cards, but it's not the same as actually speaking like in the Herzog remake). Lewis felt that if Savini was gracious enough to accept the role, he should have some dialogue, so I tried to craft something that sounded right, while dropping vague hints at his motivation. Unfortunately, the most telling line in terms of motivation got mangled and having no coherent meaning. More unfortunately, I wasn't invited to be an ongoing part of the process, so I didn't realize the changes that had been made until I managed to invite myself onto the set for the one night of shooting with Savini.

Contrary to Lewis' mis-remembered comment as to whose idea it was to recruit Savini, it was mine. Having been impressed by his performance in George Romero's "Knightriders," I thought that if we was that good an actor, he'd probably like to do more of it, but likely wasn't offered many opportunities due to being in demand for his makeup talents. I've since apologized to him.

Cussler's novels have so many great action set pieces, that to whittle any of them down to a feature film immediately guts them of much of their fun. They would be better served in either a mini-series format or as a series a la "Alias" or "24," where there are strong story arcs and lots of cliffhangers.

It's unfortunate that the producers attempted to launch a film series with what is the most flawed of the Dirk Pitt novels. In fact, to their credit, some changes from the book actually do a better job of tying the historical backdrop to the contemporary story, and another edit makes somewhat more palatable the deus ex machina that saves Dirk and Al in the desert (the excised footage is included in the DVD's deleted scenes).

The casting isn't bad, although Al Giordino is described in the Cussler novels as being more like Monk from the Doc Savage pulps than any run-of-the-mill actor. Casting would inevitably be a challenge (though I've long envisioned Joe Piscopo as the closest "name" actor to the character), but Steve Zahn certainly doesn't match the literary version of Al. Still, I understand that Cussler signed off on him, and he always adds a fun presence to the pictures he appears in. As for Rudi Gunn, I've always imagined him to be smaller, maybe a bit like Barry Livingston (Ernie on "My Three Sons") or even actor Matt Craven. William H. Macy doesn't make a bad Sandecker, though he certainly gives the character more of a comical bent than he has in the novels.

All in all, the picture works on a very basic action-adventure level, but because of the scaling down required for the feature-length format, what we're left with is simply a decent action picture that's nothing special. Nevertheless, it certainly outperforms the one prior attempt to bring Dirk Pitt to the screen, "Raise the Titanic"; which, for all its failings, gave us a wonderful score by composer John Barry.

The movie is a bit sloppy from a technical standpoint, but it remains the only movie to make me literally laugh myself sick. The Farrelly brothers owe a huge debt to Robert Klane's mining of the twisted humor genre. For years, this was my video holy grail. Finally, it occurred to me that it probably showed up from time to time on the Fox Movie Channel; so, not having it on my cable system, I started buying the monthly satellite programming guides, and when it came up in the rotation on FMC, I had a friend tape it for me. A simple DVD release will not be adequate. This needs the full Special Edition treatment. And oh, how I hope there are outtakes.

This is a movie I could easily have missed. It played at a theater I worked at, and was an unusually rare booking in that, as I recall, it actually played for less than a week (talk about filler).

Nevertheless, it really is a gem of a comedy. Years later, working in a video store, I would frequently put it on the store monitor to play, and almost never got through the whole thing, because invariably someone would see a bit of it and then want to rent it.

Contrary to another user's comment, it would be hard to claim that Jay Leno's role is third. He has a good part, but he could hardly be placed ahead of Louis Jourdan or Tom Smothers. Possibly ahead of David Warner.

This is not some people's idea of comedy, as there are no fart jokes or car crashes, but it's a movie you find yourself chuckling at all the way through. A collection of classy comedic performances from the stars and supporting cast members Joss Ackland, Charles Gray, Jeremy Clyde (of Chad & Jeremy fame), and Leno, among others.

Be warned if looking for it on home video, however. Though the first release of it was in SP mode, it was later released in a bargain-bin EP/SLP version, which will of course look like crap. If only someone would put this gem out on DVD.