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Double Nickels (1977)
H.B. Halicki would be proud
While it may not be as entertaining as the original GONE IN 60 SECONDS, it still delivers a lot of car chases, crashes, and more automotive mayhem, with decent writing and directing by Jack Vacek, who worked as a cameraman on SECONDS.
Vacek plays cool-cat California highway patrolmen Smokey who does his best to patrol the roads with his partner and best friend, Ed (Ed Abrams). One day, they pull a car over belonging to a repo man George (George Cole), but they find him likable enough that the stranger offers to give them work repossessing cars. Unfortunately, every repo job they receive gets a tip-off from the cops, leading to the usual chase scenes. George confesses that the guy who's behind it all is crime boss Lewis Sloan (Tex Taylor). So the gang takes away Sloan's Corvette, suddenly all hell breaks loose, leading to a wild car chase finale.
DOUBLE NICKELS is virtually a follow-up to SECONDS, with the same crew, cast, etc. Vacek did make another decent action movie almost a decade later, DEADLY ADDICTION, released on video as ROCK HOUSE. Both films are quite good.
Detective School Dropouts (1986)
A can of coca-cola costs $4?!
This hilarious comedy from the producing team of Golan-Globus is probably the best, but sadly obscure film to come out from the Cannon label, even for a movie to come out in 1986.
David Landsberg stars as Donald Wilson, a nebbish nerd whose obsession with crime novels forces him to lose a string of jobs after one comic mishap after another. One day, he notices a sign on a phone booth advertising to be a detective. The agency responsible is Miller Detective Agency run by Paul Miller (Lorin Dreyfuss, older brother of Richard), a slick high-roller whose business is in financial trouble because Paul has owed money to a lot of people and some will stop at nothing to get it. Donald enrolls into Paul's so- called "class" and learns lock picking, firearms, and even writing checks and paying money to Paul for owing purposes. One day, they stumble across a kidnapping plot involving a young couple, Carlo and Catherina madly in love that's hampered by the rivalry of two Italian mafia families, the Zanettis and the Lombardis. The Lombardi patriarch assign brutish hit-man Bruno (exploitation favorite George Eastman to kidnap Catherina, who is in New York visiting her cousin, Mario. Donald and Paul go to the house she's in on a whim as part of a fake dog newspaper ad. Catherina gives Donald a valuable pennant, but Bruno notices this and chases him and Paul out of the house. They decide to take the pennant back to Mario, who's boarded a plane back home to Italy. They then find themselves in the country and must put an end to the 200 year old feud between the families and reunite Carlo and Catherina.
Landsberg and Dreyfuss, who also wrote the screenplay, have terrific chemistry together and the film contains a lot of funny slapstick gags, many of which Bruno gets the brunt of. It also includes a wild car chase through the streets of Rome, when a movie set and a city market get obliterated, as well as a daring foot chase in the Leaning Tower of Piza. Even Donald gets to drive a Ferrari that ends in a bad crash.
The two guys would write and star in another film the following year, DUTCH TREAT, that sadly wasn't as well-received as this one.
Tricky Chicks (1957)
Not a good ending to Jules White's career
The GIRLIE WHIRLS was Columbia's final attempt to create a new series of two-reelers after the Stooges left the shorts department in 1957, when they completed their final filmed short, FLYING SAUCER DAFFY. Unfortunately, this new series produced only one two-reeler, TRICKY CHICKS, which is the low point in Jules White's swan song when he left Columbia in 1958 when studio head and tyrant Harry Cohn passed away.
Muriel Landers is the star of this dreadful short, but she would be better known for the co-starring role she had in SWEET AND HOT with the Stooges. Landers is a nightclub singer who is mistakenly suspected of being an enemy agent, by two FBI men (Dick Wessel and William Leslie). Pretty much, that's the whole plot. Even Benny Rubin shows up doing an unfunny portrayal of a Texan millionaire. Boy, Jules was really slumming with this one.
Hot Heir (1947)
One of the better Herbert shorts.
Hugh receives a telegram from his rich uncle Newton explaining he is coming for a visit, which excites him, but things go from bad to worse when he is caught in a compromising position with a female neighbor, Hugh's wife, and the neighbor's husband. Hugh is then forced to fix the situation before uncle Newton arrives.
This was the last Herbert short directed by Edward Bernds, due to a falling-out behind the scenes stating that Herbert didn't give it his best. Herbert had been a popular supporting comic actor in the 1930s at Warner Bros., Universal, and several other studios. His forte was dialogue humor, not slapstick. Shortly after, producer Hugh McCollum had brought back veteran director Del Lord to helm the Herbert comedies produced for the unit, although Bernds would write a later Herbert short, TROUBLE IN-LAWS directed by McCollum. Bernds would remake HOT HEIR with the Stooges as GENTS IN A JAM, which would be the final short for Bernds when he left the studio when Jules White fired McCollum.
Loose Loot (1953)
One of the better Stooges remakes
By 1952, the production costs of the Columbia shorts skyrocketed, so Jules White decided to remake a lot of Stooges shorts using both old and new footage. Even though everybody thinks remakes are not as good as the originals, this is one of the rare occasions where it's actually enjoyable.
The short is a direct remake of 1947's HOLD THAT LION!, but instead of tracking Icabod Slipp to a moving train, they spot him at a local theater where they are cornered by him and his burly henchman (Tom Kennedy). They manage to hide in a nearby dressing room where they trap Slipp's head in a chair and pelt fruit and eggs on his face. The final, surreal gag has a portrait of Napoleon actually stealing the duffel bag of money. Moe manages to knock him out with a brick and the Stooges actually climb inside the portrait to retrieve the money.
Be forewarned, BOOTY AND THE BEAST, a later Stooges short, uses the train sequence from LION!, but it's not a remake of it, just stock footage.
Phoney Cronies (1942)
Funny, but violent Columbia two-reeler
Swedish dialect comic El Brendel made a number of comedy shorts for Columbia from 1936-1945 (his final two-reelers shared star billing with an ailing Harry Langdon) and this is considered to be a rather violent two-reeler, despite it being directed by Harry Edwards and produced by Del Lord and Hugh McCollum. I agree THEY STOOGE TO CONGA was more violent than this, thanks to a gruesome climbing spike sequence. Makes me sort of wonder why Jules White didn't direct CRONIES.
El and his partner Tom Kennedy work for the Astoria Transfer Company, with their bookkeeper Petty Larsen (Dudley Dickerson) acting more like a third assistant. The first half mainly revolves around the disastrous attempt at moving valuable antiques from a collector's home (played to the hilt by Monte Collins) and poor Monte gets his foot caught in a stepladder, gets dishes pummeled on him and even gets his broken foot crushed by a grand piano.
The short's second half turns into a standard scare comedy as El, Tom, and Dudley deliver crates to a spooky museum late at night. The crates supposedly contain artifacts, but one contains a crook who is trying to steal a priceless Buddha with his partner. Scares abound as the hapless movers get chased by the crooks wielding swords and the short's final scene has them running off when a cannon finds itself tied to El's back as they make a hasty retreat.
I can't recommend this short enough as it has knockabout slapstick and funny gags. Though I sort of wonder why it was never considered for the Stooges themselves.