1979 - CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 aka The Concorde Affair

Released in the same year as the ridiculous The Concorde... Airport '79.  This film was a typical attempt by the Italian film industry to do what they do best rip off current American films. Basically stealing their plot lines and loading them up with past their prime American performers.   In this case instead of releasing just another crappy rework of an American film this is actually more entertaining than The Concorde... Airport '79, well go figure.

There is a conspiracy by a nameless corporation to sabotage the then fashionable faster than sound Concorde airplane.  They want to sell their own version of that plane by blowing up Concordes apparently. An investigative journalist played by American actor James Franciscus manages to locate the last survivor of  the latest Concorde plan crash played by actor Mimsy Farmer.  (Now there's a woman who had an interesting career).  Well the chase is on as the two of them have to avoid being killed by assassins so they can reveal the truth of these Concorde plane crashes.

 

The film was directed by Ruggero Deodato who in his film career made the very extreme horror film Cannibal Holocaust and one of the craziest science fiction action films ever made Raiders of Atlantis.  Besides Franciscus, Joseph Cotton and Van Johnson show up in the film as is the way with casting in these Italian productions.

 

This is an entertaining action film that zips along at a decent pace and as I indicated at the top of this post is a lot more entertaining and believe it or not more plausible than The Concorde... Airport '79 which frankly wouldn't take all that much. 

The film was written by Ernesto Gastaldi and Renzo Genta, the running time is 96 minutes. 

1983 - I PREDATORI DI ATLANTIDE, or Atlantis or Atlantis Inferno or The Atlantis Interceptors or The Raiders of Atlantis

A movie every cult film buff makes fun of and enjoys for it's ridiculous plot.

The lost continent of Atlantis has risen from the Atlantic Ocean, apparently near Miami, and is now being protected by a bike gang dedicated to killing everyone while they wait for the descendants of Atlantis to reappear and take over the world.  Meanwhile a group of survivors of an oil rig platform explosion are saved by two criminals on the lam for a kidnapping they took part in.  This group battles the bike gang and attempts to stop Atlantis from taking over the world.

The recap of this ridiculous plot and the low budget special effects are the appeal for cult film buffs but if you can get past the clearly intentional silliness, this is a very entertaining action film with lots of non stop and very enjoyable action.  

The movie stars TV actor Christopher Connelly, who I remember as a guest star from almost every TV show I watched in the 1960's and 70's.  How he ended up in Italy filming B movies would probably be an interesting little story, but I imagine a working actor heading into his mid 40's takes anything he can get. 

The director Ruggero Deodato, appears to have somewhat of a sense of humor even if it is a rather lame one, he has two ongoing jokes one about eating spinach dinners and the other featuring one of the characters converting to the Muslim religion. 

This B movie is just as entertaining as anything I have seen in a 100 million dollar film.  The movie is a quick 92 minutes long.  What ever it's shortcomings in plot and characterization, it more than makes up for with it's outlandishness and entertaining action scenes.

Written by Vincenzo Mannino and Dardeno Sacchetti.