1976 - KILLER FORCE aka THE DIAMOND MERCENARIES

Filmed mostly on location in South Africa, Killer Force is about a team of thieves who decide to rob a diamond mining complex of twenty million dollars in uncut diamonds.  The director is Val Guest who apparently rewrote the script as the film went into production.  Not the best way to make a movie.  Guest also called this film one of the most difficult assignments of his career.

The film has an unusual cast, Telly Savalas in what can only be described as a "paycheck performance" is the head of security.  Savalas dresses in some cool 1970's clothes and wears a pair of sunglasses throughout the film as he walks through his part.  Peter Fonda is one of the diamond mine's security team. Fonda is sporting a really bushy beard and sort of plays his part as a half hippie, half action hero.  Maud Adams the model turned actress is the unlikely girlfriend of the hairy Fonda.  Christopher Lee is part of the team of thieves, yet another bad guy performance from him.  Hugh O'Brian and O.J. Simpson apparently represent the American contingent in more oddball casting.

 

This is not a great film for the most part.  I suppose there is some entertainment value seeing this weirdo cast but the film seems rather sloppy in the acting and story telling departments.  The last 30-40 minutes is a big action climax with a shootout and a car chase in the desert to keep a viewer awake.  If you like to watch things blow up or lots of guys getting shot this will do.

 

Screenplay by Val Guest,  Gerald Sanford and Michael Winder, the running time is 102 minutes

1970 - WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH, the 2nd film in Hammer's prehistoric trilogy.

 A followup to the Raquel Welch/Ray Harryhausen film One Million Years B.C..

The film has excellent stop motion dinosaur special effects from Jim Danforth who also did the matte paintings and for want of a better phrase "eye popping" views of model Victoria Verdi.  

The director and screenwriter Val Guest who also seemed game for trying out something different has cooked up a story from J. G. Ballard and he has crammed so much action into it that the fact that the cast can only speak in monosyllabic words doesn't distract from the happenings one single bit.

 

I doubt that Victoria Verdi was ever much of an actress since I see a credit for her in that classic film Invasion of the Bee Girls. But nobody at Hammer hired her because they saw her on the stage performing Hedda Gabler.

 

The film was shot on location in the Canary Islands which from the looks of it probably isn't much of a vacation spot.  

 

The film made money for Hammer studios and was followed by Creatures the World Forgot, which was a real step down from the two previous films.

The running time is 100 minutes.  96 minutes in the U.S. because the frontal nudity was cut out.

1966 - WHERE THE SPIES ARE, another spy film from 1960's

 MGM studios looking to get a piece of the pie of the James Bond spy crazy hired Val Guest to direct this story from a novel by thriller writer Jame Leasor.  

It's all here, the beautiful girls, the spy gadgets, the exotic locations and the usual amount of spy vs spy action.  But Val Guest and his screenwriter have a little more on their mind than just another James Bond rehash.  People in this film actually get hurt and die as opposed to the usual callous disregard for human life found in these films.

The film is well cast with the proper English gentlemen David Niven as the reluctant spy Dr. James Love.  His love interest is played by Françoise Dorléac sister of Catherine Deneuve.  Dorleac's career was just starting to take off when she died in a tragic car accident.

 

Where The Spies Are lacks the frenetic and outlandish action of the James Bond series but a more realistic espionage film is actually a relief to watch in this case.

 

An entertaining 110 minutes.  Val Guest's next challenge was bringing some coherency to the overblown James Bond satire Casino Royale (1967) which he should have been given some kind of special award for.

1955 - THE QUARTERMASS XPERIMENT or THE CREEPING UNKNOWN

The first of three Hammer "Quartermass" films.  This one features the American actor Brian Donlevy as the very American head of England's space program!  The plot is about the first flight into space of a rocket ship with three astronauts.  When the ship returns only one of the astronauts remains

Nigel Kneale wrote the original science fiction serial for British television and he was mighty unhappy with Hammer's film version of his story.  The serial was condensed and the ending was changed.  Kneale was also not amused with the casting of Donlevy as Professor Quartermass

Still for a 1950's science fiction film and in particular a British 1950's science fiction film it's not too bad.  The director/co-screenwriter Val Guest might be a little stiff with the story telling but he gets the job done.  For a film which is essentially an alien invasion story, nobody seems particularly worked up about the situation.  Well that's the "stiff upper lipped"  British way.    

Let's face it the British film industry during the 1950's and early 60's weren't especially known for science fiction films or musicals for that matter.  With the exception of the never ending Dr. Who serial which was primarily targeted at children, The Quartermass Xperiment must have seemed like mighty high brow science fiction drama. 

82 minutes