ACTION MAN COLLECTION

VCI Entertainment's latest offering gathers four films spread across two DVDs. Despite billing this set as a "collection", it actually lumps 1967's ACTION MAN (a.k.a. LE SOLEIL DES VOYOUS; LEATHER AND NYLON; IL PIU GRANDE COLPO DEL SECOLO) with three other films that have nothing in common with it, other than that they too are crime movies from the late 60's or early 70's.

ACTION MAN, naturally, heads the set - all the stills utilised on the front cover come from this film too.

It starts off promisingly enough, the opening credits playing out over a prolonged traverse through French city streets as bullion is deposited to a central bank under a vigilant police escort. From the window of an apartment opposite, Denis (Jean Gabin) studies the ritual carefully.

Denis is a former gangster who has gone straight, and is now a successful businessman with a plush bar and a glamorous wife to count among his legitimate wealth. So intent on maintaining an honest front is he that when his wife discovers one of the bar staff selling cocaine on the premises, Denis is quick to slap the offender about and send him packing.

All of this changes when local mobsters pay the bar a visit after-hours, smashing the place up in a bid to intimidate the largely unflappable Denis into paying them protection money. Denis will not be bullied and attempts to fight back: thankfully the goons' ring-leader Jim (Robert Stack) enters at that point, and recognises Denis from days of old.

Jim helps Denis fight off the mobsters, sending them packing and back to the big boss he's recently been working for. It transpires that Jim and Denis are criminal acquaintances of old, and we learn that Jim has been travelling Europe for years while Denis has been trying his best to go straight.

Of course, you put two old lags together and pretty soon they're going to revert to type. True to form, Denis lets Jim in on his observations of the bank bullion drop-offs ... and the pair conspires to pull off "one last job" that will set them both up for life.

All goes well in the preliminary stages but then things begin to go awry: Jim falls for a pretty moll that Denis has warned him away from; rival mobsters get wind of the job and decide to take the booty for themselves. Luckily Jim is an ex-soldier who knows how to get tough when the going gets rough ...

ACTION MAN is a quaint little crime caper that belongs alongside the last gaps of classic noir in the late 50s. The fact that it stems from the late 60s makes it feel oddly even more dated in this respect.

It kicks off in fine fettle, with funky music and tight editing complementing some stylish colour schemes alongside the ever-wonderful Gabin (PEPE LE MOKO; LA GRANDE ILLUSION) commanding each scene he's in, despite being in his 60s at the time. The dialogue is suitably hard-boiled in an enjoyably old-fashioned way, the women are sexy without being slutty and director Jean Delannoy manages to keep things sufficiently cool.

But when Stack comes into the frame, it all seems to get bogged down with a flat script that's not helped by the dreadful English dubbing employed on this DVD version.

Stack is perhaps best known for portraying Elliot Ness in the early 60s TV show "The Untouchables". It is perhaps through unintentionally camp performances like the one he provides in ACTION MAN, though, that his later career - post-parodying himself in AIRPLANE! - was confined to minor parts in daytime cheese such as "Diagnosis: Murder" and "Recess".

Here, he plays the feisty muscle man Jim in a curiously gay manner that left me somewhat bemused and amused. For his part, it must be added that Stack allegedly took on the role hoping for a big break in to European cinema - he was reportedly told that the film would be directed by Francois Truffaut - so perhaps his weirdly off-kilter performance can be almost understood with this in mind.

Regardless, the film soon falls into a plodding pace and goes nowhere fast, thanks to its slack editing style and Delannoy's inability to breathe life into his potentially invigorating lead double-act.

The only time the film comes to life is during a couple of enjoyably corny fistfight scenes, where people do look like they're getting hit for real. And the dubbed "thump" sound effects are hilarious. Elsewhere, the romance scenes between an uncomfortable-looking Stack and his female opposite are cringe-inducing.

Disc one is completed by the more interesting THE DAY OF THE WOLVES, Ferde Grofe Jr's film from 1973.

See if this sounds familiar: A group of six robbers are teamed together by crime lord Number 1 (Jan Murray) to rob the banks of a small town, dressing in identical sharp suits and referring to each other only by their given names: Number 2 (Frankie Randall), Number 3 (Andre Marquis), Number 4 (Rick Jason), Number 5 (Zaldy Zshornack), Number 6 (Henry Capps) and, er, Number 7 (Smokey Roberds).

Where this differs from Tarantino's RESERVOIR DOGS is that there's a beleaguered sheriff - Pete (Richard Egan) - who steps up to take the gang on, hoping to redeem himself after making one misjudged local arrest too many.

Another humdrum offering, this one at least has a slightly better pace than ACTION MAN and a more endearing lead in the agreeably chiselled Egan.

The dialogue is rum, the plot displays some glaring inconsistencies and the final third throws plausibility out of the window with wild abandon. But WOLVES was entertaining, at least.

Over on disc two, the pedestrian direction and workmanlike cinematography (not unlike that which graces an episode of, say, "Kojak") continues with THE BIG GAME (a.k.a. CONTROL FACTOR).

Robert Day's 1972 effort sounds like being the best of this bunch. Its cast includes genre favourites Cameron Mitchell, Stephen Boyd and Ray Milland. But in actual fact it's an ugly and slow account of two hired hands assigned the duty of babysitting a professor and his latest invention: a sonic machine that can control armies.

Some unintentional "brain control" humour and risible dialogue keep this one from being utterly tedious, but for the most part it's a style-free and curiously unengaging haul through semi-sci-fi clichés.

Milland is underused, while Boyd and Mitchell look (understandably) tired throughout.

Which just leaves 1967's PEKING BLONDE (THE BLONDE FROM PEKING; LA BLONDE DE PEKIN) to round things off.

Directed with a modicum of energy by Nicolas Gessner, this colourful romp - based on James Hadley Chase's novel - at least looks good.

But nice use of colours and some arresting locations are not enough to make PEKING anything more than a rather convoluted and dim-witted "comedy" take on cold war thrillers, concerning the elusive search for a priceless jewel known as the Blue Grape.

Despite the likes of Edward G Robinson and Claudio Brook gracing its cast, and the lovely Giorgia Moll appearing as a sexy nurse, this is lame stuff from the director of the much better THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE.

Although none of these films are of great entertainment value, they are all perfectly watchable little pot-boilers that have their own points of interest (intriguing casts; noteworthy directors; the clear influence WOLVES must've had - along with THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123, CITY ON FIRE etc - on Tarantino). So it could be argued that this set would still be worthy of a buy to the curious collector.

It's just a shame that VCI have given the films such a shoddy treatment on DVD.

ACTION MAN looks terrible, in a washed-out non-anamorphic 2.35:1 presentation that seems to be mastered from a VHS source. Images are soft, colours bleed and ghosting is frequent.

The only thing worse that ACTION MAN's lousy picture quality is the mono audio. Not only is this the dubbed English track (it looks like even Stack was speaking French), but it's marred terribly by uneven volume and atrocious hissing whenever a character uses a word containing the letter "s". At one point, about 20 minutes in, I could've sworn two completely different voices began temporarily dubbing Stack and Gabin!

It doesn't get any better. WOLVES looks horrendously soft and worn too, and although its daintily naff score scores well in the audio stakes, the dialogue suffers from hiss and the occasional drop-out.

More crappy video and mono audio blight the films on disc two, although PEKING does admittedly get the best transfer out of the bunch. That's not saying a lot.

The only extras in the set are two trailers on disc two, for BURY ME DEAD and THE LIMPING MAN.

The greatest (only?) effort that has been made on each disc is the animated main menu pages, and animated scene-selection menus allowing access to each film via 12 chapters.

These films are relatively forgotten nowadays and although there's something charming about each one, the novelty wears thin by about halfway watching them and you soon remember they're forgotten for a good reason. It's not that they're terrible films as such, just that they're terribly mediocre.

VCI's DVD, on the other hand, is pretty terrible. While it's unrealistic to expect pristine restorations of these niche titles, it is flabbergasting to see such lousy-looking DVD presentations from a reputably company in this day and age.

Review by Stuart Willis