lrzeitlin Reviews

Who Finds a Friend Finds a Treasure (1981)

The Three Stooges meet Jackie Chan on Gilligan's Island

[7/10 · 17 September 2006]

This is pure escapist slapstick comedy. Don't try to find any hidden meaning in the simple plot. There isn't any. Terence Hill, in hock to gangsters, is given a map which purports to show the location of a hidden treasure on the mysterious island of Bongo Bongo. He stows away on a small motorsailer captained by bearlike Bud Spencer which is leaving on a circumnavigation. Despite the fact that the boat is only 30 feet long, the two blundering mutually antagonistic Hill and Spencer manage to keep out of each others way until well into the voyage. The stowaway scenes are the comedic highlight of the movie. The rest is slapstick bluster. The point of departure is obviously Miami, Florida but Bongo Bongo is located in the South Seas. Hill manages to rig the compass so that the boat heads for the island instead of on its intended course. During a tussle both fall overboard and swim for the island, a tropic paradise inhabited by natives who behave like the cast from a 1920s Harlem musical. The island is guarded by a Japanese WW2 soldier unaware that the war is long over. He fires shots randomly in all directions narrowly missing both protagonists. Naturally the treasure is hidden in his fort. Hill and Spencer demolish the fort and most of the other structures on the island with the help of an abandoned WW2 Japanese tank. At this point the Japanese soldier reveals a remarkable talent for English music hall comedy and the three become allies. Periodically the island is visited by slave traders and the gangsters who, having found a duplicate map, are also looking for the treasure. Like Gilligan's Island, everyone except Hill and Spencer seem to come and go as they please. Each visit results in a slapstick melee in which Hill and Spencer are uniformly victorious, performing Jackie Chan feats of derring do. The escape from the island is anti-climatic except for the surprise ending which is as improbable as the rest of the story.

I must confess that I watched this movie because I own the original boat that was featured in the first half. It is a 1974 Willard Horizon motorsailer and looks just as it did in the film. The previous owner was a technical consultant on the seagoing sequences for the producer. I'm a fan of the boat, not necessarily the actors - but the film is a good family diversion on a rainy night. The kids will love it.

Paradisio (1962)

Making of Paradisio

[10/10 · 9 August 2006]

I was one of the authors of this little soft porn film-making conceit. It had its genesis in the film writer's strike of 1959-60. Hollywood studios were shut down. While the stars and executives didn't suffer, most of the film making trades, paid by the picture, were out of work. Low budge nudie films such as "The Immoral Mr. Teas" were cleaning up as second acts in burlesque houses. A couple of movie studio friends and I, having a lot of time on our hands, felt that we could make a sleazy picture as good as those currently being shown. In Hollywood that was the only game in town.

I sketched out the basic story of a professor with x-ray glasses that would let him see through fabric. The writer/director Henri Haile fleshed it out into a screen play. Henri Haile was, in fact, Haile Chase, a B film director and a dialog coach for independent studios. Jacques Henrici was Michael Baumhole, a studio publicist. I was the only one naive enough to put my real name on the film. In a couple of days we had an 80 page script, originally titled "Around the World in Eighty Ways." The budget was what we had in our bank accounts. We decided to film in Europe, both to avoid union rates and to get scenery unavailable in California. Besides, it was a good excuse for a vacation.

Our original choice for the lead actor was Alastaire Sims, but he was unavailable. We settled on Arthur Howard, a fortuitous choice, since he worked for less money and obviously relished the opportunity for getting a starring role. We filmed all over Europe, hiring local independent camera men, many who had filmed prize winning short subjects. The film making industry was undergoing a technical revolution at the time. Hand held Arriflex cameras could produce image quality as good as studio Bell and Howell equipment. All scenes were filmed on location because we couldn't afford sound stages. Local actors took all the secondary roles. Nudity wasn't a big deal in European films and we had no difficulty getting full exposure. We enjoyed the experience, Arthur enjoyed the experience. And then the writer's strike was over. Real jobs called. We returned to the USA with 10,000 feet of exposed film and no contract for theatrical release.

On our return we sold the largely unedited footage to Jack Harris, a distributor of second bill (and soft porn) films. Harris had the theatrical contacts to get the film shown. He is the one who spliced in the color segments when Professor Sims put on his glasses and added the 3- D effects. The film was released in the US to modest success but made a big hit in Japan. I understand that it became a minor cult favorite during the 80s.

Haile Chase went on to direct a number of unexceptional studio potboilers. Michael Baumhole returned to the publicity department. I took a teaching position at a New York university. We had a ball making this crummy nudie flick.

Lawrence Zeitlin