Woman in Anger

Really, really, really, really, really funny movie but man is it badly made. On the other hand its hard to make any movie good or bad so just the fact that anything gets onscreen is a downright miracle really...but seriously its not well made.

The lead actress is very Tommy Wisseau-esque tho--her accent, but also her outsize over-reaction to anything and everything that's also in the scene with her. She's a wee bit over the top you might say.

There's a grown woman playing a 5 year old girl here as well, as in she's actually supposed to be 5 and not a grown woman with the brain of a 5 year old...it doesn't make any sense, but i'm hoping it wasn't supposed to.

There's a sequence that's set at a party that turns into a drug laced freakout/orgy that seems to serve no purpose other than to give the people in the movie who aren't the main actress something to do.

Honestly nothing that happens in this movie makes any sense--it starts out trying to be a straight up revenge movie (this woman's sister gets killed and she comes to California to find the guys that did it) but somewhere around the lets say 20 minute mark, the movie turns into a woman on the run movie, and then it inexplicably becomes a love story--that part was actually the most believable because the actor who's playing against the lead actress is about as much an actor as she is--except where she goes completely and totally over the top, he's like underplaying every line--their love scene needs to be seen to be believed quite honestly.

How this hasn't been rediscovered as an object of cult fandom yet is a good question--its definitely every bit as nuts as The Room, but somehow The Room is still unquestionably the better movie! (At least The Room has some resolution at the end of its plot!)

Lady Street Fighter (1981)

** (out of 4)

Linda Allen (Renee Harmon) travels to Los Angeles after her sister was tortured and murdered by some mobsters. Before long she is killing one right after another but getting to the top guy is going to be challenging.

LADY STREET FIGHTER comes from director James Bryan who is best remembered for his 1981 slasher DON'T GO IN THE WOODS. This film here was apparently shot in the 70s but didn't get a release until the following decade. This film has no connection to the Sonny Chiba movies as the title was clearly added on just to try and attract people who might be interested in martial arts movies.

As far as the film goes, it's actually not too bad as long as you don't go in expecting something that the film isn't. If you're looking for great action and a tight, suspenseful plot then you're in the wrong movie. This here has a very low-budget and it's clear that the production was running out of money and probably various times. The film's first part works because of what the director was able to do with such a low-budget. The action scenes aren't special but they're at least fun and they keep you glued to what's going on. Bryan throws in plenty of nude scenes that are here for no other reason than people watching this film would want to see them.

The biggest issue with the film is the middle portion where the action stops and we're given a bunch of dialogue scenes that are both boring and make very little sense. I'm not sure why the action just stops but it just kills the film. Thankfully the action picks back up towards the end but by then it's too late. The film features a really annoying music score, which adds some camp value. The performances are pretty much what you'd expect from a film like this.

Apparently this movie was lost for a long time until being recently rediscovered. After watching it, it's clear why apparently nobody was keeping a close eye on it. While it isn't the worst movie I have seen, it is all the same a really amateurish effort in every department you can think of. The story makes absolutely no sense, almost as if it was being made up as the shoot was going on. The production values are rock bottom. The acting is pretty pitiful as well. Still, I will admit that there are a few small pleasures to be found here. A few action sequences, as crude as they are directed, do contain a little zip. And there are some touches of unintentional humor that are genuinely hilarious, from some really dopey dialogue to music that rips off Ennio Morricone's music for the movie "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly". But most of the movie is a really confusing slog to sit through, so I don't think it's worth watching the whole package just to get a few tiny nuggets of entertaining material. Why Turner Classic Movies thought this crudely made obscurity was worth broadcasting on their network, I cannot say.

Long after his movie career had dried up, Jody McCrea appeared in thsi direct-to-video opus, directed by James Bryan. The plot is a little obscure, but it seems to involve Renee Harmon (who also appeared in several Al Adamson movies) running around Brutalist architecture in Los Angeles, sucking on celery stalks, shooting at and being shot at by members of an assassin's organization which, as one character explains to another who already knows, has tens of thousands of members.

It seems to have been shot around 1975 and is a fine example of utter ineptness, given that the uncredited director of photography didn't bother to match light levels in the same scene even approximately, and the uncredited writer of the score seems to have used Morricone's theme for THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY, but played it on a synthesizer. Except for one Black woman, none of the performers seem to be able to give a line reading that makes sense.

On the plus side, Miss Harmon does show that it isn't easy to run in heels and there are several topless women.

A few movies are poor enough to be entertaining in their awfulness. This one doesn't even achieve that. the credits show that Miss Harmon is the producer. I guess she thought she was ready for the spotlight and willing to spend someone's money to prove it. She was wrong.

If director James Bryan never makes another movie, that's OK. He can rest on his laurels, having brought his vision to the screen in Executioner Part 2 and also with Don't Go in the Woods. AND, he also apparently sacrificed years of his life so that the rest of us could experience Lady Street Fighter.

As was the case in EP2 and DGITW, the audio in Lady Street Fighter is dubbed, apparently having been shot with no sound. It's safe to say the actors were bad to begin with, but having recorded the audio afterwards seems to have helped make their performances even more atrocious.

Plot involves an undercover female agent (with THICK German accent) assigned to kill a dirty FBI agent. The FBI agent has also been assigned to kill her. Attracted to one another, they have an affair in between car chases and shoot outs. Plot specifics aren't explained well at all, but I *can* tell you the movie is hilarious in parts. It really is terrible. Kookie music, bad dialogue, a hit man who seems to say "Get it?" after every other sentence. Awful, I tell ya.

If you like bad movies, check this one out. It's hard to find, but hopefully it'll get a DVD release someday.