Savage Beach

My review was written in October 1989 after watching the movie at a Times Square screening room.

"Savage Beach" is an entertaining action pic, the third followup film to Andy Sidaris' "Malibu Express". Newest effort should do modestly well in regional theatrical release commencing October 13 in Gotham, ahead of the guaranteed video/cable market.

Lovely blonde thesps Dona Speir and Hope Marie Carlton return for the third time (following "Hard Ticket to Hawaii" and "Picasso Trigger") in their lead roles as government drug enforcement agents who moonlight as air cargo haulers. Returning home from an emergency serum delivery to ailing kiddies on a remote island, they crash land on Knox Island, 600 miles from their Molokai homebase.

Coincidentally, numerous opposing forces are converging on the island in search of a horde of gold stolen by the Japanese from the Philippines and originally lost in 1943 when its transport ship sunk. Among these are U. S. army & navy types, led by John Aprea, a secret CIA infiltrator (Burce Penhall), a pair of Japanese mercenaries plus two communist insurgents from the Philippines (Rorigo Obregon and Teri Weigel).

There is a surprisingly serious subplot, involving a Japanese warrior (Michael Mikasa) still left on the island 46 years later guarding the gold but guilt ridden for having killed defenseless U. S. navy men who washed up on the island. He takes a liking to Carlton and protects her in the ensuing action.

Filmmaker Andy Sidaris ensures that most of the action is campy fun with his oddball dialog and predilection for having the female cast strip in the least likely situations. For equal time to appease women in the audience there is a new, handsome leading man, Michael Shane as Shane Abiliene, nominal leader of the good guys.

Speir is an impressively tough heroine, while Carlton is allowed to show her soft side via the platonic romance with warrior Mikasa. Unfortunately, the wrinkly makeup converting young Mikasa into an ancient WW II vet is unconvincing.

Odd touch has all of the sex scenes devoted to the heavies, as Obregon and smoldering brunette Weigel discuss the "revolution" while bedding down.

Howard Wexler' lensing makes for a colorful package and producer Arlene Sidaris gets a lot of production value on screen within a modest budget. Action fans who favor a tongue-in-cheek approach will enjoy this one.

In 1989 the gals in this picture looked fantastic, and their outfits were out of this world. Dona Speir,(Donna),"Fit to Kill",'93, played a very hot looking gal who showed plenty of her flesh and especially her cleavage. Hope Marie,(Taryn),"Nactropolis",94, worked together with Donna and also showed a great deal of her body parts. These two gals wind up in forgotten Hawaiian isles where WW II was fought with the Japs and there still remained a single person who was still fighting the world and had regrets over having killed American's during the war. Donna and Hope are faced with all kinds of men in the jungle, and fighting hand to hand combat with big and small men who are drawn to these women like a magnet. The acting was horrible, and if it was not for the two women in this picture, my vote would have been ZERO !

I'm kind of on a Sidaris Marathon this evening. :)

This is the archtypical B movie with gratuitous use of scantily clad, and occasionally unclad women, but it's so typical that it could be considered maybe to define the genre.

It differs mostly in the actual quality of filming, and actual attractiveness of the women acting from the majority of other B's of its type.

It flows very well, so that you never really start to get bored or lulled. For the most part the scenes either make sense to the plot, and move it along or add a different kind of excitement.

Still, of course, only fans of typical B movies, like the kind that push the R rating a little further than mainstream tends to allow, would want to watch it. If you're into that, you'll find this film to be a bit better than average.

A typical entry in the Sidaris filmography, Savage Beach features the usual assortment of well-endowed women, goofy villains, and exotic locations, and is simple minded if occasionally violent fun. The highlight of this one is Michael Mikasa's appearance as a World War II Japanese soldier stranded on a remote island--in order to age him, the makeup department seems to have submerged his head in a bowl of collodion. It's not a pretty sight.

"Savage Beach" has the most unusual story of the Lethal Ladies series. Instead of an over-equipped investigation with a plan, this is more like an accidental adventure. No Las Vegas night clubs or expensive sports-cars - "Savage Beach" plays on a lonely island where a gold treasure was lost in WW II, yet still guarded by an isolated Japanese soldier. Not a new story (I remember "Who Finds a Friend Finds a Treasure", 1981), but with Sidaris' attention grabbing techniques (from explosions to boobs) it works great. Our heroines, the two pilots Donna (Dona Speir) and Taryn (H.M. Carlton), make an emergency landing on that island after a storm (another rarity: bad weather in a Sidaris movie). More and more sinister characters arrive to make the island unsafe. Al Leong (who later played the helicopter pilot in "Hard Hunted") gets a good role as a tough bad guy. A situation that stuck to my mind is when the Leatherface samurai frees Taryn and explains later: "I can't kill those eyes again" - what a moment of poetry, folks! Oh, and would you believe a bloke who calls Donna "bimbo" survives the next few seconds? This is the 4th out of 12 Sidaris movies I reviewed (in chronological order), and one should note that after 3 successful pictures which he had financed basically from his personal money, Sidaris was offered a deal about 5 more which kept the Lethal Ladies series going. "Savage Beach" surely was an impressive start for this new... uh... pentalogy!