La morte in canoa

Charles Duke returns to his hometown in Oregon for a holiday, but unwillingly gets caught up along with congressman Jim Corbin political campaign. But Jim is not welcome, as he signed a paper to protect the surrounding wilderness and the town's local cutting mill is closed down because of it. To improve his image with the country folks. He and his secretary, along with Charles and two hometown friends go on a rafting trip. Three unemployed loggers who have been on the drink decide to start shooting at them for fun, but they accidentally kill one and go out of their make to make sure there's no more witnesses.

I really enjoy these types of survival films, and while the formulaic low-budget "Killing at Hell's Gate" is just another one of those battling the elements of nature and man. This is a more than decent made for TV time filler. While coming out around the same time of "Southern Comfort", it seems to share more common ground with the haunting 70s classic "Deliverance". You could almost call it a lesser clone with the hillbillies being replaced with laid-off woodcutters. No way can it match that film's power, but for what is was it's very well put together.

The way the film starts off its more interested in sitting through the cynical politics of this environmental issue, but it never gets too pushy and plays both sides of the coin reasonably. It's slow to get going, as it takes its time to set-up the situation with dramatic sub-plots and letting the impressively beautiful location photography shape up. When it gets lively and picks up the pace after the 45-minute mark. The agile camera-work gets adventurous and director Jerry Jameson rallies up the taut suspense in mildly successful spurts. The problem is it can't seem to sustain the tension throughout. Wearing it off was the editing so it could be played on TV. So those supposed TV breaks (when the screen went black) and the fade-away shot can destroy the mood. Gladly the riverside scenery was a pleasant viewing. A jarring atmosphere might be lacking and the routine (if stalling) script offers really no element of surprise, but Jameson's sturdily practical direction paves way for a solid outing without going out too hard. The film's final climax comes and goes with very little effect and marginally disappoints with its deflated ending. Like these TV presentations cook up, we get one melodically rumbling music score that caters for all moods that the story seems to splash up.

The performances are particularly sound and a few familiar faces show up. Robert Urich is engagingly credible as Charles. An adorably plucky redhead Lee Purcell is good as the businesses minded secretary Jane Pasco and the gorgeously confident Deborah Raffin is superb as "blue eyes" Anna Medley. As for the drunken loggers. A memorably bellowing Brion James plays the psycho lout with great ticker. George DiCenzo is equally as vile and bitter in his striking performance as the head figure Sam.

There's nothing particularly special finding its way into this foray, but efficient handling (and Brion James) makes this workman-like venture passable entertainment.

Beginning in the late 1940s, a good many films have been produced with a rousingly scenic background of white water rafting, enough indeed to constitute a cinematic genre, and this work fits well within that classification. A low budget action melodrama, with retakes not easily to be managed due to the rushing waters that give some of the principal characters an appearance of drowned rats, it is a scenery propelled affair with some able stunt work from performers following that vocation. Action opens in a suburb of Washington, D.C., at a garden party where is seen a Justice Department attorney, Charles Duke (Robert Urich) being manipulated into agreeing, although reluctantly, to provide guide service for an Oregon senator, Jim Corbin (Paul Burke) and his assistant Jane (Lee Purcell) while accompanying southern Oregon native Duke on his planned vacation rafting trip, this a ploy to allow the congressman to garner support for his pending wilderness preservation legislation. Duke and his new companions then travel to Charley's home town, Hell's Gate, fronting the Rogue River, where he visits old friends Jack and Anna, and they decide to join with the others for a white water adventure, a trailing craft to carry Corbin and the two women, albeit the lawmaker and his secretary have no rafting experience. At this point, a trio of disgruntled local loggers enters the plot, their employer, a lumber mill, having closed because of the conservation efforts of Corbin and others, the woodsmen additionally resentful of Duke's career success after he opted to leave the Pacific Northwest in order to enter Federal government service. Serious complications arise when the now intoxicated loggers, filled with despair at losing their source of employment, spontaneously endeavour to sink the rafts with rifle fire, inadvertently killing one of the rafting party and leading to a lengthy sequence of stalking and fleeing as the desperate rurals intend to kill the surviving four rafters, thereby cancelling all witnesses to their act of manslaughter. The rapid river that jars the voyagers (and cameras) clearly becomes a storyline character in its own right, added to a cast that includes the somewhat cretinous villains although the latter are blessedly spared by the script those psychosexual excesses given to others of their breed that frequent this particular cinematic category; Deborah Raffin earns acting laurels here with a nicely layered turn as a woman uncertain as to from which direction her happiness should be sought. The longstanding conflict between Oregon's wilderness conservationists and logging interests is handled with proper concern for both sides, with even the generically moronic Forces of Evil furnished a concrete point of view, while the politician played by Burke is given an uncommonly positive image as a man who regrets that his legislative reforms will bring hardship to many whose gainfully employed days are possibly at an end. Shot entirely on and near the Rogue River the film, despite standardized exploits from its hero. and a prominent made for television pedigree, is a better than average effort thanks to, amid its virtues, a refreshing and total lack of gratuitous gore. Director Jerry Jameson, a specialist in helming productions that showcase people facing great physical danger caused by non-human factors, handles well the better than standard dialogue, wisely utilizing moments of silence in a natural fashion and to a viewer's satisfaction.

For two thirds of the 96 minute running time, "Killing At Hell's Gate" is mostly an ecological, political, talk fest. In addition, there is considerable tedious romantic reminiscing by two very shallow past lovers, played by Robert Ulrich and Deborah Raffin. When bad guy, Brion James, is the most interesting character, and his screen time is extremely limited, you can justifiably reason the highlight could be some beautiful location photography. Indeed, this tree huggers vs log cutters rafting trip gone bad, steadily loses momentum, until a very rushed conclusion. The influence of "Deliverance" is obvious, but there are better rafting TV movies like "White Mile", and far better hunted in the woods movies such as "Hunter's Blood". - MERK