Ek Tha Tiger (India, 2012)

As the man who literally wrote the book on 1970s Indian action movies, it was enlightening for me to see a more recent example of the Bollywood spy films that the Hindi film industry is so fond of revisiting. And while 2012’s Ek Tha Tiger testifies to an industry miles ahead in terms of slickness, technical prowess and production value of the one that made films like Golden Eyes: Secret Agent 077 and Gunmaster G9, it also demonstrates that Bollywood is no less, if not more, influenced by Hollywood in its approach to tackling commercial genres.

For instance, within the first ten minutes of Ek Tha Tiger, I pegged it as being an Indian take on a very specific type of Hollywood action film--by which I mean a vehicle for a bankable, preternaturally fit star with an unlikable public persona who does penitence by sacrificing his gym-toned body on the torture wheel of post-millennial action spectacle. In this case, that star is accused domestic abuser and animal murderer Salman Kahn, who, in the film’s opening scene, is involved in a harrowing foot chase along the alleyways and across the rooftops of an Iraqi city (which I imagine was described in the script as “just like the one at the beginning of Casino Royale.”) Of course, Khan’s alleged crimes are more serious than those of Tom Cruise, who was made to hang from the roof of Singapore’s tallest building for sullying Oprah Winfrey’s couch, which kind of makes us Americans look like quite an unforgiving lot.

But that doesn’t really matter, because, almost as soon as that opening scene ends, Ek Tha Tiger shuffles genres like a well curated mixtape and plants us down in the middle of a pretty by-the-numbers Bollywood romcom. This happens when Khan, playing the dutiful Indian secret agent known as Tiger, meets Zoya (newcomer Katrina Kaif), the comely housekeeper of the professor whom he has been charged with protecting from Pakistani assassins. While Tiger is immediately, if reluctantly, smitten, Zoya, haughty and Western educated (this part of the film takes place at Ireland’s Trinity College) is resistant to his charms. So, yes, the type of by-the-numbers Bollywood romcom I’m talking about is that one where (sigh) a red blooded Indian boy is tasked with breaking the spirit of a willful girl via a nagging ritual that seems a lot more like stalking than courtship.

This conflict between love and duty, along with the academic setting, gives Ek Tha Tiger a superficial similarity to Farah Khan’s Main Hoon Naa, though to compare the two doesn’t flatter it. Khan and Kaif simply lack the chemistry and charm of Main Hoon Naa’s stars, Shah Rukh Khan and Sushmita Sen, while Salman Khan is too self-absorbed to attempt the type of self-parody that SRK proves so expert at in Main Hoon Naa Furthermore, Main Hoon Naa, as directed by Farah Khan, both a choreographer and a director, is a film that pulsates joyously with its music, while Ek Tha Tiger’s score is meager (I don’t think I counted more than four songs) and the dancing prosaically staged.

Eventually Zoya is revealed to be a rogue agent of the Pakistani secret service and she and Tiger, now pursued by the intelligence agencies of both of their countries, must go on the run. This leads into an episode marked by a series of the kind of beautifully shot location sequences that beg the question, "How can two such pretty people in such pretty places not fall totally in love?" And the answer is that they totally do.

Zoya is finally captured and taken hostage, at which point Tiger and his colleagues must enact a daring rescue. It is at this point that Ek Tha Tiger awakens from its reverie as if having received a well-intentioned slap to the face and becomes the stunt-filled, explosion laden killfest that we all (well, some of us) have been hoping it would become all along. During this section we get to see Zoya repeatedly demonstrate the She-Hulk like ability to drop from thirty feet and land on her feet without shattering her knees. We also get to see Salman Khan punched in the face in slow motion, which is pretty gratifying.

I don’t mean to be too hard on Ek Tha Tiger, but I think that, given it was an international box office smash, it can stand to take a few well-intentioned knocks to the chin. It is, in all honesty, not a hard film to watch. It’s an expertly made commercial entertainment that gives its audience everything they could ask for, though in a perhaps less manic and well apportioned manner than the Masala films of old. And there lies the greatest difference between it and the Indian spy films of the 60s, 70s, and 80s: rather than stirring its disparate genre elements into a rough stew, it puts them in a kind of narrative Cuisinart, providing its audience with a ride that is less bumpy and dizzying than its predecessors. If you see this as some kind of loss (as I do), I prescribe that you chase this film down with a viewing of James Bond 777.

LSD: Flesh of Devil, aka LSD: Inferno Per Poshi Dollari (Italy, 1967)

Given LSD: Flesh of Devil’s (sic) fervent anti-LSD rhetoric—“the most powerful hallucinating agent yet known” says one character, the effects of which on the human mind are “terrifying”—you’d hardly know that the drug was still legal in the U.S. at the time. But LSD: Flesh of Devil was not made in the U.S.; it was made in Italy, and, as such, takes a very Italian viewpoint on its titular scourge. Devilish the drug may be, it seems to say, but watching someone under its influence is pure comedy.

The film begins admirably, with lady secret agent Sheila (Mariella Zanetti) in mid pursuit of a shady jewelry dealer named Alex Corey (Isarco Ravaioli), who is acting as a drug courier for an effete crime lord named Korba (Mario Valgoli). Aiding Sheila is her partner, secret agent Rex Miller, who watches the chase through a periscope from his hiding place within a repurposed tanker truck. Finally, upon Rex’s direction, a sniper takes Corey out. His car crashes and, of course, explodes, whereupon Miller runs over and pulls his presumably contraband-filled brief case from the flames. Then he and Shiela go back to their hotel room and screw—because, hey, this is an Italian spy movie from the 60s; what do you want?

Rex Miller is played by Guy Madison, the American cowboy star-turned-Italian exploitation hero who we previously saw in The Devil’s Man, a Eurospy film memorable for both its pitiful impoverishment and the elliptical minimalism necessitated by same. The usually straight-laced Madison makes LSD: Flesh of Devil all the more interesting for some of the goofy stuff he has to do in it.

Miller’s plan is to impersonate Corey and make the delivery to Korba, who is just part of a much larger drug smuggling operation headed by one Mr. X (Adriano Micantoni), who must have been last in line when the diabolical pseudonyms were being handed out. Miller hopes by this means to infiltrate the gang and unmask its leader. In this he is superficially successful, although Korba remains suspicious, perhaps because Miller is too rugged and handsome for such a dissolute profession.

LSD: Flesh of Devil is at its arguable best when depicting the effects of LSD. This usually happens when Korba and his gang test their product on an unwitting innocent, but the most outstanding instance is during Miller’s briefing, when he is shown a newsreel-type film of an entire army platoon who have been dosed with LSD as part of a military “experiment.” While some of these soldiers are inexplicably frozen in place like statues, others, made gay by the drug, are dancing with one another and skipping arm-in-arm like children. Others writhe on the ground and others pray on their knees, while those remaining slam their hands to both sides of their head and scream. This appeared to me to be improvised by the young actors, who were no doubt making the most of this opportunity to demonstrate their grasp of The Method.

When a subjective view of the LSD experience is called for, it is accomplished with lots of red gels and the crude superimposition of dime store fright masks atop the actors faces. At other times what looks like either a white flower of a piece of popcorn is superimposed over the actors to make it look like their heads are exploding into bloom. Timothy Leary was obviously not consulted.

Perhaps because so many show business types had used LSD by 1967—often at the behest of their overpaid psychoanalysts—the movie industry seemed to be unable to keep a straight face where the drug was concerned. How else would you explain something like Jackie Gleason’s notorious 1968 drug comedy Skidoo? In the case of LSD: Flesh of Devil, director Massimo Mida seems to feel honor bound to take the tone of a highschool scare film while at the same time being unable to keep from snickering behind his hand at the drug’s imagined propensity to make uptight people act silly. To use a dated analogy, it makes the whole thing come off like an uneasy combination of a Dragnet episode and a Laugh-in sketch.

Anyway, once accepted by Korba and his men, Miller manages to exacerbate tensions between them and the gang of a Turkish drug lord named Cioglu. In this he finds an unexpected ally in Virgnia Blair, Korba’s assistant, who is played by Operation White Shark’s Franca Polesello. As the genre demands, his cover is blown soon afterward, and the combined forces of Korba, Cioglu and Mr. X close in on him – though not before he is able to call in a massive raid by the police. This allows LSD: Flesh of Devil to end with a scene in which dozens of people shoot at each other while helicopters fly around overhead.

Though, of course, that’s not how it ends. Because after that there is a comedic coda in which the characters played by Madison and Polesello are accidentally “dosed” with LSD, forcing the actors to caper around spacily in a manner that they imagine a person who was tripping balls would. Their colleagues watch them and laugh knowingly. As you would.

If LSD: Flesh of Devil’s treatment of its subject sounds dated and corny, it is. But it is also the one thing that prevents the film from being what it might otherwise be: a fairly by-the-numbers Eurospy entry. For, as beloved as the Eurospy genre is, its films often fall victim to a kind of rote sameness which makes any whiff of novelty—be it a startlingly low budget or a confused stab at cultural vogueishness--more than welcome. In the case of this film, it’s the next best thing to watching it on drugs.

The Infernal Brains Podcast, Episode 19

The focus on Filipino cinema continues at 4DK with the latest, long awaited episode of the Infernal Brains podcast, in which Tars Tarkas and I discuss the cult classic James Batman. Think you're excited about Batman vs. Superman? Well, you might think again once you've had a gander at this low budget Filipino adventure that features both Batman and James Bond. I mean, when you consider that it also features a cameo by the Black Rose, James Batman easily outweighs BvS in terms of sheer superhero poundage (which I think is what you're into.) Listen to the episode here.

(NOTE: This episode has a couple of audio problems in the form of intermittent mic. distortion due to a wonky connection. As you can still easily understand what's being said, Tars and I felt that it was not too severe to interfere with your enjoyment of this fun and informative episode.)

Ana Antar, aka I Am Antar (Lebanon/?, 1966)

During the 1960s, Lebanon rivaled Egypt as one of the biggest producers of popular cinema in the Middle East, matching it both in terms of output and technical acumen. At the time, the Lebanese film industry was dominated by a resolutely commercial, crowd-pleasing aesthetic, one that gave rise to colorful pan-Arabic co-productions like Frank “Dawn of the Mummy” Agrama’s Essabet El Nissae. Also representative of this trend is 1966’s Ana Antar, which includes among its star attractions a Syrian comedy duo and a Lebanese pop singer/sex symbol. Indeed, I momentarily entertained the notion that Ana Antar was another of Agrama’s directorial efforts, until I learned that it was helmed by another Egyptian, Joseph Maalouf, who also directed the Ismail Yassin vehicle The Adventures of Ismail Yassin.

Like Essabet El Nissae, Ana Antar is a lighthearted crime caper with a distinct swinging sixties vibe owing in large part to its seductive pallet of rich Eastman Color hues. In it, Nihad Quali and Doreid Lahham play investigators charged with solving a series of jewelry robberies that, unknown to them, are being committed by a nightclub singer who is under the hypnotic control of her unscrupulous psychiatrist. “Doreid & Nihad”, as they were called, rose to prominence on Syrian television in the early 60s before going on to star together in a series of 21 successful theatrical features, usually with Quali playing the straight man to Lahham’s antic character Ghawar. As was often the case, they are also credited with writing the screenplay and dialogue for Ana Antar, with Maalouf taking credit for the story.

In their day, Doreid & Nihad were compared to Laurel and Hardy, which, looking at them now, seems a little dubious. While Nihad, rotund and mustached, could arguably pass for a Middle Eastern version of Oliver Hardy, Doreid looks a lot less like Stan Laurel than he does Groucho Marx, while at the same time exhibiting the jittery hipster mannerisms of a young Woody Allen. Here he plays renowned private investigator Antar, who is recruited by harried insurance investigator Hosni (Nihad) to help him put a stop to the jewelry robberies that are costing his superiors a lot of money.

I can’t say for sure that Antar is ironically named after the revered 6th century poet and warrior Antarah ibn Shaddad, though I suspect he is. What I am sure of is that he is intended as a vehicle for spoofing all of the secret agent tropes of his day. It’s all here: the shoe phone, the contact lens that doubles as a camera, the swank bachelor pad laden with booby traps, the exotic yet dangerously impractical weapons (among them a gun that shoots backwards), the oily self-regard, all signaling to us once again that the 60s were a time when no barrier of geography, language or culture could stand up to the contagious influence of James Bond. It also bears mention that Antar has a girlfriend, Salwah, played by the charming Egyptian actress Hala El Shawarby, who serves as both a loyal helpmate and a comic foil.

Ana Antar’s credits play over an arresting expository sequence that clues us in to something that Antar, Hosni, and Salwah are yet to learn. Shot with a distinctly Bava-esque lighting scheme, these scenes show a pretty young nightclub singer, Halo, being hypnotized by her psychiatrist, Dr. Sabri. She leaves his office in a trance and is next seen methodically lifting a set of diamond encrusted jewelry from a posh home. These she returns to Sabri, who adds them to what is obviously a growing collection. The caddish Sabri is played by Shafiq Hashim, a Lebanese actor and musician who, at the time, was married to the world famous belly dancer Nadia Gamal (who is not related to or to be confused with world famous belly dancer and actress Samia Gamal). Halo, meanwhile, is played by popular Lebanese singer and actress Randa, who is afforded four musical numbers throughout the film.

Antar and Hosni’s investigation eventually leads them to the nightclub where Halo is performing, whereupon Hosni’s boss, Abu Nour (Khaled Kharanouh), immediately falls for her—as he well should, given he is exactly the kind of blandly handsome romantic lead that always gets shoehorned into comic vehicles like this. Meanwhile, we learn that the receptionist in Abu Nour’s office, Suad (Dadnd Jabour), is working for Dr. Sabri and has been keeping him informed on the progress of the investigation. Being a maniacal control freak in the classic B movie villain mode, he sets out to throw them off his scent by any means possible. All of this, of course, still leaves time for Antar and Hosni to get involved in a series of absurdist comic vignettes, including a bit where an eccentric woman serves them an invisible meal which they then, in an abundance of courtesy, elaborately mime eating.

Sadly, the version of Ana Antar that I watched lacked English subtitles, so I am in no way equipped to judge just how funny Doreid & Nihad’s dialog is. However, their cadence and body language alone is enough to tell me that Doreid is meant to be the wise-cracking operator of the two, while Nihad is the oafish one who is most likely to be on the receiving end of the movie’s many slapstick humiliations. At one point, after being brutally beaten by a pair of Sabri’s gunsels, he stumbles back to Antar’s apartment, only to be subjected to the gauntlet of crude booby traps meant to ward off intruders. (Yes, there is a boxing glove on a spring and bucket of water propped over the door. Yes, I laughed.)

In many ways, Ana Antar’s combination of glamour and goofiness, along with its good natured desire to entertain by whatever means necessary, reminds me of the Mexican spy spoofs of its era--which is in every way a compliment, given that those films, being so open hearted and almost reckless in their inclusiveness, are, to me, the definition of “world pop cinema”. As with Cazadores de Espias or Las Sicodelicas, Ana Antar’s makers, while putting their comedic foot forward, do not renege on their covenant with the audience to also make a film that fully functions as a thriller. Thus the film gradually works its way around to a satisfyingly action-packed climax, starting with Halo leaving behind a telltale red scarf at the scene of one of her robberies. This prompts Antar to make a visit to her psychiatrist’s office, which unwittingly put him at the mercy of Dr. Sabri, who hypnotizes him in an effort to turn him against his friends. Much chasing and shooting follows. And also lots of things that are a very bright shade of red.

Despite understanding exactly none of its dialog, it is easy for me to praise Ana Antar, because it looks amazing. I took me twice as long to watch as it should have because I was tempted to make screen captures of every individual shot. Of course, if you are going to make a film that combines mid-century design with saturated colors and a lot of pop art-inspired, modernist camera compositions—and that also includes lots of nightclub scenes and go-go dancing, it is literally guaranteed that it will be a film close to my heart. I am just that shallow.

Seriously, though, that the makers of Ana Antar, despite working with a limited number of minimal sets and an obviously modest budget, managed to create of film of such visual allure speaks very well of their industry as a whole—and guarantees that I will be ardently seeking out more films of its type in the future.

Kulla Agent 000 (India, 1972)

Up to this point I have paid scant attention to the Kannada language cinema of Karnataka; this likely because a film with the singular allures of Kulla Agent 000 had yet to roll into my path. The film, a combination spy spoof/stunt film, is a vehicle for its diminutive star, multi-hyphenate (star-director-producer) Dwarakish, who was affectionately known to his many fans as Kulla due to his small stature. Such was his popularity that, like Egypt’s Ismail Yassin and Singapore’s Mat Sentul, it led him to star in a series of name-in-title productions, of which Kulla Agent 000 is inarguably one.

In a plot similar to none you have ever seen recounted on this blog before, Dwarakish stars as “Kulla”, a pint-sized nebbish who dreams of being a secret agent. This leads to such comical business as him showing up at the CID recruiting office with a pair of stilts hidden under his extra-long pants. Of course, he finally gets his chance when he bumblingly foils the latest scheme of an international smuggling ring. Because there is no way around such things, officials in charge of India’s national security have no choice but to hand him a sensitive position as an undercover government agent, giving him the designation 000 (“Personality: zero, Qualifications: zero, Experience: zero”—thanks, Kannanglish!).

At this point you’d expect the film to proceed as a comedy or errors, with the pathetically overmatched Kulla making a hash of the job due to his lack of ability, but you would be wrong. Instead, Kulla trains rigorously and becomes just the masterful man of action that the film’s stunt-heavy plot demands, albeit in miniature. Granted, Kulla is not so small that he could get away with routinely punching his opponents in the balls, but you could nonetheless be forgiven for seeing Kulla Agent 000, in combination with Filipino micro man Weng Weng’s Agent 00 pictures, as establishing the midget spy film as a genre in its own right.

Also starring in Kulla Agent 000 is Telegu actress and noted “South Bomb” Jyothi Laxmi. As is traditional, Laxmi, whose character is named “Jyothi”, is introduced as a sort of man-eating nautch girl, but then comes a twist. Kulla’s superiors, wanting to test his mettle, throw him into a cell with Laxmi and let the two fight it out in a savage row. It is almost as if Laxmi is their personal Rancor monster. Once the two have fought to a standstill, however, it is revealed that Jyothi is on Kulla’s side, and that, in fact, the two are going to be partners. Indeed, the pair end up making an appealing team, with Jyothi proving herself an unfailingly loyal and fearless ally to Kulla while at the same time stoking the implied sexual tensions that one has come to expect from such screen pairings.

Jyothi Laxmi's turn in Kulla Agent 000 is at once the most domesticated and the most interesting of her performances that I've seen. As usual, she's allowed a brute physicality that one would never see exhibited by a Western actress of her era. It’s the same quality that gives her performances in Telegu films a discomfiting air of freak show novelty. But here she is also allowed all of the sophistication, charm and humor of a full-fledged heroine. The model here is obviously Diana Rigg's Emma Peel, whom I predictably endorse as the ideal model for any worldly women of action regardless of context. In keeping with that, Laxmi, in addition to modelling a striking array of black cat suits, takes to all of her rough and tumbling with conspicuous joi de vivre. It is in fact possible that this usually grim faced actress is actually having fun. My god, she even smiles!

Kulla Agent 000 does not subject Laxmi to the voyeuristic upskirt shots typically seen in her Telegu films, but nonetheless fetishizes her plenty, thanks to its inclusion of more gratuitous yoga than an Elsa Yeung movie.

The high point of Kulla Agent 000 occurs during a section of the film in which Kulla has gone missing and Jyothi is assigned the task of finding him. At this point the film is essentially handed over to Laxmi, and wisely so, as we are immediately thrilled by a scene in which she has a fight to the death against an axe-wielding giant in her hotel room. She then tears off in her sports car in search of her partner, a grotesque kewpie doll trinket with blinking eyes serving as her tracer. It’s such an enjoyable episode that one might wish she hadn’t found Kulla so quickly.

Thankfully, Kulla Agent 000 proceeds at a mean clip from this point on. In an unusual twist on the old “infiltrating the villain’s lair in the guise of dancers” gambit, Kulla and Jyothi crate and have themselves delivered to the gang’s leader disguised as dancing automatons. (I should mention that this particular Mr. Big, in a welcome echo of James Bond 777, comes accompanied by a pair of friendly-looking canines who are nonetheless portrayed as being lethally vicious.) In a surprising instance of verisimilitude, the crook quickly sees through the agents’ masquerade, forcing them to interrupt the robotic dance number they are performing to start dusting the floors with the assembled minions. All leads to a pretty harrowing fight between Laxmi, Dwarakish and the villain atop a speeding jeep that is careening along a treacherous mountain road with not a stunt double or rear projection in sight.

Though undeniably a “B” production, Kulla Agent 000 speaks well for the Kannada film industry of its day. Its director, Ravi, and cinematographer, Prakash, never fail to come up with evermore inventive angles from which to film the action; the stunts are plentiful and often spectacular; and its score, by Rajan-Nagendra, has a thrillingly rough-edged, garage rock quality, with twangy guitars and trilling Farfisas wrestling over jazzy riffs like misleadingly docile-looking dogs over a bone. Not to mention that it has a dead catchy theme song.

But, for me, the film’s most welcome attribute was the texture it added to the portrait I’ve been assembling of its star, Jyothi Laxmi, over these many years of blogging. For it is with Kulla Agent 000 that Laxmi finally began to emerge for me as something more than just a human cartoon, but instead as something else: a perhaps critically under-recognized performer whose body of work deserves much further examination.