Now MGM is one of the oldest and most prestigious of movie
studios; their inventory also consists of the libraries of such companies as
Orion Pictures, The Samuel Goldwyn Company, and United Artists. From all those companies, there's a lot of great, interesting movies to choose from.
So, why the hell are they showing Mr. Hercules Against
Karate? It’s a martial arts movie from
1973, directed by Italian Antonio Margheriti, where “Two Americans go to Hong
Kong to rescue the son of a Chinese restaurant owner who is being
held hostage by his stepmother and the sadistic owner of a kung fu school.”
In that one paragraph, it’s a virtual United Nations of
moviemaking: Italian director, American cast, Hong Kong
locations and Chinese kung fu. So
naturally the title includes “karate” which is Japanese, you nitwits!
The Works had previously aired Jon Voight’s first feature
film, a surreal superhero comedy from 1967 called Fearless Frank,
written and directed by Philip Kaufman of all people. It was heavy on the surreal and light on the
comedy as far as I was concerned. It was
just too wacky for me.
If The Works is going to continue to air this kind of
strange, off beat fare, they really need to showcase it by having someone like
Joe Bob Briggs (world’s greatest drive in movie critic) or Michael J. Nelson
(star/head writer of Mystery Science Theater 3000) host the thing. If not, I suggest they rename the channel
WTF, because every time I switch over to it, my first reaction is, What The F—k?
