THE CHALLENGE aka Surrogate (1970) – This made for tv movie aired in February 1970. The storyline involves a downed satellite that contains American national defense technology. It landed near a fictional Asian nation which is closely allied with Communist China.
The fictional nation’s navy recovered the downed satellite, but the U.S. navy blockaded them and, as this telefilm opens, is preventing the other nation from taking the satellite anywhere. The smaller nation is a client state of Communist China, as stated above, and China intervenes on their behalf.
Neither the U.S. nor Red China want to see this incident escalate into an all-out war, so they agree to a solution. Each side will send one man to a small nearby island. Whichever surrogate manages to kill the other within five days will have “won” the downed satellite for its side.
Yes, that’s a silly premise from a real-world angle, but this first aired in a less cynical time, so the fact that the story is obviously an allegory for proxy conflicts like the Vietnam War was considered daring for the period. Original director Joseph Sargent quit the film over creative differences, and replacement director George McCowan insisted on using the Director’s Guild pseudonym Allen Smithee. Continue reading
THE BIG EASY (1986) – An unjustly neglected film starring the one and only Dennis Quaid, who should have been made the new Indiana Jones after The Last Crusade in 1989. The Big Easy is easily one of the most underrated films of the 1980s. 
JUST A DAMNED SOLDIER aka One Damned Soldier (1988) – Balladeer’s Blog concludes its look at all ten films of Italian cult action icon Mark Gregory, real name Marco De Gregorio. I know IMDb states that he also appeared in the made for tv movie Rainbow, but I watched that film and he’s not in it. The error seems to have been made by someone who saw the name MARY Gregory in the closing credits and, because the font for the credits is a bit stylish, mistook the y in Mary for a k. 
I’ll wrap up everything by examining Mark’s final two films before he walked away from the business at age 25 in 1989, with no explanation and after having just made his highest amount of money from a movie role. 
Just a Damned Soldier features Mark in an ensemble cast as one member of a trio of badass international mercenaries who take on any dangerous, high-paying job that comes along. Our hero, whose character is also named Mark, serves alongside Cisco (Romano Kristoff) and their boss Bert Ernst (Peter Hooten). 
DELTA FORCE COMMANDO (1987) – Balladeer’s Blog’s salute to cult icon Mark Gregory continues, with two movies that proved he could be just as dynamic as the villain as he was playing the hero, like in his other action flicks. Previously, I’ve reviewed Mark’s two movies in which he played the post-apocalypse/ dystopian biker Trash in 
Because Italian filmmakers were always Enzo-on-the-spot with cash-in imitations of mainstream movie hits, it was inevitable that they would produce flicks coat-tailing on the popularity of Delta Force. Mark Gregory’s screen presence in Delta Force Commando reminded me of what a shame it is that he walked away from his acting career in 1989, just when he was at the peak of his game and his earnings. If only he’d signed up with Cannon films then.
Hell, in Delta Force Commando, Mr. Gregory spices up the schlock as the main villain, even though his character is never even given a name! Hey, that’s Italian exploitation cinema for ya! 
team of communist commandos from Nicaragua in a daring raid on a military base in Puerto Rico. Villain X and his team succeed in making off with a nuclear bomb despite a few firefights, one of which kills the pregnant wife of Delta Force member Lieutenant Tony Turner (Brett Baxter Clark). 
1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS (1982) – Spaghetti-pocalypse movies were to the 1980s what Spaghetti Westerns were to the 60s and 70s. Italian-made ripoffs of post-apocalypse and/or dystopian flicks like The Road Warrior and Escape From New York were everywhere back then. 
The story is set eight years in the future from its 1982 release and presented a crime-ridden New York City run by plutocratic corporations who have every politician in their pocket. So, just think of New York as it is right now. 
THUNDER WARRIOR aka Thunder (1983) – Here at Balladeer’s Blog I’ve reviewed plenty of Spaghetti Westerns and Spaghetti-pocalypse movies, but in this item I examine what could be called Spaghetti Rambo flicks. Mark Gregory, famous as the post-apocalypse action hero Trash 
The story features Mark Gregory’s character Thunder as a modern-day (1980s) Apache who lives on a reservation in Arizona. Assorted corrupt cops and bigoted construction workers are verbally and physically abusing the men and women of Thunder’s tribe.
THE KEEP (1983) – During World War Two, Nazi forces occupy a sinister stone Keep, only to realize they have disturbed a malevolent ancient entity which begins preying upon them. The unleashed force manipulates a prisoner of the Nazis into freeing it from its ages-old prison. 
ANDROMEDA NEBULA (1967) – This movie was adapted from the 1957 novel Andromeda: A Space Age Tale by Ivan Yefremov. Unusual for sci-fi writers in the Soviet Union under Stalin, Yefremov courageously defied some of the political limitations that the blood-soaked dictator and his regime placed on fiction. Ivan is credited for, among other things, breaking free of the Soviet policy that limited futuristic tales to just a few years in the future. He continued that trailblazing in his works after Stalin died.
And that brings us back to Andromeda Nebula. The story is set over a millenium in the future, when an Age of World Unification (under a Soviet system, of course) was followed by the establishment of the Ring aka the Great Circle. The Ring is a loosely affiliated assortment of planets who exchange scientific and cultural information and try to facilitate each other’s efforts to colonize space. 
NEW YEAR’S DAY (1989) – HAPPY NEW YEAR! Balladeer’s Blog welcomes in 2023 with this review of Henry Jaglom’s comedy-drama New Year’s Day, released on December 13th, 1989, and best known for the appearance of an all-nude David Duchovny. Jaglom wrote and directed this movie, as he had so many before it. Henry also plays a major role in New Year’s Day as Drew, a middle-aged writer/ director who recently got a divorce and has moved back to New York City from Los Angeles to start anew. 
A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1997) – This musical cartoon version of the Dickens classic was produced by DIC, the animators known for the early Real Ghostbusters and Sonic the Hedgehog cartoons. The animation quality is adequate but nothing outstanding. However, I will say I find this version’s animation superior to that in the 1982 Australian cartoon A Christmas Carol. 
Balladeer's Blog 