The Thousand Faces Of Dalton Trebeck
Dalton Trebeck Obit (Personal Note)The late Dalton Trebeck had many co-stars in his many on-screen yarns. Yet throughout the years, before his unfortunate demise, none more thrilled the heartbeat of the true fan than these names;
Gabriel Van Dyke - Retired. Dirk Michael Wheatley - Shot In The Face. Jared James- Independent Spirit Award, 1996. Mr Van Dyke, the daintily tubby sidekick, (who knew a fat man could juggle), bringer of mirth, star of those delightful, short-lived spin-off shows, (such as Supertank and Spacemen Hunts New Planets (a macho homage to Space 1999, the two-year later spin-off to Spaceman Hunts!!)). He found lasting cinematic affection, playing many lovable, loyal CIA sidekicks for Mr Trebeck, always playing a man who always seemed to know Mr Trebeck from childhood, which many a soft-hearted fan wish were true. Who can forget him telling the wheelchair afflicted Mr Trebeck that his entire family was butchered by a vicious lesbian cult dressed as Easter Bunnies in Deduce You Swine, nor the sublime chainsaw rescue of his family from corporate scum and crazy child-monsters in I Spite Your Father, Sir. (Bulgarian location is said to be suspiciously similar to modern CCA headquarters.) Mr Van Dyke has entered private life, now runs a series of successful restaurants. Mr Wheatley, a colossus of self-funded Buddha tours, where he would rant then scream at his audience, a man who could transform any villain to be a threat to the director (more than once has he threatened castration). A man who once yelled drink my piss live at the Oscars (Best Adapted Screenplay, 1997, when he was seen to be a promising talent). A man who let cocaine- afflicted bulls loose on a certain independent film event. A man who ruined his brother's wedding by hiring geriatric strippers. A man whose last film was called Shot In The Face, a killer midget event that has unfortunate story parallels to Mr Trebeck's I Spite Your Father, Sir. This is a man who has been said to have faked his own death. A man who played many sublime villains for Mr Trebeck, the volcanic chemistry and trust leading to many a violent showdown. What a man. (Note. I am starting my own fansite for the late Mr Wheatley, with a special emphasis on his nature films, especially the sublime Mr Peru) Mr James, star of many a mainstream indie film of budgets less than twenty-five grand (in his later years at least). Starting a career playing sexually-active or molested priests and intelligent yet doomed man-boys (Indie Spirit Award 1996- A Rope For All Men), his career fell away in a wave of ill-starred indie films that extended his range to playing lawyers badly, and dull side-kick roles to sexually repressed leading men who hugged him a lot. Forever being called boy, never truly a man, his roles with Mr Trebeck, starting when Mr Trebeck was a star, moving to direct to DVD, always had sublime comedy and emotional undertone, as they fought through many a Bulgarian hell-hole. A two- year peak (2003-2004) finished with a falling out with Mr Trebeck. They never spoke again, Mr James moving to low-budget parts, ranging from aging male prostitutes to young farmers saving their farms in Canada, all played by with ridiculous hair implant that obscured his face. Just be a man and go bald. Let's be fair, he was never as good as he was in Mr Trebeck's films. The late Mr Wheatley, and his contempt for Mr James. in print and in films, gave this young cineaste many a delighted smirk. Throughout the next few weeks, this modest little blogspot site will replay some of the cinematic delights that Mr Trebeck and his comrades gave to us. We will start oh so very soon with the pulp masterpiece Tomorrow I Renege. Dalton Trebeck (1952-2008) Cause of Death- Cutting off facial skin with a machete before gutting own throat with butcher knife, in own Hollywood mansion, directly in front of wife of many years. (On a personal note, I don't think Mr Hemingway would have had the guts to go out like this. What a man.) Deduce You SwineDeduce You Swine is the Dalton Trebeck children's movie gone wrong. It is fairly early in his direct to DVD era, following his Japan Trilogy: Into Death Us We Kill, Respect For The Mad Buddhist Death (his blood-drenched masterpiece of this era) and A Father's Tale (his warmest film).
Deduce You Swine is set on a farm, which Mr Trebeck, an ex-marine ruined by Oliver North, now runs with his family. Trebeck in this film has a family, a dog, a cat, many other animals, that he talks to in that very smooth, very polite manner. Have you ever seen an action star saying thank you to a pig. If you want to, this film is for you. The film is directed by Byron Von Tress, a Canadian who started at the same time as David Cronenberg, who made nature films and documentaries before going ultra-right-wing in the nineties and going for action films with apparent social messages, always with a suggestion that if a few capitalists go wrong, most of them are alright. Heart-warming stuff. The first ten to fifteen minutes of this film is all about the pleasures of farming and family. As this is a thriller, as in all of Mr Trebeck's works, things of course go wrong. Turns out some lying scum want the land for redevelopment. Not the most original plan but it lays the groundwork for a brutal action scene in which Mr Trebeck fights it out with some ex-army guys in the woods, at night. How a scummy land-grabber could afford these guys is ignored. Who cares. Its the best action scene of the film by a mile, topped off when Mr Trebeck is knocked out, dragged back to his farm, has his spine shot through, with threats on his family if he does not sign. He signs. Unfortunately the villains are not played by Trebeck regulars. They area dull bunch through-out. the director seems to think he should make them naturalistic. Cut forward a year to see blood red images of butchered cattle, in a long tracking shot, camera moving to see a road being built. Yes, this was meant to be a film to broaden Mr Trebeck's range but the director ignored that idea, went for any shot that could show full gore. We move to town. Mr Trebeck is working as a lawyer's assistant, training to take the bar himself. He wants to make a difference. He works for Gabriel Van Dyke, who plays a lawyer, who's cases appear off-screen always. The next twenty-minutes take place building their characters, showing them with their families, in the community. There is a genuine attempt to build a community in this section. We also see that Trebeck has rebuilt his family, is working against the land-grabbers through the law. Then the murder plot begins. School-children return home to find their mother's murdered. It's a continuing problem in the community. The police have no ideas and are terrified. Van Dyke and Trebeck investigate, talk to children who have lost their parents, investigate evidence. Slowly they find the killer's MO. It is tied to the scummy land-grabbers but not in the way that is expected. The killer is someone they once employed, who has gone crazy, that they are attempting to track and kill. Why they didn't make it one of the scum is a bit odd, as its confusing when it should be direct, essentially casting an extra as the uber-villain. This guy did hold Trebeck down as he was being shot. Anyway, the motivation is tied to his affection for the Virgin Mary. And purity. It's not really explained. Dalton faces down the people who ruined his life, refuses to cut a deal with them for his silence, publishes his findings. The killer gets mad. He has turned some kidnapped mothers mad through army chemicals that he stole while in service, is disgusted by their new multiple personality identities but uses them anyway. Sets them loose on Mr Trebeck's family, which is butchered by this vicious lesbian cult dressed as Easter Bunnies. This must have been added during the shoot. Could not have been part of the original plan to expand Mr Trebeck's audience. Trebeck breaks down for a scene, then another, and another, drinks like he is in the beginning of Apocalypse Now, gets focused, goes to the mall to get some equipment for payback. Trebeck then goes through a suspense scene in the mall, as the scum who ruined him send hired killers at him. Really stupid hired killers who act like bad security cops, get identified, follow Trebeck for about five minutes then get killed. Trebeck has a gun, shoots them as they try to come close, they always somehow near enough for him to take them out at the legs, fall close enough for him to kill them by ripping out throats or such-like. It's a pretty awful sequence, which keeps repeating the same gag ad nauseum, Trebeck having the same angry expressing through-out. Lots of wheel-chair sounds and similar location shot again and again, sequence almost a pulp remake of Wollen's Wavelength. Dalton then kidnaps one of the scum's wife and daughter, uses them as bait for the psycho and his women. In a very odd finale, the scum land-types and the killer and his women find the location individually, are burnt by acid them tied up by Dalton and Van Dyke in a very long and sadistic sequence. One of the main land-types is last to location, like a coward, is trapped as the location is burnt to the ground. Everyone are horrendously murdered in the fire, including the bait, who could likely testify so have to die. The coda has Trebeck passing the bar. Van Dyke and Trebeck look around their town, the children playing, seemed determined to protect them. Also suggest they have made some money, are now prosperous. This is a very odd film that shows signs of much re-writing. There is an insane amount of shots of either children being happy, playing or close-ups of physical torture, which suggests that someone in the production had recently become a parent. The film was meant to start a series, which has not occurred. It was meant to star a different, more thoughtful actor, which didn't occur. It had the last half-rewritten during production, suggesting that people gave up after seeing so many shots of kids and community, wanted some action yet ignored the script as most of the wheelchair action takes forever due to the lead being in a wheelchair. The wheelchair makes the action clumsy always. So its a mixed but very bizarre offering. Very much a cult film. Tomorrow I RenegeTomorrow I Renege, along with the at times sublime circus-based film, I Fear None, was a late career rejoinder for dead action hero Dalton Trebeck.
I Fear None, which has gotten many a late appreciation, mainly due to the sudden fame of the auteurist darling Shaun Decassey, director that recent interminable foreign-language Oscar nominated, near-silent begging Buddhist bore The Sadness Of Oliver Sedare. This was a film worked following a failed suicide attempt on the set of I Fear None, after many a strange event during that filming. Yet while odd, with its many zombie images, the somnambulist Mr Trebeck images being excellent, I find it a tad pretentious. Tomorrow I Renege, from exiled junkie genius Warwick Jehane, really goes for all the pared down existential delights that Trebeck, with the right material, could muster. Coming on like Speed meets Le Samurai, beginning with a brutal shoot-em-up through an airport terminal , Trebeck on one side, the sublime and also late Mr Dirk Michael Wheatley on the other, two men running to the side and firing at each other ungodly amounts of bullets. Men, women, children, old people all caught in the cross-fire, brutally gunned down, either between Trebeck and Wheatly or are in the background. Further madness ensues as Trebeck decides to hunt down Wheatley, which propels the rest of this marvellous, blood-soaked epic. Trebeck pummels Wheatley family members, dogs cats, little sister, transgendered grandfather in both Paris and LA, has emotive, very violent cat and mouse games, civilians garroted and sliced up by the dozen for making wrong turns, before Dalton seemingly kills his prey. This is half an hour in folks. Next jump two years, Trebeck undercover in Columbia, a heroin shipper with lots of gold around his neck, killing an innocent family at the start to prove his worth to a latino scumbag, an overweight Gabriel Van Dyke, portraying Jerry Perperson, best bud to our hero, his link to the outside world. Obviously Wheatley ain't dead, starts his own cat and mouse murderathon through undercover and stationed agents protecting Trebeck, Trebeck hitting back hard with vicious murders of his own, against his target's enemies, starting a drug war while he tracks down grinning crazy-eyed psycho Wheatley. Van Dyke escapes much escapes before being literally blown to pieces, as this middle section ends with a Scarface can s**k my d**k blowupathon, mega-massacre, which has flying midgets, kung fu fights on flying doors, hitmen with new-born babies strapped onto body as they shoots at Dalton, yelling wouldn‘t shoot a baby would you. Damn right he would. Dalton barely makes it out, disappears from his own people, getting ready for payback. Wheatley has stolen steals tons of drugs, disappears after making the target attack Trebeck at his own home base, is tracked to small-town America, leading to a stalking scene in a mall that leaves many dead, before Dalton tracks Wheatley through a forest, literally talking Wheatley apart limb from limb. Things could have gotten dodgy with the revelation that Dalton had stolen Wheatley's identity, smashed his face up years before, and Wheatley was in fact the agent but it all makes perfect sense in the context. The plot synopsis tells you all you have to know about this sublime film. What does I Fear None have on this. Just some nice shots and zombie animals. Its good but not great. This if a film far more worthy of your time and a great example of the powerful emotions stirred by the late Dalton Trebeck and Dirk Michael Wheatley, not to mention the MIA genius Warwick Jehane. Come back sir. Cinema misses you. Dalton Trebeck: The Early FilmsYou may wish to know about Dalton Trebeck's early years. While there are biographical details available, date of birth, early jobs, they are unfulfilling. I would like to imagine Mr Trebeck born moments before entering the cinema as a full-grown action star.
Yet there are early films, before he made his name and entered the mainstream in the urban crime trilogy: Bullet In My Brother's Gut, Swimming From Nicaragua and Burn My Hated Demon's Heart, made by the producer/director Jummy "Sphinx-boy" Rainer, who would then go onto make the Dalton mega-hit Die Hard riffs Head Rush (hospital siege, no guns, just fighting and inventive use of drugs, more John Carpenter influenced than Die Hard) and Spine (NASA and terrorists, killer satellites, surprisingly tense and emotive). Hack Dick Freeburn made Totem, the Die Hard on an ndian reservation (yes the finale was in a Indian burial ground). It was during the shooting of that film that Jummy Rainer, prepping the yet unnamed Dalton 3-d Ghost movie, died in a car crash. It was never the same after that. Spook-Game was the name of the ghost film, was not in 3-D, was heavily re-written to have a serial killer sub-plot (post-Seven craze) that made no sense with the ghost aspect. There were also a lot of spies and it was a horrible mess. Dalton avoided publicising it nor was interested in making a film for two years after that bomb, returning to a few lacklustre action films, such as Gem (jail thief film obviously, but had yet another serial killer), Switch The Ditch (bank heist, double crosses, felt DTV) and Dial D For Detonation, a bomb squad film without suspense (If Dalton is looking at two wires, you think he's going to chose the wrong one? There are five of those scenes.) The bomb squad film, his publicised come-back, was such a disaster that it was all over for Dalton theatrically. This was the first film that Gabriel Van Dyke and Dirk Michael Wheatley appeared, as his buddies. So he went to Japan. So there are a few early films where he was not the star, made before he was plucked to be brute Sean Santiago in Bullet In My Brother's Gut. The first one was a vampire henchman in a low-budget, for many years unreleased Cannon flick Hunger Slash, a honest to goodness made in Israeli lesbo vampire flick. Yes, this was so bad that even Cannon wouldn't release it, even with lesbian sex scenes. It was meant to be Europe but no-one tried to hide that it was shot in Israel. You watch it kind of hoping that someone points out that the main vampire is obviously Jewish and try and make that old testament aspect interesting, bring in some Palestinians and Muslim faith but no such luck. She's meant to be a good Catholic girl, seducing many people of various genders for no explained reason. Dalton has the David Bowie part but doesn't die apparently. He simply is there and then is not in the second half. Must have died off-screen. During the making of this film he was spotted as something interesting by Cannon and placed as second lead in the Delta Force rip off SEAL Squad, a film not as bad as Navy Seals. (Yes, Cannon would rip-off their own movies). His natural charisma dominated the alleged star Jonathon Likie and the film was a minor hit on video, is always on late-night TV. Next came the Cannon Charles Bronson flick Domino Twelve, where he was the doomed partner, dying at minute twenty. He had three scenes but there met Jummy, who was the writer. Jummy hated Bronson, saw Dalton as a star in the making, and on that film vowed to make a film with Dalton as the lead. The funding was raised while Dalton played a doomed boxer in Euro-pudding Box For Glory. Dalton plays the supposed villain who drops dead in the ring at the end, ruining the hero's chance at glory. The lead was some Irish git that no-one remembers. It was an awful film. It could have ruined Dalton if the funding hadn't been raised for Bullet In My Brother's Gut. During this time Dalton also did a small role in an unreleased and reportedly unfinished Godard film Spring Notre, a film about crooked elections. Apparently Godard called Dalton "a very nice man." That is all that there is to say about the early years of one Dalton Trebeck. Dalton Trebeck: The Jummy FilmsThe Jummy years, in the urban crime trilogy: Bullet In My Brother's Gut, Swimming From Nicaragua and Burn My Hated Demon's Heart, were great for Dalton Trebeck. He was a stunning athlete during this time, matched by the visual imagination of producer/director Jummy "Sphinx-boy" Rainer. Let's go straight for the films shall we.
Bullet In My Brother's Gut is a simple revenge tale. Sean Santiago's brother is brutally shot to death by the mob in the first scene. He was seeing a gangster's innocent daughter. He pays for this with his life, has his body cut up and spread and buried through-out the city. Dalton is a cop in another city who comes back home. With the help of his rage-filled mother, he kidnaps the innocent daughter, thus making the gangsters panicked and worried about their bosses and then targets the gangsters, finding body parts of his brother bit by bit. After he has beaten down an important gangster they have a choice. Body part or their own death lasting days. He kills them anyway but gets the body parts, starting with the head. He talks to his brother's head throughout the film, takes it on raids. He talks to his brother's head while talking to the innocent young woman the brother loved, just to see what she really thought of him. Then he goes back to killing, avoiding traps set by gangsters, eventually getting the entire body (the gut area with the bullet is the last part found) so as to have a funeral. By this point there's only a few top gangsters left, and minimal henchmen. Their enemies sit-back and wait for them to die. The innocent young woman is also. So in front of an entire church congregation, Dalton takes out some vicious gangsters, brutally murdering them in a church. The cops arrive, take the bodies, cover it up. They respect Dalton. Everyone in church wants the gangsters dead so no-one will speak. Dalton returns to his own city to establish justice. At the end we find that the innocent young woman is pregnant. She is left unsure of her future. Swimming From Nicaragua is of course about drugs. It takes place in LA, never getting near Nicaragua. Dalton is undercover, looking for a kingpin connect to prove in court. He is set-up as a kingpin in the first ten minutes by the real kingpin, who has found out his undercover status and murdered the other supervising agents, framing Dalton, suggesting a rogue agent. That's all the set-up we need as Dalton has to take take down this beast while avoiding the cops (who want to take down Dalton as the drug kingpin themselves) and his own people, who are hungry for revenge. It's a chase movie through LA, as Dalton meets and beats, tortures bank mangers, flunkies, corrupt cops, avoiding killing the good cops and his own people no matter what they do. But he can maim them. A bus station is trashed en masse halfway through, a few hotels are totaled, there's a motorbike chase with cops all over the place, trying to catch Dalton. The film never stops and on recollection there isn't really a through plot, as Dalton is simply always on the run, trying to find the kingpin's location through beating on thugs at pace before cops or crooks raid wherever he is at (he never gets more than a minute to beat a guy for information before something else happens). He does keep sending his agency clues on the real agency and how he was set-up. Finally he catches up with the kingpin, beats a confession out of him, as well as drug connects. Then he throws the scum into the plane engines to get diced. Dalton's agency finds the proof to clear him. The film takes place over one night. The epilogue is Godfather-inspired, as various South American drug kingpins are taken out. Burn My Hated Demon's Heart is Sean Santiago's return. He is in his home turf, Detroit, and is hunting a bank robbing gang in the first brutal section, that ends on a bank robbery gone wrong after a long hunting sequence. Turns out, as he finally takes them down, these guys have an in with corrupt bankers, who are hiding losses through robberies and stolen papers, who in some cases forged more high-level robberies from the information stolen by the robbers, that only these bankers can take advantage of once they have the information officially reported stolen. The rest of the film is him and his group of borderline cops taking down the bankers, terrorising them, attempting to get confessions, messing with them and their families. The bankers of course, hire other nuts to target these cops and a war breaks out between cops and various types of crooks, before the cops lose a few guys and start massacring bankers, figuring the thugs won't fight unless they are paid. So they hunt the bankers in brutal ways. The film ends with a raid of cops on a flea-bitten hotel, where the remaining bankers have fled, protected by their goons, the cops finally taking out all the scum, losing a few of their own on the way. The film is fun, works as a Dirty Dozen-type story, as the cops around Dalton all have quirks, as do the various bankers. It's the funniest, most well-loved Dalton Trebeck film. It's the one with all the funny lines and character touches. Having cops killing bankers doesn't hurt either. Also interesting is that the innocent young woman and her daughter stay with Dalton from the previous Sean Santiago story, has to be protected throughout the story. It works surprisingly well, gives a human dimension to the threat. At the end of the film Dalton is taken to hospital, injured, which leads to his next film. Head Rush is the breakout studio film. Its a Sean Santiago film. He's having his wounds taken care of when the hospital is sieged, he having to get his niece and innocent young woman to safety and then start hitting back. There are cops outside but most of the experienced ones are in hospital. All surviving cops from the last film are brutally murdered by the villains at the start, leaving very weak police presence outside. We never find out the reason for the siege until late and we simply watch Dalton, without gun, use drugs and tactics slowly against the villains, always slow and injured, which adds always to his plight. Its a post-Die Hard film but without many explosions, is more character based, as Dalton tries to work out the reasons for the attack, decipher the lies of the failing villains while staying fast, avoiding letting anyone get near his loved ones, protect the people inside, wonder about the out for the villains. Its all about atmosphere, with Dalton always about his surrogate family. So there's a reason given at the end for the attack but its difficult to remember what it is as its cut down and made to feel vague. The film is about a nightmare situation. It was his break-out smash hit film. The script was longer, had more of the cops at the beginning before they are killed, making that action more shocking. But it's played quicker and is still horrifying. Dalton sees more work by the villains, giving them more character, weaknesses, seeming trapped themselves but that gets cut. the explanation at the end is more specifically odd, as if there can be no real explanation. It feels like mass madness. everything cut was to make the film more visual, to avoid repeating story elements, Jummy really on a roll by now, very confident in his visuals. It led to a big budget Spine, Jummy Rainer's only film that he didn't write. It's still a lot of fun, is essentially another Die Hard riff, this time at NASA, terrorists trying to put up a satellite that will attack targets at will, as well as take out anything that attempts to stop it. Dalton plays an assistant to the guy in charge of NASA security. He has to track and kill the terrorists through the various launch tubes, rigging's, launch areas and control centre. Most of the people have been killed, NASA protected by Spine, a land-based version of the killer satellite, that can keep the army out. So Dalton has to avoid been seen at any time by this thing, as well as terrorists. Jummy rewrote the script, added elements of family outside, people grieving for their loved-ones, gave Dalton a back-story but that is spare in the final film, at the producers insistence. It does lose a little character by not having these elements, feels a little cold if very controlled visually, very exciting with momentum. Of course two-thirds in, all hell breaks loose and the shuttle takes off, Dalton inside. He manages to destroy the satellite Spine, being brutally beaten while doing it, kill the terrorists, almost dead by then, finally crash the space shuttle into land-based spine, bailing out at the last second with a handy parachute. Jummywanted him to die, shot it but it was never used. the film was a hit, not as big as Head Rush, nor was it as personal. But it was fun. There are rumours of a longer cut on DVD sometime soon. Was a shame that Jummy went out with his weakest film in narrative and character, there being no real supporting acting of note. So that's the Jummy years. Up soon the post-Jummy wilderness. The final Trebeck filmAlpha One, the final Trebeck film, was shooting for three weeks before the death of its star, had already lost its director Warwick Jehane after the first fortnight. It had two weeks left of shooting when Dalton died.
To cover this, rewrites were done to complete the film. Gabriel Van Dyke, looking shocked, took over for his only real lead. We were also hastily introduced to the son of Dalton's character, hired to act the rest of Dalton's scenes. That made no sense at all, as Dalton was shown to be a total loner. Film feels like Plan 9 From Outer Space of that final Pink Panther film in its cobbling together various bits of footage to make a mess that should have been burned then buried. There were three directors in all, none of whom wanted credit. Idea was that Dalton and Van Dyke are aliens who look like humans, who are protecting Earth from Wheatley, also playing an alien, but an evil one, with time travel abilities and many weapons. This explanation makes more sense than the film itself. It was meant to be a pilot for series. The show was picked up on cable and lasted seven episodes. Van Dyke appeared once in the show, for about two minutes, looking bored, before finally retiring. Below is a script page for a scene shot by Jehane and placed in the film. I would say that the location that the film was shot in looked like a bland TV set, lit to be over-bright, making it look even faker, the costumes very eighties sci-fi. It had shaky camera so you could never tell what the hell was going on, we unable to work out screen direction or tactical actions exactly beyond generic basics. It was not Jehane's finest hour as a director, was shot in the middle of his drug dependency peak. The sound of the children in scene were never redubbed, so they wear American clothes but speak with an Eastern European accent. As you will see, characters are not named so use actor's names in script, which is very unprofessional. EXT STREET DAY Wheatley has a tooth-pick between his teeth. Pull back in a Hitchcock Vertigo zoom in/pull out to reveal laser-guns. Shot ends and Wheatley begins to speak. WHEATLEY I know what you’re thinking. Dalton and Gabriel look at him in disgust. DALTON (WITH CAJUN ACCENT) Bitch. You’re a long way from home. GABRIEL (ALSO WITH CAJUN ACCENT) I’ll break your d**k off and feed it to my cat!!! WHEATLEY This machine, now inside me, makes me a god. Can be everywhere but nowhere. Can be one with life. Come on mother****er, lets dance. They start firing at one another, with laser-guns, in steady-cam, laser-shots missing targets. Wheatley jumps on a flying surf-board and charges at them, they dodging, get on flying bikes, having a stupid laser-fight. Then over streets and heads of orphan children, lots of wow shots going over/just missing children. Wheatley slowly fades out after a time, surfboard blowing up, nearly killing them and nearby children, who Dalton and Gabriel save. They land, look around at shocked children. DALTON (CAJUN) Don’t worry children. We’ll get him! Gabriel nods, loading his laser-gun. What can I say. It gets worse. Below is another Jehane shot scene, unfortunately still in the film. A Return Of the Jedi inspired bike sequence in the jungles of Vietnam, everyone shirtless like a Michael Bay film, with bad tree effects. It feels like they are trying to do something ambitious on a low-medium DVD budget sans taste and self-control. It jumps from professional to insane and back almost every shot, with some moves good, reactions to trees approaching, odd fight moves suggesting some skill, but with shaky-cam and strange ideas its just a total unmatchable mess in the making. Dalton is watching, knowing without a doubt his career is over. It is an offensive to the living and the dead. Here it is: INT FILM SET DAY Now Vietnam flying surfboard laser-fights, moving past trees with charlie stripped, firing, underexposed and yelling like a mother*****r, as well as get some!!!. They have tanks firing at them, napalm backgrounds, Dalton and Wheatley doing sword-fighting, back flips etc. Dalton does a kung fu fight with a sword on the surfboard with Wheatley generally, both using swords to fighting one another and to deflect masses of bullets. Vietnam area is burned by laser blasts at end of sequence, Gabriel is injured, goes MIA. The film goes back to the birth of Christ, forward in time to see that Wheatley wins and becomes a god, has lots of chases in cheap looking future back projection and bad cgi, with the son character wandering in and out without sense. So Dalton goes back and assassinates Wheatley, only the son does the killing, but it turns out its only a guy who looks like Wheatley. They go back and forward a lot, murdering people in scenes that make no reasonable sense, sometimes it being Dalton, sometimes its the son, Van Dyke always there with a comment. They have dull scenes explaining the logic of this but nobody cares. It's meant to be a chase movie, blowing stuff up. It's such a disaster that dying seems like a good career move. A few of you may have seen it. Apparently it was based on a novel. So that's the sad end of Dalton Trebeck. Few careers, save Bela Lugosi and Peter Sellers, ended on such a low. As a completest, I feel obliged to provide over-views to the careers of Sean Decassey, Warwick Jehane and of course Dirk Michael Wheatley in the near future. Until then. George McBride Remembers Space Zeppelin
From the memories of the late George McBride, edited slightly from what was given in interview:
Space Zeppelin was a wonderful experience, starring actors you probably have never heard of. George Muffin Taylor, Brian Tellidude McNut and little Anne Wainthorpe. Made in the early sixties, it was my first non-exploitation film. It was my first time with a real effects budget. Alas it was not my first time with good actors but at least they were professional and sober. What makes a good actor. I'll tell you. Focus on the lines. Don't inflect, don't whine, don't shake your arms and any other noteworthy body parts. Be serious. Be courageous in trusting that the writer knows what he is doing. For the first time my actors did that. And that's all you can ask as a director. You know the plot of course. Zeppelin's appear from space, float into atmosphere and amass all over the world. Then the world begins to get paranoid, madness spreads, mothers killing sons, daughters killing fathers, children killing clowns, while the Zeppelin's do nothing. Of course in the second half the massive robots attack. Kinda like Daleks but we got out three months earlier. Too bad about our publicity budget, as we called them in those days, didn't stretch very far. You know the writer objected to the robot attack. Said it would be scarier if the Zeppelins remained, were never explained, as they didn't quite make sense, thus would be creepy. What rot! People can imagine space zeppelins and that's all you need as the base for a man versus robot movie. Our way of getting rid of the robots was wonderful. There was rain and they all rusted. That was a wonderful touch by the writer, although he said it was sarcasm. Their winding down I think was wonderfully haunting, as they yell die, unable to move, as their Zeppelins wind down and crash into the cities below. It was one of my best reviewed films, is quite the cult oddity now. Black and white is a wonderful visual too for a director, especially with models. Nowadays its all colour this and bulging that but in the good old days of acting and craft, black and white could save you a bob or two and give you the reputation as a craftsman. That's all I have to say about the film Space Zeppelin. It literally speaks for itself. From the diary of George McBride, director of Dracula's Soho Virgin Bride. Written 1957
Terrible morning. Woke, went to the studio to see Gustav before filming begins tomorrow, that bore with his grotesque wandering accent. Where does this fat and annoying man come from? Seems to have no real past, accents and stories wandering from all over. Most of them were made up from what I've have heard but have moments of truth, like the story of him helping Howard Hawks dispose of a body in someone's pool. I hear it had something to do with a homosexual actor in one of Hawks' films, a night of passion gone awry, and no police. Or the tale of helping three forgettable hussies rip-off a Howard Hughes flunky of no little stature and doing it so well that Hughes himself gave them better parts in his movies, as he found the story so tremendously funny. He calls me the jock and complains I offer no direction. How to direct a man as offensively verbal as he, whose response to avoid leaving the light is I'm Dracula, I know what Vampires do, and then spins off a yarn involving Valentino's dead body and a cabal of strange yet well-paying fans, who wanted the body for reasons that he would not go into but assumes me that its got to do with his portrayal of
Dracula. Walking into the ramshackle studio in the morning, saw a dead body of a young actor lying at the front door. Recognised the actor. He's not very good so its no great loss. That grotesque leading man Michael Deer walked up behind me, saw the body and started kicking it violently for ten minutes, in a rage, yelling obscenities at this deceased thespian. The stagehands then took the body and threw it over a bridge nearby, then called the police, who found the body. Now the bruising and method of death is a great mystery but is free publicity for three as yet unreleased of my films, which this actor tried to ruin. With Help from Mr's Deer and Trebeck. Jackson Tulord Breen DeWitt Delauncy 111 called me into his office, where he crawled from the door back to his seat, his desk surrounded by lots of paper that he'll never read. So much dust in this office that it's hard to breath. He is our studio head as he calls it, owns 30 percent of studio, some annoying lord owning the rest but wants to keep it quiet. In his mid-seventies, wears a ridiculous brown wig like a teddy boy while he coughs for breath. He is most famous for a line he said last week when his accountant (who was in his mid-fifties and still lived with his mother)decapitated a minor actor in a rage. He said "There's an ugly head in my soup and I know ugly as I work in the British film industry!" Informs me that I owe him three more films in the next two months so I better get cracking. Also informs me I'll have a good writer for one of them but doesn't know what the plots are as of yet. Also says don't worry about the dead body outside. Payments have been made. His accountant also has gotten off as they have framed the now-dead actor and said they were after the same woman. Which is odd as the one who died last week was gay and the other one had his balls cut off. Which led to a unique acting style that is difficult to write for. Met with two writers. One was an actor, then my assistant, now a writer. not bad for a man who has been here six months. He's pitched me the sequel to Soho Bride involving lesbians but I have been told by Delauncy 111 that no lesbians shall pass in a horror nor any other British movie. Therefore the new blood have to be male. I think we're onto something yet the writer looks disappointed. The other one is an alien invasion movie set in a public school. I give the nod, having no idea how we'll be able to afford it. It'll get cancelled and they'll still have to pay me. Met with third writer in private. He is drunk and a national poet (and pulp writer under an alternate name for the money). he can only come here while drunk as we offend his dignity but is paid and says he'll come up with something. Which is good enough for me. I'm going up in the world. P.S. His name is Alistair Brian Jones McLellan and his poetry is bloody awful. As are his novels, and lamentably, his film scripts. LATER IN WEEK Shooting is going okay. Gustav Trebeck continues to annoy and molest the leading lady but she doesn't say anything, is terrified of losing this job. Getting fired from here is the next direct step to prostitution. Although she can probably keep the same agent for those services. The set looks bloody awful and my DP keeps spitting up blood. I do say eventually that he should go see a doctor but he says "No bloody way do I go see a duck." I don't know exactly what that means. It kind of makes sense yet the way he said it was crazy enough for me to think it meant something more sinister and oddly sexual. EARLY NEXT WEEK Gustav has started importing prostitutes and is grooming his leading lady to be one of them. And she seems willing. Odd his late forties fiancee is watching with interest and not disgust. I just don't get these people and am not sure that I want to. A mature-looking youngster also appears on set, making Gustav very nervous. He makes some sinister visual suggestions to his fiancee, who nods in a way that suggests, well, I don't want to know. MID-WEEK Gustav refuses to learn his lines. He has them placed out of camera view, meaning few establishing shots are possible as this vampire talks way too much, most of it improvised so why demand that there are cards. I can't see any rise or lowering of quality in the improvising though, to be honest. The D.P worries me. He seems to be very ill. LATE-WEEK Gustav Trebeck died this morning. Heart gave out after being drown in fat and being full of s**t. Oh god, what do I do now? On the plus side, my D.P looks to be a lot better now. EARLY THE NEXT WEEK Start shooting Dracula's Virgin Soho Bride with a stand-in for Gustav. Kinda looks like him and I am assured that no-one will notice the difference. I am not convinced but am under contract and will do as I am told. |
Look Up It's Dalton TrebeckDalton Trebeck, late forties, sort of trim but sagging slightly, sits, looking around at audience.
DALTON Midgets spitting acid. Dogs that vomit children by the truckload. Old gents eyeballing and killing the young. Those are the plots. Dalton talks monotone, the kind of man who has said blood bank to many a jobbing actor playing victim. DALTON Have you seen my movies? In The Dream Of Goya. I played a professor of ancient religions in that one. Many confused young men trying to stab me. Used one of Christ’s cross-nails to redeem us. Was a Catholic thing. Tomorrow I Renege. I played a covert individual there. Fighting AI super-computer gone independent. Lots of interesting musings about man, nature, duality and individuality, and the true order of the world. I Spite Your Father, Sir. That was the dogs vomiting newborns flick. Well, pre-act. First act I was in the White House, as a intern, undercover protection for the President. I have to negotiate with the problem children, who will grow to be our future. They kill a lot of people but I show them the Buddhist way. Communication through fighting, a world turned painfully confused by selfishness and fear. A lot of interesting ideas, about humanity, where we are going, how we evolve as a collective. Director has promise. Midgets spitting acid? Circus freak flick. I am on run from CIA. Hide out in a circus. Turn assassin into freaks, let their inner nature evolve. Ended up fighting modern world, back from the dead, a spirit, with an army of zombie elephants. Didn’t quite work but had some interesting, upsetting images. (PAUSE) I’m a jobbing actor. I can’t choose the parts. A lot of them I have no interest in. I try not to look bored but… I still try. I have a contract for a few films a year. Still useful. Used to be big. You would have seen my films that didn’t go straight… one that were on the big screen. Early 90’s. Fighting terrorists. They were good. Had nice fights. I was appropriately lean, like a beaston the hunt for good eating. Dalton is silent. Pained in a way that suggests constipation. DALTON I had gadgets. Big guns. Knuckle dusters. Household appliances used with imagination. Once we had exploding condoms. That was amusing. Now I have obvious stunt doubles. You can tellits not me. It’s embarrassing. Just awful. And I read the website doing parodies. Like that bastard… I don’t direct them. I can’t get good people. Writers, directors. Its just me and some drunk in his thirties, early forties, moaning about titles like Sleep Deadly 4: I Want Your Wife, talking about how he doesn’t spend enough time with his children. And big-titted actresses that are all teeth. Day- players given prominent villain acting roles that stretch them to yell, hey you m-f. Come and get some. I’m from Canada. Ex-sports stars, not exactly twinkle-toes in emoting, that I painfully share disgustingly bereft dialogue with. I’m disgusted with myself. Shall I tell you about my marriage now? Would you like that? Or a story. What about the story of my marriage? (MELODRAMATIC AND OTT) He he he. Don’t worry. It’s quite a yarn. It all began in smoggy LA. The smog choked small children and policemen alike, making them crawl along the streets like vacant basketball players, ten years after the peak, with too much sauce, too much vomit and just not enough shame. LA has a deadly summer. And along came my second film at number one, a leftie-revenge flick discussing the ways that the CIA corrupts your soul. The hacks I worked with later did not appreciate the ambivalence I have about that type of thing. So I’m cock of the hoop, swinging from deal to deal. But to be honest, I don’t cater to the women there. Nice smiles, open, but you wonder, you know, no-one’s that open. So you get paranoid, drunk, end up in many a hotel room at three in the morning calling the maid mamma. Or some of the people you have to deal with to get ahead. They you can’t escape, ever. They’re crazy. They say to you…. They say… How do you react to what they say, the crap and lies. I was just in this to be an actor. So I’m kind of trapped. Some say repressed. So I’m polite enough to them, watching, smiling, wondering what to do. And the women keep coming at me like clones. And I’m divorced already, but I have issues. I actually think I’m a pretty good feminist, for a man. I’ve read... So here I am, apparently doing well, now in trouble. So how do I meet my wife. Well my son needs a nanny. My son, well, he was ten, twelve. It was someone to look after him. Me. Mainly him. Someone who can organise. So that’s how I met her. Dalton looks a little shy. DALTON It was that duality, was she looking after him, me, was I using him to get someone to look after me, that she pointed out. Had to at least like her for that. Should she point out that she was actually watching the kid, so I would feel concern for him. Or see concern. He’s a nice kid but we have little in common. Interested in law, money. Where’s the soul in… Anyway, she didn’t even like my movies. So, you know, wasn’t trying to make me like her. After she was hired, never showed much judgement to my actions. Very warm. Saw me as flawed. I liked that. Nothing said anything about any lawsuit. I remember the first kiss. I looked at her like a shy teenager, then gave her a kiss. She responded in a very warm way, very emotional. I relaxed. I loved kissing her. There was never any cynicism whenI kissed her. Never felt it the way I did with others. Always helped me when I was confused, told me to keep things simple. Not in a cruel way, like you are simple. No, just, keep story to point. Don’t meander. She liked to read a lot. If she ever thought I was having an affair, never did, once I did. That was scary. I did it out of anger, see what it felt like, to hurt her, lie to her, lie warmly then go sleep with someone else. The anger and obscenities that came from her mouth, the hurt she showed. Never did that again, out of shame. It was odd, unnerving, to hear her say the things she said. Unnatural. She forgave me. I was strange, angry at that time. She told me that some people would feel like locking me up. It was oddly kind, under the circumstances. I don’t know why. I would have been judgemental. I was once a basket-case. My wife always looks at me, as if I’m about to go strange. Something happened once. It was odd, on a shoot. Recent circus freak film, shot in Bulgaria. Acid midget film. Had a great paper headline joke: Circus worker saves bear from small child. I went for a walk. Nodded hello to the locals. They are lovely people. So I’m walking in broad daylight, and I look down, at a bridge, looking down at the water, where I see two ghosts floating and fucking. Excited they looked, floating like a log down a stream. I swear. They had no shame. Just ignored me. I looked around yet no-one seemed to see it. Dalton pauses for apparent effect. DALTON It got worse. One day I was on the set, learning my line, again in daylight, when I saw ghosts on the set, ghosts of men, women and children, tearing each others to bits. I know that sounds a bit weak but these guys were tearing into one another like starving rabid dogs. All over the set, without pity. all looking sane for a second before they started ripping bits off one another. No sense to it. People would kill then be killed, women eating their own children. They looked like… seemed solid, seemed to bleed. I was alone, looking like I was a man going mad. Then the cast and crew started to see it. They started screaming, vomiting. Someone turned the camera on and caught it. Contract said we had to go back and finish the film. Dalton looks chilled at the memory. DALTON I saw red blood dominating the river later, the drained dead bodies standing up, walking, as if going home. Again families. I saw them on the streets the next day, looking entirely normal. Saying hello to me, having a nice day. Of course I responded politely. Then you see them every day, wondering how to respond to them. Then you go back to LA, wonder how to respond to those people. You see, you wonder, who can you trust. You learn to rely on what you are doing, the people you are creating, to be real. And they are created half-heartedly. So you wonder who to trust, what makes them them, if they worth your trust. If you are worth their trust. it’s a difficult situation. That feeling has been growing for years, feeding into my films, as I care less, the characters and situations more like ghosts, no gristle to keep me focused. Save my wife, and I sometimes feel unsure there. She seems to be too nice. A director once told me I wanted to be an actor out of a need for bored attention, even though I had zero interest in real acting, was half-hearted actor at best. That’s why I am so stiff at it. Wasn’t just lack of training. That I just wanted people to seem to be looking at me, not really looking. Because that would require them saying things to me I wouldn’t like. So learning to fight is a good way to get at safe attention. He was an intelligent young man. Bitter as a politician. I’m Dalton Trebeck. I was in movies your parents liked. And now I’m in the land of the dead. I Spite Your Father, SirI have mentioned I Spite Your Father Sir a few times already, in the scripted "Dalton Trebeck Routine", which Mr Trebeck would sometimes do to the disgust of others, and in my appreciation of the sidekicks. But this is a strange film that needs special spotlight.
Directed by five foot one, reputed ex-gun-runner and terrorist Alain De Silva, this was a strange mix of very serious, seventies influenced hand-held direction and a bizarre script by Trebeck mainstay James Dennis, Trebeck himself and John Seeder (writer of the first two of that great cop series Killer Dave, before falling away to expensive flops, an under-rated directorial debut that failed, and a series of drug arrests and alleged ties to pimping of trans-gendered prostitutes ) Starting with a strange scene, not properly filmed yet so bizarre, where dogs give birth to babies via vomiting. The fact that its hard to tell what's going on, save that it takes place in a brightly-lit LA warehouse, making the effects look cheap, doesn't distract from the obvious weirdness. Obviously now all of this type of genetic foolish-ness is in China, where it belongs. (This young writer hopes that the Chinese grow some minotaurs.) Following a dull credit sequence it is now five years later. Mr Trebeck is running security at the White House, teaching interns self- defence and how to kill a terrorist with simple to hand elements. (despite his comments in his scripted routine, Mr Trebeck is not an intern himself. I think that counts as a joke). We have a five minute training routine here, in a White House whose walls shake. Its a lot of fun, Mr Trebeck showing modesty as he teaches a comely young lass how to break a spine. Then the Van Dyke appears, as the president himself (the only time Van Dyke played an authority role, being very stiff when asked questions where he gives opinions). Some character scenes appear for a time, start to drag then the action begins. The director, in commentary, says he was influenced by French Connection 2 (yes, in this film Mr Trebeck channels Gene Hackaman. And does a fine job of it.) The mutant kids attack at night, giving us a twenty minute sequence, where the interns are taken out one by one, where security teams are massacred, where children behave unspeakably to adults. While the stalking sequences are a bit repetitive, the pay-offs are great, if likely added later. Twenty-somethings get macheted, pumped full of lead, decapitated, burnt alive. Security men are shot-gunned to death. The mutant children age oddly, some almost like newborns, others almost ten. To be honest the acting for them, and the interns, is pretty awful. You have to imagine a better film usually. The mastermind appears. This is obviously Mr Wheatley, giving a very strange performance. He talks of women with hair made of rats. Talks of machines made of wood, of burning water. Its meant to be eccentric, to suggest someone mad enough to make these children but suggests that he is high and hasn't read the script. But it's still the highlight of the film. Mr Trebeck eventually appears again, after being off-stage for a long time, with the comely young intern and the president. They wander around the ruins, were presumably hiding but Mr Trebeck suggests they were activating security to have the White House surrounded. Doesn't sound very convincing as an excuse. You can't help but picture Mr Trebeck whimpering like a coward somewhere. As a fan that's hard to take. Eventually Mr Trebeck and Wheatley have a square-off, the children attacking also, Van Dyke saving the young intern and hides. Mr Trebeck fascinates the killer children and is tied up. At this point Jared James shows up, gives a brief phoned in performance as the guy leading the security outside, yet unsure what to do. He appears through-out the second half, is dull, given nothing to do, has no bearing on the outcome. He pads the film's brief running time. Inside the White House, Mr Trebeck sees that Wheatley has the president's family under guard, gives a plan to release information to enemies, to where to find chemicals to attack the US by creating more mutations. Somehow he has to use information from the White House yet he has never needed their aid in the first place to create these monsters. So why did he not just give them direct to the terrorists? Why show off with the mutants? Its a plot device that makes no sense. Even if there are deleted scenes suggesting that Wheatley was ex-military using US technology against them it would likely still not make total sense. Next we have Dalton talking to the killer children, a twenty minute scene where he bonds with the "monsters" gives some Buddhist wisdom, says such things as "look at the view", "always ask why you are here" and "be modest, don't expect the world to love you". It actually takes them down a little, making Wheatley go nuts, starts spouting about hair rats and such-like. Mr Trebeck uses this time to escape (its shot dark so I can't quite work out how he managed to do this), finds Van Dyke and intern. Van Dyke is injured, falls asleep. What follows is the most disturbing scene in the film, a love scene between Mr Trebeck and the intern literally young enough to be his daughter. She shows way too much flesh for it simply to be romantic and you'll likely feel dirty after seeing the event. Mr Trebeck looks confused and embarrassed throughout. After this Van Dyke wakes, gets hold of a chainsaw, goes after his family. Film reaches its conclusion with Van Dyke and intern fighting and killing many monsters with chainsaws and guns. Mr Trebeck stands in the centre of the room, sadly shakes his head through-out. Eventually the monsters get the idea and stop attacking. The family is saved and Mr Trebeck faces down Wheatley. Wheatley has his own people to protect him, who Mr Trebeck and the monsters destroy, before Mr Trebeck and Wheatley engaging in a five minute brutal show-down, one of the best ever done on such a budget, the one moment where the director and writers are in the same film. The fighters literally tear one another apart before Mr Trebeck wins and titles suddenly appear. No mention is made of what happens to the monsters, to the now murderous president, to the comely young intern and Mr Trebeck. It is left to you imagination and is a tad unsatisfying. So there you have it. I Spite Your Father, Sir is one of the odder late films of Mr Trebeck. It is worth a look for its cultish scenes, even is its a bit paceless. But still far superior to most of the muck contaminating our screens today. Dalton Trebeck's Japan TrilogyThe Japan Trilogy is as follows: Into Death Us We Kill, Respect For The Mad Buddhist Death and A Father's Tale.
Into Death Us We Kill has many good points. It's the first in the two films made by Derek Q DeLain, who also directed A Father's Tale. There are no American supporting parts. Trebeck says ten lines in the film. There are no subtitles, the Japanese saying a few words here or there and you know what they mean. People butcher one another in many a small Japanese town. Many a young lass goes into the online porn trade, tutored by aging men. Through it all Dalton murders his way to get back his kidnapped daughter, taken in the first scene in Tokyo. Its episodic, essentially Trebeck going from town to town, murdering gangster scum and accidentally killing many innocent bystanders. Trebeck looks increasingly unhinged throughout. He ends up finding his daughter dead, then decapitates all that he sees in a small town. This is a film with three whorehouse shoot-outs, two destroyed police stations (the police are in on it), ten castrated businessmen (one is a politician) and no message beyond brutal revenge. It's great but unseen largely in America due to its insane levels of violence. Respect For The Mad Buddhist Death is a Warwick Jehane film, the first collaboration stalled by many falling outs. It's the only one of the three Japan films that received real American distribution and is the best one. It has the dumbest plot but the best direction. It has Dirk Michael Wheatley being a CIA agent turned priest, butchering Buddhist Japanese children in the first five minutes, his friend played by Gabriel Van Dyke sent in to kill him. Gabriel loses an arm and a leg in a brutal fight. Then we cut to Dalton. Dalton is murdering a family of yakuza, is betting attacked by men, women and children, hacking them all to bits with a sword. He walks out of the house, looks around, goes to the next house. Next scene he gets a call from Van Dyke, telling him of Wheatley being in town, gone mad. Dalton goes to meet Wheatley, sees that Wheatley has gone too far, tries to kill him. What we have is a ten-minute long fight which goes from Buddhist temples to hotels, murdering literally hundreds. Dalton is left for dead, is rescued by surviving Buddhist, is brought back from death. Wheatley stays on the hunt while Dalton recovers, killing people, burning bodies and buildings then disappearing. He looks tortured. Buddhist track him from spirits, sending Dalton after him, Dalton always too late, finding burned out remains and being blamed, as a white man. So he repeatedly has to fight his way out. Which he does without pity, destroying already injured men. Wheatley then falls in love with a Japanese woman, then kills her for being unpure. Then he does it again. Dalton keeps reliving old assignments, all scene, where he kills people, feeling ashamed. Dalton also kills a pig that is said to be the re-incarnation of an old enemy. That's unusual, even for a Dalton Trebeck film. Finally, after a few near misses, Wheatley attacks a yakuza mainstay, Dalton running in halfway through the scene, they both killing the yakuza before turning on one another for a brutal yet quick fist-fight, Dalton literally beating Wheatley to death before himself being shot by a child survivor. This is a film, massacre after massacre, that offers continually inventive, off-hand brutality. It's genius. A Father's Tale is the quiet one. There is literally no violence for the first hour. Trebeck finds a baby from a dead prostitute and looks after it. He is in a Japanese village (one of the ones destroyed in Into Death Us We Kill). For the next hour he looks after the baby, interacts with the locals, speaks some Japanese, and is kindly to all. He does a pretty good job of being human. He plays a CIA agent who is hiding out, having been turned on by old friends. The film becomes an action movie when the father of the baby returns to the village, a thug trying to be a businessman, finds out about the dead hooker (who he wanted kept alive, was in love with). This man hunts down those who killed her, or plotted to have her killed. Trebeck is off-screen for half an hour here as this guy kills a lot of people. Finally the two men meet, Dalton deciding it is best to hand over the baby to the father, that he will look after him. Dalton moves on, continuing to be in hiding. This was supposed to be a start of a Japanese series but due to the lack of Trebeck action it was never released in the US. It did well in Asia and the Trebeck part was recast film to film, different director every film, no continuity, the films becoming violent and ungainly. They do not bear watching. So it was odd to Eastern Europe after these Japanese films. Is a shame. He did a great job there. Dalton Trebeck: The Post-Jummy Hollywood FilmsOh how the mighty fall when losing their creative soul-mate. I write of Dalton Trebeck and his Hollywood years following the untimely death of his director-producer Jummy Rainer. It was dreck and we unfortunately have to wallow a little in Dalton's misery.
Dick Freebie's Totem, Die Hard on an Indian reservation, came first, is an incredibly weak and offensively stupid film. It's also a difficult film to remember, as it feels like it goes on for so long without a point. Dalton plays Sammy Jones, a bland-sounding a ranger on the land, seems kind but has no family or character. Shrugs a lot and talks nonsense about wisdom. I should point out now that the film was a Jummy idea (but as Indians scalping white's) but he was busy on Spine. Dalton was to play a man named Defries, first name never said, who was the ranger stalking Indians who have gone mad, not able to take the economic oppression anymore. While he was meant to be tracking them he was killing their enemies, working out white patsies for the murders, while finding the Indians to talk them around, try and interest them in a score against their oppressors. he finally catches up with them as they butcher a banker and her lover, Defries finishing the job off. At this point they go off on a score, massacring their enemies, stealing hundreds of thousands, leaving decapitated heads all over the villain lair. They return to their settlement, planning another score. The film, also named Totem, was to end with them giving some money to their people, aiming to travel to Washington for their next score. Obviously Jummy hated the banks. Alas, as Spine was going over-budget, this idea, originally a Head Rush follow-up project, was plucked and placed in the hands of a liberal hack, who changed much before shooting and more on set. He brought in Juluis H. Smight, a man of low talents, insisted that the film should humanise Dalton, that the Indian reservation is too unique for the original idea and had to be the base of a truly original action film. Jummy objected but was too busy to intervene. Then the idea of ambiguous Indians was too much for the director to bear. So they became victims. Jummy suggested that the killer Indians and Dalton should at least become a crew fighting back but the hack said no, Dalton has to be alone and mythic. So this is how the film now plays out. Some villains come to attack the Indians for some reason (never explained) and Dalton fights back with lethargic moves, having been injured when shooting Spine. It takes half an hour to get to that. Before its a lot of families and their social situation, with sentimental music. These people barely appear when the action gets going. The villains are essentially racist idiots throughout, working for a man who thinks there may be oil on their land, wants to force them out, blame them for violence, destroy the concept of an Indian reservation. As if the American government doesn't do that every year. The henchmen shoot weakly at Dalton, letting him get to places to make easy escape. He kills some of them but without real impact, as hack hates brutality. The villains track Dalton through the land, cutting him off from supplies. Then continue to track him for about forty minutes without anything interesting save a few slayings. Meanwhile their bosses are cruel to the Indians, who are different Indians than set-up originally. Most are children. Then suddenly there's the finale. Eventually Dalton kills them all, the ending taking place at an Indian burial ground. Dalton gets the capitalist scum arrested due to testimony by flunkies (yes, not even a good death scene for the villain). It's a slow moving action flick, with much Indian talking bollocks like losers, and dull landscape shots repeated interminably. It was Dalton's first flop and even he tries to forget it, as it is far worse than anything that followed. The reviews were rightly horrible. A horrible ending to what could have been a great action series. Spook-Game is next, the ghost film. Dalton is apparently the lead but really a chief supporting part to the effects. This is another Jummy idea ruined, this time by aging hack John R Jackson. As written by Jummy, it was meant to be a tough child's film, Dalton leading kids through a haunted location in 3-D. Dalton was to play a mystery man, of few words, who lead the kids through a mysterious island after their plane crashes. They would find ghosts, all of which had emotional ties to the children's past. Dalton would also have his past reveleaved by the end, as they escape from the horrible island. It was a romp, a treasure island type of movie, different from the other films, a new direction. The first draft script still left room fro improvement but it was ready, was a solid base. By the time the film appeared the film was set in a haunted LA house, without 3-D. The kids were teenagers, Dalton was in grief for Jummy and was filmed away from the rest of the cast on blue-screen. The plot was him as a cop hunting a serial killer who is trying to find the ghosts of his victims. That is a strange reason. Meanwhile the nut is killing the teenagers off-screen. Dalton eventually hooks up with the teenagers to defeat the killer. There are also spies chasing the killer for a reason that no-one can fathom. It was still aimed at children until they realised how creepy the serial killer idea was. By that point the film was such a mess that they never could be bothered adding more gore for adults so the film was left to die horribly on release. So no good characters, with teenagers act like ten year olds as the character-based rewriting was half-hearted at best, so there was no context for the behaviour. Dalton acts to them as if they are children. He may have not been told of the reacting due to the circumstances of production, in some interviews claimed as much. Dalton is also dull and uninterested throughout, when there needed to be curiosity. There is no logic to increasing action, as actions occur that the viewer does not understand the reason for, action occurring in a thrill-ride Indiana Jones rip-off sort of way. At least it was better than Totem due to unintential laughs but was Dalton's second bomb. It was his notorious disaster. After a two-year gap, Dalton returned to Sean Santiago in Gem. Again it was based on a Jummy idea ruined. Jummy had five ideas for Sean Santiago. The innocent young woman and niece had moved away (after Ghost-spook bomb, no more kids it seemed) and Dalton chases a high-level female jewel thief who was being stalked by a serial killer. This Santiago was drunk a lot of the time, depressed. It was supposed to be a theme but felt like padding, the old Santiago always on the move, like a shark. He never gets anywhere with the jewel thief, who is slashed to death two-thirds in. Eventually Dalton gets interested in the non-plot and kills a few people to find the killer, pulling out the guy's heart. This one is worse than any Dirty Harry sequel. Directed by Los Angeles director Tom Riene, who went onto television. Now the original idea was different. Gem would be the idea of what is lost. The innocent young woman was to lose her child to leukemia, was to be the villain in this film. She would start killing other women, do many a foetal abduction and have many babies, all dead due to starvation. She would also kill healthy women for no reason. Dalton was to be chasing this killer, oblivious to who it was, would be brutally murdering people to get the information. There would be gangster ties and high-brutality chases that would escalate and be odd and twisted, burning sky-scrapers at night and families of gangster scum killed due to frame-ups by the young woman, before he finds out the truth. As he was also in grief, he would end up killing her while kissing her, acknowledging his unhealthy desire for her that had been suppressed through-out the other stories and would be very obvious through-out this one. Story would end with him handing in his badge and leaving the city, unsure what to do next. A far more interesting, if messy story, instead of what we got. Switch The Ditch was another Riene disaster, a heist film where Dalton plays second fiddle to a dull plot and a cast of show-offs. Not much to say. Again Dalton looks depressed and drunk. Plot is dull, a few double-crosses on the escape. Was meant to be a tribute to The Getaway but had no mood. Dalton was killed off two-thirds in as a shock that induces yawns. There's also a brutal shoot-out at the end where everyone dies. The film is someone trying to be brutal without style, a bad-Jummy imitation. Which it was. This was the Totem sequel, now with vague criminals rather than Indians. The sequel idea was that the first half was a brutal sting in Washington, ripping into politicians in brutal blackmail schemes, Dalton hiring someone as a front man, making various politicians paranoid about one another and investments made through banks. (again the bank hatred). As soon as the scam was worked, the Indians kill the politicians brutally, suggesting gang-land connects, move off with the money. Second half is the getaway, as a few ties seem to lead back to them, which they have to plug up in some tense action beats. Dalton is brutally murdered here by his own friend, when he think he's sold them for profit. It would have been tragic, friend versus friend. Losing the control, the Indians kill many others, some innocent, being brutally killed one by one, leaving one Indian left, the one who killed Dalton, unable to return home, killing off the last of his enemies who can tie him to the scam, having the money but nowhere to go. He would be followed into the next dark adventure. All of this is gone in the film. There are no heroes, anti-heroes, surprises. Definitely no Indians. Only the title and one idea, of killing Dalton. Dial D For Detonation is the final Sean Santiago flick, as Gem managed to make money, far less than Head Rush. as this one also did, but only later, on video. Was a public failure theatrically. Is a Detroit bomb squad film, Santiago aiding them in the hung for a mad bomber. It is better than the previous post-Jummy films, as Santiago does have a little more life, and is re-united with innocent young woman and niece at the end. But hunting down a killer who likes bombing places (has none of the specific odd targets that Jummy provided) is dull, with many cutting the wire scenes. Bomber wants his family back as motivation we find. But they are dead, killed by him. Even this doesn't work as it has no lead-up, but it's a bit of life I suppose. As previously noted, this was the first film that Gabriel Van Dyke and Dirk Michael Wheatley appeared, as his buddies. But they have nothing to do and you can't imagine this character having buddies. Directed by Jeff Vasco, another TV hire to be, this film was of no real use. The outline by Jummy reads different. This one had Santiago in Mexico, watching the Mexicans, taking assassination jobs, having lost all moral compass. He would sleep with prostitutes, shoot people for no reason, essentially willing people to kill him. The title referred to his self-destruction. It would be a spare film, have little dialogue. It's base would be picked apart and used somewhat for the Japan films. Eventually in the story Santiago would get into a brutal gun-fight with the police, not the gangsters, and is killed for no political reason. He simply made the situation more difficult for people left in his wake. A downer but it would have been a perfect ending to the series. Instead we have something stupid. The good news is that Dalton dusted himself off and went to Japan after these fiasco's started working with real talents who appreciated him. The Father Of Dalton TrebeckWhile researching the life of dead movie star Dalton Trebeck, I never felt the need to go into the life of his father, Gustav Trebeck (1901-1957). After all, they never met, the father marrying a nineteen year old who had been released from an insane asylum for imagining she was being stalked, before knocking her up and dying in mysterious circumstances. But the more you look into it, the more fascinating this man becomes.
By the end of world war 2, this contract player of dubious indie studios z-level films, making fifty in all within a decade and a half, mostly thankfully rotted, was in career trouble. He was a frequent co-star of a failing Bela Lugosi, viewed as a fat yet low-rent Clifton Webb, was hitting drug addiction and the blacklist. He was in fact brought to the attention of the McCarthy scum by his attempt to bugger Trotsky in Mexico not long before his death. This got the McCarthy people interested, as did a commendation for his acting ability by Stalin. It wasn't long before Gustav was on the run from the US then forgotten, because is a bad actor really of any interest to anyone. Finding himself in London, and failing to get himself any work, even in theatre, he went into the quota quickies, always leeching onto any new black-listed actor or director than came his way (Joseph Losey kicked him in the nuts more than once, also threatening to knife him). He always hoped these people would show loyalty to a fellow lefty but all saw him as a fake. Not even Orson Welles would hire him as an extra. With every insult he returned to the quota quickies, working as back-up to many a staple of two-days film runs backed by American studios trying to get their product into British cinemas. Working from a Yorkshire studio mostly, he supported the tawdry comedy of the Dalry Sisters (later convicted of cannibalism, their victims young newlyweds), Mick McDick (an old man who liked very short women off-stage, which somehow, due to his manner, made people feel uncomfortable), more often than not in some rambling thriller/horrors where he would be the sex-addicted killer. His most notable credit during this time was a never released film version of James Bond, made in 1953. He played M with a very Russian accent, and as a flaming homosexual. Bond was also played in a very camp way, by alcoholic forties acting legend Michael Deer, who looking down upon playing "such an appalling scallywag". The fights were laughable, the dialogue worse. It was written by Warwick Jehane the second (Grandfather of Dalton Trebeck's future master director, also on the blacklist, before returning to American television, after all that nonsense subsided.) So he stayed in Yorkshire for a few years, on these terrible films, his girth expanding by the film, alcoholism and rumours of bisexuality out of control, before finally giving up altogether and not bothering to learn lines. In the modern era this is called doing a Brando but in that time it was called who cares, who will see this film. His acting improved a lot during this era, when he was just making things up and ignoring the story. Apparently the studios here were haunted, had aliens, had many suicides, but this might simply have been viewed as a respectable way out of a failing career. His final role was that of a fat Dracula in a quite terrible, amazingly tacky low-budget rip-off of Christopher Lee's Hammer film. This was his only film in colour, he at one point vomiting blood on a young virgin. Gustav died halfway through the film, replaced by a dwarf-like actor. It was set in the modern-day, a bald fat Dracula hitting on hookers in Soho, slashing them to death at times also, a la Tod Slaughter. While some writers say its may have influenced Peeping Tom, can anyone really imagine Michael Powell watching a dubious Gustav Trebeck vehicle (assuming he knew who Gustav Trebeck actually was) named Dracula's Soho Virgin Bride. I think not. As you can see, this was a man forgotten in his own time. Dalton never talked about this man, never acknowledged this man's staggering failures. Its sad but true. George McBride Obituary
While many a celebratory dies and are feted, no matter how unsavoury some parts of their lives were, some passings go unnoticed. One of those is George McBride, an elderly gay director whose career spanned many eras, from fifties quota quickie sci-fi to sixties nudie zombie biker movies, Roger Corman and American TV.
His producer, Jackson Tulord Breen DeWitt Delauncy 111, an elderly gent himself, (over 100 years old), remembers McBride fondly. Old George was a strange one. I first laid eyes upon his ghastly nervous shell as he rebounded from a car driven by a thirteen year old child. He got up, took it with grace and got back to work, although the scenes he shot that day for me were a little lacking. Strangely the film made money, yet it was about a dog fighting an alien and its pet floozy in a small English village, so I think it was partially the writing. I remember a great suggestion of repressed sexuality in that one, that George would know all about. George hated being asked personal questions, especially about his sexuality, which he would try to hide by buying obscene amounts of adult literature. Even the most perverted man could not get through a third of what he bought. He would be an exhausted shell, like the victims in one of George's infamous Nazi-fetish German alien invasion film Herr Slutz Die Neiberling. He was also deathly dull. That line from that semi-remake of George's 1965 bomb Abomination Wolf said it best. "Have you ever talked to a corpse. It's boring." George was like that. Also, now I come to think of it, many a time could be stunningly unobservant. He always thought I was seventy when I was only twenty years older than him, the cheeky bugger. And his films were deadly and grotesquely paceless, to the point of masochism in regard to watching them, which why he has a following many have observed. They didn't intrigue, rise the passions, dip a little while the writer was drunk, then have have an orgy of either sex or violence (my rule, one, the other, or both!!!!). They meandered on like a serial killer looking for his next skin, like having sex with a vicar, a subject in which many, including myself and George, know a lot about. So they were bloody boring. God, I hated dailies when he was directing coma victims. In my day, producing quota quickies, we would hire the most pervy sicko's just to get through the day, on-screen and off. George had no truck with that so I only saw his films by contractual obligation. Continuity bothered him even less than me. As I was a producer, that is damning. He didn't really show any interest in actors, actresses, dialogue pacing, story progression, scripts even. His motto was how many pages and where's the pub. And that's an attitude unfortunately lacking in today's directors. After I fired George for giving oral sex to a leading man five minutes before a start of a day, I never saw him again. Oh I heard of his projects yet I never bothered to look them out as they seemed trashy, probably not in a good way. I never really had any interest in his personal life and would probably have walked by him in the street, given the choice. I went to his rainy, cheap vulgar funeral, as I felt I should. His few friends had expired years ago from AIDS, there being ten people who sort of knew him. They said it was lung cancer officially but most youngsters sulking around the grave, trying to cry with passion said it was the booze finally that left him adrift and exiting this mortal.... you know the rest. Ah well. So George McBride is dead. This may sound cruel buts its probably for the best. A note: Some McBride fans object to the suggestion of why McBride left DeLauncy's employ, most saying it was other studio's offering him work. They also refuse to acknowledge his gayness, which is odd. But McBride was a strange, probably over-rated director. His cult continues to grow. |