Distributor:
DV1 Certificate: M | 92 minutes Available to buy Directors: David Gaz, Annelie Wilder Reviewer: Alan R Extras: Yes
ANYONE
IN IT WE KNOW?
Bronson
Pinchot, Leo Rossi, Darin Heames, Tippi Hedren, Tim McNeil, Joan Van Ark
WHAT’S
IT ABOUT THEN?
A
bit of scene setting first - It
took millions of years for the
earth to turn rotting dinosaur
bodies and plants into coal and
enormous pressures to turn coal
into diamonds. We are told
in this film that in the 1950s a
process was developed to turn
coal into man-made diamonds.
Now in this film a suitably mad
looking scientist called Dr
Lockbuster (Tim McNeil) has
invented a machine that turns
the remains of dead people
directly into diamonds. He
and a nasty criminal called
Garza (Leo Rossi) have made use
of this machine to make diamonds
from famous dead people - Garza
employs two henchmen to obtain
such remains (The ashes of
Napoleon, head of Walt Disney,
etc) by criminal means and then
they sell the resultant diamonds
to a rich local businessman.
But
they are running out of available dead celebrities so the Henchmen
(Bronson Pinchot as Bergerac and Darin Heames as Lulu) are ordered to
murder new ones. Their first chosen victim is fading actress
Isabella Hemingway (Joan Van Ark) but she conveniently commits suicide
anyway after spending a night of passion with Bergerac. Bergerac
smitten with her wants to keep the resultant diamond but Garza won't
allow it. So Bergerac and Lulu devise a plan to frame Garza for
the murder of the businessman. Anyway that's probably enough of
the plot except to say that Mrs Kelly (Tippi Hedren) a collector of
diamonds is someone who takes her obsession very seriously.
SO
IS IT ANY GOOD?
It's
not fantastic really. The problem really is that the promising
sounding central idea is somewhat wasted. It sounds like a neat
idea turning dead loved ones into diamonds but unfortunately the plot
that's constructed around it would have worked just the same if they had
been mere diamond smugglers or drug smugglers or something else criminal
with little change required.
It
seems bizarre that they would have invented this fantastic device only
to use it criminally when one would have thought it could be used quite
legitimately as a funeral service to grieving relatives. What
could be nicer - instead of an urn of ashes you have a gleaming diamond
to wear or display to remind you of a dear departed one. It might
have been a better use of the idea if the emotional and moral
implications of such a facility had been explored. Even ignoring
that and just taking the film as it was made it does seem a little
directionless at times with a fairly ambling plot going nowhere in
particular.
Familiar
names in the cast include Tippi Hedren whose most famous role was in the
1960s as the star of Alfred Hitchock's The Birds; And Joan Van Ark who
would be familiar to TV viewers from
Dallas
spin-off Knot's Landing.
ANY
SPECIAL FEATURES?
Interview
sequences with some of the cast and the two directors.
