The Drowning Pool (1975)

Harper is back.  He has traveled to New Orleans at the request of Iris Devereaux (Joanne Woodward), who says that the former chauffeur is blackmailing her.  He has hardly settled into his motel room when an underaged girl, Schuyler (Melanie Griffith) propositions him.  Even though he refused and escorted her out of his room, he was soon arrested and harassed by the police.  It is suggested that he go back to Los Angeles.  A visit to the Devereaux estate proves informative.  Schuyler is Iris' daughter!  Iris's mother-in-law is the matriarch; she is a shrew who holds Iris in low regard.  Harper has hardly left the estate to start looking for the chauffeur than he is abducted by thugs in the employ of J. Hugh Kilbourne (Murray Hamilton).  Kilbourne is an oilman who wants to purchase the Devereaux property and is not above blackmail to get his way.  His wife, Mavis (Gail Strickland), is clearly terrified of him but dares not leave him.

Harper puts on identities like other men put on jackets.  He has a knack for adopting the correct demeanor to convince people to tell him what he needs to know.  However, like Jim Rockford, he has a habit of getting beaten up or taken for a ride whenever he gets too close to the truth.  That this movie was made 9 years after the original gives it a very different feel.  This one is gloomier.  Maybe that can be attributed to be located in Louisiana rather than Southern California.

Though I had seen this before, the only part I remembered was the scene where Harper was blasted with a water hose.  Upon reviewing, I can confirm that is the most memorable part of this movie.  I would not think that the building would have held together with that much water.

Not as good as the first one but still popcorn fun.

Cherry 2000 (1987)

In the distant future year of 2017, Sam Treadwell (David Andrews) drives his topless 3-wheeled car home from work in Anaheim and is greeted by Cherry (Pamela Gridley).  She is gorgeous but not terribly bright but Sam loves her.  After an awkward dinner, he starts making love to her on the kitchen floor as the sink overflows in a cascade of bubbles.  Then Cherry short-circuits!  Sam is devastated.  The Cherry 2000 is a classic model that is no longer in production.  There are tales of Cherry 2000s in Zone 7 but that would be dangerous.  If he can put her memory disk in an identical model, she'll be back as good as ever.  Sam heads east to Glory Hole, the last settlement where law still functions.  He needs a tracker, a person who braves the lawless zones.  Sam hires E. Johnson (Melanie Griffith), a heavily armed redhead with a tricked-out 1965 Chevy Mustang.  Unsurprisingly, Sam slowly falls for the real woman on his quest for his sex robot.

 

This is a post-apocalyptic future with some strange features.  Much of manufacturing was destroyed in an unexplained apocalypse and recycling is a huge industry.  Sam is a workaholic at a recycling center.  There are multiple clubs where one can go to find a sex partner for the night but not before extensive legal documents are signed.  Laurence Fishburne has a small role as a lawyer drafting a contract for a couple of Sam's co-workers to have sex that night, outlining what is okay and what is off-limits.  No wonder Sam has a sexbot.

 

There is plentiful A-Team like action where lots of bullets and rockets are fired but our heroes are never harmed.  The craziest sequence is when the Mustang is lifted by a crane and held high over the desert for all the goons to blast it.  E, which proves to be short for Edith, intentionally drove into this 'trap' because it was the easiest way to cross the river.  What?  Why didn't the crane operator just drop them after he lifted them a hundred feet in the air?  Why did he keep them moving and thus make them a tougher target for his allies?  Why did multiple rockets hit the Mustang and cause no damage?  Very campy at times.

 

Melanie Griffith is horribly cast in this movie.  She has this little girl voice that does not fit a hardened veteran of the lawless lands beyond the bounds of civilization.  Many of her lines are comical rather than bad-ass.  David Andrews is rather wooden and doesn't really know what to do with the character.  He goes from dopy business executive to action hero, which is okay but it is revealed late in the movie that he is a veteran of the Border Wars.  His claim of being a veteran was a big surprise because he is such a hapless oaf in the first act.  Pamela Gridley is great at Cherry.  This early role only demands she be pretty.  Her flat delivery is great for a robot.

 

Lester (Tim Thomerson) is a quirky warlord who has a 50s-style motel for a base where the guys wear colorful bowling shirts and the ladies lounge by the pool.  There is this idyllic feel to the place until Lester puts an arrow through the head of a captive.  Lester has a short fuse and enjoys killing.  Thanks to the blandness of the two leads, he shines by comparison.

 

Elaine/Ginger (Cameron Milzer) is Lester's quirky girlfriend.  It turns out that Elaine is Sam's ex-girlfriend and changed her name to Ginger upon moving to the zone.  She is the only person who can interact in complete safety with Lester.  She has sandwiches ready and counsels a go along and get along policy even while Lester is killing trespassers.  She is unflappable and entirely unconcerned by the violence around her.

 

This is clearly a movie of the 80s and fits with movies such as Slipstream, Cyborg, Steel Dawn, or Road Warrior.  Goofy but fun.