The Glove (1979) review

THE GLOVE 1979

John Saxon (Sam Kellogg), Rosey Grier (Victor Hale), Joanna Cassidy (Sheila Michaels), Aldo Ray (Tiny), Keenan Wynn (Bill Schwartz), Michael Pataki (Harry Iverson), Hoke Howell (Tex Eastwood)

Directed by Ross Hagen


A bounty hunter attempts to track down and bring in a vengeance seeking, wrongfully accused ex convict out to kill the prison guards that tortured him with a steel plated riot glove.

The Short Version: Screen tough guy, Ross Hagen directs this low key, low budget and modest action, crime, revenge caper. While the film sorely lacks a lot of action, what little there is is in well done and incredibly and forcefully brutal. Worth checking out for the great genre cast of regulars and support players. The cat and mouse rapport between Saxon and Grier also makes the movie more interesting than it should be.


Yet another revenge movie from the late 1970's, this one plays out like an old crime program with lead hero, Saxon narrating the whole thing. This definitely adds to the level of cheese as Saxon, whose not a small man, just doesn't convince as a bounty hunter despite a very long career of playing villains in numerous movies and television shows both in America and abroad. Like its co-feature on this DVD, there's an attempt to give Saxon's character some additional sympathy by touching on his relationship with his daughter and his ex wife. If there had been as much action as exposition, this picture could have been one of the best drive in features of the decade. With that said, this movie is a couple levels beneath the same years similar programmer, SEARCH & DESTROY. But THE GLOVE isn't without its own merits.

John Saxon tries on THE GLOVE

The director, Ross Hagen, was a very familiar face on numerous old western TV shows and various others. He acted in his share of exploitation fare as well. Having directed a handful of pictures, THE GLOVE is probably the most well known of the lot. It's a shame, though, that this intriguing, yet silly revenge potboiler is a bit of a disappointment. It starts off like gangbusters and slowly runs out of steam. The only thing keeping it together is the odd voiceover narration from Saxon detailing his day to day activities and acting as a means to further the plot. His character is given a lot more depth than your typical bounty hunter. There's nothing comic book about this movie at all, and sadly, if it were, it would probably be a much more rewarding experience.


The opening of the movie is really good and sets the stage for an intense action experience wherein Grier totally demolishes a car in an attempt to get at Aldo Ray. It's a shame the remainder of the movie never quite reaches the brutal heights seen during the opening. From there, the movie quickly becomes an unintentionally funny film until the next brutal death scene comes along. Grier only exacts riot glove vengeance two times during the pictures 90 minutes leading up to his fight with Saxon atop a building at the end. One funny fight scene sees Saxon beating up on a homosexual couple and another has Saxon's Sam Kellogg dueling with a bad guy inside a meat factory with both men beating each other with slabs of beef!



Continuity error seekers will spot a scene early on where Grier's glove switches hands between shots and another inside a bathroom that Grier obliterates. A toilet gets smashed and falls apart, but is put back together in the next shot. Grier himself is an awesome presence and comes off as a good man, if not a slight bit demented in his quest for revenge. Grier was also one half of the THE THING WITH TWO HEADS (1972) co-starring Ray Milland and also with Roger Perry.


What really makes THE GLOVE worthy of curiosity value is the stellar cast of familiar faces to genre fans. There's Aldo Ray (THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS, BOG), Keenan Wynn (ORCA, PIRANHA, THE DARK), Michael Pataki (GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE, ZOLTAN) and Hoke Howell (KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS, THE KLANSMAN) in the cast to keep things mildly interesting when the action should be doing that. Nicholas Worth (DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE, SWAMP THING) also has a brief role as a homosexual bail jumper who gets into a brawl with Saxon's character. The movie also "benefits" from a ridiculous theme song that recalls some tunes heard in many blaxploitation movies from earlier in the decade.

Gratuitous scene of some very attractive ladies seen in the film for no other reason to be a gratuitous scene of some very attractive ladies

THE GLOVE is the 'B' feature paired on DVD with the similarly plotted SEARCH & DESTROY, the 'A' part of the bill, also from 1979. Dark Sky Films has done an amazing job in presenting both these minor league action opuses as a bonafide drive in double feature. This instantly became one of my favorite DVD's simply by virtue of its presentation. There's no option to select either movie, you simply hit play, sit back and enjoy great old theater and refreshment stand ads,trailers, then the first half of the bill, more ads and trailers then topping it off with the co-feature.


Both are suitably placed for this damn fine action exploitation double header DVD presentation. The movies aren't wholly memorable, or great examples of their genres, but fun for one viewing. Everything else surrounding the pictures is icing on the cake. Highly recommended to nostalgia buffs who will no doubt appreciate this DVD more than the casual viewer.

This review is representative of the Dark Sky DVD paired with SEARCH & DESTROY

Search & Destroy (1979) review

SEARCH & DESTROY 1979

Perry King (Kip Moore), Don Stroud (Buddy Grant), Tisa Farrow (Kate Barchel), George Kennedy (Anthony Fusqua), Jong Soo Park (Assassin)

Directed by William Fruet

The Short Version: Modest revenge actioner has a great cast of genre stars and a halfway decent, if tired plot. It works most of the time, but seriously needs a stronger villain. 70's film buffs will no doubt want to see this. Paired on DVD with another movie, neither film can carry themselves alone, but work rather well as an old style double feature.


...That's just the way it was there. Nobody was thinking about right or wrong. Everybody was crazy, it was all confused! Take care of your team, that was the only rule, there weren't any other rules! They just put us down in the jungle and they set us free. We could do anything we wanted to do...anything we wanted and that's what we did! Nobody cared! Nobody asked questions...it wasn't search and destroy, it was much more the other way around...and you know what? I loved it!


Ten years after the war ended, a group of Vietnam vets are killed one by one by a revenge seeking former member left behind for betraying his group.


Exploitation ace, William Fruet keeps things moving along in this modest action movie possessing a flimsy plot, but a nicely written script. Having seen many of Fruet's movies, so many of them strive for greatness, but never attain it. The closest he came was with DEATH WEEKEND (1976). Still, his movies offer up a lot of entertainment value and he was lucky to nab good casts. And that's what keeps SEARCH & DESTROY interesting is its cast.


Perry King, a fine actor who never seemed to attain the kind of notoriety he deserved, does fine with the material, although there isn't much here to begin with for anyone to work from. In its defense, the script by Don Enright (SPASMS 1983;for Fruet again) touches on the after effects of being in Vietnam, but this is briefly touched upon while the action and search for the killer takes center stage. King gets a good moment to shine when he relates to his girlfriend about what it was like to have "lived" through the war in Vietnam.


Don Stroud threatens to take the movie away from King, but he isn't really in the movie long enough to do so, unfortunately. Jong Soo Park is the villain of the piece, but in my view, Stroud would have been much better as the heavy. Stroud made a career out of playing really nasty bad guys and he could have done wonders in this picture had he been cast as such. Still, he gives his brief role as the Karate chopping and kicking Buddy Grant an energetic verve that Jong Soo Park barely registers. Both Perry King and George Kennedy as the cop on the case hype up Jong's villain to high heaven as this major killing force, yet he's given little to convince the audience to be anything more than a disgruntled and unhinged man with a major chip on his shoulder.


Still, SEARCH & DESTROY is an action film and it does its job well in this low budget Canadian feature. Again, the cast is the big sell here. The movie is capped off nicely with a hunter and hunted style showdown that covers a lot of ground from the concrete jungle of a city street to the familiar grounds of a jungle like locale. There's also some flashback Vietnam action amidst the medium level violence on hand.



SEARCH & DESTROY is paired on DVD with the similarly plotted THE GLOVE also from 1979. Dark Sky Films did an amazing job in presenting both these minor league action opuses as a bonafide drive in double feature. This instantly became one of my favorite DVD's simply by virtue of its presentation. There's no option to select either movie, you simply hit play, sit back and enjoy great old theater and refreshment stand ads, trailers, then the first feature, more ads and trailers then topping it off with the co-feature.


While it's not a great movie, it's an average one that's definitely worth seeing. Those familiar with the directors other movies will have an idea what to expect here. If made today, it's the kind of movie that passes for direct to video fare. Picky viewers and those used to bigger action productions may want to pass this one over as there will be little to sustain their interest. Still, for exploitation junkies, SEARCH is worth seeking out. This Dark Sky DVD is highly recommended to nostalgia buffs who will no doubt appreciate this disc more than the casual viewer.

This review is representative of the Dark Sky double feature DVD paired with THE GLOVE (1979)