"LE COUP/ LE CASSE / THE BURGLARS" -1971

"LE COUP/ LE CASSE / THE BURGLARS" -1971
Was one of my favorite movies growing up, this was my father's favorite movie too. The thought of this film bring me back to the time when the entire family was glued to the TV set, also I really loved the soundtrack by Ennio Morricone.
"The Burglars" (was the title we grew up with), started out with a "hi-tech" break-in to a luxurious home in Greece, the intruders used the technology of 1971 to figure out the combination and created a duplicate key to the safe; stealing priceless jewelry.
Omar Sharif plays Abel Zacharia a crooked policeman assigned to the case; he would do anything to catch Jean-Paul Belmondo, our hero- the burglar, BUT not for justice, but to take the jewels for himself.
My mother and mine scene was when Sharif visits Belmondo at a restaurant and treats him to a sensational gourmet meal. For the next 5 minutes the Belmondo and the audience were introduced to various Mediterranean delicacies and the screen was filled with shots of the kitchen preparing the meal as Sharif explained the recipes and each dish, taking the viewer away from the plot and into short tourists video.
Later Belmondo meets Lena played Dyan Cannon an exotic dancer, who brings Belmondo back to her beautiful apartment; decorated with fur floor covering, mirrors on the ceiling and we were first introduced to the amazing "CLAPPER"!
I remember the audience in the theater going ooh and ahh as The Clapper was demonstrated in a love scene and later a very funny scene too.
With a great sound track, beautiful scenery and a fantastic 10 minute car chase featuring a parade of nuns, made this movie a must see!

WONDER WOMAN - 1974

WONDER WOMAN-1974
Not to be mistaken with "The New Original Wonder Woman" - the TV show starring Lynda Cater. This was an early attempt to bring Wonder WOman on TV in this made for TV movie starring Cathy Lee Crosby (That's Incredible) and Ricardo Montalban of "Fantasy Island".
This version was consider as one of the 100 stupidest moments of television history. That pretty much says it all.But being it's 1974 one of the stupidest year in the history of planet Earth, I am a bit forgiving.
This was a very loose interpretation of the comic book super heroine, although it does start out with Wonder Woman as Diana leaving her home, an island of Amazon women to come America to fight crime.
Later we find Diana working for the CIA to go on a search for a series of books that listed names and information about top spies all over the world.
Aside from the silliness of the movie there is however a great deal of 70's violence in this movie where the one of the villains George (Andrew Pine) toasts his cohorts for successfully stealing the books but then they were gunned down by an androgynous couple, who looked a lot like Dr Zarah of "Planet of the Apes".
Crosby not only did not resemble the iconic Wonder Woman, her performance was dull and bland. Neither Wonder Woman or Diana showed any kind of personality or emotion. To add salt to the wound her costume was an odd red, white and blue, jump suit.
This Wonder Woman possess not super powers, no magic lasso or bullets stopping bracelets. There were a couple of interesting elements added to her jewelry, she has a collection of "bracelets" that can be used as a bomb and a sort of GPS device for Wonder Woman to track her target.
The pace of the movie was very slow and boring. At one point a donkey was involved leading Wonder Woman to a death trap made of multi colored lava....
There was a fight between Wonder Woman and her Amazon rival Ahnjayla, who was played by Anitra Ford, "The Price is Right" fans of the early 70's recognize her as the Vanna White of 1974.
Good thing the TV executives went back to the drawing board, so that a year later Wonder Woman returns to television with Lynda Carter donning the magic tiara, invisible plane and all, making Lynda Carter a household name in television history.