Cold Fusion Video Reviews

• Directed by Gordon Hessler
• Written by Herbert Wright
• Starring
  • James Franciscus
  • Wendy Hughes
  • Robert Helpmann
  • Peter Gwynne
  • Kerry McGuire

The back of the box tries to tell you this is a movie “in the tradition of Raiders of the Lost Ark,” which is both inaccurate (since this was produced for Australian TV three years before Raiders hit the theater) and just plain wrong, since this movie resembles Raiders only when condensed down selectively for, well, the back of a video box. Too bad; I had hoped to see James Franciscus be to Harrison Ford what he had been to Charlton Heston. What I got instead, was, well… let’s explore that, shall we?

The opening sends a chopper-transported paramilitary team into present-day Burma. Of course, when I say “paramilitary team,” I actually mean a bunch of middle-aged guys in camo who should probably be armed with paintguns rather than live ammo. Granted, their leader (Gerard Kennedy) is a mean-looking cuss, but the rest of them look like they should retreat from Burma and go back to fighting the Battle of the Bulge.

These are the last two semi-attractive faces you’ll see here. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

On the other hand, they don’t really have much opposition as they creep from their landing through the jungle to a small Buddhist temple, sneaking in on the oblivious monks as they bow to an ornamented urn and then go back to their business. Our camo guys try to sneak out with the urn, but they tip over a something-or-other and all the monks come running back in. Plan B is apparently to mow the monks down with automatic weapons fire.

That mission having gone so well, they return to Macao, where they deliver the urn to a small balding man with a huge forehead (Robert Helpmann). (His name is long after given as “Shepherd,” but since I had to call him something, I dubbed him “Sinister Joe.”) His response is a smile that I can only describe as “contained but orgasmic.”

On to other matters of plot: A Sydney banker, Mr. Cunningham, a former respected war hero, has thrown himself to his death. Grizzled Sergeant Knox (Peter Gwynne, an uncommonly ugly man) decides to take the case on himself, since he served under Cunningham and owes him his life. The quest begins…

Sinister Joe makes his “naughty but nice but icky” face.

And the key to it all is Cunningham’s widow Claudine (Wendy Hughes), who’s young enough that she probably wasn’t even a twinkle in someone’s eye when Cunningham stormed the beaches and earned his medal. (And yes, I guffawed every time I referred to her as “Mrs. C” in my notes.) Because Sinister Joe approaches her at the funeral with an urgent business matter…

Hey, wait, a prerecord videotape of a TV-movie shouldn’t have ads in it, right? So why is there a tampon commercial right in the mid– Whoops, my mistake; that’s actually part of the movie, James Franciscus playing tennis in slow motion for most of a minute. (Sorry ’bout that.) Franciscus plays Harry Scott (who’s referred to as “Mr. Scott” about every three minutes, cue more giggles), a tennis star who got a bum knee and is now scraping by giving lessons to teens and housewives. No clue as to why an American tennis player is in Sydney, but we’d probably better not ask.

And guess what? Claudine Cunningham used to be Mrs. Tennis Star! Yup, only twelve months ago, right when he was going through his knee problems and giving in to alcoholism, she divorced him, and since then she became Mrs. C (hee hee). But now, see, she needs his help, because Cunningham never got around to changing his will (who has the time?), so she’s got nothing at all — except two million dollars in gold, which she knows he had hiding somewhere but doesn’t know where. Will Harry help her, for a third?

His first question is, “Why do you think you can waltz back into my life etc.?” Mine was, “Why does she think that a tennis bum will somehow be able to help?” In either event, she leaves without the promise of his help. But later that day, Harry is beset upon by Sinister Joe’s goons (wisely eschewing the paramilitary gear in the tennis court locker room), where they supercharge the steam on his sauna and then mash his face with a racket, demanding to know where the gold is.

A cop’s best weapon is still a decidedly unpleasant face.

Which, counterintuitively, sends him back to Claudine, where he agrees to help her. (I guess he figures that, as long as he’s getting his ass whupped, he might as well have a chance at some reward.) He starts grilling her on where she’s searched in the house (”Everywhere,” she affirms) and wonders if she looked for anything in the safe.

Blank stare. “The safe? No, I didn’t think of there!”

You’d probably be better off going back for some more undeserved ass-whuppings, Harry.

In the meantime, though, Sgt. Knox has stopped by the Cunningham house to find it ransacked in Claudine’s absence. He also shows up to demonstrate that Australian police have no idea how to properly enter a room from which you’ve heard suspicious sounds. Thanks to such expertise, Knox’s partner gets shot, and Knox has the whole house locked down to find what the goon was looking for.

So in order for them to look at the contents of the safe (”Whoa! Never thought of the safe, dude!”), Harry has to sneak back in under the cover of night, sneak around stationed policemen, do further battle with the also-snuck-back goon, and get out with a set of deeds. (How did Claudine persuade Harry to risk his life? Mainly by calling him a loser. But Harry also wanted to do it, ultimately, “for me.” Isn’t that just the cleanest little character arc you could ask for?)

Aagh! Make it go away!!

The deeds contain one for a beachhouse that Claudine’s never heard of; it turns out to be occupied by Cunningham’s mistress Diana (Kerry McGuire, who just happens to be so ugly that I think Cunningham qualifies as a fetishist), as Harry discovers when he shows up posing as a missionary-type. (In case you’re wondering, he comes across a lot more Jehovah’s Witness-ish than Mormon-ish.) And it turns out that she’s got an idea where the gold might be: Cunningham had bought a deserted ghost town centering on a played-out goldmine, and the irony apparently had been just too tempting. But can Diana be trusted?

So what is the deal with the suicide, and the gold, and the urn and everything? Well, as it trickles down to us, Cunningham had been a collector of one-of-a-kind antiquities, and Sinister Joe had offered him the Big Daddy: An urn containing the ashes of Buddha himself. Cunningham had, um, made himself a loan from his bank, which he was going to pay back by selling off some of the rest of his collection, by another bank executive found out, so he jumped instead of facing the music. Meanwhile, Sinister Joe’s stuck with a jar of old ashes, and he wants his promised payment, dammit!

As you can probably tell, the proceedings aren’t terribly Indiana Jones-esque. Harry and friends stay around Sydney, occasionally venturing out as far as a pleasure yacht. Rather than being like an updating of old serial adventures, this movie’s script desperately wants to be film noir.

I swear, this must be Shannon Doherty’s biological father.

Think about it: You’ve got the washed-up has-been, his former wife with whom he’s got that ol’ love-hate thing going, multiple triangles, shady maneuvres, and a well-spoken but ruthless criminal leader (in fact, as soon as I saw the noirishness, I instantly clued in to how hard Sinister Joe had been trying to channel the spirit of Sydney Greenstreet). In fact, for all I know, the instigation of the entire plot was the idea of reversing the premise of The Maltese Falcon: tere we have a criminal trying intently to get rid of, instead of acquire, “the stuff which dreams are made of.”

Does it work as a noir? Hell, no! You think that a movie set in 1970s Australia, full of bright colors and bad fashion, accompanied by electric piano and wakka-wakka guitar, could work as a noir?

It does work to show off several previously-unknown facets of Australian culture. For instance, Australian newspapers inform the general public that individuals are wanted suspects before the police attempt to contact them and take them into custody. Australian cops will coundly congratulate the obvious hero once he’s defeated the villain, even though he’s been wanted up to that moment, and has only just barely got done killing at least five people and causing some serious property damage. And, as demonstrated by the screencaps to the right, Australia boasts some of the most impressively hideous citizens in the world. (Must be all the criminal ancestors — everyone knows that criminals are ugly, while virtuous people are handsome and unblemished.) Why, they even had to bring in an American leading man to play opposite the single pretty Aussie girl they could find.

Hey, I haven’t had a good ass-whupping myself for a while. That should get something started.

One more. Just cuz I luv you.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 16
• breasts: 0
• explosions: 2
• ominous thunderstorms: 0
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 1
  • Wendy Hughes (Mrs. C) played “Lt. Cmdr. Neela Daren” in the TNG episode “Lessons”
  • (writer Herbert Wright also wrote and co-produced several episodes of TNG, but I that doesn’t count)