Only now does it occur to me... SUBURBAN COMMANDO (1991)

Only now does it occur to me...  that SUBURBAN COMMANDO––which takes ample inspiration from the original STAR WARS trilogy––may have brought inspiration to George Lucas himself.


The opening shot appears to be a Star Destroyer pursuing an X-Wing over Tatooine

But not to put the cart too far before the horse: SUBURBAN COMMANDO is the sci-fi bounty hunting family-friendly action-comedy that we, as a society, deserve. That is not to say that it is good in any objective sense, for it is not. It's no TWIN SITTERS, is what I'm saying.

Originally intended as an Arnold Schwarzenegger/Danny DeVito vehicle, it ended up as a Hulk Hogan/Christopher Lloyd one, which is definitely weirder. The plot is this: interstellar commando The Hulkster has to recharge his batteries on Earth after a mission gone wrong.

Meanwhile, lily-livered suburban architect Christopher Lloyd is having a midlife crisis.

He lets himself get shoved around at work by an asshole boss and his marriage with Shelley Duvall is on the rocks

That's right, Shelley Duvall co-stars in a Hulk Hogan movie

because of implied erectile dysfunction and/or disinterest. What do you suppose the odds are that fish-out-of-water badass Hulk Hogan is going to turn his life upside down and teach him how to be a Real Man? Yep, it's that kind of movie.

Along the way, we have a poor man's Michael Ironside (William Ball, Tony nominee and opera director!) as an alien general and the Hulkster's greatest foe,

Jack Elam (ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL) as a drunken army vet and neighborhood comic relief,

The Undertaker (!) and Tony Longo as evil bounty hunters (who easily could have been played by the Barbarian Brothers or Brian Thompson),

and a recurring gag where the Hulkster keeps trying to save a mime from what he imagines are invisible force fields, but ends up accidentally causing the mime bodily harm.

The Hulkster also wears these pants (the physical embodiment of 1991),

skateboards himself to greatness, flips a car, wears a tuxedo,

 

and does bicep curls with a jigsaw and a benchtop drill press.

Is any of this actually good? Does it matter? It really feels like a New World Picture, and I was surprised to find it was New Line, although it's definitely of a piece with other 90s New Line offerings like THE MASK, HOUSE PARTY, MR. NANNY, DROP DEAD FRED, TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES, and MONKEY TROUBLE. Anyway, all's well that end's well,

and Christopher Lloyd is restored to masculine greatness, Shelley Duvall wears that hideous early 90s floral print dress, and the kids are alright, I guess, but they never got much screen-time to begin with. The Hulkster learns the virtues of relaxing, too, after he utters the line, "Sometimes I think I spend more time saving worlds than living in them."

Oh yeah, remember when I said this movie may have inspired George Lucas? Well, from the starships to Christopher Lloyd jokingly referring to the Hulkster as "Darth Vader," it's rife with the fingerprints of STAR WARS fandom (though the tone is closer to SPACEBALLS). However, the Hulkster sports a particular, hideous rat-tail braid behind his ear throughout


which I think might well have inspired the "padawan braid" worn throughout the STAR WARS prequels by young Jedi-in-training,

which may be one of the worst additions to that particular canon this side of midi-chlorians. An addition which would be made even more spectacular if George Lucas had once decided "hey, that looks cool!" during a viewing of SUBURBAN COMMANDO.

Only now does it occur to me... JUBAL

Only now does it occur to me...  that my lifelong dream to see Charles Bronson throw a table at Ernest Borgnine would one day be realized!

Sheer visual poetry!  And from the freeze-framing, it looks like Bronson is in fact heaving that table across the room, while Borgnine has been replaced by a stunt double.

The movie's pretty good, too– a loose (very loose) retelling of OTHELLO (with Borgnine as Marty– I mean Othello, Rod Steiger as Iago, Valerie French as Desdemona, and Glenn Ford as Cassio),

JUBAL is a beautiful Eastmancolor Western that's tense, well-acted, and bursting with Douglas Sirk-ian melodrama.  It's not quite as good as my other Delmer Daves favorites (DARK PASSAGE and 3:10 TO YUMA), but it's well worth your time (even though Bronson's only in a supporting role).  It's also clear that Sergio Leone was a Delmer Daves fan, and it's funny how many of the film's tableaux are comprised entirely of actors who would go on to work with the Spaghetti Master:

Rod Steiger (DUCK, YOU SUCKER) and henchman Jack Elam (ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST.)

Charles Bronson (even wearing practically the same hat as in ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST) faces off with Steiger.

Only now does it occur to me... RANCHO NOTORIOUS

Only now does it occur to me...  that even within the confines of a 50s studio Western, Fritz Lang still found ways to work in Expressionistic flourish.

He always loved to "suggest" murder when possible, instead of showing it outright– a murdered child's balloon floating away or an assassinated man's derby rolling on the ground, for example.  Here, we get some pretty spectacular rigor mortis that (purposefully?) recalls the theatrical poster of M.

 
The film also stars Weimar and Hollywood legend Marlene Dietrich, pictured here in her native habitat:

Anyway, one particular scene features a near-cabaret-ish performance (not quite so sultry as the staging in her career-making BLUE ANGEL appearances)

and the outlaws gaze lustily toward her in a rapid piece of editing that feels less like something from a 1950s studio picture, and more like the insanely brilliant "Whore of Babylon" sequence from Lang's masterpiece, METROPOLIS.

Also of note, among the lecherous, gazing outlaws are George "SUPERMAN" Reeves

(sporting a wicked scar)

 and an exceptionally young Jack "ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST" Elam, who probably played a henchmen in more Western films and TV series than any of his contemporaries, except for maybe Ward Bond.
  
As for the film?  It's not precisely a "classic," but it's a pretty terrific revenge picture shaded with moral ambiguity– very much in the vein of an Anthony Mann or a Budd Boetteicher flick.