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The Bootleg Files: So This is Africa

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BOOTLEG FILES 670: “So This is Africa” (1933 comedy starring Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: No perceived commercial value.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely at this time.

It is a common misconception that the Pre-Code Hollywood era was a period when almost anything was possible on the screen. And while the implementation of the 1934 establishment of the Production Code Administration brought a heavy-handed degree of censorship to film production, there was plenty of censorship going on at both a national, state and city level.
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In the Heat of the Night (1967): Criterion Collection [Blu-Ray]

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Norman Jewison’s “In the Heat of the Night” remains one of Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger’s banner dramas, it’s a tense, taut, and engrossing crime thriller that brings to life one of the most compelling on screen heroes I’ve ever seen. Based on John Ball’s series of books about African American gumshoe named Virgil Tibbs, Jewison brings to the screen the first of the books. “Heat,” as written by Stirling Silliphant for the big screen is an imperfect drama with a little bit too much fat to the narrative, but in the end it comes out as a pretty as remarkable drama about the racially turbulent South and a man trying to uncover a crime that reaches far deeper than anyone, even the police chief, realizes.

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Double Dragon (1994): 2 Disc Special Edition [Blu-Ray/DVD]

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Director James Yukich’s “Double Dragon” is a nineties anomaly that’s right up there with “Super Mario Bros: The Movie,” and “Street Fighter: The Movie.” It’s so deliriously awful and willingly misses the point of the source material it adapts, and yet it’s delightfully entertaining. As an artifact of the decade, it’s a fun tribute to everything 1990’s (Mark Dacascos and Scott Wolf!), as a video game movie it’s a fascinating example of what not to do, and as an action movie it’s a serviceable amalgam of martial arts, comedy, science fiction, post apocalyptic fantasy, and chop socky schlock. If you can divorce yourself from the video game, “Double Dragon” works as a fascinating but entertaining botched cash in on a video game series that was so much better.

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In 1993, the “Double Dragon” Series Tried to Expand the Game’s Mythology

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How do you adapt a hit video game like “Double Dragon” that’s based around beating up bad guys with your fists, bats, whips, and assorted blunt instruments? Easy! You build the cartoon around mystic, non-violent laser blasting swords and give those to your heroes instead. Not only does it prevent any of that “nasty” hand-to-hand combat the games are famous for, but it also gives you room to build some really “nifty” toys for the game. The result, however, was one of the many failed attempts to introduce the Nintendo fighting game into the mainstream.

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Monday (2018)

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Part of Robert Rodriguez’s “Rebel Without a Crew” TV docu series, Alejandro Montoya Marin was one of the five filmmakers chosen to make his first feature much in the way Rodriguez did with “El Mariachi.” With only seven thousand dollars, no crew, two weeks to film, “Monday” is a heavy task to complete and Alejandro Montoya Marin is up for the challenge. It’s hard to believe “Monday” has such a low budget, as it manages to build such a fun darkly comic crime thriller out of such limited resources.

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The Andy Clyde Columbia Comedies

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Andy Clyde starred in the second-longest series of shorts at Columbia Pictures (after the Three Stooges), with nearly 80 productions from 1934 to 1956. On this episode of “The Online Movie Show,” film historian James L. Neibaur, author “The Andy Clyde Columbia Comedies,” discusses the funnyman’s celebrated output.

The episode can be heard here.

Glass (2019)

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Night Shyamalan shocked just about everyone when at the end of “Split” his wonderful thriller about a psycho with multiple personalities, he introduced the reveal that we were watching a secret sequel to “Unbreakable” the whole time. “Glass” is the third film in the trilogy of films that break down superhero tropes, the superhero genre, and the mythology of superheroes as a whole. Even with Shyamalan shocking people with “Split” and still being one of the first of his ilk to break apart the superhero mythology with “Unbreakable,” his last film in the series, “Glass,” promises to polarize just about everyone.

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