Just as 1950s Hollywood comedy duo Dean Martin
and Jerry Lewis had imitators in the form of Duke Mitchell and Sammy
Petrillo, so the popular Italian duo of Terence
Hill (Mario Girotti) and Bud Spencer
(Carlo Pedersoli), whose credits include Giuseppe Colizzi’s "Dio
Perdona…Io No!" (1968),
Enzo Barboni’s "Lo Chiamavano Trinita"
(1971) and Marcello Fondato’s "Altramenti
ci Arrabbiamo!" (1974), had theirs in Tom Scott and Fred
Harris. As was the
case with Mitchell and Petrillo, Italian producers were quick to exploit
the existence of these two look-alikes by cashing in on whatever the
current movie craze was. To
this end, the Americans were placed in a movie, William Beaudine’s "Bela
Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla" (1952), which not
only took advantage of the beginnings of the 1950s boom in science fiction
filmmaking but also renewed interest in product from what is perceived as
the “Golden Age” of horror cinema.
With Harris and Scott, movie mogul Carlo
Ponti opted to take advantage of the wave of martial arts movie
spawned by the likes of Lo Wei’s "The
Big Boss / Fists of Fury" (1971) and
Chang Ho Cheng’s "King Boxer / Five
Fingers of Death" (1972).
Audience enjoyment of Antlonio Margheriti’s "Schiaffoni
e Karate - Ming Ragazzi" will largely depend on how
tolerant they are of the antics of Tom Scott and especially Fred Harris.
Clearly modelled on Bud Spencer’s screen persona (to the extent
that his trademark thump to the top of the head is used on several
occasions), Harris also sports an outrageously bushy beard that seems
borrowed from Bluteau in the Popeye cartoons, as well as adorning
himself in very loud checked sports jackets. Harris’s character Percy
seems to owe a considerable debt to another member of a famous comedy duo,
Lou Costello from Abbott and Costello.
This connection is underlined by Percy’s awkwardness, both
physical and social, the way he misunderstands words or gets them mixed up
and his overall clumsiness. Some
viewers may be reminded of Lon Chaney Jr’s much-parodied interpretation
of Lennie from Lewis Milestone’s adaptation of John Steinbeck’s "Of
Mice and Men" (1939), particularly in the way in which
his behaviour causes considerable embarrassment to his friend, Danny. The chaos generated by Harris’s inability to
control his own strength is clearly based on silent Hollywood routines
from stars like Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd (also
a big influence on Jackie Chan).
Examples of this include Percy and Danny’s first appearance where
the former is seen carrying the front section of a large iron girder while
the latter sits at the rear, counting his paycheck, and Harris’s
subsequent swinging of the metal shaft, knocking workers off their ladder
and wrecking equipment. Other
material reworked from silent routines involve Percy slamming shut a door
and destroying it, his grabbing hold of a rickshaw in Hong Kong and
effortlessly pulling it apart, and an explosion of seafood in a restaurant
causing lobsters and prawns to shower the other customers. Additionally, there is some evidence that vintage
cartoons may have had a bearing on the creation of some scenes as when one
of the villain’s minions spits out a ridiculously large number of teeth
from his mouth after he slams into a wall, chief henchman George Dolfin
pretending to be a work of art during a chase and his later crashing
through a wall creating a man-shaped hole.
Harris’s Bluteau-like appearance underlines this assumption.
While the two heroes antics do reflect the
influence of Hollywood comedy cinema, the character of Percy along with a
considerable amount of the humour employed by the screenwriters displays a
strongly European flavour. In fact,
voluble and naïve characters like Harris’s have been a staple of
Italian comic since before World War I.
In earlier days, he would have been some uneducated and ignorant
yokel from the provinces turned loose in the city with the resultant comic
chaos. Although
that part has been replaced with an American abroad and the locale altered
to the more exotic Far East, the humour found in his situation remains
much the same. Thus there is
the emphasis on Percy’s gross eating habits, which include munching on
an immense French loaf, eating chopsticks in mistake for breadsticks and
using a jazz band’s drumsticks to eat his Chinese meal with.
There are also several references to Harris’s bodily functions
including an ear-piercing burp in a crowed eatery and toward the end of
the movie a joke about explosive defecation.
Much is made of the fact that the character tends to shout his
dialogue and is very easily excitable, resulting in him laughing
hysterically or bursting into song at the most inappropriate moments.
A distinctly Italian line of humour is the mockery of the pompous
and chunky German site foreman played by Franco Ressel.
While
slapstick and broad humour can be found in a number of Antonio
Margheriti’s works, notably the Arabian Nights fantasy "La
Freccia D’Oro" (1962) and the western "Take
a Hard Ride!" (1975), comedies do not feature very
prominently in his canon of nearly 70 films as a director.
Ming Ragazzi
perhaps gives
an indication why. The tone
for the production is set almost immediately by the presence of Fred
Harris’s overblown portrayal of friendly but destructive Percy.
Mugging shamelessly for the camera at every opportunity, Harris
bellows his lines and exaggerates his body movements, telegraphing to the
audience the gags well in advance of their appearance.
This is well matched by Margheriti’s sledgehammer-style direction
which uses the zoom lens to emphasise where the next visual joke is coming
from. Dialogue from Percy’s
girlfriend (Sue Chang) claiming that he is in fact witty and amusing to
others rather than annoying merely serves to illustrate how true the
latter is. Matters are not
helped by George Dolfin as the villain’s henchman, whose overacting
frequently excels that of Harris. The
pitch of the performances and the direction would be difficult to maintain
under any circumstances and the film soon becomes tedious, its running
time of 105 minutes outstaying the welcome of even the most undemanding of
viewers. Margheriti’s work is
further undermined by the script employed for its English-language
release. While there are
occasionally witty exchanges between the two leads (eg
“It’s a dragon, idiot”, “How do you know when a dragon’s an
idiot?”), most of the comic dialogue would shame a Carry On…
scriptwriter with its use of malapropisms and Percy’s misunderstanding
of words and phrases. Also
unfortunate is the childish amusement gained from the names of Oriental
characters, with Hung Lo, Soo Yu and Lee Ping giving some idea of the
level of wit on show here. When
a bellboy in a hotel sets up the duo for an attack by the villain’s
minions, attempts to locate him later are scuppered by their inability to
tell Chinese people apart, a joke probably as old as cinema itself, if not
older. There are a few redeeming
moments during the film’s running time.
One gig visual gag occurs near the end of the movie.
There the villain has his tame samurai cut a dollar coin in half
with his sword. Danny is then
given another coin to do the same to prove his strength.
He then clenches his fist and blows on, producing five quarters and
telling the villain to keep the change.
Also featured are some interest moments of surrealism as when the
heroes get into a fight with a Chinese carnival dragon and beat those
operating it senseless and a later bout when a giant steel hand is used as
a weapon. Another mildly
amusing scene takes place later when Percy uses a sumo wrestler as a
weapon and a battering ram. Some
of the comic fighting scenes are marred by the overuse of comedy sound
effects, something that also affected Margheriti’s kung fu/Spaghetti
Western hybrid "La Dove non batte il Sole"
(1974). In a picture full of
questionable taste, one particular scene does tend to stand out.
There some of the villain’s minions are punished for failing a
mission by having the samurai poke out one of their eyes, complete with
squelching sound effects, leaving a pile of bloody orbs lying on the
floor.
The
martial arts fights shown in Schiaffoni e Karate are generally mediocre
and lacklustre, especially when compared to those featured in Far Eastern
productions. They are
partially redeemed by the director’s decision to stage them in visually
more interesting locations like the boiler room of a hotel and the Kowloon
car ferry. There is one
elaborate sequence with which Margheriti does impress.
This begins in an underground grotto in the grounds of the
villain’s mansion and ends up on the waterfront with Percy and Danny
having to fight a large number of opponents.
Danny then has to swim out to sea to escape his foes and ends up
continuing the combat on a fleet of moored fishing boats, which he has to
traverse to make his escape. This
ends with his final opponent diving into a boiling tub of chemicals to be
turned into soap. Here Scott
proves to be an athletic leading man, while the director injects some much
needed energy into the proceedings, providing some evidence of what he was
really capable of as a filmmaker. Large
sections of this sequence were reportedly shot in Thailand rather than
Hong Kong. While promoted in many
territories as a martial arts movie, much of the combat on screen,
especially that involving Tom Scott and Fred Harris, owes more to
wrestling than anything else with head butts, strangle holds and arm
chops, along with body rolls, featuring heavily.
In an apparent homage to the Western genre, the brawl between the
heroes and the American football team that takes place in Wang’s pub
closely resembles a saloon bar fight with fisticuffs, broken chairs being
used as weapons and people crashing through windows.
Inventive use is also made of a French bread stick to disable an
opponent.
Production
values for Schiaffoni e Karate are adequate if uninspired, with
functional art direction from Giorgio Postiglione
and lacklustre editing from Mario Morra.
A mediocre music score from regular Margheriti collaborator Carlo
Savina, seems to have borrowed some musical cues from the Lalo
Schifrin score to Robert Clouse’s recently released "Enter
the Dragon", as well as employing “wah, wah, wah”
notes to underline comic scenes. The
climax of the picture takes place at Hong Kong airport (in reality
probably Singapore) where Percy manages to thwart the villain’s escape
in a Lear jet by holding onto the airplane’s tail fin.
Also featured is a Keystone Cops-style chase where hordes of kung
fu fighters are sent flying over a car when it breaks suddenly and the
local police, led by a member of Antonio Margheriti’s stock company Alan
Collins, managing to crash into the front wheel of an aircraft causing it
to hit the ground. Antonio
Margheriti’s penchant for elaborate special effects is evident
throughout most of his canon, not just his science fiction and horror
ventures. In this work, he
employs highly detailed miniature work for the destruction of the
construction site and makes use of surprisingly effective models of a Lear
and a passenger airliner at the climax.
The film is let down in some place by very poor rear projection.
Some
of the supporting cast members found in Schiaffoni
e Karate are of interest in themselves.
George Wang, making a rather
good villain and certainly deserving of better material than he was
offered here, was a regular fixture in Italian westerns and spy thrillers
in the 1960s and 1970s with credits like Giuliano Carmineo’s Buon
Funerale, Amigos!…paga Sartana (1970) and Mario
Caiano’s Il Mio Name e Shanghai Joe (1972)
to his name. British-based
romantic interest Chai Lee, meanwhile,
later gained some notoriety by playing the title character in Adalberto
Albertini’s Emanuelle Gialla
(1976), the first Hong Kong (and indeed Far Eastern) lensed production to
feature full frontal nudity.
Antonio Margheriti next teamed up with Fred
Harris and Tom Scott for the bizarre comedy-western-fantasy Whiskey
e Fantasmi (1975).
Iain
McLachlan 2005
