All Aboard for "Devil's Express"! or, How to Make a Movie with 4 Genres

HELLO! And welcome to the first entry of the Bad Movie Express!

For those of you coming here from our sister blog, BEYOND MIDNIGHT MOVIES,  you'll find this site a little different. On BMM I like to do analysis and appreciation more than straight review, and that is....labor intensive. I'm finding myself watching a movie I'd love to write about, then looking at the other articles and going..."But can I do that level of quality on this movie about a rubber monster in the basement?" So, long story short- BEYOND MIDNIGHT is for the stuff that's special to me or could use a deeper look. The Bad Movie Express is for my other love: trash cinema. The stuff that's so bad it becomes amazing. And if you aren't sure how to enjoy a movie, don't worry, I'm going to leave some tips for gaining maximum joy from the depths of badness. All the irreverence, not as much research. Just my unvarnished opinions on B movies I watch for entertainment.

But here I am jawing away, when the Express is headin' on out!

...the DEVIL'S EXPRESS, that is...

"Git ya tickets out,  I'm gonna be your Smooth Operator this evenin'..."

WHAT GENRE IS THIS MOVIE? No, man- I really wanna know.

It's a more complicated answer than it appears at first. It is one of the two films in the entire universe, as far as I know to feature the spectacularly named Warhawk Tanzania.

......
.......
......

Sorry for the long pause there, typing his name snapped my keyboard clean in half and I had to go buy a new one reinforced with pure Titanium-F (for Funk). With a name like that, the year it was made (1976, so that it wouldn't eclipse Star Wars), and the other credit for Mr. Tanzania being one BLACK FORCE in 1975, you'd be sensible to figure it's blaxploitation. And you'd be right. Except it has enough martial arts in it (more than the usual amount in Blaxploitation caused by the cultural osmosis of Chinese films gaining broader releases in black neighborhoods in this period) to also qualify as a martial arts movie.

So there, done right? Nope. There's also a plot that takes up way more of the film than you'd think about tension between black and Latino gangs and the Chinese Triads erupting on the streets of Harlem and getting out of control, to the extent that this film is distributed in some territories simply as "Gang Wars". So it's a gang movie? NOPE, the main plot according to the synopsis is that a martial arts master sets himself against an ancient demon killing innocent people in New York's subways.

"You keepin' up, baby? Then we shall continue."

So how does a movie that is trying to be four movies at once in a blender play out? Well, no doubt it is more choppy than socky. Even the opening credits can't decide on their personality, cutting back and forth between a POV shot of a subway train screaming through the subterranean labyrinth of NYC with ominous droning music, and a brightly lit traveling shot through the streets above complete with bouncy, happy funk music. It happens enough times, I actually yelled at it to pick a tone and it opted to completely ignore me (Rude).

But before that we have to establish that there are demons in this movie, so we establish that in China in ancient times, some dudes plopped a coffin in a big hole with a magic necklace, and to ensure that no one would ever find and accidentally release this ancient beast of destructive power filled the pit with SWEET FUCK ALL....

But they do commit ritual suicide so that no one is around to watch the hole for the next couple centuries. So glad these guys were on this job, what if they'd hired total idiots instead, right?

This is probably where some other movie would jump to the modern day of China with archaeologists digging up the demon and getting his good and mad. But nope, this movie jumps to the modern day and immediately introduces us to Warhawk in the midst of what I presume is his favorite activity: schoolin' fools.

HAI-KIBA!!!

And he's one hundred percent why you need to watch this movie. It's mesmerizing to watch someone who is such a subtle and unique blend of natural charisma and a complete lack of knowledge of how to behave in front of a camera. He really bounces back and forth so fast between "bad motherfucker" and "I'm not sure what to do with my hands and I'm trying not to look at the boom-mike" that it might have been at least part of the inspiration for Black Dynamite. He dispenses kung fu wisdom that his students respond to by nodding sagely and saying "I can dig it..." It's that kind of movie and it's a hoot.

I'm not going to do a blow by blow of the plot, I promise. Just in a film like this it needs some set-up.  So, Warhawk is playing a dude named Luke, who sees himself as an unofficial protector of his neighborhood-

Hold up...This sounds vaguely familiar....

-and part of his way of doing this is teaching martial arts to people to improve their body and mind, and lay a beat down on the bad elements of the neighborhood if they are dumb enough to come knockin'. Luke has that one friend we've all had; he's our homie, but he's got problems. Shoots first, thinks never kind of guy named Rodan...

"SWEET CHRISTMAS!!!"

Which is the other reason to watch this movie. As weirdly paced as it is, this was obviously written by a geek in the 70's who decided to slip subtle references to everything he liked at the time, along with all the different movies he wanted to see, and made it one movie, and one of the wildest Blaxploitation genre mashups I've seen in awhile. Sadly, there was only one part of the film where I got bored: The fight scenes.

We don't get to properly see one until Warhawk and Rodan go on a spiritual sojourn to China to hone their bodies, minds, and spirits. (Apparently the screenwriter liked Luke Cage, but not Iron Fist cuz they spend a good fifteen minutes of this movie in China and nobody  says Chi)

And that's when we find out that the 'best there is', Luke...well, he sure moves like he's seen a lot of martial arts movies...

They're either fighting or holding trays of invisible drinks.

*historical note: according to the very little I could find on the man behind the myth, Warhawk studied karate, which is apples and oranges when compared to Chinese gung-fu. Thus, while I can see he's definitely a talented martial artist, there's stuff going on it the blocking of these fights that makes him have to pretend karate is kung fu and...it just isn't.

And every fight is directed from either a little too close to be interestingly framed or too far away to be dynamic. And they're ALL too long. Like, "We need to get to feature length, let's put in the not as good takes too" too long. It's sad, because it bogs the movie down from being as awesome as it's concept desperately wants it to be.

But luckily,  where the movie is awesome is everywhere else. Every amusingly goofy cliche is there, and once the monster is on the loose, thanks to Rodan finding his way into the open pit with a demon in it and taking the magical necklace that keeps it bound that's just kinda laying out in the open like someone forgot it (Hmm, maybe if they'd done something to make it harder to find by passersby like literally anything), the movie gets fun and stays fun whenever we're not stuck in a fight scene (the one good one of these is actually from an unnamed waitress character who turns the tables on a few abusive patrons, and she has the raw shit that makes a good fight scene, and uses karate with authority and strength, without any flourishes to make it pretty-looking, which is how I like my karate fights. Gimme a Devil's Express 2 about her...).

The demon scenes and the rest of the movie are cut together in such a way that I began to genuinely wonder if these were filmed together, but made explicitly so there could be two cuts of the movie, one with and one without the supernatural element. Yes, the movie can really still function as a narrative just fine without the titular Devil up to about 10 minutes or so before the end of the flick. The demon is just wholly separate from the rest of the movie to such an extent that when named characters run into the subway, and thus run the risk of crossing paths with the demon, I perked up because 'oh my god you guys, the streams are crossing!'

"Mmm, supporting protagonists, my favorite!"

The monster is pretty good too.... for an episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker. It even follows some of the goofier rules for one: Rubber Suit, check. Ability to take the form of a victim to save make up money, check. Shot mostly in the dark, Big Check.

Big props to this guy for doing some loooong
walks in the street with his eyes shut...

And once Warhawk is done fucking around with the rest of the movie he suits up in his best super-hero attire-

Or he just puts on regular clothes for 1976.
Could go either way.

-and sets out to vanquish evil. But not without crossing paths with gangsters, the two white cops in New York who both know him, and the single worst make-up job I've ever seen to make a human still look like a human.

GENTLEMEN....BEHOLD:

NO. NO, PUT HIM BACK IN THE OVEN
FOR ANOTHER 20 MINS.
HE'S NOT DONE...

Like, I honestly can't tell if this is a Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins situation where this is a white guy made up to look like an old Chinese man, or if they couldn't find an old Chinese man and slapped this on a young Chinese man? I was expecting him to turn into the demon for the whole scene because what other explanation is there for THIS?

Oh, and Brother Theodore is in this movie, for those of
you who love The 'Burbs. I don't know why he's here.
I'm guessing he doesn't either...

So, all in all, this one can be easy to enjoy all on it's own, but if you're looking for help, here's my

EXPRESS TIPS TO BETTER ENJOYMENT:

• Let this movie just bathe you in it's New York-ness in way  only 70's movies could do.
• Anytime you wonder why something just happened say "Warhawk Tanzania" to yourself until the sensation subsides.
• Cringe a little at all the times Warhawk's best friend is openly racist against the culture he idolizes.Or Cringe a lot. I did.
• Finally find out what would happen if Luke Cage was the main character of a Kolchak spin-off. And his only weakness in this version was shirts.
• And finally, there are big swathes of this movie where characters talk, but there is no recorded audio, so instead these are used as montage and establishing shots. I'm 100 percent certain this is not on purpose and that scenes got shot, but no usable audio made it through. Feel free to make up your own dialog for these scenes. I did!

In closing, I wanna talk about the man, the myth, the Warhawk Tanzania.

"All that beat-down for this Cracker Jack bullshit?

Very little is known about this mysterious figure. I was able to find virtually nothing, outside this:
He was born in 1946 as Warren Hawkins. He studied Nisei Goju-Ryu karate with the founder of this style, Hanshi Frank Ruiz. Ruiz also staged his action scenes in Black Force and Devil's Express. He still lives in New York.

I'm forced to only one conclusion: Devil's Express is a docu-drama and to this day, at 74 years young, Warhawk Tanzania is still out there- teaching the kids karate, defending the streets from Triads and pushers, delivering spin-kicks in three inch platform heels, killing demons, and STILL never wearing a shirt.

"WHAT DID I TELL YOU I'D DO
I FIND YOU JUMPIN' TURNSTILES
IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD AGAIN,
FOO'?"

New York couldn't be in safer hands...

NEXT STOP: THE BARBARIANS!