It was shot mostly on location on Molokai.
Donna and Taryn operate an air cargo business as a cover. They have to fly urgently needed medical supplies to a remote island. They run into a storm and their Cessna is forced down. They’re lucky enough to make a crash landing on a tiny uninhabited possibly uncharted island. They were hundreds of miles off course so it could be quite a wait for a rescue plane.
They have the uneasy feeling that they are not alone on the island. Their suspicion is well-founded. And soon there are lots of people on the island, all of them almost certainly bad guys.
What our two heroines don’t know is that they have stumbled onto something very big and very secret. Something official, but now it’s been complicated by a criminal conspiracy. During the Second World the Japanese military hid a hoard of gold looted from the Philippines on a remote island (yes the same island where the girls’ plane crash-landed). The government of the Philippines wants the gold back. The US Government wants to help them to find the gold but there is at least one criminal gang after that gold as well.
And possibly more than one criminal gang.
Donna and Taryn have no idea what is going on but there are unpleasant men with guns running about the island, they’ve been captured and tied up more than once and shot at and they’re getting quite annoyed about it. One of the bad guys even calls Donna a bimbo. She can handle being tied up and having guns pointed at her but when you call her a bimbo you have crossed a line you should never cross.
This is a pretty good script by Sidaris. It sets up endless opportunities for mayhem and double-crosses. On the island we have our two blonde heroines, there are two gangs of murderous cut-throat bad guys and then there’s the strange old guy who might be a good guy or a bad guy. And there’s the beautiful dark-haired bad girl. We’re not sure which of the gangs she belongs to.
Some of the bad guys might be good guys and some of the guys who claim to be good guys might be bad guys.
Luckily the girls are well-armed. They have an automatic rifle and several pistols and Taryn has a crossbow that fires explosive crossbow bolts. Which of course means we’re going to get some explosions. But then this is an Andy Sidaris movie so you knew there were going to be explosions.
There is also, naturally, some martial arts action because why would you not add some of that to the mix?
It goes without saying that as well as lots of action this movie includes lots and lots of bare breasts (and some brief frontal nudity). How could you possibly add a nude scene to a scene with two girls in the cockpit of a Cessna in flight? Andy Sidaris manages it. He likes those kinds of challenges.
It doesn’t hurt that all of the women are extraordinarily attractive.
What really makes these Andy Sidaris movies so great is that Andy and his wife Arleen (who acted as producer) knew all the tricks of low-budget filmmaking. They knew how to get high production values and a very polished professional look without spending big bucks. They had their operation running like a well-oiled machine. Andy’s Triple B movies look a whole lot more expensive than they were.
For a low-budget movie Savage Beach really is beautifully shot.
They were also pretty good at casting. No-one would suggest that Dona Speir and Hope Marie Carlton were great actresses but they gave performances that were just perfect for this type of movie. And that applies to most of the cast members. They’re not angling for Oscar nominations but they’re entertaining.
All of the Triple B movies are available in a terrific DVD boxed set from Mill Creek, with excellent transfers. Most have now been released by Mill Creek on Blu-Ray. It’s the Blu-Ray release that is being reviewed here. Both the DVD and Blu-Ray releases include an audio commentary by Andy and Arleen Sidaris and they provide an astonishing amount of fascinating information on the shooting of the movie.
Savage Beach is absolutely top-notch entertainment. Highly recommended.
I’ve reviewed lots of Andy Sidaris’s earlier movies - Seven (1979), Malibu Express (1985), Hard Ticket to Hawaii (1987) and Picasso Trigger (1988). They’re all fun with Hard Ticket to Hawaii being the best.
1 comment:
Ridiculous movie - and ridiculously entertaining!
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