BURIED TREASURES: STAR CRASH (1978)
Probably the most fun I ever had watching a film was one
afternoon with a bunch of friends, nearly 40 years ago, as we were laughing our
guts out at the succession of inane dialogues, cheesy effects, overacting and
absurd concepts that were leaping out from the TV, assailing our eyes and
sanity with delirious abandon.
The film was Luigi Cozzi's very own STAR WARS clone; STAR CRASH, aka THE ADVENTURES OF STELLA STAR.
From the opening shot of a ship flying overhead, (looking
very much like a model kit. Intricate, busy with details, but definitely
toy-like), to the lacklustre climactic space battle around a powerful space
station, with plenty of wise-cracking robots, cocky space pilots and light
sabres to keep the kids happy, there is no denying the shared DNA with George
Lucas' wildly successful adventure story.
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| Luigi Cozzi proudly posing with his star Caroline Munro and his prop for the evil space station. |
''Sure, if Star Wars wouldn't have been made, nobody
would have let me do STAR CRASH'' Luigi Cozzi said in an interview. He
originally wanted to make a film about astronauts stranded in space, but the
producers wanted to jump on the STAR WARS bandwagon that was circling the world, and asked
for a film that emulated (shorthand for saying ''ripped off'') the blockbuster.
Cozzi, also known on this side of the Atlantic
as Lewis Coates, has always been a big science-fiction fan, and he is the first to admit
that he enjoys as an adult the same things he loved as a kid. He would go on to
say that films like INVADERS FROM MARS and THIS ISLAND EARTH influenced his use
of bold colors in STAR CRASH.
And man, are there bold colors. When he approached star
Caroline Munro about playing the lead in the film, he told her that it was
going to be ''A bit like Barbarella, a bit like Star Wars''.
Short of the outright soft-core nature of the Jane Fonda''Classic'', and the shag-carpeted spaceship piloted by Barbarella, there is in
fact a certain amount similarities with the Roger Vadim film, especially
regarding the colorful and naive set designs (By Aurelio Crugnola, who would
end up 18 years later being art director on the Oscar winning THE ENGLISH PATIENT) , and the obvious yet tame sexiness of Munro's Stella Star.
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| Is that an appropriate outfit for jail? Caroline Munro moments before she breaks out of space jail. Apparently, it was very cold in the Cinecitta studios during filming, but it didn't stop the director from having his lead actress in skimpy outfits for most of the shoot. |
After playing the damsel in distress in a succession films
where she is rescued by the likes of Sinbad, Captain Kronos or James Bond, Caroline
Munro jumped at the chance of having the lead where she could be kicking ass
herself. Sadly, she more often than not reacts than acts in the film, as her
co-stars do most of the heavy lifting. Relegated to be the proverbial eye-candy
in the candy-colored sets, her outfits are often nothing more than an awkward
vinyl bikini, sometimes covered with a transparent space suit, with long boots
provided by the Italian costume designer who figured it would be helpful in
space travel.
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| Even on the original Italian poster, Stella Star can't catch a break, Caroline Munro once again relegated to the posture of damsel in distress, to be saved by the muscular hero, in a poster made to evoke the original Star Waars poster, to the point of putting one of her allies, the robot Elle, as the looming, Darth Vader like figure in the background. Joe Spinell must have been pissed off. |
Even as a springboard to boost her career as a leading
woman, the film failed as Caroline Munro's British accent was dubbed over by
actress Candy Clark, who was co-star Marjoe Gortner's girlfriend at the time, for the American release spearheaded by Roger Corman.
Both Gortner (Topping the bill as the heroic Akton, who also serves as the
deliverer of exposition all through the movie ) and pretty-boy David Hasselhoff
(As the insipid Prince Simon, in his second movie role) get to kick bad guys'
behinds while Munro stares with a bemused smirk, which is pretty much her main expression throughout
the film.
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| David Hasselhoff, Marjoe Gortner, and a more demure Caroline Munro, moments before Akton fights the mechanical Golems. |
Her robot companion Elle also attempts to steal her thunder,
spouting in an inexplicable Texan twang lines like : ''I only have logic
and emotion circuits. No room for craziness!'' but all he manages to do
is being an annoying proto-C-3PO.
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| Original concept for the robot sidekick Elle. |
But the true VP in this Technicolor mess is Joe Spinell, who
voraciously devours the cosmic scenery with his outrageous performance as the
cackling baddie Count Zarth Arn. Every moment he's on screen, you can't turn
away, as he hypnotically sucks all the air and attention from the screen,
obliterating everyone on his path, like a frizzy-aired overacting tornado.
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| The wide-eyed, scenery-chewing, improbably-coiffed, leather-clad Joe Spinell as the bad guy Count Zarth Arn. (Zarth...Darth...get it?) |
And then there's Christopher Plummer, as the ''Emperor of
the First Circle of the Universe'', who spends his time smiling beatifically,
trying to evoke wisdom and calm, but he seems more like he's high on Quaaludes.
He reportedly worked on the film for two days at 10,000$ a day, and accepted
the role because it meant he could visit Italy.
He famously omitted to mention STAR CRASH in his 2008 memoir; I wonder why. He was surprised the film had become a cult classic in a Vanity Fair interview. He goes on to add: ''The only nice thing was Rome. Shooting at Cinecittà. And Caroline. I
took her out to dinner a few times. She was lovely. But lovely with a Scuttish accent you could coot with a fookin knife. I couldn’t believe this beauty was talking like that!''
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| Serene, or High on Quaalude? Christopher Plummer in Star Crash. |
Still the film always try to throw shiny objects at the
viewer, in an episodic story that offers Space Amazons, cavemen, clunky
sword-fighting robots, and a giant creature so shoddily animated, Caroline
Munro must have missed her days facing monsters brought to life by the great
Ray Harryhausen (in 1973's THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD). Cozzi stated in an
interview that he ''wanted to make a kind of Sinbad goes to space''.
In a certain way, the tone of the film isn't far from the adventure movies he
admires, putting his heroes in a plethora of picturesque perils, but Cozzi lacks
the means and the talent to rise up to his lofty ambitions.
For all its derivative mayhem, STAR CRASH does present a few
original ideas; they feature an ice planet a couple of years before THE EMPIRES TRIKES BACK offered the memorable scenes on Hoth. The main computer of the
ship (Pictured as a giant brain) is represented by a calm woman's voice, a full
year before Ridley Scott's ALIEN had ''Mother'' as the operative system of the
Nostromo. Having the evil space station in the shape of a claw is a stroke of
deranged genius, and having it clench into a fist while in battle is a thing of
pure cheesy beauty. And the ''surprise-torpedoes'', breaching the hull of the
enemy ship, only to release soldiers coming out guns blazing, is a dazzling
piece of inspired nonsense.
The superb score by John Barry, who seems to give it as much effort as he does for a James Bond movie or an Oscar winning film like OUT OF AFRICA, also has to be mentioned. It almost stands out as an anomaly, as it sounds too classy for the goofy happenings on screen, but also gives it a certain legitimacy.
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| Behind every film, even the worst ones, there is a crew that tries their best to beat the odds and create something lasting. In the case of STAR CRASH, it can be argued they have succeeded in a certain way. |
The film still managed to be successful enough for sequel
considerations, but they never truly lifted off. According to Caroline Munro's biography, a sequel named STAR RIDERS, co-starring Donny and Marie Osmond, and Nancy
Kwan as an evil queen, was planned but unproduced. In 1982, there were still talks of a
new Stella Star adventure, according to a Caroline Munro interview in Starlog, that was
to be named STAR PATROL (do we see a pattern here?) but also never got off the
ground.
So no more chances to see Stella Star coming out of every
jeopardy as if she walked out of the hair salon, smirking enigmatically, as a space-faring vinyl-clad Mona Lisa. And at 71, it's safe to say
that her years of galloping across the cosmos are pretty much over.
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| Farewell, Stella Star. A better adventure in another life maybe. |
It seems appropriate to part on these immortal words by
Christophe Plummer, as the viewer may feel in need of a little rest after watching this classic:
''Well, it's done. It's happened. The stars are clear. The
planets shine. We've won. Oh some dark force, no doubt, will show its face once
more. The wheel will always turn. But for now, it's calm. And for a little
time, at least, we can rest.''
STAR CRASH can be purchased here on a beautiful Blu-Ray by SHOUT FACTORY!.
If you are on a budget, the whole film can be seen here on Youtube.
You can peruse here the first two chapters of an aborted
book on the making of Star Crash:
And here, a nice collection of behind the scenes and designs
from the film.
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