Tweet
Released by: Severin Films
Released on: October 29th, 2023.
Director: Bert I. Gordon
Cast: Chuck Connors, Neville Brand, Vince Edwards
Year: 1973
Purchase From Severin Films
The Mad Bomber – Movie Review:
Written and directed by Bert I. Gordon, the same man who gave us Food Of The Gods and Empire Of The Ants among many others, 1973's The Mad Bomber, also known as The Police Connection, is a seventies cop movie that deserves more love in cult movie circles.
When the movie begins, we see a tall man in thick glasses stop when he witnesses a man littering on the streets of Los Angeles. He calls the litterbug a pig and makes him pick up his trash - yeah! This is already awesome because litterbugs are pigs! Or grumpy bespectacled bad boy is William Dorn (Chuck Connors) and after he deals with the litterbug he follows a few schoolgirls up the road and into their school where he leaves a large paper bag. He heads out just in time to turn around and see the school explode as death and chaos erupt around him. From here he books it to a nearby hospital but he's seen by a rapist who has just finished doing the dirty deed with a mute patient.
The cops find out that the rapist must have seen the bomber, and they figure that the only way they can identify him is to find the rapist first. Enter a tough cop with the best name ever, Geronimo Minnelli (Vince Edwards) - he hates bombers and he hates rapists and he is going to stop at nothing to bring them to justice. He gets a bunch of undercover lady cops to pose as street whores in hopes of trapping our perv, and after about a dozen or so other rapists are nabbed (it was a big night for rape in L.A. it would seem) they get him - George Fromley (Neville Brand). At first he doesn't want to cooperate but eventually Geronimo convinces him to talk… and then lets him go. Yep! Once they get the ID on Dorn, who has recently lost his daughter to drugs but not before she recorded a bunch of songs he plays over and over again, they let Fromley free so that he can go home to his wife (Ilona Wilson) and masturbate to the homemade porno movies they made together. Justice is fucking served! Dorn is onto them, however, so after he yells at a guy who almost ran him over at a crosswalk and terrorizes a cashier at the grocery store who overcharged him $0.12 on some canned peaches, he makes it his top priority to blow up more stuff and more people. Can the cops catch him before he blows up some feminists enjoying a luncheon and burns Los Angeles to the ground?
Chuck Connors absolutely rules in this movie. He's an imposing figure, a big, bulky dude whose small eyes are magnified in strange ways by his odd thick glasses. Beyond the physicality he brings to this part, however, is the sense of righteous conviction that he gives to Dorn. He's completely convincing as a man who really and truly feels that he needs to punish the world for what happened to his daughter. We know this from the little quirks and interactions he has with other characters right from the opening scene. He sees nothing wrong with what he does, in fact we know from the notes he leaves around his apartment that he believes he's doing the right thing and Connors plays the role freakishly well. Not to be outdone, Neville Brand is deliriously sleazy as the principal rapist (note that there are lots of minor rapists in this movie as well). He's got a complete deranged look on his face as he rips the clothes off of the blonde patient in the hospital, and when he starts pulling it to his amateur porn movies? Look out, all bets are off. The third part of this unholy trinity is Edwards as Geronimo Minnelli. He may not be a good cop - his instincts tell him to look for the rapist at a strip club where he winds up unclasping the bra of a grumpy stripper and his sting to catch the rapist is just nuts - but damn it he tries. Just as unhinged as the other characters in the movie he chews through the scenery as he uses the LAPD's super computer and the powers of overhead projectors to help build what he needs to catch the film's public enemy number one.
It's interesting how the movie, to a certain extent, makes us sympathize with Connors' character. Here we see a man unable to accept how the world around him changes. Obviously and understandably upset about the loss of his daughter, what he doesn't understand or approve of - the feminists for example - he holds responsible and doles out vengeance to. Those little bits those, the moments where he lashes out at the litterbug or the driver who almost hits him, those are there because most of us have been in those situations ourselves. It's a clever way of getting us care a little bit for the bad guy and it works surprisingly well.
Yeah, fine, the movie is dated and it's remarkably politically incorrect. And sure, it features three guys whose careers had seen better days trying to earn a paycheck, but so what. It's fast paced, it's well directed, it's got some genuinely impressive explosions and it delivers some pretty cool surprises too. The movie expertly delivers plenty of excitement and a surprisingly amount of hard R sleaze! Which brings us to the cut of the movie contained on this release - it's the full strength version with all the rape, nudity and violence intact.
The Mad Bomber – Blu-ray Review:
The Mad Bomber arrives on Blu-ray from Severin Films in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 1.85.1 widescreen scanned in 4K from the internegative on a 50GB disc. Still using The Police Connection as its title card, the transfer looks pretty solid, framed nicely with good depth and texture to the image. Color reproduction is quite good and black levels are solid. Detail is impressive in the lighter scenes, a little less so in some of the film’s darker interior sequences (likely due to how the movie was shot), while flesh tones look lifelike and accurate. The image is free of compression issues and shows no problems with any noise reduction or edge enhancement problems.
English language audio options are provided in 24-bit DTS-HD Mono and 24-bit DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio, with optional subtitles provided in English only. The Mono track is the option for purists, with clean, clear and properly balanced audio and a nice sounding score. The 5.1 mix spreads that score and some of the sound effects around a bit in the mix, creating a bit of depth that adds to the tension in some scenes. Both tracks are free of any hiss or distortion.
Extras start off with an audio commentary by ‘House Of Psychotic Women’ Author Kier-La Janisse who is joined by retired Bomb Squad Detective Mike Digby just past the twenty minute mark to go over real life incidents that parallel the movie, cases that may have inspired the film and some of the bomb technology used in the picture. Janisse also goes over the history of the movie, details the cast and crew, offers up lots of facts and trivia and explores the impact that the film has and what makes it as engaging and wildly entertaining as it is. The disc also includes an isolated score option.
An audio interview with Director Bert I. Gordon, conducted by David Del Valle, is also included on the disc. This plays out as an alternate audio track, like a commentary would, and covers an hour and twenty minutes of the feature's running time. It’s essentially a career retrospective, with Del Valle walking Gordon through his career, touching on highlights and getting some interesting stories out of the man, before finishing with the pair talking about whether or not he’d made a new film at this point in his career.
Patricia Gordon Remembers Her Father is a twenty-seven minute interview with the daughter of the film’s Director in which she talks about what it was like growing up with him, what he was like in private as a person rather than as a filmmaker, details on his personality and his work ethic and quite a bit more. To Be In The Moment is an interview with Actress Cynthia MacAdams that runs eleven minutes and covers how she came to appear in the film, what it was like on set, getting along with her co-stars and how she feels about the movie. On The Trail Of The Mad Bomber is a ten minute piece that compares the locations featured in the movie and compares them in regards to how they look in the film versus how they appear in the modern day.
Severin has also included the TV cut of the movie, which runs 1:27:31 compared to the uncut version at 1:31:00. It’s also presented in 1080p high definition and with 24-bit DTS-HD 2.0 Mono English audio and English subtitles but it’s more compressed than the uncut version. Still, great to have it included here to make for a more complete package. It’s taken from a source in less than perfect condition and clearly hasn’t been restored but again, it makes for a cool extra. It’s also worth pointing out that this is framed at 1.33.1 and looks like an open matte presentation and that it uses the ‘The Mad Bomber’ as its title card.
Two TV spots, menus and chapter selection options are also provided.
Included inside the keepcase alongside the disc is The Mad Bomber Story, an interesting essay written by Andy Turner that is illustrated with exclusive images from Still Photographer Carol Gordon. The book also features some notes on Gordon’s photography that are quite interesting. Severin also provides a limited edition embossed slipcover with this edition.
The Mad Bomber - The Final Word:
YES! The Mad Bomber is an impressive mix of action and exploitation, a rock solid drive-in movie with a great cast, some memorable set pieces, and enough sex and violence to satisfy! The special edition Blu-ray release from Severin Films presents the film in a really nice transfer and with the loads of interesting extras that this genuine cult classic deserves! A ridiculously entertaining release, highly recommended.
Click on the images below, or right click and open in a new window, for full sized The Mad Bomber Blu-ray screen caps!
