"Red Zone Cuba"


"Red Zone Cuba" represents the pinnacle of Coleman Francis's vision.  And a dark,
depressing, murky, disjointed vision it is, too.  Characters come and go, very few of whom
are likable.  And the ones that are?  Heh, no happiness waits for them.  Scenes begin and
end with no coherence, and the jump cuts are enough to give you whiplash or motion
sickness.  And if you ever thought that the Bay of Pigs invasion couldn't possibly be
portrayed as more incompetent than it actually was...sorry, Charlie.  This movie manages it. 
"Red Zone Cuba" rivals "Manos" for the title of 'worst movie ever MiSTed,' and frankly, I
can't pick which is worse.  They both have absolutely no redeeming qualities.


The movie opens slowly, with us watching John Carradine stroll around a peculiarly quiet
railyard.  A young reporter comes up, asking him about the 'desperados' that had come
around a few years ago.  This leads to John's pontific statement: "Griffen--he ran all the
way to hell."  Which, in turn, leads to the credits, with John Carradine belting out the theme
song, 'Night Train to Mundo Fine.'  I don't know which is worse, this song or Torgo's
theme.


Anyway, on with the story, such as it is.  Griffen is an escaped convict who hooks up with
two other drifting ex-cons, Cook and Landis.  After eluding the diligent police force
*snicker*, they talk Cherokee Jack into flying them to New Mexico to train for the Cuban
invasion at the Bay of Pigs.  (Thus proving Coleman's lack of, or disregard for, geography--
how the *heck* do you stage a naval invasion from New Mexico?!)  The three plan to
collect their "thousand bucks" for joining and then split.  Ahh, but the joke's on them--the
thousand bucks to join comes in the form of a check, not cash!  So, after a good twenty
minutes or so of training *snicker*, they, their new friend Justine, and the rest of the force--
about ten people, total--head to Cuba.


After more shots of unfit buffoons climbing cliffs than you'd *ever* want to see, the
massive *snicker* invasion force runs around, getting shot and captured.  Our trio, for
example, gets captured by a Cuban soldier emerging from an outhouse.  Not something
they'd want to put on their medal applications.  After twenty minutes or so of watching
prisoners get shot one by one (including one guy who dies, then shows up again as a Cuban
guard), our trio makes a daring *snicker* escape, leaving behind the injured Justine, who's
told them about his tungsten mine (not the sharpest knife in the drawer, this Justine).  They
dash *snicker* to a conveniently-nearby airport, hop inside a plane--


And are immediately transported to...well...somewhere in the southwestern US.  They go on
a murder-theft spree, dropping old folks down wells, stealing cars, hopping freight trains. 
Finally, they get to Justine's house and meet his wife.  She, believing them when they tell her
Justine is dead, agrees to take them out to the mountain to see if there is, in fact, any
tungsten there.  Suddenly (and I do mean *suddenly*), the police close in on them.  Griffen
shoots Justine's wife, Cook and Landis give themselves up (they're too apathetic to run), and
Griffen is shot down by "smelly Kelly in his helly."  And thus ends this little slice of
heaven.


The short shown with this movie, "Speech: Platform Posture and Appearance," was made by
the same folks who gave us "Speech: Using Your Voice."  Some of the strangest tips for
speechifying are contained in this short, including the infamous "knee test."


If you can get past the bleakness of the movie and the confusion of the short, you'll hear a
lot of good riffing by Mike and the bots.  In the short, they feed off the analogies and tips
very well:


	Tom: Now you're a can opener--metal and shiny and taciturn.


	Prof. Buehler: Remember, you must think tall, talk tall, stand tall, and look tall.
	Crow: Shave tall, jump tall, and crouch tall.


	Mike: I will *not* make the knee test!
	Crow: Yeah, that's it, baby--shake that moneymaker!


In the movie...well, they riff on anything and everything.  But most of the best lines fall into
two categories:


*  The characters and actors


	Tom: Boy, they don't call John Carradine The Voice for nothing.
	Mike: Oh, to be blessed with an instrument like that.


	Mike: Coleman Francis *is* Curly Howard in 'The Fugitive!'


	Mike [referring to Cherokee Jack]: Another Hollywood prettyboy.


	Griffen: I always wanted money.
	Mike: But I settled for looks.


	Mike: It's either Castro or Stuart Margolin.


	Mike: For this next shot, let's focus on my with my legs splayed out and my
		enormous package spread out.
	Crow: I'm just glad Coleman's not wearing a skirt.


	[In reference to the café owner]
	Crow: My name is Death, I'll be your waiter.
	Tom: My father was a can opener, my mother was a wood duck.


*  The horrid editing and bleak landscapes


	Crow: Well, this film wastes no precious screen time with a story.


	Mike: So, they flew from New Mexico to...New Mexico.


	Tom: Ah, they're filming in someone's basement apartment.


	Crow: This movie has the courage to unabashedly repeat itself.


	Mike: You know, your everyday annoyances shouldn't be filmed!


	Mike: Ahh!  I think my neck got broke in that jump cut!
	Tom: I see the movie has finally thrown up its hands and said, "I just don't know."


	Mike: Even when it's bright, it's dark in this movie.


*  Also, of course, there's the nature-documentary riffing at the end:


	Crow: The wild Curly can hit 30 miles an hour when threatened.
	Crow: The male Curly can run for hours on little water.
	Mike: Native beaters are used to flush out the Curly.
	Crow: And when Curly dies in the wild, he provides food for other Curlys.


And much, much more.  The riffing more than makes up for the host segments, which I
don't think were their best--they focus on Forrester getting beaten up by the mob, and
Mike's attempts to deal with the movie...mainly by believing he's Carol Channing.  However,
'The Bouncy, Upbeat Song' isn't bad, and Forrester's death scene is good.  Overall, I highly
recommend "Red Zone Cuba"...but only if you've got a *very* strong constitution.


"I want to hurt this movie, but I can never hurt it the way it hurt me."

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