J-Men Forever (1979)

I grabbed the DVD as soon as it was released. Until then, I only had a well worn VHS copy of an old Night Flight broadcast, so the disc was a welcomed addition to my library. There are a few extras on the disk, one of which is an interesting interview with Commando Cody (George Wallace), who interviewer Proctor insists on calling "Commander".Proctor and Bergman also discuss their making of JMF. One disappointment was Bergman's completely unnecessary comments about the war in Afghanistan and the war on drugs. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a guy who has made a living with his counterculture humor would have such a reflex attitude toward "the establishment", but I wish he had kept his ill conceived beliefs to himself. Funny and creative he is. Intelligent and astute he is not. To make matters worse, the entirety of the Proctor/Bergman dialog is plagued by oft-occurring audio dropouts (the rest of the disk is OK).That said, it's still well worth buying. J-Men Forever is a hilarious movie and is one of my favorites.

I first saw this when broadcast on USA Network's "Night Flight" program in the early 1980's. I was so struck by it at that time that I wrote a letter to the USA Network trying to find out how to procure a copy. They never answered. I recently discovered it for sale and although my humor has changed a bit in the last 20 years and I had forgotten most of it, it is still a riot and I am glad to have it in my DVD collection. The idea of stringing together various black and white footage and changing the dialogue is great. This was all done with analog equipment obviously, but it would be a great project to do now with the digital stuff. Some folks, whose humor would run counter to this, would be put off by it but if you like something funny and different, this is really unique.

J-Men Forever is the epic tale of the Secret World War waged by the J-men against their alien nemesis, the Lightning Bug. Armed with trance inducing rock music and a nebula of hash smoke, the Lightning bug seeks to change the world's lifestyle before our very eyes.The J-Men field a constellation of our nation's greatest heroes. Under the inspired leadership of Admiral Ballsey they struggle to thwart this menace.The film features some fine stunt and model work.It's a real power hit of entertainment. If you ever get an all too rare chance to view J-men, and you're not Mrs Grundy, grab it.(It's so good i have to ration viewings for fear of wearing out the tape!)

A group of superheroes battle an evil warlord who is trying to enslave the world. Imaginative spoof of superhero films consists of original footage from 1930's, 40's and 50's RKO cinematic shorts spliced together and overdubbed with new script and sound track. (Rating: B+)