In the history of cinema, Aldo Ray's portrayal of Detective Burke in "East Meets Watts" is not going to be remembered as an acting milestone. That's not to say it's a bad performance, it's just that Ray doesn't have much to work with. This is too bad, because during the early part of his career, Aldo was kind of a big deal, and he got to play meaty parts in excellent movies with terrific actors and first-rate directors.

He was in "Pat and Mike" with Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn. Director George Cukor and writers Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin were so taken with him that they gave him the lead in "The Marrying Kind," pairing him with another supporting Tracy/Hepburn player they were impressed with, Judy Holliday.

"The Marrying Kind" is not a well-known film; it certainly doesn't have the reputation of other Cukor/Gordon/Kanin collaborations of that period ("Adam's Rib," "A Double Life," "Born Yesterday," the aforementioned "Pat and Mike"), but of all these films, "The Marrying Kind" is my favorite. It is funny and warm, with moments of comedy and drama effortlessly intermingling. It is unassuming yet ambitious, telling the story of a young working class couple's joys and sorrows as they look back at the years of their marriage and try to decide if they should stay together or not.

And Aldo Ray is great in it. He plays the same kind of tough Joe Palooka type that he specialized in, but he brings charm, nuance and poignancy to the part. It is a shame that he didn't get more roles of this caliber. Don't let "East Meets Watts" steer you wrong; Aldo Ray was a truly talented actor.

"The Marrying Kind" is available on DVD and I highly recommend you check it out (after you've purchased every last piece of Cinematic Titanic merchandise, that is).

An Asian martial arts expert is handcuffed to a black inner-city gangster, and they must work together to overcome a drug lord, his dangerous cartel and a crooked cop. Just as you start thinking, as I did, "Hey, cool! This is kind of like a funky blaxploitation remake of the 'Defiant Ones'", they ditch the handcuffs.

As far as a riff goes, it's like a nice long, easy stretch of two lane blacktop. Al Adamson paints his masterpiece by renting the Fox backlot on the weekend, and you'll notice they didn't spring for the any of the extras in the rental package-- just 3 identical Chevy Impalas line the street, and a lone pipe emerges from the sidewalk where the fake fire plug is usually positioned. The cop cars don't have flashing lights, or any distinguishing markings for that matter. Oh, and I almost forgot-- there are two completely unmotivated car explosions, and I'm pretty sure they used the same car twice.

By far, the most disorienting feature is that Al Adamson just didn't have a knack for fight scenes, and these patches were the most difficult for me to riff, personally. Then it dawned on m,e that there was no real progress to these fights, as they weren't staged to build momentum in the least. It's like Al Adamson delivers all the pieces of a fight scene but then expects the audience to put it all together themselves. The movie poster for "East meets Watts" should have a disclaimer: Fight scenes may need some assembly. In some ways, watching these scenes must simulate what it's like to get caught in an actual street brawl-- you don't know what the hell is going on, or how long it's going to last, or who you should be rooting for. You just know you want to get out.

Alan Tang plays the Chinese Kung Fu expert, who impresses local pimp "Smiling Man" (Don Oliver) with his Kung Fu skills and gets himself on the payroll. I looked up Mr. Tang on IMDB, and he has had a long and fruitful career in the Hong Kong cinema, both before and after "East Meets Watts". Also, his co-star Timothy Brown (Stud Brown), has lots of screen presence and is just plain handsome. He played Spear Chucker Jones, in the original MASH movie as well as the first season of the TV show. I still have a hard time with that name. Turns out, the much loved movie and TV series that juxtaposed the atrocities of war against brisk, witty dialogue could, in its early days, be kind of racist. Overall, Mr. Brown does a serviceable job with some really tough situations, most notably, his onscreen romance with mute call girl Sara (Carol Speed). This seems like one of those story elements that may have looked interesting on paper-- "Stud Brown has a deep, heartfelt romance with a beautiful mute"-- but when you see it play out, it's more than awkward. The stilted courtship scene between Stud and Sara in Sara's apartment while they try to make "small talk" will positively make you squirm.

I give it three wedges of cheese.

Joel likes to call East Meets Watts a “kungsploitation” film. It does manage to merge two trends of that era: kung fu and the blaxploitation film. In those days everything had something “kung fu” to it. There was the TV series, “Kung Fu”, a lot of people where taking up martial arts, the G.I. Joe action figure had kung fu grip, and what begat what, well, your guess is as good as mine.

All those pretty much escaped my notice, and nor was I much exposed to the blaxploitation genre. Films like Shaft and Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song never made it to the local one-plex in my small – and very white – town. Add to that that around that time I was pretty single-minded about the Planet of Apes franchise. If you’d asked me then, there were no other films being made at that time except Planet of the Apes.

 So, in order to get up to speed while we were working on East Meets Watts, I decided to watch some films of that ilk, such as the aforementioned, as well as Dolemite.

What I learned: These films are sooooo not geared to me, a white teenager in a small town!  These are movies with super-groovy and hip anti-heroes and depicting a version of the urban black experience. Stereotypes are reversed, with white characters being ineffective idiots representing the oppressive system, and referred to as “honky.” I felt really bad about being so square and white. But, even if I can’t relate to these movies, they have great soundtracks. 

But then there’s Dolemite. I am still baffled and dismayed as to what Rudy Ray Moore was going for. It’s degrading to all the characters in the film, and who knows, maybe that was his aim, to subvert the idea of the usual storytelling means in making none of the characters sympathetic. I’d go so far as to say not just unsympathetic but downright unlikeable.  And it’s laughably bad in its execution. Check out the martial arts scenes with Rudy Ray Moore besting his opponents through editing - and not very skilled editing at that!  I can’t help but feel that Dolemite was single-handedly responsible for the NAACP, the Urban League and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference joining forces to form the Coalition Against Blaxploitation.

So while East Meets Watts may be bad, at least it's not Dolemite.  Among other things, permit me to point out that Sarah, Stud Brown’s girlfriend, is killed off simply as a pawn in the war between the rivals. Which is bad enough, but the character has no voice. Literally no voice. She is mute. I wonder if she was written that way as a cop-out, because the writer didn’t know how to write for a woman, or they were in a hurry and didn’t have time to think of things she might say in her situation. It’s just frustrating when you see how well drawn the other characters are. Oh, wait, I’m thinking of another movie. Never mind.