Saluting one of the best trash actors

There is an actor who has graced our screens since the 1950s, an actor who's graced our screens both silver and small in over 100 appearances, whose unique appearance and acting style have given us memorable and screen stealing characters. Ever the chameleon, he's played parts of many different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and in each one he's remained doggedly himself. Although he's played heroes on occasion, his manic demeanour, and rugged looks have often seen him typecast in villainous roles. His devotion to acting (and possibly $$$) have seen him pop up in a surprising number of terrible films, many of which he makes bearable, with his odd inflections of words, and hamtastic acting.

Of course we all know who I'm talking about. It's obviously...



Wait! Hold up, not so fast!

It's not that dude. Though he is undoubtedly awesome and all, but he's not the one I'm talking about. No, I'm talking about this guy.



Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Henry Silva.

Now, I'm not going to give you a rundown of his life or filmography — that's all readily available for the interested over at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Silva and IMDb https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0798328/reference , but in my opinion this actor is a true treasure of trash cinema.

A member of the Actor's Studio since 1955, there is no doubting the man can act, and act damn well. His roles in films such as The Manchurian Candidate and Johnny Cool attest to that. However, he was rarely the leading man, and all too often typecast as villainous heavies.

At some point around the mid-1960s, Henry Silva seems to have made a decision to accept any acting gig, no matter how bad, provided it paid, and proceeded to move to Italy, where he spent the next decade propping up a number of Euro-cop thrillers, mob films, and spaghetti westerns with his steely gaze, before returning Stateside to set about compiling a trash resume almost beyond compare..

Oh, and here he is helping sell Midas mufflers with Lee Van Cleef, showing all of his usual restraint...



Silva has starred (or appeared) in a number of terribly terrible movies, and a number of awesomely terrible movies. He wasn't too fussed, apparently. And in each one, his memorable performances exude a sort of boyish glee and charm. He's like the cat that got the cream. A grown man being paid to play soldier, deliver excruciatingly awful lines, and blow shit up.

Can't say I blame the guy. If someone paid me to sit in a tank and pretend to blow up Barry Bostwick wearing a gold leotard on a flying motorbike, I'd sure as shit take the money!



A quick glance at IMDb shows us that, in the trashy '˜80s, he took part in some memorably trashy epics.

Alligator (1980)
Megaforce (1982)
Escape 2000 (1983)
Cannonball Run II (1984)
Above the Law (1988)
Cyborg II (1989)



In later years, Silva has moved more into voice-work as Ban in various animated Batman shows (his deep timbred tones much better suited to the character than Tom Hardy's bizarre gurglings...), and cameos. One of my favourites comes as mob boss (what else?) Ray Vargo in Jim Jarmusch's excellent Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai (1999). As usual, its brief screen time, but memorable nonetheless.



At 85, he may be slowing down, but his contribution to good, bad, and good/bad movies is undeniable and unforgettable.

Henry Silva, I salute you!



#JonoSalutes #TrashLegends

Armies of the Night:

Urban Fear - 1974-1985


Movieland has had a long and fruitful relationship with the kids on the wrong side of the tracks. In the '˜50s and '˜60s they were rebels, they were bikers, they were greasers, and they were wanderers. They were hip cats, Daddy-O, and they would jive talk you soon as look at you. If they weren't too busy dancing at each other, that is...


Often the focus of these films was the delinquents themselves — whether they were contemporary to the times, or filtered with a couple of decades of nostalgia. We saw their high-school rivalries, their reasons for rebelling, and their angst at the older generation - parents, teachers, cops... you know, squares! They weren't so bad — they were just misunderstood. And, when things did escalate, when feuds got serious, like as not things would be settled like men — either with a drag race, or a good old fashioned rumble!


Then, sometime in the '˜70s, something changed. The threat posed by gangs of youths spilled over into 'normal' society. Wanton violence, vandalism, rape and murder became common. Gone were the good old days of greased back hair, and summer lovin' songs. These gangs would rob you, rape you, and kill you, just for fun — and often in the comfort of your own home. No-one was safe. Not even the children.


And, for (a little over) ten glorious years, these hoods were faceless (masked or painted), amoral scumbags. Out to terrorise good hard-working folks, and stick it to the man. They did what they wanted, to who they wanted, whenever they wanted. And some of them would start to get organised. They may have looked like they were auditioning for Fame (1980), but they ruled the streets and back alleys. They were the armies of the night!


There was an early wake-up call in 1974, when Paul Kersey went all one man army on NYC's rising crime rates — Michael Winner and Charles Bronson's first team up unleashing a Death Wish (1974) on the world. After the warning shot came the barrage.

John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) showed us that even the cops were helpless against the gang-bangers, as Street Thunder — an blood-brotherly, cholo wielding gang of silent terrors silently terrorised the inhabitants of a closed down police station, and in Walter Hill's The Warriors (1979)— Coney Island's very own Warriors, a rare protagonist gang, had to bop their way from the Bronx all the way back to Coney, framed for a crime they didn't commit. These two, among the few, hinted as to what an army of united gangs could do if they turned on society — with only a small group of fighters and survivors caught in the middle.

If the gangs won, and ruled our streets it would make for a bleak future — as sci-fi movies took the gangbanger ball and ran with it - Mad Max (1979) & II (1981), Escape from New York (1981), 1990: Bronx Warriors (1982), Escape 2000 (1983), and Streets of Fire (1984), showed us feral gangs which roamed (mostly) free. It was survival of the fittest, baby! And the one with the biggest Mohawk, and sharpest spikes on their be-leathered shoulders would reign supreme!

So, to avoid these dire future premonitions, someone would have to take back the streets and alleys of the urban battleground, and make them safe for the general populations. But who could stand up to these denizens of the darkness, these soldiers of the streets?

Cowboy cops were a good start...


...but a lone wolf, who's turned in his gun and badge...


...could only do so much.

But, surely, the regular cops could handle a bunch of thugs in face paint and gang colours?


Hmmm, perhaps not...

So it turned out that the only protection against the hoods was a concerned citizen with a .45 (or a .475 Wildey Magnum...). It was time for the meek, and the scared to fight back. The worm had turned. The Vigilante Man's time had come...


And he was taking back the streets one gang at a time.

Naturally, the success of the Death Wish series prompted a lot of copy cats and imitators — each, wielding their own vengeance inspiring title as they dispensed brutal justice to the streets. As well as a Death Wish (1974), II (1982), III (1985), IV (1987), and V (1994) , we had The Exterminator (1980) & II (1984), Fighting Back (1980), Defiance (1980), Ms .45 (1981), Class of 1984 (1982), Vigilante (1983), Savage Streets (1984), Tenement (1985), Enemy Territory (1987), to name but a few.

Of course, the Vigilante Man is working outside the law, and the cops can't let that slide — even when he's doin' the man's work for him, and our earnest keeper of the streets must watch his back, and be ever mindful of the fact that he doesn't become what he set out to prevent — look not into the abyss, and all that... Even cowboy cops don't like the Vigilante Man!


By the mid-late '˜80s, the street gangs had become less of a threat, and the vigilantes had their final victory in the fight. Death Wish III (1985) saw Kersey's actions end up in all out urban warfare, and signalled the death knell for the street gang.


This swansong saw the Vigilante Man step back into the shadows, as he (and the cowboy cops) moved on to more bigger fish. Real gangsters — the Mob, terrorists, corrupt cops, and did his bit in the war on drugs. Death Wish IV (1987) & V (1994) see Paul Kersey go up against organised crime, The Punisher (1989) took on Italian mob and Yakuza, and Batman (1989) fought a mobbed up Joker.

And in a few short years the streets were lost again. This time, though, a different breed of gang was to the fore. The Gangstas. The Bloods and the Crips moved in, and these guys came with guns, a new set of beefs, and a new style of music. Vigilante Man — though still around, wasn't quite as effective on these mean streets. From Colors (1988), Boyz n the Hood (1991), and Clockers (1995) to, Training Day (2001), and End of Watch (2012), the gangstas have prevailed. They have now become synonymous with the urban gang image — red and blue replacing the bandanas, denim flares and patched jackets of the '˜70s. The old gangs lost this turf war — a switchblade and a baseball bat no match for a Desert Eagle and an AK47.

So, there's my brief, and undoubtedly incomplete view of '˜urban fear'. For a bright and shining (little-over-a) decade they stole our hearts. But why? Obviously, in Movieland, success breeds imitation. Death Wish was the leader in the field, and blueprint for many, but what made those stories capture our minds at that time?

Well, partly there was real life. Crime rates in the '˜70s and '˜80s, particularly in New York, were on the increase. Violent crime in particular had more than tripled since the mid '˜60s. Citizens were attacked, people were scared, and people wanted action, and their city, seemingly, could not control it. The criminal justice system wasn't to be trusted. The streets and the subways were seen to be unsafe. High profile real life cases, such as Bernie Goetz, the "Subway Vigilante", who, in 1984, shot four black youths on the Subway who he alleged were trying to rob him,


and groups like Curtis Sliwa's Guardian Angels (founded in 1977 as the Magnificent 13, and still around today), originally organised to combat widespread crime in the New York City Subways, stole the news headlines, and whipped up a media storm of supporters and detractors.


It's no great surprise, then, that the Vigilante Man, bursting through the celluloid into this milieu of fear and anger, with his .475 Wildley blasting away the muggers and rapists, was so popular. He was the saviour. The audience proxy. The surrogate avenger who did everything we wished we could have done to those who frightened and threatened us - realising many a revenge fantasy. And here he was — larger than life — at a cinema near you!

How we've missed him!

But never fear, he hasn't been too far away. He's just been hiding in the shadows, biding his time.

And what's this I see making an increasing comeback in the news? Chavs, hoodies, killer kids. Gangs of youths, with no moral compass attacking right minded folks with impunity. Organised crime rampant on the streets. Drugs, pushers, addicts, meth, bath-salts, rape, kidnapping, drive-bys, home invasions... The list of urban fear gets longer and longer, and so back comes our Vigilante Man.

Oh he's back alright. The Dark Knight Trilogy (2005-12), Death Sentence (2007), The Brave One (2007), Gran Torino (2008), Harry Brown (2009), Law Abiding Citizen (2009), Kick-Ass (2010) & II (2013), Hobo with a Shotgun (2011), etc. The look and feel might be a bit different, but he's back...

Warriors, Baseball Furies, Riffs, Punks and Rogues, Souls, Street Thunder... Man, we miss you guys, but you had it comin'.

Vigilante Man, I salute you.



#JonoSalutes #StreetGangs #VigilanteMan