The Fakers & Hell's Bloody Devils

Dir. Al Adamson

94/90 Minutes

USA

1970

Starring: Broderick Crawford, John Gabriel, Scott Brady, Kent Taylor, Anne Randall, John Carradine, Robert Dix (Hell's Bloody Devils only)

*These notes encompass Al Adamson's two films The Fakers (aka Smashing the Crime Syndicate) and its re-edited version Hell's Bloody Devils

FBI agent Mark Adams (John Gabriel) travels to Las Vegas to infiltrate the hideout of a Neo-Nazi group that is counterfeiting American currency in order to fund their party under the leadership of Nazi war criminal Count von Delberg (Kent Taylor). While working the groups, the suave Adams encounters a number of miscellaneous women who throw themselves at him including a "17 going on 37" Lolita (who, naturally, Adams dramatically turns down), FBI agent Jill Harmon ("he just thinks all women are after him!"), and Adamson staple Vicki Volante as undercover Israeli agent Carol Bechtal whose parents were killed by von Delberg during the war. And scattered throughout for commercial appeal allows for some work by Broderick Crawford as a gruff police captain and John Carradine (talking about toucans) as the owner of a pet shop front. 

In its original form, The Fakers is an oddly entertaining Adamson picture working nicely working the confines of the 60s spy movie genre. Double crosses, tempting beauties, chase scenes, unlikely explosions, and dolphins abound, with the potential for a series of films focused on Adams clearly in the back of Adamson's mind (can that name really be that much of a coincidence?) And while most of this business does not particularly make a ton of sense beyond the needs of scene to scene development, there is a bit of fun to be had watching all these individual pieces flail about. And there is something to be said about being able to see Adamson's "vision" in its "true" form, with the totality of its narrative on display (complete with a cameo by Colonel Sanders while Adams and one of his women wolf down some fried chicken, an appearance that allowed for the production to receive free KFC for the duration of the shoot). 

Unfortunately for Adamson, The Fakers could not be sold in its original state. The film sat on a shelf alongside another Adamson "original" Psycho A Go-Go (a crime thriller (with go-go dancing!) that added John Carradine for science fiction and horror elements in an effort to sell) until he and producer Sam Sherman came up with an idea to utilize the footage and add new scenes with a focus on the latest drive-in craze: bikers! Adamson pal Robert Dix (who appeared in and wrote his western Five Bloody Graves and co-starred as the bloodthirsty murderer alongside some vampires in Blood of Dracula's Castle) leads biker gang the Bloody Devils, hired by von Delberg to do some of his dirty work. Much of the original Fakers action is intact (with maybe about 20 minutes from the initial effort cut or trimmed, including a lengthy chase scene through Marineworld) with the biker footage woven amongst the action through scenes of Volante informing the Devils of new developments in the main plot. Unsurprisingly, none of this adds anything to the primary action, and there are plenty of shots of the bikers driving down country roads, picking up women, and committing acts of violence to (hopefully) satisfy audiences and find a distributor (with the trailer boasting the material shot by the DP of Easy Rider (not a lie, as another Adamson regular Laszlo Kovacs shot the new footage)). While certainly containing plenty of exploitative pleasures, the final result is a bizarre meshing of tones, quite clearly the product of two very different modes of thought. But it works for its purposes, and the pair of films is another fascinating example of the market of its time. And with some footage of zombies or werewolves or vampires there is material here for another handful of versions.

Both films viewed on July 29th, 2020

Part of the ongoing Al Adamson Project.