Dangerous Cargo
Director-Kostas Karagiannis
Cast-Deborah Shelton, Kostas Karagiorgis, Nikos Verlekis
Country of Origin-Greece
Distributor - Mondo Macabro
Number of Discs - 1
Reviewed by Bobby Morgan
Date- 03/17/2020
Dangerous Cargo exists for only reason and that is to get its leading lady Deborah Shelton naked as much as possible. It was built so much around her notoriety as Miss USA 1970 that her on-screen credit made sure to include that fact (though it mislabels her as Miss America, but whatever – a beauty contest is a beauty contest is a beauty contest). It’s a good thing the movie succeeds in delivering the nudie goodies because it’s a complete and abject failure in every other area that matters in making cinematic entertainment.
But because there must be an audience even the most stubborn floater, Dangerous Cargo comes to Blu-ray from Mondo Macabro. Shelton’s scantily-clad body is featured prominently on the cover, much as it was when it was released theatrically back in the late 1970’s. The copious nudity she supplied this pathetic production looks splendid in the high-definition upgrade, but I missed much of it because the movie kept putting me to sleep.
The aimless attempt at making a seaborn suspense thriller focuses on the captain (Nikos Verlekis) of a scrappy freighter that has left port with its cargo hold supposedly packed with cotton, but the ship is actually hauling nitroglycerin and weapons to a destination off the coast of Yemen. Even before the voyage began, the crew – lead by the boatswain (Kostas Karagiorgis) – was planning a mutiny to take over the ship and deliver the cargo into the hands of some interested buyers.
Once they put their strategy (which involves a lot of dancing on the upper deck) into play, the captain’s gorgeous wife (Shelton, of course) is left alone to defend herself using the only weapon she has at her disposal – lots and lots of hot sex! Well, hot sex for the guys in the movie having it. You might find it as erotic as accidentally walking in on your parents “making up” from that screaming argument they had on Christmas Eve.
Director Kostas Karagiannis was an incredibly productive fellow, directing over 170 films and TV series before dying in February 1993. I highly doubt Dangerous Cargo was a passion project he spent a long time developing; it’s cheap, plodding, and pointless. Every scene that doesn’t involve Shelton disrobing and rolling around in bed with one of her male co-stars is usually a set-up for such a scene to occur next. Narrative momentum is non-existent, and the potential for tension and thrills is squandered faster than the speed of sound. The script by Yiannis Politis doesn’t spend nearly enough time establishing the principal players and their individual aims, and even when things start to happen in what Karagiannis and Politis deem a story, by it’s too little too late.
To her credit, Shelton is a real trouper as she does what she can with a role that requires little of her but nudity and doesn’t even bother giving her a name or relatable characteristics, but you have to wonder if she actually considered having a bunch of lumpy Greek guys rub their flaccid penises over her a good career move. Oddly enough, Dangerous Cargo was one of three Greek productions Shelton did at the start of her career, and she returned to the country as she was starting to get roles in the U.S. to co-star in the Nico Mastarakis-scripted Blood Tide, in which she got to act alongside James Earl Jones and Jose Ferrer.
The cinematography by Vasilis Vasileiadis adds a little scope to the limited locations and goes a long way towards making Dangerous Cargo look pricier than it actually was, and while composing the jazzy score must have been great fun for Giorgos Theodosiadis, it’s instant tension deflation when put to scenes that are intended to have viewers on the edge of their seats (not that the direction, writing, and acting didn’t do enough of that to begin with).
Mondo Macabro attained the HD master of Dangerous Cargo from a licensor and they included a disclaimer at the start of the movie stating that the transfer has some imperfections due to the condition of the original negative used for the new scan. Since the movie isn’t the most impressive on the visual front, I didn’t notice any flaws. Framed in the 1.37:1 aspect ratio, the picture quality is reasonably sharp and spotlights acceptable details and cool, earthy colors that have been dulled by decades of degenerated video transfers and appallingly subpar gray market bootlegs. Atmospherics also look mightily improved. The 25 GB disc has more than enough room to grant a healthy bit rate to the refreshed video master. Not nearly as laudable is the Greek PCM 2.0 audio track, which makes the score sound clearer and more active than ever before without drowning out the dialogue but does little else. Given the limited nature of the production, there probably wasn’t much for the sound effects people to work with. Newly translated English subtitles have also been provided.
Extra features are limited to that lengthy preview reel (11 minutes) for other Mondo Macabro titles that has appeared on all their releases but has been updated to include their slate of Blu-rays.
I was hoping for a sleazy fun time with Dangerous Cargo, but this so-called movie has little to offer outside of Deborah Shelton’s frequent nude scenes. It’s a boring, listless disappointment that I cannot under any circumstances recommend, despite the new HD transfer looking as good as it possibly could.
