DANGEROUS CARGO (1977)
Label: Mondo Macabro
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 85 Minutes
Audio: Greek Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Fullscreen (1.37:1)
Director: Kostas Karagiannis
Cast: Deborah Shelton, Kostas Karagiannis, Nikos Verlekis, Giorgos Hristadoulou, Stavros Farmakis, Ilias Grigontis
When the Captain of a cargo ship is found stabbed to death before leaving port a new captain (Nikos Verlekis) is assigned to his ship, bringing along with him his sex-pot wife (Deborah Shelton, Body Double). Having a sinfully hot wife aboard a ship full of crusty seafarers might seem like a bad idea, and and it is. The pipe-smoking Captain is tasked with transporting an unknown cargo to a as of yet revealed destination somewhere in Asia. it all seems a bit shady, and is it , the captain unaware that he is transporting explosive contraband, liquid Nitroglycerin. He is also unaware that a criminal element, a bad-guy played by director Kostas Karagiorgis (The Wife Killer), has begun steering his crew towards mutiny, with the promise of selling the nitroglycerin to nefarious buyers in Sudan for a large profit. His loyal first-mate (Giorgos Hristodoulou) uncovers the mutinous plan and attempts to warn his Captain, but seeing as this first-mate was his wife's former lover, and that the captain catches him peeping his wife in the shower, the captain is unwilling to entertain the notion, which proves to be a fatal error.
All of Dangerous Cargo's watch-ability and entertaining sleaze factor come by way of former Miss U.S.A. Deborah Shelton (TV's Dallas), if it were not for her alluring presence I don't think I could have made it through this in one sitting. The sultry Shelton is nude more often than not, be it making love to her husband or making love to her former flame in his flashback fantasies. The later she's raped by the mutinous criminal element, and when her husband is dispatched she then uses her sexuality to get an explosive revenge on the killer.
Alright to be fair the baddie, played by director Kostas Karagiorgis, is also plenty entertaining in his own right, with his white hair and dark expressive eyebrows, he's just chewing on the scenery and clearly loving playing the often shirtless villain. That said, everything else about this high-seas crime film was a bit of a slog for me, but the nudity and fun baddie kept from abandoning ship altogether. The kicker of it all is the hilarious stock footage finale that caps it all of, ugh, what a stinker, for a film that's about an illicit explosive cargo the plot is all fizzle, with only the foxy Deborah Shelton offering any sort of sizzle.
Audio/Video: Dangerous Cargo (1977) arrives on region-free Blu-ray from Mondo Macabro as part of their Greek collection, this being volume four in the series. There's a disclaimer stating that the new HD master, advertised as being from the original camera negative, was provided by the licencor, and that the quality of it occasionally dips below MM own standards. Framed in 1.37:1 fullscreen the images generally looks quite pleasing, the well-lit scenes show nice depth and clarity, colors looks accurate and the visuals are filmic looking, but the darker interior scenes are a bit murkier with some detail-sapping black crush, but all in all I was pleased with the image.
Audio comes by way of a lossy Greek Dolby Digital 2.0 track with optional English subtitles. Obviously an uncompressed track would have been preferable but I didn't find the Dolby mono audio bad by any means, dialogue us clean and crisp, and the off-beat score sounds fine.
No extras on this release, just an 11-min Mondo Macabro trailer reel. The single-disc Blu-ray comes housed in a standard keepcase with a new illustration from artist Justin Coffee that puts the lovely Debbie Shelton front and center, with baddie Kostas Karagiorgis in the background, looking very much like a young Joe Dante to my eyes.
Special Features:
- New HD transfer from original negative
- Region Free
- Greek language track with newly translated English subtitles
- Mondo Macabro Previews (11 min)
- Brand new cover art by Justin Coffee
At just eighty-five minutes in length the film is at least well-paced, but it's not a film I love. It's a mostly single-location story shot on a ship, that's strangely peppered with flashbacks to the first-mate's life with the captain's wife, but it's just padding to get this stinker to full-length, and other than enjoying the eye-candy that is Deborah Shelton I think this thing is a bit of a bore, but it has some cool exploitative elements that lovers of sleaze might enjoy.
More Screenshots from the Blu-ray
