This is William Smith as he appears on the video box from Merchant of Evil:  sexy black leather jacket and eye patch, James Bond pose, beautiful blonde in a bondage outfit.  He almost looks like a hero.  Nothing remotely resembling this scene appears in the actual film. Our Thursday NiteOwls view lots of B-movies, cult films and other cinematic fare our spouses won't let us watch on family time.  Sometimes they're right.  No one in our group was willing to watch this movie again to provide a synopsis so we are proud to present our guest critic RUTH ANN LESLEY (formerly of Zineworld) who was willing to do the honors in reviewing what we put in the category of  "straight-to-video, fast-forward to the Bill parts" film.

After marvelous stock-footage shots of a sanpan floating mistily past a lovely purple mountain at sunset, we are treated to William Smith in camo garb crouching in lush vegetation using a remote control device to trigger (stock footage) explosions in South East Asia. The right lens of his G.I. glasses is blacked out, which instead of making him look piratical gives him definite "nerd loser" cachet. Cowering beside him is a young Asian woman, whom he exhorts to watch as he touches off more blasts, and when having her look is no longer enough, he puts her hands on the controls and makes her detonate a few explosions. When she asks him why he is doing this, he nuzzles her cheek in response. She screams "You bastard!" and he chuckles, growling, "I love it when you call me bastard. That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me. Now move your ass." Using a handful of her hair, he helps her to her feet. This is our introduction to Victor Fortunetti, a pimp, panderer and white slaver Somewhere In Asia. Note that any resemblance to the one-eyed character of Falconetti is purely coincidental, down to the way everyone pronounces "Fortunetti" so it sounds like "Fortune Eddie." There is no explanation of Fortunetti's background, how he came upon the young woman named Vicky (are Victor and Vicky related?) or why he is so enamored of blowing up unarmed foliage.

Bill blowing things up

Low budget Falconetti

All is not well at Fortunetti's brothel, whose front room ambience recalls the bar of every Mexican restaurant I have ever eaten in, and whose private areas look like 70's rec room, prefab dungeon and early cafeteria. Slick kidnapper Doug Masters has only brought two new girls from the US on this trip, and the rest of the seraglio seems deserted except for a fully dressed dancer undulating in front of a mirror in the rec room portion of the club

Doug the slick kidnapper

The latest acquisition

The dancer

Fortunetti & Vicky arrive at the back of the club in a ludicrous black convertible sports car, and Fortunetti gallantly helps her out of the car, opens her jacket and attempts to suck her breasts right out of the tops of her bra. Guzman, Fortunetti’s aide interrupts him to tell him his rival, gang lord Chan, is paying a visit. Chan, accompanied by his bodyguard, makes a jovial remark about Fortunetti's appearance, suggesting he's been rolling in dog shit. When Fortunetti removes his glasses to frown at Chan, we see the blacked-out lens hides an unlikely-looking scar from the outer corner of his right eyebrow to below the bridge of his nose. Chan doesn't flinch, suggesting one day he might take over Fortunetti's faltering empire of flesh. Fortunetti resents this attitude, and as Chan leaves, he erupts in a display of middle digits and pan-Asian epithets.

Bill grabbing a little

CHAN

Bill

Loyal Aide Guzman

Vicky attempts suicide, and learning of her temporary unavailability for work, Fortunetti goes into the "holding area" to audition the new talent to fill Vicky's slot. He asks the terrified young redhead to bend over and lift her skirt so he can see her bottom. She declines, and when the matter (and her skirt) are taken over her head, the other new girl comes to her defense. Fortunetti slaps her down, rips open her blouse and determines that she'll be Vicky's replacement for the night. Despite the video cover showing these girls dressed as flashy tarts, they make no more appearances in the film
 

The latest merchandise

Bill checks the merchandise

The box teaser omitted from the film.

In San Francisco we see how Doug’s end of the slavery ring operates. He dazzles young females with cash and good manners and lures them to his fashion import warehouse. They are drugged, held in a windowless vault (it has a light bulb inside, but apparently only Doug knows how to turn it on using the pull chain), then crated and held for pick-up by Fortunetti’s private jet. Doug’s latest victim, a blonde named Vanessa with a decidedly Arquette-like overbite spoke to her sister Erica over the phone before vanishing, and Erica leaves her two children (who we see once at home with her and are never referred to again) and comes to SF to search for her. The harried police detective she contacts refers her to Mike Penny, private eye, who happens to be hanging out in the cop's office but about whose life and background we learn absolutely nothing. Erica and Mike easily retrace Vanessa to the warehouse and send for the police, but Doug and his wife/accomplice Sue rush to ship this last batch of girls out, calling Fortunetti to come get 'em.

Vanessa

One irresistible guy

Drugged Champagne

The Worried Sister Erika

The Overburdened Police Detective

Our Hero Detective

This film’s Bill Smith Oscar Moment:  In light of Chan’s threatened takeover, Fortunetti has a maudlin episode, isolating himself in his cafeteria with copious amounts of explosives. He addresses an invisible entity named "Crumb", shares his deep feelings about explosives, rhapsodizes about Thor, mutters about 6 pallbearers, 2 to blow taps and one to count cadence, then concludes that he can accomplish the ruination of Chan with one eye and one match.  Bill’s performance is both spellbinding and barely intelligible.

In SF the girls are drugged, put into flimsy coffin-like crates and driven to the airport, with Erica and Mike in pursuit. When Doug “opens the crates to give them some air" at the airfield, Vanessa staggers into the waiting arms of Erica and Mike. Fortunetti brings Vicky along on his private jet, unaware she has been secretly meeting with Chan and his associates. She plants a suspicious-looking package under her plane seat when Fortunetti visits the cockpit. Gunfire is exchanged as Doug and Sue desperately drive through the landing field to reach Fortunetti's plane. Vanessa is shot in the throat and Erica and Mike rush her to the hospital.  Fortunetti orders the jet airborne when he sees police arriving on the tarmac. Sue is captured, but Doug manages to escape. Erica and Mike attend Sue's arraignment, but Doug, determined to rescue his wife and cleverly disguised with shoe-polish whitened hair, slips into the courtroom and shoots several officers while freeing Sue. They escape with Erica and Mike in pursuit, but Erica shoots Sue in the back. Doug vows revenge, but during the police chase, he drives off a pier (with a scuba regulator in his mouth) and the police presume him dead.

Locked in a coffin

Rescued

The gun toting single mom

On his return, Fortunetti finds himself evicted from his bordello, and decides to blow up Chan’s mansion. In his private cafeteria, he seeks comfort and reassurance by nestling his head between Vicky's breasts, weeping and moaning incoherently. Standing among heaps of explosives, blasting caps, wiring and remote detonators with Victor appearing even more unhinged than usual, Vicky is visibly uncomfortable. Back in San Francisco, Erica is also uncomfortable, recalling Doug's vow of vengeance. Sure enough, Doug escaped the sinking car and shows up on Mike’s doorstep to make good his threats. He orders them both to the floor, ineptly setting his gun on their backs while tying them up. Neither of them takes advantage of his ineptness to roll over and retrieve the gun, but they escape anyway, ending up on a rooftop for Doug’s artistically filmed death plummet. Back in Asia, Fortunetti and Guzman blow up Chan's place, which, in a startling piece of stock footage magic appears to be right on the street in a WWII French village. They retreat to Fortunetti's jet and open a celebratory bottle of bubbly as they flee Chan’s fury. On the ground, Chan, with Vicky at his side, watches as the jet takes off. He raises a remote control and detonates the explosives Vicky planted on board the jet. As Vicky watches the plane explode, she finally appears slightly less uncomfortable.

A tender moment

But Bill's more enthused about the prospect of blowing things up

So he does