Known to video collectors and late night TV viewers as The Mad Bomber and also circulated as The Police Connection (cashing in on a certain William Friedkin Oscar winner), this outrageously sleazy crime film came at a turning point in the career of director Bert I. Gordon. One of the most lovable drive-in directors of the '50s and '60s, Gordon made his name with a string of hits featuring giant monsters (and people) rampaging across the silver screen, but the demands for more graphic fare forced him to change direction a few times. In 1972 he released a moody occult film called Necromancy (which was later recut and spiced up with nude scenes under the title The Witching), and the following year he released this, his first bona fide action film and only his second to be released in first run with an R rating (following the little-seen How to Succeed at Sex). In its original form this is his most extreme film, a gritty mixture of bloody violence, rampant nudity, and cynical crime procedural, but the many, many VHS and gray market DVD versions dropped virtually every single exploitative highlight.

Our story revolves around three very different men involved in a vicious crime spree tearing apart California's San Fernando Valley. First we meet William Dorn (Chuck Connors, apparently warming up for his show-stopper psycho turn in Tourist Trap), a bespectacled guy who berates people in public for littering and failing to yield to pedestrians. However, William has a darker side -- namely planting bombs and detonating them at places like a high school and a women's lib meeting. Then there's George (Eaten Alive's Neville Brand), a creepy sex offender who rapes a patient at a Northridge mental institution and may be the only one who's seen William doing his dirty bombing work. Finally, dogged cop Lieutenant Geronimo Minnelli (Vince Edwards, TV's Ben Casey and star of the outstanding noir Murder by Contract) is determined to catch William at any cost, including a bizarre scheme to trap George by setting up female cops as potential sexual assault targets. Needless to say, the results are explosive.

Gordon has never really been known as the most adept of directors when it comes to actors, but here it makes all the difference having three pros anchoring the story. An underrated talent often wasted in thankless TV roles, Edwards is great here in a slightly queasy role with his former heartthrob looks now turning seedy and sweaty; it's more than a little odd to see him hanging out to question employees at a strip club, surrounded by way more frontal exposure than you'd expect to see in a (relatively) mainstream 1973 film. Brand does his sleazy best, too, though he has the least to do of the three; still, it's fun seeing him square off against Edwards, and the ultimate direction of his character is definitely not what you'd expect. However, it's easily Connors who steals the film as a psychotic whose ultimate motivation makes him more relatable than your average mad killer. He's absolutely compelling in every scene, turning even the briefest of dialogue exchanges into tense confrontations tinged with grief-driven madness. Though he seemed to be on a bit of an upswing here, it took Gordon three years to make another film when he went over to AIP to helm two beloved giant critter movies of the '70s, Food of the Gods and Empire of the Ants. One can only imagine what might have happened had he decided to keep exploring other genres like this, but fortunately in its uncut form we'll always have this extreme example of where drive-in filmmaking was heading at the time.

Obviously it was an understatement to say that the 2013 Code Red DVD, ahem, blew away every version before it, considering how sorry every previous transfer looked (on top of the aforementioned censorship). This really is a nice transfer from top to bottom, though, delivering a film far more entertaining and vibrant than expected. It's also much easier now to appreciate some great footage of Northridge, Chatsworth, and Sherman Oaks at the time, with plenty of vintage Vons supermarket signs in evidence. The only pertinent extra is an isolated score track (complete with lots of funky crime and strip club music), while the usual reel of Code Red trailers consists of The Folks at Red Wolf Inn (which never materialized, alas), Just Before Dawn, Class of '74, Splitz, The Girls Next Door, and Gold of the Amazon Women. Even better was the label's 2016 Blu-ray upgrade, a very limited 1,000-unit pressing available for a short window directly from their store. The already solid source material gets a nice bump here, and apart from revealing some water damage in a small handful of shots, it's in great shape with impressive colors and detail. The DTS-HD MA English mono audio is fine if unspectacular given the source, and the isolated music track is carried over, while the theatrical trailer is added this time along with wrapround hosting bits by hostess Katarina Leigh Waters, who gets to ham it up (literally) in a movie theater with a mad bomber banana on the loose. Also included are bonus trailers for The Jigsaw Murders, Nam Angels, Jive Turkey, The Destroyers, and Dune Warriors.

In 2023, Severin finally brought Gordon's roughest film back into circulation as a greatly expanded Blu-ray special edition featuring an improved 4K scan from the internegative; still featuring the title card as The Police Connection, it's framed at 1.85:1 with more info on the sides compared to the 1.78:1 on the Code Red. Color timing is also better with less of an orange cast, which gives the more pure blue in the night scenes a really spooky feel here. The usual DTS-HD MA 2.0 English mono audio sounds improved here and much more crisp, with optional English SDH subtitles provided. You also get the isolated music track and, in a nice touch, a 5.1 option that pumps the music out to the front and rear channels. Audio commentaries by Severin's Kier-La Janisse are few and far between, so it's a cause for celebration to find her here doing an excellent job charting out the essentials of the film including the actor and director backgrounds. However, the real great stuff here is an extended conversation she has starting around the 22-minute mark with retired Los Angeles bomb squad detective and author Mike Digby. It's a fascinating and highly unusual approach covering the evolution of bombing over the 20th century, the history of California bombing including attacks related to journalists and unions, the forensic methods of handling real cases, and a connection to Chuck Connors and the film at hand. Excellent stuff. Also playable with the film is an archival interview with Gordon by Del Valle, which starts off with biggies like King Dinosaur and Beginning of the End before going through the rest of his cinematic adventures. Sound quality here is touch and go throughout, but it's nice to have for fans. An audio reminiscence of Gordon by his daughter, Patricia Gordon (26m59s), is a warm and really enjoyable snapshot of his personality and creative spirit that gives a different side to what you would imagine from his films. In "To Be in the Moment" (11m3s), actress Cynthia MacAdams talks about her acting career (starting with a sing-song thespian trick) including numerous plays and her gig on this film, while "On the Trail of The Mad Bomber" (10m17s) surveys the numerous L.A. locations then and now around the Westside, Century City, the Valley, and more. Finally you get the TV version (87m31s), which is obviously a much tamer viewing experience but worth preserving here as it does feature some exclusive footage. It's in okay condition here from what appears to be a 16mm print, and then the disc wraps up with two TV spots (as The Police Connection). An insert booklet, "The Mad Bomber Story," is an appraisal of the film as an entry in 1973 American cinema, a transitional and unique film for Gordon, and a good showcase for its stars, illustrated with photos by still photographer Carol Gordon.

SEVERIN BLU-RAY

CODE RED BLU-RAY

Updated review on July 11, 2024