Jaguar Lives!

No, not the car manufacturer, but the almost forgotten martial arts movie from 1979.  I mentioned this one last week when I inaugurated the 'random movie trailers' thread and, as with the oppressive heat, general sweatiness and the fact I'm too distracted to come up with anything original, I thought we'd take a look at the trailer.



This is another of those films I vaguely remember showing in late night slots on ITV, but which I never managed to see. If you are wondering who Joe Lewis was, he was another of those martial arts champions promoted as an action movie star in the wake of Bruce Lee and the Kung Fu craze. A contemporary of Chuck Norris, he never enjoyed Norris' level of success in movies, despite being no worse an actor and probably a better martial arts fighter. Jaguar Lives! was clearly intended to launch a globe-trotting James Bond-style franchise starring Lewis. Indeed, the supporting cast read like a who's who of Bond alumni, with Christopher Lee (The Man With the Golden Gun), Donald Pleasance (Blofeld in You Only Live Twice), Joseph Wiseman (Dr No himself) and Barbara Bach (who had only recently been The Spy Who Loved Me). Unlike Golden Needles, this one is available on DVD (from the Czech Republic), so I really should order it. Then I'll be able to tell you exactly why it failed to spawn a series and remained Jaguar's only outing.