More Turkish Delight

I've been watching more of those Turkish films, courtesy of the B-Zone on Roku.  I sat 'those Turkish films' as if my viewing experience encompasses the whole of Turkish cinema.  In reality, what I've been watching are more examples of Turkish knock offs of Hollywood properties with no regard for copyright.  Actually, the first one I saw this weekend was interesting because it wasn't a direct rip off of a specific US character or movie.  Iron Claw The Pirate (as its title is usually given in English), is an early example of a Turkish-made action film, dating from the late sixties and shot in black and white, it seems to take its inspiration in part from old forties Republic serials and in equal part from more recent European crime movies.  The frenetic action - the non-action scenes are perfunctory and hurried through as quickly as possible in order to get to the next fight sequence - two fisted hero and frequent capture and escape of various characters, makes it feel like one of the condensed, feature length, versions of those old serials.  The Euro-crime influence is seen in the presence of international super villain Fantomas, hiding behind a mask and commanding an army of minions in pursuit of some complex (and largely incomprehensible) plot.  The levels of sheer viciousness also owe something to the Euro-thrillers: Fantomas gleefully murders (or has murdered) anyone who has crossed him or suspected of crossing him.  A foreign contact is personally machine gunned to death by the villain, a professor is similarly mown down by henchmen, while Fantomas personally stabs the professor's daughter to death while she is tied to a table, (one of several women he murders in the course of the film).  Not that the good guys don't inflict plenty of carnage, with hero 'Iron Claw' and his sidekicks gunning down bad guys on sight - no due process, reading of rights or rule of law here.  Indeed, at film's end, he and his cop buddy have to be dissuaded from executing the captured Fantomas - only at this point are they swayed by the notion of justice.

Some observations on Iron Claw The Pirate - just why the protagonist is called 'Iron Claw' is never explained , he certainly doesn't wield such a thing, preferring fists, gun and whip to beat up the bad guts.  Oh yeah, he isn't a pirate, either.  Moreover, we get no real explanation as to who he is - we get a brief scene where we see him handed his gun and gun belt by an unseen character, after which he roars off on his motorbike vowing vengeance.  Against whom and for what, we never know.  We also never quite get to know his status with regard to the authorities - he wears a mask, sometimes, works closely with the police and government agents, but also seems to operate independently.  His main contact with other agencies is 'The Uncle', a mustachioed old dude who likes to snooze in a chair a lot, yet, despite the secrecy that having such a 'cut off' implies, everybody seems to recognise 'Iron Claw', even when he isn't wearing a mask and he even has business cards and an office at police headquarters.  Perhaps the character appeared in Turkish comics or pulp novels, so all this would make sense to the local audiences the film was aimed at.  Who knows?  Certainly nobody in the English speaking world.  The treatment of women has to addressed - female characters are always getting tied up in their lingerie, physically abused and often horribly murdered.  This does seem to be something of a trope in Turkish action films and, while not unique to Turkish films, does seem to be taken to extremes in these movies.  Special effects and optical effects are non-existent.  Even the titles are printed on cards rather than appearing on-screen.  This, apparently, reflected the situation i n the Turkish film industry at the time, where the technology and facilities to produce such effects simply didn't exist.  Consequently, the only effects you see are practical and created 'in camera'.  There's also the usual pirated musical score, (perhaps 'Iron Claw' is a pirate in that sense), in this case mainly from Goldfinger.  Finally, the direction consists mainly of simply ensuring the camera is in the right place to catch the action - there are no panning shots or tricky angles and the editing is purely functional. 

While not an actual unauthorised 'knock off'' of a specific copyrighted character or film, Iron Claw certainly captures the feel of Republic superhero serials like Spy Smasher or Captain America.  Judging by the depiction of 'Captain America' in Three Giant Men (aka Turkish Spiderman), these serials must have been shown and had a considerable influence in Turkey, making it natural that local versions would eventually be produced.  For all its cinematic deficiencies, Iron Claw is a pretty good imitation of those serials and if, like me, you have a soft spot for them, it is actually pretty entertaining, even if much of the plot is nonsensical.  its popularity in Turkey is witnessed by the fact that it spawned a sequel a few years later.  Unfortunately, I haven't seen that, so I don't know whether it reveals more about its titular hero's origins, or whether these remain forever shrouded in mystery.