The first thing to note about Three Kinds of Heat, a fairly typical, bargain basement piece of 80s B movie filmmaking from the Cannon Group, is that it’s a film with three kinds of connections to Doctor Who. The first, least obvious connection, is the actor Trevor Martin, who was known for playing the Doctor on stage at London’s Adelphi Theatre in Terrance Dicks’ 1974 stage play Doctor Who and the Daleks in the Seven Keys to Doomsday. Taking place immediately after the Third Doctor’s regeneration in Planet of the Spiders, Martin played an alternate version of the Fourth Doctor, a role he would later reprise in a 2008 audio adventure from Big Finish. In a TV and film career that stretched back to the 1960s, Martin also portrayed a Time Lord in Patrick Troughton’s swansong The War Games in 1969, but here, in Three Kinds of Heat, he appears as Haggard, a gangster whose moll and criminal accomplice, Piou, is portrayed by another Who alumni; Mary Tamm.
The impossibly glamorous Tamm is better known as the first incarnation of the Fourth Doctor’s companion Romana across the show’s sixteenth season arc, the hunt for the Key to Time, in 1978/79. It’s in Three Kinds of Heat‘s last connection to Who that we find the most pivotal – Sylvester McCoy. 1987 was a big year for McCoy, beating out actors such as Dermot Crowley and his old mentor Ken Campbell to succeed Colin Baker as the Doctor. McCoy made his debut as the Seventh Doctor on 7th September of that year, which was almost three months to the day that Three Kinds of Heat received its US premiere in Florida. UK audiences would have to wait a little bit longer to see the new Doctor’s turn as Harry Pimm, a diminutive yet decidedly dangerous drug courier with Asian crime syndicate, the Black Lion, as it didn’t arrive to these shores as a straight to video release until August 1988, just a couple of months before his second season as the Doctor began to air.
So, what is Three Kinds of Heat? Well, as I say, it’s a fairly generic example of Cannon exploitation that is, to my mind, clearly inspired by two specific films; 1984’s Eddie Murphy vehicle Beverly Hills Cop and 1985’s Hong Kong-set martial arts movie Yes, Madam! starring Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock. An action crime thriller with a would-be globe-trotting element (Cannon’s budget doesn’t actually stretch beyond filming at their newly acquired Elstree Studios in Borehamwood) and some humour, the film was written and directed by Leslie Stevens. Stevens had been the creator of The Outer Limits, which is quite ironic really, because we are definitely well beyond the outer limits of his heyday here. The film concerns the hunt for Black Lion’s elusive head, known only as the Founder, by an orthodox and hastily convened task force, consisting of the somewhat yuppieish U.S. State Department agent Elliott Cromwell, and two statuesque and beautiful female police officers, Hong Kong’s Major Shan, and JFK Airport cop Terry O’Shea.
Imagine The Return of the Saint‘s Ian Ogilvy with the best part of a bottle of Night Nurse inside of him and you’ll get the measure of Ginty’s performance
The film opens with a gangland shootout in the middle of JFK Airport. McCoy’s Harry Pimm is attempting to smuggle drugs into the US when gunmen – under the instructions of Haggard and Piou (Martin and Tamm) – turn up all guns blazing. Pimm and his glamorous moll Angelica (Jeannie Brown) duck for cover, but it seems they had taken precautions for the ambush as, rushing to their aid, are hitmen firing automatic weapons from little holes inside their suitcases! In the middle of a bloodbath that airport cop O’Shea is out of her depth to prevent, Pimm and Angelica make good their escape and we are introduced to Cromwell and Shan who had each been tracking down Pimm for their own ends; his to get closer to the Founder, whose identity is known only by Pimm, and her to get Black Lion’s operations wound up in her native Hong Kong. Quite how Shan remained inconspicuous on the flight to New York is beyond me, given that she is wearing (and will continue to wear) her full Hong Kong constabulary regalia!
Getting star billing as Cromwell is Robert Ginty, star of Hal Ashby films Coming Home and Bound for Glory, and James Glickenhaus’ vigilante flick The Exterminator. Despite my having seen the Ashby films, I can’t really place Ginty based on his appearance here. It feels a little unfair therefore to judge his acting abilities, but let’s just say he seems rather checked out here and offers little but a permanent smirk. Imagine The Return of the Saint‘s Ian Ogilvy with the best part of a bottle of Night Nurse inside of him and you’ll get the measure of Ginty’s performance as Cromwell. The roles of Shan and O’Shea are performed by two actresses who I will be bold enough to claim cannot act for toffee. Shan is portrayed by Shakti Chen (credited as just Shakti here because, erm, it was the 80s I guess?) and was conveniently married to Leslie Stevens at the time, whilst O’Shea is played by Victoria Barrett, who was, equally conveniently enough, the mistress of Cannon head Menahem Golan. Don’t you just love nepotism? Of the two, Chen displays a modicum more talent (but then that could just be that she gets the better lines; including the cultural malapropisms of calling someone she’s holding a gunpoint a “Mommaf**ker”, and saying “rent-a-boy” when she means rentboy), whilst Barrett – whose career seems to consist of appearing in small roles in many Cannon productions up until this point – is blonde and beautiful, but as wooden as Pinocchio’s knob.
Initially, O’Shea is all for arresting Shan and Cromwell, but matters are soon resolved when the latter stresses the importance of locating Pimm and his subsequent offer for her to work with him in achieving that goal. Following a minor detour into Harlem (again, just Borehamwood and some London streets shot up close and at night; hiring actors like Patrick Durkin and EastEnders‘ Oscar James doesn’t help sell it as Harlem either as neither attempt to hide their English accents), the trio agree to work together harmoniously. Discovering that Angelica is en route to London to attend a fashion show, our heroes deduce that she must be reuniting with the now gone-to-ground Pimm. So determined are they to catch the same flight as her, that O’Shea hasn’t the opportunity to even go home and change, and so now we have two cops from different countries in full uniform in another completely different country! In London, Cromwell receives orders to connect with Interpol agent Norris, portrayed by Barry Foster, who informs him that he’ll be taking over the case. The Frenzy and Van der Valk star is clearly slumming it here, but that fact actually helps sell his rather fallen-on-hard-times looking character, especially as it’s later revealed that he is working for Haggard, who is making deals of his own whilst working for Black Lion. With Cromwell off the case, the girls are left to see the sights and try their best to infiltrate the fashion show. Jeez, how are two beautiful women, each standing over six feet, going to succeed in that mission?
It’s in these scenes that the influence of Beverly Hills Cop becomes apparent. If the sight of both women dressed in their uniforms exploring Smithfield Market and Covent Garden and generally looking bemused at each interaction with a native Londoner doesn’t clue you in to what Stevens is hoping to replicate, then the score’s obvious attempts at imitating Harold Faltermeyer’s Axel F ought to do the trick. Up to this point, the screenplay has made numerous attempts at suggesting some friction between the pair, an animosity that is now decreasing as they accept their mutual fish out of water status and the overall importance of their mission. However, the chances of Stevens ever gender-flipping the Hollywood tropes of the mismatched buddy cop movie are slim when you consider all the characterisation that he provides for both women is that they are tall and attractive. It is therefore with a depressing sense of inevitability that Shan and O’Shea are soon removing their uniforms for that other Hollywood trope, the glow-up that makes the leading man realise his true feelings. Yes, unable to accept his new orders, Cromwell has followed the girls to the show to make sure they’re OK, whereupon the sight of O’Shea – dolled up and shot in the softest lighting known to man – makes him realise that she’s all woman beneath that NYPD uniform. But wait, as a wise kid once said, this is no time for love, Doctor Jones, as the film must introduce an extremely convoluted money laundering scheme in which gold bullion is weaved into the outfits that Angelica is purchasing from the show and taking out of the country! Out front, Angelica is reunited with Pimm when an attempt is once again made on his life by Haggard’s men – which includes the corrupt Norris in their number – leading to the admittedly fun sight of seeing Sylvester McCoy leap to his feet firing an uzi with a cigarette holder clamped firmly between his teeth.
In a rinse and repeat of the film’s first act, a gunfight serves to simply propel our characters onto the next location. As such, Cromwell, Shan and O’Shea head back to the US in pursuit of Pimm and his end game. Realising en route that Norris is corrupt, Foster receives a somewhat ignoble writing out of the movie, as it’s revealed they have handcuffed him in the plane’s toilet to await justice on the ground. Our trio’s investigations uncover that Pimm is using an alias and that his real name is Leo Kalb – a man with a record as long as his arm. Arriving at a dockland warehouse the trio uncover crate upon crate of fireworks and, hidden in their number, crates of weapons destined for various hot spots across the globe, including Iran. Some things neve change, I guess. However, as they make this discovery, Pimm and his goons arrive to meet Haggard and Piou. The rivals are expecting the Founder to arrive to resolve their internecine warfare and the stage is set for a showdown that affords McCoy his biggest scene in the film so far.
If Whovians know anything about McCoy’s turn as Three Kinds of Heat‘s chief antagonist, it’s that his character’s wardrobe of brim-down white fedora and matching linen suit would ultimately inspire the writers of the Virgin New Adventures novels enough to make it the Seventh Doctor’s wardrobe. It’s not a look I ever really warmed to when reading the NA’s, as it all sounded a bit too blank and I was more comfortable imagining the Doctor I knew from television. It has to be said though tha, seeing it on film here, t it isn’t too far removed from the Doctor’s wardrobe – though that does make it feel even weirder seeing McCoy blowing people away, especially when those people are a stage incarnation of himself and a former companion. Poor Mary Tamm, she has absolutely nothing to do in this movie, alternating between billing and cooing at Martin or screaming at him whenever their plans for Pimm go awry. It’s worth mentioning that, despite Pimm looming large over the proceedings, McCoy hasn’t had much screen time up until this point, and even less dialogue. We are routinely told that Pimm is a lowly courier whose sole importance lies in the fact that he is the only one whi knows the identity of the Founder, and the combined agencies reasoning behind this whole assignment is that if you get Pimm, you’ll get the Founder. In the brief glimpses and characterisation we’ve seen so far, Stevens seems to want to hark back to the noirish figure of Peter Lorre, something which McCoy – an actor who, by this point in his career, had brought back to life other classic screen icons such as Stan Laurel and Charlie Chaplin on the stage – fully understands and compliments.
Initially, Pimm is depicted as a rather hapless, low-rent criminal figure (just like the roles that Lorre was often called upon to play in films such as Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon), but McCoy’s physicality alone implies delusions of grandeur that Stevens’ screenplay can only hint at. Take a look at his introductory scene at JFK; McCoy uses extravagant physical gestures, sweeping his hands to instruct the customs officers to search his bags. It’s almost like Pimm is a small man (in every sense of the word) who wishes to appear bigger, or he’s a foreigner who wishes to make himself understood. Again, these traits are both applicable to the Lorre screen persona. Certainly, the inclusion of his signature cigarette holder and the flamboyant nature of his whole wardrobe would suggest a man striving for a level of sophistication and glamour that is out of his reach. McCoy suggests a character who isn’t a man who can fight, and the JFK scene depicts him as a cornered animal, cowering beneath the customs desk and gripping onto Angelica for dear life as the bullets fly. However, with his darting, grey eyes there’s also a sense in his performance of a cornered animal being very dangerous, and that’s also something that Lorre would often bring to the screen too. However, in the film’s climactic showdown, McCoy’s performance changes somewhat. Afforded his biggest opportunity to utter dialogue so far, McCoy shines with the kind of stentorian vocals Whovians are familiar with from his performance as the Doctor – even if the lines are as low-rent as “You tried to kill me, bitch!” directed at Mary Tamm’s Piou. There’s a reason, of course, why McCoy’s performance changes here. Before you can say Keyser Söze, the film reveals its twist; Kalb is Black backwards and Leo means Lion. This previously suspected subordinate was the Founder after all, and Haggard and Piou pay for their treachery with their lives. Once “Pimm” has killed the pair, our heroes act (ha, if only!), and a climactic fight ensues.
It’s in these scenes that any hopes Three Kinds of Heat had of emulating the action of Yeoh and Rothrock are lost in his direction and Cannon’ paltry budget and the simple fact that the only thing that Barrett and Chen have in common with the stars of that film is their ethnicity. Neither woman is a martial artist – heck, they’re not even actors, really – and it shows. The big action finale is a damp squib (ironic, considering it takes place in a warehouse full of fireworks) as Stevens does nothing but show his stars throwing unconvincing punches in close-up, whilst the next shot is of stuntmen of a distinctly mature vintage falling to the ground. The fight choreography is dismal, and that includes the noticeably staged encounters between Ginty and McCoy, the former tossing the latter (or rather McCoy’s stuntman) over his shoulder with all the thrills of a demonstration in a Swansea dōjō on a wet Saturday afternoon. This also reveals Three Kinds of Heat other flaw – McCoy is great at selling the Lorre-like small-time crook, and he’s great at the speech he delivers when his true identity is revealed, but he’s completely unconvincing as a threat to anyone physically – especially someone like Ginty, who is much taller than him. Despite this advantage, our heroes only succeed when Cromwell showers bullets into row upon row of crates, starting off a chain reaction of fireworks that allows them to make good their escape and ensures an explosive demise for the bad guys.
In conclusion, Sylvester McCoy is unusual casting for a villain in a B movie action thriller and he’s faced with the challenge of having to portray essentially two personas; Pimm, the man the world believes to be just a courier at the bottom rung of international crime, and Kalb, the mastermind head of a criminal empire. Despite this, he somehow more or less succeeds – a feat that is further impressive when you consider he only really has one pivotal scene to sell his character in the whole movie. Ultimately, Three Kinds of Heat is a corny, outdated flick that was indicative of straight to video fare in the 1980s, but I can’t say that I didn’t have a fun time with it. If you want to see for yourself, it has been uploaded to YouTube here.
OUTSIDE THE BLUE BOX – ARCHIVE
