NOIRISH JOHN SAXON FINGERS ROSEY GRIER WEARING 'THE GLOVE'

Title: THE GLOVE Year: 1979 Rating: ****

Ross Hagen's THE GLOVE seems like a latter blaxploitation that got away, opening with a song crooned in a bluesy/somber voice... and then opening with muscular white veteran actor Aldo Ray...

Who's just off work as prison guard, soon attacked in a parked car while a giant black man beats him to a bloody pulp with that titular riot glove... a steely device that can even punch through metal... 

John Saxon in THE GLOVE

So what might have been a body-count thriller turns into someone else's slowburn neo noir: enter John Saxon as a bounty hunter, including his very own gumshoe-style narration...

Initially spending time with his weekend-only daughter before we're thrust into his dangerous job: a collage of various escapades, trying to catch people who don't want to be caught (a line that Quentin Tarantino used in JACKIE BROWN)...

Rosey Grier in THE GLOVE

Ranging from two surprisingly resilient flamboyant men in a Jacuzzi, and a machete-wielding beef cook until romancing rich man's moll Joanna Cassidy, becoming Saxon's sole and sultry love interest...

Yet we sporadically return to Rosey Grier as a ghetto-hiding jazz musician, who we see attacking another off-work-guard, occurring over an hour after the rudimentary pummel... 

Rosey Grier and Shane Mooney in THE GLOVE

Bookending more human scenes, one involving a young ghetto kid, the other a sexy "I'll do this one for free" prostitute, reigniting the kind of urban melodrama that nearly became extinct in the early drive-in 1970's...

It's just a shame that Grier and Saxon have only the final fight scene together because they have terrific chemistry as, most famous for aiding Bruce Lee in ENTER THE DRAGON, Saxon had a charming rogue quality and good enough comic patter for effective buddywork... effectively combining two tour-de-force low-budget exploitation pictures into one terrific, vastly underrated exploitation package. 

John Saxon in THE GLOVE

John Saxon and Misty Bruce in THE GLOVE

Misty Bruce in THE GLOVE

John Saxon in THE GLOVE with Howard Honig

Rosey Grier in THE GLOVE

Rosey Grier in THE GLOVE

Rosey Grier in THE GLOVE

Aldo Ray in THE GLOVE

Joan Blondell in THE GLOVE

Mieko Kobayashi in THE GLOVE

Gloria Hayes in THE GLOVE

Jeanne Lucas in THE GLOVE

Joanna Cassidy in THE GLOVE

Joanna Cassidy in THE GLOVE

Jack Carter in THE GLOVE

John Saxon in THE GLOVE

John Saxon in THE GLOVE

Rosey Grier and Michael Pataki in THE GLOVE

OPENING for THE GLOVE

Candace Bowen in THE GLOVE

Rosey Grier and Candace Bowen in THE GLOVE