SAMBO: Lost and Found! by Clarence St. Boddiker Hidden behind the generic 'Nam war scene packaging of the obscure 'HO CHI MIN! is one of the most extraordinary examples of culture, art and economics insanely colliding in the history of American film. Even in the checkered career of Alan Smithee, this film remains a curiosity; until recently, in fact, it's very title was a mystery, if a mystery which opened the mad puzzlebox of this film. After the success of PLATOON, Smithee started a search for the great Vietnam script. Unfortunately, Smithee (real name: Anska Smithinsk) had little understanding of the dynamics of the war, not to mention modern colloquialisms. On top of this, one must consider that Smithee was, and still is, fascinated with Romanian folk tales. Perhaps it is here that we can understand why the tattered script of a 70's blaxploitation film titled BAD SAMBO caught the auteur's eye. It seems that in Romania, "Samosas" is the great God or War, Destruction, and Agrarian Sodomy". Thinking himself in the grip of some incredible zeitgeist, Smithee immediately optioned the rights to the film (which told of black slave traders as they buy caucasian girls in small Romanian villages and sell them to various nefarious sorts in Malaysia). Here, thought Smithee, was his chance to finally infuse Romanian mythos within a commercially viable narrative. He quickly ran into trouble. His producers explained that slave trade movies were on the outs, and threatened to stop production. Things looked grim indeed until the staggering success of RAMBO (1985), whereupon Smithee was convinced that the sound-alike nature of his script would click if shot quickly (with a few minor changes). Soon, production continued, with the film's title changed to the evocative SAMBO. SAMBO was shot on-location in Staggerlee, Florida (see appendix) in Spring, 1986. By then, the plot had changed radically: the slave traders were now MIAs looking for Amerasian children being sold for auction in Saigon by the merciless, drooling white-supremacist Dutchman, Oool (John Saxon). While in 'Nam, the mercenaries (led by Fred Williamson, as Hammer "I ain't no Sambo!" Hams)meet and are aided by Zeta (Joan Chen, in her first important role), whose character is actually the reincarnation of the ancient Vietnamese Goddess of War, Destruction and Agrarian Sodomy. The film was released in Fall, only to be greeted with massive protest from the African American community. Smithee was called all manner of nasty things, and was forced by his producers to accept Allah into his life as penance, while the film's title was quickly changed to the strangely less-offensive HO CHI MIN!. Still, Smithee is sanguine about the experience, and waxes a bit wistful in American Film (Sept. 1988), saying "at least I got the goddess in there. And the scene with Joan and Sid Haig as the French Cambodian mutant henchman was very satisfying. A life-long desire to show the goddess in her most fascinating aspect (the third-- ed.) became a cinematic reality. I will die a happy Romanian." The complete, restored SAMBO (with original score by Jim Nink, a friend of Les Baxter's brother's veterinarian), has been released on the Insipid label here in the States, but has yet to find a mid-European distributor. -- Grey Zone 1