- Teddy Page
thumb|right|Richard Harrison in action in Page's "Fireback". Note the customized weapon, a recurring element in the films of Teddy Page. ">deletable image-captionTeddy Page, also credited as Teddy Chiu or Irvin Johnson, is a Filipino
film director and occasional writer. Page began his career as a very young man in the early '80s, directing low-budgetaction movie s for producerK.Y. Lim 's "Silver Star Film Company" (called 'Kinavesa' in the Philippines). Most of them starred the same prolific group of European and Americanexpatriate actors working in thePhilippines in the '80s:Mike Monty ,Romano Kristoff ,James Gaines ,Eric Hahn ,Mike Cohen ,Bruce Baron ,Ann Milhench , Gwendolyn Hung,Ronnie Patterson and Ken Watanabe (not to be confused with the other, more famous Ken Watanabe). FormerSpaghetti Western and peplum star Richard Harrison also acted in three films for Page, "Fireback ", "Hunter's Crossing" and "Blood Debts " (1983 ). Many of his earlier efforts were written or co-written by Watanabe, Kristoff, Gaines or Harrison using apseudonym .The majority of Page's films are generally classified as
Z-movie s, characterized by loose, seemingly improvised narrative ("Fireback ", for example, is supposed to take place in theUnited States , but the setting suddenly changes to "The Jungle" for the last third of the film), bizarreplot twists , and comically bad acting accentuated by equally poor dubbing. Gratuitous, often sadistic violence is mixed with near childlike naivety, with characters having comic book names like "Panther" and "Cat Burglar". Another trademark of the earlier Page films were oversized, customized special weapons, which feature prominently in "Fireback" and "Blood Debts".The "Silver Star" productions are infamous for their extremely low budgets, which might have also contributed to the low technical quality. In the book "Gods In Spandex", Richard Harrison states that the Page films he appeared in didn't have complete shooting scripts and many scenes were improvised, hence the disjointed narrative. However, it can be said that Page's early films are particularly bad even on the admittedly low "Silver Star" standards. Despite, or possibly because of these failings, they have attracted some cult interest, especially in French B-movie fandom.
There is very little information on Teddy Page in print or online. He is discussed briefly in pieces by Richard Harrison and John P. Dulaney in the books "Gods in Polyester, Or, A Survivors' Account of 70's Cinema Obscura" (2004) and "Gods In Spandex, Or, A Survivors' Account of 80's Cinema Obscura" (2007). He is also mentioned in passing in interviews of
Bruce Baron ,Nick Nicholson andMike Monty at the French B-movie website "Nanarland".He is still working as a director on films and television in the
Philippines , now using his real name of Teddy Chiu. His last directing credit is the1999 action film "Anino". He's also worked as aSecond Unit Director orassistant director , most recently in the2001 film "Xtreme Warriors".Partial filmography
* "
Fireback " (listed as a1978 film on theIMDb , more likely made in the '80s)
* "Blood Debts " (1983 )
* "Deadringer" (1985 ) starringMax Thayer External links
*imdb name|id=1066215|name=Teddy Page
* [http://www.nanarland.com Nanarland] , a French site housing many reviews of Teddy Page and "Silver Star" films (in French) and related interviews (some in English).References
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Gods In Polyester , or, a Survivors' Account of 70's Cinema Obscura" (2004/Succubus Press)"Gods In Spandex, or, a Survivors' Account of 80's Cinema Obscura" (2007/Succubus Press)
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