If nothing else, "The Instructor" is a great time capsule, full of images of Akron and Cuyahoga Falls in the early '80s, especially during an extended car-and-motorcycle chase around the area. Indeed, if you don't want to find an old VHS copy of the movie -- I borrowed one from the local-history collection at the Akron library -- the chase is posted in two parts on YouTube. Amazing shots of the old downtown, the Gorge and Rick Case Honda. But, when I say "if nothing else," I really mean ...
... there's not much to talk about here in terms of a movie. The acting is poor, the fight scenes so-so at best, and the plot (involving a karate instructor) nothing to speak of.
The movie was made by Tallmadge High School graduate Don Bendell, a Special Forces veteran and karate instructor who -- according to old Beacon Journal clips -- wanted to make a movie without "the carnival tricks that you see in so many karate films." He finished a script in 1975 and wanted to film in Cleveland, Akron, Canton and Cuyahoga Falls. Cleveland and Canton, he said, were not welcoming. (Dennis Kucinich, then Cleveland mayor, "broke four appointments with me," Bendell said in a 1979 interview.) Cuyahoga Falls and Akron were, and there are not only a lot of locations but quite a few local police in the movie.
The cast was heavily local: Bob Chaney, a real-life karate expert born in Akron (some other sources say Wadsworth), starred. Other performers, per the Beacon Journal, included Lynda Scharnott, a Spanish teacher at Nordonia High; Bob Saal, who worked at Uniwear in Akron; Bendell's brother Bruce; Tony Blanchard of Cuyahoga Falls, and Bendell himself. Akron police officer John McAleese drove a police car in the big chase scene. Bill Jones, a mechanic at Rick Case Honda, was a stunt man. Akron native Marti Lunn wrote and performed the music.
Bendell reportedly raised $500,000 from area business people, got the cast to work on deferred payment and still went into debt. But the movie got made, with shooting in the summer of 1980; it premiered at the Akron Civic in 1983.
According to the Bendell Web site: "Distributed by Shapiro Entertainment Corporation in Hollywood, the film was sold and shown in 164 countries around the world and was distributed on video by Vestron Video. The feature film received a good review in weekly 'VARIETY' newspaper and a number of other publications. It made plenty of money for its distributor, but not for the Bendell's."
Bendell had hoped to make more movies, but this is his only production on his Web site. It notes that he refers to the making of the movie as hit "PhD in the feature film business." Now living in Colorado, he has had more success as a writer and speaker.
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