What Does It Take To Change The Essence Of A Man?

If you're even slightly interested in film, you're probably aware of the auteur theory, which posits that the director is the sole author of his work, regardless of the contributions of the writers, actors, crew, etc. Unless you're a regular reader of Ain't It Cool News, however, you may not be aware of the badass auteur theory, which is that, in action movies, it is the star, or the "badass," who is the film's true author, whether he be John Wayne, Clint Eastwood or the subject of the book I finished this weekend, Steven Seagal.

The book is SEAGALOGY: A STUDY OF THE ASS-KICKING FILMS OF STEVEN SEAGAL. The author is Vern, a tremendously funny and astute writer whose frequently gut-busting reviews of action movies can be found both at Ain't It Cool News and on his own site. Whoever the mysterious "outlaw film critic" is, Vern is one of the most clever film critics I've read, due to his ability to not only mock and admire a movie at the same time, but write about it in a way that's insightful and always hilarious. Vern is also one of the few film experts to take seriously Steven Seagal, who was once among America's bigger movie stars, but has slid precipitously into direct-to-DVD schlock as quickly as his weight and work ethic appear to have changed (for the worse).

It's clear from SEAGALOGY that Vern is an admirer of Seagal, which doesn't stand in the way of his calling a spade a spade if necessary, which it often is when discussing the actor's often woeful filmography. From Seagal's film debut, the terrific ABOVE THE LAW (1988), to the recent PISTOL WHIPPED (2008), Vern covers them all, describing their sometimes senseless plots in hilarious detail and making note of the common themes that run through all of Seagal's movies. Regardless of who wrote or directed the movies, they all contain elements that could have only been contributed by the badass, hence Vern's badass auteur theory.

If you don't give a damn about Steven Seagal, the book may not be for you, no matter how funny you think Vern is. However, I do, and it's hard to say why. Maybe it's because I vividly recall going with my friends in the dorm to see ABOVE THE LAW several times and knowing immediately that Seagal was going to be a major star. Or maybe it's the hilarity that ensued the night Seagal hosted SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE the same weekend OUT FOR JUSTICE was the box office champion and sang a bizarre rendition of "Kung Fu Fighting" before tossing Rob Schneider's annoying Copier Guy character out of a window. Or the amazement at how prolific he is, grinding out three or four DTVs per year and not even caring enough to perform his own action scenes or even dub his own voice; you truly haven't experienced Seagal until you've heard both him and his voice double, who sounds nothing like him, performing, not just in the same film, but sometimes consecutive lines, with Cajun accents.

Read SEAGALOGY and then tell me you don't want to watch ON DEADLY GROUND again, one frame at a time.

Cain’s Son-In-Law

15 Cain's Son-In-Law
October 27, 1979
Music: Stu Phillips
Writer: Frank Lupo
Director: Charles Rondeau

The silliness threatens to overwhelm this uneven BJ AND THE BEAR episode, which does at least stem from a clever concept. BJ (Greg Evigan) rescues a sexy blonde, Carol (Audrey Landers), from a roadside scrape with an aggressive suitor. Taking a plot point from BJ's main inspiration, SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT, Carol is escaping a fiancé she was pressured into marrying by her strict father, Captain Cain (Ed Lauter), the rigid Southern sheriff who has become one of BJ's arch-nemeses. After he catches BJ and his daughter swapping spit in a grimy motel room, Cain tosses the trucker into the hoosegow for a 30-year stretch busting rocks. The only way to gain the lawman's sympathy is by conspiring with Carol to convince her father that he and Carol plan to be married. By moving into Cain's house as his future son-in-law (and drinking his beer and blocking his driveway with the semi), BJ gets to needle Cain to get back on all the trouble the cop has called him, and Carol gets the satisfaction of having her fiancé, one of Cain's deputies, get jealous and fight for her hand.

Having BJ move into Cain's house (and call the stern right-winger "Pop") was a funny idea by writer Frank Lupo (THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO), although the humor leans too far towards slapstick near the end, when BJ and Carol's "wedding" is interrupted by a barroom brawl (that is at least nicely staged by director Charles Rondeau). In the series' effort to give the characters some continuity, Janet Louise Johnson, Angela Aames and Joshua Shelley return as BJ's trucking buddies. Lupo also wryly comments on BJ's adherence to tried-and-true television formula by having his hero wonder why he keeps getting involved in other people's problems. Hey, BJ, you wouldn't have much of a show if it was just about a truck driver hauling beer to rural roadhouses, would ya?

Three Dead Hookers

If you've seen any or all of the LETHAL WEAPON movies, you owe it to yourself to check out at least one of Pinnacle's men's adventure novels about detectives Razoni and Jackson. This wisecracking, rule-breaking black-and-white duo was quite obviously screenwriter Shane Black's influence, when he penned the first LETHAL WEAPON in the mid-1980s. Apparently, author Warren Murphy, who created Razoni and Jackson for the team's first book, CITY IN HEAT, thought so too. Probably with his lawyer's intervention, Murphy was signed to collaborate with Black on LETHAL WEAPON 2, but according to Murphy, the two had trouble working together and left the project after completing a first draft. Jeffrey Boam (INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE) eventually earned the screenplay nod with Murphy and Black receiving story credit.

DEAD END STREET is the first of the five Razoni & Jackson thrillers I've read, and it appears to be a cross between the Destroyer novels Murphy and Richard Sapir were already famous for and the black-comic cop novels of Joseph Wambaugh (THE NEW CENTURIONS). Black Tough Jackson is the big, strong by-the-book (usually) family man in the partnership, whereas white Italian Ed Razoni is flashy, obnoxious, and has few (no?) qualms with busting a few little laws to capture the bad guys breaking the big laws. As members of their own special squad, complete with ball-busting commander who yells at them a lot for pissing off the police brass, Razoni and Jackson are assigned to find out who is slitting the throats of blond hookers in a particularly grubby area of the city. While Jackson is staking out the pervy owner of a nearby porn bookstore, Razoni goes undercover as a sailor to, ahem, interrogate a sexy black hooker who may have pertinent information.

You know the buddy-cop formula by now, and the Razoni & Jackson series even precedes Warner Brothers' FREEBIE AND THE BEAN, the raucous James Caan/Alan Arkin cop comedy that stands as one of Hollywood's forefather to that type of film. Even though they're fast friends, Razoni and Jackson spend most of their time bickering with each other with no racial or ethnic lines off limits. Both spend more time with each other than with their own families, and are completely comfortable with the amount of violence that fills their everyday lives. DEAD END STREET is a freewheeling good read, and I'll try to track down the other book in the series.

On ABC

Two of my favorite shows of the '70s are profiled in these classic ABC promos. First, Ernie Anderson describes Lee Majors and THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN. Then, it's Karl Malden and Michael Douglas in THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO.

NPH

I always thought DOOGIE HOWSER, M.D. was an absurd show, but I have since admired star Neil Patrick Harris' sense of humor about himself, particularly his self-deprecating turns as himself in the HAROLD AND KUMAR pictures. The Onion A.V. Club interviews the HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER co-star, and it's entertaining.

Mannix Is Back

The second season of MANNIX is coming to DVD early next year, and I have to say that I really love the cover art. CBS/Paramount has released some classy looking TV box sets, including the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE sets, which also look cool (although I wish they'd use the original logo). No word yet on supplements for Season 2, even though the first season set contained several decent extras, including star Mike Connors guesting on THE MIKE DOUGLAS SHOW!

Bullets, Broads, Blackmail & Bombs

Those of you who find interest in my periodic reviews of trashy '70s crime novels featuring series characters like the Death Merchant or the Executioner may enjoy this weekly column at Bookgasm. Every Wednesday, Bookgasm's writers jump in the Wayback Machine and pull some dusty, crappy old pulp out of the trash and review them. I have found some great reading material this way, and maybe you will too.

The rest of Bookgasm isn't bad either, so check the main link every day.

Rose Vs. Jeter

Who's the better baseball player: Pete Rose or Derek Jeter? Sounds clear-cut (only one of those guys has more than 4000 base hits). But according to the great sportswriter Joe Posnanski (and I believe him), it's a closer race than you might expect.

Holes And Slots

THE RIFLEMAN and BRANDED star Chuck Connors played the title role in the completely fucked-up THE MAD BOMBER the same year this commercial for Sunbeam electric shavers aired on television:

The Mob Comes To Orly

05 The Mob Comes to Orly
October 23, 1979
Music: William Broughton
Teleplay: Glen A. Larson and Michael Sloan
Story: Chris Lucky
Director: Mel Ferber

Getting Raymond Burr to guest-star on THE MISADVENTURES OF SHERIFF LOBO had to have been a real coup for executive producers Glen A. Larson and Michael Sloan. One of the few men to ever star in two long-running dramatic series (PERRY MASON and IRONSIDE), Burr rarely did episodic guest shots, and it's perplexing to consider why he would make an exception for LOBO. Perhaps he knew it would be a good time. The role certainly wasn't particularly taxing, and I'm sure he was paid well to stand around the Universal lot for three days and take part in the silliness.

A consortium of mobsters, led by Bates (Joey Forman), congregates in Orly to plan the murder of their leader, the Godfather (Burr), so they can move in on his territory. The Godfather somehow learns of their secret meeting, and heads to Orly himself to confront the mutineers. Meanwhile, Lobo (Claude Akins) believes the gangsters are legitimate businessmen in town to purchase land, so he and Perkins (Mills Watson) scheme to trick them into purchasing some worthless swampland outside of town.

Outside of Burr, this relatively action-free episode is prominent only as a drinking game, in which you tip one back every time Perkins falls down. You'll be well oiled by the time the third act commences. Watson and his stunt double were very busy getting punched or falling off things in this show. Busy stuntman/actor Bob Minor (SWITCHBLADE SISTERS) has a neat bit where Perkins peels out and speeds away in his police car, while Minor, as a mechanic, is still under it.

Carl Ballantine (MCHALE'S NAVY) shows up as a hitman, but is unfortunately given too little to do. Jim Antonio and John Kerry (not the politician) also play gangsters, and blond Karen Carlson (THE STUDENT NURSES) is an undercover agent. Director Mel Ferber's credits range from DIFF'RENT STROKES to HALLMARK HALL OF FAME—a broad range that nevertheless failed to distinguish him as a director. Writer Chris Lucky, who contributed THE MOB's story, went on to do a BJ AND THE BEAR and a FALL GUY for Larson.

Bustin' Makes Me Feel Good

You too, right? Yes, this is an absolutely stupid song, and Ray Parker Jr. gives Don "No Soul" Simpson a run for his money, but it's very difficult not to sing/dance along to it. Can you name the '80s stars making cameos in the "Ghostbusters" video from 1984?



Did anyone recognize Jeffrey Tambor in 1984?? How did he sneak in there? Or was he just hip ahead of his time?

Oh, and if you, like I was, are curious about identifying the hottie in the lingerie, thank you, Interweb tubes.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

Television writer Ken Levine (CHEERS) gave a nice shout-out this week to one of my favorite unsung movies of the 1980s. ABSENCE OF MALICE, which stars Paul Newman and Sally Field and was justly nominated for three Oscars, is a terrific drama about a legitimate businessman (Newman) who is libeled in print by an unscrupulous prosecutor (Bob Balaban, who else?) trying to build a murder case. With stories of an irresponsible press becoming more and more prevalent, even reaching as high as CBS News and the New York Times, which actually apologized in print for its inept coverage of the war in Iraq, ABSENCE OF MALICE's central themes of truth and responsibility in reporting the news are as relevant as ever.

Michael Gallagher is an honest businessman who is implicated by newspaper reporter Megan Carter (Field) in the disappearance of a labor boss. Megan isn't really incompetent, just naïve, since she has been suckered into printing the story by an unscrupulous government investigator (Balaban) whose inquiry into the case has run into a standstill. Gallagher's uncle and late father were gangsters, so Balaban hopes the story's notoriety will shake a few clues loose, Gallagher's livelihood and reputation be damned. The Oscar-nominated screenplay by Kurt Luedtke, a former reporter himself, really cuts loose when Gallagher begins his own sting operation with the direct purpose of teaching lessons in responsible behavior to those with virtually unchecked power to hurt innocents in their pursuit of their own goals.

Newman and Melinda Dillon (the mom from CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND and A CHRISTMAS STORY) as Gallagher's fragile friend were also nominated for Academy Awards, but Field actually has the trickiest role. Megan is not a very good reporter, nor is she particularly likable, although Field does a wonderful job of keeping the audience on her side. We want to like her, of course, because she's the cute, plucky Sally Field, and the manner in which she is led astray by men who want to use her position to advance their own agendas lends some sympathy. The actor-friendly director Sydney Pollack delivers plenty of big moments for the talented supporting cast, especially Wilford Brimley, who wanders in during the final reel to snatch the scenery. Newman's quiet intensity and intelligence make it appear as though he's barely acting, but the intricacies of the increasingly complex plot likely wouldn't have worked in Pollack's subdued dramatic context without him. And Brimley, along with Alec Baldwin in GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, wins the All-Time Great Performance With Just One Scene In A Major Film Award.

Filmed in Miami, ABSENCE OF MALICE was a hit for Columbia and is an excellent companion to Newman's 1982 film THE VERDICT, for which he also was nominated for (and deserved to win) a Best Actor Oscar. In fact, I believe that rarely has a single movie star acted in back-to-back films with performances as great as Newman is here and in THE VERDICT, which is one of my all-time favorite films. Watch ABSENCE OF MALICE at Netflix stat.

Alaska: 1st In Taking Your Money

The state of Alaska has higher taxes, spends more money, and receives more pork than any other in the U.S. And some conservatives think its governor would be a good choice as Vice President. After eight years of outlandish debt-crushing spending by the Bush administration, isn't it time for a fiscally conservative government? You know, one led by a Democrat? Michael Kinsley has more on Sarah Palin's absurd spending habits.

The Iceman

This is going to be a relatively short review for two reasons. First, this 1972 entry in Pinnacle's Butcher series was not particularly memorable. And second, I read this over my vacation, but I was out of town for awhile and then too lazy when I got home to write about it. Therefore... However, I guess that should tell you what you need to know about BLOOD DEBT.

The Butcher is assigned by his boss at White Hat to find out the identity of The King of Spades, who is using guided missiles to destroy small American towns, and put him out of business. Bucher's quest leads him from Paris to Morocco, where he meets a dimwitted television actress named Twitty Andovin, who turns out to have an unconvincing connection to the criminal plot. I have liked the other Butcher novels I've read, but this one drags and definitely lacks the pulpy thrills of the earlier COME WATCH HIM DIE.

I Quit. Panasonic Wins.

I quit. They win. The bastards outlasted me. After nearly nine months of arguing, pleading, asking politely, even occasional begging, I have given up my battle with Panasonic. I sent my DVD recorder off to the home office in New Jersey six weeks ago, hopeful of success. But, no.

Here's the official word from Panasonic:

"Our product engineer has determined the customer's Panasonic DVD Recorder works as it should. We advised Mr. McKee that the media he is using may be a factor with recording."

This is also what the engineer told me over the phone, which is unbelievable. It's not Panasonic's fault that its recorder doesn't work, it's the DVD-Rs'?? The recorder has failed to burn Verbatims, Taiyo Yudens, Sonys and Maxells. So am I supposed to waste money buying as many different brands as possible until I find one that works? That is absurd, folks.

I seriously doubt Panasonic put much time into this machine. The engineer claimed (after I asked him to about five times) he burned ten straight discs with it, and the only ones that didn't work were Sony discs. I asked him about the failed DVD-Rs that I sent him, and he confirmed that they were unplayable, but couldn't tell me why they failed. I asked him to explain how the machine could possibly record well in New Jersey, but not in Illinois. He couldn't. I asked him (again) if he cleaned the spindle like I asked. He said no.

The kicker is when I asked him (again) if he switched out the DVD drive, since it is as obvious as the sun is bright that the drive is the problem. Not only did he say he didn't, but he added that, "I could do that, but then that could add new problems." Meaning, in effect, there is no way to ever fix any Panasonic DVD recorder, because every DVD drive they have is defective in some way. What he said to me was, basically, "I know what is happening with the machine now, but with a different DVD drive, there is no way to predict what could go wrong with it."

I knew then what I should have known weeks ago: that Panasonic had no intention of helping me or dealing with the problem. Since I know perfectly well it doesn't take six weeks to examine my DVD recorder, I suspect it sat on a shelf for at least five weeks, off and on, then after burning a few discs with it (which may or may not have been successful), they decided to Hell with it. The Better Business Bureau has already informed me there's nothing more it can do, as it has no legal authority. I expected more from Karen Childs at Panasonic, who sounded sympathetic to my plight, but ultimately did absolutely nothing to improve my situation.

All I can do is advise you not to waste money with Panasonic products. Not only am I out the $439 I originally paid for the DVD recorder, but also the extra $120 or so I shelled out for the extended warranty, since Panasonic has no intention of honoring that warranty. To write a letter to me and to the BBB saying "the customer's Panasonic DVD Recorder works as it should" is an insult, and I invite any of you to stop by my house anytime to burn DVD-Rs with it, as I know some of you must be thinking I don't know what I'm talking about.

I would advise you not to buy a Panasonic DVD recorder anyway, because they no longer come with hard drives. Without a hard drive, a DVD recorder is nearly useless. It means you can't edit commercials out of television programs you want to keep. You can't format your own chapter stops. You can't (except with some extra work) edit leader and glitches and FBI warnings out of old VHS tapes you're transferring any. Panasonic told me that there is no demand for DVD recorders with hard drives, which is why they no longer make them, but in the same conversation, they told me that they sold completely out of my model. Obviously, that makes no sense. My theory is that Panasonic (and other companies) caved to demands by TiVo, the TV networks, etc., who didn't like the competition.

One small bright spot is that I was able to attempt burning discs in the slower Silent Mode before I shipped my unit off to New Jersey, and it seemed to work okay, although the sample size was small. This is, as I mentioned in an earlier post, something I discovered on an online forum recently, and not a suggested offered in any of my several dozen chats with allegedly trained employees at Panasonic's customer service center, repair center or executive office. So perhaps my machine doesn't have to be shipped off to the junk heap. Yet.

25 Years Ago

It's a copy of this amusing post at Glenn Kenny's Some Came Running, but I thought it might be fun to look at what was big at the box office 25 years ago this week. Can you guess what the #1 movie was that Labor Day weekend?

1. MR. MOM    
   
2. RISKY BUSINESS
   
3. EASY MONEY
   
4. NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VACATION
   
5. RETURN OF THE JEDI
   
6. HERCULES
   
7. FLASHDANCE
   
8. TRADING PLACES
   
9. STAYING ALIVE
   
10. WARGAMES
    
11. STRANGE BREW
    
12. CUJO
    
13. SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT III
    
14. ZELIG
    
15. METALSTORM: THE DESTRUCTION OF JARED-SYN
    

I have seen 12 of the top 15, although I only saw MR. MOM, RETURN OF THE JEDI, WARGAMES, STRANGE BREW and METALSTORM at the theater (I have yet to see ZELIG, CUJO and STAYING ALIVE). I had just received my driver's license the previous April and went to a lot of movies in Champaign-Urbana, but it was not so easy to get into R-rated movies in those days, or at least it wasn't for me. The others I caught on cable or on home video.

What's interesting about the chart that would never happen today is how long some of these films played. I saw WARGAMES in June right after it came out, and here it is, back in the Top 10 in September. It had been out 14 weeks by that time. RETURN OF THE JEDI had been out 15 weeks and FLASHDANCE a whopping 21.

You'll also notice, particularly when you move farther down the list below the top 15, how much more varied the selection was in those days. The five new films debuting that week were MORTUARY, NIGHTMARES, DEATHSTALKER, STRYKER and TURKEY SHOOT. All were low-budget exploitation movies that would never see the inside of a theater today. In fact, there is no such thing as a theatrically released low-budget exploitation movie anymore, and I really believe we're worse off for it. Believe it or not, even though it never rose higher than 12^th, DEATHSTALKER (a hilarious sword-and-sorcery flick I oughta review here) stayed in regular release for at least 14 weeks!

Oh, and METALSTORM? It was in 3D. I saw it at the historic Virginia Theater in Champaign, which, sadly, rarely shows movies anymore, save for Roger Ebert's annual film festival and occasional other special events.

The Man No One Knows, Yet Is Known By Everyone

It is generally accepted by comic book fans that, during the 1970s, the ever-experimenting Marvel was way ahead of more conservative rival DC Comics, as far as their superhero books go. I would tend to agree, even though I was (and still am, really) a bigger fan of DC heroes at the time. However, when it comes to the lesser-heralded western, war and mystery series, there is no doubt that DC held the edge.

To help prove my point is SHOWCASE PRESENTS THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER, which reprints the first 38 stories of the Unknown Soldier that appeared in STAR SPANGLED WAR STORIES 151–188. His identity has never been revealed, but the Unknown Soldier's story began in the Philippines, where he was sharing a foxhole with his older brother Harry. Harry was killed when a grenade exploded close by, and while his brother's life was spared, his face was mangled beyond recognition and repair. Choosing to continue to fight for democracy as a tribute to the late Harry, the young man, wrapped in bandages like Claude Rains, took the name "Unknown Soldier" and trained extensively in makeup, weaponry, hand-to-hand combat and linguistics.

Much like Rollin Hand on the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE TV series (to which the feature is clearly indebted), the Unknown Soldier was able to infiltrate Nazi strongholds and Japanese submarines by wearing disguises (usually rubber masks that would often tear off his face during heavy combat) and changing his voice. Joe Kubert was the original editor, writer and artist on the Unknown Soldier feature when it began in the June-July 1970 issue of STAR SPANGLED WAR STORIES #151, sharing the book with Enemy Ace.

Kubert stuck with the feature until #174, when he turned it over to writer Frank Robbins and artist Jack Sparling. Under the auspices of the great editor Archie Goodwin, the Unknown Soldier improved somewhat. While Kubert's stories were good, in general, they didn't read radically different than DC's other war stories. War comics by nature can be repetitious, and one feels that Kubert, who was also writing and drawing many other war stories for DC every month, could have been recycling old ideas by taking out names and replacing them with "Unknown Soldier." This is not a knock on Kubert, who is quite likely the greatest artist of war comic books who ever lived.

Robbins and Sparling did a terrific job playing up the adventure and espionage aspects of the Unknown Soldier, which are what made the character stand out from, say, Sgt. Rock. However, the character didn't really reach its full potential until #183, when writer David Michelinie and artist Gerry Talaoc took over under editor Joe Orlando.

"8,000 to One" gets the new direction off to a bold start, as the Unknown Soldier's true face is revealed for the first time on a masterfully horrific Talaoc splash page. Michelinie added depth to the character, filling the Unknown Soldier with angst over his raw deal in life and the futility of war. The violence and gore factor increased too. In "8,000 to One" (from #183), the Unknown Soldier is forced to kill an innocent woman to protect his cover and save the lives of 8000 Jewish prisoners. In "A Death in the Chapel" (STAR SPANGLED WAR STORIES #187), Nazis disguised as G.I.s mow over several children with a Jeep in order to lure the priest of a politically neutral village over to their side.

Talaoc was relatively new to DC, being one of several talented Filipino artists brought to DC in the early '70s by publisher Carmine Infantino and artist Tony DeZuniga (best known for co-creating the durable Jonah Hex for WEIRD WESTERN TALES). Michelinie was also a relatively inexperienced writer who had worked on DC's mystery books and SWAMP THING. He went over to Marvel to write THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and many very good IRON MAN stories, including "Demon in a Bottle," which brought Tony Stark's alcoholism to the forefront.

Unfortunately, only five Michelinie/Talaoc stories are included in SHOWCASE PRESENTS THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER. As terrific as this 500-pages-plus trade paperback is, I'm more excited about a Volume 2.

East Bound And Down

That is a kickass picture. Sorry to say that the great musician Jerry Reed died yesterday at age 71. Reed had two very successful careers, the first as a first-rate session musician, songwriter and singer who was good enough to cross over from the country to the pop charts with the hit singles "When You're Hot, You're Hot" ("90 days, Jerry!") and the swampy "Amos Moses". You may also remember "She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft)" and my favorite, "East Bound and Down," from SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT.

Which brings to mind Reed's second career: as an actor. His friend Burt Reynolds brought Jerry to Hollywood to co-star in W.W. AND THE DIXIE DANCEKINGS, from which he graduated to bigger roles in GATOR (as an effectively gruesome heavy) and SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT as Snowman, the happy-go-lucky trucker who hauled cases of Coors from Texarkana to Atlanta. "East Bound and Down," a great song, came from SMOKEY, which featured a score by Bill Justus. Apart from Burt, Reed was also quite good in THE SURVIVORS and in a small role opposite Gene Hackman in BAT 21. On television, Reed played a cop in the shortlived NASHVILLE 99 and himself in the summer replacement variety hour THE JERRY REED WHEN YOU'RE HOT YOU'RE HOT HOUR (talk about networks jumping on a trend).

Known for a tremendous sense of humor that definitely came through the screen in his best-known film roles and in stage and TV performances, Reed will definitely be missed.

See director Jack Hill's MySpace page for a recent photo of actress Roberta Collins, who also passed away recently. Like Candice Rialson (amazingly, the two never worked together), Collins was a beautiful and talented blonde actress who appeared mainly in exploitation movies of the 1970s. Probably best known for acting in Hill's trendsetting THE BIG DOLL HOUSE (in which she uttered the classic line, "Get it up, or I'll cut it off."), Collins brought a brassy comic touch to several grimy drive-in classics, such as THE UNHOLY ROLLERS, THE AROUSERS (directed by L.A. CONFIDENTIAL's Curtis Hanson), EATEN ALIVE, CAGED HEAT and particularly DEATH RACE 2000, in which, as Matilda the Hun, she competed in a deadly cross-country road race against Sylvester Stallone, David Carradine and Mary Woronov.

Rialson never knew how revered she was among a certain subset of film fans. Hopefully, Collins, who remained in touch with Hill at least, did. No one besides Hill and the pseudonymous but respected blogger Arbogast appears to be reporting her death for the time being. The films she was in may have been small, but her contribution to them, as well as their impact on their fans, was anything but.

P.S. Jeremy Richey looks at three of Roberta Collins' films at his blog: the fine THE AROUSERS, the wacky THE DEADLY AND THE BEAUTIFUL and the made-for-television TERROR ON THE BEACH. I have copies of all three films, and while all are worth watching, Collins is only memorable in THE AROUSERS, in which she plays a prostitute who role-plays for Tab Hunter's serial killer with mommy issues.

Billion-Dollar Brain

Midwesterner Gary Brander, better known as a horror author (THE HOWLING), penned three men's adventure novels for Zebra in the mid-1970s about a character known as the Big Brain. Colin Garrett, the world's smartest man, occasionally takes a job with a secret government organization, Agency Zero, investigating strange crimes.

Book #2, THE BEELZEBUB BUSINESS, finds Garrett being reluctantly recruited again by Jefferson Judd to investigate a Washington, D.C. bigwig named Alec Danneman, a Presidential adviser under the hypnotic control of a Satan worshipper who runs a cult in the rear of the exclusive Beelzebub Club, which caters to the Beltway's most influential people. It isn't noir at all, but the Big Brain is more of a private detective than a spy, although Brandner introduces slight supernatural overtones to the story.

THE BEELZEBUB BUSINESS is an extremely brisk read and not an unentertaining one. Brandner's prose is strictly business, describing only what the reader needs to know and not a syllable more. The downside is that, for being such a genius, Garrett doesn't really seem like one. Not that he's a dolt, but he isn't any more spectacular a deductive mind than most other literary investigators, and he's even able to handle himself in a fight or gun battle when he needs to. Good stuff, though. AGENCY ZERO, Brandner's third and final Big Brain book, is next, if I ever find a reasonably priced copy.

Pogo Lil

14 Pogo Lil
October 20, 1979
Music: Stu Phillips
Writer: Richard Kelbaugh
Director: Bernard McEveety

Charles Napier returns from the BJ AND THE BEAR
season premiere as rival trucker Hammer, but is unfortunately not given anything to do by writer Richard Kelbaugh. The plot instead revolves around the title trucker, Lillian Pogovich, played with spunk by Anne Lockhart, the actress daughter of former LASSIE and LOST IN SPACE leading lady June Lockhart. Anne, previously seen on BJ executive producer Glen A. Larson's BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, is a motor-mouthed little fireball who saves BJ's bacon after her impromptu highway drag race against Hammer almost sends BJ (Greg Evigan) careening over a cliff. He returns the favor by helping her—twice—escape loan sharks played by EAST OF EDEN's Dick Davalos and Anthony James, who does a nice comic turn on the psychos he almost always played on television.

The rest of the rambling plot revolves around the Dixie Crisscross, a semitruck race in which BJ, Lil and Hammer are all competing for first prize. The episode went by very quickly, and even though little was accomplished, the amiable performances and Bernard McEveety's punchy direction made it feel like a good time. Kelbaugh also wrote the return of Pogo Lil, "Fire in the Hole," which came later in the second season.

Part of the semi race involves a spot in the track where the lanes cross over each other, forcing one of the two semis heading for that spot to swerve to avoid a crash. I don't know whether Davalos' casting is an in-joke or a coincidence, but more than a decade earlier, he starred in Jack Hill's stock car drama PIT STOP, which took place in the world of dangerous figure-8 racing.

Is There A Fork In McSame's Back?

Are you comfortable with the idea of Sarah Palin, the governor of a state that far surpasses its per capita in corrupt government officials (and it looks as though she's one herself), as our 45th President, now that 72-year-old Senator (I use that term loosely, as he rarely shows up to cast his vote) John McCain has named her as his VP running mate?

I didn't think you were.

It might be fun to see Biden rip her apart during the debates.

Attack Of The Crab Monsters

You are well forgiven for not remembering a TV series called THE NEW PEOPLE, as practically nobody has seen it since ABC cancelled it in 1970 after telecasting just 17 episodes. Since it was a 45-minute series, it has never been rerun, and it seems only the pilot exists in bootleg form. I wrote about it last year, but if you don't want to go back and quickly read that post, it was basically the same format as LOST, except it attempted to be about something.

In a nutshell, an airplane carrying American college students to Southeast Asia crashes on a remote Pacific island, killing all the adults. Luckily (?), the island was an abandoned American bomb testing site that contained a full-scale replica of a typical American town, including buildings, food, water and streets. It looked conveniently like a Hollywood backlot, which allowed producer Aaron Spelling to shoot inexpensively without going to Hawaii, as LOST did. On the island, the several dozen young survivors had to learn to create their own society without the mistrusted over-30s to watch over them.

An intriguing premise, alright, though it's possible the pilot's preachy script by Rod Serling and bitchy characters may have helped sink the series prematurely. I'd rather see a remake of this than LOST, as the concept remains as vital as ever. The series failed, but its short run spawned some tie-ins, including two Dell comic books and an original novel written by William Johnston using the pseudonym Alex Steele. Johnston wrote dozens of TV tie-ins based on series like GET SMART, THE FLYING NUN, THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY, THE BRADY BUNCH, THEN CAME BRONSON, ROOM 222, WELCOME BACK, KOTTER, F TROOP, BEWITCHED, THE MONKEES, IRONSIDE and many others. THEY CAME FROM THE SEA, the first and only novel based on THE NEW PEOPLE, is probably not typical of the TV show.

Basically a horror novel, THEY CAME FROM THE SEA, a Tempo Books original timed to the show's September 1969 premiere, is about spooky mutant crabs that invade the island. About the size of a catcher's mitt with a dozen claws, eyes at the end of stalks, and covered in black hair, these crabs move slowly, but surely come ashore in a pack of thousands, if not a million. They strike quickly with a tongue-like lash that causes swelling, intense pain, and almost instant death.

When one of the youths, racist football star Bull (played by Lee J. Lambert in the pilot), somehow survives a crab attack, he intimidates most of the others into becoming their king-like leader, threatening to sic the crabs on them in their sleep unless they do as he commands. Retreating into the hills to avoid the crabs, which are slowly moving towards the town, Bull rules from atop a rocky makeshift throne.

Meanwhile, the few who weren't bullied by Bull remain in town, including angry black Washington (David Moses), ex-Marine George (Peter Ratray), demure Barbara (Brenda Sykes), rich bitch Susan (Tiffany Bolling), and medical student Hanson, who didn't appear in the pilot, but may have been based on the doctor played by Richard Dreyfuss in the second episode. Hanson has to stay to attend to Robert Lee (Zooey Hall), a crab victim who managed to stay alive, but just barely, in a coma. With Bull ruling his roost above them on the hill and the crab monsters stalking them from the beach, the students left in town have a lot on their plates to accomplish if they want to stay alive.

One would think the show's creators would have a sympathetic view towards youth, but Serling's script for the pilot (which may have been altered, as the show aired with Serling's pen name in the credits) and Johnston's novel both produce characters that are disorganized, distrustful, violent and generally unlikable. Washington appears incapable of completing a sentence that doesn't contain a bitter remark about racism, and that most of the community would blindly follow the lunkheaded, stubborn, bigoted Bull into the hills seems far-fetched to me.

However, at 150 pages, THEY CAME FROM THE SEA seems perfectly paced as a TV episode, and Johnston manages a tad of suspense in a book he probably popped together in about a week. I bought it for $1 at a local used bookstore, and was surprised when the woman behind the counter asked me if I had ever seen the show. I told her I had a DVD of the pilot episode, and she replied that she had seen it during its initial run, but had never met anyone else who had. Small world.

Death Contract

After starting with #7 in the series, THE ICE GODDESS, I was able to go back to the beginning of Pyramid's paperback series about John Eagle, the Expeditor. Author Paul Edwards (whoever he may be) does a nice job telling the tale of Eagle's origin, which only takes up the first few chapters. The half-Scotch/half-English Eagle was raised by Apache after his parents' deaths. Growing into a strapping young man and trained the Apache way in the arts of tracking, trapping, and living off the land, Eagle answers an ad placed by mysterious billionaire Mr. Merlin, who, with the support of the U.S. President and the Secretary of Defense, is organizing a private force of Expeditors to fight injustice all over the globe. Eagle is the first, and completes two years of arduous Expeditor training by being parachuted into the wilderness, hundreds of miles from civilization, with three hired killers on his tail. If Eagle survives and destroys his hunters, he graduates. Since it would be a short book if Eagle died (and Edwards interestingly keeps the killings off-page), the brave young adventurer heads right into his first mission, which is to parachute into Mongolia and find a death ray that is zapping airplanes.

NEEDLES OF DEATH basically has the same plot as THE ICE GODDESS, which also finds Eagle trekking across rough country accompanied by a young native virgin. The scenes with Mr. Merlin, the elderly puppetmaster behind the Expeditors (of which Eagle is the only one, so far), are interesting, giving the series a faintly Bondish vibe. Eagle is outfitted with various gadgets, including a skin-tight chameleon suit and a dart pistol that produces instant death, though they aren't overly outlandish. Published in 1973, NEEDLES OF DEATH was packaged by Lyle Kenyon Engel, who was also responsible for the Chopper Cop books. Speculation is that Paul Edwards may be Robert Lory, Manning Lee Stokes or Paul Eiden.

Get Bolan

It seems surprising that it took Mack Bolan so long to get to Las Vegas, the Mob capital of the U.S. But he finally does in VEGAS VENDETTA, #9 in Pinnacle's long-running series of Executioner paperbacks. At this point, it's superfluous to describe author Don Pendleton's plots, as they're all fairly (to this point) similar. Once again, Bolan, on the run from both the cops and the Mafia, turns up in Vegas, where he adopts a disguise to infiltrate a Mob-owned business, rob it, and destroy it. In this case, it's—what else?—a casino called the Gold Duster.

Pendleton describes a couple of very exciting action pieces, in particular Bolan's one-man assault on a convoy that results in a lot of wiped-out gangsters and a healthy addition to the Executioner's war chest. The 1972 novel also prefigures THE ROCKFORD FILES a bit, in that Bolan puts on a simple disguise and runs an incredibly ballsy con on most of the Vegas organization. I don't know if real mobsters are as stupid as Pendleton's, but the way Bolan takes over the Gold Duster using brains, balls and pure bluster is quite an entertaining feat.

VEGAS VENDETTA also brings back some characters from previous Bolan books, such as policemen Carl Lyons and Hal Brognola and the Talifero brothers, ace Mob hitmen (I don't think we've seen the last of these guys), and introduces others that will return in future entries, notably standup comic Tommy Anders (who's supposed to be America's hottest comic sensation, but whose routine proves Pendleton is no comedy writer) and his backup showgirls, the Ranger Girls. This is a deliciously quick read that stands among the best Executioner novels.

Breathing, Eating, Growing, Hiding...Waiting

THE UNSEEN is a sleazy and strange horror film made in 1980 on a five-week schedule for about $1.2 million. Shot on location in and around Solvang, California, THE UNSEEN alternates between suspense and unintentional hilarity so frequently that the DVD should come with Dramamine enclosed.

Beautiful Barbara Bach stars as Jennifer, a TV reporter sent to Solvang, along with her sister Karen (the late Karen Lamm, who was the gorgeous wife of Beach Boy Dennis Wilson) and Vicki (Lois Young), to cover some sort of festival. Stranded without lodging, Jennifer makes the acquaintance of an eccentric but kindly little man named Ernest Keller (Sydney Lassick), who invites the trio to stay with him and his wife Virginia (Leila Goldoni) at their huge old house in the country. Movie fans know better than to enter a creepy old house owned by Sydney Lassick, since rarely in his career did he play anybody even close to a normal human being, but not being regular filmgoers, Barbara and her buddies carry their bags upstairs to their room at the Kellers. Before long, it becomes clear to Vicki, home alone to take a relaxing bath (Young provides some frontal nudity) while Jennifer and Karen shoot some video and have a fight with Jennifer's football-player boyfriend Tony (Douglas Barr, soon to join THE FALL GUY), that someone else besides the Kellers is in the house. And to director Danny Steinmann's credit, he/she/it does remain "unseen" for most of the picture.

Considering the stories from those who worked with him about what an unpleasant and troubled man Steinmann (who later directed SAVAGE STREETS and FRIDAY THE 13TH: A NEW BEGINNING) apparently was, it's surprising THE UNSEEN packs as much tension as it does. He's not at all an incompetent filmmaker, squeezing memorable performances from the actors playing the Keller family, while collaborating with cinematographer Roberto Quezada to shoot the stunning Miss Bach from the perfect angles every time, even while she's wallowing on the floor of a chicken coop. Many of his shots are ripe with anxiety, and the final half-hour or so, when Bach first comes face-to-face with the "unseen" antagonist dwelling in the Kellers' cellar, is a prime mixture of absurd violence and sleaze. Steinmann appears to realize this, deftly foreshadowing events and then tossing a neat twist into our expectations, so that we're always on edge. It's too bad that much of what happens is so damned funny though. It's difficult to believe that many of THE UNSEEN's most outrageous scenes were intended to be taken seriously, but with Michael J. Lewis' raucous score pounding away in such overblown, sincere fashion, I'm afraid we have no other choice.

While THE UNSEEN certainly offers its share of distasteful moments and uncomfortable horror, I found it to be quite a pleasant surprise. Its biggest fault is that its story and characters are too thin to sustain its hour-and-a-half length, causing the pacing to flag a bit right when we should be on the edges of our seats. However, I didn't mind very much, as the narrative is just crazy enough, as is Lassick's performance, to keep my eyes wide open and my jaw on the floor.

Code Red lavished two discs to THE UNSEEN’s DVD release, which is a surprising yet much appreciated nod to the popularity of the film within cult-movie circles. However, even with so much supplementary material, the DVD disappointingly fails to adequately tell the story behind what appears to have been a troubled, difficult and often frustrating production. Steinmann walked out or was fired during the post-production process when he disagreed with producer Anthony Unger over the editing process; those who worked with Steinmann on his FRIDAY THE 13TH confirm that the mercurial director could be terribly hard to work with. Despite off-mike prompting, Code Red’s Lee Christian obviously runs out of things to talk about with the commentary’s guests, Unger and co-star Furst, falling back on asking them questions about what so-and-so was like to work with on their previous films. And there’s nothing wrong with that per se, except there is so much more about THE UNSEEN left uncovered. For instance, the film’s marketing and 1981 distribution (by World Northal) is completely ignored, as is the name Michael L. Grace, whose name is all over Code Red’s packaging as the screenwriter of THE UNSEEN, but who remains uncredited on the print itself. Steinmann, under his pseudonym of Peter Foleg, receives sole screenwriting credit, as well as story credit with makeup artists Tom Burman and Stan Winston. Likewise, Kim Henkel (THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE) and Nancy Rifkin receive story credit on the DVD box, but none on the film. Their involvement with THE UNSEEN is briefly mentioned in the commentary, but not to the extent it should have been.

Several trailers, interviews with Furst, Barr, Burman and special makeup effects artist Craig Reardon (who says more about Burman’s falling out with Steinmann than Burman does), and backstage stills and makeup tests round out Code Red’s package. In all, it’s a decent package and far more than one could ever could expect for a fringe title like THE UNSEEN, which is certainly a bold picture that takes a lot of chances—a slow buildup, little gore, a potentially silly “monster”—that mostly pay off.

Don't Need A Credit Card To Ride This Train

Went to the White Sox game in Chicago Saturday, and on the drive back, I was cranking some Huey Lewis and the News in the CD player. Someone once wrote that Huey Lewis looked more like a friend of your dad's than a rock star, but his brand of blue-collar rock was very big indeed in the 1980s. I can't remember if it was mine or my brother's, but SPORTS was a cassette that followed me around almost everywhere for a couple of years there. Though some are better than others, I didn't think there was a weak song on the album.

The disc I listened to today is a greatest-hits compilation I made myself, which includes all of SPORTS (four Top Ten singles), the two hits from BACK TO THE FUTURE and several others, including the seriously underrated "Do You Believe in Love?" Also, "Pineapple Express," the kickass new song played over the closing crawl of the current hit comedy. If you haven't heard it yet, here's the band performing it live on JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE:

Huey Lewis and the News hasn't quite aged as well as I expected. For one thing, there's a lot of synth that pretty much pegs the music as a relic of the '80s. It's still fun to listen to, though, as the catchy rhythms and hooks remain bumshakingly addictive.

He Could Do Anything And Get Away With It

Judging from the first two of Signet's eight-book series, Marc Olden's Black Samurai novels are among the best of the 1970s men's adventure books. I really liked THE GOLDEN KILL, and the Black Samurai's 1974 origin story may be even better. Surprisingly for an origin tale, it doesn't get bogged down with a lot of boring details. Olden starts off in the middle of an action sequence, and then uses logical flashbacks to two earlier periods to fill in the Black Samurai's past.

The hero is Robert Sand, and it's pretty difficult to not picture actor Jim Kelly in the role, even if he hadn't gone on to star in the disappointing BLACK SAMURAI film by director Al Adamson. On leave in Saigon, American G.I. Sand was shot by street punks while attempting to protect an elderly Japanese man. After a long convalescence, Sand is invited by the man, a great martial arts teacher named Konuma, to study at his school, where he becomes the first black samurai warrior seven years later.

Konuma doesn't last long, however, in Olden's book, which opens with a nighttime raid on Konuma's school by mercenaries in the employ of Colonel Leo Tolstoy, which leaves Sand as the lone survivor. Escaping to the ranch of William Baron Clarke, a former U.S. president who had taken an interest in the young samurai while looking for ways to use his wealth and power to make American a better place, the Black Samurai learns that Clarke's daughter is the next target of Tolstoy, who has already kidnapped Konuma's granddaughter Toki and destroyed the old man's school to prevent any of the samurai from mounting a revenge mission. Unfortunately for him, Sand survived.

Tolstoy's plan is much larger than a mere snatch for ransom, leaving the Black Samurai, who swears to avenge his beloved mentor, as the only man alive who can protect America from the colonel's evil. Bristling with action and violence, BLACK SAMURAI pops with every page and, at just 168 pages, is easy to read in a single sitting. Sand is a very sympathetic character, and the relationship between Clarke and him is distinctly drawn. While the Black Samurai respects "the Baron," he isn't his sidekick or delivery boy. It's clear that Sand is his own man, while Clarke, despite his massive wealth, treats Sand as a complete equal.

Olden wrote eight Black Samurai novels within a two-year period that partially overlooked the Narc series that he penned, as Robert Hawkes, from 1973 to 1975. I liked the first Narc book too, even though it's more realistic than the Black Samurais. Olden, who was black, penned more than forty books before his death in 2003.

Disco Fever Comes To Orly

04 Disco Fever Comes to Orly
October 16, 1979
Music: William Broughton
Writer: Richard Landau
Director: Daniel Haller

Women's lib comes to Orly County in this episode written by Richard Landau, who began penning B-movie screenplays in the early 1940s and compiled credits such as VOODOO ISLAND, FRANKENSTEIN 1970 and THE GIRL IN BLACK STOCKINGS. Moving to television around 1960, Landau continued to have a prolific writing career, which also involved producing such series as THE RAT PATROL and THE WILD WILD WEST. One of his last regular TV jobs was as THE MISADVENTURES OF SHERIFF LOBO's story editor, which led to his cranking out this high-concept episode.

Dixie (Joyce Bulifant), an old flame of Lobo's who spent ten years in prison for a crime we never learn about, but for which Lobo (Claude Akins) arrested her, arrives in Orly with a scheme to blackmail the sheriff out of revenge. Vamping him into becoming a one-fourth partner in her new strip joint, Dixie neglects to tell her new associate that the club offers male strippers, which leads the Orly men, including the mayor (George Murdock), to call for Lobo to shut the place down. Afraid for his reputation, but too avaricious to turn away his share of the profits, Lobo half-asses an attempt to close Dixie down, only for the town's women to organize a strike that results in some severely undersexed husbands and boyfriends. In a good use of a character drastically underused to date, the leader of the local women's movement is Rose (Cydney Crampton), Lobo's sister and the battleaxe wife of deputy Perkins (Mills Watson).

Not exactly heady material here, "Disco Fever," which isn't really about disco, is an able attempt by Landau to take topical material and dumb it down for LOBO's audience. Obviously, the series isn't interested in tackling politics as it is in having Perkins fall down a lot, so don't look for any subtext buried within Landau's script. Haller, a former art director who began his directing career making horror flicks for AIP, handles the material just fine, although his action scenes seem a bit hamstrung by the limitations that go with shooting car chases on the Universal backlot. Bulifant, who usually played perky housewives, has fun as a conning sexpot, and Warren Berlinger is her partner.

I Love MGM HD

MGM HD is quickly becoming my favorite cable channel. Imagine an entire channel of films belonging to the majestic MGM studio library, ranging from classic dramas to the most obscure exploitation, remastered in high definition, and aired in their original aspect ratios. I never thought I would get to see trash like ROBOT HOLOCAUST, for instance, in a beautiful HD format. Thanks to MGM HD, I was able to see 1986's UNMASKING THE IDOL, an adventure film I never even heard of before recording it.

Worth Keeter, who got his start making cheap regional thrillers at Earl Owensby’s Shelby, North Carolina studio (like WEREWOLF and CHAIN GANG), returns to the Tar Heel State to direct this surprisingly fun 007 spoof. Duncan Jax (Ian Hunter) is a British ninja (!) who gambles, romances exotic women, is proficient with weapons and electronic gadgetry, and works as a spy for a man named Star (C.J. Bibby). Better yet, Jax has a pet baboon named Boon that wears a ninja costume and also does kung fu on bad guys. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen this monkey leaping into the air and knocking dudes on their butts with karate kicks.

The title is a yawner (probably intended to fool people into thinking they were seeing a sequel to ROMANCING THE STONE), but Keeter is pretty good here about providing action and production values on a dime. Duncan’s mission is to invade Devil’s Crowd Island, the most highly protected fortress in the world (it isn’t), and rescue a cache of gold belonging to the Scarlet Leader, a masked red ninja who rules from a throne room surrounded by a piranha-filled pool.

I had trouble following the plot at times, although I don’t think Keeter and screenwriter Phil Behrens were too concerned about it (Jax learns the Scarlet Leader’s henchman, Goldtooth, is the man who killed his parents, but we’re never given the where, when, why and how, and Jax doesn’t seem to care about that anyway). A subplot involving a traitor within Duncan’s ranks is disposed with too quickly. Acting, characterization and dialogue are perfunctory at best, but everything is played with wry humor and at a decent pace.

I liked UNMASKING THE IDOL, and others must have too, because Keeter and cast returned a year later for the sequel (!), THE ORDER OF THE BLACK EAGLE. I never heard of either movie before IDOL popped up on the MGM HD cable channel, but Keeter’s Owensby films were rarely projected outside the South, and this may also have been the case with IDOL. Keeter eventually moved to television, helming many episodes of the various POWER RANGERS series.

Murder Is My Business

Well, I've finished Lancer's Soldato series, now that #3, STRANGLE HOLD!, is done. Writer Al Conroy sticks to the tried-and-true Soldato formula, which basically recycles the previous Soldato book. This time, Johnny Morini is in Florida, where fat old Don Nemo Paragluci summons two other dons, from Jacksonville and from Miami, with a plan to team up as a combine and take over all Syndicate business in the Sunshine State. Morini poses as Frank Lott, a Mob official from California, who's ostensibly there to monitor Nemo's operation. In reality, Morini, working on orders from wealthy Carmine Pannunzio and his Washington contact Riley, is to get in good with Nemo's family and then destroy the entire operation.

At 222 pages, STRANGLE HOLD! doesn't feel at all padded. Even though a late-chapter art heist comes across as incongruous, it's paced and described with such tension that it plays more naturally than it should. Even though Morini, basically, is just a knockoff of the Butcher—another ex-Mafioso now dedicated to destroying the Syndicate—Conroy keeps the formula feeling fresh. And, yes, there is, as in #1 and #2, another setpiece involving Morini trudging through the wilderness with two gunsels on his tail.

Today's Tough Cop Fighting For Justice

I know exactly where I was and what I was doing the evening of March 13, 1982. Can you say the same?

The Hammer Strikes

The Onion AV Club's latest Random Roles subject is the great Fred Williamson, who talks (a lot) about his two favorite subjects: kicking ass and himself.

The Target Is H

One of the best men's adventure paperback series of the 1970s began with THE TARGET IS H, which reveals the origin of the Penetrator. Most (all?) of the Penetrator books were written, separately, by Mark Roberts (the odd-numbered entries) and Chet Cunningham (the evens), and were published by Pinnacle, which had found gold with its influential Executioner series by Don Pendleton.

I prefer the Penetrator series to the Executioner because of its varied plots and slight SF angle that occasionally push it closer to spy fiction than crime drama. THE TARGET IS H, however, features a purely Pendletonian plot, as hero Mark Hardin targets the Los Angeles heroin trade led by Don Pietro Scarelli, who works for a mysterious British mobster known as Sir Lordship.

Hardin's first mission is motivated by revenge, as we learn through flashbacks how he came to be gunning for mobsters. He was an expert tracker and sharpshooter in Vietnam who nearly died while investigating the appearance of American medical supplies and weapons on the black market. The U.S. Army personnel involved with the crimes attacked and beat Hardin nearly to death. After his long recovery, Hardin received his honorary discharge, and came to Los Angeles, where the orphan had been reared in a number of foster homes before attending UCLA on a football scholarship.

Hardin, nicknamed the Penetrator in 'Nam, met a retired college professor, William Haskins, who invited the lonely nomad to live in his hidden desert bunker, a luxurious stronghold buried deep within an abandoned mine. There, Hardin trained his mind and his physical body, thanks to heavy mentoring by Haskins and an elderly Cheyenne Indian named David Red Eagle. He also fell in love with the professor's niece, Donna Morgan, who was shortly thereafter killed when the car she and Hardin were riding in was forced off the side of a mountain by mobsters, who, at that moment, forever earned the wrath of the Penetrator.

Just 156 pages long, THE TARGET IS H is a little choppy, as it doesn't really have enough room to tell Hardin's origin and settle into its adventure plot against the drug cartel. It is rapidly paced, of course, but one wonders why the origin story didn't receive the entire book. It's a good read, but the Penetrator series would get even better.

And The American Way

2006's HOLLYWOODLAND purports to tell the tragic story of actor George Reeves, whose gunshot death in 1959 was ruled a suicide by Los Angeles County authorities. However, Reeves' death has been shrouded in mystery for nearly half a century, and, to this day, there are those who believe the actor's death was accidental or even murder.

Reeves, who began his film career in 1939 as one of the Tarleton twins in GONE WITH THE WIND, became a television legend, due to his starring role in the syndicated kids adventure series THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, which ran 104 episodes in the 1950s, and has not only been rerun in perpetuity since, but is also now available on DVD. During his SUPERMAN period, Reeves' companion was a slightly older woman named Toni Mannix, who was the wife of Eddie Mannix, the vice president of MGM. Toni's affair with Reeves was an open secret, though Mannix's alleged underworld connections give credence to theories that either he killed Reeves for dating his wife or that Toni did out of jealousy after George left her for a younger woman that he apparently planned to marry.

HOLLYWOODLAND, the feature debut of television director Allen Coulter (THE SOPRANOS), tells its story through the eyes and the prominent proboscis of private eye Louis Simo (Adrien Brody). At first, I thought the film was going to take the CITIZEN KANE path and use Simo as Welles did William Alland's reporter, interviewing those who knew Reeves and then flashing back to periods of the SUPERMAN star's life. It should have.

Unfortunately, Coulter spends too much time with Simo's domestic problems. I couldn't care less about Simo's son's depression over his TV hero's death, his fights with his ex-wife, or his alternate job taking pictures of a cuckolded husband's wife. None of this has anything to do with George Reeves or good drama, for that matter. Somehow, I get the impression that Coulter and his screenwriter believed they were making a film about a down-and-out detective and not one of Hollywood's most intriguing mysteries.
George Reeves is essayed by a miscast Ben Affleck, who admittedly gets Reeves' voice down, but neither looks like the star nor duplicates the charisma that made him a hero to millions of children. Better is Diane Lane as Toni Mannix, with Bob Hoskins as her husband. Production values are solid, considering the low budget, though the film does feature more than its fair share of historical inaccuracies (such as a mention of Esso stations, which didn't exist in L.A. during the '50s). Warner Brothers forbade Coulter to use clips from THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, forcing the director to re-create the opening titles using a soundalike score. Reportedly, Warners also forbade Focus Features and Miramax from using Superman's eminent "S" logo in HOLLYWOODLAND's marketing, though it does appear on Affleck's chest in the film.

Reeves, I don't think, comes across well in HOLLYWOODLAND. Setting aside his long-term relationship with a married woman, he is portrayed by Affleck as charming (as best Affleck can, I suppose), but also shallow, desperate and ashamed of his Superman fame. I think the worst tragedy surrounding Reeves' death, at least if HOLLYWOODLAND can be believed, is that he was either never aware or never proud of the joy that he brought to so many people. THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, while cheaply produced from overly puerile scripts, remains a joy to watch more than fifty years later, and that's mainly due to the twinkling charm of George Reeves, whose Superman was stern but fair with criminals and a friend to those in need. It is a tremendous shame that he was unable to enjoy bringing so much pleasure to so many, young and old.

Panasonic Still Dragging Their Heels

I swear, I think Panasonic is just trying to outlast me, believing that, at any moment, I will crack and collapse into a mewling mess. After sending an email on Sunday and leaving a phone message on Monday, I got a call back from Karen at Panasonic yesterday. She had nothing to say: "still running tests blah blah may have to send to Japan blah blah unable to provide you with a temporary unit blah blah." I asked her what, specifically, the Panasonic engineers in New Jersey have been doing with my broken DVD recorder. She didn't know, but she got one of the them on the line for a 3-way conversation.

A brief interjection. As I was asked, I sent Panasonic a letter the last time I sent my DVD recorder in, explaining exactly what the problem was. A day or so before I sent it, I learned on an online forum that, if I switched the dubbing mode from High-Speed Dubbing to Silent Mode, the machine may function better. I tried it, and it did with the few discs that I burned. Inadvertently, I left the machine on Silent Mode when I sent it in, but I told Karen over the phone that it should be tested in High-Speed mode. I also wrote in the letter that I believe the DVD drive may be the problem, as discs have never burned consistently using it, and that the spindle may need to be cleaned (I also picked up this tip on a forum, but I can't do it myself without voiding the warranty).

So. I get on the horn with the engineer. He tells me about all the discs they've been burning and they've "been unable to duplicate the problem you're having." Like I never heard that before.

"Did you burn in High-Speed mode?"
"No."
"Did you clean the spindle?"
"No."
"Did you replace the DVD drive?"
"No."

So, basically, the last four weeks have been a total waste of time. He wanted to "try copying under the same conditions" as me. This makes no sense. He's supposed to be fixing the DVD recorder. It's very possible that he could have cleaned the spindle the first friggin' day he had it, the machine would then have been working perfectly, and he could have sent it back. Same with the DVD drive. And why is he burning discs in Silent Mode, when all the trouble I've been having has been with High-Speed Mode???

As an aside, the only reason I tried Silent Mode or considered the spindle is from learning about this from amateurs online. In the 50 or so phone calls I have had with various Panasonic personnel, including customer service representatives whose only job is to, you know, serve the customers, no one has ever, ever provided me with any advice as to how to fix the problem, beyond "send the machine in for repair." This is incompetence of the highest level.

So, I still wait. The engineer said he'll do more tests, and then he asked my permission to send my DVD recorder to Japan for more tests. I can't imagine what magical tests the Japanese can perform that they're keeping secret from their New Jersey compatriots. Meanwhile, my DVD recorder has not functioned properly for the last eight months. And counting.

I Said You Know Why I'm Here, Don'cha?

Burt Reynolds in WHITE LIGHTNING kicks more ass than anyone has ever kicked.

Triple Triple

It has been more than a year since I attended a triple-header at the multiplex, but I wanted to be sure to catch a few of these on the big screen while I still could. Good timing too, because the X-FILES sequel is down to just two showings per night, just two weeks into its theatrical release. After seeing trailers for garbage like MADAGASCAR 2, THE SPIRIT and BEVERLY HILLS CHIHUAHUA, which might be the worst film ever shit out, I understand why I don't go to the multiplex more often.
I liked 1999's THE MUMMY, missed THE MUMMY RETURNS, and wish I had missed the second MUMMY sequel, THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR. It's a poorly directed, lazily scripted period adventure that is so badly cast, I spent most of the running time figuring how a 30-year-old man could have a 45-year-old wife and a 20-year-old son. I realize Brendan Fraser and Maria Bello (a good actress replacing Rachel Weisz who is hamstrung by both her newly dark locks and her wobbly British accent) are only a year apart, but they don't look or act it, and Luke Ford as their son looks and acts like Fraser's brother. The plot finds the O'Connells in China, where they fight an evil 2000-year-old Chinese despot (Jet Li) who has to get to Shangri-La and bathe in a pool of immortality in order to break the curse placed upon him by a witch (Michelle Yeoh) and summon his undead army to rule the world. Watching the mummy/zombies do battle at the climax reminded me of how much fun--and how much better the visual effects were--it was when ARMY OF DARKNESS did it fifteen years ago. Director Rob Cohen shoots too many closeups, and his shaky-cam action sequences are rendered incomprehensible, so much so that it might as well have been Seth Rogen performing martial arts as Jet Li. Li is rendered using CGI for most of the film, leaving only Yeoh coming through this bloated film with any elegance and dignity.
Speaking of Rogen, the lumpen KNOCKED UP star co-wrote and plays the co-lead in PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, an expertly produced throwback to the raucous action/comedies of the 1980s, such as MIDNIGHT RUN and BEVERLY HILLS COP. The old formula still works, as pot-loving process server Dale Denton (Rogen) and his space-case dealer Saul Silver (James Franco, reunited with his old "freak" buddy from FREAKS AND GEEKS) find themselves on the run from murderous drug dealers after Dale witnesses one of them (the great Gary Cole) and a corrupt policewoman (Rosie Perez...where has she been?) killing a business rival. Equally successful as a wild buddy comedy and as a crackerjack action flick, PINEAPPLE EXPRESS is the first venture into mainstream filmmaking by David Gordon Green, whose independent dramas UNDERTOW and GEORGE WASHINGTON made big stirs with critics. Seeing what Green has done with a $25 million budget, the idea of monsters like THE MUMMY 3 spending $140 million to create utter crap is enough to induce nausea. Adding to the film's '80s vibe: a jaunty new closing song by Huey Lewis and the News!
Also made on a small budget ($30 million), THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE has been criticized for being little more than an expanded TV episode, but considering that the Fox show was responsible more than any other for bringing feature-level production values to weekly television, I don't think it's valid criticism. It is, however, true. Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) are recruited by the FBI to investigate the case of a missing agent. A defrocked pedophile priest (Billy Connolly) claims to have psychic visions of the victim, which leads to the discovery of various body parts buried beneath snowy West Virginia. While Mulder tries to keep the faith in Connolly's wavering abilities, Scully questions her faith (again) in God while treating a young boy with a terminal illness. Although lacking in spectacle (it has only one real action sequence), THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE holds interest through its creepy atmosphere and the strong relationship between Mulder and Scully, who have graduated over the years from professional partners to personal ones. Both Duchovny and Anderson are extremely good together. Chris Carter, who created the TV series, makes his feature directing debut with a script he penned with Frank Spotnitz, another X-FILES veteran.

Cain’s Cruiser

14 Cain's Cruiser
October 13, 1979
Music: Stu Phillips
Writer: Robert L. McCullough
Director: Christian I. Nyby II

With Sheriff Lobo out of the picture and on his own NBC series, BJ AND THE BEAR producers scrambled for a new archenemy to tangle with their truck-driving hero. Among the challengers for Lobo's crown was Sheriff John Sebastian Cain, a hardass by-the-book right-winger played by Ed Lauter, who battled Burt Reynolds as the nail-chomping prison guard in THE LONGEST YARD. While Cain was not corrupt per se, such as Lobo and Deputy Wiley, his obsession with following the letter of the law right down the line outweighed tenets like justice and basic morality.

His irrational hatred for B.J. McKay (Greg Evigan) is already evident as "Cain's Cruiser" opens. McKay's adventures during his first season have given him a reputation as a dastardly rogue with no respect for the law; sounds like Cain has been reading the Southern sheriffs newsletter. In his zeal to capture the trucker responsible for smuggling illegal aliens through his county, Cain has been blocking all highways and making life miserable for truckers whose jobs rely on getting to their destinations on time.

Enter entrepreneur Gorley (MCCLOUD's J.D. Cannon) and his chief engineer Samantha (Erin Gray), who has just developed a million-dollar automobile equipped with the most modern scientific crime-busting gadgetry (was executive producer Glen A. Larson already looking ahead to KNIGHT RIDER?). Cain takes it for a test run, and soon he's running the trucking industry out of business with citations for underinflated tires and overweight cargos, despite the fact that Gorley's car still has a few bugs in the system.

Erin Gray, one of the most popular TV leading ladies of the 1970s and '80s, was already appearing on NBC's hit BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25^TH CENTURY, which had just aired two nights before "Cain's Cruiser." Director Nyby, well aware of Gray's popularity with young men, goes to an extravagant length to put Gray into a bikini in this episode, for which he earns our eternal thanks.

Three Weeks And Counting

Panasonic's home office has not been in possession of my defective DVD recorder for three weeks. I haven't received any contact with them since July 27. Maybe they're hoping I've forgotten.

Here's the text of an email I sent to my contact this morning:

Hello, Karen,

It has now been exactly three weeks since you've had my DVD recorder. I'm trying to be patient, but it's difficult to believe it would take your engineers 21 days to determine whether or not my machine works, when a half-hour of attempting to burn discs would do. I have asked the Better Business Bureau to keep my complaint open in the meantime.

Thank you,
Marty

Panhandle Pussycats Come To Orly

03 Panhandle Pussycats Come to Orly
October 2, 1979
Music: William Broughton
Writer: Harvey Bullock
Director: Charles Rondeau

Not that THE MISADVENTURES OF SHERIFF LOBO was ever a master of subtlety, but casting ex-L.A. Rams quarterback Roman Gabriel and THE LONGEST YARD co-star Ed Lauter in a story about a football game between rival sheriff's departments isn't exactly imaginative. Veteran sitcom writer Harvey Bullock, whose credits range from THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW to THE JETSONS, served as LOBO's executive script consultant and also penned this slapstick episode that pits Sheriff Lobo's (Claude Akins) deputies against those of neighboring county sheriff John Sebastian Cain (Lauter).

Of course, Lobo has no interest in letting the "best man" win. After stocking his roster with the biggest, meanest roughhousers in Orly County, he announces that the world-famous Texas Cowgirls cheerleading squad will perform at halftime, ensuring the gate receipts intended for the local children's hospital will go through the roof. He also lays down a huge bet, so that he can snare big winnings, while looking look a hero for organizing a charity event.

Meanwhile, con artist Slick Willie (Harold Gould, who had starred as a conman on the shortlived THE FEATHER AND FATHER GANG), whose pursuit by both sheriffs had caused the football challenge, plans to rob the Orly Stadium box office, while every cop in two counties is on the playing field. Why he doesn't leap at the opportunity to rob someplace else far away from every cop in two counties, we'll never know.

Bullock's plot-heavy script is handled cleanly enough by journeyman director Charles Rondeau, who keeps the pace from flagging and doesn't hesitate to have Deputy Perkins (Mills Watson) fall down every three minutes for a cheap laugh (it's a good thing Watson is okay at the Lou Costello shtick). Faded silver screen star Gloria DeHaven guests as a stripper with a heart of gold. A couple of weeks later, Lauter would again play Captain Cain on BJ AND THE BEAR, which needed a new arch-enemy for its trucker hero (Greg Evigan) after Akins' defection to his own series.

Ernie Anderson...Back From The Dead?

Thanks to Rich for pointing this out to me. One of ABC's promos for its upcoming cop show, LIFE ON MARS, about a 2008 cop who is transported backward in time to 1973, is produced in the ABC style for that period. Including the old ABC logo, the use of Earle Hagen's MOD SQUAD theme, and a kickass voiceover that sounds incredibly like the network's late announcer, Ernie Anderson.

It doesn't look like ABC allows embedding of its clips, but head over to the official LIFE ON MARS site, and click on the video marked "The Mean Streets of NYC."

Kotter Vs. Pappy

One of the greatest moments in television history is a pissed-off Robert Conrad (BAA BAA BLACK SHEEP) getting his ass reamed by actor Gabriel Kaplan (WELCOME BACK, KOTTER) in a 100-yard dash in the very first BATTLE OF THE NETWORK STARS in 1976. I have heard that his fellow performers and competitors thought Conrad was a real jackass, and this clip does nothing to dispel that notion. The thing that I guess you have to admire about Conrad is that he's completely nonplussed about being humiliated.

Between The Law And The Mafia

I've just about finished Lancer's Soldato! series, albeit way out of order. I started with #4, then went to #5, the concluding book in the series, then jumped all the way back to #1, the origin story, so to speak, and now I have finished #2, which took me about a day. 1972's DEATH GRIP! adds to Johnny Morini's origin story, aiming the concept in the direction it would take all the way to the end.

The opener, SOLDATO!, found Johnny Morini battling back against his former Mafia cohorts, who tracked him down in Witness Protection two years after he testified against his ex-don in court. Now with a pregnant wife and a quiet life running a general store in a sleepy Arizona town, Morini was forced to return to New York to ferret out violent justice. In Lancer Books' DEATH GRIP! (gotta love them exclamation marks), author Al Conroy introduces a new lifelong mission for Morini, after first discarding the wife and child via divorce and miscarriage. Wealthy Carmine Pannunzio, who despises the Mafia, recruits former government agent Riley to enlist Morini as a one-man hit squad against the Mob, sending the tough guy to Pennsylvania to work a little YOJIMBO between rival gangs.

The big centerpiece will seem very familiar to SOLDATO! readers, as Conroy once again sends Morini out into the mountains to be stalked by two deadly assassins with superior weaponry. While DEATH GRIP! provides plenty of action, Morini is often a passive member, since his plan is to make both gangs he has infiltrated bump each other off, while he makes off with a fortune in stolen gems. He does get to show off his action chops throughout, however, including one sweaty hand-to-hand matchup with a knife-wielding mobster who recognizes Morini from the old days.