A Helluva Week

Sorry I haven't been here the last few days, but it's been a heckuva week, starting with the fact that I lost my job yesterday. And today I hear that Ricardo Montalban and Patrick McGoohan have died on the same day. I wish I was in the mood to write more, because both of these actors were terrific and quite important to me.

I have followed Patrick McGoohan since first seeing THE PRISONER reruns on our PBS station while I was in junior high school. A fascinating series, made even more so by McGoohan's clipped acting style. Like William Shatner and Robert Culp, he was a television actor whose unique manner of speech made even the most routine dialogue something to pay close attention to.

Fortunately, lots of quality McGoohan is available on DVD, such as THE PRISONER and his other two terrific British TV series, DANGER MAN and SECRET AGENT. The episodes of COLUMBO that he directed and/or guest-starred in are essential and among the best American TV mysteries ever. Also, he was the sinister warden in Clint Eastwood's ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ, a scientist in SCANNERS, and the villain in SILVER STREAK. It was a real kick to see him in recent blockbusters BRAVEHEART, THE PHANTOM, and A TIME TO KILL.

Montalban is best known for FANTASY ISLAND, of course, but to me, he's Khan Noonian Singh, the archenemy of Captain James T. Kirk in the 1967 STAR TREK episode "Space Seed" and STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN. I will always believe he and Shatner gave Oscar-worthy performances in the film, and it's Montalban's operatic Khan, more than anything else, even the death of Spock, that has made it not only the greatest TREK film of them all, but one of cinema's best science fiction films, period.

Montalban did so much else besides Khan and Mr. Roarke, obviously. Please see his 1940s crime dramas MYSTERY STREET and BORDER INCIDENT, extremely rare opportunities for a Latin leading man to star in a Hollywood film during that era. Also on DVD is his HAWAII FIVE-0 episode in which he played a Japanese man. Not one of his finest moments, though how could it have been? Still interesting, if for no other reason than to marvel at the guy's guts.

I will miss both of these men.

Fly A Wild Horse

20 Fly a Wild Horse
December 8, 1979
Music: Stu Phillips
Writer: Richard Kelbaugh
Director: Christian I. Nyby II

Add BJ AND THE BEAR to the long list of television shows to film at Vasquez Rocks. The historic Southern California rock formation plays host to the attention-getting opening sequence, which includes a wild horse stampede and BJ running his semi into a ditch. BJ's current gig is hauling fencing supplies for wealthy rancher Angus Wainsley (special guest star Jock Mahoney). After getting conked on the head in a bar fight by crooked deputy Tero (Cliff Emmich), BJ is taken to the home of Native American Sixkiller (George DelToyo) and his sister Zena (Ruth Britt). Sixkiller is the man who accidentally ran BJ off the road during the teaser, while rescuing wild mustangs from Wainsley, who's illegally slaughtering them for money.

Director Christian I. Nyby II neglects to hide the shadow of the camera truck during the climactic car chase—also set in Vasquez Rocks—but other than that, "Fly a Wild Horse" is a pretty solid episode. Dependable Hank Brandt and the great comic character actor Burton Gilliam play Wainsley's henchmen. Mahoney was one of TV's great western stars, playing both the Range Rider and Yancy Derringer in popular '50s series. The former stuntman and stepfather to Sally Field (he was married to her mother Margaret Field) later returned as a different character in two 2-part BJ AND THE BEAR episodes.

Black Dragon Revenge

Neal Adams, who was drawing some really neat covers for Marvel's DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU black-and-white comic magazine at the time, was the artist of this one-sheet for THE DEATH OF BRUCE LEE. Love the artwork, though showing Lee lying in his coffin (doubtlessly not Adams' decision) is of questionable taste. I don't know if it was a direct sequel to it, but THE DEATH OF BRUCE LEE is obviously trying to cash in on the success of BLACK DRAGON, which featured Ron Van Clief in a supporting role.

Cold Fury

The last time we saw the Lone Wolf in BAY PROWLER, he had just blown up a freighter in San Francisco, killing dozens and absconding with $500,000 in uncut heroin in a very sturdy valise. Berkley's #3 of the series, BOSTON AVENGER, picks up almost immediately after with Burt Wulff arriving in Beantown and getting robbed of the drugs during a 3:00 AM Mob holdup at a tollbooth. Wulff has almost co-starring status, as a Harvard professor named Philip Sands gets plenty of page time after the hoods who swiped the valise doublecross their boss, hood Lou Cicchini, and take it to Sands, a smalltime dealer, to fence. Writer Barry Malzberg (as Mike Barry) is very good at making the reader believe how difficult it is to sell a half million worth of skag—it's too big and too hot for any dealer to touch, according to BOSTON AVENGER.

I think just about every Lone Wolf novel I've read so far has featured a car chase, which is difficult to portray without the sound of screaming tires and visuals of skidding and rolling, but Malzberg has a talent for it. Wulff, an ex-cop obsessed with bringing down the Mafia after his fiancé died of an overdose in NIGHT RAIDER, has used up nine lives and more in his adventures so far. Here, he makes an unholy alliance with Cicchini, who also wants the drugs as far away from him as possible, and convinces Wulff to find Sands and take the valise out of town. BOSTON AVENGER is occasionally overwritten, such as a concluding chapter focusing on Sands' estranged younger wife Karen, but certainly violent and satisfying.

Here's Johnny

Watching THE TONIGHT SHOW's New Year's Eve episode of 1976 is a fascinating look into a time capsule. Well, just the idea of there being a TONIGHT SHOW on New Year's Eve, instead of the special programming networks air now.

After a monologue with Jimmy Carter jokes (yet to be inaugurated) and a bit with Ed McMahon interviewing Carson as the 1977 New Year's baby (as usual with a Carson routine, the worse reception the jokes received from the audience, the funnier he was), Johnny brought out his first guest: Robert Blake. Drunk.

Blake, at the time a huge TV star on BARETTA, had become something of a personality, not just because of his series, but because of his mercurial personality. He was loved by some audiences for the way he would come on THE TONIGHT SHOW and ream out his bosses publicly. None of that in this episode, but it's very weird to hear Blake talk about the "blood works" that fly when he and his then-wife Sondra would get into fights.

The clock struck midnight during one of Blake's segments (the show, of course, taped during the afternoon), and Doc Severinsen and the NBC Orchestra played "Auld Lang Syne."

Second guest: Lola Falana. Like Blake, a tragic figure later in life, but for a different reason. During the late 1980s, this beautiful, talented singer and performer was stricken with multiple sclerosis that forced her out of show business at an early age. Like with Blake's appearance, seeing the vibrant Falana energize the TONIGHT SHOW audience with two songs invites a certain melancholy that nobody in 1976 could have predicted.

After Lola, James Hampton, a very likable character actor, mostly in comedies. He was the ill-fated Caretaker in THE LONGEST YARD and played a supporting role on F TROOP. Probably a very interesting man, certainly an entertaining storyteller, and absolutely a personality you will never see on a late-night talk show again. With Leno, Letterman, Conan, et al. doing 60-minute shows packed with comedy bits and room for only short segments with big stars, the idea of someone actually talking and being entertaining is a thing of the past.

Nor will you ever see someone like Frank Haines, Johnny's final guest. Not a star, but a Southerner with an unusual talent. It's basically a parlor trick, where he repeats anything you say at virtually the same time you say it. Sort of like stereo with a short in your headphones. Even if you speak very rapidly or in a foreign language, Haines will repeat you right on top of you. And, really, he got some of the biggest laughs of the night, as Doc tried to stump him with an Italian member of his band, and Blake and Falana threatened to knock him silly.

What a fun show and a warm reminder of when television was different and in many ways much better. Of course, NBC was also airing stuff like PINK LADY AND JEFF and SUPERTRAIN around this time, so TV wasn't always better then!

As an extra, the show I watched had its original network promos for NBC series like MCMILLAN (the "sequel" to MCMILLAN AND WIFE after "wife" Susan St. James left the series), BAA BAA BLACK SHEEP, and QUINCY and the big upcoming movie event RAID ON ENTEBBE with Peter Finch and Charles Bronson.

Heart + Pencil = Ouch

The Stop Button today takes a look at MIDNIGHT RUN, a truly great action/comedy that remains as funny today as it did then. If you liked last year's PINEAPPLE EXPRESS (like I did), you should really love MIDNIGHT RUN.

Fried Egg Sandwich On Rye Toast

One day, some studio will figure out there's money to be made by releasing Movies of the Week on DVD. Some of the finest suspense, mystery and horror ever seen on television were the compact melodramas that dotted the ABC schedule during the 1970s. NBC and CBS also made TV-movies, but ABC perfected the art of the 74-minute thriller with high-concept stories and recognizable stars.

DYING ROOM ONLY, which was ABC's Movie of the Week September 18, 1973, is a fine example of what television could do with a handful of terrific actors, a little bit of money and a great idea. A normal married couple drives across the Arizona desert on their way home from a vacation. They stop off for a bite to eat at a dinky roadside café. The wife, Jean (Cloris Leachman, then on THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW), goes into the ladies’ room to freshen up. When she exits a minute later, her husband Bob (Dabney Coleman) is gone.

Richard Matheson based this suspenseful mystery on his 1953 short story. Director Phillip Leacock (BAFFLED) tells the simple but clever tale economically using a paucity of sets that accentuates Leachman’s paranoia. Performances are excellent all around, including "special guest star" Ross Martin (THE WILD WILD WEST) and Ned Beatty (just off DELIVERANCE) as the suspicious café proprietors and Dana Elcar as the sympathetic sheriff who believes Bob simply ran out on his excitable wife. The movie’s only weakness is the lack of a strong payoff; I appreciate the way Matheson and Leacock dangle clues to let us piece together the mystery ourselves, but too much is left unclear at the final fade.

88 Minutes Wasted

Unfortunately, I saw 88 MINUTES two days too late to make my Worst of 2008 list. It would have made the cut handily too.

After almost three years sitting on Tri-Star’s shelf and several overseas DVD releases, this absurd thriller finally unspooled in U.S. theaters in the spring of 2008. For sure, this Nu Image production would have gone directly to DVD had Al Pacino’s name not been attached to it. His performance is so rotten and his physical appearance so laughable that one can’t even argue in this case that Pacino’s presence adds class to the production. The worst criticism I can make of 88 MINUTES is that it isn’t even silly enough to be laughable. It’s sloppy, stupid, cheap, and ridiculous, but it’s never funny, intentionally or not.

Pacino is Dr. Jack Gramm, apparently the world’s sexiest forensic psychiatrist. In spite of the fact that he has an orange perma-tan, a towering bouffant constructed of plugs, and leathery 65-year-old skin, every hot chick in Seattle wants to make the beast with two backs with him. We first see Gramm awakening after a wild night with a young contortionist. Later, after a mysterious killer has made several death threats to him over the telephone, informing him of the precise time of his murder, his red-headed teaching assistant Kim (Alicia Witt) gets frisky with him. Is she the predator? Or is it Jack’s lesbian assistant Shelley (JUDGING AMY's Amy Brenneman)? Or the icy college dean (Deborah Kara Unger), who flirts with him? Hell, Gary Scott Thompson’s (FAST AND THE FURIOUS) screenplay is popping with red herrings, even a psycho ex-husband with the unlikely name of Guy LeForge (Stephen Moyer) comes around Gramm’s flat, pistol in hand.

Nine years after a clumsy prologue shows us two Asian-American twin sisters being tortured to death, Jon David Forster (Neal McDonough) faces lethal injection at midnight. The morning of his execution, Gramm, whose testimony was essential in earning Forster’s guilty verdict, receives a cell phone call telling him he has 88 minutes to live. Five minutes later, another call—83 minutes. And so on. And so on. I swear, half the movie is Pacino squawking on a cell phone. He breaks two of them.

Unlike any other—ahem—forensic psychiatrist/FBI consultant who ever lived, Pacino carries a Walther, pays a guy $100 to drive his taxi around the city, busts into apartments like Sonny Crockett, and generally runs around the city like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to find out who has him marked for death. That a series of copycat killings with evidence left behind that points to Gramm as the perpetrator doesn’t help, though only an imbecile like the FBI agent played by William Forsythe (OUT FOR JUSTICE) would believe it.

An embarrassing turn for nearly everyone involved, 88 MINUTES couldn’t possibly have been the best script on Pacino’s desk at the time, yet it’s the one he chose to do. He’s in every scene and has lots of them to himself (back to those cell phones), so maybe that was the lure. A bigger mystery is what the 21 (!) credited producers did to earn their credit on this movie. Pacino and director Jon Avnet teamed up with Robert DeNiro to make 2008’s RIGHTEOUS KILL. It's probably just as bad, but I can't wait to see it anyway.

The Senator Votes Absentee

08 The Senator Votes Absentee
December 4, 1979
Music: Stu Phillips
Writer: Robert Wolterstorff & Paul M. Belous
Director: William P. D'Angelo

Body, body, who's got the body? Senator Calvin Flowers (Bill Mims) returns to Orly to await that night's national election results. He dies in the hotel Jacuzzi, but his chief of staff Jack Wiley (James B. Sikking) and his widow Evelyn (Lara Parker) plot to keep it a secret until the next day. That way, the governor can appoint Evelyn to serve out the senator's term. When Sheriff Lobo (Claude Akins) discovers the ruse, Wiley tries to get the ornery lawman to play along. A pledge to contribute $3000 to Lobo's re-election campaign is tempting, but Wiley's general sliminess, coupled with the corpse's habit of disappearing, riles the sheriff's suspicions.

Director William P. D'Angelo was THE MISADVENTURES OF SHERIFF LOBO's supervising producer. He had performed similar duties on shows like BATMAN and LOVE, AMERICAN STYLE, but little experience as a director. He fits in fine on a series with—let's face it—not a lot of visual panache. His pacing isn't exactly snappy enough for a plot populated with people nearly missing one another in hotel hallways, drawing room comedy-style. Writers Robert Wolterstorff and Paul M. Belous were working on THE JEFFERSONS and LOBO simultaneously; both became Emmy nominees as producers on QUANTUM LEAP. "The Senator Votes Absentee" is not LOBO at its best, nor its worst. Its biggest crime is wasting the lovely Parker, who has barely anything to do. Sikking, soon to co-star on HILL STREET BLUES, can say he saw the best and the worst of NBC.

297

297. That's the number of movies I watched in 2008. That’s an astounding 179 fewer than I saw last year, and my lowest total since I began keeping track in 2003. My all-time record is 588 in 2004, which I hope I never equal. The number also doesn’t include all the television series on DVD I’ve been digging through this year, including SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, GET SMART, MANNIX, and others.

One reason for the low total this year is the petering-out of weekly Crappy Movie Nights, where friends would gather at my place for crappy double features. It’s happened only once since June, I’m sad to say, but I hope to revive that long-standing tradition in 2009. Also, I bought a house last year, and some time that I would normally spend watching movies, I was doing something responsible instead.

Of the 297 movies I saw, I watched 203 of them for the first time. Here are my rules. As far as the count goes, only feature films count, no matter whether I saw them in a theater, DVD, VHS, or on TV.

• TV shows don't count, unless they were presented in a format resembling a feature film (for instance, the two pilot episodes of HARRY O, which aired as full-length made-for-TV movies)
• Made-for-TV movies count
• Documentaries count
• I didn't count short subjects or feature-length making-of documentaries included as DVD extras (for instance, the 25 YEARS OF HALLOWEEN DVD)
• Movie serials count as one long feature
• Multiple viewings each count as a separate movie

These are my rules. Your mileage may vary.

DVD: 190
HDTV (my new favorite channel is MGM HD): 42
Theater: 26
TV: 20
Blu-ray: 15
VHS: 4 (while burning them to DVD-R: THE AROUSERS, SUDDEN DEATH, DEATH DRIVER and WOLFMAN)

First film of 2007: BEYOND THE DOORS (Larry Buchanan’s ridiculous biopic of Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix)
Last film of 2008: RETROACTIVE

From the 1930's: 2 (CHANDU THE MAGICIAN and DRACULA’S DAUGHTER)
1940's: 8 (same total as last year)
1950's: 8
1960's: 21
1970's: 72
1980's: 73
1990's: 26
2000-2007: 45

Even though I stopped going to theaters regularly a few years ago, I still managed to see 42 2008 releases, mostly on cable or on DVD. Outside of January’s annual B-Fest at Northwestern University, I saw a theatrical film only 12 times this year, one of which was MY NAME IS BRUCE at the Avon in Decatur, where star/director Bruce Campbell performed an entertaining Q&A afterward.

Most in one month:
January: 42
Least in one month:
July and October: 13

Films I saw more than once:
D-WAR: DRAGON WARS
HOT MOVES

The most films in any one 24-hour period:
14, when I attended Northwestern University's annual B-Fest January 18–19

Numbers in the title:
976-EVIL II
POPULATION/436
U.S. SEALS 2: THE ULTIMATE FORCE
DEATH WISH 4: THE CRACKDOWN
WHITE NOISE 2
15 MINUTES
HIGH NOON, PART II: THE RETURN OF WILL KANE
SECRET AGENT X-9
THE INCREDIBLE 2-HEADED TRANSPLANT
SHARK ATTACK 3: MEGALODON
BARBARIAN QUEEN II: THE EMPRESS STRIKES BACK
DEATH RACE 2000
THE PHANTOM FROM 10,000 LEAGUES
THE RELENTLESS FOUR
100 MILLION BC
CLOUD 9
FINAL DESTINATION 3
LOVE CAMP 7
F/X 2
DEATHSTALKER IV: MARCH OF TITANS
TIGER CLAWS III
UNDER SIEGE 2: DARK TERRITORY
HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY
24: REDEMPTION
SWEET SIXTEEN
JOY RIDE 2: DEAD AHEAD

Direct-to-Video Releases You Haven’t Heard Of, But You Should See:
THE AMATEURS (played 2 weeks on 4 screens)
BONE DRY
MISSIONARY MAN
THE SHEPHERD
WIND CHILL (played 1 week at 42 theaters…in April—nice work, Sony)
MR. WARMTH: THE DON RICKLES PROJECT (premiered on HBO)
CLOUD 9 (Burt Reynolds coaches a beach volleyball team of strippers)
POPULATION/436 (reminiscent of TWILIGHT ZONE)
BLOWBACK

Dolph Lundgren movies:
DIAMOND DOGS
MISSIONARY MAN

Steven Seagal movies:
KILL SWITCH
PISTOL WHIPPED
URBAN JUSTICE
THE ONION MOVIE
UNDER SIEGE
UNDER SIEGE 2: DARK TERRITORY

Steven Seagal movies that sucked:
KILL SWITCH
PISTOL WHIPPED
URBAN JUSTICE
THE ONION MOVIE

They Exist, and I Watched Them:
AMERICAN PIE PRESENTS BAND CAMP
AMERICAN PIE PRESENTS BETA HOUSE
AMERICAN PIE PRESENTS THE NAKED MILE

Most Delightful Surprise:
SUPERMAN REDEEMED, a fan re-edit of SUPERMAN III and SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE that’s not only better than they, but also much better than SUPERMAN RETURNS
Runner-Up: THE KING OF KONG: A FISTFUL OF QUARTERS

2008 Releases:
100 MILLION BC
24: REDEMPTION
THE AMATEURS
BLACK OPS
BONE DRY
CHASING GHOSTS: BEYOND THE ARCADE
CLEANER
CONSPIRACY
CYBORG SOLDIER
THE DARK KNIGHT
DIAMOND DOGS
DOOMSDAY
FLOCK, THE
FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL
HAROLD & KUMAR ESCAPE FROM GUANTANAMO BAY
HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY
IN THE NAME OF THE KING: A DUNGEON SIEGE TALE
INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL
IRON MAN
JOY RIDE 2: DEAD AHEAD
KILL SWITCH
LEATHERHEADS
MISSIONARY MAN
THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR
MY NAME IS BRUCE
THE ONION MOVIE
PINEAPPLE EXPRESS
PISTOL WHIPPED
RAMBO
RED
RELIGULOUS
RETURN TO SLEEPAWAY CAMP
ROGUE
ROLE MODELS
SHEPHERD, THE
TROPIC THUNDER
UNTRACEABLE
VANTAGE POINT
WHITE NOISE 2
WRESTLEMANIAC
THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE
ZOMBIE STRIPPERS!

I live in Illinois, so the best films won’t get here for awhile. I saw THERE WILL BE BLOOD, for instance, in February—too late to qualify for my 2007 Top Ten.

My Top Ten of 2008:
FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL
HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY
IRON MAN
MY NAME IS BRUCE
PINEAPPLE EXPRESS
RAMBO
RED
ROGUE
ROLE MODELS
THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE

My Bottom Five of 2008:
INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL
KILL SWITCH
THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR
RETURN TO SLEEPAWAY CAMP
WRESTLEMANIAC

How many movies did you watch this year?

It Was A Long Shot

Besides the Executioner, the Destroyer is, I believe, the only men's adventure hero of the 1970s to still be regularly published today. Published in 1971, the first Destroyer novel by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir, CREATED, THE DESTROYER, was actually written in 1963, but couldn't find a company that would buy it until Pinnacle needed something to capitalize on the revolutionary success of its Mack Bolan novels. I won't write much more about the authors or the characters, as Wikipedia does a thorough job of describing them here, and Murphy goes into detail about the series' genesis in this interview.

I'm surprised it has taken me this long to get around to reviewing a Destroyer novel. The first one that I read awhile back (#17, LAST WAR DANCE) didn't do anything for me, and I wasn't looking forward to tackling another. However, the Destroyer is obviously among the genre's most important and successful figures, so there was no way I could ignore him. And since I already own a handful of his adventures, it would have been even sillier for me to do so.

The Destroyer is Remo Williams, a former New Jersey cop and Vietnam vet who was framed for murder, convicted and executed. Except he didn't really die. He just went to work secretly for CURE, a government agency answerable only to the U.S. President, to undertake dangerous missions no regular law enforcement organization could touch. Trained extensively in martial arts, Remo is the world's deadliest assassin and travels the world with Chiun, his 80-year-old Sinanju master.

After a couple of false starts, Murphy and Sapir really started cooking with CHINESE PUZZLE, the third Destroyer book. Presumably, #6, DEATH THERAPY, finds the co-authors (both former newspaper journalists) at the peak of their abilities. The Destroyer series is known for its outlandish plots, and this 1972 book finds the United States government up for auction by a sinister organization that is somehow able to brainwash top officials into treasonous activities, such as dropping a nuclear bomb on St. Louis (it didn't explode) or plow a Naval destroyer into the Statue of Liberty. With the bidding starting at $1 billion in gold and every major country eager to get in on it, Remo and Chiun have little time to ferret out the ringleader and stop him or her for literally selling out the U.S.

The Destroyer series stands out from its men's adventure brethren by its decidedly tongue-in-cheek approach to what is essentially silly material. Whereas the authors behind the adventures of the Death Merchant, Penetrator, Executioner, et al take their stories seriously, Murphy and Sapir use their plots as a clothesline on which to hang satirical barbs about politics and pop culture. Later books even took aim at other Pinnacle paperback heroes. Personally, I prefer the more straightforward series, as my enjoyment of them is partially derived from the idea of "how in the world could anyone take such crazy shit so seriously?" I did, however, have great fun with DEATH THERAPY, particularly Murphy and Sapir's cheeky attitude toward conventional action clichés and the banter between Remo and Chiun, who sometimes act more like an old married couple than a student and his teacher.

By the way, if the name "Remo Williams" sounds familiar, Orion produced a film titled REMO WILLIAMS: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS, which saw a financially unsuccessful theatrical release in 1985. Fred Ward and Joel Grey as Remo and Chiun, respectively, were good casting choices, but the producers foolishly ignored virtually everything about the books that made millions of readers fall in love with them. I don't even recall if the word "Destroyer" is even used. I didn't think much of it when I saw it in '85 (I don't even know if I knew then that it was based on a series of novels), and later viewings on home video haven't improved it any. Later, Jeffrey Meek (RAVEN) and Roddy McDowall starred in a Destroyer TV pilot, but the series was never made.

Time, Space, And Murder Are About To Collide

Directed by Louis Morneau, one of the better DTV filmmakers out there, 1997's RETROACTIVE is an imaginative time-travel rift that frustratingly veers wildly back and forth between clever and stupid. Of course, time-travel stories always run the risk of breaking its own rules in favor of moving the story along; even the best time-travel movies, such as THE TERMINATOR and BACK TO THE FUTURE, have niggling plot threads hanging loose at story’s end. However, those films are so witty, so entertaining that we’re willing to overlook their flaws. RETROACTIVE isn’t nearly as good, but its energetic action scenes and occasional flashes of brilliance make it worth watching, frustrations aside.

Karen (Aussie Kylie Travis, mostly hiding her accent), a police psychologist from Chicago, is stranded in the Texas desert after her car breaks down. She hitches a ride with Frank (James Belushi), a loudmouthed hood with Elvis sideburns, and his mousy wife Rayanne (Skinemax queen Shannon Whirry, making a strong case for respectability)—a decision Karen quickly regrets when Frank kills Rayanne and blows up a gas station. On the run for her life, Karen finds temporary refuge at a mysterious government installation, where scientist Brian (Frank Whaley) is alone putting the final touches on his time machine. She uses it to go back 20 minutes, hoping to prevent Frank’s temper outburst and its violent domino effect on everyone he meets.

There’s much more to the story than that—suffice to say that Karen’s attempt to retroactively patch things up goes awry—and most of the fun comes in anticipating the directions in which Karen manipulates the plot. The problem is that Morneau and his three screenwriters spent so much time dreaming up plot twists and chases that they’re ultimately wasted on a scenario that’s not really very riveting. In THE TERMINATOR, the hero goes back in time to prevent the destruction of humanity at the hands of evil robots. Here, Karen’s quest is to prevent an ignorant redneck with a gun from shooting a few people. The filmmakers are as sincere, I believe, as their heroine, but the stakes aren’t high enough to become fully invested in her plight.

Morneau and Belushi enjoyed themselves enough to reunite on another DTV action movie, MADE MEN, which is much better. Belushi is perfectly cast, but stuck with a character that isn’t too interesting. He seems to know it, and fills his performance with enough loutish bluster in an effort to create someone who isn’t on the page. Travis and Whaley are fine; I appreciated that Karen is smart enough to figure out what has happened to her long before characters in dumber movies would have. Sure, it’s hard to believe you’ve gone backwards in time, but when it quickly occurs to her there can be no other explanation, she takes advantage of her foreknowledge to prevent senseless deaths.

RETROACTIVE deserved a bigger audience than it received. Orion’s financial woes kept it out of theaters, and its unappealing box art probably turned away many VHS and DVD renters who may find its energetic stunts, striking photography, and entertaining story twists up their alley.

Why I Love Prison Break

Seriously, this is fantastic stuff. I have no idea whether the creators are fans of Republic serials, but PRISON BREAK plays just like one. You think LOST is a little bit far-out? My suspension of disbelief is stretched farther than Mr. Fantastic's left arm watching this season of PRISON BREAK.

Forgetting the crazy-quilt plot and boneheaded continuity errors (done intentionally, I'm sure, to move the plot from point W to point X, which is as convoluted as it has become), this week's episode had a dune buggy chase, Scofield (Wentworth Miller) running and jumping and fighting a day or two after major surgery to remove a brain tumor, T-Bag (Robert Knepper) finding sympathy for a dying mother, another great Linc Smash! moment, our unlikely comrades (which include a female assassin in black leather, a former Death Row convict, a corrupt Homeland Security agent, a junkie ex-FBI agent, and a mass-murdering child molester) dressed like a GQ cover, another character resurrected from the dead, a kidnapping to cover a simple conversation that could have been handled over the phone, a stunt-driving drug-addicted physician, the threat of mountain lions, a MacGyvered bomb, and terrible acting.

PRISON BREAK probably has the worst acting of any dramatic series on network TV right now. I give the wonderful William Fichtner a lot of credit for not pretending he's slumming. I can only assume he's having a good time. Maybe even as good a time as I have laughing hysterically at the show. I wouldn't be surprised at this point to see Tal Chatali pop up in the final chapter, er, episode to reveal the Scorpion's identity.

His Hands Were Hooks

Jack Lord would have been 88 today.

Straight-Shootin' Bones

BJ’s Sweethearts

19 BJ's Sweethearts
December 1, 1979
Music: Stu Phillips
Writer: Michael Sloan
Director: Jeff Gold

Ah, the clip show, that tried-and-true last resort for budget-minded TV producers trying to shave a few bucks. I don't think shows do these anymore, but clip shows used to pop up at least once on nearly every series that lasted more than a couple of seasons. It seems surprising that BJ AND THE BEAR would do one on just its 19^th episode, but executive producer Glen A. Larson sure knew how to count pennies.

Not only is "BJ's Sweethearts" a clip show, but it's also what was known as a bottle show, which meant that the whole episode was set and filmed on basically a single set, also as a cost-cutting measure. A clip show is just what it sounds like: an excuse to string together random clips from previous episodes to avoid shooting as much new film as possible. Usually, the clips are presented in the form of flashbacks, and that's how writer Michael Sloan and (I think) first-time director Jeff Gold do it here.

Vivacious Barbara Sue (Jo Ann Harris) returns from Odyssey of the Shady Truth to rescue BJ (Greg Evigan) when his semi slides off a wet Orly County back road on a rainy night. After nursing his head wound, she gets BJ to reminisce about all the ladies he's romanced during his truck-driving adventures, giving Sloan reasons to splice in kisses and action sequences from "Shine On," "Deadly Cargo," "The Murphy Contingent," "Cain's Cruiser," "Pogo Lil" and "Cain's Son-in-Law," in addition to "Odyssey of the Shady Truth."

Meanwhile, George Lazenby (playing a different character than in "A Coffin with a View") hangs around outside the house with some hunting buddies for 45 minutes before finally storming Barbara Sue's farmhouse in search of hidden money. I never did figure out why Lazenby thought there was money inside or why he needed all night to search the place when he already knew the money was hidden inside Barbara Sue's uncle's mattress. We never even find out if the money existed. I don't think Sloan knew, as long as he had a new fight scene to wrap up this cheapie.

It's unusual for me to stumble across a 1970s TV director I haven't heard of, but I don't know anything about Jeff Gold or other jobs he has had. My guess is that he was an editor or an assistant director who wanted to break into directing episodic television, and Sloan and Larson gave him a break. "BJ's Sweethearts" is a good show for a beginner, since it probably only shot for a couple of days on one set and a night on the backlot. It's not a stylish or imaginative episode, but neither are the concept or script.

Besides Jo Ann Harris, who is always wonderful, there's little reason for BJ fans to see this episode. However, if you're a first-timer, "BJ's Sweethearts" certainly gives you a good idea of what the show is all about. Brian Kerwin drops in from THE MISADVENTURES OF SHERIFF LOBO for a tag cameo.

Spanish Eyes

The late Jon Messmann was a very busy writer during the 1940s–1980s, primarily of original paperback westerns and crime dramas. One source claims he also wrote comic books for Fawcett, which published the adventures of Captain Marvel, Spy Smasher, Bulletman and other fondly remembered superheroes. I've read a couple of his Revenger novels, and my impression is that he may have been too good for the men's adventure series. That isn't a putdown of the many talented writers who toiled in the pulp trade during the 1970s, but whereas many of them were obviously pounding out each novel in a matter of days, Messmann often reads as though he took extra time and care of his characters. Whether that actually was the case, I don't know, but Messmann's Revenger books are filled with flowery language that signals that either he was trying too hard for the genre or he was padding his page count.

In addition to the Revenger and a western character called the Trailsman, Messmann wrote six novels about Jefferson Boone. Once a diplomat for the State Department, Boone was inspired to right wrongs after the death of his father. As the Handyman, Boone is often called upon to chase international kidnappers and terrorists. In the sixth and final Handyman book, 1975's THE INHERITORS, Boone's government contact, Charley Hopkins, sends him to Spain to look into the death of an American diplomat who was murdered, just like his father was. There's no connection between the killings, but the Handyman is intrigued enough to go to Spain to investigate revolutionaries called the Inheritors who are plotting to overthrow Franco.

My first Handyman experience is a good, solid read with plenty of sex and action. Boone gets it on with a pair of Spanish spitfires, one the aristocratic daughter of his contact, Don Hernanez, and the first chapter finds him roaring through the Spanish countryside in a Ferrari blasting the crap out the gunmen setting booby traps for him.

 

Random Comic Book Splash Page #9

It looks as though Sal Trapani drew this splash for Dell Comics' GET SMART #1, June 1966, which means it went on sale just as the TV series was finishing its first season. Just 3 1/2 years later, Dell would reprint this story in GET SMART #8, the final issue. Trapani doesn't get the likenesses right, and somehow manages to make Barbara Feldon the second sexiest woman on the page.

Heroes Beware

Warner Books' Ninja Master series is rapidly becoming a favorite of mine. Clearly created to take advantage of the shortlived ninja craze of the 1980s, which began with Cannon's hilarious ENTER THE NINJA and even permeated an episode of QUINCY, M.E., of all things, the Ninja Master books were mostly written by Ric Meyers, who did double duty for Warners by also penning some of their Dirty Harry novels. Warners tended to get cute with the names of their house authors with "Dane Hartman" writing the Dirty Harry books and Wade Barker (Warner Books) on the Ninja Masters.

Meyers' Ninja Master books, judging from the two I've read so far, are pure, nasty sleaze. The hero, an American ninja named Brett Wallace, is portrayed as a somewhat urbane individual who enjoys culture, fine dining and occasional boom-boom with his lady Rhea, who owns a San Francisco restaurant. But when he gets pissed off, which is often, Wallace turns into a killing machine, laying waste to a slew of baddies in a methodical, hand-on fashion that would make Mack Bolan green with envy. Meyers doesn't shy away from scenes of ugly, fantastic gore and sleaze, which is actually a good thing when tackling the subject of BORDERLAND OF HELL.

This 1982 Ninja Master entry sends Wallace and his karate-kicking buddy Jeff Archer to Mexico to rescue a young Chinese stewardess named Meiko, who has been kidnapped by the brutal General Estrada and put to work as a sex slave for him and his cigar-chomping pals to use at their whim. Meyers' uncomfortable use of titillation and humiliation in graphically describing Meiko's experiences, which include enduring a pubic shaving and forced lesbian lovemaking for the delight of Estrada's audience, has the effect of putting the reader in the place of the book's perverse villains. Whether Meyers enjoys abusing Meiko or putting his readers on the hot seat, I can't really say.

Periodic flashbacks to Brett's days in training with a wizened ninja named Yamaguchi serve as padding for this 175-page novel and are obviously swiped from David Carradine's KUNG FU TV series. Otherwise, BORDERLAND OF HELL really moves, exploding at just the right times in scenes of incredible violence. Sometimes, the action is motivated by nothing except pacing, as in the scene where Wallace and Jeff encounter a family of peasants being tormented by Estrada's thugs, motivating Brett to open a can of neck-ripping, bone-smashing whupass.

Grimy sex and sadistic violence—what more can you ask for? Brett doesn't cut anybody in half the way he did in MOUNTAIN OF FEAR, but fans of sleazy adventure novels shouldn't be disappointed.

William Shatner IS For The People

Forty years before winning an Emmy as colorful Denny Crane on the hit ABC series BOSTON LEGAL, William Shatner played another attorney on FOR THE PEOPLE in 1965. The CBS series (and production) was the brainchild of executive producer Herbert Brodkin, who had worked on many of the Golden Age of Television's most important programs. STUDIO ONE, PLAYHOUSE 90 and THE DEFENDERS are three of the highbrow dramas that Brodkin shepherded before the creation of FOR THE PEOPLE, which may have been loosely inspired by THE DEFENDERS.

THE DEFENDERS was a spinoff of "The Defender," a two-part 1957 STUDIO ONE that starred E.G. Marshall and Shatner as father-and-son attorneys defending accused murderer Steve McQueen in court. Marshall and a pre-BRADY BUNCH Robert Reed played Lawrence and Kenneth Preston in the CBS series, which ran 132 episodes and won many Emmys and other prestigious awards. What was important about THE DEFENDERS was its willingness to tackle important issues of the day, such as vigilantism, abortion, Red-baiting, capital punishment, religious freedom. You won't see networks today using series television to tackle big issues (outside of shows written by David E. Kelley, who lacks the sensitivity of a Brodkin or a Reginald Rose), but THE DEFENDERS proved it could be done with class, style and, most importantly, ratings success.

While THE DEFENDERS was heading into its fourth and final season, Brodkin began production on a new legal series, this one from the point of view of the prosecutors. Filmed on location in New York City, FOR THE PEOPLE centered around David Koster, an idealistic young assistant district attorney who also found himself torn by the day's current issues. For Koster, Brodkin called upon Shatner, a 33-year-old leading man with acting credits on prestigious television series like TWILIGHT ZONE, PLAYHOUSE 90, THE DEFENDERS and THE OUTER LIMITS, as well as a Broadway run in THE WORLD OF SUZIE WONG and big-screen roles in JUDGEMENT AT NUREMBERG and Roger Corman's THE INTRUDER. In 1964, when production began on FOR THE PEOPLE, Shatner was a very big deal.

Surrounding Shatner were other talented performers of the period. The formerly blacklisted Howard da Silva signed on as Koster's boss, D.A. Anthony Celese. Oklahoma-born Lonny Chapman played Frank Malloy, Koster's investigator. And as Koster's wife Phyllis, Brodkin hired 23-year-old Jessica Walter, an ebon-haired beauty who, like Shatner, has continued to maintain a successful acting career forty years later, working steadily on series such as ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, for which she was nominated for her fourth Emmy. All four FOR THE PEOPLE actors were well known to Brodkin from guest shots on THE DEFENDERS.

From the two FOR THE PEOPLE episodes I was privileged to see, the series was filmed in a documentary style with bleak black-and-white photography, actual New York City locations, very little music (outside of its stately theme), and an insistence upon not having its stars be right all the time. In both shows, David Koster is shown to make mistakes that either did or could have immeasurable social costs.

"Guilt Shall Not Escape, Nor Innocence Suffer" (all titles are drawn from actual New York state law) is an interesting look at the justice system working for the convenience of the judges and attorneys, rather than the actual victims. Tony-winner Paul Hartman is very good as Sam Chapin, a vagrant who is arrested on a burglary charge. He freely admits to being drunk and beaning the arresting officer during a scuffle, but claims to be innocent of the breaking and entering. Koster, Celese and the presiding judge, in a hurry to get through the day's dockets as quickly and trouble-free as possible, just want Chapin to take a plea and serve his time, at least ten years in prison. Only Martin Jameson (Walter Moulder, an actor who doesn't appear to have worked much, but is quite good), Chapin's inexperienced legal-aid attorney, is willing to consider his client's cries of innocence.

Daniel Petrie, a fine director of dramatic television who found some later success in features (FORT APACHE, THE BRONX), methodically presents a good teleplay by Andy and David P. Lewis, who went on to write KLUTE and land an Oscar nomination. Petrie's use of a handheld camera on city streets adds to the "you are there" feeling of the show.

Even better is "Dangerous to the Public Peace and Safety," which showcases Tony Bill (still acting in TNT's LEVERAGE) as Buddy, an ingratiating young man with an active fantasy life and a yen for knifing pretty young girls to death. Bill is wonderful as the young psycho, refusing to overplay or go for cheap laughs like actors playing serial killers love to do (see recent episodes of LIFE, for instance). Charming and imminently sympathetic, Buddy meets young Teresa, played by Lesley Ann Warren, who had just a month earlier made her television splash as the title role in Rodgers and Hammerstein's CINDERELLA.

Koster blames himself for Buddy's body count, because of his insistence upon sending the lad to jail for six months on an earlier offense, rather than the psychiatric stay for which Buddy's lawyer called. Would Buddy's five knifing victims still be alive if Koster had felt more sympathy for him? Intriguing question posited by writer Robert Thom, an Emmy winner for a DEFENDERS teleplay who ended up writing intelligent exploitation movies for Roger Corman in the 1970s. Director Stuart Rosenberg (COOL HAND LUKE) appears to be aping Orson Welles in his creative use of camera placement in angles, sometimes shooting through books or a line of stacked chairs. David Doyle, another DEFENDERS vet who would find fame as Bosley on CHARLIE'S ANGELS, offers a nifty character turn as a bartender dating Buddy's ineffective mother (Sally Gracie).

FOR THE PEOPLE replaced MY LIVING DOLL and THE JOEY BISHOP SHOW on the CBS Sunday night schedule in January 1965. As with almost everything else CBS threw against BONANZA, it was slaughtered in the ratings and was cancelled after 13 episodes. However, TV history may have benefitted from the move. With FOR THE PEOPLE's cancellation, star Shatner was free to sign on to a new series debuting in the fall of 1966. STAR TREK became one of the most popular TV series in the world, and it's doubtful that Shatner, for all his talents, would still be on a hit series in 2008, if not for STAR TREK.

By the way, Shatner supported Walter the second time the stars acted together. He played a detective on an episode of her shortlived NBC series AMY PRENTISS, which, despite running just a season, earned her a Best Actress Emmy in 1975.

A Picture Worth More Than A Word

The Stop Button reviews one of the most criminally underrated films I've ever seen: DIGGSTOWN. I don't know if it was the title or the marketing (MGM put out a terrible one-sheet) or what, but DIGGSTOWN is a funny, exciting mixture of caper flick and sports movie. I think it may still be the best James Woods performance I've seen. Plus, Lou Gossett Jr., Bruce Dern, Oliver Platt, Randall Tex Muthafuckin Cobb, Heather Graham, even Commando Cody George Wallace is here.

I couldn't recommend DIGGSTOWN more highly.

You’ll Scream Till Dawn

For offbeat Christmas cheer, I wish I could recommend the 1980 horror flick TO ALL A GOODNIGHT, but I really can't. I love the title, but little else about this seasonal slasher directed by the star of LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, David Hess, and written by Alex Rebar, the star of THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN.

Some bitchy sorority sisters and their equally assholish boyfriends, spending the night together in the sorority house while the rest of the campus is home for Christmas break, are stalked and slashed by a killer in a Santa suit. Eventually, only the virgin (Jennifer Runyon!) and the nerd (Forrest Swanson) are left to unmask the murderer. Is it the crazy handyman? The canola-baking neighbor lady? The housemother? One of the students? The pilot of the private plane that brought the boys to campus played by porn legend Harry Reems?

FRIDAY THE 13^TH was the obvious inspiration for this quickie shot around Loyola Marymount University in west L.A. I doubt even Runyon, who went on to become popular with young men who grew up in the '80s, based on her appearances in GHOSTBUSTERS, UP THE CREEK, and CHARLES IN CHARGE, remembers this one, and there's little reason to. Photography is dark, pacing is slack, the score is droning, the characters are obnoxious, and the final plot twist is ludicrous. Some of the bloody kills would be effective, if you could see them better.

Bedeviled Angel

ROSETTI AND RYAN may be the most obscure television series I've ever written about. In fact, a big reason I'm writing about it at all is to be the only person in the history of the World Wide Web to do so. The next time anyone Googles "Rosetti and Ryan," this blog will come up. As if anyone would ever Google "Rosetti and Ryan"…

The pilot movie, MEN WHO LOVED WOMEN, aired on NBC in the spring of 1977. Tony Roberts, a light comic actor known for his two Tony nominations and for co-starring with Woody Allen in PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM and ANNIE HALL, played Joseph Rosetti, and Squire Fridell, the ubiquitous pitchman for Toyota and other products in hundreds of TV commercials, played Frank Ryan. The two were Los Angeles attorneys who—duh—didn't play by the rules in their pursuit of justice for their clients. Rosetti was a well-dressed Italian-American who grew up in an affluent family; Ryan, an Irish-American ex-cop who put himself through law school at night. Both loved to woo the ladies, hence the title.

Propelled by Gordon Cotler and Don M. Mankiewicz's teleplay, which won an Edgar Award, beating out, among other films, Edward Anhalt's gritty CONTRACT ON CHERRY STREET, the pilot garnered ratings high enough to convince NBC to put ROSETTI AND RYAN on the 1977-78 fall schedules. It never saw 1978, getting cancelled in November after just six episodes.

"Bedeviled Angel," which I watched this evening, was the final episode of ROSETTI AND RYAN's shortlived run and the first I (or nearly anyone else) had seen in thirty years. What's most interesting about it is that it was written by Walter Wager, a popular author then best known for TELEFON, which was adapted as an espionage thriller starring Charles Bronson in 1977. His later adventure novel, 58 MINUTES, was bought by Fox and transformed into the hit film DIE HARD 2 in 1990 (curiously, the film was written by Steven de Souza, ROSETTI AND RYAN's story editor). Wager, whose earlier career included original novels based on I SPY and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE under his "John Tiger" pseudonym, had been a writer for CBS Radio, but I'm unaware of any specific radio or television credits.

Wager's plot for "Bedeviled Angel" is convoluted and silly, and it isn't helped any by Joshua Shelley's slack direction. Shelley, primarily an actor who was blacklisted, doesn't shoot enough coverage, making his stagy blocking come across as stiff and unnatural in the master shots. Rosetti and Ryan are hired by a children's TV show host, Stanley Frogprince (Elliott Reid), to defend his headstrong daughter Angel (Glynnis O'Connor) on a routine traffic charge. O'Connor was a big deal in 1977, having co-starred in the highly rated TV-movie THE BOY IN THE PLASTIC BUBBLE and the popular weepie ODE TO BILLY JOE on the big screen. Thankfully, director Shelley puts her in a bikini in one scene, proving he wasn't a total klutz behind the camera.

Normally, Rosetti and Ryan would be too important for such a piddly case, but both were big Frogprince fans as kids (the show's goofy frog handshake is a running gag throughout the episode) and take the case out of hero worship. Of course, the case turns out to be a bigger hassle than expected, when Angel is arrested again on a counterfeiting charge. Larry Storch shows up in two scenes as Wager's deux es machina, a con man named Sam the Speller, who provides the lawyers with a convenient clue. Sam, who has the unusual habit of spelling out loud occasional words he uses in conversation ("Two o's, one e, one r."), is a good example of a character whose only purpose is to provide exposition, but is given an interesting trait to give his scenes more life.

Fridell, who today owns a California vineyard, has probably racked up more hours on television than the entire case of "Bedeviled Angel" combined. Not only did he shill for Toyota for many years, he also played Ronald McDonald in a ton of commercials. Roberts, of course, maintained a steady acting career on stage, on film, and in television; I saw him guest-starring on LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT over the summer. The two stars shared some chemistry, but they weren't exactly Culp and Cosby. Perhaps a better director than Shelley could have provided them with an energy boost. Or better scripts, as Wager's is lacking in suspense; there's no sense that Angel or the show's stars are ever in danger.

Rosetti and Ryan's biggest foe turned out to be BARNABY JONES. After six episodes going head-to-head with CBS' audience-pleasing crime drama on Thursday nights, ROSETTI AND RYAN tried its last case before the Nielsens.

Random Comic Book Splash Page #8

Comic Media published comic books for just a couple of years during the 1950s. One of its shortlived titles was WEIRD TERROR, and the first 5-page story in issue #10 was "The Man-Ape," drawn by Don Heck. Heck later went to Marvel and was one of the company's busiest first-stringers, particularly on THE AVENGERS and the Iron Man stories in TALES OF SUSPENSE. This story appears to be one of the zillion tales told about a mad scientist who implants the brain of a human into the body of an ape.

Randomness du Jour

Posting may be sporadic until the new year, but here are some other links you may want to explore. Maybe you'll find a new blog or two to add to your daily reading.

A big thanks to Chris Poggiali for getting Temple of Schlock up and running. Much of it is reprintings from his old zine about cult movies, but I'm also enjoying the obscure old movie posters and pulp novels in his collection. HARRY AND THE BIKINI BANDITS, with a hero who looks just like William Smith, is a paperback I have to read.

If you're into old comics, Dial B for Blog is one of the best reads around (certainly in terms of its design). A new article appears about every week or so. Right now, learn the history of Tower Comics' legendary T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, co-created by the great Wally Wood.

My boy Richard Harland Smith recently visited Vasquez Rocks, one of Hollywood's most enduring movie and TV locations, and posted about it at Turner Classic Movie's Movie Morlocks blog. A photo he took there looks almost identical to one I took when I visited Vasquez Rocks in 2006. Now, we have to get RHS to see Bronson Canyon.

I've posted about Bookgasm before, but if you enjoy reading at all, you might want to check it out.

Moviezzz always has something going on about books or movies, particularly if they concern the 1980s. If you're a fan of actresses like Betsy Russell, Deborah Foreman, Lucinda Dickey, and Wendy Kilbourne (whom I loved on MIDNIGHT CALLER), find out what they're up to today.

I could definitely do more, but it's getting late. Also, see my list of featured blogs on the right sidebar for more interesting reads. Catch you soon.

P.S. I was thrilled to note that, in CHUCK's universe, DIE HARD doesn't exist. John McClane's squareoff against Hans Gruber and his terrorist band actually happened!

A Shocker With A Hook That Sheer Horror Sharpens

Richard Neely's THE WALTER SYNDROME achieved a certain amount of acclaim after it was released in 1970, including a positive review in TIME. Much of the novel's notoriety was a result of its twist ending, which probably seemed quite audacious then. I guessed the twist correctly in Chapter 1, which says more about how often it has been ripped off (I'm looking at you, Chuck Palahniuk) than it does about the quality of Neely's writing, which is quite good.

Set in New York City in 1938, THE WALTER SYNDROME is told through first-person narration from three different viewpoints: Lambert Post, a mild-mannered classified-ad salesman for the New York Journal newspaper; the confident Charles Walter, Post's co-worker and only friend; and Maury Ryan, a hard-nosed Journal reporter investigating a sadistic serial murderer. A man calling himself The Executioner is butchering women and telephoning Ryan to brag about the killings. It's no mystery to us that Post and Walter are both involved, but Neely's taut storytelling and the fascinating insights into their minds are what propel THE WALTER SYNDROME through 200 pages you may not be able to easily put down.

It's difficult to say anything more about the plot and maybe I've already described too much. If you're interested in thrillers, you will most likely guess Neely's big gimmick as early as I did anyway, but don't let that stop you from continuing to the end. Neely shows a real gift in presenting period detail in a way that colors your imagination, but doesn't bog down in extraneous detail. He doesn't overload the reader with pop culture references the way a contemporary author might, though Neely was, of course, alive in 1938 and was writing from memory, rather than research or using old movies as his focal point.

The violence is surprisingly gruesome, but mostly takes place off-page, so it's more along the lines of CSI crime scene gore, rather than a slasher flick. Of the three major characters, Ryan is the least interesting, but isn't it usually the case with serial killer stories?

Buttercup, Birdie And Buried Bucks

O7 Buttercup, Birdie and Buried Bucks
November 27, 1979
Music: Jimmie Haskell
Writer: Robert K. Baublitz
Director: Daniel Haller

This isn't going to make Hal very happy, but "Buttercup, Birdie and Buried Bucks" is fairly lame, even by MISADVENTURES OF SHERIFF LOBO standards. This is partially due to the inane teleplay by Robert Baublitz, who has no other IMDb credits, but also because of the broad playing of guest star Larry Storch, whose overall-wearing hillbilly character chows enough ham to make Corporal Agarn look like Bruce Willis.

A trio of crooks, led by Harvey "Why me all the time?" Lembeck, rob an armored truck of $200,000. Before they can split the loot, however, Lembeck stumbles into a booby trap on property belonging to the backwards-ass Beauregard family, and the youngest son Junior (Charles Bloom) makes off with the money. Junior, who feels inadequate because his father Pappy (Storch) mocks him for being a sensitive artist and doesn't let him go into town to raise hell with his older brothers Elmo (Dennis Fimple) and Mountain (Bruce M. Fischer), splurges on a new hat, which brings him to the attention of Sheriff Lobo (Akins).

Eventually, Lobo, Perkins (Mills Watson) and Birdie (Brian Kerwin) figure out that Junior has the money, but the kid won't talk, leading to a three-way treasure hunt among the cops, the crooks and the Beauregards. The first part of the title refers to the lone Beauregard sister, Buttercup (the way hot Pamela Jean Bryant, returning from "Dean Martin and the Moonshiners"), who has a hankering for Birdie, who stumbles upon her skinny-dipping in the family pond.

"Buttercup" is certainly a comedown from the "Finders Keepers" three-parter. It's difficult to criticize a SHERIFF LOBO episode for insulting the viewer's intelligence—I do have some perspective—but there is some lunkheaded plotting and characterization here. Aside from the slapsticky hillbillies led by Storch, Perkins performs some competent police work while undercover as a convict in Lobo's jail, and the plan to fake a breakout and follow Junior to the hidden money is foiled by Birdie. Seems as though it should have been the other way around.

Kubek HOF-Bound

Congratulations to Tony Kubek, 2009's recipient of the annual Ford C. Frick Award, which is given to honor broadcasters for major contributions to the sport of baseball.

When I was a kid, the former New York Yankees shortstop was teamed with another former major leaguer, Joe Garagiola, to broadcast NBC's Saturday GAME OF THE WEEK. I admired Kubek then for his enthusiasm, candor, and baseball smarts. Later, Vin Scully joined the NBC team and was paired with Garagiola, while Kubek and new partner Bob Costas handled the week's backup game. One of those Kubek/Costas games was the legendary "Sandberg Game," in which Ryne Sandberg of the Chicago Cubs hit a home run to tie the game in the ninth inning and another home run to tie it again in the tenth inning in a remarkable 12-11 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.

To this day, Kubek remains my favorite baseball color man, even though he hasn't worked a network game since 1989. At a time when network baseball telecasts have never been lousier (although we did get some good news today), it's worth remembering Kubek even more. Past winners of the Frick award include Scully, Garagiola, Mel Allen, Jack Buck, Harry Caray and Marty Brennaman.

Detours Can Be Deadly

As direct-to-DVD directors go, Louis Morneau is one of the better ones and is certainly more skilled than a lot of directors getting paid a lot of money to make big-budget studio films. One of hundreds of young filmmakers given a break by the legendary Roger Corman, Morneau moved up—slightly—from cheapies like CARNOSAUR 2 to slightly less cheap B-pictures like BATS and MADE MEN, which is a genuinely funny and well-made desert thriller.

Morneau now seems to be stuck in subpar sequels, following THE HITCHER 2 with a followup to a cracking good John Dahl thriller that wasn't exactly crying out "franchise." In JOY RIDE, two young men and a female friend are terrorized on the highway by a gravel-voiced trucker who calls himself "Rusty Nail." Well, Rusty Nail is back in JOY RIDE 2: DEAD AHEAD (!), but he's no longer played by the chilling Ted Levine (SILENCE OF THE LAMBS), and the new young stars are nowhere near as charismatic as Leelee Sobieski, Steve Zahn and—yes—Paul Walker were in the original.

Four college-aged jackasses are stranded in the desert on a road trip to Las Vegas and trek on foot to the nearest house. Seeing no one around, they "borrow" the owner's muscle car, but leave a note with Melissa's (Nicki Aycox) phone number, promising to return the car the next day. It was their bad luck to pick on Rusty Nail (Mark Gibbon), who responds by kidnapping Melissa's fiancé Bobby (Nick Zano) and terrorizing Melissa, her sister Kayla (Laura Jordan) and Kayla's emo Internet hookup Nick (Kyle Schmid).

This is, frankly, a terrible script that requires its protagonists to act as stupidly as possible in order to drag the story out to 90 minutes. At any time, they could/should have called the cops, but they keep convincing each other with ridiculous arguments not to. The nadir is a depiction of some kind of bizarre redneck trucker cult, where shotgun-toting truck drivers hang out in a gravel pit jonesing for crystal meth and participating in drag races.

Aycox, who starred in the similar JEEPERS CREEPERS 2, is fine as the Final Girl, but her costars are crummy, and Gibbon is a far less threatening menace than Levine, even when Morneau steers the picture into torture porn territory.

The Deadly Cult

I don't know why the hero of Zebra's Chameleon action series is called Chameleon. He isn't a master of disguise or a cat burglar or anything like that. He's really just Vance Garde, a very rich, very smart dude who avenged the overdose death of his sister in his first book by striking back against the Anaconda, the druglord at the top of the chain. He managed this by forming a secret division called VIBES within his corporation to fight crime. His sidekick and lover is Ballou Annis, who also happens to be an employee. Come on, Vance, you know what they say about the company ink.

In IN GARDE WE TRUST (I know), Garde goes into investigative mode again after Ballou gets a strange phone call from her younger brother Adrian, who demands that she turn over to him his substantial trust fund. Adrian has fallen under the control of a Vietnamese cult leader named Sol Luna, who operates from his secret base in Montana. Luna and his partners, including a rapist dentist, have taken over the minds of his followers using brainwashing radio waves emanating from their dental fillings (!) and plan to use the same technology to hypnotize the world during a national television broadcast. Garde not only goes up against Luna's braintrust, but also Handjob, the mysterious strongman henchman previously in the Anaconda's employ, and a freaking grizzly bear that chases him across a glacier.

It sounds pretty cool, but is not really that interesting. At 240 pages, IN GARDE WE TRUST is a seriously flabby book with bizarre sex scenes that go on well past being interesting. It's a running gag that Garde and Ballou are constantly being interrupted during sex, which leads to a ridiculous page-filler involving their belts being stuck together and another where they decide to do it during a raid on an enemy office.

Granted, writer Jerry LaPlante does create some imaginative setpieces, not just the previously noted bear chase, but also an odd cliffhanger in which an explosive chastity belt attached to Ballou is set to blow if Garde's private plane drops below 10,000 feet. Hmmm, so this is where SPEED came from.

28 Years

All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends
I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life, I've loved them all

Random Comic Book Splash Page #7

Okay, enough about obscure sexploitation movies that played 35 years ago in theaters that no longer exist. For now anyway. On to important stuff, like...

...the splash page to ADVENTURES ON THE PLANET OF THE APES #7, published by Marvel in August 1976. By writer Doug Moench and artist Alfredo Alcala, this page had originally been produced for Marvel's black-and-white PLANET OF THE APES magazine in 1975. After reprinting the b&w adaptation of the 1968 film in #1-6, AOTPOTA #7 began reprinting the adaptation of the first film sequel, BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES. Alcala apparently was forbidden to use the likenesses of actors Charlton Heston, Linda Harrison, and James Franciscus, so he did the best he could.

This splash is great, because it dramatically captures one of the most stunning denouements in cinema history.

Oh. SPOILER, I guess.

Fanny Hill

EDIT: This post has been updated. Thanks to Chris Poggiali for helping to fill in some blanks.

Moviezzz asked about the previous post:

Although just which version of FANNY HILL was that in the ad?

In 1964, Russ Meyer made a film based on the book, that was also called FANNY HILL: MEMOIRS OF A WOMAN OF PLEASURE. In checking, in 1968 there was a Swedish version.

That's a good question, as it's possible the Meyer film would still have been playing drive-ins in 1970.

Actually, it now appears that the Russ Meyer film, which was also distributed by International Film Organization, played with Roger Corman's HOW TO MAKE IT. However, the FANNY HILL that played at the Varsity one month later, replacing TOPAZ, is definitely, judging from the following ad, the 1968 FANNY HILL directed by Swede Mac Ahlberg.

The following ad is from the February 17, 1970 issue of the Southern Illinoisan.

So now we know. Thanks, Moviezzz.

The Swedish FANNY HILL was distributed by Cinemation, and the damn thing played forever in Southern Illinois. It came back to the Campus in May with I, A LOVER. At the nearby Anna Drive-In, the X-rated FANNY HILL played in June with the PG-rated THE LEARNING TREE!

I'm skipping ahead a bit, but FANNY HILL played its third run at the Campus in December 1970 with the Swedish INGA for two months. Its fourth Campus showing was in June 1971 with the X-rated GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES FOR ADULTS. You'd think everyone in Southern Illinois had seen FANNY HILL by then. The INGA/FANNY HILL tandem returned to the Campus Drive-In in June 1972, where it replaced Curtis Hanson's SWEET KILL (aka THE AROUSERS) and THE GIRL CAN'T STOP, a b&w Greek film (and was itself replaced by an Al Adamson double feature of DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN and HORROR OF THE BLOOD MONSTERS!).

For a few weeks in the summer of 1973, a third FANNY HILL movie, this one called THE YOUNG, EROTIC FANNY HILL, directed by Joe Sarno, played at the Roxy in the nearby small town of Coulterville, Illinois.

FANNY HILL--the 1968 film--and INGA eventually played the Marion Drive-In in June 1974. In August 1975, a "sequel," AROUND THE WORLD WITH FANNY HILL, which was also directed by Mac Ahlberg, played with THE CHEERLEADERS at the Marion Drive-In. I know I'm the only one still interested in this post, but in July 1976, both FANNY HILL and AROUND THE WORLD..., both being Ahlberg films, played together at the Marion. July 20, 1976 is the last date I can find for FANNY HILL playing in Southern Illinois--6 1/2 years after it opened on the bottom of a ticket with TARGET: HARRY. I wish I had owned the rights to it then.

By the way, the Russ Meyer version of FANNY HILL played in Southern Illinois as early as 1965, meaning the story played almost continuously down there for eleven years in four different films.

Target: Corman

I guess TARGET: HARRY isn't technically a "lost" film, but it may be the least-seen film ever directed by Roger Corman. His brother Gene Corman produced it in Monaco and Turkey in 1969, and it was reportedly intended as a TV-movie for ABC. What I had always heard is that ABC rejected it, and TARGET: HARRY sat on a dusty shelf for a decade before finally surfacing in movie houses in the late 1970s. That myth, I'm happy to bust.

It may be difficult to read, but the ad mat posted above is from the Southern Illinoisan newspaper, dated Friday, January 9, 1970. The title, HOW TO MAKE IT, and the tagline—"A Thousand and One Ways with Pussycats or Tigers As Long As They Have Two Legs"—are ridiculous and have nothing to do with the film. However, the cast, including Vic Morrow, Suzanne Pleshette and Cesar Romero, definitely identify HOW TO MAKE IT as Corman's TARGET: HARRY. It played at the Campus Theater on Old Route 13 in Carbondale, Illinois with a Swedish sex picture called FANNY HILL.

According to the Internet Movie Database, ABC Pictures International distributed it, but not until 1979. According to the Motion Picture Association of America's ratings database, HOW TO MAKE IT, received a GP rating in 1970, when it was released by International Film Organization. The only time I've seen the film, it was titled TARGET: HARRY, and featured awkward nude inserts. That's the ABC Pictures version that got an R rating from the MPAA in 1979.

Being as Roger Corman removed his name from HARRY, using "Henry Neill" as his directing credit, it may be safe to assume that HARRY under either name is not very good. I think it's worth the trouble for Corman completists, however, even though Bob Barbash's script doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and there's a lot of running, jumping and location-hopping to accompany a thin plot.

Morrow is Harry Black, a freelance pilot based in Monte Carlo who is hired to take Jason Carlyle (Stanley Holloway) to Istanbul.  Carlyle, who's carrying a set of stolen counterfeit plates, is murdered there, and suspicion falls upon Harry, whom thieves Rashi (Victor Buono) and Diane (Pleshette) suspect of stealing the plates for his own financial gain. 

Corman paces the 82-minute feature okay and usually manages to find a pretty place to put his camera, but TARGET: HARRY is basically an international riff on THE MALTESE FALCON and not one that adds anything to the characters or story.  Romero and Michael Ansara add some class, and Charlotte Rampling is lovely in an early role.  Even Corman himself provides a wordless cameo. 

I suspect, though, that TARGET: HARRY—or HOW TO MAKE IT—is one of those movies that's a lot more fun to read about and discover than to actually watch.

Cooler Than Bond! Quicker Than Fly! Deadlier Than Shaft!

SUPERMANCHU is an extremely badass novel based on a Golden Harvest kung fu flick produced by Raymond Chow. The film played all over the United States in 1974, 1975 and 1976. It was a double feature with DUEL OF THE IRON FIST in Troy, New York; with SEVEN BLOWS OF THE DRAGON in San Antonio; with HARRY IN YOUR POCKET in Syracuse; with ENTER THE DRAGON in Logansport, Indiana; with THE OMEN in Long Beach, California in 1976; with DRAGON DIES HARD ("Bruce Lee's Final Performance!") and QUEEN BOXER in Lima, Ohio; with KUNG FU: THE INVISIBLE FIST, SEVEN BLOWS OF THE DRAGON and BLOOD ON THE SUN on an awesome "4 Kung Fu Hits" "All Color Program" in Albuquerque; with LUANA in San Leandro, California. If the film is anything like the novelization, I need to see it.

There is, of course, no character named "Supermanchu," and whether the leading man is actually "cooler than Bond, quicker than (Super)Fly, deadlier than Shaft," I'll leave that to you to decide. Screenwriter Hsiang Yang's plot is the same as just about every Hong Kong chopsocky flick: some bad dudes waste somebody's family, and said somebody spends the rest of the movie killing everyone involved.

Han Ching arrives home after years of study with his kung fu master, just in time to see his mother, father, and sister expire after an attack by town boss Lee Ta-yeh and his goons, including a flunky named Snakehead. The young and brash Han Ching eventually teams up with the cooler Chen Chun, who has his own reasons for wanting Lee Ta-yeh destroyed and even briefly goes undercover at the villain's casino/brothel to keep an eye on him.

Much fighting and shit-talking ensues with the biggest battles coming late, after Lee Ta-yeh hires a pair of Japanese badasses to protect him. This is after Chen Chun, who uses American silver dollars as weapons, and Han Ching have killed off most of his men.

Although SUPERMANCHU (Ballantine, 1974) was probably knocked off quickly, it doesn't read that way. Descriptions and characters are given some depth—certainly more than the plot, which is standard revenge melodrama. I was surprised to learn that author Sean Mei Sullivan is actually renowned fantasy and science fiction author Jerry Sohl, whose 2002 obituary gives you a brief overview of his career. Sohl was also a screenwriter of some acclaim with credits on TWILIGHT ZONE ("Living Doll") and STAR TREK (the great suspenser "The Corbomite Maneuver").

As a bonus, the SUPERMANCHU novelization kicks off with an introduction by Master Bong Soo Han (KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE), who also provides diagrams of various kung fu moves used in the book, such as Tiger Claw, Dragon Stance and Hammer Blow. The cover uses the same art as the U.S. film release by Capital Productions, Inc. and is quite effective.

Random Comic Book Splash Page #6

STAR HUNTERS was a cool but shortlived science fiction DC comic created by writer David Michelinie and the wonderful artist Don Newton. The saga of 22nd-century heroes who were recruited by a tyrannical Earth government and sent against their will on an outer space mission actually began in 1977's DC SUPER-STARS #16 as a tryout. It must have gone well, because the Star Hunters got their own book.

I believe Michelinie stayed with the Hunters during the book's entire run, but Newton left after the first issue, reportedly because he was displeased with inker Bob Layton's finishes. Layton and penciler Rich Buckler created this splash to STAR HUNTERS #5, dated June/July 1978. The book was canceled after #7 with the story arc left unfinished.