Episode Guide: Broken Badges

Stephen J. Cannell, who died in September at age 69, was one of television’s greatest writer/producers. Shows carrying his credit include THE ROCKFORD FILES, THE A-TEAM, HARDCASTLE & MCCORMICK, ADAM-12, and THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO.

But they weren’t all hits. Several Cannell series you may have never heard of, since they weren’t on the air very long, were released on DVD earlier this year in a box set called PRIME TIME CRIME: THE STEPHEN J. CANNELL COLLECTION. Included are all seven episodes of BROKEN BADGES, a series Cannell co-created with Randall Wallace, who went from this series to earning an Oscar nomination for penning the BRAVEHEART screenplay.

BROKEN BADGES fits nicely into the Cannell oeuvre with its theme of outsiders and misfits fighting crime and forming a tight family unit. Miguel Ferrer, just off a memorable role on TWIN PEAKS, starred as Beau Jack Bowman, a maverick New Orleans cop in trouble with his bosses after he drove a garbage truck through a house in pursuit of drug dealers. To get him out of their hair, the brass send Beau Jack to Bay City, California to extradite a prisoner and ends up joining a trio of mentally unstable detectives to capture a murderer.

Since no one wants to work with the three officers, all of whom have personality disorders that put them on the department’s restricted list, Bowman decides to stay in Bay City and work with them as part of a special squad. His new partners are Stanley Jones (Jay Johnson), a short ventriloquist (with a dummy dressed as a policeman) who becomes violent whenever anyone mentions his size; Toby Baker (Ernie Hudson), a depressed kleptomaniac; and J.J. “Bullets” Tingreedies (Eileen Davidson), an aggressive woman who’s addicted to danger. Also on the team is Dr. Priscilla Mather (Charlotte Lewis), a police psychiatrist whose job is to keep Bowman’s team out of trouble. Good luck.

BROKEN BADGES was not on CBS’ 1990-91 fall schedule, but was pressed into service when its eco-action series E.A.R.T.H. FORCE with Gil Gerard crumbled after just three weeks on the air. The network had no better luck with Cannell and Wallace’s series, which was quickly canceled after only four episodes (the same day as WISEGUY, another Cannell series). The remaining three shows were burned off by CBS the following June.

It’s no surprise BROKEN BADGES was a bust, as it never found the correct balance of humor and action. Ferrer and Hudson are really good, but Davidson forces the tough-chick stuff and standup comic Johnson (SOAP) is too silly to pull the cop stuff off. Another point in the series’ favor is its rollicking Cajun-flavored theme song penned by Mike Post.

BROKEN BADGES
Miguel Ferrer as Beau Jack Bowman
Eileen Davidson as Judith J. “Bullet” Tingreedies
Jay Johnson as Stanley Jones
Teresa Donahoe as Dr. Eleanor Hardwick (pilot only)
Charlotte Lewis as Priscilla Mather
Ernie Hudson as Toby Baker

Music: Mike Post, Velton Ray Bunch
Theme: Mike Post
Cinematographers: Cyrus Block, John S. Bartley
Art Directors: Graeme Murray (pilot only), Stephen Geaghan
Editors: Larry D. Lester (pilot only), Argyle Coe Nelson, Casey O’Rohrs (pilot only), Ron Spang, Albert J.J. Zuniga
Associate Producers: Bruce Golin, Alan Cassidy, Gary Skeen Hall
Supervising Producer: Jo Swerling Jr.
Co-Supervising Producer: Jack Bernstein
Producer: John Peter Kousakis (pilot only)
Producer: Joan Carson
Creator: Stephen J. Cannell & Randall Wallace
Executive Producers: Stephen J. Cannell & Randall Wallace
A Stephen J. Cannell Production
Filmed on location in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

“Pilot” (2 hours)
November 24, 1990
Writer: Stephen J. Cannell & Randall Wallace
Director: Kim Manners
Guest Cast: Ada Maris, Carlos Gomez, Tobin Bell, Richard Riehle, Forry Smith, Don S. Davis, Michael MacRae, Ismael (East) Carlo, Tim Neil, Gary Chalk, Leslie Carlson, Gerry Bean, Rosanna Iverson, Jessica Marlowe, Rob Roy, R. Nelson Brown, John Cuthbert, Adrien Dorval, Terry Barclay, Dwight Koss, Michael Rogers, Howard Kruschke, Richard Sargent, Rob Johnson, Barbara Constantine, Phil Hayes, Michael Tiernan, Peter Bibby, Maureen Wilson, Pat Bermel, Kehli O’Byrne, Michael A. Jackson, Mitch Kosterman, Allan Lysell, Rosanne Hopkins

Bowman extradites prisoner Frank Cardenas (Carlos Gomez) from New Orleans to Bay City to stand trial for the murder of his parents. He believes businessman Martin Valentine (Tobin Bell) framed the young man, but when the Bay City cops refuse the listen to Bowman, he recruits Bullet, Jones, and Baker to find proof of Frank’s innocence.

“Chucky”
December 22, 1990
Writer: Stephen J. Cannell
Director: Kim Manners
Guest Cast: Don S. Davis, Diedrich Bader, Clint Carmichael, Garry Chalk, Alec Burden, Lyle Alzado, Robin Smith, Steve Oatway, Roger Crossley, Veronica Lorenz, John Tierney, Marcy Mellish, Lana Higgins, William MacDonald, Steve Adams, Sharlene Martin, Graeme Kingston, Bruce Corkum

When Toby is accused of murdering hood Tommy Moran (Lyle Alzado), Bullets goes undercover as a hostess at Moran’s club and Stanley befriends Tommy’s naïve son Chucky (Diedrich Bader) to find the real killer.

“Westside Stories”
December 1, 1990
Writer: Jack Bernstein
Director: James Whitmore Jr.
Guest Cast: David Naughton, Don S. Davis, Heidi Zeigler, Mary Jo Keenen, Peter Blackwood, Merrilyn Gann, Rebecca Toolan, Sandra Carpenter, Georgie Major, Paul Haddad

Our crazy cops infiltrate a hoity-toity country club to catch a cat burglar (David Naughton) who accidentally killed a man on his last job.

“Can I Get a Witness?”
June 20, 1991
Writer: Jack Bernstein
Director: David Nutter
Guest Cast: Andrew Hill Newman, Anne Betancourt, Don S. Davis, Jerry Wasserman, Jason Scott, Frank Ferrucci, Suki Kaiser, Jack Ammon, Dwight McFee, Lon Katzmann, Brent Chapman, Donna Carroll White, Pedro Salvin, Ahnee Boyce, Lenno Britos

Bowman and the team are assigned to transport a government witness, nerdy accountant Max (Andrew Hill Newman), back to Bay City, but a hit squad hired by Max’s druglord boss (Anne Betancourt) is right on their tail.

“Meet Your Matchmaker”
June 6, 1991
Writer: Jack Bernstein
Director: Tucker Gates
Guest Cast: Brian L. Green, Forry Smith, Garry Chalk, Paul Boretski, Tamsin Kelley, French Tickner, Larry Hill, Ellie Harvie, Glynis Davies, Norman Armour, Deryl Hayes, Terry Arrowsmith

Stanley joins a video dating service to smoke out a serial killer who’s bumping off the company’s clients.

“Strawberry”
December 8, 1990
Writer: Randall Wallace
Director: Jonathan Sanger
Guest Cast: Jamie Rose, Tim Neil, Jay Brazeau, Andrew Johnston, Brent Stait, Howard Jerome, Sharlene Martin, Claudio de Victor, Ken Budd, Alex Taylor, Celia Louise Martin

Beau Jack’s old partner (Tim Neil) arrives in Bay City, and warns the squad that Beau Jack may be the target of a sexy ex-cop (Jamie Rose) he sent to prison back in New Orleans.

“Argo the Venusian”
June 13, 1991
Writer: Randall Wallace
Director: Alan Cooke
Guest Cast: Forry Smith, Garry Chalk, Jano Frandsen, Elena Stiteler, James Kidnie, Sam Malkin, Andre Daniels, Terry King, Douglas Stewart

Beau Jack and the team come to the aid of a fellow cop (Forry Smith) who is accused of killing his secret girlfriend’s husband, a noted mobster.

See BROKEN BADGES' opening title sequence with Mike Post's cool Cajun theme song, which leads off this collection of TV themes from 1991:

Who Is That Stubborn County Medical Examiner?

Loretta Swit (M*A*S*H) and Jack Klugman (QUINCY, M.E.) are the celebrity panelists on an episode of PASSWORD PLUS with Allen Ludden. Watch the players' faces when they discover the solution to the puzzle is...Quincy! Well, all the players except for Klugman's partner, that is...

Garbage Never Leaves The Dump

Yes, kids, the star of ACCORDING TO JIM was once considered a major movie star. You could tell, because he changed his billing to the more serious “James” Belushi. His blue-collar charm is well-suited for 1987's THE PRINCIPAL, an exploitation take on LEAN ON ME obviously influenced by BEVERLY HILLS COP.

Belushi plays screw-up high school principal Rick Latimer, a tough but sensitive lug punished for messing up his ex-wife’s boyfriend’s sports car with a baseball bat by being assigned to the nastiest school in the district. The student body at Brendel High consists mainly of kids who have already been expelled from every other school in town and have settled into hopeless lives of truancy, drugs, vandalism, and misanthropy. What else they have in common is their fear of Victor Duncan (Michael Wright), the psycho SMOC (Scariest Man On Campus) who rules the school and finds a hard-headed enemy in Latimer, who decides to clean up his own life by cleaning up Brendel.

Director Christopher Cain (YOUNG GUNS) and writer Frank Deese (AMAZING STORIES) take their cue from BEVERLY HILLS COP in combining belly laughs with brutal violence. With Wright’s off-kilter performance providing the perfect balance for Belushi’s deftness with wisecracks and swinging fists, THE PRINCIPAL mostly pays off. Louis Gossett Jr. is mostly wasted as Belushi’s security guard sidekick, though he does have fun with his line readings, and Rae Dawn Chong (COMMANDO) shows up to look good and play the victim. Belushi moved up to co-star with Arnold Schwarzenegger in RED HEAT next.

Rupert Pupkin Speaks

I'm the guest blogger over at Brian Saur's Rupert Pupkin Speaks today. Please hop over to discover ten underrated horror films you should see this Halloween.

More Late Movie

On August 25, 1982, the Richard Burton OMEN ripoff THE MEDUSA TOUCH aired on THE CBS LATE MOVIE. Not that this hammy British horror movie was ahead of its time or anything, but there is a scene (glimpsed briefly in this intro) of an airliner smashing into a skyscraper...

The Ultimate Driller Killer Thrillers

Roger Corman’s biggest attempt to break into the lucrative '80s slasher genre was the notorious THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE, which is most notable for having a female director (Amy Jones went on to make THE RICH MAN'S WIFE with Halle Berry) and a female screenwriter (noted feminist novelist Rita Mae Brown). Brown’s script was greatly rewritten by Jones, and Brown had little to do with the final release, which is not very distinguishable from slashers made by male filmmakers.

A bunch of high school girls and some guys who want to lay them are stalked one evening by a madman (Michael Villella) who just escaped from a mental institution. Jones works a bit of suspense at the end, but, even by New World standards, this is not very good, even if it did spawn a few sequels, spinoffs, and loose remakes. Villella’s killer is dull, and the action is neither gory nor thrilling.

SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE has been lauded in some circles for its satire and feminist subtext, but I’m afraid I don’t see it. Yes, there is humor in the obvious sexual symbolism of the killer stalking his nubile, negligee-clad victims with an electric drill, but any under-the-surface elements are just barely there and unworthy of serious study.

What did capture my thought, however, was that this movie and its sequels (which played theaters after the slasher genre had waned) are the only slasher flicks Roger Corman ever made (and they’re so campy that it’s a stretch to call them horror). It seems odd that Corman, who definitely had his finger on the pulse of what was popular and what he could sell, never really jumped on the post-FRIDAY THE 13TH slasher-movie bandwagon, outside of these movies.

It's possible the urbane Corman found the concept tasteless, I suppose, but it doesn't seem like a dozen dead teenagers would stand between him and making big bucks (and the fact that few slasher movies present material as tasteless as HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP). Brinke Stevens is memorable as a victim attacked in the girls’ locker room. You can see ANDROID director Aaron Lipstadt, the film’s co-producer, pressed into service as an actor delivering pizza.

Sisters Courtney (a pre-WINGS Crystal Bernard) and Valerie (Cindy Eilbacher), who survived the original 1982 SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE, are back in the first Concorde sequel, released as SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE II in 1987. Valerie has gone mad and is living in a mental institution, while Courtney, who suffers from PTSD nightmares, has joined an all-girl band with her high school friends. The weekend of Courtney’s 17th birthday, she and her bandmates Amy (Kimberly McArthur), Sally (Heidi Kozak), and Sheila (Juliette Cummins) head to Sheila’s parents’ condo for an unsupervised weekend of rocking out and making out with Courtney’s studly new beau Matt (Patrick Lowe).

Everyone falls prey to a ridiculous ‘50s rocker killer dressed in black leather and carrying an electric guitar with a huge power drill into it. The screenplay by director Deborah Brock (ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL FOREVER) makes no dramatic or logical sense, breaking up the narrative for a series of unwanted music videos and ludicrous dream sequences ripped off from the Freddy Krueger movies. Brock plays up the camp factor, so that there’s no tension or suspense, just a bunch of scenes of teenagers running around a condo screaming while the cackling killer chases them and spouts dumb one-liners.

Brock, who earned her spot in the director’s chair by working in post-production on earlier Roger Corman movies, went on to direct two more Concorde filmes, neither of which is thought of highly. Bernard had done a lot of TV and YOUNG DOCTORS IN LOVE before snaring the starring role in SPM II, and is pretty good in the role. Playmate McArthur is surprisingly good, and redhead Cummins (FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V: A NEW BEGINNING) supplies the requisite nudity. Musically, the film is impressive with the girl band providing some bouncy numbers and Richard Cox an imaginative score. Corman got SPM II into a few theaters, though many more people saw it on Embassy Home Entertainment’s VHS release.

Roger Corman managed to get SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE III into a few 1990 theaters, but it’s unlikely it entertained many people there or on home video. Keeping consistent with the first two SLUMBER PARTY MASSACREs, SPM III was written and directed by women who do little to distinguish it from any random slasher flick directed by a man.

Cute Malibu teen Jackie (Keely Christian) invites a few friends over for a party while her folks are out of town. Director Sally Mattison (her only film) and screenwriter Catherine Cyran (who wrote, produced, and/or directed two handfuls of Corman movies) set up red herrings with a creepy stranger in black (Yan Birch) who watches the teens play beach volleyball and Jackie’s bent neighbor (Michael Harris) who spies on the girls through his telescope.

SPM III is a marked improvement over its predecessor, if only because Mattison takes the thrills seriously and actually generates a bit of tension during her kills. The tone is much darker than the earlier movies, the deaths are grimmer and more brutal, and the killer has a solid motivation for his actions. SPM III is not a good movie, though it gets props for casting B queens Maria Ford and Hope Marie Carlton, but its doses of sex, violence, and mystery may surprise those who were unimpressed with the other SLUMBER PARTY MASSACREs.

While none of the MASSACREs are very good films, considering Shout Factory has plastered its 2-disc Roger Corman Cult Classics DVD set with commentaries for each film, still galleries, trailers, and a one-hour documentary covering all three films, for the price, the set may be worth picking up. It's nice that many of those involved with the SLUMBER PARTY MASSACREs look back fondly on their experience (though not Crystal Bernard, of course), and directors Jones, Brock, and Mattison (who's now a Philadelphia attorney) are glad to talk about their films.

Most astonishing is the ageless Hope Marie Carlton, the Andy Sidaris B-movie vet who played one of the SPM III victims and barely looks a day over 30 in her interview on the documentary.

Scary On CBS

Way before David Letterman brought his late-night show to CBS--heck, even before LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN was on NBC--the network filled the hours after the late local news with something called THE CBS LATE MOVIE. Often THE CBS LATE MOVIE was no movie at all, but rather reruns of old shows playing under that banner.

But sometimes a movie was involved, as you can see in this CBS LATE MOVIE opening from sometime in 1980. In keeping with the season, this episode had some spooky stuff. First, a 1974 episode of KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER starring Darren McGavin as a sardonic spookchaser. Then, one of the scariest TV-movies ever made, Tom Gries' 1976 chiller HELTER SKELTER, a shuddering docudrama of the Charles Manson murder trial.

No Man's Slave And No Man's Whore

Shout Factory is really cranking out the Roger Corman Cult Classics DVDs now. The latest, which is available only from the Shout Factory website, teams a pair of sword-and-sandal programmers that Corman produced in Argentina in the 1980s. The first was the final Corman film to go out under the New World Pictures banner, while the other feature was released by his Concorde Pictures.

THE WARRIOR AND THE SORCERESS was intended to star Chuck Norris as KAIN OF DARK PLANET, but ended up being shot back-to-back with DEATHSTALKER, with which it shares sets. On a strange desert planet orbiting twin suns, a warrior named Kain (David Carradine, who played a warrior named Caine on TV’s KUNG FU) enters a tiny village ruled by two opposing tyrants: Zeg (Luke Askew) and Balcaz (William Marin). Both claim ownership of the town’s only well.

The village peasants live only for the few drops of water provided them by whichever ruler controls the water that day. Kain, thinking this process is not very fair, decides to pit both sides against each other, hiring out his sword to both surreptitiously and plotting against them until all the bad guys are dead.

The other half of the title is a bit of a cheat. The alleged sorceress is actually a princess, Naja (Maria Socas), who does precious little sorceressing. Actually none, but she does walk around naked a lot. A lot. As in always. Maybe Corman filmed in Argentina because it was easier to find actresses there willing to perform nudity. Socas, who was also in DEATHSTALKER II, is gorgeous, a good sport, and even willing to do stuntwork while nude. You can’t find actresses like that in Malibu.

THE WARRIOR AND THE SORCERESS runs only 81 minutes, which is what it has going for it the most. Besides the laughable rubber monsters, the constant nudity, and the clumsy swordfighting, that is. Carradine isn’t trying very hard, but he is having a good time. Of course, I imagine it’s hard to be miserable when you’re pretending to mow down 200 Argentinean extras and staring at Maria Socas’ breasts all day.

Released to subpar box office in the spring of 1984, THE WARRIOR AND THE SORCERESS was the last Corman production to be distributed by New World Pictures, which Corman had recently sold.

A year later, Corman created Concorde to release more junky films that were even cheaper than his New World output. One of those was BARBARIAN QUEEN, which is most notable for its statuesque star.

Anyone curious about the career of ‘80s B-movie queen Lana Clarkson, who was shot to death by pop music impresario Phil Spector in his Hollywood mansion in 2003, should start with BARBARIAN QUEEN.

As with CONAN THE BARBARIAN and a million other sword-and-sorcery movies, the titular Amethea (Clarkson) swears vengeance against the pillagers who wiped out her village and snatched her fiancé (Frank Zagarino). What else to do but grab a few warrior hotties, including Katt Shea (HOLLYWOOD HOT TUBS) and Dawn Dunlap (FORBIDDEN WORLD), and storm the palace of the tyrannical king?

Aside from the sword-swinging violence and sweaty nude bodies, including Clarkson’s quite impressive one, there’s not much here, but with a running time of a mere 71 minutes (!), you don’t need much more. The highlight is definitely a bizarre torture sequence staged by director Hector Olivera (WIZARDS OF THE LOST KINGDOM) that straps a nude Clarkson to a rack with a dangling metal glove tickling her left nipple.

The 5’11” Clarkson was only about 22 years old when she made BARBARIAN QUEEN, and was such a stunning on-screen presence that she was asked to return in BARBARIAN QUEEN II. She’s quite likeable and good—beautiful, of course—handling the action scenes like a pro. Shea, who’s cute as the film’s comic sidekick, surprisingly became a prolific director, starting with Corman fare like STRIPPED TO KILL and advancing to studio features like THE RAGE: CARRIE 2.

Shout Factory did a bang-up job cleaning these two films up. Little care went into photographing them originally, but the anamorphic prints look terrific. Purists may have a problem with BARBARIAN QUEEN, which is shorn of about ten minutes of material, including gore and extra footage from the Clarkson torture sequences, that was visible in Vestron Video's long out-of-print VHS tape. However, the material is on the disc as a supplement.

No commentaries or documentaries, but trailers for several Corman productions are here, including those for THE WARRIOR AND THE SORCERESS and BARBARIAN QUEEN. Might we see a BARBARIAN QUEEN II disc soon?

The Evil / Twice Dead

Shout Factory's latest in its way cool series of Roger Corman Cult Classics...well, neither film is a cult classic nor did Corman have a lot to do with them. But you could do a lot worse for a night of entertainment than watch THE EVIL and TWICE DEAD, both haunted house thrillers made a decade apart.

THE EVIL was one of director Gus Trikonis’ (THE SWINGING BARMAIDS) last feature films before entering a busy career in television. Released by Roger Corman’s New World Pictures in 1978 with an R rating, THE EVIL is a somewhat hokey haunted-house movie with ethereal spirits, floating people and objects, a thunderstorm, shutters that rattle in the night, a demonic dog, an invisible rapist, and other tried-and-true ghost-story gimmicks. It also piles up a decent body count using a cast of performers who should be quite familiar to fans of Crappy Movies.

The late Richard Crenna, a dependable leading man who bounced back and forth between television and features with aplomb and who starred in the laugh-tastic DEVIL DOG: THE HOUND OF HELL the same year as THE EVIL, toplines as C.J. Arnold, a professor of psychology who rents a spooky old mansion as the site for his new drug rehabilitation center. In reality, Trikonis and producer Ed Carlin secured as their prime location a gorgeous 19th-century structure near Las Vegas, New Mexico called Montezuma Castle. It’s gigantic, dark, and creepy, giving Trikonis plenty of atmosphere to work with.

The place needs to be cleaned up, so C.J., along with his gorgeous wife Caroline (Joanna Pettet), recruits a small group of friends and students to spend the summer getting the place ready for business: physicist Raymond Guy (Andrew Prine) and his student/girlfriend Laurie (Mary Louise Weller, ANIMAL HOUSE); ex-junkie Felicia (Lynne Moody, one of the innocents sent to Robert Reed’s corrupt prison in NIGHTMARE IN BADHAM COUNTY); pet lover Mary (Cassie Yates, THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND); joker Pete (George O’Hanlon Jr., whose father was the voice of George Jetson); and handyman Dwight (Robert Viharo, star of BARE KNUCKLES).

Danger erupts almost immediately. Well, even before that, as a drunken handyman is incinerated by the furnace during the opening titles. After Crenna’s group arrives, all Hell—literally—breaks loose after C.J. accidentally unlocks a Doorway to Hell (where’s Lin Ye Tang when you need him?) hidden in the basement. The doors and shutters lock, the window glass becomes unbreakable, and there’s no way out of the house.

While agnostic C.J. tries to figure out a logical explanation for everything, various characters are murdered in creative ways—dog attack, electrocution, power saw, mud. Felicia is stripped to her underwear and battered about by an unseen force. Only Caroline has something resembling a clue, since she’s the only one who can see the ghost of the house’s previous resident as he shambles about.

Eventually, the survivors end up in the fog-filled basement pit, where they encounter none other than Satan himself (!), dressed in white and sitting atop a white throne in a white room (no black curtains) brimming with dry ice. You may be surprised to learn the Devil is fat and looks a lot like Victor Buono. Reportedly, some prints of THE EVIL are missing all Buono’s scenes, meaning, I guess, that Crenna and Pettet are able to slam the door to Hell and lock it without much of a hitch.

It’s true that the climax is a little silly, with Crenna forced to his knees in pain and Pettet leaping out of the fog to jam a pointy iron cross into the chest of a horned Buono, but, gee, that’s kind of the point, isn’t it?

Ten years later, Corman released TWICE DEAD under his Concorde label. Whereas most low-budget horror was going directly to videocassette in 1988, Corman managed to squeeze TWICE DEAD--and his other films--into theaters, albeit regionally and rarely for more than a week or two.

The Cates family—dad Harry (Sam Melville from THE ROOKIES), mom Sylvia (Brooke Bundy from A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET sequels), son Scott (Tom Breznahan of THE BRAIN), and daughter Robin (NIGHT OF THE CREEPS’ lovely Jill Whitlow)—move into a spooky old house where an actor named Tyler Walker (HALLOWEEN 5’s Jonathan Chapin) committed suicide fifty years earlier.

Now, director Bert Dragin (SUMMER CAMP NIGHTMARE) and his co-writer Robert McDonnell could have taken this premise in fifty different directions, but I didn’t predict this one. Because Robin is the spitting image of Walker’s former lover, whose marriage to Harry’s uncle inspired the actor’s suicide, Walker’s spirit comes to life to kill a gang of extremely unmenacing punks who invade the Cates house one night while the parents are away.

This is a very slight thriller with some decent stunts and gore effects, though the plot doesn’t kick in until very late in the film. Chapin also plays one of the punks, which is an interesting idea. The script isn’t very good, and the intentional humor is lame. What’s unintentionally amusing is the flirty relationship between siblings Scott and Robin, probably because the cute performers were attracted to each other in real life.

I recognize the Cates’ house exterior from other low-budget movies, including Fred Olen Ray’s EVIL TOONS. Melville was a handsome, rugged guy similar to James Stacy (LANCER). He was occasionally playing the ex-husband of his ROOKIES co-star Kate Jackson in her SCARECROW AND MRS. KING series at the time TWICE DEAD was made, but died the year after its release at age 53.

Shout Factory produced the DVD with its usual aplomb, including a commentary track for each film. Walt Olsen moderates the tracks with his typical inanity, but the filmmakers involved do a decent job of providing information in an entertaining style. Trikonis, writer Donald Thompson, and cinematographer Mario DiLeo do the trick on THE EVIL; Trikonis knows his staff, but surprisingly knows little about THE EVIL's post-production and release. For TWICE DEAD, it's Dragin and Breznahan, both nice, smart guys, on the track, which is more entertaining than the film itself.

Other extras include theatrical and TV trailers for THE EVIL, trailers for other drive-in flicks (including THE TERROR WITHIN, an upcoming Roger Corman Cult Classic), and a new interview with Jill Whitlow, still dreamy in her 40s.

No One Knows You're Up There

Believe it or not, writer/director Adam Green has not made the first chair-lift thriller. That would be the terrible 1978 made-for-TV SKI LIFT TO DEATH, and it’s safe to say Green has hurdled that bar by a wide margin.

The premise of FROZEN is terrific—three college students are stranded on a ski lift at night. Green’s wise decision to film it on an actual Utah mountain in the middle of winter, rather than try to fake it on a green-screen soundstage, will give you the shivers even in the comfort of your toasty living room.

Hey, what could happen to three pretty young people on a ski lift? Well, there’s frostbite, wolves, and pure panic, for starters. Green, whose direct-to-video slasher throwback HATCHET attracted enough admirers to spawn an unrated theatrically released sequel (HATCHET II, natch), knows how to milk the suspense for all its worth, including at least a couple of moments guaranteed to make you wince.

Surprisingly for a guy famous for slasher movies, FROZEN features hardly any gore and the most gruesome sequence is portrayed almost entirely with sound effects providing more terror than any on-camera staging could elicit. Editing by Ed Marx (JEEPERS CREEPERS) and scoring by Andy Garfield (HATCHET) are as proficient as Green’s direction.

I wish he had chosen a stronger cast though. Emma Bell (GRACIE) and Kevin Zegers (WRONG TURN) as a couple and Ashmore (X-MEN’s Iceman) as Zegers’ childhood friend and current third wheel are competent but not capable of sustaining a three-hander. However, with Green to guide them, they’re good enough, and so is FROZEN as a surprise sleeper.

Old School American Horror

Anyone who grew up reading Fangoria during the 1980s knows the name John Carl Buechler. Not only did he fabricate gut-churning makeup gore effects for horror movies like THE PREY, BRIDE OF RE-ANIMATOR, and FROM BEYOND, he also directed several, most notably FRIDAY THE 13TH, PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD.

Now Buechler is back in the slasher movie biz, and Adam Green has him. Green’s first horror feature, the strikingly titled HATCHET, made enough racket among genre fans to earn him enough juice to get its 2010 sequel released in theaters without an MPAA rating.

HATCHET knows its inspirations, the lurid blood-soaked slasher movies of the ‘80s, quite well, and features a hideous murderer to rival Jason Voorhees himself. And I mean that quite literally, as Green has enlisted stuntman Kane Hodder, the only actor to play Jason in more than one FRIDAY THE 13TH movie (including Buechler’s), to portray HATCHET madman Victor Crowley, a malformed madman who really, really hates it when strangers enter his swamp.

I’ll go out on a limb here and say that HATCHET is one of the best-acted and funniest slasher films ever made. The cast, anchored by gangly Joel Moore (BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT) as a just-dumped Everyman and Deon Richmond (SCREAM 3) as his jiveass best friend, are terrific playing characters whom, for once, you actually don’t want to see get dismembered. The actors are likable and appear to be having a good time with the humor in Green’s screenplay, which takes the meanspiritedness out of the murders.

The simple plot finds college students Moore and Richmond; middle-aged couple Patrika Darbo and Richard Riehle; amateur pornographer Joel Murray (more than twenty years after starring in MOVING VIOLATIONS) and models Joleigh Fioravanti and Mercedes McNab (BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER) providing the nudity; Asian Cajun tour guide Parry Shen; and mysterious beauty Tamara Feldman stranded in the Louisiana swamp where, legend has it, dwells Hodder’s Crowley, a combination of baghead Jason from FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2, the mutant from THE FUNHOUSE, and THE BURNING’s Cropsey.

Buechler’s practical gore effects are juicy and refreshingly free of CGI enhancement, and Green is quite good at setting up the scares, though the midnight swamp always appears a little too bright. The filmmakers also know their audience, who will enjoy not only the cameos by horror movie favorites Tony Todd (CANDYMAN), Robert Englund (A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET), Joshua Leonard (THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT), and even Buechler as the Crazy Ralph character, but also the kills that pay homage to the director’s favorite movies (Hodder pounds one victim Jason-style against a mausoleum with Adam Green’s name on it).

There's Something About Mandy

As of this writing, ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE, a Texas-lensed throwback with a recognizable American star (Maxim cover girl Amber Heard of PINEAPPLE EXPRESS and the STEPFATHER remake), has received neither a theatrical nor home video release in the United States. It isn’t the most original or the goriest horror movie I’ve seen lately, but it delivers some wit and quality shocks and deserves to be seen by more people.

(Note: ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE joins THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, TRICK ‘R’ TREAT, and FROZEN, to name just a few recent shockers that have had difficulties reaching the wide audience they deserve. Have studios lost their nerve or just their ability to recognize a potential moneymaking horror picture when they see one?)

Mandy Lane (Heard) is a high school junior, a Good Girl whose boobs grew over the summer, which found her a new group of friends, mainly narcissists and skanks, while leaving her previous best friend Emmet (TWILIGHT’s Michael Welch) wanting. One of her new posse, Red (Aaron Himelstein), invites her to join the gang at his family’s ranch house for a weekend of drinking, drugging, and, as far as the boys are concerned, popping Mandy’s cherry.

However, since director Jonathan Levine and writer Jacob Forman are making their feature debuts by mining ‘80s slasher movies and not teen sex comedies, instead of being publicly humiliated in their efforts to bed Amber, the boys (and the girls, for that matter) are killed. The killer’s identity isn’t much of a surprise, nor does Levine intend it to be, and MANDY LANE’s biggest problem is that the murders don’t happen quickly enough. The only two killings in the film’s first hour are, naturally, the couple that has sex.

Another failing is that none of the young characters are particularly sympathetic, though my guess is Levine and Forman intended this. By focusing on hang-ups typical of 21st century teenagers, such as body image, the filmmakers appear to be making a statement about disenchanted teens.

More important, Levine is nudging teen horror movies themselves. Not with his elbow in your ribs the way Wes Craven did in SCREAM—in fact, MANDY LANE exhibits startlingly little humor—but by taking one of the genre’s most popular clichés and spinning it sideways in a memorable third-act plot twist.

The film’s benefits outweigh the deficits however. Heard delivers a nicely shaded performance, and Anson Mount (co-star of Dick Wolf’s CONVICTION TV series) is ruggedly heroic as a hunky ranch hand. Much of the terror takes place outdoors during daylight, unusual for the genre, and is nicely shot by Darren Genet (KINGS). I also grinned at the witty Bobby Vinton song that concludes the picture. Gore is dished out conservatively, which may bum some horror fans, though Levine’s flagrant portrayal of drug use and sexuality better make the film’s point.

Harvey and Bob Weinstein, the former heads of Miramax, bought ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE in 2006, but sat on it after their GRINDHOUSE failed at the box office. A year later, The Weinstein Co. sold the film to Senator Entertaiment, which announced plans to release it domestically in early 2008. That never happened, and as of the fall of 2010, MANDY LANE is still unavailable in North America, though it has been seen in nearly every other market worldwide.

UNSUB

This is a rerun of a 2009 post in tribute to the late Stephen J. Cannell.

The entire NBC run of UNSUB was only about eight one-hour episodes. It was produced by Stephen J. Cannell during the period in which he was shooting everything in Vancouver. The production values of Cannell's shows were never among TV's best in the first place, and the cinematography, sets, etc. looked even worse once he got to Canada. UNSUB was a relatively decent series, however, and quite unusual among Cannell's oeuvre.

UNSUB (the title stands for "Unknown Subject," as indicated in the ad seen here) is basically C.S.I. MEETS MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE. I wouldn't be surprised if somebody at CBS remembered UNSUB, which aired quickly and quietly on NBC in 1989, when the original C.S.I.: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION was created. And if you're thinking that's a stretch, keep in mind another current CBS crime drama, COLD CASE, is an almost exact ripoff of a current Canadian cop show titled COLD SQUAD.

UNSUB starred David Soul, the STARSKY & HUTCH star who was still an in-demand television lead in 1989 (he had recently starred opposite Rock Hudson in the NBC miniseries WORLD WAR III), as the leader of an elite group of federal crimefighters who investigated serial killings all over the country. Among his supporting cast were the great character actor M. Emmet Walsh (BLOOD SIMPLE), seen left in the ad, as a crusty old ex-homicide cop, and Kent McCord (ADAM-12), to the right of Soul, as a forensic scientist. Kevin Spacey guest-starred in one episode, "Clean Slate," in a dual role as twin brothers, one "good" who was dying of cancer and one "bad" who was blowing people up. UNSUB's best outing is probably "And the Dead Shall Rise to Condemn Thee," in which the late Jason Bernard played a priest who may be involved in murder.

Surprisingly, UNSUB was recently released on DVD as part of PRIME TIME CRIME: THE STEPHEN J. CANNELL COLLECTION. For not much money, you can pick up the entire runs of four shortlived Cannell series: UNSUB, MISSING PERSONS, PALACE GUARD, and BROKEN BADGES. Plus, sample episodes from other Cannell shows including HUNTER, THE COMMISH (starring Michael Chiklis), THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO, and SILK STALKINGS. It's definitely worth the price, and is a terrific Cannell starter set.

Random TV Title: Hawaii Five-0 '98

This is a rerun of a 2009 post in tribute to the late Stephen J. Cannell.

Before the current HAWAII FIVE-0 remake on CBS, Stephen J. Cannell tried one in 1998. The original series starring Jack Lord ran from 1968 to 1980, and CBS thought there still was some life left in the concept. So, the network hired Cannell and Kim LeMasters to write a pilot and shoot it in Hawaii.

Russell Wong (BLACK SASH) and Gary Busey (!) starred as the new heads of Five-0, who are tasked with finding the black-gloved assassin who took a shot at Danny "Danno" Williams (James MacArthur), who replaced the late Steve McGarrett (Lord) as the head of Five-0 and is now the governor of Hawaii. Also appearing, in a very nice touch, were the surviving actors of the original show, including Kam Fong (whose Chin Ho Kelly was killed off in Season 10, but what the hell), Zulu, Harry Endo, Moe Keale, and Herman Wedemeyer.

Bradford May (DARKMAN II and III) directed the pilot, and what I saw of it (only about half) was not too bad. The writing was a little stiff and old-fashioned, but the concept still held water, and Busey and Wong likely could have made it work.

For whatever reason, CBS didn't pick up the show, and the 1998 HAWAII FIVE-0 pilot never aired. The opening titles were a nice throwback to the original series, including a repeat of the famous shot of Lord standing on that hotel balcony. I don't know who rearranged Morton Stevens' classic theme, but I'm guessing it was Mike Post.

Random TV Title: Black Sheep Squadron

This is a rerun of a 2009 post in tribute to the late Stephen J. Cannell.

I'll take you back to World War II for BLACK SHEEP SQUADRON, which was originally entitled BAA BAA BLACK SHEEP. Robert Conrad (THE WILD WILD WEST) starred as real-life war hero Pappy Boyington, who led his ragtag squad of misfit bomber pilots into one mission after another, just so long as the ratings held up. Great supporting cast, and most of them went on to star in other shows.

Random TV Title: Hunter

This is a rerun of a 2009 post in tribute to the late Stephen J. Cannell.

I think 75% of the success of any Stephen J. Cannell series was casting. While he may not always have found the best actors, Cannell almost always found likable performers who meshed well on-camera. With his DIRTY HARRY copy, NBC's HUNTER, the producer wisely found a charming and incredibly beautiful counterpart to balance out the rough, gruff loner cop with a big gun.

Former football star Fred Dryer (who came thisclose to landing the lead in CHEERS) starred as badass L.A. cop Rick Hunter, and Stepfanie Kramer--for my money, the sexiest woman on television in those days--was his partner, the equally tough but soft Dee Dee McCall, nicknamed "The Brass Cupcake." HUNTER was a very violent show, and if you're a fan of flying bullets, flying cars, and flying punches, it was the show for you.



HUNTER ran seven seasons on NBC, and was so fondly remembered that the network brought it back in 2003. First, as a TV-movie, then as a regular weekly series! Unfortunately, NBC buried it in a tough timeslot, and it was quickly canceled after about three episodes. But Kramer still looked fab.

Random TV Title: The Greatest American Hero

This is a rerun of a 2009 post in tribute to the late Stephen J. Cannell.

Next to THE ROCKFORD FILES, this is probably my favorite Stephen J. Cannell series. Though when I recently rewatched the entire show via Anchor Bay's DVDs, I notice that the quality really started to drop midway through the second season. Perhaps the writing just couldn't keep up with the high concept?

Curly-haired William Katt (CARRIE) starred as mild-mannered L.A. high school teacher Ralph Hinkley, who became a (very) reluctant superhero when he and jingoistic FBI agent Bill Maxwell (Robert Culp) encountered a flying saucer that bestowed upon Ralph a red costume and cape. With Ralph's lawyer girlfriend Pam Davidson (Connie Sellecca) joining the team, the three teamed up to fight bank robbers, car thieves, arsonists, and occasionally a foreign spy or two.

It's a great premise (the pilot was nominated for a writing Emmy), and the three stars played the hell out of it. Particularly Culp, who is friggin' brilliant all the way through. Apparently he clashed at first with his younger co-stars, but the team had it out, and he, Katt, and Sellecca became friends, which shows in their on-screen chemistry.

THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO was a terrific series (at least for awhile) and one I'm amazed no one has remade yet. Its theme song by Mike Post and Stephen Geyer was performed by Joey Scarbury and shot all the way to #2 on the Billboard charts.

Random TV Title: Tenspeed & Brown Shoe

This is a rerun of a 2009 post in tribute to the late Stephen J. Cannell.

My Stephen J. Cannell tribute continues with one of the prolific producer's flops. Well, in the ratings, if not with critics, who loved this quirky crime drama. And it really operated under the same formula that made HARDCASTLE & MCCORMICK a hit just a few years later: two talented leads with great chemistry solving crimes with action and humor. Ben Vereen, a terrific song-and-dance man just coming off ROOTS, and Jeff Goldblum were the stars. At the time, nobody knew who Goldblum was, and I suspect ABC viewers of 1979 just thought he was too weird to watch every week.

I think all the themes to Cannell's shows were composed by Mike Post or Post with Pete Carpenter.

Random TV Title: Hardcastle & McCormick

This is a rerun of a 2009 post in tribute to the late Stephen J. Cannell.

While it isn't the best show to boast Cannell's name as an executive producer, HARDCASTLE & MCCORMICK may be the best example of his patented formula that led to a lot of hits. It boasts incredible chemistry between its leading actors, tons of squealing tires and daring car stunts, sharp production values, an over-reliance on clumsy insert shots, and a kickass theme song.



As you may have ascertained, H&C starred TV veteran Brian Keith (FAMILY AFFAIR) as a retired judge with a swanky Malibu estate and Daniel Hugh Kelly (CUJO) as a reformed car thief who teamed up to fight crime together as vigilantes. Many of Cannell's high concepts don't hold water if you think about them too long, but viewers were usually too involved with the action and humor.

When Season 2 started, The Powers That Be decided to dump the kickass "Drive" song and cut a new main title that focused on the relationship between Hardcastle and McCormick, rather than the action. Joey Scarbury, who had a massive Top 40 hit with the theme to THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO in 1981, was brought in to sing the new theme, "Back to Back."



The public was outraged (I know I was disappointed in the loss of "Drive"), and by the time the show's third and final season hit the ABC airwaves, the original song was back with still another main title that attempted a balance between the leads' friendship and the stunts.



Strangely, unlike most of Cannell's series, HARDCASTLE & MCCORMICK is not yet available on DVD in the U.S., though there is a Canadian set offering all three seasons.

So Long, Stephen J. Cannell

One of television's great writer/producers has passed away.

Stephen J. Cannell, a name recognizable to anyone who watched prime-time television in the 1980s, died yesterday at his Pasadena, California home of complications of melanoma at the age of 69.

Some of the series created or co-created by Cannell: THE A-TEAM, HARDCASTLE & MCCORMICK, THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO, HUNTER, BARETTA, 21 JUMP STREET, and THE ROCKFORD FILES. And those are (some of) the hits! I'm leaving out shows that didn't go past a season or two (such as TENSPEED & BROWN SHOE, THE ROUSTERS, UNSUB, and STINGRAY) and earlier shows on which he worked as a staff writer, freelance writer, and/or story editor, like ADAM-12 and TOMA.

In other words, Cannell was damn good at his job, one of the best there has ever been. His work as a screenwriter was particularly strong with a strength for quirky dialogue and distinct characterization. Yes, many of his shows were formula TV, but that's what the networks were (and are) buying, and Cannell was among the best at it.

In tribute, I plan to rerun some old Johnny LaRue's Crane Shot posts I've written about Cannell and some of his shows. Although he had basically retired from television, Cannell was still an active novelist and had appeared occasionally as an actor on ABC's CASTLE.

The Haunting Of Orly Manor

The Haunting of Orly Manor
March 18, 1980
Story: G.J. Young
Teleplay: Mark Jones & Robert E. Feinberg & Howard Liebling
Director: Daniel Haller

I wonder who G.J. Young was. Young is credited with the story of the MISADVENTURES OF SHERIFF LOBO episode “The Haunting of Orly Manor,” and it is his or her only television or film credit. It was rewritten by three different LOBO staff writers into a haunted house episode that aired several months too late for Halloween.

Lobo (Claude Akins), Perkins (Mills Watson), and some sexy parapsychologists (including a hot young Delta Burke) are trapped during a thunderstorm in a spooky old house where a young woman named Rachel Stone was poisoned to death a hundred years earlier. Lobo’s plan to auction the house to Mr. Avery (Stu Gilliam) for a fee seem to be foiled when Birdie’s (Brian Kerwin) girlfriend Sarah (Leann Hunley) shows up to make a bid. To scare Sarah off, Lobo convinces Perkins to pretend to be a ghost. Yes, Hollywood was still using this hoary plot in 1980.

Noises in the attic, secret passages, séances, and dusty corpses dot this episode that plays a lot like a Bowery Boys programmer from Monogram with Akins and Watson doing Slip and Sach. Most of it takes place indoors, except for some establishing shots of the PSYCHO house on the Universal lot. Filmed late in the 1979-80 season, “The Haunting of Orly Manor” was helmed efficiently by Daniel Haller, who was probably under orders to shoot as cheaply as possible. Not even a shred of the series’ trademark vehicular mayhem is on display in this hackneyed but fun episode.

The Roomies

What would happen if you edited scenes from Tommy Wiseau's stunningly inept film THE ROOM to fit the opening titles and theme song of the 1960s sitcom THE MONKEES?

Sometimes Diamonds Are Not A Girl's Best Friend

WHITE FIRE is a Turkish production that hooked me right from its in media res opening and a fire stunt that rivals FRAMED’s train collision and half of Grant Page’s repertoire in its brazen disregard for personal safety. Director Jean-Marie Pallardy, whose cinematic triumphs include softcore numbers like EROTIC DIARY OF A LUMBERJACK and EMMANUELLE 3, keeps the action coming in steady and sometimes bloody doses in this crazily plotted number he also wrote and produced.

Siblings Bo (Robert Ginty, who returned to America to star in the HAWAIIAN HEAT TV series the year this was released) and Ingrid (Belinda Mayne) plan to steal the legendary White Fire, a radioactive 2000-carat diamond found buried beneath the super-duper high-tech diamond mining facility where Ingrid works. After Ingrid is killed, Bo convinces a blonde named Olga (Diana Goodman) to have plastic surgery to look like his sister, so she can take Ingrid’s place at the mine and help pull off the White Fire heist.

Not only is the surgery crucial to the plan, it also allows Bo to have sex with his sister, a desire hinted at in WHITE FIRE’s weirdest scene (which is saying a lot), where Bo playfully yanks a towel off a nude Ingrid and leers at her.

Adding to the oddness is second-billed Fred Williamson, who had just been in WARRIORS OF THE LOST WORLD with Ginty. The Hammer finally shows up an hour into the picture as Noah, an enforcer looking for his boss’ missing call girl, Olga. That great face Gordon Mitchell (FURY OF ACHILLES) plays Ingrid’s corrupt boss, and the beautiful Mirella Banti (TENEBRE) is an astonishing sight as Sophia, an Italian villain who teams up with Mitchell to swipe the White Fire ahead of Bo.

There are also a lot of mustaches, gore, some natty Fred Fu, the fetching Miss Mayne frequently unclothed, a weird makeout scene during which Ginty flashes back to his childhood, oily men wrestling, more reckless fire gags, a goofy ‘80s power ballad theme, and a Bondian climax with guys in brightly colored jumpsuits getting blown up. WHITE FIRE has its dead spots, but is packed with enough WTF moments to make it a must-see.

One Kiss Never Hurt Anyone

A neat Jerry Goldsmith score, anchored by a jaunty whistling theme, anchors 1968's BANDOLERO!, a lively 20th Century Fox western featuring a terrific cast. Director Andrew V. McLaglen probably made as many theatrical and television westerns as almost any filmmaker who ever lived, so it’s not surprising that he landed such a great array of familiar character actors who fit their parts like a cowboy’s rear to a battered old saddle.

Bank robber Dee Bishop (Dean Martin) and his gang are sentenced to hang after being captured in Valverde, Texas by straight-shooting sheriff July Johnson (George Kennedy) and his deputy Roscoe Bookbinder (Andrew Prine). Dee’s brother Mace (James Stewart), posing as the hangman, springs the Bishop gang, and the whole lot of ‘em head to Mexico with beautiful Maria Stoner (Raquel Welch) along as a hostage. Johnson has more than one reason to pursue the Bishops besides justice. He has also been nursing an unrequited crush on Maria, who is fond of the mild-mannered lawman, but is far out of his league.

Stewart and Martin are not very believable as brothers, but they do have a warm rapport, and both are adept at performing the script’s action, dramatic, and humorous sequences. McLaglan, with Goldsmith’s help, pulls off several terrific scenes, most of them involving the wry Stewart. One is a friendly conversation between Mace and Bishop’s executioner, the friendly Ossie Grimes (Guy Raymond), in which Mace elicits useful information about the man’s job that pays off in the escape. Another happens just after the break, and amusingly juxtaposes Johnson and his posse’s frantic pursuit of the gang against Mace’s ambling holdup of the bank in an empty town.

Westerns had, of course, matured by 1968 with the release of Sergio Leone’s dustbusters with Clint Eastwood (THE WILD BUNCH came a year later), but McLaglan, who worked a lot with John Wayne (and, perhaps ironically, even more with Eastwood on RAWHIDE), was strictly meat-and-potatoes. Majestic Utah vistas lack the otherworldliness of Spain, where most Italian westerns were made, but are crisply photographed by old-timer William Clothier (THE ALAMO), who hardly ever shot anything but westerns.

One must admire the steady stream of craggy faces that wander past Clothier’s camera, faces that leave no mistake you’re watching a western: Will Geer, Dub Taylor, Perry Lopez, John Mitchum, Donald “Red” Barry, Roy Barcroft, Pat Cranshaw, Denver Pyle, Sean McClory, Harry Carey Jr. Hal Needham’s stunt team handles the rigorous falls from horses, cliffs, and roofs. IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT’s James Lee Barrett’s straightforward plot is punctuated with intriguing dialogue, although the screenplay also hammers home the point that Johnson’s obsession with capturing the Bishops hinges more on Maria than the bad guys. Kennedy’s fine performance makes his emotions clear without so many words being needed. He’s the standout here, a year after his Oscar-winning role in COOL HAND LUKE, and belies his hulking physicality with his touching father-and-son relationship with his young deputy.

BANDOLERO! is not an important western nor the best any of its participants made, but it’s an exciting one with good pacing and performances and plenty of rousing action.

Blackout

From the director of DEATH WISH V, 1996's MIDNIGHT HEAT is something of a change of pace for ex-footballer Brian Bosworth (STONE COLE), as it’s played more for mystery and mood than for action.

The Boz is a buttoned-down banker named John Gray, who loses his memory after a hit-and-run accident. His beautiful and affluent wife Sharon (Marta DuBois) brings him home and patiently tries to reassimilate him, but he becomes haunted by weird dreams and flashes that hint at a previous life he has suppressed—one that may involve prison and a talent for hand-to-hand combat.

Composer Terry Plumeri is really into it, laying down an old-fashioned score that helps director Allan A. Goldstein establish the mood. For the director’s part, some of Bosworth’s nightmares are shown as black-and-white flashbacks in a style that’s actually integral to the storyline. I like the way the story slowly peels apart like an onion, doling out just enough information to keep the audience guessing, but rarely any more than Bosworth has.

Bosworth’s performance isn’t bad at all, playing both the button-down and the badass equally well. Brad Dourif (CHILD'S PLAY) as the straw-hatted heavy has some terrific moments, and I was really charmed by Claire Yarlett (THE COLBYS) as the cute Jenny, who befriends the confused Bosworth and helps him uncover his true identity. She and the star bounce off each other well too. The only false note in MIDNIGHT HEAT’s casting is the sexy DuBois (TALES OF THE GOLD MONKEY) as Bosworth’s wife. Her acting is fine (and she looks great in lingerie), but she’s clearly much older than Bosworth, and their pairing seems off.

Action scenes are adequate, and the story contains welcome humor (after getting roughed up, Bosworth says he feels like “Bo Jackson just ran him over”). Considering its direct-to-video origins as a Brian Bosworth vehicle, MIDNIGHT HEAT (its alternate title of BLACKOUT is more apt) is a real sleeper worth a watch.

A Space Adventure For All Time

STARCRASH is a very difficult film to criticize. Not because it doesn’t have more than its fair share of faults, strictly speaking, but because it’s so lighthearted and spirited and bright and fun, you’d have to be a real crab to toss brickbats at it. It has swashbuckling robots, exploding spaceships, monstrous golems, Marjoe Gortner’s towering perm, the great Christopher Plummer (THE SOUND OF MUSIC) as the “Emperor of the Universe,” and, last but certainly not least, the fetching Caroline Munro in all her pulchritudinous splendor. I daresay that, warts and all, STARCRASH is as close to perfect science fiction entertainment as you can find.

The barely comprehensible storyline begins with space smuggler Stella Star (Munro) and her superpowered sidekick Akton (Gortner) fleeing through “hyperspace” (really cheap, animated squiggly lines) from lawmen Thor (a bald, blue-faced Robert Tessier) and Galactic Police Robot Elle (played by Judd Hamilton, Munro’s real-life husband), who speaks with a Texan (!) accent, courtesy of voice actor Hamilton Camp.

Although Stella and Akton are hailed as worthy adversaries, they’re startlingly easy to capture, and are sentenced by a silly-looking stop-motion-animated head (based on INVADERS FROM MARS) to long prison terms. Stella is forced into hard labor “feeding radium to the furnace,” which is actually dropping beach balls from a medical stretcher into a large hole in the ground.

Easily escaping and destroying the facility, Stella dashes through a grassy field, and is again captured by Thor and Elle. This time, though, it’s OK, since Thor and Elle have engineered her escape (although they couldn’t have judging from what we saw) on behalf of the Emperor of the Universe (a what-is-he-doing-here Plummer, who worked a day and a half at $10,000 per day).

Reunited with Akton, Stella is assigned by the Emperor to rescue his son Simon (David Hasselhoff—no kidding—who was on THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS at the time), whose ship crashlanded on one of three planets. To extend the running time to feature length, the search party doesn’t find him until they reach the third planet, which also is the home of the diabolical Count Zarth Arn (MANIAC’s Joe Spinell), whose dialogue sounds like Stan Lee’s Dr. Doom and wardrobe suspiciously resembles Darth Vader’s.

Cozzi (ALIEN CONTAMINATION) and co-screenwriter Nat Wachsberger (also the film’s producer) write themselves out of corners by giving the characters previously unmentioned superpowers and into others through an alarming lack of logic, characterization, and elementary school-level science. See Stella survive a night on the surface of a planet with a temperature of “thousands of degrees” below zero! See the Emperor’s warriors invade the Count’s spaceship (which is shaped like a giant hand, complete with flexing fingers!) by firing themselves inside torpedoes (!) through glass windows (!) onto the bridge! See Marjoe battle animated creatures using a lightsaber (!) that the Count’s crack security staff conveniently neglected to confiscate! Best of all, watch in amazement as the Emperor rescues our heroes with the ultimate deus ex machina, a green ray that “halts the flow of time!”

The visual effects are technically pretty lousy all around, although there are lots of them—chintzy plastic spaceship models (complete with hanging wires), cheap animation, blurry rear-screen projection, jiggery stop-motion. The outer space backgrounds resemble Christmas trees with their bright red, yellow, and blue “stars,” the “dogfights” are brisky and clumsy, and as for the makeup, Gortner and Hasselhoff wear as much mascara as Munro does.

It’s difficult to judge the performances, due to the crude dubbing and cringe-inducing dialogue, but I can’t imagine any other actors who could make STARCRASH better. You can’t really take your eyes off Munro, one of the sexiest women ever to appear in genre movies, anyway, thanks to a steady array of cleavage-baring leather bikinis. Gortner (BOBBIE JO AND THE OUTLAW) delivers another performance with the same goofy grin he always uses, a crazed Spinell flares his nostrils and spins his cape, and Hasselhoff just plain looks lonely and lost.

Don’t think I’m ripping STARCRASH, however. Nuh-uh, not at all. What’s glorious about STARCRASH is that, when viewed with the proper state of mind, it’s quite fun. The story becomes such a mess so early in the picture that you may as well give up trying to follow it, and go along with the goofy flow instead. Every few minutes, a new threat—an army of sexy Amazon warriors, a 50-foot robot with boobs, kung-fu-kicking cavemen, sword-wielding golems—is introduced that’s even funnier than the one that came before it. And every time Cozzi pulls another headscratching “plothole eraser” (for instance, at just the right time, it’s revealed that one character can see into the future, which, of course, explains why he lets himself be hit on the head and captured over and over again) out of his rear end, it’s so in-your-face audacious and shameful that you just gotta laugh.

Somehow, Cozzi or the Wachsberger brothers who produced STARCRASH convinced Bond-film veteran John Barry to do the score, which is very good and probably better than a film at this budget level deserves. After a successful international release, Roger Corman bought the rights, cut a few minutes out, hired AMERICAN GRAFFITI actress Candy Clark (!) to dub Caroline Munro’s voice, and released it through his New World Pictures.

Soon after its U.S. theatrical run, STARCRASH got onto television and VHS, but for more than twenty years, it was very difficult for American fans to see. Amazingly, Shout Factory bestowed upon audiences a sparkling 2-disc DVD and Blu-ray release in 2010. All the better to ogle the gorgeous Caroline Munro, as well as Roberto Piazzoli’s colorful cinematography and Armando Valcauda’s unconvincing but creative special effects.

Author Stephen Romano (SHOCK FESTIVAL), a big STARCRASH fan, really spearheaded the project and provides not one, but two audio commentary tracks. I listened to just one, the so-called scene-specific track, and Romano’s knowledge and enthusiasm shine through. Both Cozzi and Munro sit before Shout Factory’s cameras for lengthy interviews that cover the breadth of their careers. I wish Gortner and particularly Hasselhoff had participated, but I have no quibble with the job Shout Factory did.

The set also includes exclusive behind-the-scenes footage narrated by Romano, several STARCRASH trailers (one with commentary by Joe Dante, who edited New World’s original spot), deleted scenes, photo galleries, promotional art, deleted scenes, and even features dedicated to the film’s score and special effects. No doubt STARCRASH, as well as the rest of Shout Factory’s Roger Corman Cult Classics line, will reign as one of 2010’s best DVD releases.

Terminal Island

Seven years before MAGNUM, P.I. premiered on CBS, Tom Selleck and his co-star Roger E. Mosley appeared together in TERMINAL ISLAND. The director is Stephanie Rothman, who made this highly entertaining drive-in picture for Dimension Pictures, the studio she helped found with her husband, producer Charles S. Swartz, and former Roger Corman colleague Lawrence Woolner. She, Swartz, and Jim Barnett (DEATH AT LOVE HOUSE) also wrote the screenplay, which offers an unusual feminist spin on the usual women-in-prison tropes.

In addition to Selleck and Mosley, the cast is packed with familiar faces, many from television, that provide the loony premise with credibility. After the death penalty is rescinded in California, convicted murderers are sent to an island to serve their life sentences. There are no guards or walls, and the prisoners (male and female) are free to set up camp, grow their own food, and fend for themselves.

The prisoners have split into two camps: one sadistic, led by the vicious Monk (Mosley) and Bobby (Sean Kenney, the crippled Captain Pike on STAR TREK), in which the women are used as sex slaves, and one peaceful, led by A.J. (LAND OF THE GIANTS’ Don Marshall). Phyllis Davis (VEGA$), Marta Kristen (LOST IN SPACE), Barbara Leigh (THE STUDENT NURSES), and Ena Hartman (DAN AUGUST) are the women who escape to A.J.’s team, which spurs guerrilla warfare between the two sides.

The oddly structured script starts from the point of view of the Hartman character, but switches its focus to Kenney and Marshall, and finally ends on a hopeful note with Selleck as the hero. The schizophrenic music score by Dimension’s Michael Andres (with uncredited work by Jerry Styner) rarely fits the action, though it admittedly matches Rothman’s comic-book tone. Styner’s bizarre country song performed by Jeff Thomas under the opening titles does neither except lead the audience to expect a parody.

Certainly, Rothman is seeking a tongue-in-cheek tone. Her direction isn’t clever — it would be difficult to be, considering the short schedule and grueling location work — but it is colorful and sharply paced. Filmed on location in Malibu and on the nearby Paramount Ranch, TERMINAL ISLAND is silly fun with generally good acting and plenty of action.

But It's Always After Midnight

A college professor (Ramy Zada) teaching a course on fear invites some students over to his pad to share scary stories. Jim and Ken Wheat, who wrote drafts of THE FLY II and A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4, wrote and shared directing duties on this United Artists horror anthology with three short vignettes. Shot in Los Angeles for $3 million in 38 days, AFTER MIDNIGHT is an amiable enough shocker, but riddled with a clichéd screenplay without a surprise in sight. UA gave it a token theatrical release in November 1989.

The first story, “The Old Dark House,” finds married couple Kevin (Marc McClure, SUPERMAN’s Jimmy Olsen) and Joanie (CRITTERS’ Nadine van der Velde) stranded at night in the boonies and forced to seek help at a creepy old house. The hokey story is well-played by the earnest actors, but sunk by a poorly directed climax.

The sexy Judie Aronson (FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER) plays one of four teenage girls whose convertible breaks down in a strangely empty urban area and are chased by a pack of killer Dobermans. “A Night on the Town” is not especially scary, but the Wheats milk the suspense and stuntwork for all they can.

Marg Helgenberger, then on CHINA BEACH, but a star of CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION for the past decade, stars in “All Night Operator” as, what else, an operator at an answering service who is menaced by the psycho stalker (Alan Rosenberg, Helgenberger’s real-life husband) of a soap actress. Like the previous story, the Wheats are competent at creating suspense, but the problem with all three vignettes is their derivative premises.

The Zada wraparound, which co-stars Jillian McWhirter (of BLOODFIST VII and VIII) as a college student who has premonitions of doom, allows the Wheats to show off some impressive fire and stop-motion effects, but is ultimately ridiculous and pointless, leaving the patient viewer with a somewhat sour taste in his mouth. Anthologies were the rage in the 1980s on television and in films, but Jeff Burr’s FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM, for one, is a much better example of the genre.

Selling The American Dream

It’s difficult to discuss the debut feature by 41-year-old Derrick Borte without getting into the plot twist that drives it. Surprisingly, several reviewers revealed the twist (which occurs early in the film) during THE JONESES’ brief theatrical release.

The satire works just as well if you know the twist in advance (or if you guess it), I’m happy to say, thanks to Borte’s wicked scripting and his game cast. Steve (David Duchovny) and Kate Jones (Demi Moore) and teens Mick (Ben Hollingsworth) and Jen (Amber Heard) sure seem like the perfect American upper-middle-class family with the house and the looks and the golf clubs and the mani-pedis, but it won’t take you long to guess there’s also something a little wonky about them.

THE JONESES is a smart comedy that takes shots at consumerism and the insidiousness of contemporary marketing that only falters when it falls to mush and tries to make its leading characters likable. Everyone knows from THE X-FILES and THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW (and CALIFORNICATION? Dunno, never seen it) that Duchovny possesses a wry sense of humor, but Moore, a performer I’ve never cottoned to, is a surprisingly good match for him, both physically and dramatically. Lending real heart are the always awesome Gary Cole and Glenne Headly as the Joneses’ not-so-upscale neighbors whose attempts to keep up make them tragic figures.

I’m not wild about the ending or the late-in-the-game wussification of its hard-selling characters, but the premise and cast are solid, and when Borte is brave enough to stick the knife into the material, THE JONESES works quite well.

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em

RIPTIDE was an action show co-created by Stephen J. Cannell that premiered on NBC in January 1984. Starring Perry King (CAPTAINS AND THE KINGS) and Joe Penny (JAKE AND THE FATMAN) as Cody Allen and Nick Ryder, respectively, handsome private detectives operating off a Los Angeles pier, and Thom Bray (DEEPSTAR SIX) as Boz, their nerdy computer-expert sidekick, RIPTIDE was a big hit its first two seasons.

Unfortunately, when RIPTIDE returned for Season 3 in the fall of 1985, it ran in the same Tuesday night timeslot as ABC's new juggernaut, MOONLIGHTING, which was not only a ratings sensation, but also the hippest water-cooler drama on television.

NBC finally moved RIPTIDE away from MOONLIGHTING to Friday nights, but it was too late. The Cannell show never picked up the viewers it lost, and RIPTIDE was cancelled after its third season.

However, thanks to writers Babs Greyhosky and Tom Blomquist, it went out with a bang. Its next-to-last episode, airing April 18, 1986, was "If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em." It guest-starred Richard Greene (not the ROBIN HOOD actor) and Annette McCarthy as the stars of a familiar-looking TV series who team up with the newly hired technical advisers Nick and Cody to solve a crime.

The good-natured parody was the subject of an article in the Los Angeles Times that focused on the episode's genesis and how the writers managed to appease ABC lawyers. What's really interesting, as you'll see in the clip below, is how spot-on Greene and McCarthy were with their impressions of Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd. Neither went on to great fame, though Greene still works steadily as a guest star in TV dramas (like BONES).

Here is the teaser and the opening titles to RIPTIDE's "If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em" with a cool surfer-dude theme composed by Mike Post and Pete Carpenter:

Who Loves You And Who Do You Love?

Stephen King’s bizarre novella THE RUNNING MAN became a silly TriStar motion picture in 1987 with Arnold Schwarzenegger at the height of his fame. Of all people, Paul Michael Glaser, the curly-haired star of STARSKY AND HUTCH, replaced Andrew Davis (THE FUGITIVE) behind the camera during principal photography, but was miscast for a movie demanding a director with a taste for wit. THE RUNNING MAN is slick, boisterous, occasionally funny, violent, but never as clever or wild as the material would suggest.

The film’s most brilliant concept is the casting of smarmy game show host Richard Dawson (FAMILY FEUD) as Damon Killian, the vicious host of the inhumane yet enormously popular television series THE RUNNING MAN, which pits convicts in a run for their lives on city streets against colorfully clothed killers like Fireball (Jim Brown), Dynamo (Erland van Lidth), and Captain Freedom (Jesse Ventura). Yep, it’s THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME, but with a lot more neon.

It’s a little tough to reconcile a totalitarian 2017 with small tube TVs and cassette tapes, not to mention a worldwide television sensation among a general public that appears to live in squalor on the streets. I suppose it doesn’t matter much when Arnold is tossing off quips and heads are exploding. Schwarzenegger has nothing in common with King’s Ben Richards, but he’s a game enough lead as a wrongfully accused cop blackmailed by Killian into competing in his vulgar spectacle.

Impressively filling her Spandex costume is a tasty Maria Conchita Alonso at the height of her hotness, and Yaphet Kotto (ALIEN) classes up the joint as Schwarzenegger's prison buddy. Also in the oddball cast are Marvin J. McIntyre, Mick Fleetwood, Dweezil Zappa, Kurt Fuller, Dey Young, Lin Shaye, Sven-Ole Thorsen, Karen Leigh Hopkins, and Professor Toru Tanaka with dance choreography by Paula Abdul!

The Zombie Rabbit Award

Sorry that my postings have been infrequently lately, but I've been using the waning weeks of summer to chill out a little and take a bit of a blogging break. Don't worry--I don't intend this to be a permanent schedule, and fully plan to get back into a more regular posting habit very soon.

In the meantime, let me humbly thank my online colleague Don Guarisco over at Schlockmania for graciously presenting me with a Zombie Rabbit! I'm not entirely sure of its origin, but I appreciate Don's gesture as the compliment it is intended to be.

The occasion is also a good excuse to link to some other blogs worthy (or more worthy) of a Zombie Rabbit. Please see Don's Schlockmania post for a good number of blogs you should be reading if you're interested in the kinds of entertainment we celebrate here at the Crane Shot. I won't repeat any of the blogs Don has already awarded Zombie Rabbits too, though I do recommend them.

Bruce Holecheck really needs to post more often at Cinema Arcana, but you should have fun playing his weekly game of Name That Movie every Monday.

Congratulations to father-to-be Neil Sarver at The Bleeding Tree, who waxes eloquently on trashy movies and comics and sometimes trashy movies about comics.

Chris Stangl at The Exploding Kinetoscope also needs to post more often, but he makes up for it with long, detailed, intricate articles of interest.

My Twitter pal Emily at The Deadly Doll's House of Horror Nonsense is always good for two or three smart film reviews--with screen caps!--each week.

My longtime colleague at Mobius Home Video Forum and good friend Richard Harland Smith is one of several Movie Morlocks at the Turner Classic Movies website. He recently wrote a great piece on the fine actor and even finer physical specimen Woody Strode in the manliest of man movies, THE PROFESSIONALS.

I don't know who he is or what he does by day, but by night, Outlaw Vern is my favorite film critic on the planet. He's unquestionably the funniest, but underneath the gags and distinct writing style is a real love of film and knowledge to match.

Finally, Wrong Side of the Art is an amazing collection of high-definition movie posters from years past. I love to see what this blog lays on me day after day. Some of them are definitely not safe for work, however, so wait to experience these cool one-sheets until you get home.

There are dozens more that I could share that would be as deserving of a Zombie Rabbit as the blogs I've mentioned above, and if I have neglected you, I apologize. Thanks again, Don!