Oh, the suburbs aren’t that bad!
Enjoy!
Monthly Archives: May 2023
Ghost Town Law (1942, directed by Howard Bretherton)
When two U.S. marshals are ambushed and killed while searching for a group of outlaws in a nearly deserted ghost town, Marshal Tim McCall (Tim McCoy) leaves his ranch in Wyoming to investigate the crime. He was friends with the two murdered men, making this case personal. Of course, McCall’s two fellow Rough Riders ride into town to help McCall out. Buck Roberts (Buck Jones) and Sandy Hopkins (Raymond Hatton) arrives separately and pretend to be prospectors. Their investigation leads to the outlaws (led, as usual, by Charles King), a corrupt member of the community, and a network of underground tunnels that might lead to a gold mine. As with all of the Rough Rider films, Ghost Town Law features a younger secondary protagonist who was there to appeal to audiences who didn’t remember Jones, McCoy, and Hatton from their silent and pre-code era heyday. Virginia Carpenter plays Josie Hall, who comes to the town to search for her grandmother and brother.
Starting with the two marshals getting gunned down in the line of duty, this is one of the more violent of the Rough Riders films. Since the Rough Riders are as interested in getting revenge as they are in getting justice, the Rough Riders themselves are quicker on the draw than usual. The identity of the main villain will not be a shock to anyone who has watched any of the other Rough Rider films but the use of the underground tunnels adds a new element of danger to the movie. For once, the outlaws and the Rough Riders seem evenly matched. The film also features the very lovely and likable Virginia Carpenter, making the last of her five film appearances.
As always, the main appeal is watching Jones, McCoy, and Hatton acting opposite each other. Due to the nature of the case, all three of them are more serious than usual in Ghost Town Law but it is still enjoyable to watch them discuss what’s been happening at their ranches since the last movie.
Previous Rough Rider Reviews:
Retro Television Reviews: Fantasy Island 2.23 “Cornelius and Alphonse/The Choice”
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1986. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!
Smiles, everyone, smiles! This week, we visit the other side of the Island.
Episode 2.23 “Cornelius and Alphonse/The Choice”
(Dir by Earl Bellamy, originally aired on May 6th, 1979)
This was a bit of an odd episode.
First off, the official title of the show, for this episode, was Fantasy Island Sunday Special. Usually, Fantasy Island aired on Saturdays. This episode, as you can guess by the title, aired on a Sunday. Secondly, this episode does away with both the plane and Tattoo’s signature cry of “Da Plane Da Plane,” and instead has the guests arrive on the island in a hot air balloon. Tattoo (who is once again seen driving his little car, so I guess he finally recovered it after it was stolen earlier in the season) and Mr. Roarke are joined by a second assistant, Cindy (Kimberly Beck, who readers of this site will probably recognize as the likable lead in films like Massacre at Central High and Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter). At one point, Roarke says that “Cindy helps me on this side of the Island.” If nothing else, this episode confirms that Roarke has multiple assistants and the Island is really, really big.
Actually, it’s a good thing that Cindy is there because Cornelius (Red Buttons) and Alphonse (Billy Barty) have kidnapped Tattoo! Cornelius is a former employee of the Island but he was fired for stealing. When he returns to the Island, he says that his fantasy is to just have a pleasant holiday with his friend Alphonse. However, Cornelius’s real fantasy is to get revenge on Mr. Roarke by abducting Tattoo and holding him for ransom!
Of course, anyone who has been paying attention to the show up to this point knows that Cornelius and Alphonse have made a mistake. Mr. Roarke and Tattoo obviously loathe each other. When Mr. Roarke finds out that Tattoo is being held captive in a conveniently deserted castle, he doesn’t really seem that concerned about it. And Tattoo turns out to be such a disruptive presence that Cornelius is soon begging Roarke to take him back. In the end, Roarke demands money to take Tattoo off of their hands and Cornelius and Alphone end up paying off their debt by working in Fantasy Island’s kitchen. Tattoo is amused by the whole thing, despite the fact that Mr, Roarke was essentially willing to let him die.
Meanwhile, two orphans (Kyle Richards and Michael Anderson, Jr.) are given a chance to pick their new parents. They spend time with two sets of prospective parents. (One of the potential fathers is a magician played by a youngish Regis Philbin.) From the start of the fantasy, it’s pretty obvious that they’re going to ask to be adopted by Ruth (Juliet Mills), the head of the adoption agency. And that’s exactly what happens. The episode ends with Ruth and the children boarding a hot air balloon and flying all the way back to America.
As I said, this was a bit of a weird episode, with a new assistant and a hot air balloon. “The other side of the Island” looks a like a theme park. This episode was obviously designed to appeal to children and, for what it’s worth, the IMDb trivia section states that this episode was meant to be a “backdoor pilot” for a version of Fantasy Island that would appeal to children. (I assume Cindy would have been the main character.) Unfortunately, the kidnapping humor is a bit too broad and the adoption storyline is a bit too predictable. Hopefully, next week’s episode will take place on the adult side of the Island.
Artwork of the Day: Beauty Parade (by Peter Driben)
by Peter Driben
This is from 1950.
Music Video of the Day: Padam Padam by Kylie Minogue (2023, dir by Sophie Muller)
Today’s music video of the day finds Kylie Minogue in what appears to be yet another post-apocalyptic wasteland.
Personally, I appreciate this video because of all the red. Who wouldn’t want to live in a world dominated by my favorite color?
Enjoy!
Below The Border (1942, directed by Howard Bretherton)
In the fourth Rough Riders film, the boys head down to Mexico City to defend the Garcia Ranch from a gang of cattle rustlers who are also planning on stealing the Garcia Family Jewels. (Would the Rough Riders have any legal jurisdiction in Mexico?) This time, Buck Roberts (Buck Jones) assumes the identity of a well-known outlaw who deals in stolen goods, Tim McCall (Tim McCoy) pretends to be a cattle buyer, and Sandy Hopkins (Raymond Hatton) gets a job sweeping up the local saloon. As with almost all of the Rough Riders films, the owner of the saloon, Steve Slade (Charles King), is also the leader of the thieves. Slade is blackmailing a reformed outlaw named Joe (Dennis Moore) into helping Slade and Scully (Roy Barcroft) steal the family jewels. Joe is in love with Rosita Garcia (Linda Brent).
Below the Border has much in common with Forbidden Trails, the Rough Riders film that came before it, right down to a villainous saloon owner and a former outlaw being blackmailed to return to his old ways. As usual, the outlaws try to humiliate Sandy Hopkins, just for Tim McCall to show up at the saloon and turn the tables. Scully is a despicable bully and it feels good when McCall forces him to grab Hopkins’s mop and clean up the bar himself.
It’s not the strongest of the Rough Riders films. The plot is predictable, Linda Brent gives a terrible performance as Rosita, and even the action scenes are by-the-numbers. The main appeal of Below the Border is to watch the three Rough Riders themselves. Jones, McCoy, and Hatton all seem to have genuinely enjoyed working together and that comes through in their scenes together. You never have any doubt that, even though they live in different parts of the country, all it would take is one telegram for them to get back together. The highlight of each film is the final scene, where the Rough Riders tell each other what they’ve been up to between adventures. This time, Buck invites everyone to visit him in Arizona but Tim has to get back to Wyoming and Sandy’s running a hotel in Texas. They ride off separately but there’s little doubt they will reunite as soon as there’s a new rustler who needs to be brought to justice.
Previous Rough Rider Reviews:
Retro Television Reviews: Hang Time 4.21 “Phenom Blues” and 4.22 “New York Nick”
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Mondays, I will be reviewing Hang Time, which ran on NBC from 1995 to 2000. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
Play-offs, baby!
Episode 4.21 “Phenom Blues”
(Dir by Patrick Maloney, originally aired on November 22nd, 1998)
It’s play-off time and, once again, the Tornadoes are at Indiana State University. Unfortunately, the Tornadoes are having a crisis of confidence because their first game is going to be against a team that has the best player in Indiana. Despite Julie calling them all a bunch of losers for being afraid and the Coach giving them a lot of game tape to watch, the boys are convinced that they’re going to lose and get sent home.
“This is our last night in Bloomington,” Hammer says at one point, “We should at least have some fun!”
Seriously, how can you not have fun in Bloomington?
Michael, Silk, Rico, and Hammer all go to a cow-themed amusement park. Unfortunately, due to a malfunctioning hanging gondola, they nearly plunge to their deaths. A helicopter shows up at the last minute and drops a ladder down to them. Yay, I guess. I don’t know, this was actually kind of dumb and it annoyed me that we only saw the ladder and never the helicopter. I mean, if you’re going to fake an amusement park disaster, spend some money and get a real helicopter!
Julie, meanwhile, spends the night watching game tape and talking to herself about how the other team is good but can be defeated. Even when she’s talking to herself, Julie is condescending.
Finally, Kristy and Coach K. play in a pool tournament. Kristy is playing because she wants to win a bike so that the team can give it to Coach K as a thank you present. Coach K wants to win the bike because his old bike got stolen. Sounds like a win-win, to be honest. Fortunately, Coach K has to forfeit the game so he can help rescue the players at the amusement park. Kristy wins and gives Coach K. the bike that he would have won anyways. Wow, that was suspenseful.
Anyway, having survived a near-death experience, the team is able to win their playoff game. Yay!
This was pretty dumb but it did have one funny scene where, while flipping channels on the TV, Julie comes across an old episode of Saved By The Bell and dismisses it by saying, “I’ve seen all of these 50 times already.” That’s my type of humor right there.
Well, I guess that, in the next episode, we’ll find out if the Tornadoes won that championship or not….
Episode 4.22 “New York Nick”
(Dir by Patrick Maloney, originally aired on November 22nd, 1998)
The Tornadoes are going to New York!
Wait a minute, what? Aren’t they supposed to be playing for the state championship? It is true that they won a trip to New York when they were in San Antonio but why are they going now? It doesn’t make — eh, forget it. I’m doing trying to justify this show’s messy timeline. Life’s too short and I’m getting a headache.
In New York, Mary Beth and Kristy can’t wait to go shopping at Bloomingdale’s! Julie can’t wait to talk down to everyone! Michael, Silk, and Rico can’t wait to go to a Pacers/Knicks game! And Hammer can’t wait to see his ex-girlfriend, a supermodel named Cindy! He asks Mary Beth for permission and Mary Beth is like, “Sure!” But she doesn’t really mean it. She’s jealous and annoyed and I would have been as well. To be honest, she should have just dumped Hammer right there. I mean, Julie will dump a guy just for having uneven sideburns. Why is Mary Beth always trapped in these go-nowhere relationships?
While eating lunch with Cindy, Hammer is approached by the editor of Teen Life, who wants to put Cindy and Hammer on the cover of their Coolest Couple Issue! Mary Beth says that she doesn’t have a problem with it but when Cindy and Hammer are invited to an industry party, it’s time for Mary Beth, Kristy, and Julie to put on some silly wigs and crash the party! In a fit of jealousy, Mary Beth destroys a cake and loses Hammer the job. So, now …. oh God, this headache is intensifying …. Mary Beth has to find a way to sneak into the editor’s hotel room and talk her into rehiring Hammer. In fact, Mary Beth is so persistent that the editor decides to put Mary Beth on the cover instead of Cindy. File this under things that would never happen in real life.
Meanwhile, at the Knicks/Pacers game, Michael, Rico, and Silk get into a food fight with a Knicks fan who later turns out to be a friend of the coach and …. oh, who cares? The only thing memorable about the game scene is that it was pretty much recreated word-for-word in a later episode of City Guys.
Who won the championship!? Maybe we’ll find out next week.
Film Review: The Irish Mob (dir by Patrick McKnight)
Valentino “Val” Fagan (played by Rob McCarthy) was named after Rudolph Valentino but he didn’t grow up to be a chivalrous lover, the type whose romantic eyes make hearts swoon. Instead, Val grew up to be a mobster, the head of the Irish mob. His eyes view the world with mistrust and anger. As he tells us in the cocky voice-over that runs through The Irish Mob, Dublin is his city. Whether its drugs, theft, or dealing weapons with the IRA, Val is involved.
However, it’s not easy being the boss.
For one thing, Val has the Garda after him. Detective Liz Delahunt (Pauline O’Driscoll) is obsessed with taking Val down. She’s got the wall of her office set up with one of those crazy charts that links Val and his associates to a series of unsolved murders throughout Ireland. Liz is clever and she’s determined. In one of the film’s funnier moments, she puts Val under a protection order so that he ends up with Detective Kevin Hogan (David Greene) following him around 24 hours a day and staking out his home. Whenever Val looks out of a window, Hogan gives him a friendly wave.
As well, the Corrigan Brothers, who are Val’s Amsterdam-based drug connections, have just lost a fairly large shipment of drugs and the money that they would have made from selling them. The Corrigans expect their associates to kick in to help make up for the loss and it’s pretty clear that failure to do so will lead to something not good happening. Val may be rich but he’s not that rich and he soon finds himself taking risks in order to raise the money. Right when it appears that Liz’s funding has been cut, one of Val’s brazen robberies leads to Liz being told that she’ll have all the money that she needs to pursue her case against Val.
Finally, there’s Dessie Corrigan (George Bracebridge), a monstrous sociopath who has just been released from prison and who is looking to get back into the Dublin rackets. A misunderstanding leads to Corrigan deciding that Val sold him out to the Garda. Corrigan soon starts to attack Val’s men and makes plans to come after Val himself. As with so many of the criminals in The Irish Mob, Corrigan is an idiot but he’s a very determined idiot. He’s also someone who can easily be manipulated by those looking to take over Dublin.
Val has his ways of dealing with the stress. He genuinely loves his son and comes about as close to being human as he probably can whenever he’s just being a father. Though he spends a lot of time fighting with his wife, he does have a mistress who he enjoys spending an hour or two with. And, of course, there’s always cocaine. The more stressed Val gets, the more he does. The more paranoid Val becomes, the more people he kills. It’s not easy being in charge but, as Val tells us, Dublin is his city,
Plotwise, The Irish Mob is a standard Mafia movie, complete with a philosophical voice over and scenes of random violence. Val reached his position of power by being smarter than everyone else but, now that he’s in charge, he’s forced to depend on people who are stupid, sadistic, and impulsive. Val thinks that he can control the cycle of violence but what he doesn’t understand is that the cycle controls him and not the other way around. Rob McCarthy gives a steely performance as Val and the Dublin locations give the film a gritty feel. Unfortunately, the plot itself doesn’t really feature many surprises and the film’s concluding twist, while being appropriately tragic, is still one that most audiences will see coming from a mile away. Then again, that may be the point. Val’s fate is as predestined as those who came before him and those who will come after him. In the end, the cycle just keeps repeating.
The Exciting Covers of Exciting Love
The magazine Exciting Love ran from 1941 to 1958 and it featured stories about lovelorn teenagers, loyal girlfriends waiting for their sweethearts to return from serving overseas, and married couples learning how to make it work. If the magazine had been called Boring Love, it would not have lasted as long.
Below is a small sampling of the covers of Exciting Love. I think almost all of these covers were done by Earle K. Bergey. His signature is visible on a few of them and almost all of them seem to be done in his style. The one exception is the the final cover. That cover is from 1958 and, since Bergey died in 1952, we can be sure that he was not responsible for it.
1941
1941
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1948
1948
1948
1949
1958
Monday Live Tweet Alert: Join Us For Crackerjack and The Beastmaster!
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in hosting a few weekly live tweets on twitter and occasion ally Mastodon. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of Mastodon’s #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We snark our way through it.
Tonight, for #MondayActionMovie, the film will be 1994’s Crackerjack! Christopher Plummer’s in it so you know it has to be good!
Following #MondayActionMovie, I will be guest-hosting the #MondayMuggers live tweet! We will be watching 1982’s The Beastmaster, starring Marc Singer, Tanya Roberts, and Rip Torn! The film is on Prime!
It should make for a night of fun viewing and I invite all of you to join in. If you want to join the live tweets, just hop onto Mastodon, pull up Crackjack on YouTube, start the movie at 8 pm et, and use the #MondayActionMovie hashtag! Then, at 10 pm et, switch over to Twitter and Prime, start The Beastmaster, and use the #MondayMuggers hashtag! The live tweet community is a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
Enjoy!
Through the Shattered Lens 