Monthly Archives: April 2024

Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 1.20 “Rendezvous”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night 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 Baywatch Nights, a detective show that ran in Syndication from 1995 to 1997.  The entire show is currently streaming on You tube!

This week, Mitch and the Gang screw up another easy case.

Episode 1.20 “Rendezvous”

(Dir by Georg Fenady, originally aired on May 4th, 1996)

Mitch, Ryan, and Garner are hired to track down Bradley Thurman (John Sanderford), a former top executive who embezzled over twenty million dollars and then, with the help of plastic surgery, went into hiding.  Thurman has come to California to track down his wife and child, both of whom are in the witness protection program.  They are told that, if they help to capture Bradley, they will be entitled to 20% of whatever money is recovered.

“20% of 20,000,000,” Mitch says, dreamily.

“Or 20% of nothing,” Ryan adds, revealing that she at least understands that both this show and presumably Baywatch would be over if Mitch ever became independently wealthy.

Donna and and Griff help out with the case, despite the fact that neither one of them is a detective and they both already have jobs that should presumably keep them busy.  I mean, Donna owns a bar and it seems like that would require a lot of work on her part.  Instead, she’s always either training to become a life guard, pursuing a modeling career, and trying to help Mitch solve a case.  If I was Donna, I would be concerned about the fact that I’m always being told to go flirt with the bad guys.  It seems like a dangerous assignment to give to someone who isn’t actually a detective.  Griff, as a professional photographer, at least has a skill that is regularly used in actual detective work.

Even though this episode’s story felt like a return to the type of plots that Baywatch Nights featured when it first premiered, it was still a rather inconsequential episode.  Bradley Thurman was hardly a clever or even a menacing villain and the fact that he got as close to his wife and his child as he did had less to do with any skill on Thurman’s part and everything to do with Mitch just not being very good at his job.

Actually, why are Mitch, Ryan, and Garner such terrible detectives?  Mitch’s problem is that he never seems to focus on the case at hand.  Instead, he’s always trying to flirt with Ryan or looking out at the ocean to see if anyone’s drowning.  Being a detective requires concentration and that seems to be something that Mitch struggles with.  Garner, meanwhile, is a bit too cocky for someone who, despite appearing in the open credits, hardly ever actually appears on the show.  But still, Ryan seems like she should have everything that it takes to be a good detective but, every show, she makes the same mistakes as Mitch and Garner.  I think Ryan actually is a good detective.  She’s just being dragged down by Mitch’s incompetence.  I think if Ryan went off on her own, she’d have a lot more success.

Next week, Mitch helps an old friend who thinks his wife is an imposter!

Film Review: Hitler — Beast of Berlin (dir by Sam Newfield)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

1939’s Hitler — Beast of Berlin opens with a shot of Nazi stormtroopers marching down a Berlin street.  As they pass, every civilian stands and gives them the stiff-armed Nazi salute.  A couple sitting in a park does it.  A woman pushing a baby carriage does it.  A group of children do it.

Despite outward appearances, not everyone in Berlin is a supporter of Hitler or the Nazis.  Hans Memling (Roland Drew) is an intellectual and a veteran of World War I.  He knows that Germany’s economic policies are, in fact, making the country weaker.  He knows that Hitler is determined to provoke a war that Germany cannot win.  Prophetically, Hans speaks of the risk of German citizens being forced to fight in a war that is only being fought on behalf of Hitler’s ego.  He warns that Berlin and Germany will be destroyed if Hitler is not stopped.

Along with a group of other dissidents, Hans prints an underground newspaper, one that presents the truth about what is happening in Germany.  Working with him, among others, is his brother-in-law, Karl (Alan Ladd, in an early role) and a priest named Father Pommer (Frederick Giermann).  Their contact in the Gestapo is Alfred Stahlhelm (played by Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, a German actor who escaped Germany when Hitler came to power).  Stahlhelm is an alcoholic who fears that he will accidentally slip up when he’s drunk.  As he explains it, a member of the Gestapo is expected to drink and visit brothels when he is off-duty.  If he doesn’t, he will be immediately suspected of insubordination.

When the Gestapo does come for Hans’s operation, Hans finds himself separated from his wife (Steffi Duna) and imprisoned.  The only thing that keeps Hans alive is that the camp commandant is an old friend from World War I.  Hans can only watch as his allies are either executed or forced, after torture, to declare their loyalty to Hitler.  When Hans is finally given an opportunity to escape, he must decide whether to flee to Switzerland or to remain in Germany and continue to fight the Nazi regime.

The most interesting thing about this film is that it was made in 1939 and released into theaters a month after Germany invaded Poland.  The film was released at a time when America was still officially neutral and when isolationism was still a popular policy.  It was released at a time when many Americans were still dealing with the trauma of World War I and, as such, felt that Europe should be left alone to deal with its conflicts on its own.  As such, the film struggled with both the enforcers of the Motion Picture Production Code but also with local censors who felt that the film might offend the German communities within their towns.  James G. Stahlman, editor of the Nashville Banner, was moved to write an editorial calling for the film to be banned because it might inspire audiences to want to go to war with Germany.  Despite all that, Hitler — Beast of Berlin did well at the box office, though many theater owners chose to advertise it as being titled either Beast of Berlin or The Goose Steppers.

Seen today, parts of the film seem naive.  Despite the film being fervently and unapologetically anti-Nazi, it is still obviously a film made at a time when the full depravity of the Nazi regime had not yet been revealed.  The scenes in the concentration camp feel as if they could have been lifted from any 1930s prison film and they certainly come nowhere close to depicting what we now know was actually happening.  Indeed, the film barely acknowledges the anti-Semitism that lay at the heart of Nazi ideology.  But the film does do a good job of portraying life in a society where no one can be trusted and where simply saying the wrong word can lead to prison, torture, and even worse.  The film captures the fear and paranoia of living under a dictatorship and certainly, it deserves credit for calling out the Nazis and their leaders by name.  At a time when many people were living in denial about what was happening in Europe, this film took a clear and firm stand.  In 1939, the film may have been called “propaganda” but today, it feels like prophecy.  Everything that Hans predicts in this film would come to pass in reality.  The film was a warning that was heeded too late.

Bonanza Town (1951, directed by Fred F. Sears)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The frontier community of Bonanza Town has been taken over by the corrupt businessman, Krag Boseman (Myron Healey).  No one can stand up to Krag because the local judge (Luther Crockett) is under Boseman’s control.  The judge’s son (Ted Jordan) writes to the Durango Kid and asks him to come to Bonanza Town and lead a group of vigilantes to overthrow Boseman.

The Durango Kid, whose real name is Steve Ramsay (Charles Starrett) somehow receives the letter and heads into town.  As Steve, he gets a job working for Boseman and looks for evidence that Boseman is actually being bankrolled by a notorious outlaw named Henry Hardison (played by the film’s director, Fred Sears).  As the masked Durango Kid, he defuses the vigilante’s violent plan and, with the help of Smiley Burnette, he investigates what Boseman has on the judge.

Charles Starrett played the Durango Kid in 131 films.  In fact, he appeared in so many movies that the majority of Bonanza Town is made up of flashbacks from 1947’s West of Dodge City.  Despite all of the flashbacks, Bonanza Town is one of Starrett’s better films, featuring an interesting story and good performances from both Fred Sears and Luther Crockett.  Sears shows some imagination with his staging of the many gunfights and, as always, Starrett is convincing riding a horse and carrying a gun.

Bonanza Town is a fairly serious film and Smiley Burnette’s trademark comedic relief feels out of place but the kids in 1951 probably enjoyed it.  While everyone else is shooting guns and committing murder, Smiley is running his barber shop and turning a potato into a musical instrument.  While the Durango Kid dispenses frontier justice, Smiley sings a song and leaves his customers bald.  They were a good team.

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 4.19 “The Proxy Billionaire/The Experiment”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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 1984.  Almost the entire show is currently streaming on Daily Motion.

This week, things get weird.

Episode 4.19 “The Proxy Billionaire/The Experiment”

(Dir by Richard Benedict, originally aired on March 21st, 1981)

This week’s episode is a bit of an odd one.

The first fantasy is fairly typical for the series.  Playing two roles, Robert Goulet is cast as both a billionaire and as Frank Miller, a Wall Street analyst who wants to be a billionaire.  The real billionaire agrees to allow Frank to live his life for the weekend.  Frank soon discovers that being a billionaire is …. well, actually, it’s pretty cool.  Except, of course, Phyllis Davis and Troy Donahue are plotting to poison him at a luau so that they can steal all of his money.  Fortunately, Mr. Roarke shows up at the luau in time to catch the vial of poison as Davis and Donahue attempt to toss it away.  Frank learns that being a billionaire is fine as long as no one wants to kill you.  Still, he has to return to his normal life at the end of the weekend.  Fortunately, the millionaire’s administrative assistant (Britt Ekland) has fallen in love with Frank and she decides to leave the Island with him.

As I said, this story felt pretty typical of Fantasy Island.  Probably the highlight was Mr. Roarke walking in on Tattoo badgering Frank for financial advice.  Roarke responded by giving Tattoo a strong glare that, if nothing else, reminded the audience that Tattoo and Roarke absolutely despise each other.

The other fantasy was …. well, it was weird.  Dr. Lucas Bergmann (James Broderick) and his daughter,  Lisa (hey!), come to the Island.  Each has a fantasy.  Lisa (played by Laurie Walters) says her fantasy is for Lucas to relax and enjoy himself and to stop obsessing over bringing the dead back to life.  Lucas’s fantasy is to bring the dead back to life.  Roarke sets Lucas and Lisa up in a bungalow that once belonged to another scientist who also wanted to play God.  Roarke warns Lucas that the local Islanders are superstitious and they might not appreciate him tampering in God’s domain.

(If the Islanders are that superstitious, how are they handling living on a magical island that is ruled by a mercurial demigod?)

Soon, the Islanders are beating their drums and Lucas’s mute assistant (Woody Strode) is looking concerned.  Lucas steps outside and discovers that Lisa has apparently drowned in a nearby lake.  Lucas decides that she’ll be the subject of his experiment.  Can he bring her back to life?  Lucas doesn’t find out because the Islanders storm his bungalow and Lucas runs into the jungle, fleeing until he eventually runs into Roarke, Tattoo, and …. LISA!

It turns out that Lisa was only pretending to be dead in order to teach her father a lesson.  And it also turns out that the Islanders were in on it and Woody Strode can speak.

WHAT!?

Seriously, was there not a simpler and perhaps less traumatic way to teach Lucas a lesson?  This seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to.  Lucas does realize that he doesn’t need to raise the dead to be happy so that’s good.  Still, this whole thing just feels weird.

Of course, weird is good when it comes to Fantasy Island.  With Roarke and Tattoo barely on speaking terms, it’s even more important for the fantasies to be memorable.  And I will never forget about the time Mr. Roarke tricked a scientist into believing his only child was dead.  Seriously, I’m stunned Mr. Roarke was never sued.

Next week, we meet Mr. Roarke’s goddaughter!

Here’s The Exclusive IMAX Trailer For Kingdom of the Planet Of The Apes

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Another Planet of the Apes film?

Indeed!  And here’s the exclusive IMAX trailer for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes which …. I mean, it might be good.  The trailer is effective.  The other Planet of the Apes films have largely been good, except for the one Tim Burton did.  (Even the bad ones — like Battle For The Planet of the Apes — have been oddly entertaining.)  That said, Andy Serkis was really the heart and soul of the whole reboot and he’s not in this one.  On the plus side, the great Kevin Durand is in this film and if anyone was ever meant to be play a tyrannical warlord who takes over a post-apocalyptic Earth, it’s Kevin Durand.

Anyway, here’s the trailer!

Scenes That I Love: Alec Guinness In The Bridge on The River Kwai

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The great Alec Guinness, one of the best actors of all time, was born 124 years ago on this date.

Today’s scene of the day comes from the film that won Guinness the Oscar for Best Actor, 1957’s The Bridge on the River Kwai.  In that film (which was one of many that Guinness made with director David Lean), Guinness plays Col. Nicholson, a British POW who is tasked, by the Japanese, with building a bridge.  Though many of his men claim that it will mean collaborating with the enemy, Col. Nicholson feels that the bridge should be a symbol of British ingenuity.  As Nicholson explains it, the bridge will show what the British are capable of doing, even under the most trying of circumstances.  Eventually, Nicholson’s obsession with showing up his captors by constructing the perfect bridge blinds him to everything else that is going on.

In this scene, Nicholson reveals just how obsessed he has become.  It’s a phenomenal piece of acting from Guinness, an actor who — up until the film — was largely known for his comedic performances.

Music Video of the Day: We’re An American Band by Poison (2006, directed by Poison)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In 2006, as a part of their 20th anniversary celebration, Poison recorded a cover of We’re An American Band and also released this music video, which is made up of behind-the-scenes footage of Poison recording the song and also archival footage from the band’s Glam metal heyday.

After all these years, Poison still occasionally play and tour together and they seem to have accepted their status as a nostalgia act with more grace than many of the other bands from the hair metal era.  Even back in the 80s, when they were huge, Poison seemed to have a more down to Earth attitude about stardom than many of their contemporaries.  You wouldn’t necessarily expect it from the music they were performing at the time but their interview was one of the highlights of Penelope Spheeris’s The Decline of Western Civilization Part II.  Unlike some other performers, they stayed focused on having a good time and making the type of music that they wanted to hear and, as a result, they have the type of fan loyalty that many American bands could only hope for.

Enjoy!

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 1.20 “Rainy Day”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night 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 CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983.  The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee!

What would CHiPs be like without motorcycles?  We’re about to find out.

Episode 1.20 “Rainy Day”

(Dir by Gordon Hessler, originally aired on March 2nd, 1978)

While riding his motorcycle on the California highway, Baker groans as he feels a drop of water.  He tells Ponch that it’s going to rain and the two of them are going to end up getting stuck in a patrol car.

“It’s only sprinkling!” Ponch replies.

One jump cut later and Ponch and Baker are trapped in the middle of a downpour.  Despite the heavy rain and the fact that they’re getting soaked, they still manage to save a teacher after a car swerves on the slick road and hits her school bus.  (Apparently, in 1978, teachers also had to drive the school buses.)  The teacher is young and attractive so, of course, Ponch tells her that she and her students can drop by the station and see him any time that they want.

As for the rain, it turns out that Baker was right.  After giving them a hard time about their wet uniforms (and not even bothering to acknowledge that those uniforms got wet while Baker and Ponch were saving someone’s life), Getraer assigns them to a patrol car for the day.  It’s a new patrol car so Getraer warns them not to get a scratch on it.  Usually, I can kind of understand why Getraer is a bit weary of Ponch but, in this episode, the guy’s just a jerk about everything.

You can probably already guess what the main problem with this episode is.  The appeal of CHiPs, at least from what I’ve seen so far, is that it features a lot of exciting motorcycle stunts.  Chase scenes involving motorcycles are fun to watch because motorcycles can go extremely fast and they can weave in-and-out of traffic.  The show works best when Ponch and Baker are on their motorcycles.  This episodes put them in a bulky, slow-moving squad car.  Even stuck in the car, Ponch and Baker manage to catch a car thief and they put an end to an illegal gambling casino that’s been hidden inside of an RV.  But it really doesn’t matter because they’re in a squad car.  There’s nothing exciting about a squad car.

And yes, the squad car does get trashed, specifically while Ponch and Baker are chasing a degenerate gambler (Herb Edelman) who was seeking revenge against the RV casino.  Getraer is not happy about the damage to the car, despite the fact that there really wasn’t any way to avoid it and Ponch and Baker managed to prevent a lot of people from getting injured.  Fortunately, Officer Grossman (Paul Linke) accidentally backs into the squad car, leaving it ambiguous as to who is responsible for what damage.  Getraer will just have to get mad at everyone, I guess.

I love the rain so I did appreciate the fact that this episode featured a lot of it.  But otherwise, the whole thing just felt off.  I don’t care how wet it is outside.  Baker and Ponch just do not belong in a car.

Film Review: Conspiracy (dir by Frank Pierson)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 2001 film, Conspiracy, takes place at a villa on the outskirts of Berlin.  It’s a lovely villa and, as we can see during the film’s opening moments, it’s about to play host to a meeting of very important people.

The date is January 20th and the year is 1942.  Having conquered much of Europe, Nazi Germany is now at war with the Allies.  Reinhard Heydrich (Kenneth Branagh), the young chief of the Reich Security Main Office and the man who many feel will eventually succeed Adolf Hitler as the leader of the Third Reich, has been directed to call a conference so that he and his deputy, Adolf Eichmann (Stanley Tucci), can “discuss” ways to solve “the Jewish question.”  One-by-one, representatives of the Reich’s bureaucracy show up at the villa.

At the start of the meeting, the men discuss various ways to force the Jews out of Germany and all of the occupied territories.  The men chose their words carefully, speaking in euphemisms and doing their best to sound like concerned government officials.  The men know what they’re talking about but they still seem to feel the need to avoid coming right and saying it.  As they talk, it becomes clear that everyone is trying to stay in Heydrich’s good graces while, at the same time, avoiding the fact that they understand the truth about what Germany is doing.  It’s not until halfway through the meeting that Heydrich and Eichmann reveal that Germany’s policy has already been determined and that concentration camps with gas chambers have already been designed and built.  The meeting is less about discussing the policy and more about getting each man at the meeting to sign off on it.  The unspoken subtext is that each man is being tested to determine who will support (and, if need be, help to cover up) the Final Solution and who will have to be otherwise dealt with.

Based on the actual minutes of the meeting, Conspiracy is film that is perhaps even more important now than when it was first released.  It’s a film that explores not only the banality of evil but also seeks to answer the question of why no one in Hitler’s government forcefully objected to the Final Solution.  (Many, of course, claimed not to know what was going on.  This film reveals just how little credibility that claim had.)  Some of the men go along because they understand not going along would mean the end of their careers and maybe their lives.  Some of the men agree because, as members of the military, they believe in supporting their country’s leadership, regardless of what that leadership represents.  Some of the men agree because they want to stay in Heydrich’s good graces.  These men represent a society where anti-Semitism is so normalized that it is accepted as a given and, while some of the men are not as outspoken in their prejudice as the others, it’s clear that all of them view the Jewish people as being a unique problem.  Those who do raise concerns do so only out of worry of what will happen to them if the rest of the world discovers what Germany is planning.  Heydrich insists that there is no need to worry because Germany will win the war.  Some of the men at the Conference are clearly not convinced of Germany’s pre-destined victory but not a single one has either the morality or the courage to refuse to endorse the Final Solution.  The film ends with a series of title cards, letting us know what became of the men who attended the Wannsee Conference.  Heydrich was assassinated during the war.  Eichmann fled to South America and hid there until he was captured by Israel in 1960.  Many of the men were executed for war crimes but a surprising number of them were either acquitted or never put on trial and went to live peacefully after the war.

Well-directed by Frank Pierson, Conspiracy has a distinguished cast who brings the historical characters to terrible life.  It’s one thing to read about what was said and planned at the Conference.  It’s another thing to actually hear those words spoken aloud and it’s a reminder that the evil of the Holocaust was not an accident nor was it something that took its perpetrators by surprise.  It was something that meticulously planned by human beings who were fully aware of what they were doing.  Kenneth Branagh makes for an arrogant and intimidating Heydrich while Stanley Tucci plays Eichmann as being the type of bureaucratic robot who is incapable of seeing human beings as anything more than just dwindling numbers on a report.  Colin Firth and David Threlfall make strong impressions as two of the more weary members of the Conference, as does Ian McNeice in the role of the type of crude, career-driven government functionary who has survived by pretending to be dumb.

At a time when anti-Semitism is on the upswing and Holocaust denialism is being mainstreamed, Conspiracy is an important film.  When others say that the Holocaust didn’t happen or that it doesn’t matter, Conspiracy defiantly says, “Yes, it did and yes, it does.”