Monthly Archives: September 2024

Retro Television Review: Death Takes A Holiday (dir by Robert Butler)

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 Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay.  Today’s film is 1971’s Death Takes A Holiday!  It  can be viewed on YouTube.

For a few days in 1971, no one dies.

The Vietnam War continues but there are no casualties.  There are natural disasters but no one loses their life.  Doctors are stunned.  World leaders start to panic.  An emergency session of the UN is called to debate what to do about living in a world where no one is dying.  One gets the feeling that the world’s leaders prefer it when people are dying in wars and disasters.

Death has taken a holiday.

Death (Monte Markham) has become confused as to why humans so desperately want to live despite the fact that the world in which they exist is not always a happy one.  He is particularly confused by the elderly Judge Earl Chapman (Melvyn Douglas), who has suffered multiple strokes and other ailments and yet has always resisted whenever Death has come for him.  Death decides to take his holiday on the isolated beach where the Judge and his family are spending their weekend.  Though Death introduces himself as being David Smith, the Judge recognizes him.  It turns out that the Judge was always aware of death lingering around him and his family.

Death, for his part, has fallen in love with the Judge’s headstrong and rebellious daughter, Peggy (Yvette Mimieux).  In fact, Peggy was meant to die on the beach but, as soon as Death saw her drowning, he decided not to take her and instead allowed her to wash up back on the beach.  Death explains to the Judge that he can only spend so much time on vacation and that soon, people will start dying again.  Death says that he’ll be taking Peggy to the afterlife after the weekend ends.  The Judge tries to change his mind but Death is in love and he wants Peggy to be with him.

An adaptation of a play that inspired both 1934’s Death Takes A Holiday and 1998’s Meet Joe Black, the 1971 version of Death Takes A Holiday is a well-acted and intelligent made-for-television movie, one that eschews heavy-handed drama in favor of being a rather low-key meditation on what it means to both live and to die.  Melvyn Douglas and, as his wife, Myrna Loy both give poignant performances and Douglas even manages to sell the potentially maudlin moment where he explains why he has always clinged to life.  Monte Markham may not be the first actor who comes to mind when you think of someone to cast as the human form of Death but he does a good job in the role and he and Yvette Mimieux have a wonderful chemistry together.  The beach scenery is lovely and the story is an interesting one.  Clocking in at just 73 minutes, this version of Death Takes A Holiday is the best of all of them.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Check It Out! 2.13 “Love and Marriage”

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 Saturdays, I will be reviewing the Canadian sitcom, Check it Out, which ran in syndication from 1985 to 1988.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, Howard is the world’s worst boyfriend …. again!

Episode 2.13 “Love and Marriage”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on January 18th, 1987)

As I’ve said in the past, Check It Out! has never been very consistent when it comes to portraying Howard and Edna’s relationship.  Sometimes, Howard is the perfect boyfriend, a romantic bon vivant who always knows the right thing to say.  Then, other times, Howard is a complete idiot.

This episode finds Howard in idiot mode.  He forgets Edna’s birthday and even admits that the cheap flowers that he sends Edna are the result of him asking the florist to remember Edna’s birthday so Howard wouldn’t have to worry about it.  While Edna is definitely (and rightly) annoyed with Howard, she does receive some very beautiful flowers from a man named George Zuckerman.

Edna tells a jealous Howard that George was her boyfriend when she was a teenager.  She says it’s been forever since she last saw George but George has invited her to have dinner with him at a fancy French restaurant.  Of course, Howard follows Edna to the restaurant, where he gets on the nerves of the snooty maître d’ (Louis Negin, who gets the episode’s best lines) and he also meets George (Doug Paulson).

George is handsome, charming, rich, and Edna’s ex-husband.  Howard is shocked the learn that Edna was married before but Edna explains that she was only seventeen and her father made them annul the marriage after two weeks.  That still seems like a strange thing to have never mentioned in the past.  Edna and Howard have been dating for seven years, after all.

While Howard fumes with jealousy, George says he has something he needs to ask Edna.  Before he can ask, Howard throws a fit when his credit card is declined.  (“It has a $150 credit limit!” Howard snaps.  “The soup alone costs $150,” the maître d’ replies.)

Later, at the store, Marlene encourages Edna to marry George.  Edna says that she can’t marry George because she loves Howard.  Uhmm….Edna?  George is handsome and rich.  Howard runs a failing supermarket and forgot your birthday.  Not that it matters because George isn’t interested in marrying Edna.  Instead, he reveals that the annulment was never filed so he needs Edna to sign some divorce papers.  Edna agrees and then looks forward to having a romantic dinner with Howard.

This episode had some funny moments, mostly due to the work of Louis Negin and Gordon Clapp, who returns as Viker and delivers his lines with such a hilariously sincere stupidity that he elevates the entire show.  Viker reveals that he’s a tailor in this episode and he even makes Howard a suit.  Howard later wears the suit to the restaurant and, every time he moves, the suit tears just a little more.  Hey, it made me laugh!

Still, this was kind of a sad episode.  Seriously, Edna, you can do so much better!

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 9/22/24 — 9/28/24

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Just as with last week, I’ve been busy getting ready for Horrorthon and watching a lot of movies.  I haven’t watched much episodic television over the past few days.

I binged my way through several episodes of Fantasy Island and The Love Boat. I’ll be reviewing those episodes over the next few weeks.  I watched the second season finale and the the third season premiere of Miami Vice.  I’ll be posting my thoughts on the show tomorrow.  I watched a few episodes of One Step Beyond, a horror-themed anthology show from the 60s.  I’ll be posting episodes of that show throughout October.  The fun thing about One Step Beyond is that all of the shows were claimed to be based on fact.  Every episode seems like it should feature Criswell asking, “Can you prove it didn’t happen?”

On Netflix, I watched the second season of Monsters (the Ryan Murphy-produced true crime anthology show and not the old Canadian anthology series that I review for this site).  This time, the series focused on Lyle and Erik Menendez.  Though overstuffed with ten episodes, it was a clear improvement over the first season.  At first, I was worried that the series was going to glamourize the Menendez brothers in much the same way that it previously glamourized Jeffrey Dahmer.  Fortunately, that didn’t happen.  The Menendez brothers came across as being two spoiled rich sociopaths and the fact that one of them reached out from prison to complain about how he was portrayed leads me to suspect that the miniseries got closer to the truth than some of the other shows that have been made about the Menendez murders.  As is typical of Ryan Murphy’s miniseries, the end result was uneven and occasionally a bit tasteless but it was still interesting to watch.  I plan to write and post a longer review sometime next week.

Speaking of Ryan Murphy-produced true crime, I watched the third episode of American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez.  It was okay, even if it did feel as if it wasn’t really adding anything new to what we previously learned from the first two episodes.  I liked Patrick Schwarzenegger’s portrayal of Tim Tebow, even the show itself didn’t exactly treat the character fairly.  The actor playing Aaron Hernandez continues to come across as being a bit of a blank.

I plan to get caught up with Survivor next week. I might even check in on the Big Brother House, now that this season is nearly over.  I did get a chance to watch the premiere of Hell’s Kitchen this week.  I can’t wait for the first dinner service and elimination.  Just based on the first episode, this looks like it will be another good season.  Unlike Jeff Probst, who seems obsessed with changing Survivor simply for the sake of changing it, Gordon Ramsay seems to understand that there’s no need to fix something that is already working.  I always enjoy Hell’s Kitchen and I’m looking forward to this season.

And that’s it for this week!

 

Retro Television Review: Welcome Back, Kotter 4.1 “The Drop-Ins: Part One”

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 Saturdays, I will be reviewing Welcome Back Kotter, which ran on ABC  from 1975 to 1979.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, we begin the fourth and final season of Welcome Back, Kotter.

Episode 4.1 “The Drop-Ins: Part One”

(Dir by Norman Abbott, originally aired on September 11th, 1978)

The fourth season of Welcome Back, Kotter opens with a few changes.

First off, there’s new opening credits.

Did you notice one very big change?  That’s right. Sebastian Leone is no longer president of the borough.  All hail Howard Golden.

Did you notice another big change?  John Travolta is now a special guest star!  That’s what happens when you star in two hits films in a row but you’re too nice to tell your former sitcom colleagues to go away.

However, there are even more changes waiting as the new school year begins.  For one thing, there are new background students in Gabe’s classroom, joining Epstein, Washington, and Horshack.  (Barbarino is not present as the school year begins.)  Epstein has gotten a haircut and now looks like he’s 40.

Carvelli and Murray have moved into the district and are now students in Gabe’s class.

Principal Lazurus has retired and Woodman has finally achieved his dream of becoming principal.

Finally, Gabe is now Vice Principal!  The Sweathogs are superexcited and tie up Carvelli and Murray to celebrate.  Gabe is not amused and takes Epstein, Horshack, and Washington to his office.  He gives them a week’s detention.  The Sweathogs accuse Gabe of having sold out but Gabe tells them that it’s time for them to get serious about their lives and to start preparing for the world outside of high school.  Eventually, the Sweathogs are able to convince Gabe to give them two days detention on the condition that they all get jobs around the school.

Horshack and Washington run the school store.  Epstein runs the projector for the audio visual department.  But when Horshack and Washington leave the store a mess and Epstein unrolls a film in the middle of the school hallway, Gabe is again forced to be the disciplinarian.  Now, even Horshack thinks that he’s sold out.

Suddenly, Barbarino shows up!  The audience goes crazy.  Barbarino is wearing what passed for good clothes in the 70s.  He tells the Sweathogs that he has dropped out of school and he has a job at the local hospital.  The Sweathogs, seeing Barbarino’s success, decide that they should drop out as well.  Gabe can only watch in stunned silence as the four Sweathogs walk out of the school….

And that’s the end of Part One!

This episode was kind of depressing to watch, to be honest.  It’s not just that the Sweathogs themselves all appear to approaching middle-age, though that certainly didn’t help.  It’s that no one seemed to be particularly enthusiastic about starting another season of this show.  (From what I’ve read, due to all of the third season’s backstage drama and the open animosity between Gabe Kaplan and Marcia Strassman, just about everyone in the cast was ready to move on.)  Even Gabe Kaplan appeared to be bored with the whole thing.  The strength of this show was its cast.  For the fourth season premiere, everyone is obviously just going through the motions and, compared to the earlier seasons of this show, it’s sad to see.  There’s just no energy or joy to any of the performances.

Hopefully, things will improve with the second part!  We’ll find out next week.

Live Tweet Alert: Join #ScarySocial for Sleepaway Camp!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter.  I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie!  Every week, we get together.  We watch a movie.  We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, at 9 pm et, Deanna Dawn will be hosting #ScarySocial!  The movie?  1983’s Sleepaway Camp!

If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag!  I’ll be there tweeting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well.  It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.

Sleepaway Camp is available on Prime and Tubi!

See you ther

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.11 “The Sweetest Sting”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!

Agck!  Bees!

Episode 2.11 “The Sweetest Sting”

(Dir by David Winning, originally aired on January 16th, 1989)

I have never been stung by a bee or a wasp.

I’m extremely lucky.  All of my sisters and all of my cousins have been stung once or twice.  My mom was stung multiple times when I was little.  But I have never once been stung.  I once had a wasp fly straight into my hair and I was able to shake it out without it stinging me.  I have had bees land on my bare arm and just sit there without stinging.  I once knocked a wasp nest off of a farm doorway and the wasps, while obviously angry, made no attempt to sting me in retaliation.  For whatever reasons, the wasps and the bees have decided not to mar my beautiful skin with any of their stingers and I appreciate them for that.

Of course, I’m also very scared that they might someday change their mind.  I have no idea what it feels like to be stung but I know it’s painful.  On a more serious note, I have no idea whether or not I’m allergic to bees or wasps.  I appreciate their kindness but I’m still terrified of their capriciousness.

That’s why this somewhat silly episode of Friday the 13th freaked me out.  I say silly because it was about McCabe (Art Hindle), a psycho beekeeper who kept all of his bees in a cursed hive.  Whenever he would unleash the bees, the cheap special effects were so bad that it would have made me laugh if not for the fact that I’m already scared enough of innocent bees.  Imagine how I feel about cursed ones!

The bees produced cursed honey that can be used to restore the youth of people who allow themselves to be stung by McCabe’s bees.  (Because they’re magic bees, they don’t die after stinging someone.  I always understood that stinging someone caused a bee to be ripped in half so I’m not sure how the magic works but whatever.  I actually kind of feel bad for bees now.)  However, the people who accept McCabe’s youth treatment have to have a constant supply of honey and McCabe needs a constant supply of dead bodies so that his clients can fake their own deaths.  So, McCabe orders his clients to kill if they want to remain young.

To be honest, the whole plot kind of feels like it was made up on the spot but the great Canadian character actor Art Hindle gives an amusingly over-the-top performance as McCabe.  McCabe is the type of villain who laughs whenever he’s thinking about doing something evil.  There’s nothing subtle about Hindle’s performance but it works in the contest of the episode’s overall absurdity.  The bees are obviously fake.  Art Hindle chews up every piece of scenery he can get his hands on.  The episode’s a lot of fun.