Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.26 “Coven of Darkness”

Posted on January 31, 2025 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 Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The entire series can be found on YouTube!

This week, the second season comes to an end.

Episode 2.26 “Coven of Darkness”

(Dir by George Bloomfield, originally aired on June 12th, 1989)

Jack and Ryan have recovered a “witch’s ladder,” and they’ve put it in the vault. However, Lysa Redding (Maria Ricossa) is a witch who wants the ladder back. Lysa (and I do always enjoy hearing my name, even if it is misspelled) is the head of a coven that was connected to evil old Uncle Lewis. Lysa performs a ceremony that causes Ryan to become possessed so Micki has to become a white witch so that she can battle the dark witches.

Now, I should mention that Micki has never had magical powers before. In the past, she’s usually been the down-to-Earth skeptic of the group so Jack suddenly announcing that Micki is actually a powerful witch took me by surprise. But anyway, Micki is able to use her powers to break Lysa’s spell. It’s such a grueling experience that Jack says its possible that she’s used up all of her magic powers. What? Really? I guess …. okay, I don’t know what to say about that. They suddenly gave Micki magic powers and then took them away.

This was a weird episode. Based on this episode and Prisoner, I’m going to guess the production was nearly out of money at the end of season two. Coven of Darkness takes place over three different locations and it’s mostly just continual jump cuts between Lysa spellcasting and Ryan freaking out and Micki looking intense. It all feels very cheap and basic and not at all like a typical episode of Friday the 13th. Instead of using their wits to defeat evil, Chris and Micki use magic. It just doesn’t feel right.

I’m going to guess, though, that this was an attempt to reboot the show for the third season. I’ve seen enough of the third season to know that the reboot didn’t stick around but I can kind of see what they were going for. With John D. LeMay not planning on being a part of the third season, it perhaps seemed like it would be a good idea to turn the show into the Micki Witchcraft Hour. And it probably would have been interesting but it definitely wouldn’t have had the same feel as classic Friday the 13th.

This brings season two to an end. It was, overall, a good season, though I think the show lost its way a little towards the end. The introduction of Johnny Ventura was rather clumsily handled and a few too many episodes seemed to forget that the show was supposed to center on finding Lewis’s cursed antiques. The highlight of the show was the chemistry between the three leads. I’m curious to see how the upcoming season will play without Ryan.

We’ll find out starting next week!

MR. MAJESTYK (1974) and a shotgun butt to the nuts! Happy Friday!

Posted on January 31, 2025 by Bradley Crain

One of my favorite Charles Bronson films is MR. MAJESTYK, and one of my favorite scenes in any movie is this badass masterpiece. It encompasses just about everything I love in a movie. It has the beautiful Linda Cristal. It has the slimy Paul Koslo who doesn’t really understand who he’s dealing with. It has Bronson saying tough guy lines in a way that only he can say them…”you make sounds like you’re a mean little ass-kicker…” And finally it has that shotgun. It just doesn’t get any better than this.

Enjoy my friends, and have a great weekend!! This should help!

Caddyshack II (1988, directed by Allan Arkush)

Posted on January 31, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Welcome back to Bushwood Country Club! The Gopher is still stealing balls and burrowing through the course. Ty Webb (Chevy Chase) is still the majority shareholder of the club, even though he now only plays golf inside of his mansion. And that’s it!

Only the Gopher and Chevy Chase returned for Caddyshack II. Ted Knight died before the movie went into production. Bill Murray didn’t want to recreate his role from the first movie. Rodney Dangerfield was involved in developing the movie but then dropped out after two million had already been spent in pre-production. Chevy Chase was paid seven figures to return and he later called it one of the biggest mistakes of his career. Only the Gopher didn’t complain.

With hardly anyone from the first film willing to come back for a second round, Caddyshack II features comedian Jackie Mason as Jack Hartounian, a real estate developer whose daughter, Kate (Jessica Lundy), wants to be a part of the WASPy Bushwood social set. When Chandler Young (Robert Stack) keeps the plain-spoken Jack from being given a membership, Jack teams up with his old friend Ty and buys Bushwood. He turns Bushwood into an amusement park called Jackie’s Wacky Golf. Kate tells Jack that he’s ruined everything and turned Bushwood into Coney Island. Chandler hires survivalist Tom Everett (Dan Aykroyd) to kill Jack and then agrees to play Jack in a round of golf. The winner wins Bushwood.

A bust with both audiences and critics, Caddyshack II is one of the worst sequels ever made. Why would you do a sequel to Caddyshack that features almost nothing that made the first film so entertaining? Jackie Mason was a great comedian and writer but he wasn’t much of an actor and he makes a poor replacement for Rodney Dangerfield. The film really loses me when Chandler Young literally pays money to have Jackie murdered. It’s just a step too far. Not even Ted Knight tried to kill Rodney Dangerfield and Dangerfield was a lot more obnoxious than Jackie Mason ever was. Not even the dancing Gopher can generate much laughs and Kate’s right. Jackie’s Wacky Golf really is a terrible place.

There are some interesting actors and actresses in the supporting cast. The lovely Dyan Cannon plays Jack’s love interest and is one of the few good things about the movie, despite having no chemistry with Mason. Randy Quaid gives a manic performance as Jack’s lawyer, a role that was originally meant for Sam Kinison. Jonathan Silverman is the good caddy who falls for Jack’s daughter while Chynna Phillips is Chandler’s snobby daughter who befriends Kate and tells her she should change her last name to Hart. Dan Aykroyd delivers all of his lines in a high-pitched voice that isn’t funny but which becomes very annoying.

The slobs win again. The snobs are defeated and the Gopher dances with noticeably less enthusiasm. There has never been a Caddyshack 3.

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 1.9 “Hearts”

Posted on January 31, 2025 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 Fridays, I will be reviewing St. Elsewhere, a medical show which ran on NBC from 1982 to 1988. The show can be found on Hulu and, for purchase, on Prime!

This week, Dr. Ehrlich faints!

Episode 1.9 “Hearts”

(Dir by Mark Tinker, originally aired on January 11th, 1983)

Ralph, the guy who thinks that he’s a bird, is now running around the hospital and checking in on patients and signing his name as “Dr. Bullfinch.” I guess it says something about how big St. Elgius is that Dr. Chandler spends most of this episode asking people if they’ve ever heard of or met Dr. Bullfinch. The show plays this for humor. There’s only two problems.

First off, we’ve already done the fake doctor thing. Dr. Craig spent three episodes searching for Dr. Barnum, the fictional doctor who Mark thought was interested in buying his car. Since Chandler was a part of that whole practical joke, it surprised me that it didn’t occur to him that maybe Dr. Bullfinch also didn’t exist.

Secondly, Ralph is one of those character who was amusing at first but, after episode-after-episode of him disrupting the hospital and making the patients uncomfortable, I can’t help but feel that it’s time for Ralph to at least try to fly off into the sunset, even if it leads to him crashing to the pavement below. Dr. Westphall tells Dr. Beale to keep Ralph locked up in the psych ward or else Westphall will send Ralph to a mental hospital. I think Westphall should have just gone for it. I mean, does Westphall not realize the legal jeopardy that the hospital is now in because of Ralph’s continued presence?

While that was going on, an overweight woman (Conchata Ferrell) checked into the hospital with stomach pains and was shocked to discover that she was pregnant and going into labor. This was a heartbreaking story, largely due to the wonderful performance of Conchata Ferrell. No one — from her father to the nurses at the hospital — has ever treated her with any sort of compassion. In the end, she checks out of the hospital and abandons her baby in the maternity ward.

A new doctor (Dorothy Fielding) came to work at St. Eligius and — hey! — she has a romantic history with Dr. Samuels. *Yawn* Samuels is the most boring character on the show and I tuned out this storyline as soon as I realized he was going to be at the center of it.

Newly separated from his wife, Dr. White is having a nervous breakdown and has to abandon a patient so that he can cry in the stairwell. Dr. Westphall offers him some heartfelt advice but you can tell that Westphall thinks that White doesn’t have what it takes to be a doctor. I think Westphall is right.

Finally, an ill Dr. Erhlich tries to get out of assisting Dr. Craig with an operation. Craig tells Erhlich to man up. Erhlich faints during the operation. Surprisingly, Dr. Craig is not angry with Ehrlich because, as he explains it, the important thing is that the operation was a success. Seeing how sick Ehrlich has become, Craig tells Ehrlich to go home and get some rest.

“Do you have a car?” Dr. Craig asks.

“No, I usually ride the bus,” Ehrlich replies.

“Good,” Craig says, “you shouldn’t be driving in your condition.”

And I have to admit that exchange made me laugh. William Daniels gives such a good performance as the arrogant yet talented Dr. Craig that you can’t help but love the guy, no matter how much of a jerk he is. After knowing him best as the always compassionate Mr. Feeney on Boy Meets World, it’s been interesting to watch William Daniels play a character as thoroughly self-centered and vain as Dr. Craig. On the drama St. Elsewhere, William Daniels often provides some much-needed comedic relief. On the (very silly) sitcom Boy Meets World, Daniels was the dramatic relief. It’s a strange world.

This episode had a few too many plotlines that I either didn’t care about or which felt a bit played out (like Ralph the Birdman). It wasn’t St. Elsewhere at its best but William Daniels and Conchata Ferrell still saved the episode.

Song of the Day: Sister Morphine by Marianne Faithfull

Posted on January 31, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s song of the day comes to us, like our music video of the day, from the late Marianne Faithfull.

Co-written with Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, Sister Morphine was originally recorded by Faithfull in 1969 but her recording was initially banned in the United Kingdom due to the song’s drug-related content. The Rolling Stones would go on to release a version of the song in 1971 and Faithfull would record and release the song a second time in 1979.

Here I lie in my hospital bed
Tell me, Sister Morphine
When are you coming around again?
Oh I don’t think I can wait that long
Oh you see that my pain is so strong

All the other patients say
They’ve never seen a man with such pain
Tell me, Sister Morphine
When are you coming round again?
Oh I don’t think I can wait that long
Oh you see that I’m not that strong

The scream of the ambulance
Is sounding in my ear
So tell me, Sister Morphine
How long have I been lying here?
What am I doing in this place?
Why does the doctor have no face?
Oh I can’t crawl across the floor
Can’t you see, Sister Morphine?
Just tryin’ to score

Well the actions go to show
Things are not what they seem
Please, Sister Morphine
Turn my nightmare into dream
Oh can’t you see that I’m fading fast?
And this shot will be the last

Please, cousin Cocaine
Lay your cool hands on my head
Hey, Sister Morphine
You better make up the black bed
‘Cause you know and I know
That you want me, I’ll be dead
You sit around and watch
The clean white sheets stained red

songwriters: Marianne Faithfull/Mick Jagger/Keith Richards

Put A Pep In Your Step With The Covers of Pep!

Posted on January 31, 2025 by Dazzling Erin

Pep Stories was an “adult” magazine that was irregularly published from 1926 to 1938. Because no one is really sure of who published the magazine or even how many issues there were, Pep Stories is now a highly sought collectible. Here’s a sampling of the covers of Pep!

Artist Unknown

by Raymond Albert Burley

by Enoch Bolles

by Earle Bergey

by Frank Dorias

by Enoch Bolles

by Earle Bergey

by Enoch Bolles

THE SEA WOLF (1993) – Charles Bronson vs. Superman!

Posted on January 31, 2025 by Bradley Crain

Back in the early 90’s, I was finishing up my high school years and starting up my college years, but I was still paying attention to every move my movie hero Charles Bronson was making. Bronson was at a very difficult place personally during those years as he was continuing to mourn the passing of his wife, Jill Ireland, and it really shows in his choice of roles. His first two films of the 90’s, THE INDIAN RUNNER and YES VIRGINIA, THERE IS A SANTA CLAUS, featured the aging star in the roles of a man dealing with great suffering and loss. Bronson’s third role, as Captain Wolf Larsen in the made for cable TV film, THE SEA WOLF (1993), featured him as the “thinking man’s megalomaniac” from Jack London’s work of classical literature. I couldn’t wait to see the film, but I had just one small problem. We didn’t have cable-TV in Toad Suck, Arkansas, so I would not be able to watch it on the night of its April 18th, 1993 premiere on the TNT channel. It was tough waiting a few months for that VHS release, but it was worth it!

In a nutshell, Charles Bronson plays Wolf Larsen, the captain of the ship The Ghost, who saves shipwrecked aristocrat Humphrey Van Weyden (Christopher Reeve) and con woman Flaxen Brewster (Mary Catherine Stewart). He saves them, but once they’re on board his boat, they find out that Larsen rules over the crew with an iron fist. They also find out that he’s on a life or death mission to find his brother, Death Larsen, and exact revenge for past conflicts. Will they be able to survive this voyage?

Charles Bronson had mostly steered clear of roles that could be described as “villainous” later in his career, but it must have felt great to take on one of Jack London’s most famous characters. I remember the advertising would show him maniacally spouting lines like, “It’s better to reign in hell than serve in heaven!” Wolf Larsen is a man of contradictions. He’s ruthless and mad with power when it comes to the men and his boat, but he also appreciates great works of literature and philosophy. Even at 71 years of age, the icon is able to project arrogant menace and brute strength. Charles Bronson and Wolf Larsen almost seem made for each other, and he’s fantastic in the role. It’s his strongest performance of the 1990’s.

There’s another great performance in the film, and it comes from Christopher Reeve as Humphrey Van Weyden. Most famous as Superman, Reeve was not having a lot of success at this point in his film career and was wanting meatier roles when he accepted this part. I was blown away with his performance as the intelligent and bullied aristocrat-turned-cabin boy who is forced to resort to some level of savage and barbaric behavior in order to survive Larsen’s boat! Christopher Reeve had really become a good actor at this point in his career, and he handles the role expertly. You believe his transformation throughout the course of the film as he adapts to the brutal conditions aboard the ship yet still retains his humanity. Reeve himself has been quoted as saying that THE SEA WOLF was a project “I really believed in and still think of as some of my best work.” I couldn’t agree more, Mr. Reeve.

THE SEA WOLF was directed by veteran filmmaker Michael Anderson who had been working since the 1940’s with credits like AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS (1956) and LOGAN’S RUN (1976) to his name. He and Bronson were roughly the same age, and they’re both in fine form. In order for these types of films to work, you need a good director who can deliver a solid finished project and Anderson brings his A-game to this production.

I’ve included the trailer for THE SEA WOLF below:

Live Tweet Alert: Join #FridayNightFlix For The Sword and the Sorcerer!

Posted on January 31, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on Twitter and Mastodon. 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 10 pm et, #FridayNightFlix presents one of my Arleigh’s favorite movies, The Sword and the Sorcerer!

If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #FridayNightFlix hashtag! It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.

The Sword and the Sorcerer is available on Prime! See you there!

Scenes That I Love: That Iconic Moment From Tough Guys Don’t Dance

Posted on January 31, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Norman Mailer was better-known as a writer than a filmmaker but, over the course of his limited directorial career, he did come up with one scene that will never be forgotten. That scene is a scene that I love from 1987’s Tough Guys Don’t Dance.

Take it away, O’Neal!

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Norman Mailer Edition

Posted on January 31, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Norman Mailer, running for mayor of New York City in 1969

4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films is just what it says it is, 4 (or more) shots from 4 (or more) of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films lets the visuals do the talking.

Norman Mailer wasn’t just a writer and symbol of New York City. He was also an aspiring filmmaker, a director who made three experimental films in the 60s and one studio film in the 80s. And while none of his films could really be described as being a hit with either audiences or critics, they do — to a certain extent — epitomize an era. Plus, the story of Rip Torn hitting Mailer with a hammer during the filming of Maidstone will live forever.

In honor of Norman Mailer the director, here are….

4 Shots From 4 Norma Mailer Films