Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 3.10 “The Waiting Game”

Posted on February 19, 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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on YouTube.

This week, the survivors of the end of the world discover that they might not as along as they think they are.

Episode 3.10 “The Waiting Game”

(Dir by Bruce Spandello, originally aired on December 9th, 1990)

Following a nuclear war, four survivors are stuck in two different shelters. In one shelter, Lt. Eric Tyler (Doug McKeon) and Captain Stanley Levitt (Stephen Burleigh) wait until it’s safe to go outside. They are in communication, via walkie-talkie, with Lt. Maureen Knox (Carrington Garland) and Capt. Andrew Garza (Leo Garcia). Knox and Garza are not handling things quite as well as Tyler and Levitt. In fact, Garza is convinced that he sees people moving outside of the bunker and he wants to go outside and investigate, despite the fact that the whole world is presumably radioactive now. Tyler and Levitt struggle to keep Garza and later Knox from going outside to look for phantom survivors. Soon, Tyler and Levitt start to realize that they aren’t as alone as they thought they were.

The idea behind this episode of Monsters is an intriguing one. Though a nuclear war has wiped out most of human civilization, it hasn’t destroyed an ancient vampire who is now roaming the world. In fact, the war has just made the vampire even stronger. The nuclear fallout has blocked out the sun, plunging the world into darkness and allowing the vampire to move around freely. Once it becomes obvious that Knox and Garza have both been captured and turned into vampires, Tyler and Levitt are faced with the question of how long they can resist. They may have survived the war but now, it appears that they’re going to be trapped in their bunker for the rest of their lives.

This was a superior episode of Monsters. I don’t know the specifics of what was going on behind-the-scenes but Monsters seems to have really hit its stride during the third season. The production values are noticeably higher than they were during the first two seasons. The guest stars are better-known. In general, the stories themselves are far more interesting and intelligently written. This episode is atmospheric and appropriately claustrophobic and it also features four excellent performances from McKeon, Burleigh, Garland, and Garcia. It’s hard to imagine an episode this good airing during the show’s first or even second season. But it’s definitely an example of the quality that I’ve now come to expect from the third season.

Personally, I would have stayed in that bunker for as long as it took. And I really do think the vampire kind of screwed up. By turning everyone into a vampire, he pretty much guaranteed that he and his new friends are going to run out of food in record time.

14 Days of Paranoia #5: Bloodknot (dir by Jorge Montesi)

Posted on February 19, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1995’s Bloodknot, we are introduced to a grieving family.

Evelyn (Margot Kidder) and Arthur (Allan Royal) are mourning the death of their oldest son, who was in the military and who died during a military operation in the Middle East. Their other son, Tom (Patrick Dempsey), spends his time working on cars and helping out local racecar driver Mike (Craig Sheffer). Youngest daughter Gail (Ashleigh Ann Wood) doesn’t really have much of a personality but she’s definitely worried about her mother.

Suddenly, Connie (Kate Vernon) shows up in town. Wearing a uniform that is slightly too large for her, Connie claims that she served with Evelyn’s dead son and that they eventually became more than just friends. That’s strange, Evelyn says, he never mentioned you. Connie replies that she encouraged him to write more but, for whatever reason, he didn’t. Everyone agrees that what’s important now is that Connie has introduced herself to the family. Soon, Connie is living at the mansion and making flirtatious eye contact with both Arthur and Tom. One might expect Evelyn to be concerned about this but instead, Evelyn is too busy walking around in a depressed daze and blaming her “sinful” past for all the recent tragedy.

You probably already guessed that Connie is not who she says she is. Indeed, Connie has come to the family with an agenda of her own. She’s looking for vengeance and I won’t spoil it by revealing what she’s upset about but I will say that it’s fairly dumb and makes less sense the more that you think about it. Tom’s girlfriend, Julie (Krista Bridges), suspects that Connie is a liar but can she prove it? Julie even talks to the officer from whom Connie stole her uniform after Connie met and seduced her at a bar. Why would Connie, who seems to be willing to kill anyone, leave that one person alive? Obviously, it’s so Julie can learn the truth but still, it’s an oversight on Connie’s part that makes little sense.

(Julie isn’t a very interesting character but she does get to wear a really nice pair of boots so at least she’s got that going for her.)

Looking at the members of this film’s cast — Patrick Dempsey, Craig Sheffer, Kate Vernon — and you have to wonder if someone specifically said, “Let’s make an paranoia-themed, erotic thriller with the least interesting actors of the 90s.” (Yes, Dempsey got better but, in this film, he was still doing the goofy awkward thing.) This film goes through all the usual steps. Connie starts out as being friendly and then progressively reveals herself to be more and more unhinged. The men are reduced to stuttering incoherence by the sight of Connie smiling at them. For this type of film to work, the actors have to be fully willing to embrace the melodrama but instead, both Kate Vernon and Patrick Dempsey give oddly lowkey performances, with Vernon’s attempt at a seductive smile instead coming across like a smirk that should have clued everyone in to the fact that she was not to be trusted. If you’re appearing in a film like this, you should at least have a little fun. As for Craig Sheffer, he’s as mind-numbingly dull as ever.

The film does improve a bit towards the end, largely because Connie’s secret reason for harassing the family is so implausible that it can’t help but be a bit entertaining to listen to the characters discuss it. Overall, though, this was pretty boring. Let this film be a lesson to all — embrace the melodrama!

Previous entries in 2025’s 14 Days Of Paranoia:

Cattle Queen of Montana (1954, directed by Allan Dwan)

Posted on February 19, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Pop Jones (Morris Ankurm) and his daughter Sierra Nevada (Barbara Stanwyck) leave their ranch in Texas and head up to Montana to take over some land that Pop has inherited. Evil Tom McCord (Gene Evans) wants the land for himself and conspires with a member of the local Blackfoot tribe, Natchakoa (Tony Caruso), to take it over. After a surprise attack leaves Pop dead, Sierra is nursed back to health by Colorados (Lance Fuller), the son of the Blackfoot chief. Sierra tries to reclaim her land from McCord, with the eventual help of the mysterious gunslinger Farrell (Ronald Reagan).

There are a lot of reasons why this B-western doesn’t really work, a huge one of them being that Barbara Stanwyck was several years too old to be playing Morris Ankrum’s innocent daughter. The biggest problem though was casting Ronald Reagan as a mysterious gunslinger. Farrell is a character who is supposed to keep us guessing. We’re not supposed to know if he’s a good guy or a bad guy. But as soon as Ronald Reagan shows up and starts to speak, we know everything we need to know about Farrell. There was nothing enigmatic or even dangerous about Ronald Reagan’s screen persona. He came across as being more open and honest as just about any other actor from Hollywood’s Golden Age. For the role of Farrell, it appears that he went a day without shaving and he tried not to smile while on-camera but he’s still good old dependable Ronald Reagan. That pleasantness and lack of danger may have kept him from becoming an enduring movie star but it did serve him very well when he moved into the political arena.

Cattle Queen of Montana was one of the 200 westerns that Allan Dwan directed over his long career. It’s not one of his more interesting films, though he does manage a few good action sequences. A far better Dwan/Reagan collaboration was Tennessee’s Partner, which was released four years after this film.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 5.18 “His Girls Friday/A Wife for Wilfred/The Girl Who Stood Still”

Posted on February 19, 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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986! The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!

Love, exciting and new …. come aboard, they’re expecting you….

Episode 5.18 “His Girls Friday/A Wife for Wilfred/The Girl Who Stood Still”

(Dir by Robert Scheerer, originally aired on February 13th, 1982)

Wilfred (Tom Smothers) is a single guy who tells the crew that he’ll pay $10,000 to whoever helps him find a wife on the cruise. The members of the crew each introduce Wilfred to a different woman and soon, Wilfred has five women following him all over the boat. However, when Isaac hears Wilfred bragging about how he conned the crew into doing all the work for him and how he was lying about the $10,000, the crew hires Marilyn (Connie Stevens), who runs the ship’s flower shop, to pretend to Wilfred’s wife.

Ha! Joke’s on Wilfred! No wait, the joke’s on the crew. Marilyn and Wilfred fall in love. Meanwhile, Julie remains single.

Meanwhile, Howard Ethan (Dick Van Patten) boards the ship with his loyal and superefficient secretary, Doris (Rue McClanahan). Doris is a great secretary but when Howard finds out that Cindy Nevins (Judy Landers) is looking for a secretarial job, he tries to figure out how to get Doris to quit so that he can hire Cindy. Maybe he and Doris could just fall in love. Myself, I wonder why people were always doing work while on The Love Boat. Isn’t a cruise supposed to be a vacation? And yet, every episode seemed to feature someone determined to spend the cruise in their cabin and getting some work done. I appreciate the spirit, I guess. I mean, I write film reviews while I’m on vacation so I guess I can relate. But still, if you’re going to pay for a luxury cruise, wouldn’t you at least want to use it as an excuse to forget about your responsibilities on the mainland?

Finally, Bess Hensinger (Vera Miles) boards the boat with her daughter, Abigail (Denise Miller). Abigail is stunned to learn that Bess invited a boy that Abigail likes to join them on the cruise. How will Jim (James Osmond) react if he discovers that Abigail has …. scoliosis!? This storyline was actually the best of the episode, if just because it was the only one where the male half of the romantic pairing didn’t come across as being totally sleazy. Jim was a genuinely nice guy and, needless to say, he didn’t care that Abigail has scoliosis. Denise Miller give an excellent performance as the insecure Abigail. As an asthmatic teenager, I always dreaded the thought of using my inhaler in front of other people so I could relate to what Abigail was going through. I may not have cared about the other two stories but I was happy things worked out for Jim and Abigail.

One good story out of three is usually not something brag about but Abigail and Jim were such a winning couple that they really did make this episode worth the trouble. Despite Wilfred and Howard, this was a good cruise.

I Watched Art Show Bingo (2017, Dir. by Matthew Fine)

Posted on February 19, 2025 by Dazzling Erin

Wil Hunter (James Maslow) wanted to be a painter in New York but instead, he ended up working for his Dad’s storage unit business with his brother, aspiring filmmaker Orrie (Jesse Pepe). When Wil’s ex-girlfriend, Susan (Lillian Solange Beaudoin), arranges for Wil to have a tent at a local art show, it revives Wil’s dreams of making his living as an artist. While Orrie films a documentary about what’s goes on behind-the-scenes at an art show, Wil gets to know fellow artists like Chief (Robert Wilson Seymone) and Vic (Jason Kypros). He also falls in love with the owner of tent-next-door, Rachel (Ella Lentini).

Art Show Bingo is a sweet movie, a love story with an edge of authenticity. I get the feeling that it was made by people who actually have experience with art fairs and “starving artist” shows because all of the little details feel true, like the customers who try to set their own prices, the kids who don’t often understand that are should be looked at but not touched, and the snooty judges who dislike everything they see. I’ve been to enough amateur art fairs that I immediately recognized a lot of the situations and the characters in Art Show Bingo. (After seeing this movie, I’m definitely going to be nicer the next time I go to one.) Personally, I was not really that impressed by Wil’s paintings but art is often in the eye of beholder and his work did get better as the movie went on. Orrie got on my nerves but I liked both Wil and Rachel and I really wanted to see them get together.

I liked Art Show Bingo a lot more than I thought I would. It wasn’t perfect but it still left me smiling.

Song Of The Day: Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! by Dean Martin

Posted on February 19, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

We woke up to glorious snow this morning. It’s pretty, even if it’s not quite the blizzard that we were promised by the weather service. That said, it’s 11 degrees outside and I’m looking forward to spending the next few days cuddled up inside.

In others words, let it snow!

Here’s Dean Martin expressing the thought perfectly in today’s song of the day.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful
But the fire is so delightful
And since we’ve no place to go
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

Man it doesn’t show signs of stopping
And I brought me some corn for popping
The lights are turned way down low
Let it snow! Let it snow!

When we finally kiss goodnight
How I’ll hate going out in the storm
But if you’ll really hold me tight
All the way home I’ll be warm

And the fire is slowly dying
And, my dear, we’re still goodbying
But as long as you’d love me so
Let it snow! Let it snow and snow!

When we finally kiss goodnight
How I’ll hate going out in the storm
But if you really grab me tight
All the way home I’ll be warm

Oh, the fire is slowly dying
And, my dear, we’re still goodbying
But as long as you’d love me so
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Songwriters: Jule Styne / Sammy Cahn

SHANE (The TV Series) – Episode 8: The Other Image (originally aired October 29th, 1966)

Posted on February 19, 2025 by Bradley Crain

Episode 8 begins with Sam Grafton (Sam Gilman) riding up to the Starett cabin as Shane (David Carradine), Tom (Tom Tully). Marian (Jill Ireland), and Joey (Christopher Shea) are chopping and stacking wood. He has a new plow for the family, and he also has a letter that has arrived for Marian from Boston. The letter is from Mr. Warren Eliot (Robert Brown), a handsome former boyfriend who is now a state Senator in Massachusetts. His letter explicitly states the fact, and also reminds Marian, that she was once “the most beautiful girl in Boston.” Tired of working like a mule for little or no appreciation and only discussing things like plow handles and wood for the winter, Marian is excited when Warren’s letter announces that he is coming for a visit. This throws the household, and Shane, into quite a tizzy. And it gets even worse when Warren arrives, for everyone but Marian and Rufe Ryker (Bert Freed) that is. Marian feels like she’s 18 again, and Ryker sees this as an unexpected opportunity to get the Starett’s and Shane out of the valley. Spending their days riding horses and talking about the old times, the new times, and everything in between, Warren eventually asks Marian to marry him and go back to Boston. Marian is unable to say yes or no immediately and asks for a little time to think about it, especially since it would be such a big change for Joey. Of course, all of this puts Shane in a pissy mood, but he still won’t tell Marian exactly how he feels, even though she presses him about it a couple of times. Will Marian agree to marry the dashing Warren Eliot? Will Ryker finally get his hands on the Starett land? Will Joey and his turtle have to travel across the country? Will Shane have to pull up stakes and move on down the trail? I think you probably know the answers, but the fun is always in watching it unfold!

Near the end of my review of episode 7, I made the following comment, “I don’t think they (Shane and Marian) look at each other longingly a single time, which did make me a little sad. Here’s hoping they’ll double that up in Episode 8!” All I can say is be careful what you wish for. In this episode, Marian and her old boyfriend, now Senator Eliot, take center stage. And Shane is off to the side sulking most of the time while Marian is basking in all the compliments and attention. I was kind of hoping that Warren would turn out not to be quite as perfect as he first appears, you know, one of those deals where he has duplicitous motives or something. But no, he really is just about perfect. And Shane, poor Shane… you would think that he might finally tell Marian how he really feels about her. But not our Shane. When she point blank asks him what he thinks she should do, with a little hope in her voice that he might try to talk her out of it, his response is “you’d be crazy not to say yes.” And then he goes off to sulk some more. At the end of the day, I can’t help but wonder if Shane doesn’t have a hell of a point! But the heart wants what the heart wants, and it doesn’t always make sense.

As for the moments where Shane and Marian look longingly at each other, this episode does indeed double up with a couple of doozies. The first time is when Shane tells her that he introduced himself to Warren earlier that day at Grafton’s as her “hired man.” She tells Shane that “you know you’re family. You know that don’t you Shane? Don’t you?” As Shane is hitching up his horse to leave, she runs out the door and stares at him, then he stares at her and then does a double take, and then she stares at him some more. Even I started to get a little uncomfortable! And there was another scene late in the episode where they chop wood together late in the evening that has be serving as a metaphor for making love or something. They are working that wood together and looking at each other and sweating. The scene ends with her saying “it’s good to be needed,” to which he replies, “yeah” while somewhat out of breath. From that point forward, we know poor Warren doesn’t stand a chance. I’ve never watched any of these episodes before starting this series of reviews, so I had no idea this was coming when I finished up last week’s review. Needless to say, Episode 8 fulfilled my quota of sexual tension between the two for at least the next few episodes combined!

Overall, while I did enjoy episode 8, I must admit that it’s not one of my favorite episodes so far, especially with Shane coming off more like lovelorn teenager than a tough gunslinger for most of the episode. The resolution is a little silly as well, with Shane and Warren actually teaming up in a bar fight with Ryker’s men. But with that said, the writers must be credited for providing me exactly what I asked for in my last review, in spades. So, thank you Jack Schaefer and Ellen Violett! As we’re reaching the midway point of the complete series, I’m looking forward to what episode 9 has to offer.

Scenes That I Love: Angie Dickinson Hits Lee Marvin In Point Blank

Posted on February 19, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Point Blank (1967, directed by John Boorman)

Today is the anniversary of the birth of one of the greatest of the screen tough guys, Mr. Lee Marvin! Today’s scene that I love comes from the 1967 film, Point Blank. In this short but emotionally exhausting scene, Angie Dickinson hits Lee Marvin’s career criminal, over and over again. Marvin, for his part, barely reacts. This scene is the epitome of Lee Marvin’s mystique. He played men who only showed emotion when it was necessary. Dickinson hits Marvin to try to make him feel something but Marvin’s career criminal in beyond such concerns.

From Point Blank, here is today’s scene that I love:

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special John Frankenheimer Edition

Posted on February 19, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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

John Frankenheimer was born 95 years ago today, in New York City. He got his start working in live television and went on to become one of the best directors of thrillers around. After getting off to a strong start in the 60s, directing several classic films (many of which had a political subtext), Frankenheimer struggled in the 70s (though even that decade saw him directing the classic Black Sunday) before making a comeback in the 90s. (1998’s Ronin is regularly cited as having one of the best car chases ever captured on film.) He was also one of the first film directors to make the transition to regularly working for cable channels like TNT and HBO. Indeed, the films that he made for HBO played no small part in establishing HBO’s reputation as being a “prestige” network.

It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 John Frankenheimer Films