Daily Archives: May 2, 2025

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 3.11 “Year of the Monkey”

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 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, Friday the 13th features an international adventure!

Episode 3.11 “Year of the Monkey”

(Dir by Rodney Charters, originally aired on January 15th, 1990)

Mushashi (John Fujioka) is a modern-day samurai who owns a cursed tea kettle.  When Jack, Micki, and Johnny come by his dojo in search of the kettle, Mushashi says that he will give it to them if they can prove that they are “honorable” by retrieving three cursed monkey statues that are currently in the possession an elderly businessman named Tanaka (Robert Ito).

Tanaka, however, has given the three wise monkey statues (“See No Evil,” “Hear No Evil,” and “Speak No Evil”) to his three children, Michiko (Tia Carrere), Koji (Leonard Chow), and Hitoshi (Von Flores).  Tanaka explains that each statue will challenge it’s owner.  Those who react in an honorable way will inherit Tanaka’s fortune.  Those who are dishonorable will get nothing.

Jack, Micki, and Johnny split up to retrieve the monkeys.  Johnny goes to New Yok to get Hear No Evil from Hitoshi.  Micki goes to Hong Kong to retrieve See No Evil from Koji.  Jack gets to stay in Canada (or Chicago or wherever this show is supposed to be taking place) so that he can retrieve Speak No Evil from Michiko.  What they don’t know is that Tanaka is several hundred years old.  Every time one of his children fails a monkey test, Tanaka gets a little bit younger.

It’s all about honor and dishonor and the code of the samurai in this week’s episode.  To be honest, it’s a bit of a mess.  First off, the title refers to the Chinese Zodiac but, other than our three regulars, all of the characters are meant to be Japanese.  Secondly, it’s never really clear how the cursed monkeys decide what is honorable and what is dishonorable.  Hitoshi uses his monkey to hear the thoughts of those around him and to take advantage of them.  That’s definitely dishonorable.  But then Koji is declared to be dishonorable even though his monkey did something on its own, without Koji telling it to.  Michiko refuses to use her monkey to her own advantage and is judged to be honorable.  She is told that it is now her duty to kill her father but instead, she commits suicide because killing her father would be dishonorable.  Then, Tanaka is eventually judged to be dishonorable because he stabs Musashi while Mushasi is not holding a weapon but that’s just because Mushashi dropped his sword at the very least minute.  It seems like Mushashi should be the dishonarable one for going out of his way to trick Tanaka.

My point is that this was a confusing episode.  The monkey were actually kind of cute but their powers made no sense.  I’m also not sure why experienced world traveler Jack decided to send Micki to Hong Kong instead of going himself.  In the end, this episode was pretty silly, despite the cool monkeys and the samurai-themed finale.

Scene That I Love: The Meteor Hits Hong Kong

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s scene that I love is a chaotic scene in which a fragments of a meteor cause a tidal wave to crash over Hong Kong.  It’s chaos on a budget in 1979’s Meteor!  This scene was actually filmed in Los Angeles and featured cardboard cut-outs of buildings in a big water tank.

Angels Wash Their Faces (1939, directed by Ray Enright)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Gangster William Kroner (Bernard Nedell) and his henchman Martino (Eduardo Ciannelli) frame teenager Gabe Ryan (Frankie Thomas) for setting several buildings on fire.  Because Gabe has just gotten out of reform school and is a member of a local neighborhood gang, they know that no one will believe him or his sister, Joy (Ann Sheridan).

What Kroner and Martino did not count on were the Dead End Kids (Billy Halop, Bobby Jordan, Leo Gorcey, Gabriel Dell, Huntz Hall, and Benard Punsley).  They’re not going to sit by while the adults send their friend to jail.  Plus, one of their friends was killed in one of the fires.  The kids are out for revenge and sympathetic district attorney Pat Remsen (Ronald Reagan) is on their side.

As a publicity stunt, the city is holding an election for “Kid Mayor.”  The Kid Mayor gets to run the city for a week.  What could go wrong?  Billy Halop decides to run for Kid Mayor so that he can order the arrest of Kroner and then beat a confession out of him.

Angels Wash Their Faces was one of the last of the studio-made Dead End Kid films.  After this one, they would be sent down to Poverty Row and their films would be more obviously comedic.  Angels Wash Their Faces starts out as a juvenile delinquent drama, with Gabe struggling to rebuild his life and keep on the right track.  Then it becomes a goofy comedy, with Billy Halop running for mayor and unleashing vigilante justice on the bad guys.  I’m not sure that any city would actually give the “kid mayor” the power to lock people up.  Whoever came up with the idea of a kid mayor should be run out of politics.

On the positive side, Ann Sheridan is beautiful.  Future president Reagan is his usual friendly self.  On the negative side, the movie, overall, lacks the edge that made the first few Dead End Kids films memorable and the Dead End Kids themselves seem to be pretty much interchangeable.  Huntz Hall would have made a better mayor.

 

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 1.20 “Craig In Love”

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 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. Craig does the unthinkable …. maybe.

Episode 1.20 “Craig In Love”

(Dir by Victor Lobl, originally aired April 12, 1983)

Dr. Craig is indeed in love in this episode.  He’s totally smitten with the Hungarian Dr. Vera Anya and, when his wife Ellen (played by Bonnie Bartlett, real-life wife of William Daniels) goes out of town to visit her mother, Craig makes plans to show Dr. Anya around the town and maybe more….

Ugh.  Seriously, I don’t like the idea of Dr. Craig cheating on his wife and, though this episode leaves it ambiguous as to what actually happened, it totally appears that’s what Craig did over the weekend.  Dr. Craig is pompous and full-of-himself and rude to almost everyone he talks to but it’s always appeared that he totally loved his wife.  The whole idea of him thinking about cheating — much less actually doing it — just doesn’t seem right for his character.  And, quite frankly, Dr. Anya wasn’t really that intriguing of a character so if Craig did share more than just that passionate goodbye kiss with her …. well, I prefer to pretend this entire storyline didn’t happen.

Far more interesting was the malpractice suit brought against Dr. Chandler and Nurse Daniels.  As the hospital’s lawyer explains it, there really isn’t much of a case to be made for malpractice.  Instead, the dead man’s family is just hoping to get a quick settlement out of it.  Most doctors aren’t willing to pay the legal fees and don’t have the time to go to court.  Chandler, however, is personally offended by the suit and pledges to do whatever he has to do fight it.  Yay, Chandler!  Seriously, I hate people who try to bully people into settlements.  After my Dad died, there was this crazy woman who thought she could bully his estate into giving her half a million dollars.  Instead, she received nothing and that’s exactly what she deserved.  Both Denzel Washington and Ellen Bry gave good performances this week.  Ellen  Bry’s Nurse Daniels is quickly becoming one of my favorite characters.  She doesn’t let anyone push her around.

Speaking of pushing people around, Dr. Morrison finally got sick of Dr. White’s drug addiction and the two of them ended up having a fist fight in the men’s room.  Still, when White later crashed his girlfriend’s car and needed to be bailed out of jail, Morrison was the first person that he called.  Morrison, being a saint, got White out of jail.  White, being a jerk, barely even said thank you.  Morrison went to Westphall with his concerns about Dr. White.  Westphall responded that it wasn’t his place to give a fatherly lecture.  That’s cold, Westphall.  What about when he kills a patient because he’s high?  Will you care then?  No wonder St. Eligius is getting sued for malpractice!

Finally, Dr. Samuels had a cold so he spent the entire episode whining about it.  Seriously, Dr. Samuels is one of my least favorite characters of all time.

This episode was uneven for me.  I’m not happy about Dr. Craig being a cheater but I am happy that Dr. Chandler is standing up for himself.  Dr. White appears to be heading to a very dark place.

There’s only two episodes left in the first season so I’m assuming we’re going to get some sort of closure to at least some of these storylines.  We’ll see what happens next week!

 

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special 1932 Edition

Posted on 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!

Today, we take a look at a classic cinematic year.  It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 1932 Films

The Blood of a Poet (1932, dir by Jean Cocteau, DP: Georges Piranal)

Shanghai Express (1932, dir by Josef von Sternberg, DP: Lee Garmes and James Wong Howe)

Trouble In Paradise (1932, dir by Ernst Lubitsch, DP: Victor Milner)

Vampyr (1932, dir by Carl Theodor Dreyer, DP: Rudolph Mate)

Live Tweet Alert: Join #FridayNightFlix for Meteor!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly watch parties.  On Twitter, I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday and I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday.  On Mastodon, 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, I will be hosting #FridayNightFlix!  The movie?  1979’s Meteor, with Sean Connery and friends!

If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #FridayNightFlix 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.

Meteor is available on Prime!

See you there!

Film Review: The Murder Man (dir by Tim Whelan)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Seven minutes into the 1935 film, The Murder Man, 27 year-old James Stewart makes his film debut.

He’s playing a reporter named Shorty and, since this is a 30s newspaper film, he’s first seen sitting at a table with a bunch of other cynical reporters, the majority of whom seem to be alcoholics and gambling addicts.  Suddenly, words comes down that a corrupt businessman named Halford has been assassinated, shot by an apparent sniper.  (It is theorized that he was shot from one of those carnival shooting gallery games, which was somewhat oddly set up on a street corner.  Maybe there was shooting galleries all over place in 1935.  I supposed people had to do something to keep their spirits up during the Depression.)  While the other reporters run to the scene of the crime, Shorty is on the phone and calling his editors to let them know that a huge story is about to break.

Steve Grey (Spencer Tracy) is the reporter assigned to the story.  Crime is his beat and everyone agrees that no one’s better at covering criminals and understanding what makes them tick.  Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to track Steve down.  He’s a hard drinking reporter and lately, he’s been concerned about the collapse of his father’s business.  Still, when Steve is finally tracked down, he throws himself into covering the story and speculating, in print, about who could have killed Halford.  In fact, his girlfriend (Virginia Bruce) worries that Steve is working too hard and that he’s developing a drinking problem.  She suggests that Steve needs to take some time off but Steve is driven to keep working.

It’s largely as a result of Steve’s actions that a man named Henry Mander (Harvey Stephens) is arrested and convicted of Halford’s murder.  Steve should be happy but instead, he seems disturbed by the fact that he is responsible for Mander going to jail.  When his editor requests that Steve go to Sing Sing to interview Mander, a shocking truth is revealed.

Admittedly, the main reason that I watched The Murder Man was because it was the feature film debut of James Stewart.  (Stewart previously appeared in a comedy short that starred Shemp Howard.)  Stewart is only in a handful of scenes and he really doesn’t have much to do with the main plot.  To be honest, Shorty’s lines could have been given to anyone.  That said, Stewart still comes across as being a natural on camera.  As soon as you hear that familiar voice, you can’t help but smile.

Even if Stewart hadn’t been in the film, I would have enjoyed The Murder Man.  It’s fast-paced mystery and it has a decent (if not totally unexpected) twist ending.  It’s one of those films from the 30s where everyone speaks quickly and in clipped tones.  Casual cynicism is the theme for the day.  Spencer Tracy gives a wonderful performance as the hard-drinking and troubled Steve Grey and the scene where he meets Mander in prison is surprisingly moving.  Clocking in at only 68 minutes, The Murder Man is a good example of 30s Hollywood.