Author Archives: Jedadiah Leland

The Deadly Tower (1975, directed by Jerry Jameson)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Made for television, The Deadly Tower is a recreation of the terrible day in 1966 that a 25 year-old former Marine named Charles Whitman shot his wife and mother and then climbed to the top of the tower at the University of Texas in Austin and started to indiscriminately firing on the people below.  It was one of the first mass shootings of its kind.  What drove All-American boy Charles Whitman, who was eventually taken down by the police, to start his rampage is not known though the autopsy revealed that he did have a small brain tumor at the time of his death.

The Deadly Tower focuses mostly on the efforts of the policeman Ramiro Martinez (Richard Yinguez) and civilian Allan Crum (Ned Beatty) to get to the top of the tower and stop Whitman’s shooting rampage.  (Pernell Roberts, John Forsythe, and Clifton James all appear as other police officials, trying to deal with what was then an almost unheard of occurrence.)  Martinez risks his life to stop Whitman’s rampage while Allan worries that other shootings will follow.  One of the first examples of a true crime event being turned into a movie for television, The Deadly Tower a tense and effective docudrama.  Kurt Russell, who was then still known for being Disney’s top-paid star, plays Whitman.  Russell doesn’t have much dialogue in the film.  He’s blandly friendly while buying bullets and, when he’s sitting up in the tower with his rifle, he could just as easily pass for a teenager out hunting with his father during deer season.  Russell’s clean-cut appearance made him ideal for playing the role of someone who no one would have ever suspected could be capable of committing such a terrible crime.  It took courage to cast an actor then known for Disney films as one of America’s worst mass murderers and it also took courage for Russell to accept a role that was the total opposite of his family-friendly image.

The Deadly Tower used to show up on television frequently when I was a kid.  It’s still a scary movie, even if you know how it’s going to end.  Whitman may have been one of the first of his kind but sadly, he wouldn’t be the last.

Far and Away (1992, directed by Ron Howard)

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The year is 1892 and Joseph Donnelly (Tom Cruise) is a poor tenant famer in Ireland, used and exploited by the wealthy landowners.  Joseph falls in love with Shannon Christie (Nicole Kidman), the rebellious daughter of his landlord.  Shannon dreams of going to America, where rumor has it that land is being given away in the territory of Oklahoma on a first come/first serve basis.  Shannon even has some valuable spoons that she can use to raise money once they arrive in America.  Joseph, after being challenged to a duel by the Christies’ money manger, Stephen Chase (Thomas Gibson), also decides that heading to America might be a good idea.

Life in America is not as easy as Joseph and Shannon thought it would be.  They first end up in the dirty town of Boston, where Shannon loses her spoons and Joseph works for a corrupt political boss (Colm Meaney) and makes money as a bare-knuckles boxer.  They’ll reach Oklahoma eventually but not before Stephen and the Christies come to Boston and Joseph ends up working on the railroad and getting called “that crazy mick” multiple times.

Far and Away was Ron Howard’s attempt to make an American epic, in the style of John Ford.  It doesn’t work because Tom Cruise is too contemporary to be believable as a 19th century Irish immigrant and Howard tries so hard to push everything to an epic scale that it just makes it even more obvious how slight and predictable the movie’s story is.  Far and Away is full of big movie moments but it lacks the small human moments necessary to really engage its audience.  I will always remembers Far and Away because it was one of those films that seemed to take up permanent residence on HBO when I was growing up.  I didn’t really care about the film’s flaws back then.  Nicole Kidman was attractive and tall and she had wild red hair and back then, that’s all a movie needed to hold my attention.  Unlike Cruise, Nicole Kidman can effortlessly move between historical and contemporary films and, of the two leas, she comes off the best.  The movie is really stolen, though, by Colm Meaney, playing a ruthless political boss who could have taught Boss Tweed a thing or two.

Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day, when we will be celebrating the legacy of immigrants like the Christies and the Donnellys.  Far and Away tries to pay tribute to their courage and their refusal to give up, even when things were tough and deadly on the frontier.  For me, though, Far and Away will always just make me think of HBO in the 90s.

Born To The West (1937, directed by Charles Barton)

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John Wayne plays Dare Rudd, a friendly rogue who aspires to be the best poker player west of the Mississippi.  When he and his sidekick, Dinkey Hooley (Syd Saylor), ride into Montana, they meet up with Dare’s cousin, Tom Filmore (Johnny Mack Brown, billed as John here).  Filmore needs some help on his cattle drive and Dare sure does like Tom’s girl, Judy (Marsha Hunt).  Dare replaces Lynn Hardy (John Patterson) as head of the cattle drive and Lynn teams up with rustler Bart Hammond (Monte Blue) to try to get revenge.  While Dinkey tries to sell lightning rods, Dare moves the herd and even finds time to play poker with notorious gambler Buck Brady (James Craig).

This is another one of the B-westerns that John Wayne made before John Ford made him a stars by casting him in Stagecoach.  This one is interesting because Wayne is not playing his usual stolid do-gooder or even an expert marksman.  Instead, Dare is impulsive and reckless and he’s ultimately not as smart a card player as he thinks he is.  It’s rare to see John Wayne need help from anyone but that’s what he gets from Johnny Mack Brown, who shows up in time to reveal that Dare is getting cheated in his poker game.  For fans of the genre, this short oater is worth watching for the chance to see two western icons acting opposite each other.  Johnny Mack Brown and John Wayne would both go on to appear in a countless number of westerns.  Wayne became a superstar, appearing in big budget studio films.  Brown remained a mainstay on the B-circuit.  They’re amusing to watch in this film as they bounce dialogue off of each other and continually try to steal scenes from one another.  Brown is playing the type of no-nonsense, hard-working westerner who would later become John Wayne’s trademark character.

Based on a novel by Zane Grey, Born to the West is a fast-paced western featuring two of the best to ever ride a horse.

Sidekicks (1992, directed by Aaron Norris)

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Barry Gabrewski (Jonathan Brandis) is a teenager living in Houston with his father (Beau Bridges).  Barry has asthma and has a hard time at school, being picked on by everyone from the school bully (John Buchanan) to the athletics coach (Richard Moll) to the clueless principal (Gerrit Graham).  Barry has only one ally and his name is Chuck Norris!  Whenever Barry is having a hard time, he imagines taking part in an exciting mission with Chuck Norris.  In his imagination, he and Chuck recreate scenes from all of Chuck’s movies even though Barry is really too young to be watching anything that violent.

Barry wants to learn karate but is turned down by an arrogant dojo owner (Joe Piscopo, channeling Martin Kove).  Barry finally finds a teacher (Mako) who uses Barry’s love of all things Chuck Norris to train him.  Barry enters the local karate tournament and wouldn’t you know it, there’s Chuck!  He’s attending as a guest and he’s hoping to see Joe Piscopo taught a lesson in humility.  When Barry and his sensei are told that they don’t have enough members for their team, Chuck volunteers to fight with them.  No one objects to the world’s most famous martial artist deciding to take part in a local, largely amateur karate tournament.  Can Barry win the tournament with the help of his hero?

Chuck Norris famously turned down a role in The Karate Kid.  Some sources say that he was offered the John Kreese role while others say that Norris was offered the sensei role that eventually become Mr. Miyagi.  Chuck has always said that his agent turned down the script and he didn’t even know it had been offered to him until years later but Sidekicks sticks so close to the Karate Kid plot that it does sometimes feel like it was made so that we could see what Karate Kid would have been like if Chuck Norris had accepted a role.  The movie follows the Karate Kid formula while lacking the edge that made Karate Kid stand out.  Karate Kid was a coming-of-age movie with a lot of karate.  Sidekicks is a blatant celebration of Chuck Norris.

Fortunately, Chuck Norris has always had the moves to back up his high self-regard and, in this film, he actually seems to be relaxed and having fun playing a version of himself.  Sidekicks is predictable and ego-driven but it has a likable energy and Chuck shows a willingness to poke fun at his earlier movies.  Whatever else you might say about Sidekicks, there were a lot of bullied kids would have loved to have had a friend like Chuck Norris.  Sidekicks is also the only place where you can see Chuck Norris fight Joe Piscopo and there’s something to be said for that.

Mike Hammer: Murder Takes All (1989, directed by John Nicollela)

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Entertainer Johnny Roman (Ed Winter, best-known as the crazed Colonel Flagg on M*A*S*H) sends an invitation to New York P.I. Mike Hammer (Stacy Keach), asking him to come to Vegas for a job.  Hammer refuses.  Vegas is not for him.  He’s pure New York.  So, someone has Hammer abducted and thrown out of an airplane over Vegas.  Luckily, they gave Hammer a parachute.  Unluckily, for them, Hammer is now in Las Vegas and he’s pissed off.

Johnny, who says he had nothing to do with the kidnapping and just wants Hammer to help him deal with a singer who has been stealing from him, is killed by an explosive device while hosting a telethon.  Everyone suspects Hammer.  When the singer that Hammer was supposed to investigate also turns up dead, Hammer is again suspected.  Hammer has to clear his name while dealing with guest stars ranging from Lynda Carter to Michelle Phillips to Jim Carrey.

Stacy Keach was Mike Hammer for most of the 80s, playing Mickey Spillane’s notorious detective in a television series and in several made-for-TV movies, like this one.  Television was an awkward fit for Mike Hammer, or at least Hammer the way he was imagined in the books.  Mike Hammer was written to be a killer with his own brand of justice.  He was not written to be a nice person.  Instead, he was the brutal but intelligent warrior that you hoped would be on your side.  The television version of Mike Hammer was considered to be violent for the era but the show still toned down Hammer’s signature brutality.  Keach’s Hammer still killed people but he no longer gloated about it.  Stacy Keach, with his trademark intensity, was a good pick for Mike Hammer, even if the show’s scripts often let him down.

This movie is hamstrung by the fact that it was made-for-TV.  Hammer is not happy about being in Las Vegas but he can’t go off on the city in the same way that he would have in one of Mickey Spillane’s novels.  Keach still gives a good and tough performance as Hammer, getting as close to the character as anyone could under the restrictions of 80s network television.  The mystery is interesting, though Hammer doesn’t really solve it as much as he just waits until all the other suspects have been killed.  The main attraction of this one is the amount of guest stars who show up.  Lynda Carter is a great femme fatale and it’s always good to see Michelle Phillips, even in a small role.  Jim Carrey, in his pre-In Living Color days, plays an accountant and does okay with a serious role.

Who could play Mike Hammer today?  It’s hard to say.  There aren’t many believably tough actors around anymore and even those who do seem like they could hold their own in a fight don’t have the gritty world-weariness that the character requires.  (Just try to imagine Dwayne Johnson reenacting the end of I, the Jury.)  A few years ago, I would have said Frank Grillo.  In the 90s, Bruce Willis would have been the perfect Hammer.  Today, though, Mike Hammer’s time may finally have passed.

Silent Assassins (1988, directed by Lee Doo-yong and Scott Thomas)

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Elite cop Sam Kettle (Sam J. Jones) just wants to get out of Los Angeles and live a peaceful life with his girlfriend, Sara (Linda Blair), but the streets have other plans.  The evil Kendrick (Gustav Vintas) has kidnapped Dr. London (Bill Erwin) and is determined to get the code for a deadly bioweapon.  For reasons that are never made clear, Kendrick has also kidnapped young Joanna (Joanna Chong).  Backing Kendrick up is the evil Miss Amy (Rebecca Ferrati).  Backing up Kettle is Joanna’s uncle, Jun Kim (Jun Chong) and Bernard (Phillip Rhee), the son of Oyama (Mako), the owner of the local dojo.  Can Sam save the world, saved the doctor and the girl, and also save his relationship with Sara?

Silent Assassins is a terrifically fun martial arts movie.  The action is well-choreographed.  The film’s plot doesn’t make a bit of sense.  The movie is full of weird throw-away dialogue, like an offended Ms. Amy announcing that she’s “a biochemist too.”  Chong shows off his moves, Rhee plays his character as a playboy having the time of life, and Jones glowers at the camera as only Sam J. Jones can.  There’s an army of loud ninjas (so much for the silent part) and Vintas is so villainous that he even carries around a red rose as some sort of strange trademark.  The movie is full of weird details and no one seems to be taking any of it too seriously.  Movies like this are why people like me always went straight for the direct-to-video releases when we went to Blockbuster back in the day.

Linda Blair is second-billed.  When Lisa and I watched this movie, she kept track of Linda’s screentime.  Linda’s onscreen for a total of ten minutes and she spends most of that time doing the worried girlfriend thing.  It’s a sad waste of Linda Blair, the one misstep of an otherwise great experience.

The Lone Rider Rides On (1941, directed by Sam Newfield)

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In the days of the wild west, Tom Cameron (George Houston) rides the range alone, seeking vengeance for the murder of his family.  They were killed when their wagon train was ambushed by the same outlaws who has previously sold them a plot of land.  Tom was a child at the time and he only remembers that the leader of the outlaws had a distinctive facial scar.  Tom Cameron is The Lone Rider.

No, not the Long Ranger.  The Lone Rider!  George Houston was an opera star who made for a surprisingly convincing gunslinger and the movie opens with him singing I Am The Lone Rider, just to make sure that it was understood that his vengeance-driven vigilante was a completely different character from that other vengeance-driven vigilante.  The Lone Rider is looking to avenge his family and, with the help of store keeper “Fuzzy” Jones (professional sidekick Al St. John), the Lone Rider does just that.  Though this is a standard B-western, the plot is a little more serious than most other B-movies.  This was the first of several Lone Rider movies and, despite the obviously low budget, there’s some emotional heft to its story.  Tom discovers that his brother (Lee Powell), who he thought had died in the attack, actually survived and joined up with the gang.  The story is about both Tom’s vengeance and his brother’s redemption.  Fans of the genre will enjoy the film’s classic western story and George Houston’s convincing performance as a gunslinger on a mission.

The Lone Rider would ride on for 16 more movies, the last one being released in 1944.  In 1942, George Houston was replaced in the lead role by Robert Livingston.  Houston went from starring in westerns to becoming one of Hollywood’s most respected vocal coaches.  (Howard Keel was one of his students.)  Shortly after the Lone Rider road for the last time, George Houston died while planning his musical comeback.  He had a heart attack and the police, thinking he was just intoxicated, tossed him in the drunk tank where he subsequently died.  He was only 48 years old.

Goddess of Love (1988, directed by Jim Drake)

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On Mount Olympus, “ages ago” according to a title card, Zeus (John Rhys Davies) is displeased with his daughter Aphrodite (Wheel of Fortune letter turner Vanna White).  Aphrodite, who insists on being called Venus, has refused to marry every man or God that Zeus has found for her and she even started the Trojan War.  Zeus says that Venus must learn what love means before she can rejoin the Gods.  He then turns her into a statue (!) and sends her down to Earth.

How is she going to learn what love means as a statue?  It’s obviously a pertinent question because, thousands of years later, she’s still set in marble and standing in a museum.  Two thieves wheel her out to a courtyard and leave her there so they can pick her up later.  Before the thieves return, Ted Beckman (David Naughton) and his womanizing friend, Jimmy (David Leisure), wander by.  For some reason, Ted slides an engagement ring on Venus’s finger.  Venus comes to life.  She and Ted must now fall in love for real in order for Venus to return to Mount Olympus.  The only problem is that Ted is a hairdresser and he’s already engaged to marry Cathy (Amanda Bearse).

A made-for-TV movie that unsuccessfully tried to revive the acting career that Vanna White abandoned for Wheel of Fortune, Goddess of Love is a spectacularly stupid movie that attempts to disguises its threadbare plot by being extremely busy.  Not only do Ted and Venus have to overcome a lack of romantic chemistry and fall in love but the two thieves are also still looking for Venus and even Little Richard shows up as one of Ted’s employees.  Venus not only accidentally burns down Ted’s business but also maxes out his credit cards.  Philip Baker Hall plays the detective investigating the theft of the statue and gives a performance reminiscent of his classic Bookman turn from Seinfeld.  It’s dumb but Vanna herself gives a far more engaging performance than the material requires or deserves.  Some of her line deliveries are a little wooden but she still radiates the natural likability that made her an unlikely celebrity in the 80s.  Goddess of Love should have cast Pat Sajak as Ted.  Then it would have been a classic.

Dead Man’s Gold (1948, directed by Ray Taylor)

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Jim Thornton (Britt Wood) has discovered a gold mine so he writes to his old friends, Lash LaRue (Lash La Rue) and Fuzzy (Al St. John), asking them to come help him guard it.  When Lash and Fuzzy arrive, Jim is nowhere to be found.  With the help of Jim’s niece (Peggy Stewart), they discover that Jim’s been murdered.  It doesn’t take a genius to realize that the murder was carried out by Conway (Jason Cason) and his men and that’s a good thing because a genius is something you will never find in a Lash La Rue western.  However, Lash suspects that Conway was following someone else’s orders.  He and Fuzzy set up a trap to reveal the true identity of the mastermind.

Lash dresses in all black and often uses a whip instead of a gun but this is still a standard B-western.  Historically, it’s important because it was the first movie that La Rue made with producer Ron Ormond.  Ormond later went from producing Lash La Rue films to directing them and Lash’s career never really recovered.  (Ormond, whose non-Lash LaRue films included Mesa of Lost Women and If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?, was never much of a director.)  Fortunately, Dead Man’s Gold was directed by the dependable Ray Taylor, who keeps the action moving and crafts an adequate if not exactly memorable western.

There is one cool scene in Dead Man’s Gold, in which Lash uses his whip to knock a shot glass out of a bad guy’s hand.  Let’s see The Lone Ranger do that!

The Super (1991, directed by Ron Daniel)

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You’ve just won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for playing a psychotic gangster and you’re worried that it’s going to lead to you getting typecast as a villain.  What do you do?

If you’re Joe Pesci, you follow-up playing Tommy DeVito in Goodfellas by agreeing to play Louie Kritski, Jr. in The Super.  Louie is the son of a slumlord (Vincent Gardenia) and he’s eager to follow his old man into the family business.  But when Louie is arrested for failing to keep his buildings up to code, he’s sentenced to actually live in one of them.  Louie has to stay in a rat-infested apartment.  He has to repair the rest of the building and will not be allowed to do any work on his apartment until everyone else’s apartment is up to code.  Louie thinks that his father will use his influence to get his son out of this mess.  It turns out that Big Lou just wants to set the building on fire and be done with it.  Louie isn’t down with that.  He may be a loud-mouthed slumlord but he has his standards.

Louie becomes a better person as a result of living in a slum.  All of the tenants, from Marlon (Ruben Blades) to Tito (Kenny Blank), come to respect him.  He even plays basketball with them.  Louie finds a new girlfriend (Madolyn Smith) in the court officer who is sent to check on his progress.  Louie is still Joe Pesci, though.  He’s still a loud mouth who is quick to lose his temper and there’s always a feeling that Louie is about to snap and blow the entire building away.  Joe Pesci was always a good actor and skilled at comedy but The Super doesn’t make good use of his talents in the way that My Cousin Vinny did.  My Cousin Vinny worked because it put Joe Pesci in a place where you wouldn’t expect to find Joe Pesci, the genteel South.  The Super is a New York movie and Pesci’s wiseguy intensity means that his sudden redemption doesn’t feel true.

The Super was a box office flop and briefly derailed Pesci’s attempts to show his range.  Luckily, My Cousin Vinny was right around the corner.