This was Victoria Justice’s debut solo single. It took seven people to write this song. Personally, I think Victoria has sounded better in just about every other song she’s ever performed but at least she got to flirt with Colton Haynes in this music video.
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, Monsters makes even less sense than usual.
Episode 3.17 “Leavings”
(Dir by John Tillinger, originally aired on January 20th, 19991)
Two cops (played by Tony Shalhoub and John Christopher Jones) are concerned about something that they’ve noticed on the streets. Homeless people who are missing limbs are showing up. The cops know that the homeless people had all their limbs just a few days ago but now, they’re gone. There’s no sign of surgery or any sort of trauma. The limbs are just disappearing apparently. Meanwhile, there’s some new homeless guy wandering around who appears to be made out of limbs that don’t really seem to go together.
They go to their boss (Clifton James) with this concerns. Their boss tells them not to worry about it. However, the cops continue to worry about it. This leads to their boss revealing the truth of what’s happening. It turns out that their boss has been stealing body parts and building new people for years. He’s trying to create a policeman who will be loyal and who won’t ask questions. (We only see one of these constructed cops in the show. He wears a jacket that identifies him as being Officer S. Partz.) The boss then kills the two cops because they’ve seen too much.
This was a weird episode. How exactly did their boss learn how to remove body parts without leaving any sort of obvious signs of trauma? How did he learn how to bring his constructed people to life? How did …. well, it just doesn’t make any sense. It’s true that a 30-minuet anthology show doesn’t necessarily have to make perfect sense but this episode really does stretch things a bit too far. The three actors all give good performances but, otherwise, this episode just falls a bit flat.
The House on the Edge of the Park (1980, dir by Ruggero Deodato)
Today’s song of the day is a deathless little disco song that comes from the soundtrack of Ruggero Deodato‘s legendarily tacky film, The House On The Edge Of The Park. This was one of many songs composed by Riz Ortolani, the John Williams of Italian exploitation cinema.
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!
This week, Charo’s back!
Episode 5.27 “April in Boston/Saving Grace/Breaks of Life”
(Dir by Richard Kinon, originally aired on May 1st, 1982)
April Lopez (Charo) is back! This time, she has given up show business and is now working as a Spanish tutor for stuffy private school headmaster Bradford York (David Hedison). She is falling for Bradford but she knows that he would never accept her as an entertainer. Or would he? We’re about to find out because the entertainment that Julie booked, probably while in a cocaine-fueled haze, fails to show up. Would April be willing to perform?
April sings “Let’s get physical, physical,” in the ship’s lounge but when Bradford stops by to get a drink, April covers her face with a mask. “If I sang like that,” Bradford says, “I’d wear a mask too….”
And that really gets to the main problem with this story. Bradford York is jerk! Seriously, I know why some people find Charo to be annoying and I do think The Love Boat tended to overuse the character but she deserves a lot better than Bradford York! Eventually, of course, Bradford leans that April is the singer and he tells her that he loves her in Spanish. (He has to ask April how to say it first.) So, I guess it’s a happy ending but we all know that April’s going to be single again once the sixth season starts.
As for the other storylines, Gwen (Jayne Meadows) and George Finley (Gene Rayburn) are a divorced couple who end up in the ship’s infirmary together. We’ve never seen the infirmary before and I assume we’ll never see it again. The two of them fall in love all over again. It tuns out Gwen was just faking her injury so she could be with George. It seems like Doc Bricker should have noticed that.
Finally, Grace Bostwick (Jane Powell) is a widow who is prevented from jumping overboard by Gabriel (Hugh O’Brian). Gabriel says he’s angel, sent from Heaven to help Grace move on from her grief. It turns out that he’s not. He’s just someone who knew Grace was suicidal and figured he would have to come up with something dramatic to keep her from plunging into the ocean. Everyone on the boat acts as if this makes total sense. Grace is very forgiving. Never has one lie been responsible for so much love.
What a weird episode. A man pretended to be an angel, Charo performed while wearing a mask, and the ship has an infirmary! Weird as it was, the episode kept me entertained. I’ve always liked Charo’s mix of sincerity and flamboyance. That said, she deserves better than Bradford York. The angel storyline was problematic for all sorts of reasons but at least Jane Powell and Hugh O’Brian gave good performances. They almost sold it. Almost.
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 would have been the 86th birthday of the great Italian director, Ruggero Deodato! And that, of course, means that it’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 Films
Live Like A Cop, Die Like A Man (1976, dir by Ruggero Deodato, DP: Guglielmo Mancori)
The House On The Edge of the Park (1980, dir by Ruggero Deodato, DP: Sergio D’Offizi)
Raiders of Atlantis (1983, dir by Ruggero Deodato, DP: Robert D’Ettore Piazzoli)
Body Count (1986, dir by Ruggero Deodato, DP: Emilio Loffredo)
Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy birthday to director Amy Heckerling!
Today’s scene that I love comes from Amy Heckerling’s feature debut, 1982’s Fast Times At Ridgemont High. In just two minutes, Heckerling introduces us to almost all of the major characters, establishes the mall as the center of Ridgemont High culture, and leaves us with little doubt that we’ve entered a time machine and found ourselves in the 80s. Look at all the future stars. Look at Mike Damone, future mobster. My heart always breaks for Stacy and her brother Brad. They have no idea what’s waiting for them this year.
Here is today’s scene that I love:
It’s always good to have a new video from Lindsey Stirling.
Enjoy!
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Pacific Blue, a cop show that aired from 1996 to 2000 on the USA Network! It’s currently streaming everywhere, though I’m watching it on Tubi.
It’s another day in L.A.
Episode 2.3 “Rapscallions”
(Dir by Gary Winter, originally aired on September 7th, 1996)
There’s a lot happening in Santa Monica or wherever it is this stupid show takes place.
Mr. Baron (Tom Towles) has hired two thugs to run all the tenants out of a building so it can be turned into a drug den. TC and Cory help the tenants. TC encourages one of them, Travis (Anthony De Longis), to be a big old hero.
The lifeguards challenge the bicycle cops to a street hockey game. Victor goes crazy trying to recruit good players. The lifeguards bring in a professional player who apparently works as a lifeguard during the summer. The bicycle cops still manage to hold the lifeguards to a tie. Their goalie collapses at the end of the game, apparently as a result of getting hit in the face by the puck a hundred times. So, I guess he’s dead now. Oh well. At least the bike cops can feel like heroes before facing another day of people laughing about how dorky they look on their bicycles.
Palermo has a new girlfriend (Marisa Urkovich), which upsets his 16 year-old daughter, Jessie (Johna Stewart-Bowden). Jessie wants her parents to get back together but Palermo has to explain that the divorce is final. He is never going to remarry Jessie’s mother. Palermo’s heart belongs to the bicycles now.
There was a lot happening in this episode and I have to admit that I really didn’t care about any of it. After this episode ended, I started thinking about the show’s main characters and I asked myself whether or not any of them were actually likable. I mean, let’s consider this:
Jim Davidson plays TC Callaway, who doesn’t even have a consistent backstory. When we first met him, he was being pressured to quit his job and become an executive at his family’s business. TC was wealthy when we first met him but we haven’t heard anything about his family or their company since then and TC certainly doesn’t act like someone who grew up with money. Sometimes, TC has a regular girlfriend who lives with him and sometimes, it appears that he does not. Of course, the main problem with TC is that it’s hard to keep him straight from either Victor or Palermo. Once he puts on his riding helmet and his sunglasses, TC basically looks about as generic as someone can. A huge part of the problem is that TC never has any facial expressions or anything that would suggest any sort of personality at all.
Darlene Vogel plays Chris Kelly, who is still whining about being on the bike patrol. When the show started, she was obviously meant to have a will they or won’t they thing with TC but the total lack of chemistry between Darlene Vogel and every performer on the show pretty much ended that. For someone who was originally meant to be one of the main characters, Chris never really seems to have much to do on the show. She spent this episode smirking whenever anyone asked to see Palermo. Everyone’s had that friend that they secretly can’t stand and that’s pretty much who Chris is on this show.
Marcos A. Ferraez plays Victor Del Toro, who at least has a bit of a personality in that he’s always getting angry about something and he always stops and stares whenever he sees anyone wearing a bikini. (Since this series takes place on a beach in California, you can imagine the amount of time that is taken up by this.) Victor is impulsive and competitive but he’s also a bike cop so it’s still hard not to feel like he’s overcompensating because of his job.
Paula Trickey plays Cory McNamara. Cory is as close to being a likable character as you’re going to find on Pacific Blue and Paula Trickey, at least by this point in the series, is definitely the best member of the ensemble. Unfortunately, the show itself seems to only be interesting in either finding excuses for her to get sprayed with water or having her get menaced while wearing a tank top.
And finally, Rick Rossovich is Lt. Palermo. Palermo is strict and no-nonsense, which is actually what you want from a boss. Unfortunately, for the by-the-book boss thing to be compelling, someone in the group has to be a rule-breaker and that’s not really a description that applies to anyone on Pacific Blue. Rossovich was not a bad actor but, at least at this point in the series, Palermo still spends way too much time telling people that bicycle cops are real cops. If you haven’t been able to convince them yet, you never will.
In short, this episode of Pacific Blue didn’t work because the cast was boring and putting them on bicycles did not help. Hopefully, things will change as I continue to watch the series or else it’s going to be long couple of seasons.
As today is Orson Welles’s birthday, it seems appropriate that today’s song of the day should come from the score of one of his best films, Touch of Evil.
Though the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences claim that the Oscars honor the best of the year, we all know that there are always worthy films and performances that end up getting overlooked. Sometimes, it’s because the competition too fierce. Sometimes, it’s because the film itself was too controversial. Often, it’s just a case of a film’s quality not being fully recognized until years after its initial released. This series of reviews takes a look at the films and performances that should have been nominated but were, for whatever reason, overlooked. These are the Unnominated.
I come here to defend Charlton Heston.
1994’s Ed Wood is a great film that has one unfortunate line. Towards the end of the film, director Ed Wood (Johnny Depp) meets his hero, Orson Welles (Vincent D’Onoforio), in a bar. They talk about the difficulties of directing a film. Wood talks about the trouble that he’s having with Plan 9 From Outer Space. Welles says that he can understand what Wood is going through because the studio is forcing him to cast Charlton Heston as a Mexican in his next movie.
And look, I get it. It is true that Charlton Heston does play a Mexican prosecutor named Mike Vargas in Welles’s 1958 film, Touch of Evil. And it is true that Heston is not the most convincing Mexican to ever appear in a film. And I understand that there are people who enjoy taking cheap shots at Charlton Heston because he did have a tendency to come across as being a bit full of himself and he was a conservative in a industry dominated by Leftists. There are people who actually think Michael Moore doesn’t come across like a self-righteous prick when he confronts Heaton in Bowling for Columbine. I get the joke.
But it’s not true and it’s not fair. When Touch of Evil was first put into production by Universal, Welles was not hired to direct. He was hired to play Hank Quinlan, the formerly honest cop with a habit of planting evidence on those who he believed to be guilty. When Charlton Heston was offered the role of Vargas, he asked who had been hired to direct. When he was told that a director hadn’t been selected, Heston was the one who suggested Welles be given the job. When, as often happened with Welles’s film, the studio decided to take the film out of Welles’s hands, Heston argued for Welles’s vision while Welles was off trying to set up his long-dreamed of film of Don Quixote. Say what you will about Charlton Heston’s career, he fought for Orson Welles, just as he later fought for Sam Peckinpah during the making of Major Dundee. Heston may not have agreed with either Welles or Peckinpah politically but he fought for them when few people were willing to do so.
That Touch of Evil is a brilliant film is pretty much entirely due to Welles’s directorial vision. The story is pure pulp. While investigating the murder of an American businessman in Mexico, Vargas comes to believe that Quinlan is attempting to frame a young Mexican for the crime. While Vargas watches Quinlan, his wife Susie (Janet Leigh) is menaced by the crime lord Joe Grandi (Akim Tamiroff), who has his own issues with both Vargas and Quinlan. The plot may be the stuff of a B-programmer but, as directed by Welles, Touch of Evil plays out like a surreal nightmare, a journey into the heart of darkness that is full of eccentric characters, shadowy images, memorably askew camera angles, and lively dialogue. Welles and cinematographer Russell Metty create a world that feels alien despite being familiar. Just as he did with Gregg Toland in Citizen Kane, Welles shapes a film that shows us what’s happening in the shadows that most people try to ignore.
There’s really not a boring character to be found in Touch of Evil and the cast is full of old colleagues and friends of Welles. Marlene Dietrich shows up as Quinlan’s former lover. Mercedes McCambridge plays a leather-clad gang leader. Dennis Weaver is the creepy owner of a remote motel. (Two years before Psycho, Touch of Evil featured Janet Leigh being menaced in a motel. Mort Mills, who played Psycho’s frightening highway patrolman, plays a member of law enforcement here as well.) Zsa Zsa Gabor shows up for a few brief seconds and it makes a strange sort of sense. Why shouldn’t she be here? Everyone else is. Joseph Cotten plays a coroner. Ray Collins plays a local official. In the film’s skewered world, Charlton Heston as Mike Vargas works. His upright performance grounds this film and keeps it from getting buried in its own idiosyncrasies. Big personalites are everywhere and yet the film is stolen by Joseph Calleia, playing Quinlan’s quiet but observant partner. Calleia’s performance is the heart of the film.
Touch of Evil was not nominated for a single Oscar and that’s not surprising. It’s not really the type of film that was noticed by the Academy in the 50s. It was too pulpy and surreal and, with its story of a crooked cop framing someone who might very well be guilty anyway, it was probably too subversive for the Academy of the 1950s. It would take a while for Touch of Evil to be recognized for being the noir masterpiece that it is. In a perfect world, Welles would have been nominated for directing and for his larger-than-life performance as Quinlan. Joseph Calleia would have been nominated for Supporting Actor and perhaps both Janet Leigh and Marlene Dietrtich would have been mentioned for Supporting Actress. That didn’t happen but it would have been nice if it had.
Previous entries in The Unnominated:
Through the Shattered Lens 