The Oilman Cometh”

Posted on February 21, 2024 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!

This week’s cruise is all about simple misunderstandings that could be easily cleared up by people just not acting stupid for a few seconds. Unfortunately, that’s too much to ask.

Episode 4.4 “Target Gopher/The Major’s Wife/Strange Honeymoon/The Oilman Cometh”

(Dir by Roger Duchowny, originally aired on November 8th, 1980)

Lo and beware! Here comes the idiot plot!

As I’ve mentioned many times in the past, there’s nothing that bothers me more than an idiot plot. That is when a TV show — usually a sitcom — builds an entire episode out of a misunderstanding that could be easily cleared up by everyone just not being an idiot. These are the type of episodes where everyone talks over each other and runs off before they can get a full explanation of what’s happening. They are frustrating to watch.

This episode of The Love Boat has not just one idiot plot but several of them. I usually love this show but this episode made me cringe from start to finish.

Consider:

Oilman Mason Fleers (Dale Robertson) has chartered the boat for his company. He is not only giving everyone a free cruise but he hopes that he’ll be able to sign a big oil deal with Prince Hassan (Pat Harrington, Jr.), who is excited to see the ocean because “my country is covered in sand.” Mason has arranged for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (playing themselves) to provide entertainment. Even though the cheerleaders were on the ship last season, everyone acts as if this is the first time they’ve ever seen them. Doc Bricker is especially excited to see them, even though it’s debatable that a glamorous NFL cheerleader from a land-locked city would ever fall for a middle-aged guy who works on a boat for a living.

Prince Hassan boards the boat looking for a new wife. (He already has several but he specifically wants an American.) When Mason’s assistant, Ted (David Cassidy, with a rather unflattering mustache), attempts to give Prince Hassan the gift of a computerized chess game, Prince Hassan thinks that Ted is actually giving him Ted’s girlfriend, Janet (Janet Gunn). Prince Hassan thinks that Janet will be his new wife and he immediately makes plans for the marriage ceremony to take place on the boat. Ted, Captain Stubing, and Janet could clear all this up by telling Prince Hassan the truth but instead, they just try to hide Janet from him. And then Ted decides that maybe he could win Janet back from the Prince.

One word for all of this: Idiot.

Mason, for his part, falls for one of the cheerleaders (Jayne Ann Maxwell), and pressures her to spend time along with him. Jayne reacts to this by randomly declaring her love for Gopher. Gopher plays along so Mason decides to get revenge by walking up behind Gopher, surprising Gopher, and then collapsing to the deck and pretending that Gopher knocked him out. Gopher is suspended from his duties while the cruise line investigates. There were plenty of people on the deck at the time but no one steps forward to say that Mason clearly faked getting hit. Or maybe someone could point out that Mason has spent the entire cruise harassing a cheerleader who is not interested in him. But no one does. Why?

Because this is an idiot plot.

Walter Henson (Al Corley) was planning on spending his honeymoon on the cruise but then he found out his wife-to-be cheated on him. He left her at the altar. He still takes the cruise but he brings his brother, Hud (Mark Pinter), with him. When Doc, Isaac, and Gopher learn that Hud and Walter are both in the honeymoon suite, they assume that they’re a couple and, because this episode is 44 years old, start giving each other funny looks. It doesn’t occur to anyone that Walter and Hud might have the same last name because they’re related. When Hud falls for a cheerleader, he continually makes excuses to keep her from finding out that he’s traveling with his brother. Why?

IDIOT PLOT!

Major Ross Latham (Robert Culp) boards the boat with his shy and modest wife, Nara (Nobu McCarthy). Surprise! Gloria Beaumont (Jo Ann Pflug) is also on the boat. She and the major are old friends and soon, they’re spending all of their time together. Julie and Vicki assume that Gloria is trying to steal Ross away from Nara. Nara doesn’t suspect a thing.

Idiot. Plot.

Needless to say, everything work out in the end but this episode leaned way too heavily on everyone being an idiot. The Love Boat should be entertaining, not frustrating. This was one of those episodes that just left me wanting to jump overboard.

Scenes That I Love: Kelsey Grammer in Money Plane

Posted on February 21, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today is Kesley Grammer’s 69th birthday. In order to celebrate this event, here are three scenes from one of my favorite films, 2020’s Money Plane!

All of these scenes are short. They only last a handful of seconds. But all of them also feature Kelsey Grammer bringing the film to life as only he can.

And since I don’t do odd numbers, here’s a bonus clip of Frasier Crane reacting to Money Plane.

Music Video of the Day: How Do I Deal by Jennifer Love Hewitt (1998, dir by Joseph Kahn)

Posted on February 21, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy birthday to Texas’s own Jennifer Love Hewitt!

Enjoy!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 1.15 “Thief In The Night”

Posted on February 20, 2024 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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Baywatch Nights, a detective show that ran in Syndication from 1995 to 1997. The entire show is currently streaming on Youtube!

This week, Baywatch Nights want to make sure that you know it’s a show about a lifeguard.

Episode 1.15 “Thief In The Night”

(Dir by Charles Bail, originally aired on March 2nd, 1996)

This week, we find Mitch actually doing some lifeguard work for once. I would say that about 35% of the episode features Mitch in his red swim trunks and either hanging out at his tower or at Baywatch Headquarters. At one point, Donna even mentions that, along being a club owner, she’s also training to become a lifeguard. It feels as if the show’s producers are literally standing off-camera, yelling, “This is a Baywatch show! We’re sorry for not doing more Baywatch stuff during the first half of the season! Please start watching!”

As for this week’s case, Mitch, Garner, and Ryan are hired by the snooty yacht club to investigate who has been breaking into their boats and stealing valuable things. The head of the yacht club is Jeri Ross (Kristine Meadows), who is so snooty that she hires Mitch and Garner and then starts to immediately complain about them investigating the yachts. Still, Mitch needs the paycheck, though I’m not sure why since he already has a full-time job as a senior lifeguard.

Mitch figures out that the thief is a scuba diver but he still can’t figure out who the person could be. Perhaps that’s because Mitch keeps referring to thief as being a “he,” when the thief is actually Nina Cutter (Christiana D’Amore), a former Olympic-class swimmer who is now trying to raise money to pay the lawyers who are trying to overturn the embezzlement conviction that landed her brother in prison! Seriously, Mitch, get with the times! Women are just as capable of robbing a yacht as men. Myself, I’ve never robbed a yacht but if I ever felt like doing so, I imagine I could do it just as well as anyone else who has a morbid fear of swimming in the ocean.

Nina sees Mitch investigating the crime and she decides that maybe it would be fun to meet and date him. When Mitch is pulling out of Baywatch HQ, Nina rollerblades behind his truck and pretends to get knocked to the pavement. Mitch jumps out with his first aide kit but he doesn’t jump out in slow motion, which I think was a missed opportunity on the part of the show.

Mitch does fall for Nina but, once he figures out that she’s the thief, he still captures her and sends her to jail. On the bright side, he also saves her from drowning after she hits her head on the bottom of passing boat. Still — what the Hell, Mitch? When did you become so judgmental? What if her brother really is innocent?

This episode was pretty boring. When Mitch wasn’t hanging out at his lifeguard tower, he was underwater in a wet suit and, as anyone who has watched a 60s diving film can tell you, there’s nothing more boring then watching people float around in wet suits. It didn’t help that all the diving scenes took place at night so I really had to strain my already hyperopic eyes to even get a vague idea of what was happening in that dark water. As well, there really wasn’t much chemistry, romantic or otherwise, between Nina and Mitch.

Seriously, I can’t wait for the supernatural episodes to finally start!

14 Days of Paranoia #5: Payback (dir by Brian Hegeland)

Posted on February 20, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1999 film, Payback, opens with Porter (Mel Gibson) lying on a kitchen table while a grubby-looking doctor digs two bullets out of his back. The scene takes place in almost nauseating close-up, with the emphasis being put on the amount of pain that Porter endures to get rid of those bullets. Immediately, we know that Porter is not someone who can safely go to a regular hospital. Porter is someone who exists in the shadows of mainstream society.

He’s also someone who spends a lot of time getting beaten up. Even back when he was still a big star, Mel Gibson always seemed to spend a good deal of his films getting beaten up and tortured in various ways and that’s certainly the case with Payback. Porter gets punched. Porter gets shot. Porter has a encounter with an over-the-top dominatrix (played by Lucy Liu). At one point, Porter allows two of his toes to be smashed by a hammer, just so he can trick the his enemies into doing something dumb. As played by Gibson, Porter stumbles through the film and often looks like he’s coming down from a week-long bender. It’s interesting to think that Payback is a remake of 1967’s Point Blank, which starred Lee Marvin as Walker, an unflappable career criminal who never showed a hint of emotion or weakness. Porter, on the other hand, is visibly unstable and spends the entire film on the verge of a complete mental collapse. A lot of people try to kill Porter and Porter kills almost all of them without a moment’s hesitation.

(Of course, both Porter and Point Blank‘s Walker are versions of Parker, a career criminal who was at the center of several crime novels written by Donald “Richard Stark” Westlake.)

After helping to pull off a $140,000 heist from a Chinese triad, Porter was betrayed and left for dead by his former friend Val Resnick (Gregg Henry) and his wife, Lynn (Deborah Kara Unger). Porter, who just wants the $70,000 cut that he was promised, starts his quest for the money by tracking down Val and Lynn, and then continues it by going after the three bosses (played by William Devane, James Coburn, and Kris Kristofferson) of “The Outfit,” a shadowy organization that Val had gotten involved with. Along the way, Porter deals with a motely crew of corrupt cops, violent criminals, and sleazy middlemen. (David Paymer has a memorable bit as a low-level functionary with atrocious taste in suits.) Porter also hooks up with a prostitute named Rosie (Maria Bello), who might be the only person that he can actually trust.

I have mixed feelings about Payback. (So did director Brian Hegeland, who was reportedly fired towards the end of shooting and later released a far different director’s cut.) Though the film does a good job of capturing the visual style of a good neo-noir, the story itself is so violent and grim that it actually gets a little bit boring. The film’s advertising encouraged audiences to “Get ready to root for the bad guy,” but there’s really no reason to root for Porter. He’s an inarticulate and ruthless killer with no sense of humor. If anything, the people that he kills seem to be far more reasonable and likable than he does. In Point Blank, Lee Marvin may have been a bastard but he was good at what he did and you at least got the feeling that he wouldn’t go after any innocent bystanders. In Payback, Porter is such a mess that his continued survival is largely due to dumb luck. It’s hard to root for an idiot.

That said, the film does do a good job of capturing the feeling of people living on the fringes of society. The Outfit is not a typical Mafia family but instead, a collection of businessmen who work out of nice offices and, in the case of William Devane’s Carter, come across as being more of a senior executive than a crime boss. (James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson, meanwhile, come across as being two former hippies who made it rich on Wall Street. They’re elderly versions of Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin.) The film does a good job of creating a world where no one trusts anyone and everyone is being watched by someone. In one memorable scene, the three men sent to watch for Porter discover that he’s been watching them the entire time. Never forget to look over your shoulder to see who might be following.

Flaws and all, this 1999 film does a good job of capturing the atmosphere of paranoia that, for many, would come to define the early part of the 21st Century.

14 Days of Paranoia:

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 4.14 “The Chateau/White Lightning”

Posted on February 20, 2024 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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1984. Almost the entire show is currently streaming on Daily Motion.

This week, we get a bad fantasy and a good fantasy. Smiles, everyone!

Episode 4.14 “The Chateau/White Lightning”

(Dir by Leslie H. Martinson, originally aired on February 7th, 1981)

The first of this week’s fantasies involves the McAllister clan and the Scroggins clan, two feuding families from Appalachia who both come to Fantasy Island with the same fantasy. They want to find the formula for a legendary type of moonshine called White Lightning. The McAllisters are led by Clora (Carolyn Jones) and include her children, Ruth Ann (Wendy Schaal), Amos (Ed Begley, Jr.), and Otis (Richard Lineback). The Scroggins are led by Norris (George Lindsey) and include his sons, R.J. (Randy Powell) and Bobby Joe (Ernie Lively).

Since both families have the same fantasy and they both want the recipe for themselves….

What? Yes, this the bad fantasy.

Anyway, Mr. Roarke gives them a map that will lead them to White Lightning still on Fantasy Island. The two families race to be the first to reach the still, not realizing that the still is guarded by an old man with a rifle and that old man is Mr. Roarke in a fake beard.

You will probably not be surprised to learn that Mr. Roarke pretending to be a moonshiner is the best part of this fantasy. Seriously, I hope everyone involved with this series appreciated the dedication that Ricardo Montalban brought to bringing even the most ridiculous of scenes to life.

This was a dumb fantasy and, from the minute the two families stepped off the plane, it was obvious that they’re going to end up setting aside their differences and working together. The hillbilly stuff just felt out of place on Fantasy Island. Let’s move on and let’s do so quickly.

The other fantasy is a bit more fun. Vicky Lee (Pamela Franklin) is writing a book about her grandmother, a silent screen actress who died under mysterious circumstances. Her fantasy is to interview her grandmother’s former co-star, Claude Duncan, who lives in seclusion in a Fantasy Island chateau. Mr. Roarke tries to dissuade her from entering the chateau and warns her that her fantasy might be dangerous in ways that she could never imagine. Vicky says that she can take care of herself.

In the chateau, she meets Karl Dixon (David Hedison), who looks exactly like Claude Duncan! She assumes that Karl must be Claude’s grandson but the audience knows better. For one thing, we’ve noticed the statue of Pan in the chateau’s courtyard and we’ve also noticed that its eyes glow whenever something strange happens. It turns out that Claude Duncan and Karl Dixon are one in the same! Claude has remained young by offering up sacrifices to Pan. And it appears that he’s planning on making Vicky his latest sacrifice.

Vickey Lee’s fantasy was silly but entertaining, in the way that the best episodes of Fantasy Island often are. I always prefer the fantasies that have an element of the supernatural and that’s certainly the case with this one. At one point, Duncan even claims that Mr. Roarke has no power in the Chateau, which leads me to once again wonder about who truly rules Fantasy Island. If Mr. Roarke was truly in control of Fantasy Island, why would he allow Claude Duncan to live there? In an interview, Ricardo Montalban suggested that Fantasy Island was a form of Purgatory and that Mr. Roarke was more of a caretaker than a ruler. This fantasy would certainly suggest that to be true.

(The fantasy also features a charmingly weird scene where Mr. Roarke suddenly appears on a television screen in the chateau so he can tell Vicky that she’s in danger. Strange Mr. Roarke is the best Mr. Roarke.)

So, this week gave us one bad fantasy and one good fantasy. Fortunately, the good fantasy was really, really good.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Robert Altman Edition

Posted on February 20, 2024 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 celebrate what would have been the 99th birthday of the great director, Robert Altman! It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Robert Altman Films

The Long Goodbye (1973, dir by Robert Altman, DP: Vilmos Zsigmond)

Nashville (1975, dir by Robert Altman, DP: Paul Lohmann)

3 Women (1977, dir by Robert Altman, DP: Charles Rosher, Jr.)

Short Cuts (1993, dir by Robert Altman, DP: Walt Lloyd)

Scenes That I Love: Tibbs Meets Endicott in In The Heat Of The Night

Posted on February 20, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today, we observe what would have been Sidney Poitier’s 97th birthday.

Today’s scene that I love comes from the 1967 Best Picture winner, In The Heat of the Night. In this film, Poitier plays Virgil Tibbs, a Northern cop who reluctantly finds himself helping a Southern sheriff (Rod Steiger) investigate a murder. Tibbs’s number one suspect is Eric Endicott (Larry Gates), who owns what was then a modern-day plantation.

In this scene, Tibbs interrogates Endicott, a paternalistic racist who simply cannot believe or accept that he is being questioned by a black man. When Endicott responds to one of Tibbs questions by slapping him, Tibbs slaps him right back.

While Endicott’s slap was in the original script, Tibbs’s response was not. At first, Tibbs was meant to turn the other cheek and leave the plantation without saying a word. Wisely, Poitier approached director Norman Jewison and objected to that, insisting that Tibbs would respond in kind. The scene was rewritten and it became one of Poitier’s best moments in the film.

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 1.15 “Surf’s Up”

Posted on February 19, 2024 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 Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983. The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee!

This week, Ponch and Baker hit the beach!

Episode 1.15 “Surf’s Up”

(Dir by Georg Fenady, originally aired on January 19th, 1978)

At the beginning of this week’s episode, Ponch and Baker are miserable.

Los Angeles, the city that they’ve taken an oath to protect, is no longer as friendly as it once was. The highways are congested. The chases are long and tedious. The citizens don’t seem to appreciate the highway patrol’s hard work. When Baker is forced to throw a reckless driver on someone else’s hood in order to arrest him, the owner of the car (Fran Ryan) yells at him for scratching her car and threatens to sue the department.

Ponch and Baker need a break!

At first, Getraer is dismissive of their concerns. He points out, quite sensibly, that he can’t approve their request for a temporary transfer just because they’re having a bad day. They work in Los Angeles and not every day is going to be a perfect day.

“Thanks a lot, pal,” Ponch snaps.

“I’m your sergeant,” Getraer starts, “if you want a pal….”

“Join the Police Athletic League, we know,” Baker says.

Fortunately, for Ponch and John, the Malibu division has a few men who have gotten the flu so Getraer, realizing that he doesn’t want to have to listen to Ponch and Jon whine for a whole week, finally agrees to giving them a temporary transfer.

The rest of the episode follows Ponch and John as they patrol Malibu. It turns out that Malibu has the same problems as Los Angeles but it’s also closer to the beach. (“You can hear the ocean from headquarters!” an excited Ponch says.) Not only do Ponch and Baker stop a car theft (and save the baby who was trapped in the back seat) but they also catch a gang of van thieves. Ponch also takes a few kids from the neighborhood to Disneyland, in order to make up for having incorrectly accused one of them of having stolen a radio and bunch of sunflowers.

Of course, we don’t actually see Ponch at Disneyland. We just hear about afterwards. What we do see is Ponch and Baker hanging out on the beach and trying out a jet ski. As I watched this episode, it occurred to me that CHiPs really wasn’t a police show as much as it was an hour long commercial for California. The theme of this episode appeared to be, “Even if Los Angeles is too crowded and smoggy for you, you can still go to Malibu, meet and date two flight attendants, and conquer the ocean on a jet ski!” And really, this show is at its most effective when it focuses on being a travelogue. I imagine quite a few people watched this episode in 1978 and thought to themselves, “I have to get to Malibu!”

Scenery aside, this is a bit of a dull episode. The van thieves were not particularly impressive villains and even the show’s famous chase scenes felt a bit perfunctory. As a drama, this episode fell flat but it worked wonderfully as a commercial.

14 Days of Paranoia #4: The Believers (dir by John Schlesinger)

Posted on February 19, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

When it comes to unfortunate and dumb ways to die, getting electrocuted while standing in a puddle of spilled milk would seem to rank fairly high on the list. Unfortunately, it’s exactly what happens to the wife of Cal Jamison (Martin Sheen) during the first few minutes of 1987’s The Believers.

Traumatized by his wife’s death (and probably also by all of the people asking, “Wait a minute, she was standing in milk?”), Cal relocates from Minneapolis to New York City. Accompanying him is his young son, Chris (Harley Cross). Upon arriving in New York, Cal starts a tentative new relationship with artist Jessica Halliday (Helen Shaver) and he also gets a job working a psychologist for the NYPD.

And several members of the NYPD are going to need a good psychologist because they are investigating a series of brutal and ritualistic murders. All of the victims are children around Chris’s age and the murders are so grisly that even a hardened cop like Lt. Sean McTaggart (Robert Loggia) finds himself traumatized. When Detective Tom Lopez (Jimmy Smits, in one of his first roles) discovers one of the bodies, he has an apparent mental breakdown and starts to rant and rave about an all-powerful cult that Tom claims is committing the murders.

After Tom commits suicide, his ravings are dismissed as being the product of a mentally ill man. However, Cal is not so sure and starts to investigate on his own. What he discovers is a cult made up of a motely mix of wannabe gangsters and members of high society. While his friends and lovers either die or lose their minds around him, Cal discovers that the cult is actually closer to both him and his son than he ever realized.

An odd film, The Believers. On the one hand, there’s plenty of creepy scenes, including one in which Jessica gets a truly disturbing skin condition. The scenes in which Cal discovers that his friends have lost their minds as a result of the Cult are frequently sad and difficult to watch. Robert Loggia has scene that brought tears to my eyes. The mix of street witchery and upper class power lust is nicely handled and, as always, Harris Yulin makes for an effective villain. The Believers creates an ominous atmosphere of paranoia, one in which you really do come to feel that no one in the film is quite who they say they are.

And yet, it’s obvious that director John Schlesinger — whose previous films included Darling and the Oscar-winning Midnight Cowboy — had more on his mind than just making an effective Omen-style horror film. He also tries to deal with Cal coming to terms with the death of his wife and Chris coming to terms with the idea of Cal dating someone new and all of those scenes of straight-forward domestic drama feel out-of-place in what should have been an energetic and grisly B-movie. In those ploddingly earnest scenes, Schlesinger seems to be trying almost too hard to remind us that he’s not really a horror filmmaker and they just feel out of place.

If there was ever a movie that called for the unapologetic and wickedly sardonic directorial vision of David Cronenberg, it was The Believers. As it is, The Believers is an intriguing but frustratingly uneven mix of paranoia, witchcraft, and domestic melodrama.