In 1984, a Long Island-based teenage drug dealer and wannabe gangster named Ricky Kasso murdered a childhood friend named Gary Lauwers, reportedly because he was angry that Gary had stolen some drugs from him. While tripping on LSD, Ricky brutally stabbed Gary to death in the woods. Ricky later said that he demanded that Gary say “I love Satan,” while killing him. Ricky claimed to be a Satanist, though he never actually learned how to spell the name of his supposed Dark Lord and instead would tag walls with graffiti exhorting the viewer to “Hail Satin.”
Not being the smartest drug dealer/Satanist to ever grace the state of New York, Ricky spent the next two weeks bragging about the murder and taking his friends to view Gary’s corpse. While none of the people who saw Gary’s body ever called the police, rumors started to spread about what had happened. Acting on an anonymous tip, the police arrested Ricky and two of his friends. Ricky Kasso, the self-described “Acid King,” committed suicide in his jail cell a month after murdering Gary Lauwers. Supposedly, the other inmates in the jail egged Ricky on while he hanged himself. No one liked the Acid King.
Ricky Kasso had been in-and-out of trouble for the majority of his short life and, at the time of the murder, he was living on the streets because his family had kicked him out of the house. What set Ricky apart from other murderous drug dealers was that he claimed to be a Satanist and that he demanded that Gary declare that he loved Satan before killing him. This played right into the burgeoning Satanic Panic of the 80s and, in death, Ricky became a symbol of the Satanic conspiracy that many were convinced had taken hold of the teenagers. (Especially teenagers who, like Ricky, listened to AC/DC.) A book called Say You Love Satan was written about Kasso and his crimes. Though the book has since been discredited, it was a best seller when initially published. (I can still remember, when I was a kid, coming across a copy in Waldenbooks and reading a few pages.) Ricky Kasso became a cult figure, inspiring both filmmakers and bands. Meanwhile, all of Ricky and Gary’s former friends had to deal with the burden of being branded as Satanists by the rest of America. Heavy metal music was blames for leading kids like Ricky into Satanism. Tipper Gore campaigned for the labeling of offensive music. Satin would have been proud.
The Acid King is an eye-opening documentary about the case, featuring interviews with the people who knew both Ricky and Gary. While criticizing the way the case was reported on by the press, The Acid King also makes it clear that Ricky Kasso was a twisted individual. (More than one interview subject describes him as being evil.) The documentary takes a look at how Ricky and his friends were essentially abandoned by their parents in their privileged community, leaving them with next to no guidance on how to deal with the real-life consequences of their actions. Of course, for the media, it was much easier to blame Satanism and heavy mental music than it was to ask where the parents were while Ricky Kasso was plotting to kill Gary Lauwers.
The first half of the documentary deals with Ricky and Gary. The second half features interviews with the horror filmmakers and the musicians who were inspired by the sordid media coverage of Ricky’s crimes. Lori S, the lead singer of Acid King, took the name of the band from a passage in Say You Love Satan while director Jim VanBebber, while being totally dismissive of the book’s claim that Ricky was directly inspired by Satan, still directed a short film about Ricky Kasso. The second half is a less interesting than the first, until you consider that none of these people would have heard about Ricky Kasso if not for the attempts of people like Tipper Gore to turn him into the poster child for her crusade against heavy metal music. Instead of scaring people away, the Tipper Gores of the world made Ricky Kasso, a barely literate idiot, into a cult figure. Again, Satin would be proud.
The Acid King provides a valuable service by separating the fact from the rumors, revealing that the mundane truth is even more disturbing than the sordid fiction.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 1985’s International Airport! It can be viewed on YouTube!
It’s not easy working at an international airport!
At least, that’s the message of this made-for-television film. Produced by Aaron Spelling and obviously designed to be a pilot for a weekly television series, International Airport details one day in the life of airport manager David Montgomery (Gil Gerard). Everyone respects and admires David, from the recently graduated flight attendants who can’t wait for their first day on the job to the hard-working members of the airport security team. The only person who really has a problem with David is Harvey Jameson (Bill Bixby), the old school flight controller who throws a fit when he learns that a woman, Dana Fredricks (Connie Sellecca), has been assigned to work in the tower. Harvey claims that women can’t handle the pressure of working the tower and not having a personal life. He demands to know what Dana’s going to do during that “one week of the month when you’re not feeling well!” Harvey’s a jerk but, fortunately, he has a nervous breakdown early on in the film and Dana gets to take over the tower.
Meanwhile, David is trying to figure out why an old friend of his, Carl Roberts (played by Retro Television mainstay Robert Reed, with his bad perm and his retired porn star mustache), is at the airport without his wife (Susan Blakely). David takes it upon himself to save Carl’s troubled marriage because it’s all in a day’s work for the world’s greatest airport manager!
While Carl is dealing with his mid-life crisis, someone else is sending threatening letters to the airport. One of the letters declares that there’s a bomb on a flight that’s heading for Honolulu. David and Dana must decide whether to allow Captain Powell (Robert Vaughn) to fly to Hawaii or to order him to return to California. And Captain Powell must figure out which one of his passengers is the bomber. Is it Martin Harris (George Grizzard), the sweaty alcoholic who want shut up about losing all of his friends in the war? Or is it the woman sitting next to Martin Harris, the cool and aloof Elaine Corey (Vera Miles)?
Of course, there are other passengers on the plane. Rudy (George Kennedy) is a veteran airline mechanic. Rudy is hoping that he can talk his wife (Susan Oliver) into adopting Pepe (Danny Ponce), an orphan who secretly lives at the airport. Unfortunately, when Pepe hears that Rudy’s plane might have a bomb on it, he spends so much time praying that he doesn’t realize he’s been spotted by airport security. Pepe manages to outrun the security forces but he ends up hiding out in a meat freezer and, when the door is slammed shut, it appears that Pepe may no longer be available for adoption. Will someone hear Pepe praying in time to let him out? Or, like Frankie Carbone, will he end up frozen stiff?
International Airport was an attempt to reboot the Airport films for television, with the opening credits even mentioning that the film was inspired by the Arthur Hailey novel that started it all. As well, Gil Gerard, Susan Blakely, and George Kennedy were all veterans of the original Airport franchise. George Kennedy may be called Rudy in International Airport but it’s easy to see that he’s still supposed to be dependable old Joe Patroni. Unfortunately, despite the familiar faces in the cast, International Airport itself is a bit bland. It’s a disaster film on a budget. While the viewers gets all of the expected melodrama, they don’t get anything as entertaining or amusing as Karen Black flying the plane in Airport 1975 or the scene in Concorde: Airport ’79 where George Kennedy leaned out the cockpit window (while in flight) and fired a gun at an enemy aircraft. Probably the only thing that was really amusing (either intentionally or unintentionally) about International Airport was the character of Pepe and that was just because young Danny Ponce gave perhaps the worst performance in the history of television.
International Airport did not lead to a television series. Watching it today, it’s a bit on the dull side but, at the same time, it is kind of nice to see what an airport was like in the days before the TSA. If nothing else, it’s a time capsule that serves as a record of the days when the world was a bit more innocent.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 1972’s The Screaming Woman! It can be viewed on YouTube!
In this made-for-tv movie from 1972, the great Olivia de Havilland plays Laura Wynant. Laura is a wealthy woman who has just been released from a mental institution. She goes to her country estate to recuperate but, as soon as she arrives, she starts to hear a woman’s voice in the back yard.
“help me …. help me….” the voice cries.
Laura looks around and she soon realizes that the voice is coming from the ground! A woman has been buried alive in the backyard and will soon die if not rescued! At first Laura tries to dig up the woman on her own but her hands are crippled by arthritis. An attempt to get a neighborhood child to help her dig just leads to Laura being confined to her home, under doctor’s orders. No matter how much Laura tries to get the people around her to listen for the sound of the woman crying for help, everyone just assume that Laura must be imagining things.
Further complicating things is the fact that the person who put the woman in the ground is still out there. And, when he discovers that Laura has been hearing voices, he decides that maybe he needs to do something about both Laura and the screaming woman….
The Screaming Woman is an effective psychological thriller and, considering that it was made for early 70s network television, surprisingly suspenseful. If the film were remade today, I imagine it would try to keep us guessing as to whether or not Laura was hearing an actual woman or if it was all in her mind. However, by revealing early on that Laura actually is hearing what she thinks she’s hearing, The Screaming Woman puts us right into Laura’s shoes and we share her frustration as she desperately tries to get someone — anyone — to take her seriously. It helps that Laura is played by Olivia de Havilland, who gives a very sympathetic and believable performance. De Havilland, who started her career appearing in Errol Flynn movies back in the 30s and who most famously played Melanie in Gone With The Wind, was one of the longest-lived stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age, living to the age of 104 and winning two Academy Awards for Best Actress.
The film is based on a short story by Ray Bradbury. In the story, it’s a little girl — as opposed to an old woman — who hears the voice. I haven’t read the short story so I don’t know how else it compares to this adaptation but, as a film, The Screaming Woman is an entertaining and creepy thriller and, when viewed today, it serves as a reminder of what a good actress Olivia De Havilland truly was. She takes a simple thriller and turns it into a meditation on aging and the one person’s determination to do the right thing even when the entire world seems to be against her.
Four years ago, Nick and Audrey Spitz (Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston) solved a convoluted murder mystery and became minor celebrities. Nick quit his job with the NYPD. Audrey quit her job as a hairdresser. They opened up their own private detective agency.
Unfortunately, as a narrator explains to us at the start of Murder Mystery 2, things haven’t gone smoothly for Nick and Audrey. They’ve struggled to establish themselves as detectives. In fact, Nick doesn’t even have a P.I. license because he has yet to pass the exam and he balks at having to actually study criminology. While Audrey tries to convince him to, at the very least, read a book on kidnapping, Nick is more concerned with coming up with cute business cards. His big idea to combine the traditional business card with floss and a razor. Personally, I wouldn’t want to use a business card to take care of my teeth but maybe that’s just me.
When Nick and Audrey are invited to an exclusive wedding, it’s a chance for them to reacquaint themselves with Vikram (Adeel Akhatar) and Colonel Ulenga (John Kani), both of whom were featured in the first Murder Mystery. When Vikram is kidnapped and one of his bodyguards is murdered, it’s a chance to Nick and Audrey to once again prove that they’re capable of solving a crime. When former MI6 agent-turned-security consultant Captain Miller (Mark Strong) literally emerges from the sea and takes over the investigation, it’s a chance to Audrey to meet one of her heroes and for Nick to get a little jealous. And when the action moves to France, it’s an excuse for the film’s cast and crew to hang out in Paris for a few weeks.
I enjoyed the first Murder Mystery, which was a surprisingly sweet and funny comedy that showcased Sandler and Aniston’s chemistry while also make good use of Sandler in one of his more likable comedic roles. Like all Sandler characters, Nick may be something of a manchild but he’s not deliberately destructive. He means well. The first film’s mystery was enjoyably convoluted and a lot of the humor came from just how out of place Sandler and Aniston were in an Agatha Christie-style whodunit.
Murder Mystery 2, unfortunately, it not quite as much fun as the first film. A huge part of the problem is that Nick and Audrey are no longer amateur detectives who are both shocked and secretly thrilled to be solving an actual murder. Now, they’re professional (if somewhat incompetent) detectives. The first film had a sweet subtext about Sandler trying to prove that he was as good a detective as thought he was. He had something to prove, to both his wife and to himself. In the second film, the emphasis is more on action than humor. Suddenly, Sandler and Aniston are engaging in high-speed car chases and battles atop the Eiffel Tower. It all feels a bit mechanical and, much as with his direction of The Binge, director Jeremy Garelick often seems to just be going through the motions.
On the plus side, Sandler and Aniston still have their chemistry and both of them still know how to make an otherwise corny joke work. Jennifer Aniston gets to wear a lot of really pretty outfits and Adam Sandler gets a memorable scene where he tries to convince himself that he can jump over a moat. There’s a genuinely funny moment towards the end of the film, when a character unrelated to the mystery randomly shows up and interrupts a tense showdown. Even though I wish the film had done a bit more with character, Mark Strong also seems to be having parodying his own image. There are moments of Murder Mystery 2 that are actually pretty amusing, though I think chuckled more than I actually laughed out loud. Ultimately, though, Murder Mystery 2 is rather forgettable.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 1973’s The Alpha Caper! It can be viewed on YouTube!
After years of faithful service and hard work, parole officer Mark Forbes (Henry Fonda) is on the verge of mandatory retirement. He’s spent his entire career playing by the rules and taking orders and helping recently released criminals go straight. For all of his service, all he’s gets is a small party and a cheap retirement gift.
Still, Mark is on the job when he gets a call that one of his parolees, Harry (Noah Beery, Jr.), is currently in the middle of a stand-off with the cops. Mark goes to the crime scene, where he discovers that Harry was trying to rob a warehouse full of weapons. He also discovers that Harry is dying, as the result of being shot by the police. Before Harry passes, he tells Mark that he and three other ex-cons were plotting to steal a shipment of gold bars.
Mark decides to carry out Harry’s plan. Working with Mitch (Leonard Nimoy), Tudor (Larry Hagman), and Scat (James McEachin), Mark comes up with a plan to rob the armored cars that are going to be transporting the gold. While Tudor and Scat are quick to join up with Mark, Mitch is a bit more hesitant. In the end, though, they all decide to work together. The plan they come up with is a clever one but its main strength is that it’s being spearheaded by Mark, a man who no one would ever expect to commit a crime. No one but his colleague and friend, Lee (John Marley), that is.
I watched The Alpha Caper last night, with my friend Phil, Janeen, and Spiro. To be honest, I selected the film because the title led me to suspect that it would be a science fiction film of some sort. I was a little surprised when it turned out to be a crime thriller but I was even more surprised by just how good the film itself turned out to be. Cleverly plotted and well-acted by the entire cast (and featuring a scruffy Leonard Nimoy playing a role that’s about as far from the coldly logical Mr. Spock as one can get), The Alpha Caper is an entertaining crime film but it’s also surprisingly poignant. Mark is someone who feels that he’s lived his entire life without taking a single risk and, as a result, he has nothing to show for it. He compares his situation to the mythical Kilroy of “Kilroy was Here” graffiti fame. Kilroy will always be remembered, even though no one is really sure who he was. Mark fears that he’s destined to be forgotten. The robbery is Mark’s way of announcing that “Mark Forbes was here.” The film ends on a surprisingly touching, if rather bittersweet, note.
The Alpha Caper originally aired on ABC on October 6th, 1973. It was apparently meant to be a pilot for an anthology show that would be called Crime. The series wasn’t picked up but, two years later, The Alpha Caper was theatrically released in Italy. Today, it can be seen on YouTube. Like Mark Forbes and Kilroy, the film has not been forgotten.
A mysterious outlaw known as the Shadow is terrorizing turn-of-the-century Arkansas. He and his gang have killed the last few sheriffs of Little Rock. No one is sure who the Shadow is or how he communicates with his gang but somehow, he is always one step ahead of the law. However, the Shadow didn’t count on federal agent John Travers (John Wayne) riding into town and declaring himself to be the new sheriff. Working with his Native sidekick, Yak (Yakima Canutt), Travers sets out to expose the Shadow and take him down. Along the way, he falls for Anita (Verna Hillie), the niece of rancher Matt Matlock (Gabby Hayes). Luckily, Anita knows her way around a gun too.
This is one of the 50 B-westerns that John Wayne made before Stagecoach made him a star. The Star Packer is more interesting than some of Wayne’s other poverty row productions because The Shadow is a more interesting and much more clever villain than the usual greedy but dumb outlaws that Wayne went up against in these movies. The Shadow actually has a clearly thought-out plan and, for once, Wayne can’t defeat the bad guys on his own. In The Star Packer, it takes a community to stand up to evil. As always with Robert Bradbury’s westerns, the fights and the stunts are impressive. Fans of Wayne’s B-period will probably especially be interested to see the legendary stuntman, Yakima Canutt, play a good guy for once. He and Wayne both do a good job in this 52 minute programmer.
Chris Morrell (John Wayne) is an honest cowboy who keeps an eye on Nina (Shirley Jean Rickert), a little girl whose Indian mother died when Nina was just a baby. When oil is discovered on land that belonged to Nina’s mother, Nina is offered $50,000 for the land. Because Nina is only eight years old, her legal guardian will be responsible for taking care of the money. Chris and Nina set out to find Nina’s father so that he can sign the guardianship papers and make Chris into Nina’s legal guardian.
When outlaw Sam Black (Yakima Canutt) decides that he would rather be Nina’s legal guardian, Chris sends Nina to a ranch owned by his old friend, Bud Moore, while he defeats Sam and his men. At the ranch, it turns out that Bud Moore has died and the new ranch owner is another outlaw named Vic (Jack Rockwell) and Vic wants Nina’s oil claim for himself. What Vic doesn’t know is that Nina’s father is one of his ranch hands.
For a 52 minute programmer, there’s a lot going on in ‘Neath The Arizona Skies. There’s actually too much going on and, with that short of a run time, it feels as if more than a few important plot points were glossed over, like how Chris came to look after Nina in the first place. John Wayne is stiff but likable as Chris while Yakima Canutt does his usual double duty as both an outlaw and a stuntman. There are a few good action scenes, especially when Chris runs off Sam’s gang for the first time. Sheila Terry plays Wayne’s love interest, who has to be first convinced that Chris isn’t actually an outlaw. As Nina, Shirley Jean Rickert is energetic but you’ll quickly get tired of her yelling, “Daddy Chris!” whenever anything happens. This isn’t one of the best of the 50 poverty row films that Wayne appeared in before Stagecoachmade him a star but, even in this film, there are still hints of the screen presence that would later become Wayne’s trademark.
Someone is passing counterfeit bills on the Mexican border and the government thinks that it might be Doc Carter (Earle Hodgins), the manger of a traveling medicine show. Working undercover, Treasury agent John Wyatt (John Wayne) joins Doc Carter’s medicine show as a trick shooter. John discovers that Doc Carter is a quack and the miracle cure that he sells is 90% alcohol but that Doc Carter isn’t a counterfeiter. Instead, Doc Carter is being framed by his former partner, Curly Joe (Yakima Canutt). When John tries to tell the Mexican authorities about Curly Joe is doing, he discovers that Curly Joe has framed him as well!
This was the last of the B-programmers that John Wayne made for Monogram Pictures and it was the only one of Wayne’s films to be directed by Carl Pierson. As he did in almost all of his early B-pictures, John Wayne gives a tough but likable performance. He’s the most cheerful undercover agent that I’ve ever seen. The action scenes are rudimentary and Pierson was obviously not as creative a director as some of the other filmmakers that Wayne worked with early in his career. Carl Pierson was no Robert Bradbury. But the medicine show angle does bring a different angle to the story, with Wayne getting to show off his trick shooting skills and Earle Hodgins providing comedic relief with his miracle cure. Of course, John has a romance with pretty Linda (Marion Burns), who is Doc Carter’s daughter and who is also known as Princess Natasha.
Though it may not be one of the best of the 50 movies that John Wayne made before getting his star-making role in Stagecoach, Paradise Canyon will still be appreciated by fans of both the Duke and the simple but entertaining B-westerns of the past.
The 1983 film, 10 to Midnight, opens with LAPD detective Leo Kessler (played by legendary tough guy Charles Bronson) sitting at his desk in a police station. He’s typing up a report and taking his time about it. A reporter who is in search of a story starts to bother Leo.
“Jerry,” Leo tells him, “I’m not a nice person. I’m a mean, selfish son-of-a-bitch. I know you want a story but I want a killer and what I want comes first.”
It’s a classic opening, even if Leo isn’t being totally honest. Yes, he can be a little bit selfish but he’s really not as mean as he pretends to be. He may not know how to talk to his daughter Laurie (Lisa Eilbacher) but he is also very protective of her and he wants to be a better father than he’s been in the past. He may roll his eyes when he discovers that Detective Paul McAnn (Andrew Stevens) is the son of a sociology professor but he still tries to act as a mentor to his younger partner. Leo may complain that the criminal justice system “protects those maggots like they’re an endangered species” but that’s just because he’s seen some truly disturbing things during his time on the force and, let’s face it, Leo has a point. When one of Laurie’s friends is murdered, Leo is convinced that Warren Stacy (Gene Davis) is the murderer and he’s determined to do whatever he has to do to get Warren off the streets. “All those girls,” Leo snarls when he sees Warren, his tone letting us know that his mission to stop Warren is about more than just doing his job.
Warren Stacy is handsome, athletic, and he has good taste in movies. (He’s especially a fan of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Just don’t try to trick him by saying Steve McQueen played the Sundance Kid.) Warren is also a total creep, the type of guy who complains that a murder victim “wasn’t a good person,” because she trashed him in her diary. When Leo takes a look around Warren’s apartment, he finds not only porn but also a penis pump. (“It’s for jacking off!” Leo yells at Warren, enunciating the line as only Charles Bronson could.) Warren is also a murderer but he’s a clever murderer, the type who sets himself up with an alibi by acting obnoxiously in a movie theater. Warren strips nude before killing his victims, in order to make sure that he doesn’t leave behind any evidence. (This film was made in the days before DNA testing.)
Leo knows that Warren is guilty but, as both his gruff-but-fair captain (Wilford Brimley, naturally) and the D.A. (Robert F. Lyons) point out, he has no way to prove it. When Warren starts to stalk Laurie and her friends (including Kelly Preston), Leo decides that he has no choice but to frame Warren. But when Warren’s amoral attorney, Dave Dante (Geoffrey Lewis, giving a wonderfully sleazy performance), threatens to call McAnn to the stand, McAnn has to decide whether to tell the truth or to join Leo in framing a guilty man.
10 to Midnight is a violent, vulgar, and undoubtedly exploitive film, one that features a ham-fisted message about how the justice system is more concerned with protecting the rights of the accused as opposed to lives of the innocent. And yet, in its gloriously pulpy way, this is also one of Bronson’s best films. It’s certainly my personal favorite of the films that he made for Cannon.
Director J. Lee Thompson and Charles Bronson were frequent collaborators and Thompson obviously knew how to get the best out of the notoriously reserved actor. Bronson was not known for his tremendous range but he still gives one of his strongest performances in 10 to Midnight, playing Leo as being not just a determined cop but also as an aging man who is confused by the way the world is changing around him. Stopping Warren isn’t just about justice. It’s also about fighting back against the the type of world that would create a Warren Stacy and then allow him to remain on the streets in the first place. Interestingly, though Leo doesn’t hesitate when it comes to framing Warren, he is also sympathetic to McAnn’s objections. Unlike other Bronson characters, Leo doesn’t hold a grudge when his partner questions his methods. Instead, he simply know that McAnn hasn’t spent enough time in the real world to understand what’s at stake. McAnn hasn’t given into cynicism. He hasn’t decided that the best way to deal with his job is to be a “mean son of a bitch.” Bronson and Andrew Stevens, who had worked together in the past, have a believable dynamic. McAnn looks up to Leo but is also conflicted by his actions. Leo may be annoyed by McAnn’s reluctance but he also respects him for trying to be an honest cop. Their partnership feels real in a way that sets 10 to Midnight apart from so many other films about an older cop having to deal with an idealistic partner.
One of the most interesting things about the film is Leo’s relationship with his daughter, Laurie. Over the course of the film, Leo and Laurie go from barely speaking to bonding over liquor and their shared regrets about the state of the justice system. When McAnn first meets Laurie, she’s offended when McAnn suggests that she takes after her father. But, as the film progresses, she comes to realize that she and Leo have much in common. (To be honest, I related quite a bit to Laurie, especially as I’ve recently come to better appreciate how much of my own independent nature was inherited from my father.) Lisa Eilbacher and Charles Bronson are believable as father-and-daughter and they play off of each other well. The scenes between Laurie and Leo give 10 to Midnight a bit more depth than one might otherwise expect from a Bronson Cannon film. Leo isn’t just trying to protect his daughter and her roommates from a serial killer. He’s also trying to be the father who he wishes he had been when she was younger. He’s trying to make up for lost time, even as he also tries to keep Warren Stacy away from his family.
As played by Gene Davis, Warren Stacy is one of the most loathsome cinematic villains of all time. Warren’s crimes are disturbing enough. (Indeed, the surreal sight of a naked and blood-covered Warren Stacy stalking through a dark apartment is pure nightmare fuel.) What makes Warren particularly frightening is that we’ve all had to deal with a Warren Stacy at some point in our life. He’s the sarcastic and easily offended incel who thought he was entitled to a phone number or a date or perhaps even more. As I rewatched this movie last night, I wondered how many Warrens I had met in my life. How many potential serial killers have any of us unknowingly had to deal with? Warren tries to strut through life, smirking and going out of his way to let everyone know that he knows more than they do but the minute that Leo turns the table on him, Warren starts whining about he’s being treated unfairly. During his final, disturbing rampage, Warren yells that his victims aren’t being honest with him, blaming them for his actions. The film deserves a lot of credit for not turning Warren into some sort of diabolical and erudite supervillain. He’s not Hannibal Lecter. Instead, like all real-life serial killers, he’s a loser who is looking for power over those to whom he feels inferior and for revenge on a world that he feels owes him something. He’s a realistic monster and that makes him all the more frightening and the film all the more powerful. Warren is the type of killer who, even as I sit here typing this, could be walking down anyone’s street. He’s such a complete monster that it’s undeniably cathartic whenever Leo goes after him.
How delusional is Warren Stacy? He’s delusional enough to actually taunt Charles Bronson! At one point, Warren informs Leo that he can’t be punished for being sick. Warren announces that, when he’s arrested, he might go away for a while but he’ll be back and there’s nothing Leo can do about it. (The suggestion, of course, is that Warren will be back because he committed his crimes in California and all the judges were appointed by a bunch of bleeding heart governors. Warren may not say that out loud but we all know that is the film’s subtext. Some people may agree with the film, some people may disagree. Myself, I’m against the death penalty because I think it’s a prime example of government overreach but I still cheered the first time that I heard Clint Eastwood say, “Well, I’m all torn up about his rights,” in Dirty Harry.) How does Leo react to Warren’s taunts? I can’t spoil the film’s best moment but I can tell you that 10 to Midnight features one of Bronson’s greatest (and, after what we’ve just seen Warren do, most emotionally satisfying) one-lines.
The title has nothing to do with anything that happens in the film. In typical Cannon fashion, the film’s producers came up with a snappy title (and 10 to Midnight is a good one) and then slapped it onto a script that was previously called Bloody Sunday. Fortunately, as long as Bronson is doing what he does best, it doesn’t matter if the title makes sense. And make no mistake. 10 to Midnight is Bronson at his best.
Accused and convicted of a murder that he didn’t commit, John Brant (John Wayne) breaks out of prison in Maryland and, following the advice of Horace Greeley, he goes west. After making a narrow escape from the authorities, he meets and befriends Joseph Conlan (Lane Chandler). Conlan brings Brant into his gang, where Brant starts out as a cook but is soon being assigned to help rob stores and stagecoaches. Despite his time in prison, Brant is no criminal and he secretly thwarts every robbery that the gang tries to pull off. When the gang starts to suspect that Brant might be an undercover cop, Conlan is the only one willing to stand up for him and help him. Conlan is also responsible for the murder that Brant was accused of committing.
John Wayne as a hardened escaped convict? Maybe the older John Wayne could have pulled that off but, in 1933, Wayne was still too cheerful and easy going to be believable as someone who had spent the last few months doing hard time. Fortunately, even early in his career, Wayne was convincing when riding a horse or shooting a gun and that’s probably all that the audience for these short programmers demanded. There’s also an exciting scene where Wayne is forced to swim across a pond while his pursuers shoot at him. As the criminal with a conscience, Lane Chandler steals the film.
Fans of westerns will want to keep an eye out for legendary stuntman Yakima Canutt, playing yet another outlaw gang leader. Yakima Canutt started out his career risking his life as a rodeo rider and then went on to risk his life ever more as Hollywood’s most daring stunt performer. When he got too old to continue doing stunt work, he became a second unit director, for John Ford and others. He staged Ben-Hur‘s famous chariot race and was credited with making sure that not a single horse was hurt and not a single human was seriously injured during filming. Yakima Canutt lived to be 90 years old, outliving most of the actors from whom he doubled as a stuntman.
In 1984, a Long Island-based teenage drug dealer and wannabe gangster named Ricky Kasso murdered a childhood friend named Gary Lauwers, reportedly because he was angry that Gary had stolen some drugs from him. While tripping on LSD, Ricky brutally stabbed Gary to death in the woods. Ricky later said that he demanded that Gary say “I love Satan,” while killing him. Ricky claimed to be a Satanist, though he never actually learned how to spell the name of his supposed Dark Lord and instead would tag walls with graffiti exhorting the viewer to “Hail Satin.”
Through the Shattered Lens