One of my earliest memories of staying up late and watching cheesy movies on local television was the sight of Robert Vaughn standing on a beach and cursing, “Damn you, Kennedy!” An echo effect kicked in, making the line: “Damn you, Kennedy Kennedy Kennedy Kennedy Kennedy!”
The name of the movie was Assignment — Kill Castro and sometimes it seemed like it came on every other night. The movie started with a title crawl that was so lengthy and so set the tone for the entire film that I feel it is worth quoting in its entirety:
From 1961, the year of the Bag of Pigs to today, the Government of the United States has been embroiled in a series of events which have continually led our nation to crisis after crisis and to the brink of war.
ASSIGNMENT — KILL CASTRO, a true story is one of the most confusing and frustrating historical events that might have led to a world power showdown. It happened yesterday! It happened today! It can happen again!
Names of persons and places have been changed to protect the individuals who were called upon to aid their country and in doing so placed their lives in jeopardy.
“I WILL GIVE ALL FOR THE LOVE OF MY COUNTRY … RIGHT OR WRONG! — G.W. Bell, Chief of Carribean (sic) Operations, Central Intelligence Agency”
This motion picture is dedicated to all people who desire to live in a free democratic society.
Robert Vaughn plays Hud, a former CIA agent who was involved in the original Bay of Pigs invasion. When the mysterious Mr. Bell (Raymond St. Jacques) and a gangster named Rossellini (Michael V. Gazzo) agree to finance an operation to kill Fidel Castro, Hud recruits a Key West bar owner named Tony (Stuart Whitman) to take him to Cuba. However, Mr. Bell and Rossellini are just using Hud to secretly smuggle heroin into Florida and, much like John F. Kennedy in 1961, they are planning on abandoning him on the beaches of Cuba.
The main problem with Assignment — Kill Castro is that we already know that Hud is not going to succeed in his mission because Fidel Castro is still alive and probably still bragging about how he sent Tony Montana to Miami. The other problem is that the movie does not make any damn sense. That title crawl was not kidding when it said the story was confusing and frustrating. Everyone is so busy double-crossing everyone else that it is hard to keep track. There has to be a simpler way to get heroin into Florida. Surprisingly, this incoherent movie was written and directed by the legendary editor, Chuck Workman, the same Chuck Workman who puts together those montages for the Oscars.
Kill Castro does have a good cast, though none of them are at their best. Along with Whitman, Vaughn, St. Jacques, and Gazzo, the cast includes Woody Strode, Albert Salmi, and Sybil Danning (whose last name is misspelled Daning in the end credits). Fidel Castro plays himself and the film’s ending is provided by cannibal turtles.
Assignment — Kill Castro was just one of the many titles that this movie was released under.
It was also known as Cuba Crossing,
Key West Crossing, The Mercenaries, and my personal favorite, Sweet Dirty Tony.
It’s hard for younger audiences to understand what a truly subversive figure Elvis Presley was in the 1950’s. Throughout the 1960’s he made safe, sanitized films that seem quite tame today, and his later Las Vegas persona has been parodied to death (and indeed, Presley became a parody of himself in the 70’s). But back in the day, Elvis was the original punk rocker, his gyrating hips and perpetual sneer causing quite a scandal among adults brought up on sedate Bing Crosby-type crooners. Teenagers were attracted to this new, rebellious musical style, and Presley became their King. Hits like “Heartbreak Hotel”, “Hound Dog”, and “All Shook Up” topped the charts, and a plethora of rock’n’roll artists jumped on the bandwagon. Elvis had already done two films by the time JAILHOUSE ROCK was released, a triumph of punk attitude about a convict’s rise to the top of the music heap.
When I was 16, I would spend every weekend down at a small, used video store that was a few blocks away from my house. One afternoon, I was looking for a video to rent when I came across a battered VHS box. On the front of the box, Peter O’Toole smoked a cigar and sat on top of a tank. The back cover described the film as being about revolution and promised exciting action. A critic was quoted as saying that the movie was “an intelligent political thriller!” Because I was obsessed with politics, that caught my attention. I rented the movie, took it home, and watched it twice.
The name of the movie was Power Play.
In an unnamed Eastern European country, a corrupt and despotic dictator rules with an iron hand. Dissidents are regularly arrested and executed. Corrupt government officials live in luxury while the rest of the country is trapped in poverty. After a friend’s daughter is tortured and murdered by the secret police, Colonel Narriman (David Hemmings) teams up with Dr. Rosseau (Barry Morse) to plot a coup. In order to the overthrow the government, the conspirators have to hide their plans from Blair (Donald Pleasence), the sadistic head of the secret police, and convince Colonel Zeller (Peter O’Toole) to join them and bring his tanks over to their side.
Power Play may be forgotten today but it made a big impression on me when I first watched it. Power Play not only showed what it was like to live in a totalitarian society but also attempted to realistically portray what it would take to overthrow a dictatorship. Power Play spends as much time on the plotting of the revolution as it does on the revolution itself, with special attention given to Rousseau’s attempts to secure international support for the coup. David Hemmings is great in the main role and Donald Pleasence is Himmleresque as Blair. Even Peter O’Toole’s infamous 1970s hamminess seems appropriate for the character of Col. Zeller. Power Play is a must see for aspiring revolutionaries every where.
Incidentally, Power Play opens with one of the conspirators being interviewed by Dick Cavett, meaning that Power Play can be added to Annie Hall and A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors on the list of films in which Dick Cavett has played himself.
What happened when famed action star Steve McQueen met playwright Henrik Ibsen?
Here’s Steve McQueen in The Great Escape:
This is Steve McQueen in Bullitt:
Here’s Steve McQueen with his future wife, Ali MacGraw, in The Getaway:
And finally, here’s Steve McQueen starring in An Enemy of the People:
In the four years between appearing in the Oscar-nominated The Towering Inferno and starring in An Enemy of the People, McQueen notoriously turned down several high-profile projects. He turned down the lead role in Sorcerer because director William Friedkin would not write a role for MacGraw. He turned down the lead role in Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of The Third Kind because he felt that he would not be able to cry on cue. (When Spielberg offered to take out the crying scene, McQueen replied that it was the best scene in the script.) Francis Ford Coppola could not afford his salary and McQueen missed out on the chance to play Capt. Willard in Apocalypse Now, a role he would have been perfect for.
Instead, after a four years absence, McQueen returned to the screen in one of the least expected films of his career. Based on Arthur Miller’s adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s original play, An Enemy of the People featured McQueen playing Dr. Thomas Stockmann, a scientist who discovers that his town’s local spring has been polluted by a tannery. When Stockmann reveals his findings, the town turns against him and his family. Stockmann has to decide whether to give into pressure from the town or to stay true to his principles.
As a star who was best known for playing stoic men of action, Steve McQueen was the last actor that anyone expected to appear in a film based on an Ibsen play. McQueen also insisted on playing the role with a heavy beard and a stocky build, making him virtually unrecognizable on-screen. Warner Bros. had no idea how to advertise An Enemy of The People so they didn’t. After a year of sitting on the shelf, An Enemy of the People was given a limited run in a few college towns. Many critics assumed that McQueen deliberately made an uncommercial movie just to get out of his contract with Warner Bros but, according to both Ali MacGraw and Marshall Terrill’s Steve McQueen: An American Rebel, McQueen was actually very enthusiastic about making An Enemy of the People and extremely disappointed when it was not a success. After the film failed to find an audience, Steve McQueen returned to appearing in action films and westerns.
Steve McQueen in Tom Horn (1980)
I recently saw An Enemy of the People on TCM and I thought it was slow and didactic. (It did not help that An Enemy of the People is Ibsen’s weakest play.) Especially in the beginning, there are a few scenes where McQueen struggles to hold his ground against co-stars Charles Durning and Richard Dysart, both of whom had far more theatrical experience. But McQueen gets better as the film goes on and proves that his deceptively casual approach can still be effective even when he is playing an intellectual who chooses to make his point with his words instead of his fists. He does a good job handling Ibsen’s notoriously wordy speeches. By the end of the movie, the idea of Steve McQueen in an Ibsen play no longer seems strange at all.
After An Enemy of the People, McQueen would only make two more movies before dying of cancer at the age of 50. Based on his performance as Dr. Stockmann, I believe that if McQueen had not died, he would have aged into being a great actor, in much the same way as Clint Eastwood. It’s unfortunate that McQueen never got that chance.
P.O.W. films were all the rage in the 1980s. For a country just starting to get back its confidence, refighting the Vietnam War onscreen was a way to deal with the lingering trauma of that conflict. In Rambo: First Blood Part II, Sylvester Stallone asked, “Do we get to win this time?” and for a while, the answer was yes. By sending action stars like Stallone and Chuck Norris to rescue American soldiers still being held captive in Asia, we would win this time (if only in our dreams).
P.O.W.: The Escape (also known as Behind Enemy Lines and Attack Force ‘Nam) is one of the many P.O.W. films that was produced by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus during their legendary time at Cannon Films. In place of their usual star, Chuck Norris, P.O.W.: The Escape stars David Carradine as Col. James Cooper. Cooper is a U.S. Airborne commando who, in 1973, is sent to North Vietnam on a special missions to rescue the soldiers behind held in a POW camp.
Why has Cooper been selected for this mission?
As one officer puts it, “Aside from being the best, he’s got one rule and it’s never been broken. Everybody goes home!”
When the rescue mission goes awry, Cooper is himself captured and sent to the POW camp. He gets his fellow prisoners back into fighting shape and, when the cowardly Sparks (Charles R. Floyd) challenges his leadership, Cooper reminds him of who the senior officer in charge is. When the camp commandant, Vinh (Mako), offers to help Cooper escape in return for Cooper helping Vinh reach the United States, Cooper simply responds with his name, rank, and serial number. When Vinh threatens to kill the prisoners unless Cooper helps him, Cooper agrees on one condition: “Everybody goes home!”
When Sgt. Johnston (played by perennial action sidekick, Steve James) learns of the plan, he argues that “Everybody goes home is a slogan, not a religion!”
“Speak for yourself,” Cooper replies.
Even, if like Sparks, they betray you and run off with a cache of gold, the religion of Everybody Goes Home means that no one gets left behind. Even if it means having to trek through the jungle and going over a waterfall in a canoe, everybody goes home. That is something that Sparks only comes to realize as he watches a prostitute undress and starts to have flashbacks to earlier scenes in the movie. Suddenly, Sparks understands that everybody goes home and it gives him an opportunity for some last minute redemption.
Even though it is not as well-known as Missing in Action or First Blood Part II, POW: The Escape is enjoyably mindless entertainment in the legendary Cannon style. As the world’s least likely paratrooper, David Carradine gets to show off some sweet kung fu moves. By the end of the movie, Carradine is literally wearing an American flag. Nothing about POW: The Escape is subtle but what’s important is that “Everybody goes home!”
If there’s a film room in hell, you can be sure THE ROOKIE is playing there continuously. This totally unfunny service “comedy” stars the team of Tommy Noonan and Peter Marshall. They’re about as funny as having a spike driven through your forehead. The only reason I’m writing about this atrocity is to give you all fair warning: DON’T WATCH IT!!
The story makes no sense whatsoever. Tommy is drafted just as WWII is over, and demands to be put through boot camp. A mix-up occurs at the Pentagon when two drunken janitors answer the phone, and Camp Clyde is ordered to stay open and put Tommy through basic training. This doesn’t sit well with Sgt. Peter Marshall, who was looking forward to discharging and marrying his sweetheart, starlet Lili Marlene (Julie Newmar, who’s wasted in this mess).
News of this nonsense makes Lili’s PR man (Jerry Lester) come up…
I did say I would write this a few days after I watched part 1, but obviously that didn’t happen. My health problems hit me hard. That’s why I greatly appreciated the person who thanked me for providing instructions on how to find songs used in Hallmark movies in my review of Valentine Ever After. I also found it hilarious to receive a comment by someone who I believe thinks they know quite a bit about Hallmark movies seeing as they wanted to lecture me about them bundled together with personal attacks. They must have missed the recent Hallmark movie Hearts of Spring. It covered leaving nasty comments with personal attacks about how you know better than someone about something on that person’s blog when you disagree with their opinion and the damage it can cause. It was also about mint chocolate chip milkshakes.
But we aren’t here to discuss the wonderful world of writing movie reviews. We’re here to discuss this film, and hopefully have a little fun doing it. Especially with what happened today. Right, Ted?
Karen Kingsbury’s The Bridge, Part 1 (2015, dir. Mike Rohl)
The movie begins not quite where the first film left off. The first film had two kids named Ryan and Molly who go to college, meet, and fall in love before going their separate ways basically because there was a second part to the movie. The actual reasons are that there was an extra guy and girl along with Molly’s dad who came in between the two of them. It also had the story of Charlie and Donna who come together after a personal tragedy to create a bookstore whose main mission isn’t so much to sell books, but act as a place where people can bond over their love of reading. They called it The Bridge. The movie ended with Donna turning down Charlie to go back to church with him and standing at the checkout counter with “to be continued…” below her.
This film begins by treating us to that conversation between Molly (Katie Findlay) and Ryan (Wyatt Nash) from the end of the first film. That one where the phones were sometimes lit up near the character’s ear, and sometimes not.
I’m still not sure why that was a thing. To my knowledge, all cellphones turn the screen black so that you don’t accidentally hit buttons with your face when you are talking on them next to your ear. I’ve seen other Hallmark movies do this right sometimes and other times incorrectly.
After that we cut to Seattle, Washington 7 years later. Seeing as the first film started in 2009 and took them to Christmas of that year, it would mean that this film takes place in 2016 during the holidays. I guess that’s why they originally planned to air this at that time. I can’t imagine what a disaster that would have been considering the plot of this film. Then they cut to this shot that immediately follows the title card, which told us when and where we are.
I know A Christmas Detour had a litany of ridiculously photoshopped in Christmas stuff at the very beginning of the film. However, not only does director Ron Oliver have a sense of humor, but his movie was supposed to be a comedy. These two movies on the other hand are supposed to be rather serious. Plus, the movie then cuts inside to show us Molly and her dad (Steve Bacic) who-along with the sets-announce clearly that we are at his business. The establishing shot didn’t need to be there. Particularly if this was how it was going to look. While not needing to be there, I can’t say I’m shocked that it ended up there after seeing 170+ Hallmark films at the time of writing this review. Just like I’m not shocked that the dialog between Molly and her dad is there establish that she is on the brink of marrying the guy who wasn’t worth mentioning in my first review and becoming CEO of her dad’s company just before fate will intervene to bring her back to Ryan. That’s her Hallmark movie within this Hallmark movie.
Now we are reintroduced to Ryan who has just arrived home for the holidays. They decided to age Wyatt by having him grow a little facial hair.
I’m sorry, but there’s just something about the pattern of his mustache hair that says Frollo Gaston from The Secret of the Hunchback (1996) to me.
The Secret of the Hunchback (1996, dir. Mike Joens & Ken C. Johnson)
While I really did think it was going to happen, Charlie does not sprout wings in this like Quasimodo does in that film to reveal he’s an angel.
If there’s anything they did to Molly to age her, then it’s so superficial that I didn’t even notice. Still, she does actually look like an adult instead of Emilia Clarke in Terminator Genisys (2015) who really looked like a teenager.
Then we are re-introduced to Charlie (Ted McGinley) as he goes around town saying the bookstore will be rebuilt and open for business soon. It’s at times like this in the film that I wonder if it was purely budget or if Hallmark trimmed a few scenes to make this fit the runtime they had for this early airing of the film. We never really see the storm except for a weird scene. Charlie enters The Bridge after talking to people on the street and then looks up at a hole in his ceiling when we get a flashback to the storm. It’s very short, but at first I honestly thought Donna (Faith Ford) had been struck by lightning.
It’s a very short scene. I didn’t try to catch a screenshot like that. It’s how it came out. It’s also the only one I have that illustrates the lightning part of things.
In the first film, Charlie had a character who was thin as a playing card. In this second film, McGinley actually gets to do some acting as we see him trying to deal with the destruction of the bookstore. Of course good acting for Charlie is not meant to be here for some reason so he winds up getting attacked by a pole in his car and is out in a coma for the remainder of the film. That’s too bad cause for a brief period there, you really do get a glimpse of McGinley adding some depth to Charlie.
Then Molly comes back to town and discovers this whole situation with The Bridge along with Ryan. By the way, that’s the whole movie. Charlie ends up in a coma because he shouldn’t have been behind the wheel in his state and hit a pole. Molly comes back to town and with Ryan’s help, rallies the community and leverages the Internet to rebuild The Bridge. Then we get Charlie waking up from his coma to find that all is well thanks to the bonds he formed with and between the people the bookstore touched. I would think Hallmark viewers would be expecting something more substantial seeing as they were being asked to wait a whole year for this second film.
There are a couple of little subplots if you can even call them that. It’s really just the film tying up a few loose ends/removing a few roadblocks concerning Molly and Ryan to make sure they can end the film on a kiss between them.
There is one thing I found unintentionally funny about this movie.
I get why there are no last names. I mean I have seen Hallmark movies populate lists of names like this with crew members, but I understand. What’s funny is the one on the bottom. I wouldn’t think it was worth mentioning the obvious thing people associate with the name Slim if not for something that happened while I was watching the film. I mean other than this obvious association with the name Slim.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964, dir. Stanley Kubrick)
I’m going to mention it because there is an actor in this movie that I kept mistaking for Wyatt Nash.
It really took till this scene for me to know for sure that I was seeing a different character when the guy in the blue shirt was onscreen. So, of course I’m thinking “will the real Wyatt Nash please stand up” when I see the name Slim.
My final thoughts on this one are that they basically took a single Hallmark film and divided it in two. If this had been condensed to a single film, then it still wouldn’t have been that good honestly, but it would have been an actual Hallmark movie. To give Karen Kingsbury the benefit of the doubt again, I have to imagine that her book didn’t divide the story with a seven year gap. I’m guessing there was more time to develop their relationship and flesh out Donna and Charlie that builds to all the connections that developed through the bookstore ultimately allowing them all to survive the literal and metaphorical storm. With obvious religious stuff that I’m sure is more pronounced in the book thrown in.
Long story short, don’t bother with either of these movies. There are far better films Hallmark has made. Even their usual average B-Movies are also often enjoyable on some level. Even if that is just the enjoyment of riffing on them and noticing goofs they make. Even the screenwriter of Hello, It’s Me told me on Twitter she was enjoying my reactions to the dialog she had written. People have a lot of fun doing live tweets of Hallmark movies and the cast and crew will sometimes hop onboard to have fun with the audience too. At the end of the day, these reviews are to give you my opinion on the film and to hopefully guide you to ones you’ll enjoy. Even if that’s just because I’ve talked about it enough that regardless of what I thought about it, you decide it sounds like something you might enjoy.
As always if they list them, here are the songs:
It seems to be a regular thing for me when I write these reviews to listen to a single song on an endless repeat. Might as well mention it as a little footnote for people. The song for this review was Holding Back the Years by Simply Red.
In retrospect, I probably should have been listening to Culture Club’s Do You Really Want To Hurt Me.
Last night, I gathered together with my three older sisters and I tried to make them watch Killing Mommy on Lifetime! They all abandoned me after thirty minutes but I stayed for the entire film.
Killing Mommy was the latest in a long line of Canadian-produced Lifetime thrillers. It tells the story of two twin sisters! Deb has dark hair, a tattoo, and a bad attitude. She’s a recovering drug addict and she divides her time between having anonymous sex and going to jail. Julianne has red hair and is about to graduate from college. She is always smiling and she’s always spending money!
When Deb and Julianne were younger, their father died when a car mysteriously fell on top of him. Now, their mom — who runs a charity of some sort — is on the verge of remarrying. Deb is upset. Julianne is supportive. Soon, someone with dark hair is attempting to kill mom. Is it Deb or is it just Julianne wearing a Deb wig?
What Worked, eh?
Killing Mommy was one of those films that got better the longer it lasted. During the first hour, I thought it was way too slow and awkwardly acted. But, during the second hour, the film got enjoyably weird and over-the-top. It’s as if, during the 2nd half of the movie, the filmmakers suddenly realized that they just had to stop pretending like the movie would ever make any sense. They decided to embrace the melodrama and good for them!
What Did Not Work, eh?
The second hour of Killing Mommy is a lot of fun but that first hour — oh my God. See, the main problem with having a great second hour is that you have to get through the first hour to reach it and, if you first hour moves too slowly or features some less than impressive acting, you’re increasing the chances that viewers will never make it to that second hour. The first hour of Killing Mommy was a real struggle to get through. If you look at my twitter timeline, you’ll see that I tweeted a hundred times more during the second hour than the first hour.
Some of the acting, especially during that first hour, left a lot to be desired. I think I may have compared some of the performances to the acting that you typically find in one of those “You got insurance? With your health problems?!” MetLife insurance commercials. However, I now think that some of what seemed like bad acting may have instead just been foreshadowing of the film’s 2nd hour twist.
Speaking of twists, there’s a flashback where a man working on a car yells at his daughter so much that she finally gets so annoyed that she lowers the car down on top of him. (That’s not really a spoiler because what happened is pretty obvious from the minute the car crushing is first mention, especially if you’ve ever seen a Lifetime movie before.) Anyway, I started giggling during that scene and I’m not sure if I was supposed to.
“OMG! Just like me!” Moments, for sure
Julianne has red hair and she loves to shop! How could I not relate to her?
On the other hand, Deb often wears black and has a sarcastic attitude. How could I not relate to her, as well?
Seriously, other than all the murders, this whole movie had me going, “Oh my God! Just like me!” over and over again.
If you think today’s political climate is tumultuous and crazy, wait’ll you get a load of WILD IN THE STREETS. Filmed in the chaotic year 1968, this satirical look at the counter-culture vs the establishment revolves around a power-mad rock star whose call to lower the voting age to 14 results in him becoming President of the good ol’ USA, and sticking it to the over 30 crowd by interring them in concentration camps loaded with LSD-spiked water supplies!
Christopher Jones is Max Frost, née Flatow, the charismatic leader of rock band Max Frost and the Troopers. Pre-credits flashbacks show Max’s unhappy childhood with an overbearing mother (Shelley Winters at her over-the-top best) and abrasive dad (Bert Freed). Max learns to hate all adults and dabbles in making LSD and bombs. After he blows up dad’s car, the rebellious Max leaves home and winds up becoming a mega rock star rivaling the…
Having just finished reviewing all the films in Mill Creek’s Fabulous Forties box set, I thought I would conclude things by listing all of the films that can be found in the set. They are listed below, from best to worst, in descending order. Since most of these films are in the public domain, they can be found on either YouTube or the Internet Archive!
One of my earliest memories of staying up late and watching cheesy movies on local television was the sight of Robert Vaughn standing on a beach and cursing, “Damn you, Kennedy!” An echo effect kicked in, making the line: “Damn you, Kennedy Kennedy Kennedy Kennedy Kennedy!”
Instead, after a four years absence, McQueen returned to the screen in one of the least expected films of his career. Based on Arthur Miller’s adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s original play, An Enemy of the People featured McQueen playing Dr. Thomas Stockmann, a scientist who discovers that his town’s local spring has been polluted by a tannery. When Stockmann reveals his findings, the town turns against him and his family. Stockmann has to decide whether to give into pressure from the town or to stay true to his principles.
P.O.W. films were all the rage in the 1980s. For a country just starting to get back its confidence, refighting the Vietnam War onscreen was a way to deal with the lingering trauma of that conflict. In Rambo: First Blood Part II, Sylvester Stallone asked, “Do we get to win this time?” and for a while, the answer was yes. By sending action stars like Stallone and Chuck Norris to rescue American soldiers still being held captive in Asia, we would win this time (if only in our dreams).
