4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More 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!
101 years ago, on the very day, Russ Meyer was born in San Leandro, California. Meyer would get his start filming newsreels during World War II, with much of his newsreel footage later showing up in films like the 1970 Oscar winner, Patton. When he returned to the United States, he continued to make films, though the subject matter changed a bit. Meyer was one of the pioneers of the adult film industry, though his once controversial films now seem rather quaint and innocent when compared to the industry’s later films. Meyer’s strong visual sense and his intentionally over-the-top plots made him a favorite amongst underground critics. In the 70s, he was briefly embraced by mainstream Hollywood but, unhappy with having to deal with the studio bosses, Meyer returned to making the type of independent, grindhouse films that made him famous.
Russ Meyer was 82 years old when he died in 2004. He was acclaimed as one of America’s first and most iconic independent filmmakers.
Here are 4 Safe-For-Work Shots From 4 Russ Meyer Films.
4 Shots From 4 Films
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965, dir by Russ Meyer, DP: Walter Schenk)
Motorpsycho (1965, dir by Russ Meyer, DP: Russ Meyer)
Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls (1970, dir by Russ Meyer, DP: Fred J. Koenekamp)
The Seven Minutes (1971, dir by Russ Meyer, DP: Fred Mandl)
Today is Gary Oldman’s 65th birthday and, in honor of the occasion, here’s a scene from one of my favorite Oldman films, 2011’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
In this scene, British intelligence officer George Smiley (Gary Oldman) confronts his colleague and Russian mole Bill Haydon (Colin Firth). This scene is a masterclass of good acting, put on by both Firth and Oldman. As Haydon tries to justify his behavior, Smiley listens with deceptive calmness. When I first saw this film, Oldman suddenly raising his voice made the entire audience jump.
Cowboy John Mason (John Wayne) rides into a frontier town. He is planning on working with his father, rancher Dad Mason (Joseph De Grasse). Unfortunately, John arrives just in time to witness his father being killed by a gang of thieves. John is wounded while chasing the thieves but, once he recovers, he’s determined to get vengeance against the man who killed his father. That man is Rudd Gordon (Dennis Gordon), who is also the brother of Alice Gordon (Marion Burns), the woman who nursed John back to health and who is also engages to marry John’s best friend, Ben McLure (Reed Howes).
There is a little deliberate humor to be found in The Dawn Rider. Every time someone is shot, the undertaker (Nelson McDowell) steps out of his office and measures the body while the town doctor celebrates having some business coming his way. Otherwise, this is one of the most serious films that John Wayne made in the years before Stagecoachmade him a star. John Mason is determined to get revenge, even if his obsession means hurting his best friend’s fiancé. (Though John Mason is less fanatical, it is easy to imagine him growing up to be The Searchers‘s Ethan Edwards.) Ben has to decide whether to support his friend or the woman that he loves. (Complicating matters is that John is in love with Alice, too.) John Wayne and Reed Howes are a good team and Dennis Gordon is a convincing villain. There’s a good action scene involving John protecting a gold shipment from the gang and the final shootout is handled well. This 55-minute programmer undoubtedly taught many young viewers about frontier justice, even if they didn’t pick up on the film’s ambiguity. The Dawn Rider is one of the more mature of John Wayne’s early films and offers hints of the actor that John Wayne would eventually become.
The 1977 film, Heroes, tells the story of Jack Dunne (a young Henry Winkler).
Jack spent four years fighting in Vietnam. Since returning to America, he has struggled to adjust to civilian life. Though he’s mentally blocked out much of what happened in Vietnam, he’s haunted by nightmares, When we first meet him, he’s a patient at a mental health facility in New York City. He has big plans, though. He wants to open up a worm farm in Eureka, California. He’s convinced that he can make a ton of money selling worms to fisherman and he wants all of the old members of his unit to join him in the venture. After Jack escapes from the hospital, he boards a bus heading for California.
He also meets Carol (Sally Field), who is supposed to be getting married in four days but who has decided to board a bus and take an impromptu vacation instead. When Carol is told that the bus is already full and she’ll have to wait for the next one, Jack bribes the ticket agent to get Carol on the bus. Once on the bus, Jack makes himself into a nuisance, continually bothering the driver (Val Avery) and embarrassing Carol. (In the film’s defense, it’s later established that Jack isn’t just being a jerk for fun. The driver’s uniform makes Jack nervous. That said, it’s hard not to feel bad for the driver, who is just doing his stressful job to the best of his ability.) Carol and Jack do eventually strike a tentative friendship. They’re linked by the fact that they’re both trying to escape from something.
At a diner, Jack tells her that he served in Vietnam.
“I protested the war,” Carol says.
“I fought it,” he replies.
Carol eventually joins with Jack in his quest to track down the three people who he expects to go into business with. One of them is missing. One of them never returned home from the war. And the third, Ken (Harrison Ford), is living in a trailer and raising rabbits for a living. Ken is also a stock car racer, though he eventually admits that he rarely wins. In fact, he seems to spend most of his time drinking and shooting off the M16 that he keeps in his car’s trunk. Meeting Ken sends Jack spiraling into depression but, with Carol’s help, Jack is finally starts to come to terms with the reality of what happened to him and his friends in Vietnam.
Heroes was one of the first films to sympathetically portray the plight of Vietnam veterans struggling to adjust to life back in the United States and it certainly deserves a lot of credit for its good intentions. (Indeed, it’s implied that a part of Carol’s concern from Jack comes from her own guilt over how the anti-war movement treated the returning soldiers.) That said, the film itself is an awkward mix of drama and comedy. The first half of the film, in which Henry Winkler comes across like he’s doing a manic Al Pacino impersonation, is especially uneven. Winkler and Field are both naturally likable enough that the film remains watchable but, during the first half of the film, most viewers will never buy their relationship for a second. It’s hard to believe that the driver wouldn’t have kicked Jack off the bus as soon as he started to cause trouble and the other passengers often seem to be unrealistically charmed by Jack’s behavior. If I’m on a crowded bus and some dude insists on walking up and down the aisle and taunting the driver, I’m probably going to get off at the first stop and refuse to get back on. Traveling with a bunch of strangers is already nerve-wracking enough without having to deal with all of that.
Not surprisingly, things improve once Harrison Ford shows up. This was one of Ford’s last character parts before he was cast as Han Solo in Star Wars. (Heroes, however, was released after Star Wars, which explains why Ford is mentioned prominently in the trailer despite having a relatively small role.) Ford gives a strong performance as the amiable but ultimately self-destructive Ken. Ford plays Ken as someone whose quick smile is a cover for the fact that his entire life is a mess. Whereas Jack wears his emotions on his sleeve (and Winkler never stops projecting those emotions), Ken is someone who has repressed his anger and his sadness and Ford gives an internalized and controlled performance. Perhaps not coincidentally, Winkler calms down a bit when he’s acting opposite Ford and, as a result, his own performance starts to improve.
After the meeting with Ken, Jack starts to realize that it’s not going to be as easy to start his business as he thought. Jack starts to come down from his manic high and, even more importantly, Henry Winkler stops overacting and instead, starts to dig into the sadness at the heart of Jack’s life. During its second half, the film finally settles on being a drama and Heroes becomes a much stronger story as a result. Even Jack and Carol’s relationship seems to make more sense during the second half of the film. Things end on a note of cautious optimism, which also acknowledging that life can never go back to what it was before the war.
Today, if anyone watches Heroes, it’s probably going to be for Harrison Ford. (I imagine the presence of Harrison Ford is the reason why it’s currently available on Netflix.) It’s a bit of an uneven film, one that feels as if it should have been stronger than it actually was. Still, it’s a worthwhile time capsule of 1977 and America’s struggle to come to terms with the Vietnam War. Today, we’re still struggling to come to terms with what happened in Iraq and with the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan and, again, it seems like the country is too busy trying to move on to take the time to take care of its veterans. It’s sad that so many people only seem to care about the soldiers who fight in popular wars. Heroes was a plea to America not to forget its veterans. It’s a plea that still needs to be heard.
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in hosting a few weekly live tweets on twitter. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.
Tonight, for #MondayActionMovie, the film will be 1983’s Warrior of the Lost World! Selected and hosted by me, this film features car motorcycles, explosions, Donald Pleasence, and a timely message about creeping authoritarianism! The movie starts at 8 pm et! Here’s the playlist!
Following #MondayActionMovie, Brad and Sierra will be hosting the #MondayMuggers live tweet. They will be watching Sigourney Weaver in 1995’s Copycat! Check the hosts’s twitter accounts for a link to the film!
It should make for a night of fun viewing and I invite all of you to join in. If you want to join the live tweets, just hop onto twitter, start the Warrior of the Lost World playlist at 8 pm et, and use the #MondayActionMovie hashtag! Then, at 10 pm et, start Copycat, and use the #MondayMuggers hashtag! The live tweet community is a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
When the invention of the telegraph puts the Pony Express out of business, two veteran riders — John Blair (John Wayne) and Larry Adams (Lane Chandler) — decide to start their own stagecoach line. The richest man in Buchanan City, “Honest” Cal Drake (Douglas Cosgrove), sells them the line to nearby Crescent City. Though initially grateful, Blair and Larry soon discover that Crescent City is now a ghost town that serves as home to exactly two inhabitants. Rather than give up, Blair and Larry set up their stagecoach and they suddenly get lucky as settlers start to find themselves in Crescent City. Blair is even able to convince the local telegraph company to run the wire though Crescent City, which leads to an influx of even more people. Now, Blair just needs to land the contract delivering mail for the area. To do that, he’ll have to win a stagecoach race against Drake, who turns out to not be very honest at all.
Winds of the Wastelands is one of John Wayne’s better pre-Stagecoach programmers. While it has the western action that most people would expect from a B-western, it also has a lot more comedy than some of Wayne’s other poverty row productions. For instance, a skunk tries to turn the stagecoach into his home and, of course, shows up at a key moment during the big race. When one of bad guys tries to convince Blair to take his donkey to Crescent City in the stagecoach, Blair asks if there are any other “jackasses” who want a ride while casting a look at Drake’s men. The movie takes a more serious turn when Drake goes to extreme methods to try to stop Blair and, as a result, Larry is wounded in a gunfight. Doc Forsythe (Sam Flint), the founder of Crescent City, has to rediscover his confidence to perform the operation that can save Larry’s life. Fortunately, the doctor’s daughter (Phyllis Fraser) is there to both help him out and to fall in love with John Blair.
This 55-minute programmer featured John Wayne playing the type of character for which he best known, the level-headed westerner who wasn’t going to let anyone push him around but who still fought fair. Watching this movie, it’s easy to see why, just three years later, John Ford used him in Stagecoach.
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 Weekend Nun! It can be viewed on YouTube!
By day, Marjorie Walker (Joanna Pettet) is a probation officer who, some might say, cares just a little too much.
By night and on the weekends, she’s Sister Mary Damian, a nun who has taken the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
Mother Bonaventure (Ann Sothern) isn’t sure that she’s happy about Sister Damian working as a probation officer. And the tough and cynical Detective Chuck Jardine (Vic Morrow) certainly isn’t happy when he discovers that the reason why Marjorie has never invited him into her home for a drink is because she lives at a convent. But Marjorie is determined to make a difference, especially in the life of a troubled teen runaway named Audree (Kay Lenz).
Now, this may sound like the premise of a socially relevant sitcom and, indeed, The Weekend Nun is one of those titles that might lead some to expect wacky hijinks and an intrusive laugh track. However, The Weekend Nun is not only loosely based on a true story but the film also takes itself very seriously. From the minute that Sister Damian agrees to take part in a program that would allow her to work a real job during the day while returning to the convent at night, she’s exposed to the harsh realities of the world. She goes from being sheltered to dealing with distraught parents, drug addicts, teen prostitutes, and violent criminals. Because Captain Richardson (James Gregory) doesn’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable, he hides the fact that she’s a nun. Of course, this leads to be people like Chuck Jardine wondering why Marjorie is so shocked when she witnesses the thing that he has to deal with a day-to-day basis.
And, indeed, the film’s biggest flaw is that Marjorie is often portrayed as being ridiculously naïve. The film acts as if spending time in a convent is somehow the equivalent of spending a decade hiding out in a bomb shelter or something. (Speaking as a Catholic school survivor, nuns are usually some of the least naïve people around.) Marjorie is portrayed as being such a wide-eyed innocent that it’s hard not to wonder why she was hired to work as a probation officer in the first place. Of course, Marjorie quickly gets an education on just how dangerous and unforgiving life on the streets can be and she soon has to make a choice between being a nun or being a probation officer. Will she give her life to God or will she potentially give it to Vic Morrow?
Joanna Pettet overplays Marjorie’s innocence but that’s more the fault of the script than anything else. James Gregory, Vic Morrow, and Ann Sothern are all believable as the authority figures in Marjorie’s life and Kay Lenz has a few good scenes as the teenage runaway who Marjorie tries to save. Beverly Garland has a small but brief role as Lenz’s horrifically unconcerned mother. It’s a well-acted film, regardless of any other flaws.
The Weekend Nun is not perfect but it’s still preferable to The Flying Nun. It’s a sincerely heartfelt film, one that’s earnest in a way that can seem a bit quaint but which is still likable when watched today. For better or worse, there’s not a hint of snark to be found.
The 2013 film, This Is Our Time, opens with a college graduation and a voice-over from Ethan (Shawn Culin-Young), who explains that everyone goes through four stages when they go to college. The first stage is being excited about getting away from home and being on you own. The second and third stages are about settling down, choosing your major, and maybe meeting the person with whom you want to spend the rest of your life. The fourth stage is all about looking forward to graduation and finally getting to enter the real world.
This Is Our Time follows the story of five friends as they discover what comes after the fourth stage. For two of them, it’s making a living as corporate workers and being pressured to behave unethically. For two others, it’s marriage and a new life working as missionaries in India, ministering to the needs of leprosy sufferers and their children. For Ethan, it means giving up his dream of being a writer and working as a waiter at his father’s bar. But, as Ethan warns us in his narration, one of the five is not going to be alive in a year. The movie follows the friends as they deal with death and try to learn how to live.
Some of the acting is a bit stiff and the attempt to capture the feel of corporate America feels rather comical. (Erik Estrada glowers his way through the role of a dishonest executive.) But, at the same time, the film does end with a message from the founder of Embrace a Village, which actually does provide support for people dealing with Leprosy and the guy is so sincere that it kind of makes you feel guilty for all the snarky thoughts that you had while watching the movie. Whatever else you might want to say about the film, the intentions are good and there’s something to be said for that.
Add to that, Eric Roberts is in the film. Roberts plays Ethan’s father and he brings a lot of genuine emotion to the role. The scene where he breaks down behind the bar in response to having gotten some bad news is well-done. Roberts is kind of famous for accepting almost any role that’s offered to him and he’s said that he hasn’t actually watched the majority of the films in which he’s appeared. Who knows if Roberts actually watched this film but, regardless, his performance was definitely the highlight.
Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:
On a stormy night, frontier Sheriff Jake Withers (George “Gabby” Hayes) and undercover U.S. Marshal Carruthers (John Wayne) both check into the same inn. They are both searching for the infamous Polka Dot Bandit (Yakima Canutt), who has been burglarizing homes and businesses all over California. They both figure that, on a rainy night like this, there’s no way that the Bandit is going to be out. It turns out they are both wrong. The Bandit breaks into the inn and robs the safe but also leaves behind one of his spurs. The sheriff comes across Carruthers investigating the safe and mistakenly believes that Carruthers is the bandit.
Later, when Sheriff Winters goes out to Carruthers’s cabin, he’s planning on arresting Carruthers. Before he can do so, they both hear gun shots. Outside, another group of bandits is chasing Betty (Eleanor Hunt) and her father. The Sherriff and Carruthers manage to save Betty but her father is killed. The grieving Betty is taken in by a local rancher named Malgrove (Edward Peil, Jr.) but it turns out that Malgrove is the head of the Polka Dot Gang and he is planning on killing Betty in order to keep a shipment of supplies from coming to the town! Carruthers and the sheriff have to work together to thwart Malgrove’s plan and bring the Polka Dot Bandit to justice.
This 54-minute programmer was one of the many B-westerns that John Wayne made for Monogram Pictures in the days before John Ford made him a star by casting him in Stagecoach. Though Wayne was still learning how to act on camera, the screen presence that would make him a star can be seen in Blue Steel and he and Hayes make a good team. The story is simple enough but there’s enough horse riding and fistfights to keep most B-western fans entertained. It’s still hard not to imagine how much different the movie would have been if the sheriff had arrested Carruthers at the scene of the crime instead of letting him ride out to his cabin. It’s a good thing these old programmers never had to make too much sense.
Once upon a time, Casey Rhodes (Beau Mirchoff) was a football star. He was a quarterback. Everyone expected great things from him. He was going to be the next Tom Brady. But then a knee injury took him out of the game and a subsequent drug addiction took him out of mainstream society. Now, Casey makes his living pulling off robberies. He may be a criminal but he’s not a bad-hearted one. He may carry a gun but he tries not to shoot anyone who doesn’t shoot at him first. Working with him are a former baseball player named Mike (Trevor Getzky) and Nikki (Keeya King), who is the smartest member of the crew.
Despite Casey’s attempts to do his job with as little violence as possible, a gunfight does break out during one robbery in Los Angeles. When Detectives James Knight (Bruce Willis) and his partner, Eric Fitzgerald (Lochlyn Munro), interrupt the robbery, Fitzgerald ends up getting shot multiple times as Casey and his crew make their escape. With Fitzgerald in the hospital, Knight decides to follow the crew to New York and take out both them and their boss, a former Internal Affairs officer named Winna (Michael Eklund). It turns out that there’s a history between Knight and Winna. Knight wants his revenge on Winna but, at the same time, Winna knows some dark secrets from Knight’s past.
Though it works as a stand-alone film, 2022’s Detective Knight: Rogue is actually the first part of a trilogy that follows the adventures of Detective Knight. (Detective Knight: Redemption was released at the end of 2022 while Detective Knight: Independence came out last month.) The Detective Knight films were among the last of the movies in which Bruce Willis appeared before announcing his retirement. It can be strange to watch Willis’s final films, knowing what we know about what he was going through at the time that he made them. Though he’s definitely the star of the film, Willis is used sparingly in Detective Knight: Rogue and there’s little of the cocky attitude that we tend to associate with Willis’s best roles. Instead, he’s a grim avenger, determined to get justice for both his partner and himself. Willis is convincing in the role, even if the film is edited in such a way that the viewer gets the feeling that a stand-in may have been used for some of the long-shots involving Detective Knight. That said, Willis still looks convincing carrying a badge and a gun and it’s nice to see a Willis film where he’s again playing a hero instead of a villain.
As the football player-turned-thief, Beau Mirchoff gets more screentime than Willis but, fortunately, Casey is an interesting character and Mirchoff gives a strong performance as a criminal who would rather be a family man and who is desperately looking for a way to make up for the mistakes of his past. Towards the end of the film, he does a flawless job delivering a surprisingly well-written monologue about how he went from being a football star to being a common thief. Mirchoff’s strong performance adds a good deal of ambiguity to the film. The criminals aren’t necessarily that bad at heart and, as we learn, the good guys haven’t always been angels in the past. Detective Knight: Rogue becomes more than just another low-budget thriller. It becomes a meditation of regret and redemption.
Detective Knight: Rogue took me by surprise. As directed by Edward Drake (who was also responsible for another effective late Bruce Willis starrer, Gasoline Alley), it’s an intelligent thriller and it’s one that pays tribute to Bruce Willis as an action icon. It’s proof that a good story can sometimes be found where you least expect it.
Through the Shattered Lens