Category Archives: TV

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 6/16/24 — 6/22/24

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I started out this week thinking that I was going to caught up with everything that I needed to watch and that I would be able to do a full set of Retro Television Reviews.  Unfortunately, my Dad is currently having some health issues and, needless to say, most of my week ended up being consumed with that.  Hopefully, next week will be better!  Don’t worry — the site will be back to normal soon!  The Power of Twonky compels us….

I ended up watching a lot of Degrassi which, as I’ve made clear, is my go-to comfort programming and I also watched perhaps a bit too much Dr. Phil.  I watched both shows via Pluto TV and they largely served as background noise while I spent this week stressing out.  The unfortunate thing about Dr. Phil on Pluto is that the episodes are somewhat randomly selected so it wasn’t uncommon for a “part one” to not be followed by “part two” or for “part two” to air without “part one.”  I’m a completist so stuff like that drives me crazy.

I watched and reviewed episodes of CHiPs, Fantasy Island, Baywatch Nights, The Love Boat, and Monsters.  I also watched an episode of Malibu, CA but it was so bad that I didn’t have the strength to review it.  I’ll do so next week.

Finally, via Paramount Plus, I watched an old episode of the first Star Trek series on Wednesday.  A creepy kid named Charlie came on the Enterprise and kept making people vanish.  It was kind of easy to laugh at some of the acting of the crew members but Robert Walker, Jr. did a really good job as the bratty and neurotic Charlie.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 2.10 “The Mandrake Root”

Posted on 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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on YouTube.

This week, on Monsters, a root leads to temptation!

Episode 2.10 “The Mandrake Root” 

(Dir by Brian Thomas Jones, originally aired on December 10th, 1989)

While cleaning out her recently deceased grandmother’s basement, Angela (Melba Moore) discovers a Mandrake root that is not only sprouting though the floor but which also appear to be “wearing” her grandmother’s ring.  She grabs the ring but pricks her finger as she does so, allowing her blood to drip down onto the root.

The next day, the root has been replaced by a shirtless, handsome man (Byron Minns), who promises Angela a world of sensual pleasure on the condition that she provide the blood that he needs to live.  At first, Angela resists but the Root is persistent and he certainly seems to care more about her than her inattentive (if well-meaning) husband (Frankie Faison).

This episode was full of atmosphere, it had an intriguing premise, and it featured good performances from Melba Moore and Frankie Faison.  (It’s always interesting to see Faison playing someone other than a cop or a military officer.)  Unfortunately, Byron Minns was fairly bland in the role of Angela’s tempter.  He was handsome but he didn’t have the screen presence necessary to believable as a centuries-old tempter.  As a result, this episode is good without quite being the classic that it could have been.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 4.18 “Aquaphobiac/Humpty Dumpty/The Starmaker”

Posted on 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 …. it’s one of the best episodes of The Love Boat ever!

Episode 4.18 “Aquaphobiac/Humpty Dumpty/The Starmaker”

(Dir by Roger Duchowny, originally aired on February 7th, 1981)

David Hasselhoff boards The Love Boat, for the second time!

This time around, the Hoff is playing Brian Kiley.  Brian and Julie went to college together.  Brian was the star quarterback and, as he explains it, he and Julie were a pretty serious couple at the time.  But, in the end, Brian ended up marrying Julie’s roommate and his own playing days came to a premature end when he broke his arm.  Now, he’s on the Love Boat and he wants to not only get back together with Julie but he also wants to make a comeback in the NFL!

Julie is tempted.  How couldn’t she be tempted by the Hoff?  But watching Brian talk about his glory days on the football field, she realizes that he’s living in the past and, to an extent, so is she.  Brian is, at first, upset by Julie’s feelings but then he realizes that she’s right.  He makes peace with his years as a famous quarterback and he leaves the boat not as Julie’s lover but as her good friend….

MY GOD, JULIE — IT’S THE HOFF IN HIS GLORY DAYS!  WHO CARES IF HE TALKS ABOUT FOOTBALL!?  CHASE AFTER HIM!

The Pointer Sisters also board the ship, this time as employees of the cruise.  Isaac want to impress a talent agent (Jeff Cooper) so he recruits the sisters to serve as his backing vocalists.  After seeing them perform, the talent agent is impressed but only by the sisters.  They get a recording contract while Isaac …. well, Isaac goes back to pouring drinks.  POOR ISAAC!  But give credit to Ted Lange, who brought a lot of sincere feeling to what could have been a throwaway storyline.

Finally, Glenn Dobson (Louis Nye) and his fiancée, Vanessa (Audra Lindley), board the boat so that they can get to know each other before the wedding.  Glenn has severe aquaphobia and cannot bring himself to take off his inflatable life jacket.  Vanessa tries to help him conquer his fear but nothing helps.  Glenn fears all the other passengers are laughing at him.  So, the crew and the passengers all put on their own life jackets to show Glenn that he has nothing to be ashamed of.

“Tonight,” Stubing announces, “we are truly a boat of love.”

Awwwwww!  Seriously, who would have guessed that The Love Boat would make me cry?  This was such a sweet story and both Louis Nye and Audra Lindley really seemed to be invested in their characters.  When Glenn finally removed his life vest and took a few stumbling steps into the pool, I wanted to cheer.

What a great cruise this turned out to be!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 2.6 “The Cabin”

Posted on 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 travels not to the beach but instead to a cabin in the woods!

Episode 2.6 “The Cabin”

(Dir by Reza Badiyi, originally aired on November 3rd, 1996)

The sixth episode of Baywatch Nights‘s second season opens with a young woman who is being terrified in a cabin in the woods.  The woman is dressed for the 1990s but she’s being chased by an axe-wielding man named Horse Calhoun (Dennis Burkley), who is dressed for the 1890s.  The woman manages to escape Horse and his axe and let’s get credit where credit is due.  It’s a truly well-done sequence, featuring Dennis Burkley giving a ferocious and scary performance as Horse.

Diamont hires Mitch and Ryan to investigate the cabin, specifically because he thinks that the cabin is haunted and he wants to get the opinion of two skeptics.  (Ryan believes in ghosts but thinks that they are rare.  Mitch does not believe in ghosts but says they still scare him.  I have to go with Mitch on this one.)  Diamont specifically tells Mitch and Ryan not to enter the cabin until he is able to join them later.  So, of course, as soon as they arrive, Mitch and Ryan go right into the cabin.

That turns out to be a mistake.  While Ryan keeps herself busy putting away groceries, Mitch explores the cabin and soon discovers that they’re not alone.  There’s a woman (Lisa Stahl) is a bathtub who encourages Mitch to “take off your clothes” and join her.  There’s a decadent, cigar-chomping man (Danny Woodburn) who seems to be very amused with himself.  And, of course, there’s Horse Calhoun, rampaging down hallways and throwing axes at Mitch’s head.

The cabin, it turns out, is home to a portal, one that leads back to a New York brothel in the 1890s.  One hundred years ago, an insanely jealous Horse Calhoun killed everyone at the brothel.  Can Mitch and Ryan return to their own time before Horse adds them to his list of victims?

This episode is an example of Baywatch Nights at its best.  The plot is totally ludicrous and the low-budget forces the show to keep things simple (it’s a rather rustic brothel) but the idea behind the plot is properly creepy and Woodburn, Stahl, and especially Burkley all do a good job bringing their undead characters to life.  (Heh heh….)  Burkley makes Horse into a fierce madman, one who throws his axes with the authority of someone who no longer cares who might get in the way of the blade.  Finally, this episode featured a lot of Hasselhoff/Harmon chemistry.  Harmon was earnest and determined while Hasselhoff …. well, he was the Hoff.  We’re lucky to have him.

The Cabin was Baywatch Nights as its best.

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 5.3 “Cyrano/The Magician”

Posted on 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, YouTube, Plex, and a host of other sites.

This week …. someone’s missing!

Episode 5.3 “Cyrano/The Magician”

(Dir by Dan Chaffey, originally aired on October 24th, 1981)

Hey, where’s Tattoo!?

Technically, Tattoo does appear in this episode but it’s only in the stock footage that appeared at the start of every episode.  Tattoo rings the bell and announces, “Da plane …. da plane!” but that’s it.  He does not meet Mr. Roarke outside of the bungalow.  He is not present to greet the guests.  He’s not present to say goodbye to the guests.  Tattoo is nowhere to be seen and, somewhat disconcertingly, no mention is made of why he’s missing.  Instead, Mr. Roarke and Julie handle the fantasies in this episode.

If I had to guess, I’d say that Herve Villechaize was having a salary dispute with the producers.  It seems obvious that Julie was brought in as a way to tell Villechaize that he was replaceable.  However, Tattoo’s absence is felt so strongly in this episode that it seems likely that all the producers did was prove Villechaize’s point about why he deserved more money.  Wendy Schaal is a likable performer but she had close to no real chemistry with Ricardo Montalban and Julie was such a blandly-written character that there was no way she could replace the enigmatic and rather cynical Tattoo.

Sad to say, one of this episode’s fantasies feels as if it would have been perfect for Tattoo’s commentary.  Marjorie Denton (Carol Lynley) is a bus driver who wants to go back to a time when men were at their most chivalrous.  She finds herself back in 17th century France, a time when men were chivalrous but woman had absolutely no rights.  At first, she is thrilled to be the subject of the attentions of both the handsome Gaston (Simon MacCorkindale) and the poetic Cyrano de Bergerac (John Saxon).  She is less thrilled to catch the eye of the Marquis de Sade (Lloyd Bochner).  It’s not a bad fantasy, though Cyrano and De Sade were not quite contemporaries.  But it’s hard not to think about how Villechaize was always at his best when dealing with wounded romanticism.  Since Cyrano himself turned out to be a guest having a fantasy, it’s hard not to regret that Tattoo was not around to encourage him.

As for the other fantasy, it’s one of those silly and kind of boring comedic fantasies that was obviously included for the kids.  (“Mommy, who is the Marquis De Sade?”)  Timothy Potter (Bart Braverman), no relation to Harry, is a bad magician who wants to be a great magician.  Mr. Roarke gives him a collection of old spell books and an assistant named Suva (Judy Landers), whom Timothy proceeds to fall in love with.  Unfortunately, Timothy doesn’t bother to study the books like Roarke told him to and he accidentally makes Suva disappear.  In the end, though, Roarke assures Timothy that he just sent her to Cleveland, which just happens to be his hometown.  There’s a chimpanzee in this fantasy and the chimp gives the most compelling performance.  The only thing that could have saved this fantasy would have been some snarky Tattoo commentary.

Is it possible to have Fantasy Island without Tattoo?  Based on this episode, the answer would be no.  Let’s hope he returns next week.

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 2.6 “Trick or Treat”

Posted on 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!

It’s a Halloween episode!

Episode 2.6 “Trick or Treat”

(Dir by Phil Bondelli, originally aired on October 21st, 1978)

It’s Halloween in Los Angeles!  That means that people will be asking for treats and playing tricks and getting into all sorts of trouble.  But, for the California Highway Patrol, it’s just another day and night of trying to keep everyone safe.

Ponch’s day gets off to a bad start when he and Baker chase a van onto a movie lot.  The van’s driver, it turns out, was speeding because he was transporting thirteen black cats to a film set.  When Ponch and Baker finally pull over the van, the cats get loose and all 13 of them march past Ponch.  Later, at headquarters, Ponch is forced by a narrow hallway to walk under a ladder.  *GASP*  Ponch insists that he’s not superstitious but he also won’t stop talking about his encounter with the black cats.

Ponch is in for some bad luck and it shows up in the form of an 8 year-old named Tommy who squirts Ponch with perfume while Ponch is patrolling the neighborhood.  Ponch tells Tommy that playing tricks like that could lead to him getting arrested and hauled off to jail.  Tommy panics and runs away from home.  Guess who gets the blame for that?

That’s not all that’s going on this Halloween night.  (Since this episode aired in 1978, it’s also the night that He came home.)  Eddie (Bobby Van) and his girlfriend, Susan (Elaine Joyce), are holding up convenience stores.  (Susan distracts the cashiers by wearing a translucent ghost costume.)  An older woman (Fran Ryan) is stealing bags of candy from young trick-or-treaters.  Paula (Barbara Leigh) and Karen (Jenny Sherman) are stealing speed limit signs as part of a superfun scavenger hunt.  And Sgt. Getraer is determined to figure out the identity of the Hobgoblin, a member of the highway patrol who reads macabre poetry over the police radio throughout the night.

Fear not, though …. everything works out in the end.  Tommy is not only found hiding out in an abandoned house but Ponch is the one who finds and rescues him.  Eddie and Susan get chased and arrested after trying to pull one robbery too many.  (Their van crashes as a result of two teenagers throwing eggs on the windshield.  Some tricks are good, apparently.)  The old woman turns out to be a distraught suburbanite who lost her engagement ring and who thinks that she may have tossed it in some kid’s trick-or-treat bag.  (Fortunately, the ring is found in her candy bowl and no one presses charges.)  Paula and Karen lose the scavenger hunt but they win future dates with Ponch and Baker.  And Getraer figures out that Artie Grossman is the Hobgoblin.  In the end, everyone smiles and laugh and that’s the important thing.

For a Halloween episode, Trick or Treat was rather low-key but that’s okay.  I liked the day-in-the-life approach that the episode took and it was fun to see that even the members of the fearsome highway patrol were capable of enjoying the holiday.  We should have as good a Halloween as Ponch and Baker.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 2.16 “Little Miss Dangerous”

Posted on 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 Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime!

The power has returned, my mood is better, and my wrist has healed.  It’s time to get back to the reviews!

Episode 2.16 “Little Miss Dangerous”

(Dir by Leon Ichaso, originally aired on January 31st, 1986)

There’s a serial killer stalking the red light district of Miami, haunting cheap motels, dark alleys, and neon-lit sex clubs.  Men are turning up dead all over the place, brutally stabbed and then set on fire.  Occasionally, a crude drawing is left behind.  Castillo announces that every member of the Squad will be working a 12-hour shift until the killer is brought to justice.  He says that they may be looking for a pimp or a prostitute who is looking for revenge.

Of course, every prostitute knows and likes Sonny Crockett.  And again, this leads to the question of how exactly Sonny is able to work undercover when everyone in Miami knows who he is.  For that matter, all of the prostitutes also seem to know that Gina and Trudy are working Vice as well, despite the fact that Gina and Trudy’s regular gig to go undercover as high-priced escorts.  How do these people ever succeed at going undercover?  Everyone knows them!  I guess that’s to be expected, though, when you’ve only got 6 detectives working Vice in a city as big as Miami.

Tubbs meets a Jackie (played by singer Fiona), a young runaway who swears that she’s 18 and who says that she’s happy working as a prostitute because her body is just a commodity.  Tubbs becomes obsessed with protecting the spacey but seemingly innocent Jackie, especially after he becomes convinced that Jackie’s pimp, Cat (Larry Joshua), is the murderer.  Except, of course, Cat isn’t the killer.  Jackie is!  When Tubbs takes Jackie to a safehouse (which, of course, is also an art deco mansion), she snaps.  As Crockett tries to break down the locked front door and Cat crashes into the house on his motorcycle, Jackie starts a fire and approaches Tubbs.  But, instead of killing the only man who hasn’t tried to use her body, Jackie instead holds a gun to her head.  This is another episode that ends with an off-screen gunshot.  Interestingly, we never see Crockett actually get into the safehouse to rescue Tubbs from the fire.  Instead, the ending is abrupt and the viewer, while having no doubt that Tubbs will escape the fire, knows that Tubbs will now carry Jackie’s scars as his own.

What an unsettling episode.  This was Miami Vice at its most surreal and dream-like, with almost all of the action taking place at night and both Fiona and Larry Joshua giving edgy performances as two self-destructive people who live in the shadows of a wealthy American city.  For once, the entire Vice Squad gets in on the action, though Tubbs is clearly the one at the center of the story.  This episode reminds us that Tubbs is not quite as cynical and emotionally closed-off as Crockett but maybe, for the sake of his sanity, he should be.  Little Miss Dangerous is a journey into the heart of Miami darkness.

Retro Television Review: If Tomorrow Comes (dir by George McCowan)

Posted on 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 Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay.  Today’s film is 1971’s If Tomorrow Comes!  It  can be viewed on YouTube.

If Tomorrow Comes tells the story of a forbidden marriage.

In 1941, Eileen Phillips (Patty Duke) meets David Tayanaka (Frank Liu) and the two of them quickly fall in love.  David asks Eileen to marry him and Eileen says yes, even though they both know that it won’t be easy.  Eileen’s father (James Whitmore) and her brother, Harlan (Michael McGreevey), are both prejudiced against the Japanese and David’s parents (played by Mako and Buelah Quo) would both rather than David marry someone of Japanese descent.  Eileen and David decide to elope first and tell their parents afterwards.

On December 7th, Eileen sneaks out of the house and joins David at his church.  They are married by Father Miller (John McLiam), who agrees to keep their secret.  Eileen and David then drive over to the church attended by Eileen’s family but no sooner have they arrived than the local sheriff (Pat Hingle) pulls up and announces that the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor.  The sheriff instructs everyone to return home and to listen to their radios.  David slips his wedding ring off his finger.  Telling the parents will have to wait.

Eileen’s father and brother are convinced that every Japanese person in town, even though the majority of them were born in America and have never even been to Japan, is a subversive.  David and his family are harassed by government agents like the oily Coslow (Bert Remsen).  One morning, they discover that all of their farm animals have been killed and someone has written “REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR” with their blood.  When Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the internment of the Japanese, David’s father is among those taken away.  When Harlan continues to harass David, it eventually leads to not just one but two tragedies.

If Tomorrow Comes is a real tear-jerker, one that features a great performance from Frank Liu and a good one from Patty Duke.  Though it may seem a tad implausible that David and Eileen would get married just an hour before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor (and considering the attack occurred on a Sunday morning, I’m a little curious how they found a priest who was free to secretly marry them), the film does a good job of showing how fear can lead to otherwise good people doing terrible things.  One of the film’s strongest moments comes as David’s father is taken away to an internment camp and the Japanese prisoners try to prove their loyalty by spontaneously singing America, The Beautiful.  It’s a moment that reminds us of the danger of letting our fear destroy our humanity.

It’s a film that still feels relevant today, with its portrayal of heavy-handed government agents searching for subversives and ignoring the Constitution in order to save it.  When David visited his father at the internment camp, I thought about how, at the heigh of the COVID pandemic, it was not unusual to see people demanding that the unmasked and the unvaccinated by interned away from the rest of the world.  If Tomorrow Comes is a love story and a melodrama and tear-jerker but, above all else, it’s a warning about the destructive power of fear and prejudice.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 6/9/24 — 6/15/24

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Dancing For The Devil (Netflix)

I watched this 3-part docuseries on Tuesday.  It was yet another show about a cult, in this case one that’s led by a pastor named Robert Shinn and which is known for promoting dancers on TikTok.  Much like HBO’s The Vow, it started strong but it ultimately felt a bit too padded for its own good.  Two episodes worth of material was stretched out to three.  As always, cult documentaries are odd to watch because they never quite get around to answering the question of how someone could be stupid enough to join a cult in the first place.  I guess that some things are unknowable.

Dr. Phil (YouTube)

I watched a few old episodes on Wednesday and Thursday.  Dysfunction was everywhere!

Inmate to Roommate (Thursday, A&E)

On Thursday’s episode, the inmates and the roommates continued to try to adjust to each other.  I don’t think any of this is going to turn out well for anyone.

Intervention (Monday Night, A&E)

I watched two episodes of Intervention on Monday night.  The first featured one of the most annoying addicts that I’ve ever seen, a sarcastic 19 year-old who spent the entire intervention making snarky remarks and then suddenly agreed to get help, showing that she didn’t even have the courage to stand by her snarkiness.  She did get sober, which is good.  She also apparently replaced drugs with food as she gained a ton of weight in rehab.

The second episode featured model Amber Rose searching Philadelphia for a childhood friend who had fallen into drug addiction.  It felt more like an extended commercial for Amber Rose than a serious look at drug addiction.

I’m kind of amazed that people apparently still fall for the “she thinks she’s appearing in a documentary about addiction.  Little does she know she’ll soon be facing an intervention” line.  It’s been like what?  20 years since this show started?

Miami Vice (Amazon Prime)

On Saturday, I finally got back to watching Miami Vice!  Look for my review on Monday.

Night Flight (Night Flight Plus)

I watched two episodes on Friday.  The first one was about Australian bands.  The second featured the best music of 1987.

60 Days In (Thursday Night, A&E)

Everyone’s favorite true crime jail docudrama is back.  This time, the jail is in Utah and, for all the talk about how the Utah jail is as dangerous as any jail, it was hard not to notice that both the guards and the prisoners seemed to be far more polite than usual 60 Days In crowd.  I watched the first two episodes on Tuesday.  The sheriff said that he didn’t want anyone tapping out but I don’t know  …. I get the feeling that Corey is about to say, “Get me out of here!”

I watched the latest episode on Thursday and my suspicions about Corey turned out to be totally justified as he revealed that spending less-than-a-week in jail had apparently driven him to the verge of a paranoia-fueled mental breakdown.  Corey hasn’t tapped out yet but it feels like it’s only a matter of time.  I also have to say that I totally related Nina and her decision to get dressed up for jail.  I mean, why not?

Retro Television Review: The Glass House (dir by Tom Gries)

Posted on 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 Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay.  Today’s film is 1972’s The Glass House!  It  can be viewed on YouTube.

The Glass House starts with three men arriving at a location that will define the next few months of their lives.

Brian Courtland (Clu Gulager) is a veteran of the Vietnam War.  He spent part of his service working as a guard in the brig.  Now that he’s back in the United States and in need of a regular paycheck, he has gotten a job working as a prison guard.  Courtland is not naive about where he’s going to be working or who he is going to be working with.  But he is an idealist, one who tries to treat everyone fairly and who hopes that he will be able to do some sort of good in his new position.

Alan (Kristoffer Tabori) is a young man who has been arrested for selling marijuana.  He is quiet and just hoping to serve his time and then get on with his life.  His fellow prisoners have different plans for him.

Finally, Jonathan Paige (Alan Alda) is a liberal professor who, in a moment of rage, accidentally killed a man in a fight.  Convicted of manslaughter, Paige enters the prison in a daze and cannot stop flashing back to the one moment that changed his life forever.  Paige is assigned to work in the pharmacy, where he meets a prisoner-turned-activist named Lennox (Billy Dee Williams).  Paige struggles to retain his humanity despite the harsh conditions.

All three of the men find themselves having to deal with the attentions of Hugo Slocum (Vic Morrow), the predatory “king” of the prison.  Slocum expects Paige to help him run drugs though the the pharmacy.  Slocum preys on Alan and sends his gang to punish him when Alan refuses Slocum’s advances.  And Slocum expects that Courtland will just be another corrupt guard who agrees to look the other way when it comes to Slocum’s activities.  Courtland, however, turns out to have more integrity than anyone was expecting.

The Glass House opens with a title card, informing the viewer that the film was shot at an actual prison and that the majority of the people in the film were actual prisoners.  Not surprisingly, The Glass House does feel authentic in a way that a lot of other films about incarceration does not.  The prison is claustrophobic and dirty, with every crack in the wall reminding the prisoners and the viewer that no one cares about what happens there.  The extras have the blank look of men who understand that showing any emotion will be taken a sign of a weakness.  Made in 1972, at a time when America was still struggling to integrate, The Glass House takes place in an almost totally segregated world.  The black prisoners stick together.  The white prisoners stick together.  Everyone understands that’s the way that it will always be and, as we see by the end of the film, that’s the way the guards and the warden (Dean Jagger) prefer it because that means almost any incident can be written off as a being “a race riot.”

The real actors amongst the population do a good job of blending into the surroundings.  Alda, Williams, and Tabori all give good performance while Vic Morrow is truly menacing in the role of the vicious Slocum.  Slocum may not be particularly bright but, because he has no conscience, he is uniquely suited to thrive in a world with no morality.  The film’s best performance comes from Clu Gulager, who does a great job of portraying Courtland’s growing disgust with how the system works.

Though it’s over 50 years old, The Glass House is a still a powerful look at life on the fringes.  Society, for the most part, doesn’t really care much about what happens to the incarcerated.  This film makes a strong case that we probably should.  One is left with little doubt that, even if relatively harmless prisoners like Paige and Campbell survive being locked up with men like Slocum, they’ll still be incapable of returning to the “real world” afterwards.  The viewer, like Brian Courtland, is left to wonder how much corruption can be tolerated before enough is enough.