Today is the 93rd birthday of the great composer John Williams and today’s song of the day is one of his greatest compositions. Here’s is John Williams, conducting Raiders March (from the Indiana Jones films) in Vienna.
4 Shots From 4 Films: Special King Vidor Edition
4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films is just what it says it is, 4 (or more) shots from 4 (or more) of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films lets the visuals do the talking.
Today, we celebrate the 131st birthday of Texas-born filmmaker, King Vidor! Though Vidor may no longer be a household name, he was one of the most important and idiosyncratic filmmakers of Hollywood’s Golden Age. The Crowd is regularly cited as one of the most influential films ever made. (Certainly every film that’s ever featured a shot of an anonymous office worker sitting in a room full of cubicles owes a debt to it.) Duel in the Sun went on to inspire countless spaghetti westerns. The Fountainhead is also regularly cited as a favorite by a surprisingly large number of directors.
In honor of King Vidor’s life and legacy, here are….
4 Shots From 4 King Vidor Films
The Crowd (1928, dir by King Video, DP: Henry Sharp)
The Fountainhead (1949, dir by King Vidor, DP: Robert Burks)
War and Peace (1956, dir by King Vidor, DP: Jack Cardiff)
Solomon and Sheba (1959, dir by King Vidor, DP; Fred A. Young)
Live Tweet Alert: Watch Cannibal Apocaylpse With #ScarySocial!
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in 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 #ScarySocial, I will be hosting Cannibal Apocalypse, starring John Saxon and Giovanni Lombardo Radice!
If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start the film at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag! The film is available on Prime and Tubi! I’ll be there co-hosting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well. It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy!
I celebrate Henry Czerny’s birthday with two of my favorite scenes!
Today is the 66th birthday of the excellent Canadian character actor Henry Czerny. My admiration and appreciation for the man stems primarily from two performances in big movies. The first time I really remember seeing him is when he played the ethically challenged Deputy Director of the CIA Robert Ritter in CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER (1994). He goes toe to toe with Harrison Ford at times in an incredible performance. Check out the scene below:
A couple of years later Czerny would play IMF Director Kittredge in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (1996) with Tom Cruise. Once again, his performance adds greatly to the film and this scene with Tom Cruise may be the best of the movie!
Actors like Henry Czerny are a treasure and I always look forward to seeing them pop up in movies and TV shows. It made me so happy when he showed back up a couple of years ago in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – DEAD RECKONING (2023). Happy Birthday, Henry! 🎊🎂🎉
Artwork of the Day: Ten Story Gang (Unknown Artist)
Artist Unknown
This grabby cover is from 1938.
Music Video of the Day: Bed of Lies by Alice Chater (2025, dir by ????)
Enjoy this dramatic and stylish music video!
Enjoy!
Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 3.1 and 3.2 “The Prophecies”
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The entire series can be found on YouTube!
This week, we start season 3!
Episode 3.1 and 3.2 “The Prophecies”
(Dir by Tom McLoughlin, originally aired on October 7th, 1989)
The third season starts with a 90-minute episode, one that was split into two parts when the show was later re-aired. It’s a rather strange episode, one that takes the Curious Goods crew far from Canada and one that also see Ryan transformed into a…. well, we’ll get to that.
When the episode starts, Ryan is in a state of shock because he recently ran into his mother (Jill Frappier) while visiting the grave of his brother. His mother walked out on Ryan and his father after the death of Ryan’s brother and the reunion between the two leaves Ryan feeling conflicted. As he blames himself for both the death of his brother and his father, he can’t help but wonder what he would do if he had the opportunity to do everything over again.
Meanwhile, Micki is running the antique store with none other than Johnny Ventura. Last season, Micki disliked Johnny and she had ever right to as Johnny tended to be a little bit stalker-ish in his behavior towards her. But, with the start of this season, it appears that all has been forgiven.
As for Jack, he’s in a small town in France. He received a letter from Sister Adele (Marie-France Lambert) telling him about some apocalyptic visions that she’s been having. Those visions are largely the result of fallen angel Asteroth (Fritz Weaver), who is determined to bring the AntiChrist into the world by following the step laid out in the Books of Lucifer. He has to kill a nun and he’s decided that Adele is that nun. However, Asteroth cannot get to her.
But then Jack gets shoved down a flight of stairs and ends up in the hospital. Ryan, Micki, and Johnny fly over to France. Ryan is promptly possessed by the Devil and he murders Sister Adele! But now, for some reason, Asteroth also needs to murder a young girl who seems to know Ryan and whose presence in the episode is never really explained. In order to free Ryan from being possessed, it’s necessary to transform him back into a small child. Eventually, God gets tired of all this and Asteroth bursts into flame.
The ending is a bit ambiguous about what this all means but I do know that this was John D. LeMay’s last episode and that Johnny Ventura will become a series regular as well. (Steven Monarque, who played Johnny, is still listed as a guest star in this episode.) So, I guess Ryan, who no longer has any memory of Micki or any of his Curious Goods adventures, is going to go live with his mother and grow up again and I’d love to know how Jack and Micki are going to explain that to his mom.
This was a weird way to write Ryan out of the show. (If anything, Ryan sacrificing himself to save Micki and/or Jack would have made much more sense and been just as powerful an ending.) But, with all that mind, this was still a good episode. While the episode did not film in France, it does feature some location work in Quebec and those scenes are full of ominous atmosphere. Fritz Weaver was an appropriately creepy Asteroth. Speaking of being creepy, John D. LeMay did a great job playing possessed Ryan. This episode was not always easy to follow but it was scary and atmospheric and it worked surprisingly well.
Bye, Ryan! I’ll miss you.
Film Review: Mouse of Horrors (dir by Brendan Petrizzo)
As a horror fan, I always appreciate a good slasher film. As dark and as disturbing as they can be, they’ve also helped me to face down a lot of my own real-life fears. Watching a good slasher film can be cathartic. You may be scared when you’re watching and, if you’re like me, you’ll probably put your hands in front of your eyes during the more graphic kills but, when the end credits roll, you feel proud of yourself for having made it all the way through.
Again, that’s a good slasher film.
A bad slasher film can be, if you’ll excuse the expression, absolute terror.
Mouse of Horrors is not a good slasher film. It’s a film about Chloe (Natasha Tosini) and her friends who, after about 15 minutes of filler, finally go to the “fun fair.” It turns out that the fair is not very fun because it’s home to Dr. Rupert (Chris Lines) and his two sons, one of whom wears a mouse mask and another of whom wears a bear mask. They’re Mickey and Winnie, though they’re never explicitly called that over the course of the film. (The Mouse is played by Lewis Santer while the Bear is played by Stephen Staley). Dr. Rupert needs body parts so he sends his two sons out to collect them. As you may have guessed, this leads to a lot of scenes of spurting blood, hacked-off limbs, and screams. Mickey and Winnie do not speak but Dr. Rupert does. In fact, the old man will not shut up. Even if he wasn’t some old weirdo demanding that his sons hack up random people, Dr. Rupert would be an annoying old crank.
Let’s give some credit where credit is due. The Mouse has potential and physically, Lewis Santer does a good job of portraying The Mouse’s jumpy style of movement. The Mouse mask is creepy, or at least it is at first. Eventually, I got bored with looking at the Mouse and, by the time the Bear started fighting with the Mouse, I no longer cared much about looking at either of them. Still, the killer is one of the most important parts of a slasher film and the Mouse had potential. The setting of the carnival also had potential, though most of it went unused.
The rest of the film, though …. ugh! Seriously, this was one of the worst edited films I’ve ever seen, including one scene where a day for night scene went totally day for a few shots. The story dragged. (It takes 20 minutes to get them to the fun fair when the film really should have started with them already there.) I was never quite sure where the Mouse was in relation to anyone else in the film, negating any chance of generating suspense. Why was the town suddenly deserted? Why did everyone else at the fun fair suddenly disappear except for Chloe and her friends? Why did the Mouse go the local pub to kill a bartender instead of just staying at the fun fair? Does the Mouse walk around town with his mouse mask on? How does he get away with that? I’ve always been the first to say that enjoying a horror film requires a certain suspension of disbelief but the audience has every right to expect some sort of reward for playing along. This film doesn’t offer that reward.
Get ready for a lot more films like this. Copyrights are expiring and everyone wants to either make a film based on their childhood nightmares or get revenge on their English teacher for making them read a book in high school. This was not the first killer Mickey film and I doubt it will be the last.
Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ (2006, dir by Robert Iscove)
Norman Lear has television superstar Conrad Bain under contract and Fred Silverman wants to build a show around Bain and a talented black child actor named Gary Coleman. Entitled Diff’rent Strokes and featuring Todd Bridges and Dana Plato as Coleman’s brother and stepsister, the show is a hit. The three young actors briefly become superstars, much like the amazing Conrad Bain. And then, when the show is finally canceled after ten years, it all goes downhill as Todd Bridges and Dana Plato run into trouble with drugs and the law and Gary Coleman, once one of the highest paid stars on television, discovers that he’s now flat broke. All three of them learn how quickly the world can turn on you when you’re no longer considered to be a success.
Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ was another one NBC’s cheap movies about the behind-the-scenes drama of a popular sitcom. (They also did Three’s Company and Mork & Mindy). Like all of NBC’s Behind the Camera movies, it makes the mistake of thinking that everyone is as interested in the habits of network executives as the people who work for them are. (This time, it’s Saul Rubinek who gets to play Fred Silverman.) The actors who plays Bridges, Coleman, and Plato are convincing enough but the storytelling is shallow, featuring the same information that you would expect to find in an episode of the E! True Hollywood Story. I was disappointed that we didn’t get any scenes of Alan Thicke recording the theme song.
Todd Bridges and the late Gary Coleman both appear as themselves, talking about their experiences with the show and the difficulties of navigating life after Diff’rent Strokes was canceled. Bridges is down-to-Earth while Coleman rambles like someone who was still trying to figure out how his life had led up to this moment. The ending, in which Bridges and Coleman stand at Dana Plato’s grave and Coleman delivers a nearly incoherent monologue, is the one time that the film really captures any feeling of emotional honesty. It is obvious that both Bridges and Coleman are still haunted by what happened to Plato after the show ended. Knowing that Coleman himself would die just four years after the airing of this movie makes the scene more poignant when viewed today.
Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 1.11 “Graveyard”
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing St. Elsewhere, a medical show which ran on NBC from 1982 to 1988. The show can be found on Hulu and, for purchase, on Prime!
This week, a handful of doctors save two patients and lose one.
Episode 1.11 “Graveyard”
(Dir by Victor Lobl, originally aired on January 18th, 1983)
It’s the graveyard shift at St. Eligius. The halls and the cafeteria are dark. The ER is oddly calm. There are only a few patients to be looked after and most of the doctors are playing poker and talking about the rather boring subject of Dr. Samuels’s love life.
Only a handful of the series regulars make an appearance in this episode but that’s fine. This episode actually provides a nice break from having to keep track of where everyone is. Unfortunately, as I already said, a lot of this episode is centered around the character of Dr. Samuels. Nothing against the late David Birney, who did a perfectly acceptable job in the role, but Dr. Ben Samuels is just not that interesting of a character. He’s a dedicated surgeon who feels too much, drinks too much, and wants to sleep with his colleagues. That’s fine but I grew up watching General Hospital. I’ve seen a hundred doctors just like Samuels on television.
To me, the far more interesting characters are the people like David Morse’s Jack Morrison or Ed Begley, Jr’s Victor Ehrlich or even Terence Knox’s Peter White. They’re doctors who screw up and aren’t always brilliant and sometimes say the wrong things. They feel like real people whereas Dr. Samuels just feels like a cliche, a holdover from some other medical show. Samuels is not a particularly compelling character and, when I did some research, I was not surprised to discover that David Birney only appeared on one season of the show.
G.W. Bailey’s Hugh Beale also only appeared in the first season and that’s a shame because Bailey’s performance as Beale has been one of the first season’s real pleasures. Bailey plays Beale as a compassionate man who often pretends to be more naive than he is. As a Southerner, he’s an outsider on this Boston-set show and, being an outsider, he can often relate to the patients in the psych ward. Of course, that still doesn’t stop Dr. Beale’s main patient, Ralph the Birdman, from throwing himself off the roof of the hospital in this episode. To be honest, I already suspected things weren’t going to go well for Ralph on this show but his suicidal jump still upset me. As annoying as the character was, he was also finally making some progress. He finally admitted he wasn’t a bird. And then he proved it by showing that he couldn’t fly.
While Ralph plunged to his death, Dr. Samuels saved a gunshot victim (played by Tom Hulce). And Jack allowed the father (James Hong) of one of his comatose patients to perform a Chinese ritual that led to the patient waking up and eventually walking into the cafeteria, where the doctors were playing poker. “Who ordered the Chinese?” Fiscus asked and …. ugh. Not cool, Fiscus.
It was a night of triumph and tragedy. Ralph died but Dr. Samuels and Dr. Paxton agreed to give their relationship another try which …. eh. I don’t care about Samuels and Paxton. For the most part, though, I liked this episode. The smaller cast made it easier to keep track of things and the poker game banter reminded me that the doctors are all people too. Still, I have to feel bad for Ralph. All he wanted to do was fly.
Through the Shattered Lens 