Tag Archives: Alice Nunn

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: The Fifth Floor (dir by Howard Avedis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1977’s The Fifth Floor, Dianne Hull plays Kelly McIntyre.

Kelly is a college student by day and a disco dancer by night!  Unfortunately, after someone spikes her drink at the discotheque and she suffers an overdose, she becomes a full-time patient at a mental asylum.  Neither the head doctor (Mel Ferrer) nor the head nurse (Julia Adams, who once swam with The Creature From The Black Lagoon)  believes her claim that her drink was spiked.  Judged to be suicidal and delusional, Kelly is sent to the Fifth Floor!

While her boyfriend (John David Carson) tries to convince the authorities that she’s not insane, Kelly adjusts to life on the Fifth Floor.  She befriend Cathy (Patti D’Arbanville).  She encourages her fellow patients to dance and enjoy themselves.  She tries to escape on multiple occasions.  She draws the unwanted attention of a male orderly named Carl (Bo Hopkins, giving a wonderfully sinister performance).  A sadist equipped with down-home country charm, Carl has got all of his co-workers convinced that he’s a great guy.  The patients, though, know that Carl is a petty authoritarian who enjoys showing off his power.  (“I’m just doing my job,” is the excuse whenever he’s challenged.)  Carl takes an obsessive interest in Kelly and soon, Kelly is not only trying to get her life back but also trying to escape from Carl’s cruel intentions.

Most film directories list The Fifth Floor as being a horror film and certainly, there are elements of the horror genre to be found in the film.  The smooth-talking and nonchalantly cruel Carl is certainly a horrific character and Kelly’s attempts to escape from the asylum capture the very primal fear of not having any control over one’s life.  That said, The Fifth Floor owes greater debt to One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest than to the typical slasher film.  Kelly is a rebel who brings the patients in the ward together.  Much as in Cuckoo’s Nest, the nurses and the orderlies use the threat of electro-shock treatment to keep the patients under control.

It’s not a bad film, though it definitely has its slow spots and I do wish the film had embraced its own sordidness with a bit more style.  I’m a history nerd so I appreciated the fact that The Fifth Floor was so obviously a product of its time.  Any film that features the heroine showing off her disco moves before being taken to a mental hospital is going to hold my interest.  That said, the most interesting thing about the film are some of the familiar faces in the cast.  For instance, Earl Boen — who played so many authority figures over the course of his career and appeared as a psychiatrist in the early Terminator films — plays a patient who wears a NASA jacket.  The always intimidating Anthony James plays the most violent patient.  Michael Berryman and Tracey Walter appear as background patients.

And then you’ve got Robert Englund, cast here as Benny.  Benny is the most gentle of the patients, a prankster who befriends Kelly.  It’s always so interesting to see the type of roles that Englund played before he was cast as Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare On Elm Street.  In this film, Englund is so goofy and friendly that you actually find yourself worrying about something happening to him.  Englund’s role is small but his amiable nerdiness definitely makes an impression.

The Fifth Floor opens and ends with a title card telling us that the film is based on a true story.  Sure, it was.

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 3.25 “Celebration/Captain Papa/Honeymoon Pressure”

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, an important question is finally answered!

Episode 3.25 “Celebration/Captain Papa/Honeymoon Pressure”

(Dir by Richard Kinon, originally aired on March 29th, 1980)

Ever since Vicki first came aboard the ship, I have been wondering how exactly a 12 year-old can live (and apparently work) on an ocean liner.  One of my main questions has concerned how she is getting an education while sailing back and forth to Mexico.

With this episode, I finally got my answer.  When social worker Susan Stoddard (Lois Nettleton) boards the ship to decide whether or not to recommend that the Captain be given custody of Vicki, one of the first question that she asks is about school.

“Chief Petty Officer Dooley has a master’s in education,” Stubing replies, before saying that this never-before-mentioned character served as Vicki’s tutor.

Well, I’m glad that’s been cleared up.  Still, it is interesting that we’ve never before seen or even heard of this Dooley character.  We don’t even see Dooley in this episode.  You would think the social worker would want to talk to the person who is in charge of Vicki’s education.  Instead, Susan sees the rest of the crew, all of whom try to be on their best behavior in order to convince her that the Love Boat is not the floating HR nightmare that we all know it is.

(Still, at least the crew tried.  I’m surprised Doctor Bricker didn’t just try to sleep with her or something….)

This would be a really depressing episode of the Captain wasn’t awarded custody.  Luckily, Susan is so impressed by the crew that she says she will definitely file a positive report.  As she put it, Vicki not only has one wonderful parent.  She has “Five wonderful parents!”  Let’s see — Stubing, Julie, Gopher, Isaac, Doc …. yep, that’s five.  I’m sure Chief Petty Officer Dooley appreciates being left out of the group.

Isaac has more to worry about than just Captain Stubing’s situation.  Isaac is convinced that an old man named Gordon (Noah Beery, Jr.) is bank robber!  Gordon, who works as a bank guard at the port, is sailing on the Love Boat with his wife of 30 years, Betty (Alice Faye).  Gordon is spending a lot of money.  Isaac worries that Gordon stole the money but actually, it turns out that Gordon is just spending his life savings because his wife is in poor health and he wants to make sure that she has a wonderful vacation.  Unfortunately, Gordon spends too much on a diamond ring.  His wife, realizing what Gordon has done, secretly exchanges the ring for a cheaper one and tells her husband that she doesn’t need a life of luxury.  She just needs him.  Awwwwwww!  What a sweet old couple.

Finally, there are two real criminals on the boat.  Ralph (Norman Alden) and Ben (Richard Bakalyan) are two mob enforces who have been sent to accompany the boss’s daughter (Eve Plumb) on her honeymoon with her un-connected husband, Mark (Sal Viscuso).  Ralph and Ben’s presence makes Mark so uncomfortable that he can’t even consummate his marriage.  Ralph and Ben try to make things romantic for the couple.  Eventually, Doc Bricker tells the gangsters that Mark has a fictional disease, which causes Ralph and Ben to back off.  The married couple finally gets to celebrate their honeymoon.  But Mark still married into a mafia family so he’ll probably be machine-gunned as soon as he steps off the boat.

With the exception of the stupid Mafia story, this was a sweet episode.  I’m glad things worked out for the old couple and for Vicki and the Captain.  The Love Boat is not really a show that you watch for the acting but Gavin MacLeod’s natural sincerity always served him well whenever the show focused on his role as Vicki’s father.  Plus, I no longer have to worry about whether or not Vicki is going to have more than a sixth grade education.  So that’s a good thing.

Back to School Part II #22: Three O’Clock High (dir by Phil Joanou)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Three_o_clock_high_p

For the next entry in my back to school series of reviews, I want to say a few words about the 1987 comedy, Three O’Clock High.

I have no idea how Three O’Clock High did when it was originally released into theaters.  I know, I know — I could just look it up on Wikipedia or the imdb but I’m lazy and, besides, I hate that whole idea that box office success is somehow synonymous with quality.  That said, Three O’Clock High is one of those films that seems to be in a permanent cable rotation (seriously, it always seems to be playing somewhere and there’s always a few people on twitter talking about how excited they are about coming across it) and I kind of hope that it did well when it was originally released.  It’s an entertaining and genuinely funny little high school comedy.

Three O’Clock High tells the story of Jerry (Casey Siemaszko).  Jerry is a high school student, one of those kids who is a bit anonymous.  He’s kind of a nerd but so much of a nerd that he painfully sticks out of the crowd at this school.

You know who does stick out of the crowd?  Buddy Revell (Richard Tyson).  Buddy is the new kid at school.  He’s a big, hulking, and rather intimidating figure and he comes with quite a fearsome repuations.  All anyone can talk about are the stories that they’ve heard about Buddy’s dangerous past.  The one thing that the rumors all have in common is that Buddy does not like to be touched.  In fact, it appears that his aversion to being touched has made him the most dangerous high school student in the country.

The first hour of Jerry’s school day is spent working at the school newspaper and, of course, his teacher has a bright idea.  Why not welcome Buddy to the school by interviewing him!?  Sure, why not!?  Everyone loves to be interviewed!  And why not get Jerry to do the interview?

The problem is that Buddy doesn’t want to be interviewed.  And, once he realizes that Buddy not only doesn’t want to talk to him but is actually getting rather annoyed with him (this may be because Jerry chooses to approach Buddy in the boy’s bathroom), Jerry asks Buddy to forget that he even bothered him and then reaches over and punches him on the arm.

Of course, this leads to Buddy announcing that he and Jerry are going to have a fight.  At 3 pm.  In the school parking lot…

The rest of the film plays out like a surrealistic, teen-centered parody of High Noon, with Jerry desperately trying to figure out a way to avoid the fight.  He tries to frame Buddy by placing a switchblade in his locker, just to have Buddy use the knife to disable his car, effectively trapping Jerry at the school.  He tries to help Buddy cheat on a test.  He tries to get the principal to kick him out of school.  He even tries bribery!

But ultimately, three o’clock arrives and Jerry must face his destiny…

Three O’Clock High is cheerfully cartoonish and rather entertaining little film.  Director Phil Joanou pays homage to a countless number of other films, often framing the high school action like a Spaghetti western stand-off and, when the final fight arrives, it’s just as wonderfully over-the-top and silly as you could hope for.  Casey Siemaszko, who was also in Secret Admirer, is perfectly cast as Jerry and Richard Tyson is both funny and intimidating as Buddy.  Meanwhile, ineffectual adults are played by everyone from Philip Baker Hall to Jeffrey Tambor to Mitch Pileggi.  There’s a not a subtle moment to be found in Three O’Clock High but the relentless stylization definitely works to the film’s advantage.

I’d keep an eye out for the next time that Three O’Clock High shows up on Showtime.  It’s an entertaining film about teens doing what teens have to do.