Tag Archives: Audrey Landers

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 7.9 “Fantasy Island Girl/Saturday’s Child”

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.  Unfortunately, the show has been removed from most streaming sites.  Fortunately, I’ve got nearly every episode on my DVR.

This week, we have two fantasies that seem very familiar.

Episode 7.9 “Fantasy Island Girl/Saturday’s Child”

(Dir by Leslie H. Martinson, originally aired on December 10th, 1983)

Actress Marion Sommers (Stella Stevens) comes to the Island.  Lawrence is a huge fan and can’t imagine what fantasy she could possibly have.  Roarke explains that Marion wants to be reunited with her children.  The twist is that her children don’t know that Marion is their mother.  They think that their mother died and that they were adopted by Fran Woods (Diane Baker).

Marion is told that, because of the way she phrased her fantasy, she’ll get to meet her children on the island but she can’t tell them that she’s their mother.  The children have spent the last few years with Ms. Woods as their mother.  Marion agrees but she doesn’t keep her word and, by the end of her fantasy, she’s told both Bill (David Kaufman) and Ellie (Amy Linker) that she is their mother and that she wants them to come with her.  Bill and Ellie reject her, saying that Ms. Woods will always be their mother.  However, they would like it if Marion would be their friend.

Lawrence asks Marion to give him her autograph so he can give it to his niece.  Then, after Marion leaves, Lawrence tells Roarke that he doesn’t have a niece….

This fantasy seemed awfully familiar.  I don’t really have the time to go back and reread every Fantasy Island review that I’ve written but I’m pretty sure that this show has already gone to the “I’m  a famous actress who wants to meet the children that I gave up” well more than a few times.  In this case, it just felt like everyone was going through the motions.

As for the other fantasy, it involved the Fantasy Island Girl Beauty Pageant and, again, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen several versions of this pageant fantasy in the past.  This time, it’s the pageant’s producer, Nick Gleason (Paul Burke), who has a fantasy.  It seems that Nick has a reputation for fixing his pageants so his fantasy is to run a totally “clean” and honest pageant.  It seems like he could have just done that on his own without even having to go to Fantasy Island.  Since when have fantasies become about doing things that most people would just do naturally?

Nick’s daughter, Tina (Audrey Landers), enters the pageant and suddenly, Nick finds himself tempted to fix the pageant for her.  When Roarke explains this to Tina, Tina withdraws from the pageant and Nick doesn’t fix the pageant.  Nick is so happy that he finally put on a honest pageant but the only reason he didn’t fix the pageant was because Tina dropped out.  If she hadn’t dropped out, he totally would have rigged it.  So, I’m not really sure that Nick has anything to brag about.  It’s kind of like bragging about not robbing a bank because it was closed on Sunday.

Lawrence is appointed as one of the judges for the beauty pageant.  You know who really enjoyed beauty pageants?  Tattoo.  This would have been a fun fantasy for Tattoo.  Instead, we just get Lawrence looking all huffy and puffy.

The trip to the Island was no fantasy.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 5.29 “Mothers Don’t Do That/Marrying For Money/Substitute Lover”

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, season 5 comes to a close!

Episode 5.29 “Mothers Don’t Do That/Marrying for Money/Substitute Lover”

(Dir by Jerome Courtland, originally aired on May 15th, 1982)

Glamorous Marian Healy (Eva Gabor) boards the boat and is reunited with the son that she barely knows, Danny (Brad Savage).  Danny, however, reads Marian’s diary and declares, “Mother don’t do that!”  Hey, you little brat, how do you think you came into existence?

Meanwhile, yet another old high friend of Julie’s board the boat and proceeds to lie to a passenger.  It seems like this happened every week.  This time, it’s Bert (Eddie Mekka) who pretends to be the pen pal of Marla Bennett (Audrey Landers).  Don’t worry, Marla forgives Bert when she learns the truth.  If there’s anything I’ve learned from watching The Love Boat, it’s that romantic relationships that start off with some horrible lie always work out for the best.

Finally, Gopher and Isaac are worried that Lola Trout (Caren Kaye) is trying to kill her new husband, Orville (Arte Johnson), by forcing him to exercise.  They can’t think of any other reason why Lola would marry Arte, other than to murder him and take his money.  If they spent more time watching Fantasy Island, they would know that there are simpler ways to kill your husband than by making him exercise.  You could challenge him to a pentathlon for instance….

This was the final episode of the fifth season and everyone seemed to be a little bit tired.  None of the three stories is particularly developed and you can really tell that everyone’s eager to get off the boat and spend some time on dry land.  That’s fine.  Season 5 was a pretty good season, even with that terrible musical episode.  Everyone deserves a break and if that means the finale is a bit underwhelming, so be it!

Next week, we start Season 6!  I have a feeling I will never finish reviewing this series and that’s okay.  The Love Boat is a show that I could happily watch forever!

 

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 6.12 “The Tallowed Image/Room and Bard”

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.  Unfortunately, the show has been removed from most streaming sites.  Fortunately, I’ve got nearly every episode on my DVR.

This week, William Shakespeare comes to the Island!  Smiles, everyone, smile!

Episode 6.12 “The Tallowed Image/Room and Bard”

(Dir by Carl Kugel, originally aired on January 29th, 1983)

This week, we have another two fantasies and, interestingly enough, they both involve time travel.

Movie star Angela Marckham (Laraine Stephens) wants to be taken seriously as an actress.  She asks Roarke to send her back in time so that she can appear in one of Shakespeare’s plays.  However. something goes wrong when Roarke attempts to open up the time travel portal and instead, Shakespeare (Robert Reed) ends up in the modern era.

“Be this Heaven or Hell?” Shakespeare demands.

“This is Fantasy Island,” Tattoo replies.

Shakespeare is happy to have escaped England because he was on the verge of being killed by the Earl of Norfolk (Lloyd Bochner).  Angela puts Shakespeare to work writing a scene for her but Shakespeare announces that he cannot use a “word processor” and needs a quill pen.  Luckily, quills can be bought at the Fantasy Island gift shop!  Shakespeare then gets writers block.  Angela really should just demand a refund.  Her fantasy is a bust.  No traveling to the past.  No play.  Shakespeare is kind of a jerk.  But then the Earl of Norfolk shows up on Fantasy Island and, with his life now in danger, Shakespeare discovers that can write again.  Hooray!

This fantasy felt familiar but, then again, the same can be said for many of the episodes of Fantasy Island that I’ve recently watched.  After six seasons, any show would start to repeat itself.  In this case, neither Angela nor Shakespeare are particularly sympathetic.  Roarke has the patience of the saint.

Meanwhile, Andy Durant (Ray Buktenica) goes back to Victorian-era London so that he can meet a model whose picture fascinates him.  Andy meets Pamela Gentry (Angela Landers) but is shocked to discover that she is about to fall victim to the mad owner of a wax museum.  Frederick Kragan (Cesar Romero) kills his models and then disguises them as wax figures.  (If this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s basically a remake of House of Wax.)  Kragan’s assistant, Otto, is played by Sid Haig!  Can Andy save Pamela’s life and expose Kragan’s crimes?

This was a fairly entertaining episode.  I actually kind of liked the idea of Shakespeare being a cranky jerk, even if there was nothing particularly British about Robert Reed’s performance.  Then again, there’s also nothing British about the performances of Audrey Landers, Cesar Romero, or Sid Haig.  This was an odd episode but the House of Wax fantasy had a lot of old school Hammer film atmosphere to it.  And, for those who enjoy Roarke/Tattoo comedy, this episode had a bit more than usual.  Between Tattoo trying to help Shakespeare and Roarke laughing off Angela’s very justified anger over her fantasy not being fulfilled, this was a very good Roarke/Tattoo episode.

Overall, this was a good trip to the Island.

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 5.2 “The Devil and Mr. Roarke/Ziegfeld Girls/Kid Corey Rides Again”

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 is a busy one as Mr. Roarke deals with several guests, a new assistant …. AND THE DEVIL!

Episode 5.2 “The Devil and Mr. Roarke/Ziegfeld Girls/Kid Corey Rides Again”

(Dir by Don Chaffey, originally aired on October 17th, 1981)

The plane lands at the Island, carrying four people in search of a fantasy.  Waiting to greet them are Mr. Roarke, Tattoo, and Julie.  After being told that she wasn’t ready to greet the guests last week, Julie has finally been promoted.  And if you thought that Mr. Roarke and Tattoo occasionally had an awkward chemistry, it’s nothing compared to how awkward things feel with a third person cheerfully taking part in their conversations.  Wendy Schaal is likable enough as Julie but it’s hard to understand why, in-universe, the character is there.

As for our guests, Joan (Barbi Benton in old-age makeup) and Rubi (Audrey Landers, in even more old-age makeup) are former Ziegfeld girls who want to relive their youth.  Joan’s niece, Billie (Betty Kennedy), is appearing in a Ziegfeld-style revue that is being directed by Carl Wagner (Dack Rambo).  Mr.  Roarke agree to make Rubi and Joan young again, with the understanding that it will only be for the weekend and that they can’t tell anyone about their fantasy while they’re experiencing it.  The women agree and are overjoyed when they are transformed into their younger selves.  (I’m going to guess that Benton and Landers were probably even happier to ditch the old age makeup.)  Rubi promptly decides to steal Carl away from Billie.  Joan is shocked by Rubi’s behavior and she has to decide whether to allow her friend to live her fantasy or to tell the truth about what she and Rubi are doing on the island.

Also going into the past is a meek shoe salesman named Ned Plummer (Arte Johnson).  Ned wants to go back to the old west so that he can meet his hero, outlaw Kid Corey.  Corey is famous for disappearing after pulling off a million dollar robbery.  Ned even has an old picture of Corey in which Corey possesses a definite resemblance to Ned himself.  Mr. Roarke warns Ned that, when he goes to the past, the bullets will be real and he won’t be able to return to the present until his fantasy is over.  Given a magic horse, Ned rides into the past and promptly meets Kid Corey (Jack Elam).

It turns out that Kid Corey doesn’t look like Ned.  It also turns out that Kid Corey is not the Robin Hood-type figure that he was made out to be in the history books.  Kid Corey isn’t even a Kid!  He’s an irascible old man who doesn’t lift a finger when Ned is arrested by Sheriff Matt (Cameron Mitchell, naturally enough), taken to jail, and sentenced to hang.  Oh no!  It sound like it’s time for Mr. Roarke to save Ned, right?  Well, Mr. Roarke is busy with another situation so it’s Tattoo who shows up in Ned’s fantasy and, oddly, Tattoo doesn’t seem to be that worried about Ned getting executed.  Maybe Tattoo is planning on blaming it all on Julie.  (That said, it is nice to see Tattoo get to do something more than just as Mr. Roarke questions.  In this episode, Herve Villechaize seems to be enjoying the chance to show off his snarky side.)

What is occupying Mr. Roarke’s attention?  Well, Satan (Roddy McDowall) has returned to the Island.  He claims that he’s just looking for a relaxing weekend but it soon becomes obvious that, once again, he wants Roarke’s soul.  Mr. Roarke warns Julie to be careful what she says around the Devil.  So, of course, Julie promptly offers to give away her soul.

Now, in Julie’s defense, she was trying to save a guest who was drowning in quicksand and what she said is that she would do anything to save the guest’s life.  Satan hears and saves the guest in return for Julie giving him her soul at midnight.  Still, I have to wonder why Julie hadn’t been previously trained on how to pull someone out of quicksand.  I mean, if she’s ready to meet the guests then I would think that Roarke would have given her quicksand training.  That really seems like the first thing that someone should learn when they start working on Fantasy Island.

(For that matter, why is there so much quicksand on a resort!?)

Satan — surprise! — is willing to call off his deal with Julie in return for Roarke giving up his soul at midnight.  Roarke agrees but then he tricks Satan by singing a contract transferring possession of his soul to Julie.  Since Roarke’s soul is now Julie’s, Roarke can’t get give it away.  Because the overly cocky Satan spends too much time gloating and then gets upset over being conned, he loses track of time and the midnight hour passes without Satan taking anyone’s souls.

(I’m not sure if any of this would hold up in court but, to be honest, I don’t really know much about contract law.)

With three stories and a new sidekick to introduce, this was a very busy episode.  The Ziegfeld and the Old West fantasies were nicely done.  The Ziegfeld costumes were to die for and Jack Elam was memorably uncouth in the role of Kid Corey.  That said, as you can probably guess, the main attraction here is Roddy McDowall hamming it up as the Devil.  He and Montalban both seem to be having a lot of fun in this episode and their confrontation is entertaining to watch.  I wish Julie hadn’t been portrayed as being such a naive fool but still, this was an enjoyable weekend on the Island.

Retro Television Reviews: Fantasy Island 3.8 “The Handyman/Tattoo’s Romance”

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 1986.  Almost entire show is currently streaming is on Youtube!

This week, on Fantasy Island, Tattoo falls in love!

Episode 3.8 “The Handyman/Tattoo’s Romance”

(Dir by Lawrence Dobkin, originally aired on November 10th, 1979)

Following the death of his wife last week, Mr. Roarke is once again back to being his usual cranky, Tattoo-hating self.  And this week, Mr. Roarke has a special reason to be annoyed with his assistant.  Tattoo has gone rogue!

As Mr. Roarke explains it, he has rejected the fantasy of Donna May Calloway (Audrey Landers) twice.  Donna May says that she wants to be a country-western superstar but Mr. Roarke doesn’t feel that she has the talent and he also feel that Donna May is being pushed into it by her aunt, Ellie Simpson (Carolyn Jones).  Ellie had to give up her own musical dreams when she was younger and now she’s forced them onto Donna May.  However, Tattoo takes it upon himself to bring Donna May to the Island and to get her an audition with country-western producer, Colonel Hank Sutton (Richard Paul).  Mr. Roarke correctly perceives that Tattoo is being blinded by his own crush on Donna May.

Col. Sutton is not impressed with Donna May’s audition.  (It doesn’t help that Ellie pressures Donna May to sing a corny song about losing her boyfriend to her best friend.)  Still, Ellie is convinced that Tattoo can somehow talk Col. Sutton into giving Donna May another chance.  Ellie tells Donna May to use Tattoo’s attraction towards her for own purposes.  Though reluctant, Donna May starts to flirt with Tattoo.

Tattoo may be in love but Mr. Roarke is enraged.  He confronts Ellie and Donna May in their cabin and tells them that he will not allow them to manipulate Tattoo.  (Much as with last week, Ricardo Montalban is obviously energized by having the chance to play Mr. Roarke as being something other than just an enigmatic host.)  Ellie goes to Tattoo and lies, claiming that Mr. Roarke told them that Tattoo is not good enough for Donna May.  What a bitch!

This leads to — and I’m not joking here — a sincerely touching scene between Mr. Roarke and Tattoo.  Tattoo tells Mr. Roarke what Ellie said.  Mr. Roarke replies that what worries him more than Ellie saying that is the thought that Tattoo might believe it.  Tattoo says that he doesn’t but that he loves Donna May and that he’s going to leave Fantasy Island to be with her.  By most accounts (including their own), Ricardo Montalban and Herve Villechaize did not get along on the set but you’d never guess it from this wonderfully performed scene.  Both of them deliver their lines with such sincerity and emotional vulnerability that it’s impossible not to be moved by their friendship.

Mr. Roarke confronts Donna May and Ellie in the Fantasy Island recording studio.  (Yes, Fantasy Island has its own recording studio.)  Donna May is stricken with guilt when she hears that Tattoo is giving up Fantasy Island for her.  She tells Ellie that she’s going to live her own life from now on.  After Ellie leaves in a huff, Donna May says that she must find Tattoo and apologize to him.

Suddenly, Tattoo reveals that he’s been in the recording the booth the whole time.  “Apologize to the boss, first,” Tattoo orders, revealing that his first allegiance will always be to Mr. Roarke.  Donna May and Tattoo then sing a country song together.  No, I’m not making that up.  It’s weird but kind of sweet.

As for the other fantasy, it’s far less interesting.  Holly Ryan (Future Congressman Sonny Bono, who was a bit of a regular on both this show and The Love Boat) is an accountant who witnessed a murder committed by a gangster named Spider Sloat (Joey Forman).  Holly’s fantasy is to hide out from Spider and, when Spider and his men suddenly show up on the Island, Holly ends up doing just that at an orphanage run by Emily Perkins (Shelley Fabares).  Holly falls in love with Emily, takes care of the orphans, and puts on a dress when Spider comes looking for him.  It’s a thoroughly lightweight fantasy that largely serves to remind us that no one nicknamed Spider can be convincingly intimidating.

As silly as the second fantasy may be, the first fantasy makes up for it.  Much as with last week’s episode, both Ricardo Montalban and Herve Villechaize give such strong performances that this silly little show actually brought a tear to my mismatched eyes.

Will next week be as good?  We’ll find out!

Lifetime Film Review: Engaged To A Psycho (dir by Sam Irvin)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

After dating for a very long time, Deanna (Anna Hutchison) and Karl (Jason-Shane Scott) are finally getting married!

Yay!  Everyone loves a big wedding!

And, even before Karl asks Deanna to marry him, he’s purchased a large house for them to live in!

Yay!  Everyone loves a big house!

But first, Deanna needs to meet Karl’s family and that means going to an even bigger house!

YAY!  EVERYONE LOVES AN EVEN BIGGER HOU….

Wait a minute …. Deanna hasn’t met Karl’s family, yet?

Seriously, everyone, that should be a big red flag.  I don’t care how rich your boyfriend is, you don’t accept his marriage proposal before you’ve met his family.  After all, his family could be …. well, the could be crazy.  Or they might meet you and then decide that they don’t like you or maybe they like you but they still think that their son (or brother or stepbrother) could do better.  Or — and this especially happens in Lifetime movie — someone might start murdering all the members of your wedding party.

All of that happens in Engaged To A Psycho.  Engaged To A Psycho premiered on the Lifetime Movie Network back in May but, according to the imdb, the film was actually around a while before making it’s official LMN premiere.  It played in Canada back in 2018 and then, in 2019, it showed up on television in the UK, Spain, and France.  At the time, it was known as Murder at the Mansion.  By the time it premiered here in the States, the name had been changed to Engaged To A Psycho.  (Lifetime was going through a Psycho cycle.  Try saying that six times fast.)

Anyway, regardless of the title, Engaged To A Psycho is a fun little movie.  As soon as Deanna shows up at, she meets Karl’s mother, Ivy (Audrey Landers) and his adopted sister, Ruby (Melissa Bolona).  Ivy makes it clear that she thinks her son could have done better than Deanna.  Ruby, meanwhile, is almost too friendly and seems to be trying way too hard to convince Deanna that Deanna is welcome in the family.  It soon becomes obvious, than even though the family is living in a gigantic mansion, the rooms and the hallways are full of secrets, lies, and murder.  Soon people are dying all over the place.

One thing I liked about Engaged To A Psycho is that there were plenty of POV shots from the killer’s point of view.  It gave the whole a film a sort of giallo feel while also hiding the killer’s identity.  It also led to a lot of scenes of people looking straight at the camera and saying stuff like, “I knew it was you!  Wait here while I go tell everyone!”  Well, needless to say, the killer isn’t big on waiting.

The other thing I liked about Engaged To A Psycho is that it had a sense of humor about itself.  Ivy is so extremely unimpressed by Deanna that it actually becomes rather hilarious how dismissive she is.  It doesn’t matter how many times Deanna nearly gets killed, Ivy refuses to accept her word that there’s something strange going on.

I liked Engaged to a Psycho.  There were a lot of murders, a lot of archly delivered dialogue, and a lot of big houses.  What more can you ask for?

After The French Connection: Popeye Doyle (1986, directed by Peter Levin)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In this made-for-television movie, a pre-Married With Children Ed O’Neill takes over the role that won Gene Hackman an Oscar.

Popeye Doyle (played by O’Neill) is a hard-drinking, hard-living Irish police detective working out of New York City.  Along with his more emotionally stable partner, Tony Parese (Matthew Laurence), Doyle spends his time busting drug dealers, going on stakeouts, and chasing junkies through the mean streets of NYC.  When Jill, a beautiful young model (Audrey Landers) turns up dead, everyone assumes that it was an overdose.  Doyle, however, has his doubts.  All of her friends say that Jill never used drugs and, when Popeye searches her apartment, he doesn’t find any evidence that would point to her being junkie.  Instead, he finds tapes that Jill made for various wealthy men.  Convinced that Jill was murdered, Popeye is soon investigating the type of powerful people who are not used to being investigated.

In 1986, someone at NBC thought it would be a good idea to launch a series based on The French Connection.  Since Gene Hackman was busy making movies and hadn’t come anywhere close to appearing on television since losing the role of the father on The Brady Bunch to Robert Reed, the role of Popeye was given to Ed O’Neill.  At that time, O’Neill was an unknown who had appeared in a handful of plays, two movies, and one Red Lobster commercial.  The movie, Popeye Doyle, was meant to serve as a pilot for the proposed television series.  Needless to say, the film did not lead to a series.  If it had, Ed O’Neill probably wouldn’t have been available to take the role of Al Bundy on Married With Children.

O’Neill is probably the main reason that anyone today would want to see Popeye Doyle, which is otherwise a routine cop movie.  Except for a few scenes where he seems to be trying too hard to imitate Hackman’s iconic performance, O’Neill brings authentic working class swagger to the role.  He drinks too much, he often says the wrong thing, and he pisses off all the right people.  There are some scenes where O’Neill seems to blend right in with the pilot’s gritty visual style.  (It was shot on location in Ed Koch-era New York.)  There are other scenes where he gets so manic that he seems to be a man possessed.  In the scene where he watches Candy Clark do an impromptu striptease, O’Neill as Doyle gets so excited that you worry about him.  Interestingly, Doyle wanders through the film dressed like a slob and acting like a schlub but every beautiful woman he meets wants to have sex with him.  In that regard, it is easy to imagine the movie as being some sort of elaborate daydream that Al Bundy had while selling shoes.

As for the events in The French Connection, they’re mentioned briefly at the start of the movie, when a reporter asks Doyle about that time he accidentally shot and killed a federal agent.  Popeye Doyle still has many scenes that are meant to remind viewers of the first film.  There’s a stakeout scene, where Doyle and Parese sit out in the cold while their target enjoys a nice night.  There’s a scene where Doyle works undercover as a bum.  And, of course, there’s a car chase, though it’s nowhere near as exciting as the one from The French Connection.

Popeye Doyle has never been officially released on DVD (or even VHS), though it is available on YouTube.