Cleaning Out The DVR: Wicked Stepmother (dir by Larry Cohen)

Posted on October 29, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Weird movie, this one.

The 1989 film, Wicked Stepmother, was Bette Davis’s final film. She was cast as Miranda, an enigmatic woman who meets and marries a man named Sam (Lionel Stander). Sam’s daughter, Jenny (Colleen Camp) and her husband, Steve (David Rasche), are stunned to come home from a vacation just to discover Miranda living in their house. Miranda chain-smokes, despite Jenny and Steve asking her not to. Miranda cooks and eats meat, despite Jenny being a vegetarian. Miranda brags about her sex life which freaks Jenny out even though I suppose really old people do occasionally have sex. When it becomes apparent that Miranda is a witch who seduces and shrinks her victims, Jenny decides that something must be done.

Wicked Stepmother was not only Bette Davis’s last starring role but it was also the last production that she ever walked out on. Early on in filming, she announced that she didn’t like the script, she didn’t like the way she was being filmed, and that she didn’t like the director, venerable B-move maestro Larry Cohen. For his part, Cohen said that Davis left the movie because she was in bad health but she didn’t want to announce that to the world. In Cohen’s defense, Davis does appear to be rather frail in the movie and often seems to be having trouble speaking. (Davis has a stroke a few years before appearing in Wicked Stepmother.) Davis died just a few months after Wicker Stepmother was released so I tend to assume that Cohen was correct when he said that the main reason Davis left the film was because of her health. That doesn’t mean the script wasn’t bad, of course. But, in the latter part of her career, Davis appeared in a lot of badly written movies. She did Burnt Offerings, afterall.

Regardless of why she left, Davis’s absence did require that Wicked Stepmother work around her character. But how do you do that when Bette Davis was literally the title character? This film’s solution was to bring in Barbara Carrerra as Priscilla, Miranda’s daughter. It turns out that Miranda and Priscilla both inhabit the body of a cat but only one of them can use the body at a time. So, when Priscilla is in the cat, Miranda is among the humans. When Miranda is in the cat, Priscilla is …. well, you get the idea. In the film, Priscilla leaves the body of the cat and then refuses to reeneter it because “I’m having too much fun.” So, whenever we see the cat glaring in the background, we’re meant to assume that we’re actually seeing Miranda in the background.

Got it?

Now, believe it or not, the whole thing with the cat is probably the least confusing thing about Wicked Stepmother. Jenny can’t convince Steve that Miranda and Priscilla are actually witches. Steve actually has sex with Pricilla and is shocked when Priscilla starts to turn into a cat but the whole incident is never mentioned again and Steve quickly goes from being an adulterous jerk to a loyal husband. Sam goes on a game show and, with Priscilla’s help, wins a lot of money even though the questions that he answered were so simple that he shouldn’t have needed the help of a witch’s spell. (“Who won the election of 1876?” is one question. The correct answer, by the way, is Rutherford B. Hayes. Screw you, Samuel Tilden.) Jenny gets some help from a cop, a private detective, and a priestess of some sort. The whole thing ends with a big magical battle that involves Barbara Carrera mouthing pre-recorded Bette Davis dialogue.

None of it makes any sense. The special effects are incredibly cut-rate. It’s hard not to regret that Bette Davis didn’t go out on a better film. And yet, when taken on its own terms, Wicked Stepmother itself is oddly likable. Colleen Camp is sympathetic as Jenny, which is saying something when you consider that Jenny is written to be a humorless vegetarian. Lionel Stander appears to be having fun as Sam. Larry Cohen was a good-enough director that, even though he couldn’t save the film from its own bad script and miniscule budget, the movie itself is never boring. It’s cheap and stupid but its watchable in the same way that Michael Scott’s Threat Level Midnight was watchable. It may not be particularly good but you just can’t look away.

The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977, directed by Don Taylor)

Posted on October 24, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

After the ship that he’s working on sinks, engineer Andrew Braddock (Michael York) washes up on an uncharted island. It’s a beautiful island but it quickly proves dangerous as another survivor of the sinking is killed by wild animals. The injured Braddock passes out and when he wakes up, he’s being cared for by a mysterious scientist named Moreau (Burt Lancaster).

Braddock discovers that the island is populated by creatures that are half-human and half-animal. Led by the Sayer of the Law (Richard Basehart), these creatures are the results of experiments conducted by Moreau and his assistant, Montgomery (Nigel Davenport). Moreau’s experiments are expected to obey Moreau’s laws. Should they fail, they will be taken to the House of Pain and punished. When Baddock objects to Moreau playing God, Moreau plots to reverse the experiment on Braddock and turn him into an animal. Even as he falls in love with a former cheetah (played by Barbara Carrera), Braddock realizes that he must escape the Island of Dr. Moeau.

This is the forgotten adaptation of H.G. Wells’s classic novel, as well as being the most faithful. The Island of Lost Souls, from 1932, is considered to be a classic. The third version, directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer, is a legendary disaster. This version, though, is usually overlooked. It’s also my favorite of the three but that might be because it was the first version that I ever saw. It’s a straight-forward version of H.G. Wells’s story of science gone mad with director Don Taylor not wasting any time getting the action started. Michael York, always an underrated actor, convincingly portrays Braddock’s outrage and his struggle to maintain his humanity after Moreau starts to experiment on him while Carrera is beautiful and mysterious as Maria. Probably the film’s biggest surprise is Burt Lancaster, who turns out to be ideally cast as Moreau. More subdued than either Charles Laughton or Marlon Brando, Lancaster plays Moreau as a brilliant but callous man who is too arrogant to realize that he’s become as much of an animal as those he claims to be perfecting. What makes Lancaster’s Moreau so disturbing is that he doesn’t have the excuse of being insane. Instead, he’s just too stubborn to admit that he’s potentially made a huge mistake.

It may be forgotten but this still the version of The Island of Dr, Moreau that I would recommend.

(Trailer courtesy of Classic Movie Reviews)

A Movie A Day #313: Lone Wolf McQuade (1983, directed by Steve Carver)

Posted on November 18, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Chuck Norris is J.J. McQuade, Texas Ranger!

J.J. McQuade is a former Marine who keeps the peace in El Paso through a combination of karate and machine guns. McQuade lives in a house in the desert, with only a wolf and refrigerator full of beer to provide companionship. He prefers to work alone, even though his captain (R.G. Armstrong) insists that McQuade partner up with a rookie named Kayo Ramos (Robert Beltran). Ramos is eager to prove himself but Lone Wolf McQuade has to work alone. Otherwise, his nickname would not make any sense.

Things change when McQuade’s teenage daughter (Dana Kimmel) is put in the hospital by an arrogant and sleazy arms dealer named Rawley Wilkes (David Carradine). McQuade is out for both justice and revenge and Ramos’s knowledge of how to turn on a computer proves to be helpful. Also teaming up with McQuade: an FBI agent (Leon Isaac Kennedy), a retired Ranger named Dakota (L.Q. Jones), and Rawley’s former lover (Barbara Carrera), who now happens to be McQuade’s current lover.

The predictable storyline is not what makes Lone Wolf McQuade a classic. Instead, it’s that this movie features both Chuck Norris and David Carradine at the height of their abilities. The whole film is directed like a grand western, with Norris and Carradine taking the roles that would usually go to Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef. The plot may be full of holes but when these two face off, none of that matters. Neither Carradine nor Norris used stunt doubles for their fight scenes and it makes all the difference.

This was one of the first movies to feature Chuck Norris with the beard that’s become his trademark. Wisely, Chuck doesn’t say much in the movie and leaves most of the heavy-duty acting to his co-stars. (Though he may be an icon of cool, Chuck has never been anyone’s idea of a great actor.) Carradine’s performance as Rawley feels like an early version of his best known role, Bill in Kill Bill. L.Q. Jones and R.G. Armstrong both bring their own history as members of the Sam Peckinpah stock company to the film while Barbara Carrera livens up her part with a sultry spark. Keep an eye out for both William Sanderson and Sharon Farrell in small roles. Speaking of small roles, Daniel Frishman almost steals the entire damn movie as a rival arms dealer.

Though it wasn’t produced by Cannon, Lone Wolf McQuade is an essential for fans of Chuck Norris.

Embracing the Melodrama #31: When Time Ran Out (dir by James Goldstone)

Posted on July 6, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

If I had been alive in the 70s, I would have been terrified if I had ever found myself in the same general location of Paul Newman, William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, Jacqueline Bisset, or Burgess Meredith. Just based on the movies that they spent that decade appearing in, it would appear that disaster followed them everywhere.

Just consider:

Both Paul Newman and William Holden were trapped in The Towering Inferno.

Ernest Borgnine and Red Buttons both ended up taking an unexpected Poseidon Adventure together.

Jacqueline Bisset was a flight attendant in the first Airport and nearly got killed by a mad bomber.

And finally, Burgess Meredith was a passenger on The Hindenburg.

Seriously, that’s a dangerously disaster-prone bunch of thespians!

So imagine how terrifying it must have been on the set of the 1980 film When Time Ran Out when all 6 of those actors — along with a lot of other disaster film veterans — were first gathered in one place. People were probably running for their lives, both on-screen and off.

When Time Ran Out takes place on an island in the South Pacific. Shelby Gilmore (William Holden, playing yet another ruthless but essentially good-hearted businessman) owns a luxury resort that happens to be sitting dangerously close to an active volcano. Oil rigger Hank Anderson (Paul Newman) is convinced that the volcano is about to erupt but Shelby’s son-in-law, Bob Spangler (James Franciscus), refuses to listen and claims that even if the volcano does blow, the resort will be safe.

(As a sidenote, why were William Holden’s son-in-laws always too blame in disaster movies? First, you had Richard Chamberlain in The Towering Inferno and now, it’s James Franciscus in When Time Ran Out…)

Suspended over a volcano

You can just look at the film’s title (When Time Ran Out!) and guess that Bob is probably wrong. However, Bob has other things on his mind. First off, he’s cheating on his neurotic wife (Veronica Hamel) with a native islander (Barbara Carrera) who happens to be married to the hotel’s general manager, Brian (Edward Albert). Brian also happens to be Bob’s half-brother and is therefore owed at least half of Bob’s fortune but nobody but Bob realizes that.

And, of course, there are other colorful guests at the hotel who will soon find themselves either fleeing from or drowning in molten lava. There’s a white-collar criminal (Red Buttons) who is being pursued by a detective from New York (Ernest Borgnine, of course). There’s also two retired tightrope walkers (Burgess Meredith and Valentina Cortese) and you better believe that there’s going to be a scene where one of them is going to have to walk across a plank that happens to be suspended over a river a lava…

Told ya!

Eventually, that volcano does erupt and…well, let’s just say that When Time Ran Out is no Towering Inferno as far as the special effects are concerned. The scene where one random fireball flies out of the volcano and heads for the resort is particularly amusing for all the wrong reasons. Not only does the volcano apparently have perfect aim but it’s also painfully obvious that the fireball is streaking across a matte painting. This is the type of film where, when people plunge into a river lava, they do so with heavy lines visible around their flailing bodies. That, along with the cast’s obvious lack of interest in the material, adds up to make When Time Ran Out a film that is memorable for being so ultimately forgettable.

The Horror!

(It’s odd to consider that this film was directed by the same James Goldstone who directed such memorable films as Rollercoaster and Brother John.)

When Time Ran Out is something of a historical oddity because it was the last of the old 70s all-star disaster films. (This may have been released in 1980 but it’s a 70s film through and through.) The movie was such a monumental failure at the box office that it pretty much ended an era of disaster films.

For that reason, it also feels like an appropriate film with which to close out the 70s. Tomorrow, we’ll continue to embrace the melodrama with the 1980s.