Tag Archives: Bernard Behrens

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 5.22 “The Ghost’s Story/The Spoilers”

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, season 5 comes to an end.

Episode 5.22 “The Ghost’s Story/The Spoilers”

(Dir by Don Chaffey, originally aired on May 8th, 1982)

The latest batch of guests are arriving and Julie is nowhere to be seen!  Perhaps that’s because, as Mr. Roarke explains to Tattoo, Julie is helping out a guest who has an invisibility fantasy.  Tattoo and Roarke watch as the guest walks by.  His body may be invisible but his pants are not.

This is the final episode of the fifth season and it’s also the final episode in which Wendy Schaal will be credited as a part of the cast.  I wasn’t a huge fan of the Julie character but it still seems like a bit of a shame that she didn’t get to do anything in the finale.  Then again, this episode doesn’t really feel like a finale.  I don’t know what was going on behind the scenes during the fifth season but it’s hard not to feel, with the way that Julie and Tattoo have randomly shown up in different stories, that the season’s episodes were not shown in the order in which they were filmed.  Maybe all the Julie episodes were filmed at one time, while Herve Villechazie was off doing something else.  Who knows?  It’s just been a strange season.

That’s all wonderful and interesting, Lisa …. But what about this week’s fantasies!? you may be asking.

They both feel a bit familiar.  That’s not always a bad thing, of course.  Fantasy Island is a comfort show and a part of the comfort is knowing that things are always going to play out in a certain way.  But, with this episode, both fantasies felt as if they had been done better in the past.

Harry (Bo Hopkins) is a bounty hunter who comes to the Island to track down fugitive Nick Tanner (Robert Fuller).  Nick has been accused of robbing a bank and is hiding out on a nearby island.  Harry goes to the island but he soon discovers that Nick is innocent and that the real bank robbers have also come to the island in search of Nick.  Luckily, there’s a widow named Juliet (Jo Ann Pflug) who is also living on the island.  Harry and Nick hide out at her place before they all team up to defeat the real bank robbers.  Nick and Juliet fall in love and Mr. Roarke performs one of his trademark wedding ceremonies.  Nick and Juliet then board the plane back to America and …. wait a minute, what about Harry?  It was his fantasy!  We don’t ever see Harry leave Fantasy Island.  Maybe he’s still living there.

(Personally, I think he married Julie and that’s why she was no longer working there once season six began.  I like that.  Consider it to be canon.)

The other fantasy is a haunted house story.  Amanda Parsons (Tanya Roberts) comes all the way from Baltimore to spend 24 hours in one of Fantasy Island’s many haunted houses.  Two other paranormal investigators attempt to do it before Amanda but they end up fleeing after two minutes.  I’m not sure why.  The manor looks creepy but it turns out that the ghost is a rather wimpy and not at all frightening guy named Timothy Black (Dack Rambo).  Cursed by his own father after Timothy refused to fight a duel with Captain Fitzhugh Ross (John McCook), Timothy has spent two hundred years haunting the old manor.  Amanda takes sympathy on him.  It turns out that Ross’s descendant is also on the Island.  Timothy challenges him to a duel, causing the latest Ross to run in fear.  Timothy and his ghost dad (John Myhers) realize it’s okay to be scared of getting shot.  Ghost Dad asks Roarke to bring Timothy back to life so that he can pursue his romance with Amanda.  Roarke does just that, despite the fact that, in many previous episodes, Roarke has specifically said that he cannot bring the dead back to life.

Usually, I enjoy Fantasy Island‘s haunted house fantasies but this one didn’t do much for me.  I think it’s because the ghost was just too wimpy.  There’s nothing more annoying than a whiny a dead guy,

And so ends this very odd season.  Next week, we being season 6!

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 1.4 “Cora and Arnie”

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 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!

This week’s episode made me cry.

Episode 1.4 “Cora and Arnie”

(Dir by Mark Tinker, originally aired on November 23rd, 1982)

While orderly Luther (Eric Laneuville) practices his karate moves in the hallway and anesthesiologist Vijay (Kavi Raz) composes a letter to his family in India and Dr. Fiscus continues his sex-only relationship with Kathy Martin, four patients learn about life and death at St. Eligius.

One of them is an unnamed man (Lionel Mark Smith) who comes in with a complaint of backpain.  Fiscus examines him and discovers that the man has been shot in the back.  The man announces that he’s on parole and he doesn’t feel like going back to prison.  Fiscus offers to admit him under an assumed name but the man says he already gave his real name to the front desk.  The man tries to leave the hospital but collapses from pain and blood loss.  Later, when the man wakes up, Fiscus tells him that the bullet has been removed and he’ll be fine.  The man says he won’t be fine because he’s going to go back to prison as soon as he leaves the hospital.

Meanwhile, Kathleen McAllister, who has been in a coma ever since Andrew Reinhardt set off a bomb at a bank, finally dies.  Reinhardt, when he’s informed of the news, sneers.  He doesn’t care that she died.  He’s all about the class struggle.  (If this show was made today, he’d have thousands of followers on Bluesky.)  When Dr. Beale tries to examine him to determine if he’s mentally ill, Reinhardt spits in his face.  Reinhardt is convinced that nothing will ever happen to him but, after Kathleen dies, he’s informed that he’s being taken to prison.  As Reinhardt is rolled out of his hospital room, Kathleen’s husband (Jack Bannon) appears in the hallway and shoots him dead.

George (Bernard Behrens) and Lillian Rogers (Anne Gerety) are tourists who are visiting Boston.  When Lillian faints in her hotel room, George rushes her to the hospital.  Lillian says she’s feeling fine but she still goes through a series of tests to determine why she fainted.  In the end, the tests are inconclusive.  No one can figure out why she fainted so she’s told to just see her family doctor when she returns home.  When George and Lillian check out of the hospital, they are presented with the bill for all the tests.  George freaks out when he sees that he’s being charged …. $1,380.90!

Now, admittedly, that is $1,380.90 in 1982 money.  If George received the same bill today, it would be for $4,517.10.  Still, considering all the tests that Lillian had done, that seems remarkable cheap, even by today’s standards.  My father died in August and the majority of his medical costs were covered by insurance but his estate is still receiving bills from various hospitals, specialists, and ambulance services.  I’ve been told that the same thing happened when my mom passed away in 2008.  (Personally, I think if someone dies while in your care, you’ve forfeited your right to be paid.)  By today’s standards, having to pay less that $5,000 feels like a bargain!

Finally, and most heart-breakingly, Dr. Morrison takes care of a homeless woman named Cora (Doris Roberts), who comes into the hospital with her companion, Arnie (James Coco).  Due to a head injury, Arnie is almost childlike.  While Cora learns that a case of gangrene is going to kill her unless she gets her foot amputated, Arnie repeatedly asks, “Can we go now?”  In the end, Cora chooses not to have the surgery, leaving the hospital with Arnie.  As she explains to Dr. Morrison, someone has to take care of Arnie and she can’t do that with just one foot.  When Morrison tells Cora that she’s probably going to die in a year, Cora shrugs and says it won’t be any great loss.

OH MY GOD!  Seriously, I was in tears at the end of this episode.  The Cora and Arnie story had the potential to be a bit too schmaltzy for its own but Doris Roberts and James Coco both gave such incredibly moving performances that I couldn’t help but get emotionally involved in their plight.  And I understood why Cora made the decision that she did.  Having been rejected by both her family and society, Cora knew that there wouldn’t be anyone around to take care of her after the operation.  So, she decided to accept things the way that they were and spend her last year with the one person who didn’t judge her, Arnie.  (I’m getting teary-eyed just writing about it.)  Playing out against all the other petty dramas going on at the hospital, this storyline was emotionally devastating.

This was a powerful episode.  Watching it, I understood why St. Elsewhere is so often described as being one of the best medical shows of all time.

 

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.13 “Eye of Death”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a new 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 show can be found on YouTube!

This week, Ryan goes into the past.

Episode 2.13 “Eye of the Death”

(Dir by Timothy Bond, originally aired on January 30th, 1989)

Atticus Rook (Tom McCamus) is an antiques dealer, one who is well-known to Jack.  No one seems to really like or trust Atticus Rook.  Everything about him seems to scream sleaze.  But Atticus has somehow managed to get artifacts from the American Civil War that no one else has ever been able to find.  His latest claim is that he will soon be selling Robert E. Lee’s sword.

How is Atticus accomplishing this?  He has a cursed magic lantern that he uses to project old pictures onto his wall.  He’s then able to step into the picture and enter the time period in which it was taken.  (Hey, that sounds like a fun cursed object to own!)  Atticus has been going into the past and telling Gen. Lee (Bernard Behrens) that he’s a spy.  However, the information that he gives Lee is just stuff that he remembers from history class.  Atticus thinks that he’s got a pretty good operation going but there are two catches.  To go to the past, he has to kill someone in the present.  To return to the present, he has to kill someone in the past.

Naturally, Ryan ends up in the past while trying to retrieve the magic lantern.  Ryan meets General Lee and tries to present himself as also being a spy but it turns out that Ryan paid even less attention in history class than Atticus did.  Ryan being Ryan, he also falls in love with a widow named Abigail (Brooke Johnson).  As we all know, having Ryan fall in love with you is pretty much a death sentence on Friday the 13th.  Abigail’s death does allow Ryan, Jack, and Micki to return to the present.  Moving the lantern allows Atticus to get trapped in his own wall, where he suffocates while trying to return to the present.

This was a surprisingly good episode.  I say “surprisingly” because you wouldn’t necessarily think that a low-budget Canadian show would do a great job of recreating the American Civil War but this episode pulls it off.  The costumes, the sets, the words used by the people encountered by Ryan and Atticus, all of them work to make the episode’s Civil War setting feel very realistic.  Tom McCamus is a great villain and Bernard Behrens is well-cast as Robert E. Lee.  Even the obviously doomed romance between Ryan and Abigail works remarkably well.

I have to admit that I’ve always assumed this show took place in Canada, largely because of all of the Canadian accents and the Canadian scenery.  This episode reveals that Friday the 13th is supposed to be taking place in the United States, despite the way that people pronounce the word “sorry.”  When Ryan ends up in the Civil War, he says that he’s from Chicago.  (It’s not necessarily a good idea to go back to the Civil War era and immediatly tell everyone that you’re a Yankee.)

Well, this show can pretend that the antique store is in Chicago if it wants to, but it’ll always be Toronto to me.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 1.22 “The Pirate’s Promise”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a new 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 show can be found on YouTube!

This week, there’s something in the fog!  Can Micki and Ryan stop the horror of the thing in the fog?  FOG!

Episode 1.22 “The Pirate’s Promise”

(Dir by Bill Corcoran, originally aired on June 27th, 1988)

In the 18th century, a group of pirates killed their captain, Angus McBride, and stole his treasure.  They used the money to start a seaside village in New England and to become respectable citizens.  Over two hundred years later, the spirit of Captain McBride is hanging out in the fog and desiring vengeance on the descendants of his crew.

Hmmm …. this sounds familiar.

This episode has more than a little in common with John Carpenter’s The Fog.  This time, as opposed to it being the result of an anniversary curse, it’s a crazed lighthouse keeper named Joe Fenton (Cedric Smith) who summons the ghost of Captain McBride with a cursed foghorn but otherwise, much of the plot and the show’s imagery feels as if it was lifted directly from Carpenter’s classic horror film.  Captain McBride emerges from the fog several times during the episode.  He kills his victim’s with a hook and then tosses a few coins at Joe.

Micki and Ryan show up in town to retrieve the foghorn.  (This is another episode in which Jack is not present.)  It’s interesting how these cursed antiques often tend to end up in small towns, like the one in this episode or The Quilt of Hathor.  The previous few episodes featured Ryan having to say goodbye to someone as a result of a cursed item.  This time, it’s Micki whose heart is broken when the sweet proprietor of the local history museum is stabbed with a saber while trying to protect her.  The episode ends with Micki sobbing while Ryan tries to comfort her, which is quite a change from how these things usually go.  For once, Micki is the one who gets to show emotion while Ryan is the one who takes a more pragmatic approach to dealing with the horrors of the cured antiques.

As for the episode, it wasn’t bad.  Director Bill Corcoran did a good job of creating a properly ominous atmosphere and Cedric Smith was perfectly creepy as the evil lighthouse owner.  The low-budget was evident by the fact that the time itself seemed to be nearly deserted.  Even though the town was described as being small, it still seems like it should have been home to more than just a handful of people and I found myself wondering if maybe the show decided to save money by not hiring extras.  That minor quibble aside, this was an effective episode as long as you were willing to overlook the plot’s similarity to Carpenter’s film.

Next week, hopefully, Jack will come back and maybe Micki will have cheered up.  Someone likeable dies in every episode so you would think they would be used to it by now.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Friday the 13th: The Series 1.20 “The Quilt of Hathor: The Awakening”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a new 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 show can be found on YouTube!

How many more people must die before the Quilt of Hathor is stopped!?  Let’s find out.

Episode 1.20 “The Quilt of Hathor: The Awakening”

(Dir by Timothy Bond, originally aired on May 9th, 1988)

We pick up where the previous episode ended.  Ryan is still living with the ultra-religious Pentites and is still viewed with suspicion by the majority of them.  He is still in love with the Reverend Grange’s daughter, Laura.  And Effie Stokes still has the quilt that she can use to enter the dreams of others and kill them.

However, Effie is not the main villain here.  Instead, it is the Reverend Grange (Scott Paulin) who is corrupted by the quilt.  When the community’s elders tell Grange that it is important that he select a wife, he finally selects Effie.  Effie is overjoyed but, as soon becomes clear, she intends to use the quilt to kill Grange on their wedding night so that she can take over the community.  However, in the dream, Grange gets the upper hand and kills Effie instead.  Soon, Grange is using the quilt to go after anyone in the community with whom he has a grudge.  And when the members of the community suspect that witchcraft is afoot, he casts the blame on Ryan.

This is the episode where Ryan nearly gets burned at the stake.  Fortunately, Micki and Chris show up just as Ryan is about to be set on fire.  They distract the Pentites long enough for Laura to discover Effie’s body and to reveal that Grange is the murderer.  A long chase ends with Grange falling out of a barn to his death.

That, of course, also kills Laura and Ryan’s romance.  Ryan realizes that he has a holy duty to help Chris and Micki track down cursed antiques.  And Laura says that she has to stay behind to help the community rebuild.  Personally, I think she’s just reluctant to declare her love for the man who killed her father.  That’s understandable.

This was not a bad episode.  I liked the way that, for once, we got to see how a formerly good and reasonable person could be corrupted by one of the cursed antiques.  Laura and Ryan’s romance was a bit too obviously lifted from Witness but still, John D. LeMay and Carolyn Dunn had a likable chemistry together.  Just as with the first part of the story, the surreal nightmares were well-done and genuinely frightening.

Next week, Ryan and Micki search for a haunted camera!

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Highway to Heaven 1.17 “As Difficult As ABC”

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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

This week, Jonathan and Mark fight drug dealers and promote literacy!

Episode 1.17 “As Difficult As ABC”

(Dir by Victor French, originally aired on January 30th, 1985)

Brian Baldwin (Glenn-Michael Jones) appears to have a great future ahead of him.

Growing up in a poor neighborhood, Brian was tempted to get involved in the gang life, like so many of his friends did.  However, Brian turned out to be a great basketball player and was given a full scholarship to a major university.  As long as he played basketball and led the team to victory after victory, Brian wouldn’t even have to worry about going to class.  As he points out, he got an A in his French class even though he never stepped into the classroom.

However, one day, Brian has chest pains and passes out.  When Brian goes to the doctor, he is told that he has a heart condition but that it can be managed.  However, Brian will never be able to play basketball again.  His coach stops returning Brian’s calls and, when Brian confronts him in the gym, the coach explains that he only cares about winning and Brian can no longer help him do that.  The coach complains about wasting a scholarship on Brian.

Brian drops out of school and returns to his old neighborhood.  It’s there that he tells his mom (played by Beah Richards) the secret that he’s been hiding.  Brian is illiterate!   Because he was such a good basketball player, the school system never worried about teaching him anything.  Now, Brian has lost his scholarship and, it would appear, his future.

Fortunately, Jonathan and Mark roll into town.  Mark gets a job working as a janitor at an adult literacy school.  Jonathan gets a job working at the community center.  Jonathan encourages Brian to both learn how to read and to date his teacher, Julie Reynolds (Deborah Lacey).  (Fear not, they’re the same age.)  Brian also gets a job as a neighborhood basketball coach and tries to keep all of his players from getting hooked on drugs.

Luckily, Jonathan and Victor are able to help with the drug situation.  They go undercover and, in a rather weird scene that features Jonathan in a leather jacket and Terminator-style shades, they offer to pay the local drug dealer two million dollars in return for cocaine.  The dealer agrees to meet with them at the school, where he and his associates steal the briefcase with the money and make a run for it.  However, they are grabbed by the cops and suddenly, all of the money in the briefcase turns into cocaine!  Off the dealers go to prison.  With the dealers gone and Brian reading, it’s time for Jonathan and Mark to move on.

This was one of those well-intentioned episodes that attempted to do a bit too much.  Not only did the episode feature Brian learning that he could still be an important member of his community even if he couldn’t play basketball but it also featured him learning to read and trying to clean up the neighborhood.  Instead of focusing on one story, this episode focuses on three and, as a result, each story feels a bit rushed and simplistic.  Brian is reading in no time and the drug dealers turn out to be pretty easy to fool.  This episode is optimistic but rather unconvincing.

The TSL’s Daily Horror Grindhouse: Galaxy of Terror (dir by Bruce D. Clark)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

galaxy_of_terror

Long before Event Horizon (but, perhaps more importantly, shortly after the original Alien), there was 1981’s Galaxy of Terror!

Produced by Roger Corman and featuring production design and second unit work from James Cameron, Galaxy of Terror tells the story of what happens when, in the future, the crew of the Quest are dispatched to a mysterious planet.  They’re on a rescue mission but what they don’t realize is that they’re heading into a trap!

The crew of the Quest is virtually a who’s who of cult actors.

The youngest member of the crew is Cos.  Cos is scared of everything and, from the minute you see him, you can tell that he’ll probably be the first to die.  Cos is played by Jack Blessing, who subsequently became a very in-demand voice over artist.  You may not recognize the name or the face but you’ve probably heard the voice.

Captain Trainor, who is still troubled by a disastrous mission in the past, is played by Grace Zabriskie, who is rumored to have inspired Bob Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone” and who subsequently became a regular member of David Lynch’s stock company.

The fearsome Quuhod is played by one of the patron saints of exploitation filmmaking, the one and only SID HAIG!  Quuhod doesn’t say much but Sid Haig doesn’t have to say much to make an impression.

Technical officer Dameia is played by Taaffe O’Connell.  She suffers through the film’s most infamous and distasteful scenes, in which she’s assaulted by a gigantic space worm.  That scene was apparently insisted upon by Roger Corman and it’s not easy to watch.  At the same time, since the film takes place on a planet that is ruled by pure evil, the scene somehow works.  It’s that scene that tells you that Galaxy of Terror is not going to be your typical B-movie.  That is the scene that says, “This movie is going to give you nightmares!”

Ranger is played by Robert Englund!  That’s right — the original Freddy Krueger himself.  It’s interesting to see Englund in this role because Ranger is actually one of the only likable characters in the film.  It’s strange to see the future Freddy Krueger being menaced by the same type of threats that he unleashed on Elm Street.  But Englund does a good job in the role.  In fact, he does so well that you wonder what would have happened in his career if he hadn’t been forever typecast as the man of your nightmares.

The arrogant and cocky Baelon is played by future director, Zalman King.  It says something about King’s acting career that Galaxy of Terror is not the strangest film that he ever appeared in.

Burned-out Commander Ilvar is played by Bernard Behrens, who is one of those character actors who has a very familiar face.  If you watch any movie from the 80s or 90s that features a weary homicide detective or an unsympathetic bureaucrat, it’s entirely possible that he was played by Bernard Behrens.

Kore, the ship’s cook, is played by Ray Waltson, who is another one of those very familiar character actors.  Over the course of his long career, Waltson appeared in everything from The Apartment to The Sting to Fast Times At Ridgemont High to a countless number of TV shows and TV movies.  Waltson was usually cast in comedic roles so it’s interesting to see him here, playing a role that is very much not comedic.

Alluma, an empath, is played by Erin Moran, who was best known for playing Ron Howard’s bratty sister on the somewhat terrible (but apparently popular and deathless) sitcom, Happy Days.  Moran’s explosive death scene is another reason why Galaxy of Terror has a cult following.

And finally, the “star” of the film is Edward Albert, who plays Cabren.  To return to my earlier comparison to Event Horizon, Edward Albert has the Laurence Fishburne role.

Anyway, our crew is sent on a rescue mission but, when they crash land on the planet Morganthus, they find themselves outside of a desolate pyramid.  They make the mistake of exploring the pyramid and end up being confronted by their greatest fears.  (They also eventually discover that one of their crewmates is a traitor.)  It’s pretty much a typical sci-fi slasher film but it makes an impression because, thematically, it’s just so dark.  The fears that attack the crew members are so ruthless and brutal that they will take even the most jaded of horror fans by surprise.  Galaxy of Terror is relentless and merciless in its effort to scare the audience.

What especially distinguishes Galaxy of Terror is that, despite the obviously low budget, the entire film feels sickeningly real.  A lot of credit for that has to go to James Cameron, who creates a lived-in future that actually feels a lot more plausible than anything to be found in Avatar.

So, if you have the chance, turn off the lights, watch the film in the dark, and prepare for a perfect Halloween nightmare!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJO07ylhTu4