Tag Archives: Curtis Taylor

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 5.1 “Suicide Stunt”

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 Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983.  The entire show is currently streaming on Prime!

This week, the fifth season begins.

Episode 5.1 “Suicide Stunt”

(Dir by Michael Caffey, originally aired on October 4th, 1981)

The fifth season opens with the Highway Patrol pursuing a gang of thieves and also keeping an eye on Janos Szabo (Les Lannom), a motorcycle daredevil from Hungary who has come to Los Angeles to take part in charity show for “Highway Patrol Widows and Orphans.”

Since Hungary was controlled by the evil communists (hisssss!) when this episode originally aired, I assumed the episode would be about Janos trying to defect so that he could start a new life in the greatest country on Earth, the USA (yay!).  Instead, it turned out that Janos was more concerned with spending time with an ex-girlfriend named Maria (Anita Jodelsohn) who had defected (Good for you, Maria!) and was now working for the Highway Patrol.  The entire episode was pretty much scene after scene of Janos sneaking away from his handlers, stealing a vehicle, and then trying to kidnap Maria.  Maria found it to be amusing.  The members of the Highway Patrol were amused.  Even Janos’s handlers seemed to be secretly amused.  Still, when Janos set a fire outside of the CHP headquarters to distract everyone so that he could steal another car (this one with Maria in it), Ponch had no choice other than to arrest him.

“I am glad it is you who arrest me,” Janos says to Ponch, smiling like an idiot.

With Janos arrested, it falls on Jon Baker to perfect the stunts while riding Janos’s motorcycle.  And Baker is able to do it easily, even the one that involves bursting through a ring of fire.  So, I guess they didn’t need Janos to begin with.  They should have just had Baker do it and they could have saved a lot of money.  Way to waste the taxpayer’s cash, Jerry Brown!

(He was governor at the time.  Then, like 30 years later, he was governor again.)

Odd episode, this one.  Most season premieres try to go big but this was pretty much just another episode of CHiPs.  The California scenery was nice.  I always appreciate that this show was largely shot on location and, as a result, even the worst episodes have some value as a time capsule.  That said, Janos was an incredibly annoying character.  The fact that the show meant for us to laugh at his antics made him even more annoying.  There’s only so many times you can watch one jackass try to abduct one woman before you say, “Enough already!”

Running Time (1997, directed by Josh Becker)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Carl (Bruce Campbell) is serving a ten-year prison sentence but he gets out in five.  He’s met outside the prison by his old criminal partner. Patrick (Jeremy Roberts).  After Carl makes up for lost time with a prostitute named Janie (Anita Barone), he and Patrick try to rob the prison’s laundry system.  Carl’s spent most of his time in prison carefully plotting out the heist but he didn’t take into account that his old criminal crew is made up of incompetents.

Running Time is only 70 minutes long and the film’s story plays out in real-time.  The movie itself is edited in such a way to create the impression that it was all shot in one continuous take.  It’s gimmicky but, like the film’s noir-style black-and-white cinematography, it works, creating a narrative the feels relentless.  It also makes it clear that Campbell’s Carl is a true career criminal.  He’s not out of prison for more than a handful of minutes before he’s trying to pull his next heist.  Crime is all that Carl really know, which makes his dilemma at the end of the movie (Janie or the money?) very effective.

Running Time is basically a showcase for Bruce Campbell.  Director Josh Becker was a longtime friend and associate of Sam Raimi’s and started his feature career as a production assistant on The Evil Dead.   Running Time feels like it was made with Campbell in mind and Carl is a character who plays to all of Campbell’s strengths.  It’s the perfect film for Campbell’s style of acting and Campbell is just as good when he’s planning the heist as when he’s arguing with Janie about the way that he treated her when they were both in high school together.  (His scenes with the excellent Anita Barone are some of the best in the movie.)  Running Time features Bruce Campbell at his best.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 2.2 “The Creature”

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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Baywatch Nights, a detective show that ran in Syndication from 1995 to 1997.  The entire show is currently streaming on You tube!

Mitch, Griff, and Ryan search for an amphibian hybrid.

Episode 2.2 “The Creature”

(Dir by David W. Hagar, originally aired on October 6th, 1996)

The Creature of the title is a young blonde woman (played by Shelli Lether) who has spent her entire life locked away in a secret lab.  One night, a security guard decides that he wants to get to know The Creature better.  The Creature responds by killing both him and his co-worker.  She escapes from the lab, running into the California night.

Mitch and Ryan are brought to the lab by the mysterious Diamont Teague, who explains that he’s not sure what was going on at the lab but whatever was housed in the building has escaped.  Mitch leaves to track down the Creature.  (He recruits Griff to help him out.)  Meanwhile, Ryan stays at the lab and looks through magnifying scopes and studies slides and computer read-outs and eventually, she figures out that the lab was the focus of a DNA experiment.  The creature is half-amphibian and half-human.

“Can we do that?” Mitch asks when Ryan calls him.

“Apparently so,” Ryan calmly replies.

(Seriously, Ryan’s so cool.)

It also turns out that Mitch and Griff are not the only people who are searching for the Creature.  There are also a group of soldiers that are determined to track down the Creature, destroy it, and cover up the fact that it was created in the first place.  Mitch, needless to say, is not happy about that.  Mitch is a lifeguard and, as a lifeguard, he believes in guarding every life, even the life of a humanoid amphibian who murders anyone who approaches her.

And, if this was Baywatch, Mitch probably would have saved the Creature.  But this is Baywatch Nights and the night is darker than the day.  The Creature gets blown up in a tunnel but it appears that all of the soldiers get blown up with her.  Take that, Feds!  As for Mitch, he gets out of the tunnel just in time and makes a slow motion jump as the explosion erupts behind him.  A chastened and mournful Mitch then announces that he’s going home as the sun rises over the horizon.  Hey, Mitch — don’t forget to call Ryan and let her know that she can leave the lab.

After last week’s disappointing second season premiere, The Creature is the first classic episode of Baywatch Nights‘s supernatural season.  The action moves quickly and through multiple locations.  (The Creature may not know much about the world but she’s still drawn to a club.)  The story is ludicrous enough to be entertaining.  Shelli Lether is surprisingly sympathetic as the murderous Creature.  Even Hasselhoff throws his heart into his attempts to convince the soldiers not to destroy the Creature.  This episode was fun and dumb in a very likable way.

Next week, Mitch battles another sea monster!