Tag Archives: Dennis Fimple

Smokey And The Good Time Outlaws (1978, directed by Alexander Grasshoff)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

After meeting a talent agent while spending a night in jail, aspiring singer J.D. (Jesse Turner) and his best friend, The Salt Flat Kid (Dennis Fimple), decide to leave Texas for Nashville.  J.D. wants to be a star and the Salt Flat Kid is a ventriloquist who doesn’t go anywhere without his dummy.

On the way to the Grand Old Opry, they pick up two women (Dianne Sherrill and Marcia Barkin), one of whom was engaged to marry the idiot nephew (Gailard Sartain) of Nashville’s Sheriff Leddy (Slim Pickens).  The sheriff sets out after the two men, planning on sending them back to Texas.

Despite the title and the subplot about the sheriff searching for his nephew’s former future wife, Smokey and the Good Time Outlaws doesn’t have much in common with Smokey and the Bandit.  J.D. has a Burt Reynolds-style mustache but he’s not a bandit.  He is just someone who wants to be a star and most of the movie is about him and the Salt Flat Kid tying to make their way onto the stage of the Grand Old Opry.  Helping them out is an eccentric woman named Marcie (who is played by Hope Summers, who older viewers will immediately recognize as having been Clara Edwards on The Andy Griffith Show).  When J.D. can’t get an audition, it occurs to him to just rush out on stage and start performing.

This film was a dream project for Jesse Turner, who was a real-life country musician.  He co-wrote and produced the film, as well as starred in it.  Jesse Turner wasn’t much of an actor but he’s surrounded by a good supporting cast.  Slim Pickens steals the show as a more menacing version of Buford T. Justice but he’s not in the film nearly enough.  Dennis Fimple is likable but appears to be too old to be known as “the Kid.”  You can tell this is a movie because no one is creeped out by the Kid’s ventriloquist dummy.

Smokey and the Good Time Outlaws was made for the Southern drive-in circuit and it is good-natured, even if the story is never that interesting.  Country music fans of a certain age will appreciate it.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Highway to Heaven 1.10 “Help Wanted: Angel”

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, Mark falls in love and Jonathan directs a movie.

Episode 1.10 “Help Wanted: Angel”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on November 21st, 1984)

This is a strange episode.

The first half of the episode plays out like almost a parody of Highway to Heaven.  In fact, I would assume that it was a parody except for the fact that this was only the show’s tenth episode and that’s a bit early for any show to start intentionally parodying itself.

Still in Hollywood, Jonathan and Mark come across a sign that has been posted by someone named Joey.  “Angels Needed,” the sign says.  The sign has an address that turns out to be a community center, one that is populated by a mix of cranky retired people and young criminals.  The center’s maintenance worker is a developmentally challenged young man named Joey Smalls (Dennis Fimple).  Joey put up his sign because he wants an angel to help an elderly screenwriter named Martin Lamm (John Lormer).  Martin has written a script about a magician and he wants to not only make the film but also fill the cast with people from the neighborhood.

No sooner have Mark and Jonathan stepped into the community center and met Joey and Martin then they are suddenly joined by a man named Petros (Al Ruscio).  Petros speaks in a thick Greek accent and he says that he has also seen Joey’s sign, he has read Martin’s script, and he wants to produce the movie.  And he wants Jonathan to direct it and Mark to play the role of a sea captain who falls in love with a woman who has “a past,” as Petros puts it.  As the woman, they cast Stella (Stella Stevens), who actually does have a past.

We then jump forward several weeks.  Jonathan is directing the film, even though he doesn’t seem to have a crew and we don’t actually see any cameras filming anything.  Joey has impressed everyone with the sincerity of his acting and he is now friends with former gang member, Chewy (Randy Vasquez).  Mark, meanwhile, is falling in love with Stella.

So, that’s the first half of the episode.  It’s all very broadly acted and the dialogue frequently crosses the line from sentimental to mawkish.  I have to admit that I rolled my eyes more than a few times because it all felt so overdone.

But then, the second half of the episode opens with Petros approaching Jonathan.  Jonathan asks Petros about his past.  Petros says that he was born in Galilee and that, before starting his current line of work, he was a fisherman.  Jonathan realizes that Petros is actually St. Peter and he’s been sent down to help Jonathan out with his mission.  It turns out that Jonathan’s mission is not really about Joey or Martin.  Instead, it’s about Stella, who is going to die and it’s about Mark, who is about to lose the woman that he’s fallen in love with.  Realizing that Stella’s character is also going to die in the movie that he’s supposedly directing, Jonathan asks if they can just rewrite the script but Peter tells him that they can’t.  What is going to happen is going to happen.

And it does happen, though not before Mark asks Stella to marry him and Stella says yes.  When she finds out that she’s ill, Stella leaves Mark a note saying that she’s dumping him for an ex-boyfriend.  At first, Mark is angry but, with Jonathan’s help, he realizes the truth.  Mark finds Stella waiting for him on the beach where they filmed their scenes for the movie and they get married as the ocean crashes behind them.  And then, off-screen, Stella dies.

And I went from rolling my eyes to actually wiping away tears because, as broad and kind of annoying as the first half of the episode was, the second half was sensitively directed by Michael Landon and sincerely acted by both Victor French and Stella Stevens.  If the first half felt like a parody, the second half was a reminder of why this show still remains popular on so many streaming platforms.  At its best, there was an unapologetic earnestness to Highway to Heaven.  This was a show that said that it was okay to cry and to have emotions and to care about people.  This was a strange episode but, ultimately, a surprisingly effective one.

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: Creature From Black Lake (dir by Joy N. Houck, Jr.)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s Bigfoot time!

1976’s Creature From Black Lake tells the story of two students at the University of Chicago.  Pahoo (Dennis Fimple) and Rives (John David Carson) decide that they want to spend their Spring Break on the Arkansas/Louisiana border, researching the legend that a Bigfoot-like creature that lives in the bayous.  (The creature is obviously based on the legendary Fouke Monster, who was also the subject of the 1972 documentary, The Legend of Boggy Creek.)

Pahoo and Rives head down South, looking to interview anyone who has seen the Creature From Black Lake.  Some people are willing to talk to them and they tell stories involving the Creature causing cars to crash, killing dogs, and attacking fisherman.  The Creature does not sound nice at all.  Still, the majority of the people in town don’t really feel like opening up to two Yankee monster hunters.  They’re worried that Pahoo and Rives are only in town because they want to portray everyone as being a bunch of ignorant rednecks who are scared of things that go bump in the night.

And really, they have every right to be concerned.  I grew up all over the South and the Southwest.  My family briefly lived in Fouke, the home of the Fouke Monster.  (No, I never saw or heard the monster, mostly because the monster doesn’t exist.)  When I was a kid, I lived in both Louisiana and Arkansas, among other states.  From my own personal experience, I can tell you that there is no one more condescending than a Northerner who is visiting the South for the very first time.   “Why is it so hot?”  “Why is everyone down here so polite?”  “Why can’t I find a Wawa!?”  Seriously, it gets old really quickly.  Now, to their credit, Pahoo and Rives are actually pretty polite and considerate when talking to the people who think that they have seen the Creature From Black Lake.  But still, one can understand why the town isn’t exactly thrilled to have them asking about monsters.

Anyway, after interviewing both Jack Elam and Dub Taylor about their experiences with the monster and getting yelled at by the local sheriff (played by Bill Thurman), Pahoo and Rives head out to the local swamp, hoping to find the creature themselves.  That, of course, turns out to be a huge mistake on their part.

Creature From Black Lake is a deliberately-paced film, which is a polite way of saying that it’s a bit slow.  Obviously inspired by The Legend of Boggy Creek, a good deal of the film is taken up with scenes of Pahoo and Rives interviewing people about their encounters with the monster.  That said, the film definitely picks up when Pahoo and Rives head into the swamp themselves and their eventual meeting with the monster is well-directed.  I have to admit that I spent this entire film dreading the moment when it would be revealed that the Monster was actually misunderstood and peaceful and I appreciated that the film did not go that route.  The creature turns out to be no one’s friend and is genuinely menacing.

The cast is full of familiar county character actors, all of whom do a good job bringing their characters to life.  Dennis Fimple and John David Carson are likable as the two students.  This film was also an early credit for cinematographer Dean Cudney and, just as he would later do for John Carpenter, Cudney creates a perfectly ominous atmosphere of isolation.  Creature From Black Lake may start out slow but, ultimately, it’s an effective creature feature.

 

A Movie A Day #154: The Day They Hanged Kid Curry (1971, directed by Barry Shear)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Welcome to the Old West.  Hannibal Heyes (Pete Duel) and Kid Curry (Ben Murphy) are two of the most wanted outlaws in the country, two cousins who may have robbed trains but who also never shot anyone.  After being promised a pardon if they can stay out of trouble for a year, Heyes and Curry have been living under the names Joshua Smith and Thaddeus Jones.

During a trip to San Francisco to visit his old friend, a con artist named Silky O’Sullivan (Walter Brennan), Heyes is told that Kid Curry is currently on trial in Colorado.  When Heyes goes to the trial, he discovers that the accused (Robert Morse) is an imposter and that the real Kid Curry is watching the trial from the back of the courtroom.  It turns out that the man of trial is just an attention seeker , someone who is so desperate for fame that he is willing to be hanged to get it.  At first, Curry thinks this is a great thing.  After the imposter hangs, everyone will believe that Curry is dead and they’ll stop searching for him.  Heyes, however, disagrees, especially after the imposter starts to implicated Heyes in crimes that he didn’t commit.

Obviously inspired by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Alias Smith and Jones was one of the last of the classic TV westerns.  Though I originally assumed that it was the show’s pilot, The Day They Hanged Kid Curry was actually the first episode of the second season.  With commercials, it ran 90 minutes.  Because of its extended running time, The Day They Hanged Kid Curry was not included in Alias Smith and Jones‘s standard rerun package.  Instead, it was edited to remove the show’s usual opening credits and it was then sold as a motion picture, despite the fact that it is very obviously a television show.

As long as no one is expecting anything more than an extended television episode, The Day They Hanged Kid Curry is okay.  I have never been a big Alias Smith and Jones fan but this episode’s plotline, with Robert Morse confessing to crimes he didn’t commit just so he can have a taste of fame before he dies, feels prescient of today’s culture.  For classic western fans, the main reason to watch will be the chance to see a parade of familiar faces: Slim Pickens, Henry Jones, Paul Fix, and Vaughn Taylor all have roles.  Most important is familiar Western character actor and four-time Oscar winner, Walter Brennan, as Silky O’Sullivan.  This was one of Brennan’s final performance and the wily old veteran never loses his dignity, even when he’s pretending to be Kid Curry’s grandmother.

As for Alias Smith and Jones, it was a modest success until Pete Duel shot himself halfway through the second season.  Rather than retire the character of Hannibal Heyes, the show’s producers replaced Pete Duel with another actor, Roger Davis.  One day after Duel’s suicide, Davis being fitted for costumes.  This move was not popular with the show’s fanbase and Alias Smith and Jones was canceled a year later, though it lived on for years in reruns.