Tag Archives: Donald W. Thompson

October Positivity: The Prodigal Planet (dir by Donald W. Thompson)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The last film in the Thief In the Night series, 1983’s The Prodigal Planet picks up where Image of the Beast left off.  Computer technician and post-Rapture Christian David Michaels (William Wellman, Jr.) is on the verge of being sent to the guillotine when he’s rescued by Connie (Terri Lynn Hall).  Connie may be wearing the uniform of UNITE and she may have the mark of the beast but she insists to David that she is actually on his side.  Not having much choice but to believe her, David joins Connie in a military grade RV.  They drive away from Des Moines just as a nuclear explosion takes out the whole city.

After seven years of being ruled over by Brother Christopher and the UN, the world is on the verge of ending.  (As the film’s narrators informs us, “Plane Earth is dying and the disease is sin.”)  Nuclear war has broken out, destroying cities and killing the majority of the citizens.  David is determined to get to Albuquerque, where he and a group of Christians plan to wait for the final judgment.  Government agent Jerry (Thom Rachford), who is one of only two characters to have appeared in every Thief In The Night film, is close behind but both he and his men are starting to show the signs of radiation sickness.

(Russell Daughten also returns as the Rev. Matthew Turner, with his apocalypse chart that explains each step of the end of the world.  Daughten’s role is small in this one, which is a shame as his grim Santa Claus screen presence was one of the best things about Image of the Beast.)

Along with the remnants of UNITE and a few survivors who have yet to take the mark, the world is also populated by “mutants,” humans whose faces are permanently scarred by the radiation.  They dress like monks and stalk empty and deserted city streets.  Their goal is to destroy anyone who they believe is responsible for the end of the world.  David and Connie rescue a scientist named Linda (Lynda Beatie) and her teenage daughter, Jodi (Cathy Wellman), from a group of mutants.  Linda is wracked with guilt because she previously put all her faith in science.  Jodi is bitter over how the world has turned out and, initially, she’s upset when David allows a mutant named Jimmy (Robert Chestnut) to join them in their journey.

With The Prodigal Planet, it’s obvious that director Donald W. Thompson had hopes of setting up an epic conclusion for the Thief in the Night films.  Not only does the film move the action out of Iowa and into other parts of the country but the film also runs for 127 minutes.  (By comparison, A Thief In The Night barely last over an hour.)  Unfortunately, most of that running time is taken up with David talking and trying to convert everyone that he meets.  On the one hand, considering what’s going on in the film’s world, it makes sense that David would do that.  On the other hand, it doesn’t exactly make for exciting viewing.  A film that features nuclear explosions and mutants should never be this slow or boring.  If the previous Thief In The Night films achieved a dream-like intensity, The Prodigal Planet dutifully plods along.  For every scene that works (like an extended sequence in which Linda and Jodi explore a city that isn’t as deserted as it first appears), there are other dramatically inert scenes that encourage the viewer to just about anything other than pay attention to what is happening on the screen.

(It doesn’t help that William Wellman, Jr. — despite appearing to be the only professional actor in this film — displays a bit of a blah screen presence in the role of David.  The scene where he tells Jodi that she’s spoiled because she’s pretty fails not because he’s necessarily wrong about Jodi as much as because Wellman can’t make David’s “tough love” approach compelling.  He just comes across as being a jerk.  The series was better off when the less polished but far more sincere Patty Dunning was the lead character.  As for Wellman, he was far more interesting as the morally conflicted national guardsman in The Trial of Billy Jack than he is here.)

Donald W. Thompson hoped to make a fifth Thief In the Night film, one that would feature The War in Heaven and bring the story to its prophesized conclusion.  Unfortunately (or not), he was never able to raise the money to do so.  And, as such, the saga of UNITE, Brother Christopher, and David Michaels came to a close with The Prodigal Planet.

October Positivity: Image of the Beast (dir by Donald W. Thompson)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

1981’s Image of the Beast picks up from where A Distant Thunder ended.

The world is in economic and political chaos, largely as a result of millions of people vanishing a few years before.  (The government says the people were abducted by UFOs but everyone left behind knows it was actually the rapture.)  Brother Christopher and the United Nations are controlling the world.  Order is kept by UNITE.  Those who fail to get the Mark on either their palm or their forehead are not allowed to buy food or get healthcare.  In fact, Brother Christopher has declared that the mark is no longer optional and anyone who refuses to get it will be executed.

A Distant Thunder ended with Patty Myers (Patty Dunning) facing the guillotine and that’s where Image of the Beast picks up.  She is given one final chance to voluntarily take the mark before being put under the blade but, in obvious fear and shock, Patty says nothing.  Two UNITE soldiers tie her the ground, with her neck directly under the guillotine’s blade.

Finally, Patty yells, “I want the mark!”

However, at the same time that Patty makes the declaration, an earthquake hits and the skies turn black.  The cowardly soldiers run off, leaving Patty under the blade.  Realizing that she is witnessing the breaking of one of the apocalyptic seals, Patty attempts to free herself from her bounds.  Unfortunately, she moves around so much that the loosened blade comes crashing down and she promptly loses her head.

So much for Patty!

The action then shifts to a new character, a Christian rebel named David Michaels (William Wellman, Jr., who also played a different role in every single Billy Jack movie).  David, who has disguised himself as a member of UNITE, is looking for Leslie (Wenda Shereos), another Christian who escaped from execution during the earthquake.  David doesn’t find her but he does stumble upon Kathy (Susan Plumb), Kathy’s son (Ben Sampson), and the Rev. Matthew Turner (Russell S. Doughten, JR., who not only produced the Thief In The Night films but who also directed films like Nite Song).  Rev. Turner lives in a farmhouse and looks a lot like Santa Claus.  He has a helpful graph on his wall that can be used to understand just how far along the world is into the apocalypse.

As Rev. Turner explains it, computers are the new “golden calf.”  Why, people believe that computer can do anything better than humans!  They’re letting computer run their lives and Brother Christopher is using that to his advantage!  (Keep in mind, this film was made in 1981 so the computer that he’s talking about are those big, boxy computers that took hours to do the simplest tasks.)  Fortunately, David used to be a computer technician and he thinks that he’s come up with a way to 1) create a counterfeit mark and 2) corrupt Brother Christopher’s precious computer system!

(Calculators, interestingly enough, are referred to as being hand computers.  If nothing else, this film proves that paranoia about technology is hardly a new phenomena.)

Much like the previous films in the series, there’s a lot of scenes of the heroes trying to sneak around Des Moines without blowing their cover and revealing themselves to be believers.  And like A Distant Thunder, there’s a lot of talk about events that are happening that we never actually see.  This one of those films that deals with its low budget by having all of the big events happen off-screen.  The characters in this film spend a lot of time listening to breathless news reports on the radio and on television.  And while that can feel a bit anti-climatic, it’s also strangely effective in its way.  It captures the feeling of finding yourself in a situation where you’re never quite sure if you’re hearing the truth and it also captures the feeling of helplessness that comes from knowing that there are huge things happening that you can’t control.  While the film is a bit too talky for its own good, director Donald W. Thompson does a good job of creating an atmosphere of sustained paranoia.  Every time that David and Kathy walk around Des Moines, you’re expecting someone to grab them.  The fact that Des Moines, itself, is hardly a shadowy metropolis adds to paranoia.  “If this could happen in Iowa,” the film seems to be saying, “it could happen anywhere.”

Image of the Beast was a success on the church circuit and it was followed by one final Thief in the Night film, which I will discuss tomorrow.

October Positivity: A Distant Thunder (dir by Donald W. Thompson)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1978 film, A Distant Thunder, opens with a group of people confined in what appears to be a high school gym.  They have cots to sleep on and not much else.  They have been informed that they have a choice to make.  They can either agree to take “the mark” and declare their allegiance to the United Nations and Brother Christopher or they can be executed.  They have a day to decide.

Many of the people are willing to go to their death rather than get the mark.  But Patty Myers (Patty Dunning) isn’t so sure.  Her friends and fellow prisoners encourage her to refuse the mark but Patty says that she doesn’t know if she can stay loyal to a God who would allow so many bad things to happen.  One of her friends asks Patty to tell the story of how she came to be a prisoner of UNITE, the UN’s secret police force….

A Distant Thunder is a sequel to 1972’s A Thief In the Night and the first twenty minutes of A Distant Thunder is made up of flashbacks to the previous film.  Once again, we see how Patty had a dream about waking up to discover that her husband and all the other Christians in the world had mysteriously vanished and now, the UN was in charge of everything.  We even get the phenomenom of flashbacks within flashbacks as Patty remembers the times that she remembered her former life.  A Thief In the Night ended with Patty being tossed over a bridge by her friends, Jerry (Thom Rachford) and Diane (Maryann Rachford), just for Patty to then wake up and discover that her husband really was missing and her dream was coming true!

Once A Distant Thunder finishes up its recap of the first film, it follows Patty as she hides out on a farm with her friends, Wenda (Sally Johnson) and Wenda’s little sister, Sandy (Sandy Christian).  While they hide out, the world around grows more and more hostile.  There are wars.  There is a plague.  Brother Christopher announces that everyone will be required to have a special form of identification if they want to buy products, receive government food, or even get healthcare for their children.  Eventually, Brother Christopher announces that the identification is no longer optional.  People can either get the mark or they can face execution.  Wenda, who goes from being a nonbeliever to being a Christian, is determined to not get the mark.  Patty is more conflicted.

At a church-turned-death house in Des Moines, Patty, Wenda, and Sandy wait for their time with the guillotine and also their chance to make their final decision….

A Distant Thunder was made by the same people who did the first film and the majority of the first film’s cast returns for the sequel, which provides a nice sense of continuity between A Thief In the Night and A Distant Thunder.  Unfortunately, A Distant Thunder never quite reaches the fever dream intensity of A Thief In The Night.  A Thief In the Night worked because its imagery often captured the stark horror of an intense nightmare.  A Distant Thunder is a much more talky film and, as such, it exposes the defecencies of the largely amateur cast.

That said, there are a few moments where A Distant Thunder matches the first film’s atmosphere of paranoia.  As with the first film, A Distant Thunder benefits from having been filmed in Ames, Iowa.  Seeing the forces of UNITE invading the actual heartland was surreal in a way that the film never would have been if it had been set in a large and familiar city.  The scene where Patty and Wenda first see the guillotine is also effectively done.  It’s a frightening sight, all the more so because it’s standing in front of a fairly innocuous-looking church.  Seriously, people make fun of guillotines now but, as devices of punishment, they pretty much radiated the promise of a bloody death.

That said, the film is done in by its slow pace and its less than convincing performances.  Still, A Distant Thunder was enough of a success that it led to a sequel that I’ll look at tomorrow.

October Positivity: Survival (dir by Donald W. Thompson)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1975 and looking even older, Survival opens with a shot of a cougar stalking through the desert.  As a narrator rambles on about the Bible and King Solomon, the cougar snarls.  “How long will God tolerate us?” the narrator asks, right before the cougar mauls and kills a man holding a rifle.

The cougar was my favorite character in Survival, even though it only had limited screen time.  My second favorite character was the narrator, who kept talking about how everything on Earth was destined to eventually die, regardless of how they lived their lives.  Yes, the narrator was a bit judgmental but, at the same time, the narrator was right.

While two policemen search the desert for the cougar, a private airplane crashes atop a mesa.  Everyone in the plane survives the impact but will they be able to survive the desert?  The narrators seems to have his doubts.  Mom and Dad are both upset about being stranded in the desert.  The pilot, who is dating the daughter of the family, says that they better pray before they do anything else.  Finally, the family’s 12 year-old son decides to run off and try to reach a nearby town on his own.  It’s a two-day walk and his parents are not happy when they discover that he’s run off.  It’s a pretty good thing that they don’t know that the small town is actually a ghost town and that the desert is not only home to the cougar but also plenty of rattlesnakes!  While Mom and Dad worry about their son, the pilot and their daughter encourages them to keep praying.  If their son dies, that’s all a part of God’s plan and it’s probably their fault for not going to church more often.  To be honest, I wouldn’t want to be trapped in the desert with any of these people.  The incredibly judgmental narrator seems to agree.

Survival was directed by Donald W. Thompson, who is better-known for directing the Thief In The Night films.  As a director, Thompson knew how to frame a shot, which sets his work apart from a lot of other independent religious films.  Watching this film, one can feel the oppressive heat rising up from the desert.  That said, the heavy-handed dialogue is often stiffly-delivered.  (At one point, the son worries that he has lost his wilderness survival pamphlet, just for someone to announce that they got him a new one before handing him a copy of the Bible.  The lines are delivered so flatly that it almost feels like a parody of a church film.)  It’s never a good sign when the cougar has more personality than the humans.

As I watched this film, I thought about how much I hate the desert.  Would I have been able to survive as well as the characters in this film?  Probably not.  When I was 19, I dated a guy who owned his own private airplane.  It was fun because he would fly me halfway across the state on a date.  He would pick me up in Denton and then we’d fly down to San Antonio for dinner.  Watching this film made me realize how lucky I was that we never crashed because I don’t think I would have been much help if we had.  So, if nothing else, this film convinced me not to buy an airplane.  That’s the important thing.

October Positivity: Heaven’s Heroes (dir by Donald W. Thompson)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1980 film, Heaven’s Heroes, is a cop film that takes place in Des Moines, Iowa!

Now, it’s tempting to make a joke about a film taking place on the “mean streets of Des Moines” and I know that I did when the film started and I saw that it was another Russell S. Doughten production.  In the late 70s and early 80s, Doughten directed several low-budget faith-based films, most of them shot on location in Iowa.  (I previously reviewed Doughten’s Nite Song, among others.)  Though Doughten is only credited as executive producer on Heaven’s Heroes, it features all the hallmarks of Doughten’s other films.  The budget is low, some of the actors are a bit amateurish, and the ultimate message is undeniably heartfelt.  What Doughten’s film may have lacked in technical polish, they made up for sincerity.

To its credit, Heaven’s Heroes doesn’t try to present Des Moines as being any more edgy that it actually is.  But the film makes the point that a cop’s life can be dangerous, even in a relatively quiet town like Des Moines.  In fact, the film opens with police responding to the shooting of Officer David Hill (played by David Ralphe).  His wife, Cindy (Heidi Vaughn), is taken  to the hospital where she talks to the comatose David until he dies.  The doctor explains that if the bullet had entered David’s head just a few inches higher, his life probably could have been saved.

The rest of the film is taken up with flashbacks to David’s life before he was shot.  We watch as he and Cindy meet each other in college.  A helicopter hovering over a Des Moines mall leads to a flash to David’s service in Vietnam.  His partner (James O’Hagen) remembers the training that he went through with David.  Through it all, David comes across as the ideal cop, the type who treats everyone fairly and who doesn’t draw his gun unless it’s absolutely necessary.  (At one point, David does fire at a man who is holding a shotgun, just to miss.  Later, he discovers that the man was only holding the shotgun for self-defense.)  David saves the life of a child who has swallowed a button but later finds himself unable to help another child who has been hit by a drunk driver.  Some people thank David and some people call him a pig.  A lot of the film deals with David and his partner trying to deal with the stress of their job.  There’s an interesting scene, early on, in which a lecturer at the Academy explains that a good cop has to be able to deal with the frustrations of the job without taking those frustrations out on the public.  He warns about giving into paranoia and assuming that everyone is looking to commit a crime.  David struggles with stress but never gives in.  Of course, it’s a religious film so David gives all the credit for his success to God and, when he’s later shot, his wife takes solace in the idea that David has gone to Heaven.  Your mileage may vary on that but no one can deny the sincerity of the film’s simple message.  The film, which was based on a true story, was shot on location in Des Moines and featured a lot of actual Des Moines police officers.  The acting is sometimes amateurish but they all bring an authenticity to their roles.

It’s interesting to compare the cops in this 1980 film to the cops of today.  None of the cops in Heaven’s Heroes wear body armor.  None of them patrol the streets in modified tanks.  They don’t shout at suspects or bark orders at bystanders.  They’re not bulked-up gym rats with shaved heads.  Though both David and his partner did serve in the military, both of them understand that they’re not fighting a war on the streets of Des Moines.  Instead, they are there to protect the citizens.  They’re the ideal cops and sadly, they’re almost unrecognizable when compared to much of what we see today.

Film Review: A Thief In The Night (dir by Donald W. Thompson)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1972, A Thief In The Night is one of the most successful independent films ever made.

Shot in Iowa with a largely amateur cast, A Thief In The Night was made for a budget of $68,000.  During the first decade of its release, it made a profit of 4.2 million dollars.  Interestingly enough, the film itself rarely played in theaters and the majority of the money came from donations made by the members of the audience.  Consider that.  Audiences had the opportunity to watch the movie for free and still chose to pay.  People were either extremely generous in the 70s or the film’s target audience really responded to it.

In a 1989 interview, the film’s producer estimated that the film had been seen by 100 million people.  By the time the 2010s rolled around, that number had grown to 300 million.  Though the film never got much attention from the mainstream press, it was a big enough success to spawn three sequels and to also inspire countless other films that dealt with the same themes as this film.

As for what the film’s about, it opens with Patty (played by Patty Dunning) waking up and discovering that her husband has disappeared.  (His razor is sitting in the sink, almost as if he had been holding it before suddenly vanishing into thin air.)  Over the radio, she hears reports that people all over the world have disappeared!  Religious scholars are saying that perhaps the rapture has happened.  Interestingly, those religious scholars have apparently been left behind and …. wait a minute!  Patty’s been left behind too!

The first half of the film is full of flashbacks to Patty’s childhood and how she first met and married Jim Wright (Mike Niday).  Interestingly enough, the flashbacks don’t necessarily play out in chronological order, which gives the entire first half of the film a stream-of-consciousness feel.  We also get a somewhat random scene of Jim getting bitten by what appears to be a cobra.  It feels like one of those things where you simply don’t turn down the chance to put a cobra in your film.  If you’ve got a snake, you use it.  And the first half of the film actually works surprising well.  The low-budget and the random flashbacks and even the rather amateurish acting make the entire film feel like something of a fever dream.

During the second half of the film, the UN takes over the world and everyone is required to get the mark of the beast.  Patty doesn’t want to get the mark but it turns out that those without the mark can’t shop for food or buy the latest fashions.  Eventually, soldiers start to round up the unmarked and, before you know it, Patty is being chased through Des Moines by not only the United Nations but also by all of her friends, who now have the mark.  Eventually, Patty ends up on a bridge with only two possible options.  Either get the mark or jump.  As opposed to the unconventional first half of the film, the second half is basically one long chase scene and it does get a bit repetitive after a while.  That said, it’s kind of interesting to see someone being chased through downtown Des Moines as opposed to downtown New York or Los Angeles.

A Thief In The Night is undeniably crude and it gets a bit heavy on the preaching.  Patty is continually told that it’s not good enough to just be a Christian.  She has to be a super Christian or she’ll get left behind.  I would think that would make anyone either extremely neurotic or extremely cynical.  But if you can overlook the film’s preachiness, it’s a crudely effective in a dream-like way.  You can tell that the filmmakers must have spent some time at the drive-in and that maybe they watched Night of the Living Dead when they weren’t in church because they whole film is full of skewed camera angles and abrupt jump cuts with a good deal of emphasis being put on Patty’s newly isolated status.  In more ways than one, the film was obviously designed to scare the Hell out of its target audience.

A Thief in the Night works best when viewed as being a filmed fever dream.  It’s crude but effective.