Horror On The Lens: Haunted House of Horror (dir by Michael Armstrong)

Posted on October 24, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1969, The Haunted House of Horror features a group of 20-somethings who, bored with the usual parties, decide to that it might be a kick to hang out in a supposedly haunted mansion. Once they’re in the mansion, they decide that it might be even more fun to hold a seance!

(Seriously, what is the deal with people holding séances in haunted mansions? That really seems like the last place where you would want to mess with potentially malevolent spirits!)

The party becomes much less fun once someone starts killing off the group, one-by-one.

This film is notable for two reasons. First off, it features Frankie Avalon in one of his attempts to break free of his Beach Party typecasting. Secondly, the role of Richard, who is played by Julian Barnes, was originally offered to a young singer named David Bowie. Reportedly, Bowie was quite excited about doing the film but, in the end, the producers worries that he and Frankie Avalon would not get along. I’m not sure why. David Bowie had a sense of humor and, judging from his Casino cameo, so does Frankie.

Retro Television Reviews: Fantasy Island 3.19 “The Swinger/Terrors of the Mind”

Posted on October 17, 2023 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 1986. Almost entire show is currently streaming is on Youtube!

This week, Fantasy Island swings!

Episode 3.19 “The Swinger/Terrors of the Mind”

(Dir by Cliff Bole, originally aired on February 9th, 1980)

This week, we have one fun fantasy and one fantasy that’s a bit less interesting.

The less interesting fantasy features Herman Dodge (Howard Morris), a middle-aged man who is upset because he feels that he was too old to take part in the sexual revolution of the 60s and 70s. Having just gotten a divorce from Maxine (Anne Francis), Herman comes to the Island with his best friend, Stan (Jack Carter). Herman wants to be a swinger so Mr. Roarke makes him look a few years younger and then he takes him to the “Fantasy Island Mariana, where all the swingers hang out.”

Looks like a happening place!

Herman is soon the most popular guy at the marina and he even has a new girlfriend named Peggy (Judy Landers). Unfortunately, Duke (Lou Richards) and his friend, Hot Dog (Ed Ruffalo), are threatened by Herman’s sudden popularity. Herman is challenged to various “water sports,” (yes, I snickered) and Herman manages to hold his own but he’s not sure if he’ll be able to jump over a speedboat while on skis. Fortunately, Maxine shows up on the Island and Herman realizes that he not only loves her but he also enjoys being a part of the older, more conservative generation.

It’s a typical Fantasy Island fantasy, designed to appeal to the older viewers who weren’t sure what was going on with those wild and crazy kids. It was okay but it wasn’t particularly interesting.

Far more interesting was the other fantasy, in which Sharon Sanders (Lisa Hartman) comes to the Island from a small town and asks to be given the chance to see the future. Mr. Roarke gives her a diamond ring. When she concentrates on the diamond, she gets a vision of the future. Her first vision is of Martin Ward (Frankie Avalon) getting run over by a drunk driver. Sharon saves Martin’s life and the two of them fall in love. The Fantasy Island casino makes one of its rare appearances as Sharon uses the ring to win a lot of money at Roulette. But then Sharon sees a vision of an older man (Stephen McNally) strangling her and the fantasy is no longer fun.

Sharon wants to leave the Island and end her fantasy. Mr. Roarke replies that he cannot cancel a fantasy once it has begun, despite the fact that he’s done or offered to do that many times in the past for other guests. (I sometimes suspect that Mr. Roarke makes things up as he goes along.)

Anyway, the older man turns out to be the owner of the casino. He wants to murder Sharon because he can’t afford to pay her gambling winnings. Fortunately, when he does attack Sharon, Martin pops up out of nowhere and saves her life. Yay!

(So, I guess the casino is going to be closed now? And I thought Mr. Roarke owned the casino. Who knows? The Island is a confusing place.)

Sharon, having learned that the world is a dangerous place, returns to her hometown with Martin. Martin says they’re going to settle down together. Mr. Roarke says that he hopes Sharon has learned a lesson about taking fate into her own hands and not worrying about what the future holds, which doesn’t make much sense considering that Sharon’s future would have included being murdered if she hadn’t worried about it.

Though the fantasy becomes less logical the more I think about it, it was still an enjoyable one. Lisa Hartman and Frankie Avalon had a surprising amount of chemistry and the scene where the killer chased Sharon into a cemetery was well-done. I’m just happy that Martin was there to save Sharon, as opposed to hanging out at the Fantasy Island Marina.

That’s where all the swingers hang out, you know.

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 1.20 “Memories of You / Computerman / Parlez Vous?”

Posted on January 11, 2023 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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986! The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!

It’s Valentine’s Day on The Love Boat!

Episode 1.20 “Memories of You / Computerman / Parlez Vous?”

(Dir by Richard Kinon, originally aired on February 13th, 1978)

It’s time for the annual Valentine’s Day cruise! On Valentine’s Day, only singles are allowed to board the Love Boat. Everyone, even the members of the crew, wears a heart-shaped nametag. Julie has decided to liven things up by hiring Nick Heider (Frankie Avalon), who claims that his computer can decide who is compatible and who isn’t. Captain Stubing is hoping that the computer will set him up with someone because apparently, Stubing is tired of being single. To be honest, that really doesn’t make much sense. When you’re the captain of the ship, you’re going to get laid on Valentine’s Day. It doesn’t matter if you’re bald, middle-aged, and take yourself a little bit too seriously. A captain has power and power is an aphrodisiac.

Nick turns out to be kind of sleazy, with his wide collars and his unbuttoned shirts. Nick also has a crush on Julie and he wants her to take part in his compatibility survey. Julie says that she doesn’t believe that computer can decide who is compatible. If Julie doesn’t believe in Nick and his computer, why did she hire him for the cruise?

As you can probably guess, Nick fills out a survey for Julie anyway. The computer pairs them together and Julie and Nick actually do fall in love, though I have a feeling we will never again see or hear about Nick after this episode. Meanwhile, Captain Stubing is told that the computer can’t find any matches for him. The Captain is pretty depressed until all of the computer-selected couples start fighting. I would think that people taking a dislike to each other would be a problem on Valentine’s Day cruise but whatever. The computer fails and Stubing smiles smugly.

While this is going on, Gopher is recruited to act as a translator for two French women (Barbi Benton, Susan Silo) who are on the cruise. Gopher’s French turns out to be really bad but fear not. It turns out that the French women are actually Americans and they speak perfect English. They’re just pretending to be French in order to attract wealthy men. Jamie Farr and Danny Dayton nearly fall for the scam but then Gopher hears the women speaking English and he exposes them. Of course, despite ruining their scam, Gopher still gets a (temporary) girlfriend out of it when Brigitte (played by Barbi Benton) turns out to be very forgiving.

Finally, Doc thinks that he’s found his soulmate for the cruise when he spots jingle writer Lilly Mackin (Patty Duke). However, Lilly can’t stop looking at another passenger named Ted (Ricky Nelson). Lilly swears that Ted looks just like Alex, her former partner who mysteriously vanished. Doc suggests that Ted might be suffering from stress-related amnesia. Fortunately, Ted falls in love with Lilly and, after she kisses him, he starts to slowly remember bits of his past life as Alex. That’s the power of Valentine’s Day on The Love Boat!

I loved this episode. I took French in high school and college and I used to be really pretentious about it so I definitely related to Brigitte and Yvonne. And the amnesia story was just intriguing enough to hold my attention. Finally, I could help but laugh at how impressed everyone was with Nick and his match-making computer. There was nothing that Nick said that sounded different from what we currently hear in Match.com and EHarmony commercials. That said, I agree with Julie. Romance should be spontaneous and unpredictable, not pre-programmed.

The Valentine’s Day cruise was success! Will the success continue? We’ll find out next week!

The Take (1974, directed by Robert Hartford-Davis)

Posted on January 5, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Lt. Terrence Sneed (Billy Dee Williams), a tough and suave cop from San Francisco, is sent to New Mexico to help Police Chief Berrigan (Eddie Albert) take down the local crime syndicate. No sooner has Sneed arrived in town than he’s helping to prevent a prison break and killing gangsters. Berrigan is impressed and explains to Sneed that the local crime boss is Victor Manso (Vic Morrow). Even though everyone knows that Manso is crooked, the police haven’t ever been able to put together a case that will stand up in court. Maybe Sneed is the man who can do it.

What Berrigan doesn’t know is that Sneed is a crooked cop, himself. As soon as Sneed leaves his meeting with Berrigan, he goes over to Manso’s office and collects his money. Manso assigns Sneed to work with another crooked cop, Captain Dollek (Albert Salmi). However, it turns out that Sneed has plans of his own. While still on Manso’s payroll, Sneed starts to put together a case that might finally take Manso down.

The Take is full of good actors in small roles. If you have ever wanted to see Billy Dee Williams share a scene with Frankie Avalon, The Take is the film for you. Avalon plays Danny James, a small-time hood who is arrested and interrogated by Sneed. At first, Danny is cocky and arrogant but, as soon as Sneed removes his jacket and his watch and makes a fist, Danny starts crying and begging Sneed not to beat him. Danny is soon turned into an informant and then disappears from the movie. The beautiful model Kathirine Baumann plays Danny’s girlfriend. While only wearing a towel, she gives Capt. Dollek the finger and looks amazing doing it. Sorrell Brooke, who later found fame as Boss Hogg on The Dukes of Hazzard, also has a few good scenes as Sneed’s deceptively respectable money launderer.

The Take can be a confusing film to watch because it’s never firmly established just how corrupt Sneed actually is. Sometimes, Sneed just seems like he’s trying to make a little extra money and then, other times, he comes across as being a full-blown gangster. Despite being on Manso’s payroll, Sneed seems to be determined to take him down and the film never makes clear why. Billy Dee Williams is his usual supremely cool self but he seems almost too cool to play a morally ambivalent cop. More impressive are Vic Morrow and Eddie Albert, who both shamelessly chew the scenery as two leaders on opposite sides of the law.

The Take is often mistakenly referred to as being a blaxploitation film but it’s really just a cop film with a lead actor who happens to be black. Unlike the best blaxploitation films, there’s no political subtext to be found in the movie. Sneed could just as easily be a corrupt white detective and, with the exception of one throwaway line, race is never mentioned. While this is a minor cop film, it features a few good action scenes and, again, it’s your only chance to see two very different pop cultural icons, Billy Dee Williams and Frankie Avalon, acting opposite of each other. That’s not a bad pay-off for 91 minutes of your life.

Drive-In Saturday Night 2: BIKINI BEACH (AIP 1964) & PAJAMA PARTY (AIP 1964)

Posted on July 14, 2018 by gary loggins

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Welcome back to Drive-In Saturday Night! Summer’s here, and the time is right for a double dose of American-International teen flicks, so pull in, pull up a speaker to hang on your car window, and enjoy our first feature, 1964’s BIKINI BEACH, starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello:

BIKINI BEACH is the third of AIP’s ‘Beach Party’ movies, and this one’s a typical hodgepodge of music, comedy, and the usual teenage shenanigans. The gang’s all here, heading to the beach on spring break for surfing and swinging. This time around, there’s a newcomer on the sand, British rock star The Potato Bug, with Frankie playing a dual role. Potato Bug is an obvious spoof of the big Beatlemania fever sweeping the country, with all the beach chicks (or “birds”, as he calls ’em) screaming whenever PB starts singing one of his songs, complete with Lennon/McCartney-esque “Wooos” and “Yeah, yeah, yeahs”…

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New Recipe: HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI (AIP 1965)

Posted on May 29, 2018 by gary loggins

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HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI, the sixth entry in American-International’s “Beach Party” series, attempts to breathe new life into the tried-and-true formula of sun, sand, surf, songs, and corny jokes. Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello are still around as Frankie and Dee Dee, but in this go-round they’re separated; he’s in the Navy stationed on the tropical island of Goona-Goona, while Annette has to contend with the romantic enticements of Dwayne Hickman .

Frankie’s part amounts to a cameo, enlisting local witch doctor Buster Keaton (!!) to keep those girl-hungry beach bums away from Dee Dee (while he frolics unfettered with lovely Irene Tsu !). Keaton’s magic ain’t what it used to be, so he has his daughter conjure up a knockout named Cassandra, who first appears on the beach as an animated bikini. All the boys go ga-ga for Cassandra, including a go-go ad man named Peachy Keane…

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Drive-In Saturday Night: DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE (AIP 1965) & DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE GIRL BOMBS (AIP 1966)

Posted on May 5, 2018 by gary loggins

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American-International Pictures, never ones to shy away from jumping on a trend, released a pair of secret agent spoofs starring the one and only Vincent Price as the evil supervillain Dr. Goldfoot. AIP president James H. Nicholson himself allegedly came up with the story, wanting to use the film as a showcase for wife Susan Hart, a beautiful woman of limited talent. The first was DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE, an endearingly goofy little movie co-starring SKI PARTY’s Frankie Avalon and Dwayne Hickman. The two even use the same character names from that previous film, Tod Armstrong and Craig Gamble – only reversed, with Frankie as Craig and Dwayne as Tod!

Mad scientist Goldfoot, an obvious cross between James Bond nemeses Dr. No and Goldfinger, is Price at his campy best, carving up large slices of ham as the malevolent meanie. His fiendish plot is creating an army of…

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Rockin’ in the Film World #14: SKI PARTY (AIP 1965)

Posted on January 27, 2018 by gary loggins

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American-International Pictures takes the “Beach Party ” concept to the slopes in 1965’s SKI PARTY, an endearingly goofy ball of fluff headlining Frankie Avalon, Dwayne Hickman, Deborah Walley , and a pre-‘Batgirl’ Yvonne Craig . It sells itself with a sly wink to the audience that says, “We know the whole thing’s absurd, and we don’t care”! Besides the off-the-wall comedy, the film features above average musical interludes by guests Lesley Gore and the Godfather of Soul himself, James Brown.

Frankie and Dwayne play a pair of slightly overage college students (Avalon was 25, Hickman 31!) trying to woo Deborah and Yvonne. The two knuckleheads can’t figure out why they can’t get to first base, while college Romeo Aron Kincaid scores with every babe on campus. When the whole gang (including Beach movie regulars Luree Holmes, Michael Nader, Salli Sachsee , and surfing champ Mickey Dora) go on a…

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A Movie A Day #328: Panic in Year Zero! (1962, directed by Ray Milland)

Posted on December 3, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

The year is 1962. Lights flash over California and the news on the radio is bad. What everyone feared has happened. Atomic war has broken out and the world is about to end. Refugees clog the highways as a mushroom cloud sprouts over Los Angeles. This is year zero, the year that humanity will either cease to exist or try to begin again.

Harry Baldwin (Ray Milland) and his family were among the lucky ones. They were camping in the mountains when the war broke out. Harry does not hesitate to do what he has to do to make sure that his family survives. Harry alone understand that this is a brand new world. When a local storekeeper refuses to allow Harry to take any goods back to his family, Harry takes them by force. While his wife (Jean Hagen) worries about whether or not her mother has survived in Los Angeles, Harry’s teenage son and daughter (Frankie Avalon and Mary Mitchel) try to adjust to the harshness of their new situation. Harry may now run his family like a dictator but his instincts are proven correct when the Baldwins find themselves being hunted by three murderous, wannabe gangsters (Richard Bakalyan, Rex Holman, and Neil Nephew). This is year zero.

As both a director and an actor, Ray Milland does a good job of showing what would be necessary for a family to survive in the wake of a nuclear apocalypse. Milland doesn’t shy away from showing Harry as being harsh and violent but he also makes a good case that Harry has no other choice. Everyone who tries to hold on to their humanity is either killed or sold into slavery. What sets Panic In Year Zero! apart from so many of the other nuclear war films that came out in the 60s is that, instead of focusing on an anti-war message or calling for disarmament, Panic In Year Zero! seems to argue that end of the world is inevitable and only those who prepare ahead of time are going to survive. Get a gun and make sure you know how to use it before it is too late to learn, the movie seems to be saying. That the movie is probably correct in its pessimistic view of humanity makes it all the more powerful. Panic in Year Zero! is a little-known but gritty and effective film about the end of the world

Fun in the Sun: BEACH BLANKET BINGO (AIP 1965)

Posted on August 2, 2017 by gary loggins

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You’d think by the fourth entry in American-International’s ‘Beach Party’ series, 1965’s BEACH BLANKET BINGO, the formula would be wearing a bit thin. Frankie and Annette are still trying to make each other jealous, Eric Von Zipper and his Rats are still comic menaces, and the gang’s into yet another new kick (skydiving this time around). But thanks to a top-notch supporting cast of characters, a sweet subplot involving a mermaid, and the genius of comedy legend Buster Keaton , BEACH BLANKET BINGO is loads of fun!

Aspiring singer Sugar Kane skydives from a plan into the middle of the ocean and is “rescued” by surfer Frankie. But not really… it’s all been a publicity stunt by her PR agent ‘Bullets’. Sugar is played by lovely Linda Evans, right before she landed on TV’s THE BIG VALLEY, and ‘Bullets’ is none other than the fantastically sarcastic Paul Lynde. But wait… Eric Von Zipper…

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