Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 4.12 “The Heroine/The Warrior”

Posted on February 6, 2024 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 the entire show is currently streaming on Daily Motion.

Today, I discovered that the YouTube account that was home to every episode of Fantasy Island has been taken down. This frustrated me. Fantasy Island is no longer on Tubi or Prime. In both cases, the original has been pushed to the side to make room for the reboot. So now, Daily Motion appears to be the only platform to have every episode. Bleh! Daily Motion includes so many commercials that it takes forever to get through one hour-long show.

*Sigh*

That said, I’m dedicated to this show. If I have to watch it on Daily Motion, I’ll shudder and do it.

Episode 4.12 “The Heroine/The Warrior”

(Dir by George McCowan, originally aired on January 24th, 1981)

This week, two more guests come to Fantasy Island with a desire to discover and prove who they really are.

For instance, Bob Graham (James MacArthur, who I just previously saw on The Love Boat) may seem like a rather mild-mannered fellow but he’s actually obsessed with the martial arts and his fantasy is to challenge and defeat the world’s greatest martial artist, Kwong Soo Luke (played by Mako). Bob wants to impress his wife, Linda (Shelley Fabares). Personally, I think it’s kind of sad that Bob thinks that beating someone up is the only way that he can impress his wife, especially since Linda seems to be pretty impressed with her husband already. Mr. Roarke also explains to Bob that Kwong Soo Luke traditionally kills his opponents after he defeats them. Again, you have to wonder why anyone would volunteer to go up against Kwong Soo Luke.

Anyway, this fantasy suffers from the fact that we know, from the start, that there’s no way that Bob is going to die on Fantasy Island. But again, there’s no way that, after all of the build-up, Bob isn’t going to get his fight. As a result, Bob’s survival and his victory are pretty much guaranteed. It brings Bob and Linda closer together but I get the feeling that divorce is still waiting for them in the future. “Remember that time you took me to an island and then spent the whole time fighting some guy I didn’t even know?” Bob better get used to hearing that.

Meanwhile, when Florence Richmond (Mary Ann Mobley) steps off the plane, Tattoo immediately guesses that she must be a teacher. Roarke explains that Florence is actually a writer, one who has had a good deal of success with a series of trashy romance novels. However, the prim and proper Florence feels that she’s never experienced a grand romance of her own so her fantasy is to be the heroine of one of her own books. Roarke grants her fantasy and soon, Florence is falling in love with the enigmatic and possibly duplicitous Brent Hampton (Cesare Danova) and nearly getting raped by the vile Porter Brockhill (Robert Loggia). Florence is shocked to discover that her novels take place in a world where lust is more important than love and true romance does not exist. Suddenly, Florence understands why her latest books were so uninspired and she leaves Fantasy Island determined to write about true romance.

This storyline featured nice performances from Mary Ann Mobley, Cesare Danova, and Robert Loggia. For me, it was mostly interesting as an examination of a fantasy that I’m sure every writer has, the fantasy of living inside of one of their own stories.

Next week …. hopefully, someone will have been kind enough to upload the show back onto YouTube!

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 3.28 “No Girls for Doc/Marriage of Convenience/The Caller/The Witness”

Posted on January 31, 2024 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!

This week, the third season of The Love Boat comes to a conclusion with an extra-long episode!

Episode 3.28 “No Girls for Doc/Marriage of Convenience/The Caller/The Witness”

(Dir by Gordon Farr and Richard Kinon, originally aired on May 3rd, 1980)

The finale of The Love Boat‘s third season features stage legend and two-time Oscar winner, Helen Hayes. Hayes was considered to be such a big “get” for the show that she receives the zoom lens treatment when she steps onto the ship and all of the action seems to stop for a few minutes, presumably so the audience at home can give her a standing ovation.

Personally, I think Helen Hayes was pretty cool. Along with being a hell of an actress (one whose career extended for over six decades), she was also the wife of Charles MacArthur, an acquaintance of the Algonquin round table, an outspoken Republican, a strong supporter of many charities, and a major benefactor of the Helen Hayes Hospital, a rehabilitation clinic in New York that has made major strides in treating physical disabilities. To say that there are people in the world who can walk because of Helen Hayes is not hyperbole.

That said, Helen Hayes’s story is the dullest one on this cruise. It’s not Hayes’s fault. She is her usual outspoken and likable self. It’s just the storyline itself doesn’t offer up much in the way of drama or comedy. Hayes plays Agatha Winslow, a widow who was married to a friend of Stubing’s. Stubing asks Julie to set Agatha up with someone but then they see Agatha hugging a younger man and Julie says that it won’t be necessary.

AGCK! I HOPE NOT! The younger man is played Helen Hayes’s son, James MacArthur!

No worries. MacArthur is playing Scott Burgess, who is Agatha’s nephew. Scott is a member of the protestant clergy who has never married because he feels that he has to take care of Agatha. Scott and Beatrice Dale (Mildred Natwick) hope that Agatha will fall in love with and marry Beatrice’s brother, a businessman named Hollister (Maurice Evans). Hollister owns a carpet company and he spends most of the episode look down at and commenting on the quality of the ship’s floor. Agatha does not marry Hollister but she does realize that it’s time for her to move on and live her own life. It’s all very pleasant but not very extremely interesting.

Far more interesting is the story of Gail Padgett (Christopher Norris), a woman who is boarding the ship because she needs to get away from her landline phone. As she explains to Julie, someone has been calling and harassing her for months. At no point does Julie suggest what I would suggest, which is that Gail should call the cops. Indeed, when Gail starts to get calls on the boat, Julie never suggests calling the police or going to the captain or anything else. Instead, Gail tells her stalker that she’ll meet him at the Pirate’s Cove Bar. She tells Julie that she has a plan to humiliate him. And again, you would think Julie might say, “How about we just arrest him when he comes in the bar?” But instead, Julie smiles. It’s the Love Boat! No one is murdered on The Love Boat! (Not yet, anyway.)

Gail’s stalker is a nerdy fellow named Melvin, who is played by a young Martin Short. Before Melvin can arrive, Gail is approached by Jack Stander (Larry Breeding). “Hi, I’m Robert Redford,” Jack says before admitting that he’s not Robert Redford and that he spent hours coming up with that opening line. Thinking that Jack is her stalker, Gail takes Jack to her cabin where she get him to undress and then tosses all of his clothes out the porthole. So now, Gail has not only flirted with and then stood up her stalker but she’s also committed theft. WAY TO GO, GAIL!

Anyway, Gail eventually realizes that Jack is not her stalker and they fall in love. Melvin is eventually revealed to be the caller but everyone laughs it off because he’s so nerdy. (Because we all know how harmless nerdy stalkers are….) This was a really weird story but, despite the stupidity of their characters, Christopher Norris and Larry Breeding made for a cute, likably vapid couple.

Maybe Gail should have gone to Wayne Dobson (Larry Wilcox) for help. Wayne is an uptight assistant D.A. who has spent the last two months in a hotel room with Pat Bigelow (Catherine Bach), a witness to a crime who is in protective custody. Even when Pat boards the cruise, Wayne has to come with her and stay in an adjoining cabin. Pat is annoyed but she understand that Wayne is just doing his job.

However, Wayne has fallen in love with Pat and he is upset to receive a telegram saying that the crooks have decided to plead guilty and that Pat can be released from protective custody. Isaac, who was perhaps a bit too excited when he earlier thought Wayne was a male gigolo who was being paid to escort Pat, suggests that Wayne just lie and not let Pat know that her life is no longer in danger. Wayne agrees and Isaac takes Wayne off to give him a makeover that will be so impressive that Pat will fall in love with him and reject notorious Love Boat lothario Mark Bridges (John McCook).

(Of course, any relationship that Wayne and Pat could ever have would be built on lies but whatever….)

Pat does fall for Wayne, though less because of the makeover and more because Wayne finally stops being so uptight. She’s a bit miffed when she finds out that Wayne has been lying to her but she forgives him easily because this is The Love Boat.

Finally, after a night of skinny dipping leads to him losing his clothes and money, Doc announces that he’s through with women. (And again, it doesn’t seem to occur to anyone that maybe Doc should call the police.) That should be a relief to the crew because Doc really is a lawsuit waiting to happen. Instead, they takes bets on how long it will take Doc to go back on his word. It doesn’t take long. Any story that centered around Doc being a Casanova just felt silly. Bernie Kopell was likable as Doc but he was also a bit too naturally mild-mannered to be believable as a legendary lothario.

And so ends the third season of The Love Boat. Vicki is now firmly a member of the crew. Julie has given up on finding love. Isaac and Gopher are as silly as ever. And Doc is going to get the cruise line sued. The 90-minute finale was a bit overextended and had some weak story elements but, overall, the third season was a lot of fun.

Next week …. SEASON 4!

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 3.15 “The Harder They Fall/The Spider Serenade/Next Door Wife”

Posted on November 8, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Gopher falls in love. Yes, Gopher.

Episode 3.15 “The Harder They Fall/The Spider Serenade/Next Door Wife”

(Dir by Richard Kinon, originally aired on December 8th, 1979)

After three seasons of being goofy comedic relief, Gopher finally got his heart broken in this episode. He fell in love with a passenger named Claire Dalrymple (Jill St. John), who is on the boat by herself because she has recently separated from her husband, Nelson (Robert Sampson). And Claire eventually fell in love with Gopher, especially after he dressed up like a mariachi singer and serenaded her with a song about the time that she asked him to kill a spider that was in her cabin. This time, it was Gopher who ended up waking up in a cabin with a passenger.

(I’m sure some would say it was a bit unrealistic that Claire, upon seeing a spider in her cabin, would run out into the hallway, screaming while wearing only a towel. I’ve done the exact same thing at a hotel because spiders are scary!)

But does Claire really love Gopher or if she just looking for someone to feel the void left by her separation. When her husband shows up on the boat, he turns out to be a pretty reasonable and polite guy. He tells Gopher that, while Gopher can give Claire anything she wants at sea, Nelson can give her everything she needs on land. Is Nelson suggesting some sort of special arrangement here? Well, if he is, it totally goes over Gopher’s head. At the end of the cruise, Claire decides to leave with Nelson and Gopher can only sadly watch as she leaves.

Awwwwwww! Poor Gopher!

It’s kind of weird to see Gopher in a sad story. That’s not the fault of Fred Grandy, who always likable and did a pretty good job with the role. Instead, it’s just that Gopher is such a goofy character that it takes a bit of adjustment to suddenly see him being sincere. His storyline here worked well-enough, once you got used to the idea of Gopher being serious. If anything, Gopher was so sad by the end of it that it suddenly made sense why he’s always telling jokes and trying to avoid any sort of emotional commitment. He’s hurting inside!

The other two storylines were goofy enough to make up for Gopher’s serious turn. Chet Hanson (James McArthur) is on the cruise with his girlfriend, Kim (Susan Buckner). Chet’s wife, Carol, (Joanna Pettet) also shows up on the cruise and gives Chet the papers to sign for their divorce. Chet and Carol are fairly friendly for a divorcing couple but Chet is still upset when Carol buys a ticket for the cruise and ends up staying in the cabin across the hall from him and Kim. Soon, Carol is stopping by constantly and telling Chet about a man that she’s been flirting with. Eventually, Chet realizes that he doesn’t want to get a divorce and he and Carol get back together. That really sucks for Kim, who is surprisingly tolerant of being followed around by her boyfriend’s wife. This storyline really did leave a sour aftertaste. Chet was a jerk and Kim deserved better.

Finally, Ed “Flash” Taylor (Milton Berle) and Jack McTigue (Alan Hale, Jr.) were both boxers in their youth. They fought one legendary fight, in which they not only beat the Hell out of each other but also knocked out the referee. Now, they are both cruise line executives and they both end up on their boat at the same time. As soon as they see each other, their rivalry reignites and they prepare for a rematch on the boat. When Captain Stubing tries to stop the fight, he is accidentally knocked out by the two boxers. Somehow, this leads to peace between Ed and Jack and not to Captain Stubing suing his bosses for punching him. Seriously, the Love Boat is floating HR nightmare.

This was an okay episode, largely due to Gopher’s unexpectedly sad story. The other two stories were just goofy but, when it comes to The Love Boat, the goofiness is the point.

Retro Television Reviews: Fantasy Island 1.7 “The Funny Girl/Butch and Sundance”

Posted on October 25, 2022 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 1996. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

“Smiles, everyone, smiles!”

Sorry, Mr. Roarke, there’s not much to smile about when it comes to this episode.

Episode 1.7 “The Funny Girl/Butch and Sundance”

(Dir by Cliff Bole, originally aired on March 18th, 1978)

At the start of this episode, Tattoo is all excited because his birthday is coming up and he remembers that, last year, he partied all night and a bunch of beautiful women celebrated with him. Mr. Roarke promises Tattoo that things will be different this year. This year, Mr. Roarke says, there will be no presents. Tattoo will play a game of chess and drink a glass of sherry and maybe there will be a cello recital. Tattoo, needless to say, is disappointed.

Ignoring Tattoo’s anger, Mr. Roarke introduces him to the latest guests at Fantasy Island and it turns out that their fantasies are almost as disappointing and boring as Mr. Roarke’s plans for Tattoo’s birthday. Kay Penny (Marcia Strassman) is apparently the world’s most successful comedienne even though she never comes across as being particularly funny. Her fantasy is to move to small town where no one knows her. That sounds like a pretty lousy fantasy but whatever.

Bill (Christopher Connelly) and Alex (James MacArthur) are two friends who want to be Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid for a weekend. They’re huge fans of the film, though it appears neither one of them ever stuck around for the end. Mr. Roarke takes Bill and Alex to an old west town (perhaps the same one that we saw a few weeks ago) and Bill and Alex get to live out their fantasy while trading quips and robbing banks. The problem, for those of us who are watching then, is that neither Christopher Connelly nor James MacArthur can compare to Robert Redford and Paul Newman. Eventually, though, the great character actor William Smith shows up as a visitor whose fantasy is to be Wyatt Earp. He attempts to arrest Butch and Sundance. They outsmart him and then Bill and Alex go home, satisfied. Good for them but what about the guy who wanted to be Wyatt Earp? Does he get his money back? Seriously, I don’t think being humiliated was a part of his fantasy.

Meanwhile, Kay finds herself living in a small town. Using the name Katherine Patrino, she gets a job as the receptionist for a veterinarian (played by Dennis Cole) and she also helps the vet’s silent son get over the recent loss of his mother. She also tells a lot of jokes, none of which are particularly funny. The best thing about this fantasy is that Mr. Roarke disguised himslef as a clown and showed up at the small town’s Founders Day Festival.

And then Tattoo did the same thing.

Anyway, during the festival, a dog was hit by a truck but Kay helped to bring it back to life and that brought a tear to my mismatched eyes. Otherwise, this was a very forgettable trip to Fantasy Island.

On a positive note, though, it turned out that Mr. Roarke was just joking and Tattoo got to have a wild party after all. Good for him, he earned it!

Cleaning Out The DVR: The Love-Ins (dir by Arthur Dreifuss)

Posted on January 7, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Hi there! So, as you may know because I’ve been talking about it on this site all year, I have got way too much stuff on my DVR. Seriously, I currently have 179 things recorded! I’ve decided that, on February 1st, I am going to erase everything on the DVR, regardless of whether I’ve watched it or not. So, that means that I’ve now have only have a month to clean out the DVR! Will I make it? Keep checking this site to find out! I recorded the 1967 film, The Love-Ins, off of TCM on September 28th, 2017!)

“We now enter Haight Ashbury. The promised land of the love movement. The utopia of LSD…and now we take you to Golden Gate Park for a hippie love-in!”

— A San Francisco Tour Guide in The Love-Ins (1967)

I doubt I could ever be a hippie. I don’t mind the drugs, the free love, or the music but the whole lack of showers and underwear would be too much for me. Add to that, from what I’ve seen, it appears that whenever there was a hippie gathering, it would inevitably lead to the arrival of mimes and who wants to deal with that? That said, I certainly do enjoy watching movies about hippies.

Take The Love-Ins for instance!

This 1967 film is all about hippies, or at the very least the popular perception of hippies. There’s even a lengthy sequence that takes place at a hippie gathering in San Francisco. While the hippies plays bongo drums, blow bubbles, dance, and stare at multi-colored umbrellas with stoned eyes, they’re watched by Jonathan Barnett (Richard Todd). Barnett used to be a respected philosophy professor but then he resigned his teaching position in protest after two students were expelled for publishing an underground newspaper. This led to Barnett appearing on a right-wing talk show where the antagonistic host told him that, if he loved the hippies so much, maybe he should got to Haight Ashbury and see how they really live. Barnett does just that and it blows his mind!

Soon, Barnett has re-invented himself. He’s now a psychedelic prophet, living in a commune with the expelled students and encouraging everyone to “Be more. Sense more. Love more.” That doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as “Tune in. Turn On. Drop out,” but it’s the same basic idea. Soon, hippies from all over the country are flocking to Prof. Barnett, dropping LSD, and doing interpretive dances. Not even the local outlaw bikers can stop Barnett from spreading his message.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long for his newfound fame to go to Barnett’s head. He soon stops listening to Larry (James MacArthur), the student whose expulsion started the whole movement, and instead surrounds himself with sycophants like Elliott (Mark Goddard). Barnett goes from being an idealist to a messianic cult leader. Soon, hippies are fighting in the streets, setting fired to newspaper they don’t like, and jumping out of windows. (“LSD told him he could fly. Gravity had different plans.” No one actually said that in the movie but I wish they had.) After discovering that his girlfriend (Susan Oliver) has been impregnated by Barnett, Larry realizes that he has to stop his former professor, one way or the other.

The Love-Ins was made by the same people responsible for Riot on Sunset Strip but, whereas Sunset Strip at least pretended to take an even-handed, documentary-like approach, The Love-Ins is a psychedelic freakout. Whereas Sunset Strip features Mimsy Farmer taking LSD and then staring at her hand, The Love-Ins features Susan Oliver taking LSD, transforming into Alice in Wonderland, and then dancing with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. And whereas Sunset Strip tried to be on the side of both the young and the old, The Love-Ins leaves little doubt that those hippies are no good! (While Larry may be a the film’s hero, he looks like he would be more comfortable in the ROTC than at Woodstock.) Barnett’s love-ins are revealed to be as choreographed as any political rally and, if there’s any doubt that he’s become a really bad guy, he even starts to perform impromptu wedding ceremonies. “How dare you make a mockery of marriage!?” an outraged observer shouts.

Seen today, the main value of The Love-Ins is a chance to see how many adults viewed the counter-culture and its leaders in 1967. (Director Arthur Dreifuss was 60 when he directed this film and the film often views its young characters with the detachment of someone not sure of how close he can really get before being attacked.) Of course, the main reason I liked The Love-Ins was because of the psychedelic dance scenes. (Though no one’s going to mistake this film for another Face in the Crowd, I also enjoyed some of the film’s satiric jabs at the cult of celebrity, which was apparently just as big in 1967 as it is in 2018.) It’s definitely a film of its time, though whether or not the people involved with the movie actually understood their time is another issue all together.