Swag and Mag”

Posted on March 27, 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!

The Stubing Brothers are together again!

Episode 4.9 “She Stole His Heart/Return of the Captain’s Brother/Swag and Mag”

(Dir by Richard Kinon, originally aired on December 8th, 1980)

This week, Captain Stubing’s no-good brother — Marshall Stubing — returns! That means that it is once again time for Gavin MacLeod to put on a toupee and a fake mustache and to play a dual role. (And, once again, he is credited as O.D. Warbux when playing Marshall.)

This time, Marshall is actually on the boat with the best of intentions. He wants to marry Natalie Martin (Arlene Dahl) and, amazingly enough, Natalie wants to marry him as well. Except — oh no! — it’s Zsa Zsa Gabor! Gabor plays Marshall’s ex-girlfriend. The character has a name but we’ll just call her Zsa Zsa because she’s basically playing herself. Marshall is certainly tempted by Zsa Zsa but, in the end, he does the right thing and he marries Natalie. In fact, the third Stubing brother, Milo Stubing (Sonny Wilde), shows up for the wedding. Wait a minute, Sonny Wilde? OH MY GOD, IT’S GAVIN MACLEOD IN ANOTHER WIG!

Gavin MacLeod plays three characters in this episode and let’s give him some credit. It’s all very, very silly and Zsa Zsa Gabor is not for everyone but Gavin MacLeond pulls it off. (Admittedly, there is one awkward scene where Merill has a conversation with Marshall and it’s obvious that no one told MacLeod where the other version of him would be standing so, as a result, Merrill appears to be looking over Marshall’s head while speaking to him but even that is kind of charming in its low-rent way.) Gavin MacLeod appears to be having fun in this episode and that was definitely the correct approach to take to this show. It keeps the story entertaining, even though not that much really happens with it.

As for the other stories …. eh, who cares? I mean, when you’ve got Gavin MacLeod talking to himself and Zsa Zsa Gabor making a grand entrance into every scene, do you need any other stories? Okay, okay, I’ll still talk about them, even though neither one is really that interesting.

Joan Van Ark plays a kleptomaniac from Oklahoma who falls for a psychologist played by Stephen Keep Mills. Whenever she flirts with him, she ends up walking away with his wallet or his wristwatch. Fortunately, they find romance and good mental health together. The doctor could have just called the police and had her arrested but that would have made for a depressing ending.

Darryl Brewster (Ron Ely) is Vicki’s favorite actor. He plays private detective Steve Swaggart on television. Swaggart can win any fight but when Darryl is challenged to a real fight by another passenger (William Boyett), Darryl ends up trying to pay the guy off. The passenger reveals Darryl is a coward and, for a while, everyone is disillusioned. But then Darryl gives a speech about the difference between playing a brawler and being one and everyone forgives him, including his agent and soon-to-be lover, Maggie (Erin Gray). The big problem here is that we’re asked to believe that Stubing would allow two passengers to schedule a fistfight on his ship without any repercussions. That would be the sort of thing that I think would get most captains fired. Obviously, Merrill was pre-occupied with his brothers but that’s really no excuse for putting the cruise line in legal jeopardy.

In short, it may be time to fire Stubing and let Gopher take over.

We’ll see if Stubing has gotten any better at his job next week.

Retro Television Review: The Judge and Jake Wyler (dir by David Lowell Rich)

Posted on February 25, 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 Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 1972’s The Judge and Jake Wyler! It can be viewed on YouTube.

Judge Meredith (Bette Davis) is a retired criminal court judge who has developed a severe case of hypochondria. She lives in a mansion that she never leaves. Anyone who comes to see her must be personally vacuumed by her butler before they can be allowed to stand in her presence. She hates people who take too long to get to the point and she also has little use for people who are rude on the phone. She especially dislikes cigarettes and refuses to have even an unlit one in her presence.

Jake Wyler (Doug McClure) is an ex-con who is currently on supervised probation. Despite his criminal past, he’s a likable and amiable guy and, every morning, he wakes up with a new woman in his bed. Jake enjoys tweaking authority and he always has a pack of cigarettes on him somewhere.

Together, they solve crimes!

They actually do! The judge is dealing with retirement by running her own detective agency, one that is exclusively staffed by people that she previously sentenced to prison. Jake does most of the leg work as far as the agency is concerned. The Judge calls him every morning and demands to know why he’s not working harder. Jake would rather just sleep-in but working for the judge is a part of his parole. She could easily send him and everyone else working for her back to prison. This sounds like a pretty unfair situation to me and the Judge is so demanding that I think it could be argued that she’s an abusive boss. But, because this is a pilot for a TV show and the Judge is played by Bette Davis, everyone is very loyal to her.

At the start of the film, Jake reveals to Robert Dodd (Kent Smith) that his wife, Caroline (Lisabeth Hush), has been cheating on him with Frank Morrison (Gary Conway). When Robert is later found dead in a hospital room, the official verdict is that he committed suicide. However, his daughter, Alicia (Joan Van Ark), claims that her father was murdered. At first, both Jake and the Judge suspect that Alicia just wants to collect a bigger life insurance settlement but it turns out that Dodd’s beneficiary wasn’t even Alicia. The money is going to his second wife, the one who was cheating on him. While the Judge yells at people on the phone, Jake investigates the death of Robert Dodd.

The Judge and Jake Wyler is a mix of comedy and mystery. Jake has a way with a quip and the majority of the suspects, including John Randolph and Eric Braeden, all have their own eccentricities. Director David Lowell Rich does a good job of keeping the action moving and the mystery itself is actually pretty interesting. Surprisingly, the show’s only real flaw is Bette Davis, who seems to be rather bored in the role of Judge Meredith. Even though the character seems to have been specifically written for her trademark caustic line delivery, Davis delivers her lines with little enthusiasm. One gets the feeling that she wasn’t particularly happy about the idea of having to do a television pilot.

Davis need not have worried. The Judge and Jake Wyler did not turn into a series. That said, the movie is an entertaining and diverting murder mystery.

Horror Film Review: Frogs (dir by George McGowan)

Posted on October 1, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1972’s Frogs opens with Pickett Smith (played by a youngish Sam Elliott) canoeing through the bayou, taking pictures of all of the local sights. Pickett is a nature photographer and someone who is very concerned about what pollution is doing to the local wildlife. Eventually, Pickett ends up meeting the Crocketts, the wealthy family that owns and lives on an isolated island. Wheelchair-bound family patriarch Jason Crockett (Ray Milland) is looking forward to celebrating the 4th of July. It’s a tradition and he goes all out, decorating the mansion with American flags and listening to patriotic music. The Crockett family always celebrates with Jason, though it quickly becomes apparent that Jason would be just as comfortable celebrating without any of them.

The last thing that Jason Crockett wants is some preachy environmentalist showing up at his mansion and ruining the 4th of July with a bunch of complaints about the pesticides that he’s been using to keep away the island’s wildlife. The only thing worse than having to deal with an environmentalist would be having to deal with an invasion of alligators, snakes, and frogs. Unfortunately, Jason is going to have to spend his holiday dealing with all of those things. Soon, the mansion is surrounded by frogs and servants and family members are showing up dead all over the place.

I’ve seen Frogs a handful of times. It’s one of those films that many of my friends seem to like much more than I do. I have to admit that, for whatever reason, I always find myself struggling to focus on the film. Some of that is because there are more than a few slow spots. But the main problem is that frogs really aren’t that menacing. Frogs are cute and kind of goofy-looking, much like Sam Elliott without his mustache. The alligators are certainly scary. And there’s an attack by a cottonmouth that makes me go, “Agck!” every time that I see it. But frogs just look cute when they start hopping around. Our cat gets excited whenever he sees a frog because he knows that he can put his paw on their back and make them jump. Frogs aren’t threatening but I suspect that’s probably the point of the film. Frogs is not a film that is meant to be taken too seriously and all of the close-ups of the frogs staring at Ray Milland, Sam Elliott, Joan Van Ark, and Adam Roarke are obviously meant to be more humorous than scary. By the end of the film, the frogs are hopping over American flags, like a group of rebellious amphibians that have decided to stage their own 1968 Democratic Convention.

The majority of the cast is adequate if not exactly outstanding, with most of them doing what they can to try to look terrified of a bunch of frogs. That said, the only one who really makes a strong impression is Ray Milland, who appears to relish the opportunity to play someone who dislikes literally everyone that he sees. As played by Milland, Jason is so honest about being a miserable old man that it’s hard not to like him. He doesn’t like humanity and he’s not going to pretend otherwise. One gets the feeling that, when this film was released, he was meant to represent the same establishment that got America into Vietnam. When viewed today, he comes across like the one person who would be smart enough to never get on social media.

Reportedly, this was one of Andy Warhol’s favorite films. I’m glad he enjoyed it.

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 3.8 “Play By Play/Cindy/What’s A Brother For?”

Posted on September 27, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s time for a Halloween cruise!

Episode 3.8 “Play by Play/Cindy/What’s A Brother For?”

(Dir by James Sheldon and George Tyne, originally aired on October 27th, 1979)

Yes, this episode does feature the Love Boat’s annual Halloween cruise but sadly, it doesn’t do much with the theme. Last season’s Halloween cruise featured Vincent Price as an illusionist. This season, there is a costume ball but it’s mostly just there so that the show can do a take off on Cinderella.

Cindy (Melissa Sue Anderson) is a shy girl who boards the ship with her wicked stepmother (Carolyn Jones) and her two less-than appealing step-sisters (Ronda Bates and Lila Kent). While the stepmother tries to find an eligible bachelor for either one of her biological daughters, Cindy is expected to stay in the cabin and do the laundry. However, Gopher hears Cindy singing Witchcraft and decides that Cindy simply has to sing for “the prince of pop,” Preston Maddox (Frank Sinatra, Jr., who looks like a cross between his father and Jerry Lewis). However, how can Cindy escape from the cabin? Gopher arranges for her to go to the costume ball and he even steals Julia’s Cinderella costume so Cindy can go incognito. Cindy impresses Preston but, when Julie sees that Cindy is wearing her costume, Cindy makes a run for it. She leaves behind one glass slipper and …. well, you know where this is going, right? As everyone disembarks in Los Angeles, Preston has them try to on the slipper. Cindy, however, doesn’t have to try on the slipper to prove her identity. She just has to start singing Witchcraft. By the end of the episode, you’ll wonder if Cindy knows any other songs.

While all that is going on, Bud Pomeroy (Christopher George) and Peggy Rossmore (Lynda Day George) are two sportscasters who work together but actually dislike each other. Peggy thinks Bud is a chauvinist and Bud thinks that Peggy was only hired for her looks. They decide to compete in a series of athletic events to determine who will stay at their station and who will quit. Bud wins at arm wrestling. Peggy wins a 5-mile race around the ship. To determine their third event, Peggy randomly draws a piece of paper from Captain Stubing’s hat and discovers that the next competition will be weight-lifting! When Bud throws his back out, it looks like Cindy is going to win but then Cindy asks Bud to stay and they discover that they actually love each other. Yay! Neither the story nor the characters were that interesting but Christopher George and Lynda Day George were married in real life and they made an attractive couple.

Finally, Tom Benton (Tom Hallick) has devoted his entire life to looking after his brother, Matt (Patrick Wayne), who uses crutches. When Tom meets and falls in love with Kris (Joan Van Ark), Matt realizes that it is time for Tom to move on and find some happiness of his own.

For the most part, this was a typically pleasant episode of The Love Boat but, as a Halloween episode, it was a major disappointment. They should have had some fun with season but, unfortunately, they didn’t. This was like going on a Christmas cruise and not getting any presents.

Shell Game (1975, directed by Glenn Jordan)

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Max Castle (John Davidson) is a conman who gets arrested in Florida because of a shady real estate deal. The judge releases him into the custody of his older brother, an attorney named Stephen (Robert Castle). Though Max is technically just a paralegal, he secretly helps out his brother’s clients but running elaborate scams on the people who have cheated them. When businessman Lyle Rafferty (Jack Kehoe) embezzles money from his own charity and then lets one of his employees take the fall, Max decides that Rafferty is going to be his next target.

Shell Game was a made-for-TV movie. It’s pretty obvious that it was meant to be the pilot for a weekly series, where I guess Max would have pulled a con on every different evildoer every week. Because the show is more interested in setting up who Max is and why he cons people, there’s not much dramatic tension in Shell Game. Max tricks Rafferty into buying a worthless gold mine and Rafferty falls for every single trick that Max pulls on him. Unfortunately, since Rafferty is such an easy target, there’s no real pay-off to seeing him get conned. It’s not like The Sting, where there were real stakes and dangers involved in Paul Newman and Robert Redford’s pursuit of Robert Shaw’s money. The con is just too easy.

On the plus side, Max’s old partner-in-crime is played by Tom Atkins. Atkins is so believable as a veteran conman with a heart of gold that he probably would have been a better pick for the lead role than the likable but bland John Davidson. The rest of the cast is forgettable.

Would Shell Game have worked as a weekly series? Maybe, especially if Tom Atkins was a part of the regular cast. The idea of a former conman now running scams on other con artists had the potential to be intriguing and Max hints that he was framed by his partners in Florida. I guess a weekly series would have explored that in greater detail. However, it was not to be. This shell game was played once and then forgotten.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Psycho Wedding Crasher (dir by David Langlois)

Posted on January 4, 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 183 things recorded! I’ve decided that, on January 15th, 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 Psycho Wedding Crasher off of Lifetime on September 3rd, 2017!)

There were three “psycho” movies on Lifetime this year. I’ve already watched and reviewed Psycho In-Law and Psycho Brother-in-Law, two films that I liked quite a bit. But as insane as the psychos were in those films, neither of them can hold a candle to Jenna (Heather Morris), the title character in Psycho Wedding Crasher.

“Oh my God! She did not just do that!” That’s something that I shouted so many times, while watching Psycho Wedding Crasher, that I eventually lost track of the number of times Jenna’s behavior shocked me.

The first time I shouted it was when Jenna, while attending a party, searched her host’s bedroom and not only stole a pair of panties but actually put them on before leaving. I shouted it again when Jenna started physically beating herself up in her car so that she could accuse Scott (Robert Salvador) of assaulting her. This was followed by Jenna making use of a stranger’s bed, hiding in a closet so she could watch Glenn (Jason Cermak) take a shower, strangling someone with measuring tape, having an imaginary wedding, and of course engaging in a lot of knife action. By the time the movie was over, I was nearly hoarse from yelling at the TV.

The title is correct. Jenna is both psycho and a wedding crasher. That said, she has her reasons. For one thing, her parents are dead and she’s been raised by an abusive aunt (Joan Van Ark) who constantly tells Jenna that she’s neither smart nor pretty enough to ever find a man. Jenna spends day after day sewing wedding dresses but when will she find love? She spends all of her time haunting wedding receptions, hoping to meet the man of her dreams. One gets the feeling that she’s had many dreams.

Jenna knows that Glenn is the man for her but there’s only one problem. Glenn is married to Marci (Fiona Vroom). Whatever can Jenna do to take care of this situation? How about becoming Marci’s friend and then conspiring to try to break up her marriage? Sure, why not?

Jenna is totally crazy but it’s impossible not to feel sorry for her. Her aunt is just so cruel to her and no one else in the film seems to realize just how lucky they are to be happy and in love. It helps that Heather Morris gives such a lively performance in the lead role. While everyone else in the film tends to be a bit bland, Morris turns Jenna into a force of nature. Eventually, of course, you do lose sympathy for her. She just kills or tries to kill too many people. That said, she is always entertaining to watch, even though I certainly wouldn’t want her at my wedding.