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 Hunter, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1991. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!
This week, Hunter and a biker compete to see who has the fastest draw.
Episode 1.10 “The Shooter”
(Dir by Michael Lange, originally aired on January 4th, 1985)
Someone is gunning down motorcycle cops. It’s a crime that both Hunter and McCall take personally. Unfortunately, Bernie Terwiliger is in charge of the investigation and he insists that he doesn’t need any help from Hunter or “the brass cupcake.” Considering that McCall’s husband was a police officer who was killed while doing a routine traffic stop, you would think Terwiliger would be a little bit more sensitive but nope. That’s not the way things are done on Hunter.
Hunter and McCall conduct their own investigation, which leads them a country-western bar and a quick-draw video game. Deke Broder (Robert Dryer) is a redneck who is very proud of having the fastest draw on the game. The only problem is that cops keep coming in the bar and beating his time. So, Deke stalks and kills them.
Deke — it’s just a game!
Soon, Hunter is playing the video game and Deke has a new target.
Now, this is a good episode! It’s everything that you could want from an episode of Hunter. It’s violent. It’s fast-paced. It’s got enough atmosphere to hold the viewer’s interest and it features a bad guy who is more interesting than the run-of-the-mill cop show villain. Deke and Hunter have a lot in common. They’re both cocky. They’re both convinced their the best. And they both really like to shoot their guns. Between the motorcycles and Deke’s leather kill suit, this episode was pure style.
This is exactly what an episode of Hunter should be like.
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 Hunter, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1991. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!
This week, Hunter gets another bad assignment.
Episode 1.9 “High Bleacher Man”
(Dir by Arnold Laven, originally aired on December 7th, 1984)
Hunter and McCall have finally arrested Elton Gavin (Michael Baselon), a murderous punk who has been causing mayhem all over Los Angeles. Unfortunately, Gavin works out a deal. For immunity, he’ll turn on gangster Nate Demarest (Richard Romanus). With Demarest eager to kill the informant, Hunter finds himself assigned to protect Gavin until Gavin can testify.
The problem, of course, is that Gavin is a sociopath. Hunter doesn’t want to protect Gavin. He doesn’t want Gavin to get immunity. He certainly doesn’t want to see Gavin back out on the streets. When Hunter learns that McCall once investigated Demarest for killing a federal agent, he asks her to reopen the case. If they can get Demarest on that charge, then there won’t be any reason to give Gavin immunity.
Poor Hunter and McCall. They always get the worst assignments. This was pretty much a standard episode of Hunter but the chemistry between Fred Dryer and Stepfanie Kramer was fun to watch. In the middle of all the action and the bullets, Dryer and Kramer were actually a pretty good comedy team. It’s fun to listen to them talk.
As I watched this episode, I suddenly remembered that Hunter’s father was a gangster and therefore, one would think that Hunter would have more contacts in the world of organized crime than he does. Hunter’s mob background is one of those things that the show sometimes seems to forget about.
The other thing that occurred to me as I watched this episode is that, in 1984, John Amos probably had one of the easiest jobs in television. He played Dolan, Hunter and McCall’s captain. As far as I can tell, his role consisted of showing up at the end of each episode and yelling at Hunter for taking unnecessary risks. That was pretty much it. Amos just had to be annoyed for two-minutes every week.
Of course, it didn’t matter how much Dolan got annoyed,
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 Hunter, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1991. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!
This week, there’s somebody else shooting criminals in L.A.
Episode 1.8 “Dead or Alive”
(Dir by Guy Magar, originally aired on November 30th, 1984)
Jimmy Joe Walker (Wings Hauser) is a cowboy bounty hunter who wears black and carries a wide array of weapons. He hunts for criminals who are wanted “dead or alive.” He specializes in brining them in dead because …. well, he just like shooting people. Hunter and McCall try to capture the escaped bank robber Panhandle Pete (Jimmie F. Skaggs) before Jimmy Joe puts a bullet in him.
This was a pretty average episode of Hunter, one that was mostly distinguished by the cheerfully unhinged presence of Wings Hauser. With his Southern accent and his country clothes, Hauser largely gives the same performance here that he gave in Vice Squad. The only difference is that he’s playing a bounty hunter and not a pimp here. He still finds time to beat up McCall. I can’t help but notice that McCall is constantly getting either shot or punched on this show. I think the idea is to show that McCall is just as tough as Hunter and I do like the fact that, no matter how serve the injuries, McCall never stops fighting back. That said, it would be nice to see someone else get a black eye for once.
(This is also yet another episode that finds McCall working undercover as a prostitute. She spends the first half of the episode wearing a blue top with feathers attached to the sleeves. I kept expecting someone to mention the feathers but not even Wings Hauser said a word about them. You would expect Wings to be all over that.)
The plot of this one felt a bit silly. A bank robber named Panhandle Pete? Really? I get the feeling that this episode was done in order to protect the show from charges that it glorified the idea of gunning down criminals. We’re supposed to look at Hunter and Jimmy Joe and say, “Hunter shoots a lot of people but at least he doesn’t laugh about it.” This was Hunter’s version of Magnum Force.
Again, this was an average episode but it’s worth watching just for Wings Hauser.
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 Hunter, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1991. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!
This week, Hunter goes to jail!
Episode 1.7 “Pen Pals”
(Dir by Larry Stewart, originally aired on November 16th, 1984)
Rick Hunter, murderer!
Well, not quite. It is true that someone used Hunter’s gun to assassinate a drug dealer but, at the time of the shooting, Hunter was helping a woman who came by his apartment and said that her car had broken down. It’s a set up! But, because Hunter threatened to kill the drug dealer earlier and he’s killed around 20 0ther people since the pilot, everyone assumes that he’s guilty. He’s sent to jail for 72 hours. McCall, forced to partner up with the charming but incompetent Detective Glascow (Tim Thomerson), attempts to prove that Hunter was framed. Meanwhile, Hunter befriends one prisoner (Tracey Walter) and is targeted by another (Jack O’Halloran).
There were a few odd things about this episode. First off, why wasn’t Hunter put in protective custody? Everyone in the jail knew that he was a cop. He hadn’t actually been convicted of anything. So, what was he doing in general population?
Secondly, what happened to Hunter’s mob connections? Previous episodes have hinted that Hunter’s father is one of the most powerful gangsters in California. Wouldn’t that give him some sort of protection in prison? Couldn’t the Hunter crime family have asked around and discovered who set Rick Hunter up?
Oh well, no matter. This was a fun episode! Tim Thomerson was wonderfully smarmy as McCall’s new partner. Jack O’Halloran was properly psychotic as the scary prisoner looking to take down Hunter. If any actor was born to be filmed beating up people in a prison cafeteria, it was Fred Dryer.
Luckily, Hunter got out of jail at the end of the episode. Now, he and McCall can get back to falling in love.
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 Hunter, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1991. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!
This week, Hunter searches for a pigeon.
Episode 1.6 “Flight of the Dead Pigeon”
(Dir by Michael Preece, originally aired on November 9th, 1984)
When a little girl (Marissa Mendenhall) shows up at the police station and asks for Hunter’s help in finding her stolen carrier pigeons, Hunter’s like, “Buzz off, kid!” However, when it turns out that the girl’s uncle was a degenerate gambler and that he was thrown off the roof of a building by the mob, Hunter and McCall get involved. It turns out that the Mexican cartels want to use the pigeons to carry drugs into America. Because the little girl is the only one who knows how to train the pigeons, they want to kidnap her as well….
Yeah, this was a pretty dumb episode. I don’t doubt that pigeons could be used to smuggle drugs but I do doubt that any successful criminal organization would go through all the trouble that they go to in this episode. There are far simpler ways to smuggle drugs. I’m also sure they could have found someone to train the pigeons without abducting a child. Hunter and McCall are able to rescue the girl and the episode ends with her smiling cheerfully as she’s sent into foster care.
“Hunter,” McCall asks, “have you ever wanted kids?”
“Nope,” Hunter replies.
“Me neither,” McCall says, not sounding particularly convincing.
What a sad ending! Seriously, if Hunter and McCall aren’t married by the end of this series, I will throw a fit. They’re totally meant for each other. Even in a kind of dumb episode like this one, their chemistry saves the day.
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 Hunter, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1991. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!
This week, Hunter and McCall investigate a mob hit!
Episode 1.5 “Legacy”
(Dir by Ron Satlof, originally aired on November 2nd, 1984)
Gangster John Vincent (Tony Girogio) has been gunned down in his own mansion. Detective Bernie Terwilliger thinks that it’s a case of burglary gone wrong. Rick Hunter thinks that it was a mob hit and that one of John’s sons is responsible. He and McCall search for Sandy Newton (Mary-Margaret Humes), the woman who was with Michael Vincent (Vincent Baggetta) the night that his father was killed.
I have to admit that I had totally forgotten that Rick Hunter was supposed to be the son of a mobster. This episode featured Rick associating with his childhood buddies and, if nothing else, it showed just how unconvincing Fred Dryer was as the scion of a mob family. Don’t get me wrong. Fred Dryer was great when he was gunning down a suspect and then saying, “Works for me.” And Fred Dryer had a fun chemistry with Stepfanie Kramer. But there was absolutely nothing about Fred Dryer that, in any way, said, “Mobster.” Surrounding Dryer with a bunch of tough-looking Italian-American character actors did nothing to change the fact that Dryer essentially looked like a former football player from sunny California.
This episode had a predictable story but it also had two good action scenes: a fight on a pier and a mob hit in a warehouse. It also introduced John Amos as Captain Dolan, who is the new police captain but who appears to dislike Hunter and McCall just as much as the previous captain. It’s hard not to feel that Amos will be entertaining as he yells at Hunter for not following regulations and costing the city money.
President Jeremy Harris (Tod Andrews) has a lot on his plate. With America and China inching closer and closer to war, Secretary of State Freeman Sharkey (Raymond Massey) is advocating for diplomacy while National Security Advisor George Oldenburg (Rip Torn) feels that America must be more aggressive and ready to launch the first nuclear missile. Of course, no one pays much attention to Vice President Kermit Madigan (Buddy Ebsen). Kermit is viewed with such contempt that he’s never even been given a briefing on what’s going on with China. However, when Air Force One crashes in the California desert and the President cannot be definitively identified as one of the bodies found in the wreckage, Vice President Madigan finds himself with a very difficult decision to make.
That’s quite a crisis. Personally, though, I’m more interested in how the United States ended up with Secretary of State named Freeman Sharkey. I mean, that’s just an amazing name for a diplomat. Why didn’t they elect that guy President? No one messes with Sharkey!
The majority of 1973’s The President’s Plane Is Missing follows a reporter named Mark Jones (Peter Graves) as he tries to get to the bottom of what has happened to President Harris. As usual, Graves is likably stoic. Mark Jones doesn’t show much emotion but, at the very least, he does seem to be trying to do a good job as an old school journalist. What’s interesting is that Mark has an editor (played by Arthur Kennedy) who is constantly yelling at him and threatening to fire him. There’s something very odd about seeing Peter Graves taking order from someone who isn’t intimidated by him.
Mark Jones does learn the truth about why the President has gone missing and he also learns why he, as the reporter assigned to follow the President, wasn’t allowed to board Air Force One when it initially took off. Unfortunately, the solution is a bit anti-climatic. In fact, it’s so anti-climatic that it’s actually kind of annoying. All of the drama ultimately feels rather unnecessary and pointless.
By today’s standards, The President’s Plane Is Missing is a bit on the dull side. There are so many obvious plot holes that I get the feeling that it was probably a bit boring when it originally aired in 1973 as well. The most interesting thing about the film is that it was directed by Daryl Duke, who also directed Payday, a harrowing film about a self-destructive country-western singer. Rip Torn, the star of Payday, appears here as a calm and collected intellectual who advocates for nuclear war without a hint of ambivalence. Torn is a bit miscast as a man without emotions but it’s still always nice to see him in a film.
Who gives the best performance in The President’s Plane Is Missing? Believe it or not, Buddy Ebsen. Ebsen is totally believable as the vice president who, after years of being ignored, is suddenly thrust into a position of power. I’d vote for Kermit Madigan but only if he wasn’t running against Freeman Sharkey.
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!
Set a course for adventure, your mind on a new romance!
Episode 6.20 “The Zinging Valentine/The Very Temporary Secretary/Final Score”
(Dir by Richard Kinon, originally aired on February 12th, 1983)
It’s a Valentine’s Day cruise!
A football player (John Amos) tries to romance an intellectual college professor (Jayne Kennedy) who doesn’t care about sports. The professor is impressed when the player reveals that he’s written a book. But she’s shocked when she reads it and discovers how much time the player spent scoring off-the-field.
The head of a temp agency (Don Adams) comes on the boat to inform a magazine editor (Fannie Flagg) that he hasn’t been able to find a secretary for her. But, when he meets her, Adams pretends to be the secretary, even though he doesn’t know how to take dictation or type.
Don Most is a cocky jerk who is informed by a singing telegram girl (Suzie Scott) that his girlfriend is dumping him. Most gets upset. Scott goes to look for him so she can apologize but — uh oh! The ship sets sail! Scott is stuck on the boat but, believe it or not!, she and Don Most eventually end up falling in love.
This was a sweet, uncomplicated, and likably lightweight episode. At its best, The Love Boat was the epitome of television comfort food. It’s a show that you watch because you know exactly what’s going to happen and you also know that everyone is going to get a happy ending. This episode features likable guest stars (and yes, I’m including Don Adams, who was a lot more likable here than he was on Check It Out) and all the romance that you could hope for. Personally, I loved that the ship was decorated for Valentine’s Day. All of those hearts? They totally made me want to take a cruise next February. (Hint, hint….)
This episode also featured scenes in which all of the guest stars interacted with each other and discussed their problems. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that on The Love Boat before. Usually, the guest stars only interact with the people in their stories. Instead, for this episode, we got scenes of Jayne Kennedy telling Fannie Flagg about how much she liked her magazine. Suzie Scott told Kennedy and Flagg about how tough it was having to delivers singing messages for people. Seeing Don Most, John Amos, and Don Adams sitting in the Pirate’s Cove and discussing their problems while Isaac watched was surprisingly entertaining. In this episode, the boat felt truly alive and active. It seemed like a genuinely fun cruise and a reminder that the Love Boat offers something for everyone.
This was a likable episode. I enjoyed it. Listen, just because I love horror movies, that doesn’t mean I can’t love my weekly cruise on the Love Boat!
In 1990, long-time friends George Romero and Dario Argento collaborated on Two Evil Eyes, anthology film that was based on the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. An Italian-American co-production, Two Evil Eyes featured two stories. The first was directed by George Romero, while the second was directed by Argento.
The Facts In The Case of Mr. Valdemar
(Dir by George Romero)
The first story is Romero’s, a modernized version of The Facts In The Case of M. Valdemar.
Jessica Valdemar (Adrienne Barbeau) is the 40 year-old wife of 65 year-old, Ernest Valdemar (Bingo O’Malley). Jessica only married Ernest for her money and, now that he’s on his death bed, she and her lover, Dr. Robert Hoffman (Ramy Zada), have hypnotized to him to do and say whatever they tell him to say and do. Even though Ernest is essentially comatose, the hypnosis allows them to force Ernest to sign his name to legal documents and to tell his suspicious attorney (E.G. Marshall) that he indeed wants to leave all of his money to Jessica.
When Ernest dies while under the influence of hypnosis, Jessica and Robert attempt hide his body in the basement. But is Ernest really dead? Jessica is convinced that she hears groaning from the basement and she wonders if the hypnosis has somehow left Ernest in limbo, between life and death. Robert thinks that Jessica is being foolish but it turns out that she’s not. After much paranoia and betrayal, one conspirator is dead and the other is a part of the living dead.
Usually, I like Romero’s work but this one didn’t work for me. From the flat cinematography to the shallow performances, this film felt more like an episode of a television show than anything else. Perhaps if it had been a stand-alone film, Romero could have found a way to make the material a bit more cinematic. (The story’s final shot, of blood dripping on a hundred dollar bill, is the film’s strongest moment and the part that feels the most Romeroesque.) But as a shortened chapter of an anthology film, it fell flat.
The Black Cat
(Dir by Dario Argento)
The Dario Argento segment is based on several different Poe stories. While the majority of the story is taken from The Black Cat, it also contains elements of Annabel Lee, Telltale Heat, The Pit and the Pendulum, and Buried Alive. Though this segment doesn’t really work, it’s obvious that Argento is a fan of Poe’s work and, for other Poe fans, there’s a lot of fun to be found in all of the Poe references that Argento sneaks into his story.
Harvey Keitel stars as Rod Usher, a crime scene photographer who loves his work a bit too much. He’s excited about the fact that his book of photography is about to be published. He’s less happy about the fact that his girlfriend, Annabel (Madeleine Potter), has adopted a black cat that is constantly glaring at Rod. Rod is eventually driven mad by both the cat’s apparent hatred of him and the fact that the cat itself keeps showing up no matter how far he goes to get rid of it. (This film features violence against a cat, which I hated. But it also featured a cat getting revenge and I appreciated that.) Eventually, Rod’s paranoia leads to violence and murder.
Look, this is a film about a guy who has an obsessive hatred of a cat. Obviously, this is not a film that I’m going to enjoy because I love cats. That said, I can still judge the film on its merits, even if it’s not for me on a personal level. While Argento is able to build up a good deal of tension and suspense in this film, the overall film doesn’t work because Harvey Keitel, supremely talented actor that he is, was totally the wrong choice for Rod Usher. Keitel, who reportedly did not get along with Argento during filming, gave a self-indulgent performance that featured a lot of bellowing. It’s as if Keitel is trying to compete with the constantly moving camera. The problem is that a star of a film like this has to be the director and Keitel’s histrionics take the viewer right out of the story.
Considering all of the talent involved, Two Evil Eyes is a disappointment.
During 1990’s Die Hard 2, John McClane (Bruce Willis) asks himself, “How can the same shit happen to the same person twice?” and he does have a point.
I mean, consider the situation. In 1988, McClane spent his Christmas sneaking around a skyscraper and saving his wife from a group of sadistic mercenaries. Two years later, John McClane spends his Christmas sneaking around an airport and saving his wife from a group of sadistic mercenaries.
There are a few differences of course. In 1988, the mercenaries were only interested in stealing as much money as they could and each mercenary had his own properly ghoulish personality. In 1990, the mercenaries are really more of a cult, led by the fanatical Col. Stuart (William Sadler). And, along with trying to make some money, they are also trying to free General Ramon Esperanza (Franco Nero), a Central American drug lord and former CIA asset. Despite the fact that the mercenaries are played by familiar actors (like Robert Patrick, John Leguizamo, Tony Ganois, and Vondie Curtis-Hall), none of them are quite as memorable as the henchmen that Alan Rickman commanded in the first film. And while Sadler has charisma and makes a big impression during his first scene, his character is nowhere near as interesting or entertaining as Hans Gruber. Franco Nero, it must be said, is as dashing as ever. He really seems to be having fun in this movie.
A lot more people die in Die Hard 2 than died in the first Die Hard and the majority of them are innocent bystanders. This isn’t like the first film, where Harry Ellis died because his coke-addled mind led him to believe that he could outsmart Gruber. The victims in Die Hard 2 include a friendly church caretaker and over 200 passengers of an airplane that Stuart tricks into crashing on an airport runway. The scene where the plane crashes remains disturbing no matter how many times that you see it and it truly makes you hate Colonel Stuart. When the plane crashes, despite McClane’s futile efforts to warn the pilots, McClane sobs and it’s a powerful scene because it’s the first scene in which McClane has not had a quip or a one-liner ready to go. In this scene, McClane fails to save the day and, for a few minutes, he’s helpless. I usually end up crying with McClane. Today, those tears are also a reminder of what a good actor Bruce Willis truly could be whenever he let down his defenses and allowed himself to be vulnerable on screen.
Die Hard 2 is usually dismissed as not being as good as the first movie and …. well, that’s correct. It’s not as good but then again, few actions films are. There’s a reason why Die Hard continues to be held in such high regard. That said, Die Hard 2 is not bad. The stakes are a bit higher and the action scenes a bit more elaborate, as you would expect from a film directed by Renny Harlin. Bruce Willis plays McClane with the blue collar swagger that made his such an awesome hero in the first film. Bonnie Bedelia and William Atherton also return from the first film and Atherton once again gets his comeuppance in a crowd-pleasing moment. The cast is full of character actors, all of whom get a chance to make an impression. Dennis Franz is the profane head of security who eventually turns out to be not such a bad guy. John Amos is the major who eventually turns out to be not such a good guy. Colm Meaney has a few heart-breaking moments as the pilot of the doomed airplane. My favorite supporting performance is given by Fred Thompson, bringing his quiet authority to the role of tough but fair-minded Air Traffic Control director. Watching Die Hard 2, it does feel as if the viewer has been dropped in the middle of these people’s lives. Everyone seems real. No one seems like a mere plot device.
Is Die Hard a Christmas movie? You bet it is! But so is Die Hard 2 and it’s not a bad one.
Through the Shattered Lens 