Tag Archives: John Dehner

The Killer Inside Me (1976, directed by Burt Kennedy)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Today is Stacy Keach’s 84th birthday.

Stacy Keach has always been an underappreciated actor.  Despite his obvious talent and his ability to play both heroes and villains, he’s never really gotten the film roles that he’s deserved and he’s mostly made his mark on stage and on television.  There have been a few good films that made use of Keach’s talents.  I’ve always appreciated his performance as Frank James in Walter Hill’s The Long Riders.  He was a morally ambiguous Doc Holliday in Doc.  He played a boxer in John Huston’s Fat City.  Horror fans will always remember him for Road Games. The Ninth Configuration featured a rare starring role for Keach but it was treated poorly by its studio.  He was chilling as a white supremacist in American History X.  For the most part, though, Keach’s film career has been made up of stuff like Class of 1999.  For all of his talent, he seems destined to be remembered mostly for playing Mike Hammer in a television series and a few made-for-TV movies.  It’s too bad because Keach had the talent to bring certain character to life in a way that few other actors can.

The Killer Inside Me features one of Keach’s best performances.  Based on a pulp novel by Jim Thompson, The Killer Inside Me stars Stacy Keach as Lou Ford.  Lou is a small town deputy.  Everyone thinks that he’s a good, decent man.  He’s dating the local school teacher (Tisha Sterling).  The sheriff (John Dehner) trusts him.  Lou seems to be an expert at settling conflicts between neighbors.  What everyone doesn’t know is that Lou is actually a psycho killer who is having a sado-masochistic affair with a local prostitute (Susan Tyrrell) and who has zero qualms about punching the life out of someone.  When Lou finds out that Tyrrell is also involved with the son of a local businessman, it sets Lou on a crime and killing spree.  Lou thinks he’s a genius but his main strength is that no one can imagine Lou Ford doing the terrible things that he does.

Burt Kennedy was an outstanding director of westerns and straight-forward action movies but he appears to have struggled with The Killer Inside Me’s morally ambiguous tone.  The end result is not a great film but it does feature a great performance from Stacy Keach.  In both his performance and his narration, Keach captures both the arrogance and the detachment from normal society that defines Lou Ford’s character.  He also shows how Ford coolly manipulates the people around him.  Keach is believable and compelling whether he’s playing the fool or if he’s committing cold-blooded murder and he also subtly shows that Lou is not as smart as he thinks he is.  Though Keach dominates the film, The Killer Inside Me also features good performances from a gallery of 70s character actors, including John Carradine, Keenan Wynn, Don Stroud, Charles McGraw, and Royal Dano.

This version of The Killer Inside Me didn’t do much at the box office.  The movie was remade in 2010, with Casey Affleck miscast as Lou Ford.  That version didn’t do much at the box office either.  The secret to recreating the book’s mix of social satire and pulp action has proven elusive to filmmakers but at least we’ve got Stacy Keach’s performance as Lou Ford to appreciate.

14 Days of Paranoia #3: The Lincoln Conspiracy (dir by James L. Conway)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

When it comes to conspiracy theories involving presidential assassinations, the theories surrounding JFK may get all the attention but it’s the theories surrounding the death of Abraham Lincoln are usually far more plausible.

Unless, of course, it’s the theories that are pushed in the 1977 docudrama, The Lincoln Conspiracy.

A mix of documentary-style narration and really cheap-looking historical reenactments, The Lincoln Conspiracy essentially indicts almost everyone who was alive in 1865 as being a part of either the conspiracy or the subsequent cover-up.  Really, it’s remarkable how many historical figures are implicated in this film.

With the Civil War coming to a close, President Lincoln (John Anderson) hopes to pursue a generous reconstruction policy for the former Confederate States.  Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (Robert Middleton), Senator Ben Wade (Dick Callinan), and a host of other are all opposed to this plan, both because they want vengeance and they also want to make as much money as possible off of the Southern cotton fields.  They come up with a plan to impeach Lincoln but, in order to draw up the articles, they have to make sure that Lincoln is not seen for a few days.  When Col. Lafayette Baker (John Dehner) discovers that an actor named John Wilkes Booth (Bradford Dillman) is planning on kidnapping Lincoln, Stanton and his conspirators decide to give Booth their unofficial support.  However, when the plan changes at the last minute and Stanton decides that it would actually be a bad idea to kidnap Lincoln, an angry Booth decides to just kill Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, and William Seward.

Booth succeeds in shooting Lincoln and making his escape.  The other members of Booth’s group all fail in their assignments.  Andrew Johnson becomes president.  Though grievously wounded, William Seward survives.  Booth flees to Canada and …. oh, you thought Booth died?  No, that was just a look alike who was shot by a bizarre soldier named Boston Corbett.  By allowing everyone to believe that Booth was killed, Stanton is able to cover up any role he and his allies played in inspiring the assassination.  Unfortunately, Col. Baker keeps a diary and it seems like he might be planning on revealing the truth but he dies mysteriously before he can.

(And, to give the film some credit, Col. Baker’s sudden death at 41 was an odd one.  And, though it’s not really explored in the film, Boston Corbett, the man who shoot Booth, really was a weirdo who was described by contemporaries as being a religious fanatic who castrated himself and claimed to hear the voice of God.)

It’s a big conspiracy theory that is presented in The Lincoln Conspiracy.  In fact, it’s a bit too big to really be taken seriously.  The film pretty much accuses everyone in Washington of having a part in the assassination.  The film itself has the cheap look of a community theater production and the use of Dr. Samuel Mudd as a narrator only adds to the film’s silliness.  If you’re a fan of gigantic and thoroughly implausible conspiracy theories, as I am, the film is entertaining in its way.  If nothing else, Bradford Dillman certainly looks like how most people probably imagine John Wilkes Booth to have looked.  Otherwise, The Lincoln Conspiracy is far-fetched and not at all realistic, which is why I assume that a lot of people in 1977 probably believed every word of it.

Previous entries in 2025’s 14 Days Of Paranoia:

  1. The Fourth Wall (1969)
  2. Extreme Justice (1993)

Lisa Marie Reviews An Oscar Nominee: The Right Stuff (dir by Philip Kaufman)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

There’s a brilliant scene that occurs towards the end of 1983’s The Right Stuff.

It takes place in 1963.  The original Mercury astronauts, who have become a symbol of American ingenuity and optimism, are being cheered at a rally in Houston.  Vice President Lyndon Johnson (Donald Moffat) stands on a stage and brags about having brought the astronauts to his supporters.  One-by-one, the astronauts and their wives wave to the cheering crowd.  They’re all there: John Glenn (Ed Harris), Gus Grissom (Fred Ward), Alan Shephard (Scott Glenn), Wally Schirra (Lance Henrisken), Deke Slayton (Scott Paulin), Scott Carpenter (Charles Frank), and the always-smiling Gordon Cooper (Dennis Quaid).  The astronauts all look good and they know how to play to the crowd.  They were chosen to be and sold as heroes and all of them have delivered.

While the astronauts are celebrated, Chuck Yeager (Sam Shepard) is at Edwards Air Force Base.  Yeager is the pilot who broke the sound barrier and proved that the mythical “demon in the sky,” which was whispered about by pilots as a warning about taking unnecessary risks, was not waiting to destroy every pilot who tried to go too fast or too high.  Yeager is considered by many, including Gordon Cooper, to be the best pilot in America.  But, because Yeager didn’t have the right image and he had an independent streak, he was not ever considered to become a part of America’s young space program.  Yeager, who usually holds his emotions in check, gets in a jet and flies it straight up into the sky, taking the jet to the edge of space.  For a few briefs seconds, the blue sky becomes transparent and we can see the stars and the darkness behind the Earth’s atmosphere.  At that very moment, Yeager is at the barrier between reality and imagination, the past and the future, the planet and the universe.  And watching the film, the viewer is tempted to think that Yeager might actually make it into space finally.  It doesn’t happen, of course.  Yeager pushes the jet too far.  He manages to eject before his plane crashes.  He walks away from the cash with the stubborn strut of a western hero.  His expression remains stoic but we know he’s proven something to himself.  At that moment, the Mercury Astronauts might be the face of America but Yeager is the soul.  Both the astronauts and Yeager play an important role in taking America into space.  While the astronauts have learned how to take care of each other, even the face of government bureaucracy and a media that, initially, was eager to mock them and the idea of a man ever escaping the Earth’s atmosphere,  Chuck Yeager reminds us that America’s greatest strength has always been its independence.

Philip Kaufman’s film about the early days of the space program is full of moments like that.  The Right Stuff is a big film.  It’s a long film.  It’s a chaotic film, one that frequently switches tone from being a modern western to a media satire to reverent recreation of history.  Moments of high drama are mixed with often broad humor.  Much like Tom Wolfe’s book, on which Kaufman’s film is based, the sprawling story is often critical of the government and the press but it celebrates the people who set speed records and who first went into space.  The film opens with Yeager, proving that a man can break the sound barrier.  It goes on to the early days of NASA, ending with the final member of the Mercury Seven going into space.  In between, the film offers a portrait of America on the verge of the space age.  We watch as John Glenn goes from being a clean-cut and eager to please to standing up to both the press and LBJ.  Even later, Glenn sees fireflies in space while an aborigines in Australia performs a ceremony for his safety.  We watch as Gus Grissom barely survives a serious accident and is only rescued from drowning after this capsule has been secured.  The astronauts go from being ridiculed to celebrated and eventually respected, even by Chuck Yeager.

It’s a big film with a huge cast.  Along with Sam Shepherd and the actors who play the Mercury Seven, Barbara Hershey, Pamela Reed, Jeff Goldblum, Harry Shearer, Royal Dano, Kim Stanley, Scott Wilson, and William Russ show up in roles both small and large.  It can sometimes be a bit of an overwhelming film but it’s one that leaves you feeling proud of the pioneering pilots and the brave astronauts and it leaves you thinking about the wonder of the universe that surrounds our Earth.  It’s a strong tribute to the American spirit, the so-called right stuff of the title.

The Right Stuff was nominated for Best Picture but, in the end, it lost to a far more lowkey film, 1983’s Terms of Endearment.  Sam Shepard was nominated for Best Supporting Actor but lost to Jack Nicholson.  Nicolson played an astronaut.

Airplane II: The Sequel (1982, directed by Ken Finkleman)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

It isn’t the past.  It isn’t the present.  It’s the future.

The moon has been colonized and, on Earth, the Mayflower II is preparing for its first international flight.  It will be carrying passengers from Houston to the lunar station.  Test pilot Ted Striker (Robert Hays) claims that the Mayflower II is not ready to make the trip but he’s been in the Ronald Reagan Hospital For The Mentally Ill ever since he had a nervous breakdown after losing his squadron during “the war.”

Aboard the Mayflower II is Ted’s ex-wife, Elaine (Julie Haggerty), and her new boyfriend, Simon (Chad Everett).  Simon says the Mayflower II is in perfect shape but he also turns into jelly whenever things get too rough.  Piloting the Mayflower II is Captain Clarence Oveur (Peter Graves) and waiting on the Moon is Commander Buck Murdock (William Shatner).  The crew of the Mayflower II is going to have a tough flight ahead of them.  Not only is the shipboard computer making plans of its own but one of the passengers (Sonny Bono) has a bomb in his briefcase.  Also, Ted has broken out of the hospital and is on the flight, boring people with his long stories.

Every successful film gets a sequel and when Airplane! was a surprise hit in 1980, it was inevitable that there would be an Airplane II.  Robert Hays, Julie Haggerty, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, and Stephen Stucker all returned.  Unfortunately, Jim Abrahams, the Zucker brothers, Robert Stack, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Leslie Nielsen did not.  (The directors and Nielsen were all working on Police Squad and their absence is strong felt.)  Airplane II recreates many of the same jokes as the first Airplane! but without the first film’s good nature or genuine affection for the disaster genre.  Airplane! was made for the love of comedy.  Airplane II was made for the love of money and, while there are more than a few amusing moments, the difference is obvious and there for all to see.

Not surprisingly, Airplane II is at its funniest whenever William Shatner is on screen.  In the role of Bud Murdock, Shatner pokes fun at his own image and shows himself to be a good sport.  He’s still not as funny as Leslie Nielsen or Robert Stack in the first film but that’s because, unlike Stack and Nielsen in their pre-Airplane! days, there had always been a hint of self-parody to Shatner, even in his most dramatic roles.  If Stack and Nielsen shocked people by showing that they could do deadpan comedy, Shatner’s performance just confirmed what most suspected, that he had always been in on the joke.  Still, he’s the funniest thing in Airplane II and, whenever I rewatch this movie, I am happy he was there.

Airplane II was a box office failure, which is why the world never got an Airplane III.  Fortunately, the world did get Hot Shots and The Naked Gun.

Top Gun (1955, directed by Ray Nazarro)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Rick Martin (Sterling Hayden) rides his horse into his hometown of Casper, Wyoming.  He has an important message to deliver to the town marshal but first, he visits his mother’s grave and discovers that there is a maker with his name on it and an open grave waiting for him.  Many of the other makers are for people who are specifically identified as have been “Murdered by Rick Martin.”

Rick is notorious for being a gunslinger and most of the town considers him to be nothing but a murderer, despite Rick’s claim that he’s never shot anyone who didn’t try to shoot him first.  Despite the town’s feelings towards him, Rick warns his old friend, Marshal Bat Davis (James Millican), that the notorious outlaw Tom Quentin (John Dehner) is coming to Casper and is planning on tearing the place up.  Rick offers to stick around and help fight Quentin and his men but the city council orders him to leave.

City councilman Canby Judd (William Bishop) especially wants to get rid of Rick.  Judd murdered Rick’s mother for her land and he is also engaged to Rick’s former girlfriend, Laura (Karin Booth).  When Rick asks Laura to come to California with him, Judd and his gunslinger (played by Rod Taylor, in one of his first film roles) conspire to put Rick in jail.  At first, the town is happy to have Rick behind bars but then Tom Quentin and his gang show up.

Though it will never be the most popular film to use the title, 1955’s Top Gun is an intelligent B-western that puts as much emphasis on the hypocrisy of the town as it does on gunfights and duels.  The population sign specifically says that Casper is home to “1,002 law-abiding citizens” and it is obvious that Rick is not considered to be good enough to be one of those citizens.  Rick may have a violent past but he’s honest about who he is, unlike the holier-than-thou townspeople who put Rick in jail and then expect him to help them out when the real outlaws arrive.  Though the townspeople pretend that there’s no place for someone like Rick Martin in their society, Rick understands the harsh reality of life in the old west.  Director Ray Nazarro does a good job choreographing the fight scenes and Sterling Hayden give a tough and angry performance as Rick Martin and he’s supported by an able cast of western regulars.  Western fans will find much to enjoy while watching Top Gun.

Retro Television Reviews: Quarantined (dir by Leo Penn)

Posted on 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 1970’s Quarantined! It can be viewed on YouTube!

The John C. Bedford Clinic sits atop a cliff overlooking the ocean.  Though it may be a small hospital, it’s also widely respected.  The clinic was started by John Bedford (John Dehner) and the majority of its employees are related to him.  His three sons — Larry (Gary Collins), Bud (Gordon Pinset), and Tom (Dan Ferrone) — are all doctors and they all work at the clinic.  Bud’s wife, Margaret (Susan Howard), is a psychologist and she also works at the clinic, encouraging the older patients not to give up hope in their twilight years.  John Bedford is a stern taskmaster and his youngest son, Tom, resents always having his father and his older brothers staring over his shoulder.  John and Larry explain that they are simply treating Tom the way that they would treat any new doctor.  Tom isn’t so sure.

When the Bedfords aren’t hanging out in the tasteful ranch house that sits next to the clinic, they’re checking on their patients.  As Quarantined opens, they’ve got quite a few to deal with.  The most famous is Ginny Pepper (Sharon Farrell), a film star who has come to the clinic because she’s been suffering from back pain.  Larry quickly diagnoses her as suffering from kidney failure and announces that she’s going to need to get an immediate transplant.  Ginny is not happy to hear that and spends most of her time trying to make both Larry and Nurse Nelson (Virginia Gregg) miserable.  Of course, it eventually turns out that Ginny’s not so bad.

Meanwhile, Margaret attempts to cheer up a dying old man named Mr. Berryman (Sam Jaffe) and an eccentric man named Wilbur Mott (Wally Cox) hangs out in the hospital hallway.  Martha (Terry Moore) and Lloyd Atkinson (Madison Arnold) are at the hospital to visit their son, Jimmy (Mitch Vogel).  Unfortunately, while in Jimmy’s hospital room, Lloyd suddenly collapses and subsequently dies.  John takes one look at Lloyd and announces that Lloyd might have Cholera and, as a result, no one can leave or enter the hospital until the test results come back.

In other words, the John C. Bedford Clinic is …. QUARANTINED!

If you’re thinking this sounds a little bit dull …. well, you’re not wrong.  Quarantined has a 73-minute running time and a large cast but it really does just feel like an episode of a not particularly interesting medical drama.  It wouldn’t surprise me to discover that this movie was actually meant to serve as a pilot for a show that would have followed day-to-day life at the clinic.  Each member of the Bedford family is given a hint of characterization, just enough to suggest what type of situations they would get involved in on a weekly basis.  Larry was the straight shooter who was dedicated to saving lives.  Bud was the well-meaning middle child while Margaret was the one who encouraged the men to talk about their feelings.  Tom was the idealistic but impulsive youngest child.  John was the wise patriarch.  They’re all kind of boring.

The same can be said of Quarantined as a movie.  As directed by Leo “Father of Sean” Penn, the movie promises a lot of drama but it never really delivers and there’s something rather annoying about how casually John announces that no one is allowed to leave the clinic.  He even calls the police and has them set up road blocks around the clinic.  On the one hand, John is doing the right thing.  No one wants a cholera epidemic.  On the other hand, everyone’s so quick to accept that idea of John being a benign dictator that …. well, one can only imagine what a pain in the ass the Bedfords would have been during the COVID era.

As far as I know, there was never a TV show about the Bedford family and their clinic on a cliff.  Personally, I’m okay with that.  

Hot Lead (1951, directed by Stuart Gilmore)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In this B-western programmer, Dave Collins (Ross Elliott) has just been released from prison.  Because he knows how to operate a telegraph, outlaw Turk Thorne (John Dehner) tries to force Dave to get a job at a local telegraph office so that Turk can use his skills to rob a train.

Despite wanting to go straight, Dave also doesn’t want to get full of hot lead.  He rides into town and gets a job at the ranch owned by Gail Martin (Joan Dixon).  He is befriended by Gail’s two ranchhands, serious cowboy Tim Holt (played, believe it or not, by Tim Holt) and his comedy relief sidekick, Chito Rafferty (Richard Martin).  Tim and Chito want revenge on Turk for killing one of their friends during a previous train robbery.  Working with Dave, they set a trap for Turk and his gang.  Meanwhile, Dave falls in love with Gail.

Hot Lead was one of the last of the 46 B-westerns that Tim Holt made for RKO Pictures.  Holt started out playing the type of prototypical happy, go-lucky cowboys who were popular in the 1930s.  At that time, he was unique as one of the few western stars to not play a continuing character who was named after him.  While the studios promoted other western stars as essentially playing themselves, Tim Holt was promoted as being a serious actor.  Holt’s films were popular with audiences but his career was put on hold while he served in World War II.  Post-war, Holt played characters who were far more world-weary than his earlier cowboys and he also started to play characters who were specifically named “Tim Holt.”

Even though most of Holt’s later films were uneven in quality, Hot Lead is one of the better examples of the genre.  Whether happy or serious, Tim Holt was always a convincing cowboy and he brings his natural gravitas to the role, playing his character as being the type of serious and no-nonsense cowboy that anyone would want in their corner.  John Dehner was always a good villain and Ross Elliott is equally good as the man struggling not to go back to his old ways.  The action scenes and the gunfights are well-directed and the story even carries an important message about giving people second chances.  Not bad for a B-western!

Gun Belt (1953, directed by Ray Nazarro)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Outlaw Matt Ringo (John Dehner) escapes from prison and reunites with his old gang.  Riding out to Tombstone, Matt tracks down his son, Chip (Tab Hunter).  Chip is now living with his uncle, Billy Ringo (George Montgomery).  Billy was once a member of Matt’s gang but he’s gone straight, he’s given up his guns, and he now has a ranch of his own.  Billy tries to keep the naive Chip from idolizing his father but Chip is bored with life on the ranch.  Matt not only works to turn Chip against his uncle but he also frames Billy for a bank robbery.  With the town convinced that Billy has returned to his outlaw ways, Billy has no choice but to reach out to the most honest lawman in town, Wyatt Earp (James Millican).

The most interesting thing about this western is the way that it blends real people, like Wyatt and his brother Virgil (Bruce Cowling), with characters who were obviously fictionalized versions of the participants in the gunfight at the OK Corral.  The Ringos are obviously based on Johnny Ringo who, as anyone who has seen Tombstone has seen you, never went straight in real life.  Meanwhile, the head of the gang is named Ike Clinton.  Did someone misspell Ike Clanton’s name while writing the script or was the name really changed for some unknown reason?  Ike Clanton wasn’t around to sue over the way he was portrayed in the movie.

Beyond the mix of a little truth with a lot of fiction, Gun Belt is a traditional western with bad outlaws and upstanding lawmen and a naive cowpoke who has to decide whether he wants to follow the path of good or evil.  George Montgomery has the right presence to be a believable as both a retired outlaw and rancher and James Millican brings quiet authority to the film’s version of Wyatt Earp.  Western fans will be happy to see Jack Elam in the role of one of the gang members.  The only really false note is provided by Tab Hunter, who comes across as very young and very callow and not believable at all as someone who could work on a ranch or successfully pursue a career as a professional lawbreaker.

Seven years after it was released, Gun Belt was remade as Five Guns To Tombstone.

Apache Territory (1958, directed by Ray Nazarro)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In this B-western, Rory Calhoun plays Logan Cates, an old west drifter, while traveling through the desert, comes across a young woman named Junie Hatchett (Carolyn Craig).  Junie’s parents were settlers who were captured and killed by a group of Apaches.  Knowing that the Apaches will still be looking Junie, Logan takes her to a nearby canyon where there’s water and shelter.  Soon, other victims of the Apaches start to show up at the canyon.  With their supplies dwindling and the Apaches surrounding them, Logan has to keep everyone alive and lead them to safety.

Complicating matters is that one of the people who shows up at the canyon is Logan’s ex-girlfriend, Jennifer (Barbara Bates).  Jennifer is traveling with her new husband, the wealthy (and therefore cowardly) Grant Kimbrough (John Dehner).  Also seeking shelter at the canyon are a group of Calvary officers, a Pima Indian named Lugo (Frank DeKova), and a naive teenage cowboy named Lonnie (Tom Pittman).

Based on a novel by Louis L’Amour, Apache Territory is a pretty standard western.  Some of the battle scenes are surprisingly brutal — particularly when one of the Calvary officers gets hit by a flaming arrow — but otherwise, this is a typical B-western, the type of movie that would have been the second part of a double bill at a Saturday matinee.  Logan Cates is able to survive because, unlike Grant Kimbrough, he knows and respects the land and, unlike the Calvary officers, he respects his enemy.  He’s a typical western hero, though well-played by Rory Calhoun.

The main problem with the film is that, for a film about a group of people trapped in one location, it never achieves any sense of claustrophobia.  The size of the canyon seems to change from shot to shot.  The film’s finale involves a well-realized dust storm but it still never reaches the type of action-packed conclusion that most western fans will be hoping for.  It ends with a whimper instead of a bang.  It feels more like an extended episode of Gunsmoke or The Virginian than a feature film.

This one will be best appreciated by undemanding fans of the genre.

Horror on TV: Kolchak: The Night Stalker 1.18 “The Knightly Murders” (dir by Vincent McEveety)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight on Kolchak….

The armor of a 12-century knight is possessed and determined to keep anyone from harming the museum in which it is currently housed.  This includes anyone who might want to build a nightclub nearby.  With the armor trying to prevent Chicago from enjoying disco, it’s up to Carl Kolchak to report the story and solve the case!

I like this episode because it features a holy ax.

This episode originally aired on March 7th, 1975.

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0SUWOkBeJY