Tag Archives: John Rayner

Made-For-TV Movie Review: The President’s Plane Is Missing (dir by Daryl Duke)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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.

Horror On The Lens: The Invasion of Carol Enders (dir by Dan Curtis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1973’s The Invasion of Carol Enders (Meredith Baxter) is attacked while walking in the park with her boyfriend (Christopher Connelly) and strikes her head.  At the same time, Diana Bernard (Sally Kemp) crashes her car while driving home in the rain.  Both women end up at the hospital at the same time.  Both die but Carol is brought back to life.  Except now, there’s someone else in Carol’s head….

This is a bit of an odd made-for-TV movie, even by the standards of the 70s.  It’s only 69 minutes long and it was shot on video tape, giving the whole thing the look of an old daytime drama.  It’s easy to watch this movie and imagine that it’s just a supernaturally-tinged episode of General Hospital or Days Of Our Lives.  Both the acting and the plot add to the daytime drama feel of the production.  This is a movie that fully embraces the melodrama.

I think the most interesting thing about this film is that everyone is very quick to accept that Diana has somehow willed her spirit into Carol’s body.  There’s very little hesitation about accepting Diana/Carol at her word and no one even thinks to suggest that maybe Carol is having some sort of mental episode as a result of the attack.  Adam hears that his girlfriend has been possessed and he immediately gets to work helping out the woman who has possessed her.  I mean, good for Adam.  I like a man who is willing to do whatever has to be done.  Still, everyone acts as if possession happens every day.

This is kind of a silly movie, which is probably why I enjoyed it.  It’s short, it’s simple, and it embraces the melodrama.  What’s not to enjoy?

Horror Film Review: The Invasion of Carol Enders (dir by Dan Curtis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Invasion of Carol Enders….

AGCK!  That’s a scary title that just brings to mind all sorts of disturbing images.  And this 1973 made-for-television film does get off to a rather disturbing start, with Carol Enders (Meredith Baxter) and her boyfriend, Adam Reston (Christopher Connelly), getting attacked in the park by a random criminal.  Carol falls and strikes her head.  She is rushed to the hospital in a coma and is not expected to survive.

Meanwhile, Diana Bernard (Sally Kemp) has an argument with her former lover (John Karlen) and then goes for a drive in the rain.  When the car crashes, Diana is rushed to the same hospital as Carol.  Ironically, it’s the same hospital where her husband, Peter (Charles Aidman), works.  Like Carol, Diana is not expected to survive.

Diana and Carol both appear to die at the same time.  Except Carol doesn’t actually die.  Instead, she has a miraculous recovery.  She comes out of her coma and she is remarkably articulate for someone who has just suffered serious brain damage.  However, there is one problem.  Carol swears that she’s never seen Adam before, that she’s married to Peter, and that her name is Diana!

That’s the invasion of Carol Enders.  When Diana died, her spirit moved into Carol’s body and took control.  Diana is convinced that her car accident was not actually an accident.  She thinks that she was set up by her ex and she sets out to try to prove that the accident was actually attempted murder.  (Actually, it’s only attempted from Diana’s point of view.  As far as the rest of the world is concerned, Diana is dead.)  While Adam tries to help Diana solve her murder out of a hope that she’ll go away and allow Carol to once again be in control of her own body, Diana runs off to her husband.  However, it turns out that there’s a lot more going on than even Diana realizes.

This is a bit of an odd made-for-TV movie, even by the standards of the 70s.  It’s only 69 minutes long and it was shot on video tape, giving the whole thing the look of an old daytime drama.  It’s easy to watch this movie and imagine that it’s just a supernaturally-tinged episode of General Hospital or Days Of Our Lives.  Both the acting and the plot add to the daytime drama feel of the production.  This is a movie that fully embraces the melodrama.

I think the most interesting thing about this film is that everyone is very quick to accept that Diana has somehow willed her spirit into Carol’s body.  There’s very little hesitation about accepting Diana/Carol at her word and no one even thinks to suggest that maybe Carol is having some sort of mental episode as a result of the attack.  Adam hears that his girlfriend has been possessed and he immediately gets to work helping out the woman who has possessed her.  I mean, good for Adam.  I like a man who is willing to do whatever has to be done.  Still, everyone acts as if possession happens every day.

This is kind of a silly movie, which is probably why I enjoyed it.  It’s short, it’s simple, and it embraces the melodrama.  What’s not to enjoy?

Film Review: Countdown (dir by Robert Altman)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

 

Earlier tonight, on TCM, I watched the 1968 science fiction film, Countdown.

Who will be the first man to walk on the moon?  Will it be Chiz (Robert Duvall), who is a colonel in the Air Force and who has been training for years and who really should get the chance just because he has a really cool name like Chiz?  Or will it be Chiz’s best friend, Lee (James Caan)?  Lee may not have Chiz’s experience but he’s a scientist and selecting him would allow NASA to portray the mission of being one of peace as opposed to one of war.  Add to that, Lee has a full head of hair and he looks like a young James Caan, who was an undeniably handsome man back in his younger days!  I mean, seriously — who would you rather have as the face of the space program: Tom Hagen or Sonny Corleone?

Of course, it might not really matter who NASA picks because the Russians are determined to get to the moon as well.  And you know what that means!  If the Russians land on the moon first, they’ll turn it into a Socialist utopia and that’ll mean ugly architecture, bread lines, and a three-month wait for toilet paper.  The stakes have never been higher!

Countdown was made and released at the height of the space race, at a time when Americans really did feel that they were competing with the Russians to be the first to reach the moon.  (Of course later, it would be learned that the Russian space program actually managed to kill far more cosmonauts than it successfully sent into orbit.)  It came out a year before Apollo 11 landed on the moon and Neil Armstrong became the first Earthling since Stanley Kubrick to ever step on the lunar surface.  As such, it’s interesting to see how Countdown imagines the experience of exploring the moon.  I won’t spoil who reaches the moon first but I will say that he moves remarkably quickly and with great ease for someone in a gravity-free environment.

Countdown is a good example of what I like to call a “time capsule” film.  Seen today, it’s kinda slow and a bit predictable.  For all the time that is spent on getting the astronauts ready to go into space, very little time is actually spent in orbit.  This is a very Earth-bound film.  And yet, if you’re a history nerd like me, it’s hard not to be a little bit fascinated by a movie like this.  In everything, from its fashions to its dialogue to its cultural outlook, this is very much a document of its time.  It may be a while until we have the technology necessary to travel through time.  Until then, watching a film like this might be as close as I’ll ever get to experiencing what the straight, non-Hippie crowd was doing in 1968.

If you’re a student of film history, Countdown is significant for being one of the first films to be directed by Robert Altman.  To be honest, if not for his name in the opening credits, you would probably never guess that Countdown was directed by one of America’s most influential and iconic directors.  Altman specialized in making film that were almost defiantly iconaclastic and there’s very little of that to be found in Countdown.  Admittedly, there are a few scenes that make use of overlapping dialogue and there’s a party scene that’s definitely Altmanesque.  However, the only reason I really noticed that party scene is because I was specifically looking for evidence of Altman’s style.  For the most part, the most identifiably Altmanesque element of Countdown is the casting of Michael Murphy in a small role.

The film is dominated by Robert Duvall and James Caan and, especially if you’re a fan of The Godfather, it’s undeniably fun to see these two acting opposite each other in something other than an epic gangster film.  (Duvall and Caan also acted together in The Rain People and The Killer Elite and were reportedly great friends off-camera as well.)  Duvall is especially good in Countdown, playing Chiz as a man torn between an innate sense of loyalty and his own competitive nature.  The scenes between Duvall and Caan have a charge to them that occasionally bring some much-needed life to this film.

In the end, Countdown is a fairly forgettable film but it’s worth seeing as a piece of history.