Tag Archives: Laurence Haddon

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: CHiPs 1.16 “Vintage ’54”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983.  The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee!

This week, the key words on the highway of California are “team work!”

Episode 1.16 “Vintage ’54”

(Dir by Barry Crane, originally aired on January 26th, 1978)

It’s a three-day weekend and that means the California Highway Patrol even more mayhem to deal with than usual!

For instance, two car thieves are driving up and down the highway, searching for classic cars.  One stolen car belongs to 85 year-old Margaret Downey (Marjorie Bennett), who proceeds to go down to the station and personally demand that Sgt. Getraer find her car.  The thieves are eventually caught, thanks to the entire Highway Patrol working as a team and keeping an eye out for stolen cars.  The emphasis here was on teamwork, which Ponch and Baker just doing their part as opposed to be singled out.

It’s also teamwork that reunites a baby with the family that accidentally left her behind at a rest stop.  Ponch and Baker are the ones who take the baby to the station and they’re the ones who nickname the baby “Princess” and buy her toys but, in the end, it’s the entire Highway Patrol working together that eventually brings the baby back to her grateful parents.

Baker and Ponch do get a moment in the spotlight when a skydiver ends up getting tangled up and hanging from a highway overpass.  Baker is the one who grabs hold of her legs to keep her from falling while Ponch is the one who recruits a crane to help rescue her.  But again, Baker and Ponch are not working alone.  Instead, there are other motorists who help out, some by holding onto Baker and another by allowing Ponch to use his crane.

My point is that this episode was all about people working together to make the world a better and a safer place.  That’s not a bad message and the show delivers it with a good deal of sincerity.  With the exception of the scenery-chewing Marjorie Bennett, everyone is on their best behavior with this episode, with even Erik Estrada toning down his usual overacting.  And, of course, there’s two exciting motorcycle chases, both of which are very well-filmed.  There was nothing particularly amazing about this episode.  It was pretty much a typical hour of CHiPs but it was still very well-done.

Next week, Ponch and Baker have an important lesson to teach about hitchhiking!

A Blast From The Past: The Fourth Man (dir by Joanna Lee)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s Blast From The Past comes to us from 1990 and it’s a scary one.

In The Fourth Man, Peter Billingsley (yes, the kid from A Christmas Story) plays Joey Martelli, an insecure high schooler who thinks that he’ll be more attractive to girls if he becomes more like his best friend, friendly jock Steve Guarino (Vince Vaughn, making his film debut and already physically towering over everyone else in the cast).  With Steve’s encouragement, Joey tries out for the track team and, to everyone’s surprise, he makes it!

Joey is now an athlete.  He finally has friends.  Girls (including Nicole Eggert) are talking to him.  His father (Tim Rossovich) is finally proud of him.  But Joey soon discovers that staying on the track team is not an easy task.  His coach tells Joey that he has to pick up his speed.  Feeling desperate, Joey does what so many other television teenagers before him have done.  He starts taking steroids!  (Dramatic music cue!)  Soon, the kid from A Christmas Story is breaking out in pimples, throwing temper tantrums, and becoming a rage-fueled monster!  Joey only took the steroids because he wanted to be as cool as Steve but, unfortunatey, Joey learns too late that Steve’s success and popularity are not due to how big and strong he is but to the fact that he is played by a young Vince Vaughn.

(Myself, I was fortunate enough to go to a high school where the emphasis was placed more on the arts and intellectual pursuits than athletic success.  My school didn’t even have its own football field.  We had to share with the high school down the street!  Anyway, as a result, I don’t think knew anyone in high school who was abusing steroids and I never had to deal with anyone suddenly flying into a rage and punching a hole in a wall or any of the other stuff that always happens whenever anyone abuses steroids on television.)

The Fourth Man was written and directed by Joanna Lee, who is perhaps best known for playing Tanna the Alien in Ed Wood’s Plan Nine From Outer Space.  (Lee, it should be noted, had a very long and respected career as a writer and director of television dramas.  In many ways, she had the career that Ed Wood imagined that he would someday have.)  Along with Billingsley and Vaughn, the cast includes horror mainstay Adrienne Barbeau as Joey’s mother and football player-turned-horror-actor Lyle Alzado as a man who has his own history with steroids.  The film has good intentions and a good message about not taking shortcuts and being happy with who you are but I imagine that most people will just want to watch it to see Peter Billingsley descend into roid rage.  And I will say that, for all the film’s melodrama, there is something a little bit disturbing about watching fresh-faced Peter Billingsley turn into a physically aggressive bully.

From October of 1990 (and complete with the commercials than ran during the program’s first broadcast), here is The Fourth Man.

Horror on the Lens: Hands of a Stranger (dir by Newt Arnold)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

After concert pianist Vernon Paris (James Stapleton) loses his hands in an auto accident, he is the recipient of a double hand transplant.  Unfortunately, Vernon isn’t happy with having a stranger’s hands and he fears that he’ll never be able to play the piano again.  Even worse, he soon becomes convinced that the hands are evil and are trying to force him to commit murders.

But is it the hands or Vernon’s own unstable mind that’s responsible his actions?

This 1962 horror film was the fourth adaptation of the Maurice Renard’s The Hands of Orlac.  As opposed to other film adaptations of Renard’s novel, Hands of Stranger plays up the ambiguity of whether the recipient of the hands is truly possessed or if he’s just using the hands as an excuse to indulge in his dark side.

Enjoy!