Retro Television Reviews: The Master 1.8 “The Good, the Bad, and the Priceless”

Posted on June 30, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing The Master, which ran on NBC from January to August of 1984. The show can be found on Tubi!

This week, The Master goes to New York City!

Episode 1.8 “The Good, the Bad, and the Priceless”

(Dir by Michael Caffey, originally aired on March 23rd, 1984)

This week’s episode of The Master asks us to consider just how needlessly complicated an hour’s worth of entertainment can be.

John Peter McAllister (Lee Van Cleef) and Max Keller (Timothy Van Patten) are in New York City! Apparently, McAllister was flipping through a magazine when he came across an advertisement featuring a picture of his long-lost daughter, Terri. The agency responsible for the ad is headquartered in New York. McAllister is excited about the prospect of finally tracking down his daughter. Max is a little sad because he knows that McAllister won’t need him after he finds Terri. And Cat Sinclair (Tara Buckman) is just along for the ride….

Who is Cat Sinclair? She was introduced last episode as a love interest for Max. This episode tests Cat as a third member of the regular cast. Unfortunately, since Cat isn’t a ninja, she doesn’t really got to do much in the episode, other than stand in the background and roll her eyes whenever Max makes one of his terrible jokes. At one point, McAllister mentions that Max has a bit of a crush on Cat but we don’t really see much evidence of it. If anything, both McAllister and Max seem to go out of their way to ignore her.

Anyway, it turns out that the modeling agency is surprisingly willing to give out the home phone numbers of its models. They also have no problem telling McAllister, Max, and Cat that Terri has been booked as a model at a private fashion show being put on by Simon Garrett (George Maharis).

However, what neither McAllister nor Simon Garrett realize is that the woman who shows up at the fashion show and introduces herself as Terri McAllister is not Terri at all but is instead an FBI agent named Gina (Janine Turner), who bears a passing resemblance to Terri as long as she’s wearing a brunette wig. Simon Garrett is not only a fashion designer but he’s also an international criminal. Gina shows up (as Terri) at the fashion show and tries to search Garrett’s office. When Garrett’s security goons discover her, her life is saved by McAllister and Max, who both believe her to be Terri.

(How exactly McAllister, Max, and Cat managed to crash Garrett’s exclusive and private fashion show is not discussed.)

Gina continues to pretend to be Terri so that she can convince McAllister to help her figure out what Garrett’s current scheme is. Meanwhile, Garrett recognizes McAllister as an American ninja so he arranges for his men to kidnap Gina (who, again, everyone thinks is Terri). He threatens to kill Gina/Terri unless McAllister uses his ninja powers to break into the Brooklyn Museum of Art and steal the Crown Jewels of England. McAllister agrees to do so, which leads to an extended sequence of Lee Van Cleef’s stunt double avoiding the security lasers by doing elaborate back flips. Timothy Van Patten’s stunt double then does the exact same back flips. Who knew that stealing the Crown Jewels would be so simple?

As you can probably guess, this all leads to all the stunt doubles getting into a fight at Garrett’s office. Garrett is arrested. The crown jewels are recovered. Both McAllister and Max turn out to be surprisingly understanding about Gina having lied to them. One would think that McAllister, who is essentially being hunted a ninja assassins because he came to America to find his daughter, would be a bit more upset over having his emotions so blatantly manipulated but McAllister actually appears to be amused by the whole thing. Again, it’s hard not to suspect that finding Terri is not really as big a thing to McAllister as Max seems to believe it to be.

This is one of those episodes where everything was dependent upon everyone else being an idiot. These are typically my least favorite episodes of any show and that’s the case here. It’s kind of a shame because Lee Van Cleef and Timothy Van Patten both had some good moments in this episode. The scenes where Max talked about how much he’s going to miss McAllister after they find Terri actually did have some emotional heft but it wasn’t enough to make up for the episode’s missteps. I will admit that I smiled a bit at a subplot about an ad guy who wanted McAllister to put on a cowboy outfit and pose for a series of deodorant ads. McAllister took one look at the outfit and said, “I would never wear that.” Oh yes, you would, Van Cleef!

Next week: Okasa returns!

Retro Television Reviews: The Master 1.7 “Juggernaut”

Posted on June 23, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Lee Van Cleef gets a chance to show off what he can do!

Episode 1.7 “Juggernaut”

(Dir by Gordon Hessler, originally aired on March 16th, 1984)

This week’s episode of The Master opens with Max’s totally groovy van driving across what appears to be farmland. Judging from the mountains in the background, it appears that they are back in California. (If they did mention their specific location during this episode, I missed it.) Last week, as you may remember, Max and McAllister were looking for McAllister’s daughter in Louisiana. Now, they’re apparently just hanging out in California again. It’s odd that McAllister left behind his life in Japan so that he could come to America to find his daughter but, now that he’s actually in America, there doesn’t really seem to be any sense of urgency when it comes to actually tracking her down.

Inside the van, McAllister informs Max that he’s concerned about the way that Max is always losing his temper and starting fights. Max promises that there will be no more unprovoked fights on his part. When they stop in front of a local bar, Max says he’s going to get a beer but he also promises McAllister that he will not be getting tossed through the bar’s window.

Five minutes later:

Now, in all fairness, it isn’t totally Max’s fault that he got thrown through that window. Max went in the bar and saw Alan Kane (veteran TV and movie bad guy William Smith) harassing Cat Sinclair (Tara Buckman). When Max told Alan to back off, Alan challenged Max to a fight. Max was forced to explain that he’s not allowed to fight. Cat rolled her eyes and then Alan tossed Max through the window. Seeing that his protegee is in trouble, McAllister enters the bar, beats up Alan, and saves Max and Cat.

Even though Cat is not impressed with Max’s refusal to fight, she still gets in his van and allows him to give her a ride home. It turns out that Cat and her mother, Maggie (Diana Muldaur), are farmers but an evil land baron named Hellman (Stuart Whitman) is trying to intimidate them off their land. Alan works for Hellman and, because of him and his thugs, none of the farmers have been able to get their crops to market.

Both Cat and Maggie refuse to accept any help from Max and McAllister so our heroes get back in their totally happening van and try to leave town. However, when one of Hellman’s truckers runs the love van off the road, the engine is damaged and the local mechanic informs Max that it will take 48 hours to fix it. Stranded in town, Max searches for proof that Hellman’s trucker was the one who ran them off the road. Meanwhile, McAllister returns to the farm and, turning on some of that Lee Van Cleef charm, proceeds to fall in love with Maggie.

If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because, with the exception of McAllister falling in love, it’s pretty much the same thing that happened in not only the first episode but also the third episode. Max and McAllister have an uncanny talent for randomly wandering into towns that are controlled by evil businessmen. Just as the first and third episodes featured Max giving impassioned speeches about the rights of the workers, this episode features McAllister giving a speech at a meeting in a barn.

While McAllister is giving his speech, Max is getting arrested for snooping around Hellman’s property. Fortunately, McAllister puts on a fake beard and breaks him out of jail. McAllister then directs the farmers to form a convoy and to work together to get their crops to market. Though Alan attempts to set off a bunch of explosives on the way, McAllister uses a cropduster to fool Alan into setting off the explosions early. Then, Lee Van Cleef’s stunt double beats up Hellman. McAllister and Max congratulate each other on a job well done.

Having saved the farmers and beaten up the bad guys, it’s time for Max and McAllister to once again continue their journey across America. McAllister may love Maggie but he still needs to (eventually) find his daughter so he gets in the Chevy van and waves goodbye.

As I said before, this episode felt very familiar. It’s probably not a good sign that, after just seven episodes, The Master was pretty much repeating itself. That said, the episode did feature the great William Smith playing yet another rural bully and Stuart Whitman always made for a convincing villain. With Max sidelined by McAllister’s demand that he stop fighting, Lee Van Cleef got his moment to shine in this episode. He was obviously frail, making it all the more obvious that his fight scenes involved a stunt man, but Van Cleef still got a chance to show off some of his old school movie star charisma.

Next week: The Master steals the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom! …. sure, why not?

Retro Television Reviews: The Master 1.6 “Fat Tuesday”

Posted on June 16, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After spending last week in Las Vegas, John Peter McAllister (Lee Van Cleef) and Max Keller (Tim Van Patten) drive Max’s van across the country in search of McAllister’s daughter.

Episode 1.6 “Fat Tuesday”

(Dir by Sidney Hayes, originally aired on March 9th, 1984)

This episode opens not with a scene of Max Keller in training but instead with Okasa (Sho Kosugi) visiting a dojo in Las Vegas. The master of the dojo explains that he does know where John Peter McAllister is but that he will not tell Okasa because he is not sure that Okasa is actually a former student of McAllister’s. Okasa responds by 1) fighting every student at the dojo and 2) proving that, unlike Lee Van Cleef, Sho Kosugi didn’t need a stunt double for his scenes. Having proven that he trained under the legendary McAllister, Okasa is informed that McAllister and Max Keller are in New Orleans.

That’s right! This week, we’re in the Big Easy!

Of course, any show that takes place in New Orleans has to take place during Mardi Gras. This episode is full of stock footage of the Mardi Gras celebrations but, at the same time, we never see McAllister or Max taking part in any of them. In fact, other than a trip to a jazz club and a fight on a dock, McAllister and Max do very little that one would normally expect to see a visitor doing in New Orleans. New Orleans is one of the most distinctive city in the U.S. but, in this episode of The Master, it might as well be Houston.

McAllister and Max are in New Orleans because a reporter named Eve Michaels (Susan Kase) has been writing a series of stories about how a wealthy businessman named Beaumont (Robert Pine) has been smuggling drugs into the city and selling weapons to Middle Eastern terror groups. In her stories, Eve claims that her source is named Terri McAllister. Could Eve’s source also be John Peter McAllister’s daughter?

Eve, The Reporter

No, she’s not. However, it’s not just a case of mistaken identity. As Eve eventually confesses to Max, Terri McAllister is a name that she assigned to a source that she made up. It turns out that Eve never had a source for her stories about Beaumont but apparently, Beaumont is such a shady character that it was easy for Eve to imagine what Beaumont was probably doing. Because Eve’s made-up story was too close to the truth, Beaumont kidnapped and killed Eve’s friend. That just made Eve even more determined to make up additional lies, all of which turned out to be true. As crazy as that sounds, what’s even crazier is that neither McAllister nor Max are particularly upset to discover that they’re no closer to finding the real Terri. Indeed, McAllister seems to find the whole thing rather amusing which makes me wonder if he really cares about Terri or not.

Beaumont, the bad guy

Of course, Max and McAllister are also busy proving the Beaumont is a criminal. They crash Beaumont’s Mardi Gras party. McAllister wears his ninja costume. Max dresses up like a …. well, I guess he’s supposed to be a pirate.

Okasa also shows up at the party, also dressed as a ninja. In fact, this episode’s saving grace is that it features more of Okasa (and Sho Kosugi’s determined performance in the role) than any episode so far. Not only do McAllister and Okasa fight at the party but they have a later confrontation at a park. What’s interesting about this scene is that McAllister isn’t in his ninja uniform so Lee Van Cleef’s stunt double was required to put on a really phony looking bald cap for the fight scenes. Needless to say, the fight scenes are filmed in long shot and McAllister never faces the camera.

Along with fighting Okasa, McAllister also faces off against two of Beaumont’s men. In this fight scene, Van Cleef is actually shown throwing a punch and kick but he does so in slow motion and we don’t really see him making contact with anyone.

Oh, Lee!

This was a fairly generic episode. The most disappointing thing about it is that it didn’t really have any New Orleans flair to it. As well, the plot depended on a huge amount of coincidence and character stupidity. (Just imagine if Beaumont had just threatened to sue Eve for libel, as opposed to sending his hired goons to kidnap her.) Lee Van Cleef came across as being a bit tired and cranky in this episode. To his credit, Tim Van Patten tried to inject some energy and some humor with his pirate disguise. It didn’t work but at least he tried.

Next week: Max and McAllister take on an evil trucking company!

Retro Television Reviews: The Master 1.5 “High Rollers”

Posted on June 9, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Viva Las Vegas!

Episode 1.5 “High Rollers”

(Dir by Peter Crane, originally aired on March 2nd, 1984)

“Hi, I’m Max Keller….”

This week’s episode The Master opens with Max (Timothy Van Patten) and McAllister (Lee Van Cleef) standing on top of a mountain in the Nevada desert. McAllister explains to Max that a ninja will sometimes be required to quickly descend from a roof or a cliff to the ground below. (Uhmmm …. okay.) McAllister has Max rappel down the side of the mountain. Though hesitant at first, Max does so and reaches the ground fairly quickly. However, before Max can brag too much on himself, he discovers that McAllister is already down there, waiting for him.

“Expect the unexpected,” McAllister explains.

I already mentioned this last week but I can’t help but feel that Max’s “ninja training” is mostly just McAllister amusing himself by seeing how far he can push his student.

Weekly ninja training completed, it’s time for Max and McAllister to drive to …. VEGAS, BABY!

That’s right! In this episode, Max and McAllister visit the ultimate American playground, Las Vegas. Of course, there’s a long history of movies and television shows being filmed in Vegas. In many ways, Las Vegas is the epitome of American ingenuity, a glitzy playground that has been built in an otherwise inhospitable desert. Many great directors — from Martin Scorsese to Francis Ford Coppola to David Lynch to Paul Schrader — have found their inspiration in Las Vegas’s unique aesthetic.

Unfortunately, the Las Vegas that we see in The Master seems to be incredibly tacky. There’s very little of the glitz and glamour that we typically associate with Las Vegas. Instead, the action takes place in one rather dingy hotel and casino, the place where it looks like a month’s worth of chewing gum has been hidden under the tables and smashed into the carpet. A group of thieves, led by the mysterious Blake (Art Hindle), are planning on forcing a showgirl named Tracy (Terri Treas) into helping them rob the hotel. Tracy happens to be Max’s former girlfriend and, in fact, she’s the whole reason that he’s visiting Las Vegas in the first place.

Blake’s plan to rob the casino is ludicrously complicated. Basically, his plan rests on convincing Tracy to flirt with the owner of the hotel and to convince him to invite her up to his room for a drink. In the owner’s room, Tracy is to drug his drink and then, when he’s passed out, she’s supposed to steal his keys. In order to make sure that she does this, Blake kidnaps her annoying 12 year-old daughter, Suzie (Angela Lee Sloan).

While Tracy is drugging the owner of the hotel, a bomb is set to explode at the nearby power station. With all of Vegas plunged into darkness, it will be all the easier for Blake’s men to shoot tear gas into the casino. While everyone’s disorientated, Blake will open the casino’s safe and then he and his associates will head to an abandoned western movie set in the middle of the desert. From there, they will wait for the arrival of a helicopter that will take them to safety.

I mean, seriously, what happened to the concept of keeping things simple? Blake’s plan is dependent on so many things happens at the exact right moment that there’s no way any halfway intelligent criminal would have agreed to have been a part of it. Along with all of the obvious things that could go wrong, Blake also has failed to take into account that he might be followed to the old west town by a ninja and his idiot sidekick.

Which is pretty much what happens. McAllister and Max show up at about the same time as the helicopter.

This leads to an elaborate fight in the old west town. On the one hand, it’s a nice homage to Lee Van Cleef’s days as a spaghetti western star. At once point, McAllister even tells Max that he feels oddly at home in the old west town. “I always wanted to be a cowboy,” McAllister says. On the other hand, it’s also pretty obvious that all of the action sequences and fight scenes feature not Lee Van Cleef but Lee Van Cleef’s much less stocky stunt double. That takes away from the excitement of seeing Van Cleef return to his roots.

That said, there is a cool moment where Van Cleef’s stunt double jumps over the helicopter.

One of the good things about this episode is that we did learn a few new details about Max and McAllister’s relationship. For instance, when Max wants to beat up Blake’s men, McAllister warns Max that he’s allowing his temper to control him. Later, Max has an epiphany in which he realizes that, unlike Blake’s men, he could never bring himself to kill someone. It’s actually a nicely human moment and it took me by surprise. It’s a moment that suggests that The Master perhaps had higher ambitions than just being a typical action show.

We also learned a little more about Max’s backstory. As he tells Tracy, his mother and his brother were both killed in a plane crash and he and his father had a falling out shortly afterwards. Max says that he doesn’t know where his father is. When Max says that, his relationship with McAllister suddenly makes a lot more sense. Max puts up with McAllister because he’s looking for a new father figure. That said, I’m still pretty sure that most of McAllister’s training exercises are just McAllister’s way of amusing himself at Max’s expense.

While I appreciated all of that, this episode was a bit too messy to really work. The casino stuff was difficult to follow and, as I mentioned before, Blake’s big scheme was a bit too big for its own good. I did like the fight scenes in the old west town but, unfortunately, the episode was nearly finished by the time that McAllister and Max arrived. This episode had a lot of potential but it still felt like it was never as good as it could have been.

Next week: Max and McAllister hit up New Orleans! Mardi Gras, baby!

Retro Television Reviews: The Master 1.4 “Hostages”

Posted on June 2, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, The Master teams up with an old enemy.

Episode 1.4 “Hostages”

(Dir by Ray Austin, originally aired on February 10th, 1984)

“Hi, I’m Max Keller….”

This episode of The Master opens with Max (Timothy Van Patten) flying high above California in a motorized hang glider. Apparently, this is the latest part of Max’s ninja training, though I have to wonder where the hang glider came from and whether or not being able to use a hang glider is a specific ninja skill. The more I think about it, the more it seems that McAllister (Lee Van Cleef) is just leading Max on for his own amusement.

Max spots a woman (Jennifer Runyon, who later took over the role of Marcia Brady in A Very Brady Christmas) who is sitting behind the wheel of an out-of-control car. Apparently, the brakes have failed and the car will soon careen over the side of a cliff! Max swoops down and rescues the woman, minute before her car crashes and explodes.

The woman is Alice Clayton, the extremely talkative daughter of U.S. Senator Sam Clayton (Robert Dowdell). Don’t worry, no one was trying to kill her. The brakes just failed on their own. A grateful Alice invites Max and McAllister to come to a party that the senator is throwing at his hillside mansion.

Soon, Max and McAllister are wearing tuxedos and hanging out at the party. A CIA agent named Malory (one-time Bond star, George Lazenby) recognizes McAllister and accuses him of running a “subversive ninja school.” Meanwhile, by an amazing coincidence, Okasa (Sho Kosugi) — McAllister’s former student who has taken a vow to kill him — also happens to be at the party. He even takes the time to throw a ninja star at McAllister.

But that’s not all! The party is also crashed by a group of terrorists, lead by Serena (Randi Brooks) and Castile (David McCallum). The terrorists kidnaps Alice, her father, and the wives of several European diplomats. The head of the CIA (Monte Markham) orders McAllister and Malory to set aside their differences and to rescue the hostages. Max also decides to help which means that the hang glider makes another appearance as Max soars above the terrorist compound.

Lee Van Cleef’s stunt double gets quite a workout in this episode of The Master. Not only do Okasa and McAllister have a brief fight but McAllister also gets to take on an entire compound full of terrorists. Of course, McAllister wears his full of ninja uniform while doing all of this, all the better to hopefully keep us from noticing that Lee Van Cleef isn’t the one doing all of the kicking and hitting. And I will say that, in this episode, the fights were fairly well-done. The plot was predictable but the fights were probably about as exciting as you could hope from a network television show that aired in the 80s.

Other than the fights, the best thing about this episode was the chance to see George Lazenby playing a character who was Bond in everything but the name. Lazenby himself has said that one of the reasons he struggled with the role of James Bond was because he was too young when he starred in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. In this episode of The Master, Lazenby is older and a bit more weathered and he’s totally believable as a spy who is tough but who still enjoys the better things in life. As well, David McCallum does a good job as the cynical terrorist, though his character isn’t really given much to do.

I actually kind of enjoyed this episode of The Master. As opposed to the previous three episodes, it focused on the action and it didn’t really have any slow spots. It was a fun episode.

Retro Television Reviews: The Master 1.3 “State of the Union”

Posted on May 26, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, The Master stands up for the working man!

Episode 1.3 “State of the Union”

(Dir by Alan Myerson, originally aired on February 3rd, 1984)

“Hi, I’m Max Keller and this is how I start my morning.”

So begins yet another episode of The Master! This time, McAllister (Lee Van Cleef) is forcing Max (Timothy Van Patten) to start his day by running. McAllister says that it’s a part of Max’s ninja training but I think it’s more a case of McAllister just seeing how many stupid things he can force Max to do before Max says, “Enough!”

This week finds Max and McAllister in Clearwater, California. In order to make a little money, Max enters a dirt bike race. It turns out that Max is very well-known on the dirt bike circuit and he even runs into an old friend named Hog (Mickey Jones) at the race. Hog only shows up for a few minutes. He shakes Max’s hand, jokes about the fact that Max is traveling with a hamster and a weird old man, and then he pretty much disappears from the episode.

McAllister watches the race while stroking Max’s pet hamster.

Try to get that image out of your head.

Anyway, Max does not win the race. Instead, the race is won by Carrie Brown (Crystal Bernard). At the finish line, Carrie is nearly run over by one her competitors, Chad Webster (Cotter Smith). Chad is the son of the owner of the local cannery. It turns out that Carrie also works at the cannery. Max takes an immediate liking to Carrie and decides that he should also get a job at the cannery.

McAllister points out that Carrie is attractive. Max replies, “Does your ninja training make you immune to such things?” McAllister shrugs. It’s kind of an odd scene.

Anyway, at the cannery, Max quickly learns that there’s more to Carrie than just 80s hair and dirt bike racing. Carrie is also a union organizer! She’s carrying on her late brother’s dream of unionizing the cannery. This largely means handing out flyers and encouraging people to go to a meeting.

How bad are things at the cannery? They’re so bad that an older worker gets crushed by a palette. Fortunately, McAllister and Max show up just in time to help out. Through the use of one of his magic throwing ticks, McAllister is able to send the palette crashing into the ocean. While Max proceeds to flirt with Carrie, attentive viewers will see the worker — who is now probably crippled for life — being carried away in the background. Despite having saved the guy’s life, neither Max nor McAllister ever ask about him again.

Anyway, you know where all this is heading. Carrie wants to unionize the workers. Chad and his buddies try to intimidate the workers into not joining the union. At a meeting at the local church, Max gives a speech about how the workers have to get organized. There are plenty of fights and car chases and yet another bar brawl. That Max just can’t say out of trouble!

McAllister also joins Max on the dirt bike so that he can throw ninja stars at the bad guys. This leads to some pretty bad rear projection shots.

In the end, Chad is revealed to have murdered Carrie’s brother. The cannery votes to unionize and Max and McAllister promptly leave town because even they know better than to work at a union shop. Though it’s not specifically stated, I imagine that the cannery probably closed two months and Carrie ended up following in the lead footsteps of Jimmy Hoffa.

This episode was a bit silly, largely because neither perky Crystal Bernard nor perpetually mush-mouth Tim Van Patten were believable as firebrand labor activists. Lee Van Cleef seemed to be largely bored with the whole thing. Fortunately, next week’s episode features a guest appearance from George Lazenby so maybe that will liven things up on The Master.

We’ll find out soon!

Retro Television Reviews: The Master 1.2 “Out-of-Time Step”

Posted on May 19, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The adventures of John Peter McAllister and Max Keller continue!

That’s right, the search for McAllister’s daughter is still on and Max is still learning how to be a ninja. But, before we get to their latest adventure, it’s time to enjoy the opening credits!

Episode 1.2 “Out-of-Time Step”

(Dir by Ray Austin, originally aired on January 27th, 1984)

“Hi, I’m Max Keller and this is how I spend my mornings….” Max Keller tells us in voice over as we watch footage of Max (Timothy Van Patten) balancing on a rope that’s been tied between two trees. Yes, Max is still our narrator and John Peter McAllister (Lee Van Cleef) is still training him to become a ninja. Max is also still traveling in his van and with his hamster.

At the end of the previous episode, Max and McAllister were heading down to Atlanta to search for McAllister’s daughter. At the start of this episode, we discover that they are in San Francisco, investigating a lead that McAllister’s daughter may have danced at a club called Truffles. So, did they go to Atlanta or did they just change their mind and decide to stick around California? More to the point, did NBC say, “Hey, we’re not paying for you people to go out of state?”

Anyway, Truffles turns out to be a club that’s owned by Charlie Patterson (Charles Collins), a former film star who has fallen on hard times. (Charles Collins was a real-life dancer and when Patterson watches footage of a screen test that his character supposedly did for a Hollywood production, the footage is actually of Collins performing in a 1936 film called Dancing Pirate.) Patterson has two daughters. Kelly (Shanna Reed) is a dancer who thrills the club’s patrons every time she steps out onto the stage. The other, Jill (Lori Lethin), uses a wheelchair. Jill tells Charlie that he’s “an ex-hoofer with two daughters, one who wheels and one who does cartwheels.”

Upon arriving at Truffles, Max and McAllister discover that Charlie is being intimidated by Chinatown gangster, Johnny Chan (Brian Toshi) and Chan’s main enforcer, Mr. Lika (Soon-Tek Oh). Mr. Lika spots McAllister’s medallion and realizes that McAllister is a trained ninja. McAllister spots Mr. Lika’s ring and realizes that Mr. Lika is a member of the Yakuza. This establishes a mutual respect between the two of them, one that inevitably leads to a final battle between Soon-Tek Oh and Lee Van Cleef’s stunt double.

Of course, McAllister does more than just fight Mr. Lika. He also encourages Jill to stand up from her wheelchair and take a few steps. And when Johnny Chan has Kelly kidnapped, he and Max rescue her. (But not before Johnny shouts at her, “You’re a dancer! DANCE!”) It leads to a lot of action scenes but it doesn’t bring them any closer to McAllister’s daughter.

This episode wasn’t bad, largely because Soon-Tek Oh and Lee Van Cleef got a chance to face off. Even if all of the actual fighting was done by Van Cleef’s stunt double, it’s still undeniably fun to watch these two icons glare at each other and exchange tough guy dialogue. Plus, there was a lot of dancing! I always appreciate any show that finds room for more than one dance number, even if they are obviously lifted from Flashdance.

As I mentioned earlier, this episode ended with McAllister and Max nowhere close to finding McAllister’s daughter. But Max promised that they could keep looking. I’m sure they’ll find her. It’s not like America is that big.

Retro Television Reviews: The Master 1.1 “Max”

Posted on May 12, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

My original plan was to follow-up Half Nelson by reviewing Freddy’s Nightmares. Unfortunately, Freddy’s Nightmares has been removed from Tubi and it’s not currently streaming anywhere else. Hopefully, some other site will soon feature it or it will eventually return to Tubi and I’ll be able to review the show in the future.

While I was looking for another show to review, I came across The Master. The Master ran for 13 episodes in 1984. It featured Lee Van Cleef as John Peter McAllister, a ninja traveling across America and searching for his daughter. Helping out McAllister is Max Keller, a young drifter who owns a groovy van and who is played by Timothy Van Patten. (Van Patten, who has since become a much in-demand director, is probably best known for playing Stegman in Class of 1984.) Since The Master had a short run and everyone loves ninjas, I decided to add it to our retro television schedule!

Episode 1.1 “Max”

(Dir by Robert Clouse, originally aired on January 20th, 1984)

“My name’s Max Keller and this is how I usually leave a bar.”

So opens the first episode of The Master. The voice over is courtesy Max Keller (Timothy Van Patten), a young drifter who drives across America in a van with a pet hamster named Henry as his main companion. And the way that Max usually leaves a bar is through the front window. In this case, Max is tossed through a window by a bunch of bikers. Max responds by sabotaging all of their bikes so, when they try to chase after him as he drives off in his van, all of the bikers are thrown from their bike and onto the hard pavement of the road. I would think that this would kill most of the bikers but Max doesn’t seem to be too concerned about that. Instead, he just has a good laugh as he drives away. Oh, Max!

Meanwhile, in Japan, John Peter McAllister (Lee Van Cleef), “the man who would change my life,” (to quote Max’s voiceover) is preparing to return to America for the first time in years. McAllister moved to Japan after World War II and is the only American to have been trained in the ninja arts. (Why the ninjas would be so eager to train an American after the way World War II ended is not explained.) McAllister has just found out that he has a daughter who he has never met. (How did he find out? Again, it’s not explained.) He wants to return home so that he can find her. However, Osaka (Sho Kosugi), a former student of McAllister’s, is determined to kill him for breaking the ninja code. McAllister manages to escape Japan with only a slight wound courtesy of a throwing star. Osaka decides to follow him.

Back in America, a young woman named Holly Trumbull (a very young Demi Moore) runs out into the middle of a country highway and is nearly run over by Max. Max stops his van just in time and offers Holly a ride. It turns out that Holly is being pursued by the evil Sheriff Kyle (Bill McKinney). She explains that Sheriff Kyle tried to rape her, which is information that Max just kind of shrugs off. He manages to outrun the Sheriff and takes Holly back to the airport that is managed by her father, Mr. Trumbull (Claude Akins).

Max apparently (I say apparently because the episode’s editing is so ragged that it’s often difficult to tell how much time has passed from one scene to the next) spends a few days working at the airport and trying to date Holly. When he attempts to give Holly a kiss, she backs away from him and explains that she’s still not comfortable with being kissed after nearly being raped the town’s sheriff. “I’m sorry,” she says. Max, being a bit of a jerk, gets annoyed and says, “That makes three of us. Henry was just starting to like you.” After saying that he’s going to go somewhere to see if “my luck improves,” he goes to the local bar to unwind.

Also at the bar is John Peter McAllister! McAllister knows that his daughter came through Mr. Trumbull’s airport and he wants to show her picture to the people in the bar. For some reason, the bartender doesn’t want him to do that. When Sheriff Kyle, who is also in the bar, discovers that McAllister is carrying a samurai sword in his suitcase, the sheriff tries to arrest him. When a bar fight breaks out, Max fights alongside McAllister and they even manage to steal the sword back from the sheriff. Bonded by combat, Max and McAllister become fast friends. Before you know it, Max is agreeing to drive McAllister across the country as long as McAllister trains Max how to be a ninja.

But first, an evil developer named Mr. Christensen (Clu Gulager) is determined to run the Turnbulls off their land. After Christensen is not moved by an impassioned speech by Max and instead tries to blow up the airport, it’s time for Max and McAllister to invade Christensen’s office and fight a bunch of guards. Osaka also shows up at the office so we get a lengthy fight scene between Sho Kosugi and Lee Van Cleef’s stunt double. (McAllister dons his head-to-do ninja costume before doing any fighting, so we don’t actually see his face while he’s doing in any of his amazing ninja moves.) While Osaka and McAllister are fighting, Max defeats Christensen by throwing a ninja star at him and hitting him in the chest. I would think that would be murder but who knows. Maybe the blade narrowly missed Christensen’s heart and he was just unconscious. Or maybe Max’s just a sociopath.

Somehow, this leads to the Turnbulls getting to keep the airport. McAllister and Max drive off together, in search of America.

What a messy episode! Obviously, this episode had to get a lot done in just 48 minutes. It had to introduce Max and McAllister, it had to explain why they were traveling together, and it also had to give them an adventure. I guess I shouldn’t feel surprised that the episode felt a bit rushed but still, there were so many unanswered questions. For instance, why is Max driving across the country in a van? How did McAllister find out that he had a daughter? Why didn’t he know that he had a daughter before hand? Did McAllister’s daughter actually come through the town or not? How did Osaka track down McAllister? Where did Max learn to fight before he met McAllister? Why is McAllister so quick to agree to take Max under his wing? Why is Max so quick to drive a strange old man across the country?

As for the cast, Lee Van Cleef appears to be a bit frail in the role of McAllister. (He would died 5 years after The Master went off the air.) Timothy Van Patten comes across as being bit manic as Max. Personally, I would be worried about getting into a van with Max because he doesn’t really seem to have much impulse control. As for the guest cast, Demi Moore gives a strong performance as Holly but the character vanishes from the episode after finally giving Max a kiss. Claude Akins and Clu Gulager only get a few minutes of screentime and are both stuck with stock roles. Akin is the honest working man while Gulager is the corrupt businessman. Billl McKinny is properly hissable as the bully of a sheriff. And Sho Kosugi looks annoyed with the whole thing.

The first episode was not that promising but who knows! Maybe the show will improve as it goes along. We’ll find out next week!

Ride Lonesome (1959, directed by Budd Boetticher)

Posted on February 1, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

In the western Ride Lonesome, Randolph Scott plays Ben Brigade. Brigade is a bounty hunter. The only thing that really differentiates him from the outlaws that he captures is that he gets paid for what he does. When Brigade arrests a young outlaw named Billy John (James Best), he gives Billy just enough time to send word to his older brother, Frank (Lee Van Cleef). And when Brigade starts to lead Billy John back to the town of Santa Cruz, he takes his time and fails to cover his tracks, almost as if he is intentionally making time for Frank to eventually catch up to him. Along the way, Brigade meets up with three others, a woman named Carrie (Karen Steele) and two outlaws named Boone (Pernell Roberts) and Whit (James Coburn). Carrie is searching for her husband while Boone and Whit want to arrest Billy John themselves so that they can turn him in and get a pardon for their own crimes.

Ride Lonesome is one of the best of the many films that Randolph Scott made with director Budd Boetticher. Boetticher specialized in making fast-paced westerns that had deceptively simple plots. Nobody in a Boetticher western was totally good or totally bad and that’s certainly the case with Ride Lonesome, which may seem like a typical western but which is actually a character study of 6 very different people. Brigade is often only the hero by default and his actions are often as ruthless as those of the men who are tracking him. It’s only after he meets and gets to know Carrie that he starts to seriously consider that his plans could lead to innocent people getting hurt. Billy John may be a wanted killer but, underneath his bravado, he’s just someone trying to live up to his brother’s example. Meanwhile, Boone and Whit may be outlaws but they turn out to be the most morally upright characters in the film. Ride Lonesome takes a serious look at frontier justice and suggests that maybe black-and-white morality isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.

Needless to say, the cast is great. Randolph Scott was one of the great western heroes and Karen Steele, Pernell Roberts, Lee Van Cleef, and James Best all turn in memorable performances. Best of all is James Coburn, making his film debut and showing that, even at the start of his career, he was already the epitome of cool. Ride Lonesome is one of the best of of the Boetticher/Scott westerns and a true classic of the genre.

Scene That I Love: Lee Van Cleef Meets Klaus Kinski in For A Few Dollars More

Posted on January 9, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1925, on this very date, Lee Van Cleef was born in Somervillve, New Jersey. In honor of what would have been Lee Van Cleef’s 97th birthday, here he is with Klaus Kinski and Clint Eastwood in For A Few Dollars More.

There’s not a lot of dialogue in this scene but when you had actors like Eastwood, Kinski, and Lee Van Cleef, you didn’t need a lot of dialogue to make an impression.