Legal Eagle”

Posted on May 3, 2023 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 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!

This week, the Love Boat departs on one weird cruise.

Episode 2.12 “The Captain’s Cup / The Folks from Home / Legal Eagle”

(Dir by Alan Rafkin, originally aired on December 2nd, 1978)

This was a strange episode.

Let’s start with the simplest of our three stories first. Danny Holt (Bert Convy) is recently divorced and still crying over having to pay his wife alimony. When he boards the boat, he specifically asks Gopher if there are any single men onboard who might be interested in marrying his ex-wife. His ex isn’t even on the cruise! Danny is one bitter passenger. From the minute he boards the boat, he’s whining about how unfair his divorce was and how badly he was treated by his wife’s divorce lawyer, Ann Sterling (Leigh Taylor-Young).

Uh-oh, it turns out that Ann is one the cruise as well! And she’s been assigned to be Danny’s dinner companion. Danny isn’t happy about this but then, from out of seemingly nowhere, the two of them end of falling in love. It’s hard to say why they suddenly fall in love. Danny is superbitter over his divorce and Ann knows all of the details about what type of husband he was so it seems like the last thing that would ever happen would be them leaving the ship, arm-in-arm. But somehow, that’s what happens. It was a straight-forward story but it lacked any scenes that would have explained why the two of them fell in love. They just did because they were characters on The Love Boat. (It certainly wasn’t due to any noticeable romantic chemistry between Bert Convy and Leigh Taylor-Young.) This story felt lazy and generic.

In the episode’s second storyline, Captain Stubing is excited because he’s due to receive the Captain of the Year Cup. Diane DiMarzo (Florence Henderson, proving that former Bradys just cannot stay off The Love Boat) boards the ship with the Cup but she’s shocked to discover that 1) her boss — the guy who actually decided to give Stubing the Cup — will not be on the ship and 2) Stubing fully expects her boss to personally present him with the Cup. Now, I’m not really sure how the logic works here but apparently, Diane could lose her job if her boss isn’t there to give Stubing the cup. But why would that be Diane’s problem? She did what she was supposed to do. She boarded the ship with the Cup. Her boss is the one who decided not to show up and he is the boss so it’s not like there was anything Diane could have done about it.

Anyway, Diane recruits one of the ship’s handymen to pretend to be her boss. Though he works on the boat and the rest of the crew know him, it appears that the Captain himself has never met Hank Vosnik (Pat Harrington, Jr.), which kind of leads one to wonder if Stubing really deserves his award. Anyway, Hank falls in love with Diane and is crestfallen when she turns down his marriage proposal. (Seriously, at this point, they had only known each other for like three days so I’m not sure what Hank was expecting.) But, despite being turned down, Hank still pretends to be Diane’s boss. So, Diane decides that she might as well marry him. WHAT!?

Finally, Doc Bricker is happy to meet two passengers from his hometown. George (John McIntire) and Gloria (Jeanette Nolan) spend every moment with Doc and they even announce that, as far as they’re concerned, the 40-something Doc is a member of their family. Doc is touched. But then Gloria falls down a flight of stairs and Doc has to do emergency surgery on her. Gopher calls a doctor in San Francisco and he talks Doc through the surgery. Doc removes Gloria’s spleen and saves her life! Yay! Only at the end of the surgery does he get George to sign a consent form. In real life, that would lead to Doc to losing his job and the cruise line getting sued. But, on The Love Boat, it just leads to more laughter.

On the plus side, this storyline featured the charming performances of McIntire and Nolan, who were married in real life. The story was also written by Fred “Gopher” Grandy and Bernie “Doc” Kopell so, not surprisingly, it actually allowed Grandy and Kopell to do something more than just leer at the passengers. The show rarely gave Grandy or Kopell a chance to show off the fact that they were both capable of giving good dramatic performances so, whenever they got that rare chance to do so, they took advantage of it. That said, it was still a bit awkward to see Doc suddenly performing major surgery in his tiny examination room. It was all for the best on the show but, in real life, it would have led to a major lawsuit. Even though Doc Bricker saved Gloria’s life, it still seems like the ship could probably be held liable for her getting injured in the first place. I mean, the boat is in the middle of the ocean. Shouldn’t there at least be a warning posted on the stairs?

Well, who knows? Strange things happen at sea. Let’s just be happy that everything worked out in the end.

Retro Television Reviews: Fantasy Island 2.5 “I Want To Get Married/The Jewel Thief”

Posted on January 17, 2023 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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1986. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

We learn a little bit more about Fantasy Island in this week’s episode. It’s a strange place!

Episode 2.5 “I Want To Get Married/The Jewel Thief”

(Dir by George McGowan, originally aired on October 21st, 1978)

You know what the best thing about Fantasy Island is?

The Disco Dancing!

Cindy Barker (Meredith McRae) is a big fan of the disco dancing. That’s because her fantasy is to come to the island and meet the man that she’s going to marry. In fact, she wants to marry the guy at the end of the weekend and she’s already spent $20,000 to reserve the island for her wedding. (Tattoo is excited about that.)

Of course, one possible problem with Cindy’s fantasy is that she already has a boyfriend. She’s been dating Eddie (Ken Berry) for a while now. However, Eddie refuses to get married. Every time that they schedule a wedding ceremony, Eddie finds an excuse to cancel. He can’t even say the word “married” without sneezing. Still, Eddie is in love with Cindy and he comes to the Island to try to convince her to give him another chance. He also tells all of her potential suitors that Cindy is actually a prostitute.

Now, to be honest, that’s not the sort of thing that I could forgive. I don’t care who you are or how much you love me, that’s just not something that I’m going to be able to overlook. However, this somehow convinces Cindy that Eddie really does love her so she decides to teach him a lesson by putting on a slit leather skirt and hanging out on a street corner in Fantasy Island’s red light district.

At this point, I said to myself, “Since when has Fantasy Island had a red light district?” Seriously, last week revealed that the island has a desert where the Egyptians buried their pharaohs. This week, we learn that the island has a red light district. Fantasy Island is a strange place. Stranger still, Eddie lying about Cindy and then Cindy pretending to be a prostitute leads to Eddie and Cindy getting married.

While that’s going on, Jordan Montgomery (Steve Forrest) is living out his fantasy of being an international jewel thief and …. wait, what? What type of fantasy is this? You can commit crimes in your fantasies? This island gets stranger and stranger! Anyway, Jordan steals a necklace from Leslie Tarleton (Leigh Taylor-Young), just to discover that the necklace didn’t actually belong to her and his thievery is going to cause her to lose her job. When Jordan attempts to retrieve the necklace so that he can return it, he discovers that it’s been stolen yet again! This time, crime lord Carl Dekker (Peter Mark Richman) has stolen the necklace and is keeping it on his boat, which is heavily guarded and which is also floating off the coast of the island.

So, for those keeping track, Fantasy Island has a desert, a pharaoh’s tomb, a red light district, and a Mafia. It seems like the island’s kind of gone downhill since the end of season one!

Anyway, this was actually a fun episode. Neither story was particularly deep but the action moved quickly and Steve Forrest made for a properly dashing jewel thief. I still don’t think that Cindy should have forgiven Eddie, let alone married him. But it was 1978 and I guess times were different back then.

Finally, Tattoo tried to start his own greeting card company. He was looking to corner the market on sarcastic and downbeat greeting cards. He was just a few decades too early!

An Offer You Can Refuse #4: The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight (dir by James Goldstone)

Posted on June 4, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Oh, fuck you.”

That was my reaction, last night, as I watched the 1971 film, The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight. I was talking to my DVR and yes, I was cursing quite a bit. You know that a film has to be bad when it actually drives me to start cursing at an inanimate object. The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight was so bad that I actually got pissed off at my DVR for recording it. It’s true that I am the one who scheduled the recording but still …. my DVR should have known better than to listen to me!

What is The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight about? I have no idea. I watched the damn movie and I have no idea what the point of it was. The film stars Jerry Orbach as a low-level gangster named Kid Sally. Kid Sally’s crew — the Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight — is made up of a collection of malcontents, morons, and other stereotypes. One member of the crew is a little person. That’s the joke. He’s a tough gangster who is wiling to put a bullet between your legs but that’s just because he’s crotch-height. Ha ha.

Anyway, the big boss is a guy named Baccala (Lionel Stander). Every morning, Baccala’s wife starts the car to check for bombs. Whenever she goes outside, Baccala crawls underneath the kitchen table and waits. Like a lot of the stuff in this movie, that’s one of those things that would be funny if it hadn’t been taken too such a cartoonish extreme. Anyway, Baccala has zero respect for Kid Sally and Kid Sally wants to take over Baccala’s rackets. Is it time for a mob war!?

Maybe. A lot of people die in various “amusing” ways over the course of the film but I was never quite sure whether or not the killings were part of a mob war or if they were just the type of random mishaps that occur when a bunch of dumbasses get their hands on a cache of weapons. Trying to follow the plot of The Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight is next to impossible. The editing of the film is so ragged that you’re rarely aware of how one scene relates to another. If The Godfather showed how a gangster story could be a historical epic and if Goodfellas showed how an editor could recreate the kinetic experience of being a gangster, The Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight shows how a mafia movie can just be a collection of random vignettes that may or may not be connected. It’s impossible to care about the potential war between Kid Sally and Baccala because neither Kid Sally nor Baccala exist as characters beyond their silly names.

A young Robert De Niro is in this film. He plays Mario, an Italian thief who comes to New York for a bicycle race and joins Kid Sally’s crew. Or at least, I think he joins the crew. It’s hard to tell. Mario often dresses like a priest, for some reason. He’s also fallen in love with Angela (Leigh Taylor-Young), who is Kid Sally’s sister though she could just as easily be his cousin or maybe his daughter-in-law from Tuscon. I wouldn’t necessarily say that De Niro gives a good performance here as much as it’s just impossible not to pay attention to him because he’s a young Robert De Niro. He and Leigh Taylor-Young do have a very sincere and touching chemistry but it’s out-of-place in a film that’s dominated by slapstick and scenes of Kid Sally using a lion to intimidate shop owners. (Yes, that happens.) De Niro certainly seems to be trying hard to give a good performance but he’s not a natural comedian. Of course, you don’t need me to tell you that. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WE’VE ALL SEEN DIRTY GRANDPA!

Anyway, the main problem with this film is that it’s a comedy that was apparently put together by people who think that comedy involves a lot of screaming and silly music. I’ve actually seen a handful of other films that were directed by James Goldstone — Brother John, Rollercoaster, When Time Ran Out. Significantly, none of those other films were comedies and there’s nothing about any of Goldstone’s other films that suggest that he was anything more than a director-for-hire. The film itself was written by Waldo Salt, who also worked on the scripts for Midnight Cowboy, Coming Home, and Serpico. Again, none of those films are particularly funny. 70s era Mel Brooks probably could have made this into a funny film but James Goldstone and Waldo Salt could not.

As bad as The Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight is, it is also the answer to a very interesting trivia question. This is the film that Al Pacino dropped out of when he was cast as Michael Corleone in The Godfather. The actor who replaced Pacino was Robert De Niro.

Anyway, The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight is an offer you can refuse.

Previous Offers You Can’t (or Can) Refuse:

Film Review: The Adventurers (dir by Lewis Gilbert)

Posted on June 25, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1970 film, The Adventurers, is a film that I’ve been wanting to watch for a while.

Based on a novel by Harold Robbins, The Adventurers was a massively expensive, three-hour film that was released to terrible reviews and even worse box office. In fact, it’s often cited as one of the worst films of all time, which is why I wanted to see it. Well, three weeks ago, I finally got my chance to watch it and here what I discovered:

Yes, The Adventurers is technically a terrible movie and Candice Bergen really does give a performance that will amaze you with its ineptitude. (In her big scene, she sits in a swing and, with a beatific look on her face, begs her lover to push her “Higher! Higher!”)

Yes, The Adventures is full of sex, intrigue, and melodrama. Director Lewis Gilbert, who did such a good job with Alfie and The Spy Who Loved Me, directs as if his paycheck is dependent upon using the zoom lens as much as possible and, like many films from the early 70s, this is the type of film where anyone who gets shot is guaranteed to fall over in slow motion, usually while going, “Arrrrrrrrrrrrgh….” A surprisingly large amount of people get shot in The Adventurers and that adds up to a lot of slow motion tumbles and back flips. Gilbert also includes a sex scene that ends with a shot of exploding fireworks, which actually kind of works. If nothing else, it shows that Gilbert knew exactly what type of movie he was making and he may have actually had a sense of humor about it. That’s what I choose to believe.

Despite the fact that The Adventurers is usually described as being a big-budget soap opera, a good deal of the film actually deals with Latin American politics. For all the fashion shows and the decadence and the scenes of Candice Bergen swinging, the majority of The Adventures takes place in the Latin American country of Cortoguay. If you’ve never heard of Cortoguay, that’s because it’s a fictional country. Two hours of this three-hour film are basically devoted to people arguing and fighting over who is going to rule Cortoguay but it’s kind of impossible to really get to emotionally involved over the conflict because it’s not a real place.

Ernest Borgnine plays a Cortoguayan named — and I’m being serious here — Fat Cat. Seriously, that’s his name. And really, how can you not appreciate a movie featuring Ernest Borgnine as Fat Cat?

Fat Cat is the guardian of Dax Xenos (Bekim Fehmiu). Dax’s father is a Cortoguayan diplomat but after he’s assassinated by the country’s dictator, Dax abandons his home country for America and Europe. While he’s abroad, Dax plays polo, races cars, and has sex with everyone from Olivia de Havilland to Candice Bergen. He also gets involved in the fashion industry, which means we get two totally 70s fashion shows, both of which are a lot of fun. He marries the world’s richest heiress (Bergen) but he’s not a very good husband and their relationship falls apart after a pregnant Bergen flies out of a swing and loses her baby.

Throughout it all, Fat Cat is there, keeping an eye on Dax and pulling him back to not only Cortoguay but also to his first love, Amparo (Leigh Taylor-Young), who just happens to be the daugther of Cortoguay’s dictator, Rojo (Alan Badel). In fact, when Fat Cat and Dax discover that an acquaintance is selling weapons to Rojo, they lock him inside of his own sex dungeon. That’s how you get revenge! And when Dax eventually does return to Cortoguay, Fat Cat is at his side and prepared to fight in the revolution. Incidentally, the revolution is led by El Lobo (Yorgo Voyagis), who we’re told is the son of El Condor.

The Adventurers is melodramatic, overheated, overlong, overdirected, and overacted and, not surprisingly, it’s eventually a lot of fun. I mean, the dialogue is just so bad and Lewis Gilbert’s direction is so over the top that you can’t help but suspect that the film was meant to be at least a little bit satirical. How else do you explain that casting of the not-at-all-Spanish Bekim Fehmiu as a Latin American playboy? Candice Bergen plays her role as if she’s given up any hope of making sense of her character or the script and the rest of the cast follows her lead. Ernest Borgnine once said that The Adventurers was the worst experience of his career. Take one look at Borgnine’s filmography and you’ll understand why that’s such a bold statement.

The Adventurers is three hours long but it’s rarely boring. Each hour feels like it’s from a totally different film. It starts out as Marxist agitprop before then becoming a glossy soap opera and then, once Fat Cat and Dax return home and get involved in the revolution, the film turns into “modern” spaghetti western. It’s a film that tries so hard and accomplishes so little that it becomes rather fascinating.

And, if nothing else, it reminds us that even Fat Cat can be a hero….

A Movie A Day #343: Looker (1981, directed by Michael Crichton)

Posted on December 18, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Someone is murdering models and trying to frame Larry Roberts (Albert Finney), a plastic surgeon. Larry suspects that the actual murderer is somehow involved with the Digital Matrix research firm, a shadowy organization that is headed by James Coburn and Leigh Taylor Young. Digital Matrix has developed a new technique where they digitally scan a model’s body and then generate a 3-D duplicate that can be used in commercials and on film. The real-life models stand to make a fortune from the royalties, assuming that they are physically perfect and they do not end up getting murdered immediately after being scanned. Larry’s girlfriend, Cindy (Susan Dey), is just the latest model to have been scanned and now Larry suspects that she might be targeted for death as well.

When I was growing up, Looker was one of those movies that always seemed to be on HBO. I don’t know why this box office bomb was so popular on cable but I do remember seeing it several times. I guarantee you that anyone who has ever came across this movie on HBO in the 80s and 90s will remember it. They might not remember the title but they will remember that the bad guys used light guns that would cause people to briefly go into a catatonic state. Everyone who has ever seen this movie remembers the model standing frozen in the doorway of her apartment.

As for the movie itself, the guns are cool and so is the scene where Susan Dey gets scanned but otherwise, Looker is not very good. Michael Crichton later said that he had conflicts with Warner Bros during the editing of Looker and, as a result, there were some important scenes that did not make it into the final cut. For instance, it is never really explained why the models are being killed. Albert Finney was in one of his periodic career slumps when he starred as Larry and he looks uncomfortable going through the motions of being an action star. Two years after Looker came out, Finney’s career would be reinvigorated when he received an Oscar nomination for The Dresser and three years later, he would give his career best performance in Under the Volcano.

As it typical of Michael Crichton’s work, Looker was ahead of its time in predicting the use of CGI in media but otherwise, it’s nothing special. If you want to see a good Crichton-directed film, stick with Westworld and The Great Train Robbery.

Back to School Part II #20: Secret Admirer (dir by David Greenwalt)

Posted on September 4, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After I finished watching Girls Just Want To Have Fun, it was time for the 1986 film, Secret Admirer!

Secret Admirer is a fairly good example of a film that is dependent upon the idiot plot. Every plot complication could have been avoided by the characters not being idiots. The entire storyline could have been resolved within five minutes if some of the characters had been willing to ask questions before jumping to assumptions. Idiot plots tend to fun when they deal with teenagers, largely because, when you’re that age, you can get away with being an idiot. That’s part of the charm of being a teenager and why nobody ever wants to grow up. When you’re a teenager, you’re not expected to have any common sense or knowledge of the real world so you can get away with a lot more. At the same time, idiot plots involving adults tend to be annoying because adults really should know better. The idiot plot of Secret Admirer involves both teenagers and adults and, as a result, the film is half-charming and half-annoying.

Smart but shy Toni (Lori Loughlin) has a crush on her lifelong friend, the sweet but kinda stupid Michael (C. Thomas Howell). So, Toni writes Michael an incredibly eloquent love note and slips it into his locker. When Michael finds the note, he assumes that it was written by Debbie (Kelly Preston), who is pretty and popular but only dates college students. When Michael attempts to write a response to Debbie, he is sabotaged by his limited vocabulary, lack of eloquence, and general dimness. Luckily, Toni finds the note and, wanting to spare Michael any embarrassment, rewrites it for him. Debbie is so touched by Toni’s note that she goes out on a date with Michael. Toni is forced to stand in the background and watch while the boy she loves falls for a girl who is obsessed with shopping. (Secret Admirer suggests that this obsession indicates that Debbie is shallow but seriously, who doesn’t love to shop?) Will Toni tells Michael that she loves him or will she leave him so that she can spend a year studying abroad? (Personally, I would leave and have fun exploring Europe but then again, I also love to shop so obviously, Toni and I have conflicting worldviews.)

But that’s not all! Michael’s dad, George (Cliff DeYoung), also finds the note and assumes that it was written to him by Debbie’s mom, Elizabeth (Leigh Taylor-Young). Of course, Debbie’s father, a police detective named Lou (the always gruff Fred Ward), also comes across the note and becomes convinced that George and Elizabeth are having an affair. He somewhat forcibly recruits George’s wife, Connie (Dee Wallace Stone), to help him expose George and Elizabeth for being the cheaters that he believes them to be….

I got annoyed with the parents fairly quickly. It’s always fun to watch Fred Ward grimace and glare at people but otherwise, all of the adults were way too stupid and their behavior reminded me of that terrible episode of Saved By The Bell where the exact same thing happens to Mr. Belding. Secret Admirer works best when the adults are pushed to the background and the film concentrates on the relationship between Toni and Michael. They’re a sweet couple and you really want to see them end up together. Michael may be stupid but he’s still really cute and the film is perfectly charming whenever it concentrates on him and Toni.

Incidentally, Michael has several friends. They all ride around in a van and look through old issues of Playboy together. Most of the friends are interchangeable but I did like Ricardo (Geoffrey Blake), just because he was wearing a suit and a fedora for no particular reason. Ricardo didn’t really get to do much but his fashion sense made a definite impression.

By the admittedly high standards of 80s teen films, Secret Admirer is a minor film. It’ll never be mistaken for Sixteen Candles or Pretty In Pink. That said, it’s still an entertaining and occasionally sweet film. You’ll want to skip over the scenes involving the adults but the scenes involving C. Thomas Howell and Lori Loughlin are perfectly charming.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFtxW9WNs9k