Today’s blast from the past comes to use from 1982.
In A Very Delicate Matter, teenager Kristin Sorenson (Lori-Nan Engler) spends the summer working at a camp. After her nominal boyfriend, Greg Pscharapolus (Zach Galligan), fails to call her even once, Kirstin ends up dating her superhot co-worker, Larry (future daytime drama star Grant Aleksander, making his television debut). Once summer ends, Kristin returns home where Greg apologizes for not calling her. Kristin takes Greg back and decides not to tell him about Larry. But then Kristin gets a call from Larry. Larry tells her that she might want to go by the free clinic and get some penicillin because Larry’s got gonorrhea and there’s a good chance to Kristin now has it as well. And, since Kristin and Greg previously spent a day making up, Greg might have it too!
The plot description probably makes A Very Delicate Matter sound considerably campier than it is. For the most part, this is a sensitive and nonjudgmental film, one in which no one is portrayed as being a villain. (As one doctor points out, even Larry showed more courage than most by immediately calling Kristin and letting her know what was going on.) While the two leads both give good performances (with Galligan just two years away from starring in Gremlins), the film is stolen by Marta Kober and John Didrichsen, who play the best friends of Kristen and Greg and who have a nice flirtatious chemistry with each other. Just because your friend has a social disease, the film seems to be saying, don’t give up on love. Marta Kober is probably best known for Friday the 13th Part 2, which featured its own warning about having unprotected sex at a summer camp.
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 T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on Tubi!
This week, the adventures of T.S. Turner continue!
Episode 1.13 “Sweet Tooth”
(Dir by Don McCutcheon, originally aired on March 28th, 1988)
“In this episode,” Mr. T tells us, “a former con man claims to be starting a new chapter in his life, but I keep hearing the same old story.”
At the Toronto courthouse, T.S. and Amy are approached by a prosecutor named Billings (David Ferry). He’s wearing a plaid suit, which is the show’s way of indicating that he’s not as good an attorney as Amy. Billings says that he needs to discuss a private matter with T.S.
“Maybe he wants fashion tips,” T.S. growls.
Billings explains to T.S. that a man with whom T.S. served time, a conman named Lee Boone, has been released from prison. The police think that Boone is trying to set up a new con in T.S.’s neighborhood but Billings thinks that Boone is trying to go straight. Billings asks T.S. to investigate. He also asks T.S. to keep their arrangement strictly confidential.
“And I’d appreciate it if you changed that jacket,” T.S. replies, “It gives me an earache.”
That said, T.S. agrees to check out Lee Boone, especially after he hears that Boone is the father of a seven year-old son.
Meanwhile, Lee Boone (Anthony Sherwood) is giving a speech in front of an old church. He’s asking for donations to turn the church into a community center. Among those donating money is T.S.’s aunt, Martha (Jackie Richardson). T.S is stunned to discover that Lee is the man who he knew in prison as “Sweet Tooth.” After Boone finishes his speech, T.S. confronts him and accuses him of trying to con people out of their money. Boone argues that he’s changed and he’s just trying to give back to the community. T.S. doesn’t buy it, later telling Billing that he judges a man not by his words but by his eyes and, “I looked in Sweet Tooth’s eyes and nothing had changed.”
On T.S.’s recommendation, Boone is arrested. Guess who is assigned to be Boone’s lawyer? Amy Taler! Now, considering that Amy is partners with someone who would undoubtedly be called as a witness if the case ever went to trial, this seems like a clear conflict of interest but maybe they do things different up in Canada. Amy is not only convinced that Boone is innocent but she’s also angry at T.S. for working with prosecutor’s office.
You know who else is angry with T.S.? Aunt Martha! Aunt Martha brings Boone’s 7 year-old son down to the gym and orders the kid to ask Turner, “Why did you put my Daddy in jail?”
“I wasn’t trying to hurt him, son,” T.S. says, “I was trying to help him.”
Aunt Martha announces that Lee Boone is back on the street and the entire community is rallying around him and donating their money for the community center.
Stunned, T.S. returns to his office and contemplates the mysteries of life. When Amy tells him that she believes that everyone deserves a second chance, T.S. says, “And what if you’re wrong? What if all those people get kicked in the teeth again?”
The next morning, Amy goes down to the church and waits, with Aunt Martha, for Boone to show up and announce his plans for the money that’s he’s raised. However, Boone never shows up because it turns out that T.S. Turner was right and it really was all an elaborate con! Instead, having packed all of his money in suitcase, Boone and his son prepare to leave their apartment building and head to another town.
However, T.S. is waiting for them in the stairwell. When Boone claims that he was just about to head for the church, Turner declares, “With a suitcase full of money? Come on, brother! Give me some rap! Give it up, Sweet Tooth! Your son deserves better! If you want a better life for your kid, you need to go to that church and stand by your word. You just gotta believe your own rap! EVERYONE ELSE DOES!”
At the church, Aunt Martha tries to keep the crowd calm by singing a gospel song. Given how I feel about gospel music, you can imagine how relieved I was when a reformed Sweet Tooth finally showed up at the church and everyone stopped singing. Sweet Tooth goes straight and uses the money to open up the community center. All it took was T.S. Turner showing up at his apartment building!
As I watched this episode, it occurred to me that Mr. T’s main strength as an actor was his innate earnestness. As limited as his range may have been, the viewer never doubted for a minute that he believed everything that he said. This episode worked because it allowed Mr. T. to be himself.
Episode 1.14 “Playing With Fire”
(Dir by Harvey Frost, originally aired on April 11th, 1988)
“In this episode,” Mr. T says, “the heat is on a teenage girl who’s charged with arson.”
Across Canada, someone is setting fires. After teenager Felicity (Susannah Hoffman) is found playing a flute in front of a fire that’s raging in a park, she’s arrested. Because Amy is the only defense attorney in Toronto, she’s assigned to the case. And when Amy is assigned to your case, that means that T.S. Turner is assigned to it as well!
Unfortunately, Felicity isn’t very helpful and gets defensive whenever Amy asks her why she always goes to the park to play her flute, even in the middle of the harsh Canadian winter. Turner goes down to the park to investigate on his own and he meets Kramer (Alan Fawcett), a real estate developer who wants to build a luxury condo in the middle of the park. Since this is T. and T., “luxury condo” is all we need to hear to know that Kramer is a bad guy.
Another building in the park burns down and again, for some reason, Felicity is nearby playing her flute. Felicity is again accused of being the arsonist, which leads to a police interrogation scene where we discover that, as an attorney, Amy’s main legal strategy is to dramatically roll her eyes whenever anyone asks her client a question. Meanwhile, T.S. heads down to the park and discovers that the building was insured for a million Canadian dollars.
“The only way we’re going to avoid paying,” the claims agent explains, “is if that lady lawyer gets that flutist off.”
“Lady lawyer!?” Turner replies, “You mean Ms. Amy Taler!”
“I hope she pleads as good as she looks,” the agent says.
T.S. nods. “I’ll pass it on.”
Felicity is dragged down to a mental hospital, where she is committed for a week-long evaluation. She sits in her room and plays her flute and I have to say that it didn’t take me long to get really sick of Felicity and her stupid flute. Seriously, every time we see her, she’s playing the flute and getting angry about Amy trying to clear her name. What an annoying character!
Anyway, Felicity overhears Turner telling Amy that he thinks that Kramer is behind the arsons so Felicity breaks out of the mental hospital, goes down to one of Kramer’s buildings, and starts playing her flute. When Kramer confronts Felicity, she threatens to burn down the building for real. This leads to Kramer confessing, just in time for Turner to show up and subdue him.
That’s the end of that. Felicity’s name is cleared but Felicity is still such an annoying character that it’s difficult to really care.
Next week: Amy’s frequently frazzled administrative assistant gets an episode of her very own!
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on Twitter and Mastodon. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.
Tonight, at 10 pm et, #FridayNightFlix has got 1986’s The Best of Times! When Robin Williams teams up with Kurt Russell, it’s time for football action!
If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #FridayNightFlix hashtag! It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
The Best Of Times is available on Prime and Tubi! See you there!
Here’s the trailer for William Friedkin’s final film, an adaptation of The Caine Mutiny Court Martial Trailer. The film will be premiering on Showtime in October and I look forward to seeing Kiefer Sutherland in the role of Lt. Commander Queeg.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Thursdays, I will be reviewing South Central, which aired, for 10 episodes, on Fox in 1994. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
This week, Andre gets a gun!
Episode 1.7 and 1.8 “Gun”
(Dir by Stan Lathan, originally aired on May 24th, 1994)
I’m not a huge fan of the song Amazing Grace.
Okay, allow me to clarify. I know that it’s an important song. I know that it’s a song that was at least partially written as a protest against the Atlantic slave trade. I know that it’s a song that means a lot to many people. But I have to admit that I cringe whenever someone starts singing it in a movie or on a TV show because it’s always sung in such an overwrought manner and it usually indicates that the program is about to take an extremely heavy-handed term.
I point this out because the first 30 minutes of Gun features Tasha singing Amazing Grace several times around the house, once while a police helicopter hovers over her house. My first instinct was to cringe but actually, upon watching a second time , I realized that the scene with the helicopter is a powerful moment. Tasha sings not only in defiance of the police but the helicopter’s spotlight briefly turns her front porch into a stage. After six episodes of Tasha continually being told to sacrifice, it was nice to see a rare episode in which Tasha actually got a moment of triumph.
The majority of this two-part episode centers on Andre. Just as Tasha has spent six episodes being expected to constantly sacrifice for the family, Andre has spent six episodes trying to come to terms with the death of his brother Marcus while living up to his mother’s expectations and also trying to pursue a relationship with Nicole. In order to see Nicole, Andre has been riding the bus and, as we’ve seen, he’s gotten mugged, beaten up, and continually harassed for his troubles. This episode, Andre takes two things with him on his latest trip to Nicole’s. One is a pack of condoms, which leads to Nicole telling him that she doesn’t want to see him again unless he can figure out how to articulate how he really feels about her. The other is his mother’s gun, which he tucks in the waistband of his pants and which he flashes when a guy starts to give him and Rashad trouble. Rashad is excited about the gun, announcing that he and Andre now have “juice” and treating it almost like a toy. Andre, who has actually lost a family member to gun violence, is more serious about it, telling Rashad that he would like to use it on the people who killed his brother. (Of course, while Andre and Rashad stand in the house and handle the gun, Deion stands silently in the background, taking it all in.)
One interesting thing about this episode is that Andre’s mentor, Ray, is nowhere to be seen nor is he mentioned, even when Joan grounds Andre for forgetting to pick up Deion. Given the fact that Ray was last seen realizing that Joan will probably never love him the way the he loves her, it makes sense that Ray might need a break from the Mosely family but it also means that there’s no one, outside of his family, for Andre to talk to, with the exception of Rashad. At the Ujamaa Co-op, Bobby attempts to reach out to Andre and Rashad, telling him that he heard they had trouble on the bus and warning them about young men carrying guns. As well-intentioned as Bobby is, both Andre and Rashad are too young and immature to really understand his message of building up the community as opposed to destroying it. As opposed to Ray, who sometimes seemed too distant from the realities of life in Andre’s neighborhood, Bobby understands what is happening in the community but his insistence on trying to view everything in idealistic terms makes him ineffectual as an authority figure.
(If anything, Earl Billings’s perpetually annoyed Mayo Bonner, who trusts no one, seems like he might be the wisest of the older men on the show but his bad-tempered comments are mostly just played for laughs.)
Days later, Joan agrees to allow Andre to go to the High Life Party being held at the Co-op. Andre knows that Nicole will also be at the party and he wants to give her a letter that he’s spent the last few days writing and re-writing. While Joan and her next-door neighbor Sweets go through Andre’s bedroom and discover not only his condoms but also a first draft of the letter that he wrote for Nicole, Andre meets up with Nicole at the Co-op and ruins everything by once again flashing his gun at a guy who rudely steps in front of Nicole. Nicole leaves, even though her best friend Candi, who has taken a sudden interest in Rashad, refuses to leave with her. Andre chases after her and, on the bus, he tells her that only carries the gun for protection. Nicole says that her parents were right about Andre and refuses to talk to him for the rest of the ride. After Nicole gets off the bus, Andre tears up the love letter that he was going to give her and realizes that he will probably never see her again.
Yep, just another not-so happy ending on South Central! That said, it was also a realistic ending and the show deserves a lot of credit for having Nicole react realistically to Andre’s aggressive behavior. She freaks out when she sees that he has the gun and all of his excuses (and they are just excuses) cannot fix the damage of that one moment. And Nicole is totally in the right. What if the guy at the party had a gun? What if someone on the bus had a gun? Carrying a gun for protection is one thing and certainly, Andre has had enough bad things happen to him on this show that one can understand why he would feel like he needs some sort of protection. But, at the Co-op, there was no threat. Andre showed off the gun just to intimidate someone else. I would have dumped Andre too.
This was a powerful episode. In the end, Andre swears that he’s never going to carry another gun and watching it, the viewer hopes that he’s telling the truth but also knows that life is never as simple as one might hope.
First released in 1985, Prizzi’s Honor tells the story of Charley Partanna (Jack Nicholson), a blue collar guy who lives in Brooklyn and who is a hard-working hit man for the Prizzi crime family. Charley is the son of Angelo (John Randolph), who is the right-hand man to the family’s elderly but still ruthless Don (William Hickey). In the past, Charley came close to marrying the Don’s daughter, Maerose Prizzi (Anjelica Huston), and he is almost as much a member of the family as the Don’s two sons, Eduardo (Robert Loggia) and Dominic (Lee Richardson).
While attending a family wedding, Charley meets and is immediately infatuated with a woman named Irene Walker (Kathleen Turner). Later, when Charley is sent to California to kill a man who robbed one of the family’s Vegas casinos, he is shocked to discover that the man is Irene’s husband. Irene swears that she didn’t have anything to do with the casino theft and, after a whirlwind courtship, Charley and Irene get married in Mexico. What Charley doesn’t know (but eventually discovers) is that Irene is herself a professional killer. While Charley and Irene try to balance work and love, Maerose conspires to turn the family against Irene and win Charley back.
Directed by the legendary John Huston, Prizzi’s Honor is pitch black comedy about two hard-working people who kill for a living. (The film’s big set piece is an extended sequence in which Charley and Irene’s attempt to pull a job together goes wrong in every way and they end up arguing about their relationship while dragging dead bodies from one room to another.) Though Prizzi’s Honor was released long before the series premiered on HBO, the film feels almost like a companion piece to The Sopranos, full of mobsters who are not as clever as they think they are and who struggle to uphold the old ways in an increasingly complicated world. Particularly when compared to the gangster who populate a film like TheGodfather, the Prizzis are defined by their pettiness. If Don Corleone epitomized wisdom and honor, Don Prizzi epitomizes someone who holds onto power solely for power’s sake.
Prizzi’s Honor is one of those films that probably seemed a bit more revolutionary when it was first released than it does today. At this point, we’ve seen so many films about hired killers who have quirky conversations while carrying out their work that the mix of violence and dark humor can feel almost like a cliché. As well, there are certain parts of the film, like the opening wedding sequence, that feel as if they go on for just a few minutes too long, as if John Huston himself was not always comfortable with the balance between the dark drama and the comedy of mob manners. That said, Jack Nicholson, Kathleen Turner (who gives a performance worthy of the great femme fatales of film noir), Anjelica Huston, John Randolph, and especially William Hickey all give strong enough performances to hold the audience’s attention and the film’s finale cuts to the point in such a way that it leaves you reconsidering everything that you’ve previously seen. Prizzi’s Honor has its flaws but Nicholson and Turner have such chemistry that the film’s ending sticks with you.
Prizzi’s Honor was nominated for 8 Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actor for William Hickey. (Oddly, Kathleen Turner was not nominated for playing Irene.) In the end, it only won one Oscar that year, for supporting actress Anjelica Huston. The Oscars that year were dominated by a far more convention love story, Out of Africa.
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 is all about mistaken identity!
Episode 3.7 “The Reunion/Haven’t I Seen You?/Crew Confessions”
(Dir by George Tyne, originally aired on October 20th, 1979)
After discovering that a guy that he went to high school with in Oakland is now a published author, Isaac decides that maybe he should spend the cruise writing a novel of his own. The other members of the crew encourage him to try his hand at being a literary genius because, seriously, how hard can it be? (Gopher suggests that anyone can be a writer! Okay, Gopher….) Isaac attempts to write a western, just to discover that he can’t get past the first two sentences. He then tries to write a romance and can’t get past the first two sentences. Finally, he attempts to do a science fiction novel and can’t get past …. well, you get the idea.
Finally, Isaac realizes that his mistake is that he’s not writing about what he knows. Instead, he starts writing a book about life on a cruise ship! (There’s a bit of an inside joke here as The Love Boat itself was inspired by a “non-fiction” book written by a former cruise director.) Unfortunately, the rest of the crew soon recognizes themselves in Isaac’s writing. Doc is offended at being portrayed as a sex-crazed womanizer who rarely practices medicine. Gopher is upset to discover that the fiction ship’s purser is a klutz named Muskrat. Julie is upset at the character of the “perky” cruise director. Only Captain Stubing seems to be truly supportive of Isaac. Upset that his friends are upset, Isaac rips his book in half. Guilt-stricken, the rest of the crew decides to support Isaac and they start giving him ideas for his novel. For instance, Doc Bricker tells Isaac that he served in the U.S Navy after medical school, adding yet another piece of the puzzle to the enigma of Adam Bricker.
The novel-writing storyline, I liked. I could relate to it because I’ve noticed that people are always willing to support your literary ambitions until they realize that you’re writing about them. I kind of hope that Isaac will keep writing. Knowing The Love Boat, though, I know this is probably one of those things that will be forgotten by the next episode.
As for the other storylines this week, they were okay if slight. Don Knotts plays a shoe salesman named Herb Groebeck who looks just like a television start named Devon King. At first, Herb keeps correcting everyone about his identity but, when he’s approached by Marla (Julie Newmar), he decides to pretend to be Devon for a while. Marla reveals that she has a baby and she says that Devon is the father, the result of a one-night stand in Las Vegas. Herb, having fallen in love with Marla, asks her to marry him. Marla suddenly reveals that she’s never actually met Devon and that she was lying about him being the father because she wanted a husband who could take care of her baby. Herb says that’s okay because he’s not even Devon King. Marla and Herb share a good laugh and leave the cruise as an engaged couple which …. I mean, is this really a relationship that’s really going to last? It’s pretty much built on lies.
Speaking of lies, Laurette Ferot (Jane Wyatt) has boarded the boat so she can be reunited with her long-missing husband, Gilbert (Jean-Pierre Aumont). Laurette and Gilbert were married in 1939 but the Nazi invasion of France tore them apart. Laurette was taken off to Denmark. Gilbert vanished and was presumed dead. Laurette has spent the last 40 years looking for Gilbert. Unfortunately, the man who shows up on the cruise is not her Gilbert. Instead, he’s a former member of the French Resistance who befriended the real Gilbert in a concentration camp and who fell in love with Laurette as a result of listening to the real Gilbert talk about her. When the real Gilbert died in the camp, the fake Gilbert assumed his identity. Having survived the war, the fake Gilbert came to America and made millions as a lock manufacturer while also looking for Laurette. Laurette is surprisingly forgiving of Fake Gilbert and even goes through with the ceremony to “renew” their vows on the ship. Laurette marries Fake Gilbert and they leave the ship together. Jane Wyatt and Jean-Pierre Aumont both gave heartfelt performances but this storyline, involving concentration camps and Nazi cruelty, felt a bit out-of-place when partnered up with stories about Isaac writing a salacious book and Don Knotts pretending to be an action star. It was a bit too serious for The Love Boat format.
Overall, this episode was uneven but genuinely well-acted. Just as last week’s episode gave Fred Grandy a chance to show off the fact that he actually could act, this episode gives the spotlight to Ted Lange and Lange, again, proves himself to be capable of more than just making drinks and pointing. I hope his book was best seller.
Through the Shattered Lens 