Tag Archives: Lisa Marie Bowman

Late Night Retro Television Review: Hunter 1.19 “Sniper”

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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Hunter, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1991.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

This week, the first season of Hunter comes to a close.

Episode 1.19 “Sniper”

(Dir by James Whitmore, Jr., originally aired on May 18th, 1985)

Someone is using a sniper rifle to target blonde women who visit a national park. Hunter suspects that the sniper might have Army training, and he focuses his investigation on a nearby military base. Hunter’s instincts are correct. Early on, we’re shown that the sniper is Sgt. Dennis Balzer (Jack Starrett, the actor/director who also played the abusive cop who fell out of the helicopter in First Blood). Years ago, Balzer’s heart was broken by a blonde woman, and now he’s seeking revenge by killing every blonde he sees. It’s always odd to me how Hunter, a show about a detective, never seemed to try to generate any suspense as to who was going to turn out to be guilty. Instead, we usually learn the killer’s identity before Hunter does.

Meanwhile, Hunter also has to deal with something even scarier than a sniper: he’s being audited by the IRS. James Cromwell appears as the IRS agent, who eventually ends up auditing the entire department.

Since its very first episode, Hunter has been a violent show. Both Hunter and McCall have been portrayed as shoot-first, ask-questions-later types of cops, though Hunter does seem to be a much better shot than McCall. This episode was even more violent than usual, and the mix of innocent people getting shot in the head with comedic scenes about tax evasion sometimes felt a bit awkward. That said, who doesn’t hate the IRS? (Anyone who enjoys paying taxes is a commie sap.) I was glad to see that Hunter had the same attitude.

This episode brings the first season of Hunter to a close. Looking over the first season, it can be argued that more than a few of the episodes featured stories that felt a bit generic. The idea of Hunter being the son of a mobster was abandoned early on. And while the violence was undoubtedly part of the show’s appeal, it still feels strange that Hunter can kill so many people every week without getting into any trouble over it. What made this season work was the chemistry between Fred Dryer and Stepfanie Kramer. Fred Dryer may not have been the greatest actor in the world, but he had an engaging smile, he could deliver a one-liner, and the showrunners obviously understood that the sight of the very tall Dryer crammed into a broken-down car would more than make up for what he may have lacked in range. As for Stepfanie Kramer, the first season showed that she could hold her own in the action scenes, and her banter with Dryer was usually the highlight of each episode. That was certainly the case here.

Next week, we start the second season!

Retro Television Review: Warden Duffy Of San Quentin 1.1 “The Hostages”

Posted on 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!  This Thursday, I will be reviewing Warden Duffy of San Quinten, which aired its only episode on NBC in 1952.  The show can be found on YouTube!

The real-life Warden Clinton Duffy

Episode 1.1 “The Hostages”

(Dir by Walter Doniger, originally aired in 1952)

“Welcome to my hometown,” Warden Clinton Duffy (Paul Kelly) narrates over a montage of still shots of California’s San Quentin Prison. Duffy explains that San Quentin has its own fire department, its own athletic field, its own hospital, and even its own jail, reserved for the prisoners who are too dangerous to be allowed in the general population.

Shot in a noir style, this episode follows one prisoner (John Ireland) who masterminds an attempted jailbreak. He gets his brother (Charles Nolte) to smuggle in a gun. He and his accomplice (Lawrence Tierney) take two members of the prison board hostage and kill a guard. The dapper Clinton Duffy, well known as an advocate for prison reform, tries to negotiate. Negotiations don’t go well, and the episode ends with Tierney, Ireland, and their accomplices dead on the floor of their cell.

Warden Clinton Duffy was a real person. He served as San Quentin’s warden from 1940 to 1952 and had a reputation as a liberal-minded reformer who tried to treat the prisoners with as much humanity as possible. Duffy wrote several books about his time as warden and was also known as an opponent of capital punishment. This show presents him as someone who wants the best for his prisoners but is still willing to give the order to shoot if that’s what is needed to protect innocent lives. Indeed, one gets the feeling that the prisoners’ biggest mistake was taking hostages. If the hostages’ lives hadn’t been in danger, Duffy probably would have been more willing to talk.

Interestingly, Paul Kelly, the actor who plays Duffy, was himself a former San Quentin inmate. Kelly was convicted of manslaughter in 1927 after he beat another actor, Ray Raymond, to death. (Kelly was having an affair with Raymond’s wife and claimed that he had no idea how hard he had hit Raymond when the other actor confronted him.) Kelly served 25 months in San Quentin and, when he was released, was told that while on parole he could take acting jobs, but only if they paid no more than $30 a week. Amazingly, his manslaughter conviction didn’t seem to slow his career at all. Nowadays, an unconfirmed rumor of cannibalism is enough to force a once-prominent actor to start working with Uwe Boll.

As for the pilot, it wasn’t picked up for a series, and it’s easy to see why. The pilot has a noir look that I liked, but the action moved slowly. Stories about hostage negotiations often seem dramatically inert, if only because they always seem to go through the exact same beats. Dog Day Afternoon is the exception to the rule. That said, director Walter Doniger obviously liked the idea of putting Duffy’s story on screen, because he later directed the 1954 film Duffy of San Quentin. In the film, Warden Duffy was again played by Paul Kelly.

Paul Kelly died of a heart attack in 1956, at the age of 57. Clinton Duffy retired as warden of San Quentin in 1952, the same year this pilot aired. He died in 1982.

 

Join #TubiThursday For Dance or Die!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi, everyone!  Tonight, on Mastodon, I will be hosting the #TubiThursday watch party!  Join us for 1987’s Dance or Die!

You can find the movie on Tubi and you can join us on Mastodon at 9 pm central time!  (That’s 10 pm for you folks on the East Coast.)  We will be using #TubiThursday hashtag!  See you then!

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 5.1 “The Book of Zagreb”

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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing 1st and Ten, which aired in syndication from 1984 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on Tubi.

This week, we start season 5!

Episode 5.1 “The Book of Zagreb”

(Dir by Stan Lathan, originally aired on October 11th, 1989)

It’s time for another season of football with the California Bulls.

In the wake of the Bulls finally winning the championship, Zagreb has written a tell-all book about his teammates. He spills that Bubba cheats on his wife, that Dr. Death smokes weed, and that, during the previous season, one member of the Bulls was killed by a bull. Solid continuity from 1st & Ten. About time.

T.D. Parker (O.J. Simpson) is described as a chronic womanizer who collects the underwear of secretaries. T.D. is so furious he could kill someone. Before he does, though, he has to keep the Bulls functioning. Help arrives in the form of a new general manager sent by the Dodds Corporation: Kristy Fulbright (Shannon Tweed). Kristy wants the Bulls to become the first team to win two championships in a row. Coach Denardo agrees.

A few familiar faces are missing from the locker room. Mad Dog has been traded to New York. Former quarterback Doug Clayton is mentioned as having been murdered after the big game. (Yikes. What exactly did he say to T.D.?) Dr. Death is now working as a professional wrestler, but he walks away from the ring the moment he’s told to take a fall.

If this review feels a little random, that’s because the episode is too. As usual with 1st & Ten, there isn’t much of a real plot. Everyone is furious at Zagreb, then they get over it. Dr. Death is done with football, then he gets over it. Bubba is terrified his wife will leave him, then she doesn’t. The show is about football; the characters barely have lives off the field.

The best things here are John Kassir’s handful of funny lines as Zagreb and Shannon Tweed’s red dress, which is to die for. We’ll see how the rest of the season plays out.

 

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 8.9 “The Last Heist/Starting Over/Watching the Master”

Posted on 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!

And looooooove, won’t hurt anymore….

Episode 8.9 “The Last Heist/Starting Over/Watching the Master”

(Dir by Ted Lange, originally aired on November 10th, 1984)

Recent law school graduate Paula (Julia Duffy) boards the boat with the man who paid for her education, Uncle David (Patrick Macnee).  Paula thinks David is a businessman but, as David explains to her once they’ve reached their cabin, he’s actually a jewel thief.  Paula asks David to retire from stealing but David explains that he’s going to pull off one final big score by stealing a necklace owned by Martha Parker (Abby Dalton).  He’s even had a replica of the necklace made so that Martha will never notice that the real one has been stolen,

Needless to say, Paula has a lot on her mind when stockbroker Andy Brooks (Douglas Barr) first tries to hit on her.  But what if Andy isn’t a stockbroker?  Shortly after David steals the necklace, Andy shows up at his cabin.  Andy explains that he’s actually an insurance investigator and that David will be turned over to the authorities as soon as the ship docks in Los Angeles.  Oh no!

However, because Andy has fallen in love with Paula, he later tells them that he won’t turn David in as long as David both returns the necklace and retires from being a thief.  David agrees.  What David doesn’t realize is that Andy actually is just a stockbroker and the whole thing was a set-up engineered by Paula to get him to retire.

Meanwhile, Doc is excited because his new girlfriend, Gloria (Delta Burke), is going to be on the cruise. Unfortunately, Hal Winston (William Christopher) is also on the boat.  Hal is marrying one of Doc’s ex-wives and he’s on the cruise so he can observe Doc and learn to be more like him.  Doc gets annoyed.  Gloria falls in love with Hal.  “I guess I’m still paying alimony,” Doc says as he watches Hal and Gloria leave the boat together.

These first two stories were really charming.  I especially liked the story involving David, Andy, and Paula.  Patrick Macnee had just the right twinkle in his eye.  Julia Duffy and Douglas Barr had the type of carnal chemistry that was rarely seen on the G-rated Love Boat.  As for Doc’s story, it was funny in its dopey way.

Unfortunately, those two stories were overshadowed by the third story.  Beth Reed (Deborah Adair), an old friend of Judy’s, boards the cruise.  Beth is recently divorced.  When another passenger, Joe (Brodie Greer), starts to hit on her, Beth says she’s not interested.  At first, Joe thinks that it’s because he’s been coming on too strong and Judy assumes that Beth is struggling to adjust to being divorced.  However, Beth eventually explains that she got divorced because her husband could not handle the fact that she was raped by a stranger.  At first, Joe seems understanding but then he freaks out when Beth says that, when she returns to Los Angeles, she will be testifying against her rapist.  That’s going to be so embarrassing for you!, he says.  Joe goes on and on about how Beth shouldn’t testify.  In fact, Joe was so adamant that I was almost expecting it be revealed that Joe was the brother or a friend of the man who raped her.

Instead, it just turns out that Joe’s a jerk.  Beth says that she never wants to see Joe again and that’s really where this story should have ended.  Joe goes from coming on way too strong to basically ordering Beth not to testify against a rapist.  Joe should have been dumped and Beth should have left the boat alone but proud that she stood up for herself.  Instead, Joe offers up a half-assed apology and Beth not only takes him back but agrees to marry him.

NO!  Joe does not deserve to be taken back.  NO!  Do not marry the guy who, after knowing you for two days, tries to tell you how to live your life.  It seems like Beth is just going from one jerk to another and her friend Judy doesn’t do anything to stop her.

I have no doubt that there were good intentions behind this story.  But, seen today, the best thing you can say about the story is that it was tone deaf and insensitive.  Brodie Greer, who was likable as Baricza on CHiPs and on a previous episode of The Love Boat in which he appeared, gives a rather stiff performance, almost as if he himself couldn’t believe some of the lines that had been written for him.

Two of the stories were charming but they were both overshadowed by the third story and it brought the entire episode down.

Scenes That I Love: Oppenheimer

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s scene that I love comes from Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer.  In this scene, the very first nuclear bomb is detonated and history is changed forever.  Nolan captures the mix of pride and outright horror as the most deadly weapon of all is tested for the very first time.  In much the same way that some of us cannot resist the chance to stare directly at a solar eclipse, Cillian Murphy’s Oppenheimer cannot help but stare directly at what he has helped to create.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Hal Ashby Edition

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

Today, the Shattered Lens celebrates what would have been the 97th birthday of Hal Ashby, one of the most important (and, sadly, one of the most overlooked) directors of the 1970s.  It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Hal Ashby Films

Harold and Maude (1971, dir by Hal Ashby, DP: John A. Alonzo)

The Last Detail (1973, dir by Hal Ashby, DP: Michael Chapman)

Bound for Glory (1976, dir by Hal Ashby, DP: Haskell Wexler)

Being There (1979, dir by Hal Ashby, DP: Caleb Deschanel)