Tag Archives: Loni Anderson

Brad reviews VIGILANTE FORCE (1976), starring Kris Kristofferson and Jan-Michael Vincent! 

Posted on by Bradley Crain

I’ve been a fan of actor Jan-Michael Vincent for about as long as I can remember. I was a grade schooler in the mid-80’s when AIRWOLF was playing on network TV. I loved the show and Vincent’s character, Stringfellow Hawke. It was also around that time that I began my obsession with Charles Bronson, and Vincent co-starred in the iconic 1972 Bronson film THE MECHANIC (1972). Fox 16 out of Little Rock played the movie often, further cementing my appreciation for his work. And I specifically remember renting his 1980 movie DEFIANCE where his character takes on a ruthless gang in New York. It was my kind of movie, and I still watch it every few years. There’s just something I’ve always liked about Jan-Michael Vincent. July 15th, 2025 would have been his 80th birthday so I decided to watch one of his movies that I’ve never seen, VIGILANTE FORCE from 1976. It was playing on Amazon Prime, so I fired it up for my initial viewing. 

In VIGILANTE FORCE, Jan-Michael Vincent plays Ben Arnold, a guy from the small town of Elk Hills, California. It seems that the discovery of oil in the area has brought about a financial boom, but it’s also brought in a lot of rowdy out-of-towners and a surge in violent crime. Ben convinces the local community leaders to allow him to bring in his brother Aaron (Kris Kristofferson), a Vietnam war hero, to help restore order in town. Aaron assembles a group of ex-military types, friends of his, to help the local police restore order in town. Successful in cleaning out the riffraff at first, Aaron and his team of vigilantes eventually become the riffraff and use their law enforcement powers for their own corrupt, get-rich-quick schemes. Realizing that he made a horrible mistake in bringing in his brother, Ben is forced to confront Aaron and his team of murderous mercenaries in order to reclaim Elk Hills for its citizens.

I had not read anything beyond the title VIGILANTE FORCE and the basic cast list when I sat down to watch this film. I guess that’s a good thing, because I wasn’t expecting this movie to pit the brothers played by Vincent and Kristofferson against each other. I thought the two guys would be working together to get rid of a bunch of rednecks, and we do get that for the first half of the film, but when Kris goes bad, he really goes bad! And nobody is safe. This is one of those movies where he just kills whoever gets in his way, no matter how important or attractive they are. Writer-Director George Armitage, who would direct the excellent MIAMI BLUES (1990) fourteen years later, has said that he was trying to make a point about America’s involvement in the Viet Nam war with the Kristofferson character. Armitage apparently enjoys his references, as the film was made during the USA’s bicentennial year, but his two main characters are named after Benedict Arnold and Aaron Burr. While these ideas may have amused the director, his heavy-handed approach is not good for Kristofferson’s character in this film. His Viet Nam vet basically turns into an evil cartoon about halfway through the film and is no longer interesting, which is a shame because he gives a good performance.

Allegories aside, at its heart VIGILANTE FORCE is B-movie, drive-in fodder, and it’s pretty good at being that. It’s got that unpolished look and raw, energetic feel that I like in my low budget 70’s action movies. As you would expect in a film at this time, Jan-Michael Vincent is impressive and believable as the tough, good guy of the flick. Highly motivated due to the actions of our evil, out of control villain, Vincent handles the action scenes well in the film’s explosive finale. And I mean that literally, it seems that everything blows up big time at the end! Besides Kristofferson and Vincent, the film has a very recognizable supporting cast, which is one of the things I love about 70’s movies. Producer Gene Corman put together a cast that also includes Brad Dexter, Andrew Stevens, Victoria Principal, Bernadette Peters, Paul Gleason, Charles Cyphers, Loni Anderson and a host of other familiar voices and faces who add their unique talents to the proceedings. Principal, still a couple of years away from her career defining role as Pamela Ewing in the DALLAS TV series, is especially beautiful as Vincent’s girlfriend. 

Overall, while VIGILANTE FORCE is not required viewing, I can definitely recommend it to anyone who likes 70’s redneck action cinema, or to fans of the main stars. I enjoyed it! 

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 4.7 “The Horse Lover/Secretary to the Stars/Julie’s Decision/Gopher and Isaac Buy a Horse/Village People Ride Again”

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!

Come aboard, they’re expecting you!

Episode 4.7 “The Horse Lover/Secretary to the Stars/Julie’s Decision/Gopher and Isaac Buy a Horse/Village People Ride Again”

(Dir by Roger Duchowny, originally aired on November 22nd, 1980)

Well, let’s see who is sailing on the Love Boat this week….

Uh-oh.

That’s right!  This week, The Village People are taking a cruise!  The disco group boards the boat while singing — you guessed it — In The Navy.  Captain Stubing is a huge fan of the Village People and he’s excited to learn that they will not only be sailing on the boat but they will also be performing their new song, Magic Night.  Stubing mentions that he wishes he could be a village person.  He’s already got a hat!  And he’s served in the Navy!  Stubing never gets around to whether or not he spent the night at YMCA and that’s probably a good thing.

This week, the boat is sailing to Acapulco for the Acapulco Steeplechase.  The Village People have entered a horse in the race, one that will be ridden by the Indian.  Gopher and Isaac have also bought a horse and entered it into the race.  They name the horse “Captain Stubing” and they go through a lot of trouble to keep the real Captain Stubing from finding out that they have snuck the horse on board.  The thing is, though — there are a lot of horses on board!  Nearly every passenger has brought a horse with them and the boat actually has a stable to hold them all during the cruise.  I’m not really sure why it’s a problem for Gopher and Isaac to have a horse, other than the fact that they both spend a lot of time checking in on the horse.  “Where is my crew!?” Stubing demands, while looking around the ship.

Paul Willis (Alan Ludden) is traveling with both his horse and his wife, Louise (Betty White).  Louise is upset that Paul seems to care more about the horse than her.  Louise even considers having a fling with Cliff (David Doyle), a man who wants to buy Paul’s horse.

Meanwhile, wealthy playboy Bret Garrett (Robert Stack) boards the ship and immediately falls in love with Julie.  Despite a 30-year age difference, Bret asks Julie to marry him.  This is the fourth or fifth times that a passenger has proposed to Julie during the course of a cruise.  Julie is happy but the crew worries that Bret might be too worldly and chronically unfaithful for Julie.

Finally, movie star Kim Holland (Loni Anderson) puts on glasses and a brunette wig and pretends to be an Englishwoman named Doris, all in order to keep people from bothering her on the cruise.  Tom Benson (Charles Frank) is obsessed, to an almost creepy extent, with Kim.  But then he falls in love with Doris, who he believes to be Kim’s secretary.  Tom fails to notice that 1) Doris looks just like Kim, just with glasses and brown hair and 2) Doris’s British accent doesn’t sound British at all.  Instead, it sounds like an American trying really hard to sound British.

The Steeplechase is won, rather easily, by Paul.  Both Gopher and the Indian end up getting thrown off their horses and they engage in a footrace to the finish line, for reasons that are not exactly clear.  After the race, Paul finally realizes how much he’s been neglecting Louise and he sells the horse to Cliff.  Meanwhile, Captain Stubing says that, next year, he’ll buy a horse with Gopher and Isaac and they’ll enter the horse into the race together.  As for Bret, he realizes that he’s not right with Julie and he pretends to cheat on her so that she’ll dump him.

And what about Kim?  Well, she tells Tom the truth and also reveals that her real name is June.  “Kim, Doris, June,” Tom says, “I can’t wait to get to know all three of you.”  Uhmm …. okay, not creepy at all.  Anyway, Tom and Kim leave the boat together but, right this episode ended, Kim appeared on an episode of Fantasy Island, in which she was again single and looking to escape her fame.  So, I guess she dumped Tom after a week.  Good for her!  Tom was super creepy.

Finally, all that is left to do is to say goodbye to the Village People.

This episode was an odd one.  Robert Stack was charming as Bret, even if he didn’t have much chemistry with Lauren Tewes.  Loni Anderson was fairly terrible as Kim, just as she would be on Fantasy Island.  And the Village People …. I mean, where do I even begin?  For a group associated with both disco and gay liberation, they came across as being an oddly dull collection of characters.  Of course, it’s doubtful that the target audience of The Love Boat knew what In The Navy was about or even understood why the members of the group were costumed the way that they were.  At one point, the Construction Worker even gives Julie an appreciate glance, as if the show’s producers were saying, “See, those rumors are just rumors!”

That said, I tend to like the odd episodes of The Love Boat and this episode functioned as a time capsule, if nothing else.  All it needed was Charo and it could have been put in a museum!

Retro Television Reviews: Fantasy Island 4.5 “The Love Doctor/The Pleasure Palace”

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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1986.  Almost the entire show is currently streaming is on Youtube, Daily Motion, and a few other sites.

This week, Roarke and Tattoo are still ignoring each other.

Episode 4.5 “The Love Doctor/The Pleasure Palace”

(Dir by Earl Bellamy and Cliff Bole, originally aired on November 22nd, 1980)

The plane has arrived and, once again, Mr. Roarke and Tattoo head down to the docks to meet their guests.  And, as with the previous season four episodes, it’s hard not to notice that neither Ricardo Montalban nor Herve Villechaize are willing to look at each other while delivering their lines.  I feel a little bit bad about having started almost every recent review by mentioning the obvious hostility between the two of them but it’s impossible not to notice.  Previously, one of the show’s greatest strengths was the playful banter between Roarke and Tattoo and, when it’s gone, it’s impossible not to notice the absence.

Speaking of hostility, Gordon Hughes (Gary Burghoff) seem to have a lot resentment against the world.  Thanks to the inheritance that he received from his grandmother, Gordon has graduated from law school and he is on the verge of joining a top law firm.  But, before he does so, he wants to go back in the past and discover how his grandmother made all of her money.  Mr. Roarke takes Gordon to a recreation of the saloon that his grandmother owned in turn-of-the-century San Francisco.  Gordon takes a sip of brandy and is transported into the past.  He quickly discovers that …. HIS GRANDMOTHER OWNED A BROTHEL!

At first, Gordon is upset about this discovery.  But then he falls in love with one of his grandmother’s employees, a waitress named Molly (Barbie Benton).  And then he stands up to a crooked cop (Dane Clark).  And then he meets his grandmother (Ruta Lee) and discovers that she was tough and refused to let anyone push her around.  Gordon realizes that he should be proud of his grandmother and his heritage and that he wants to be with Molly.  But then the San Francisco earthquake hits and Gordon is abruptly transported to the present.  Not to worry, though!  It turns out Molly was also a guest having a fantasy and she and Gordon board the airplane home together.

This fantasy — which featured a lot of nice clothes and period detail — would have been effective if not for Gary Burghoff’s rather off-putting performance as Gordon.  Seriously, Gordon came across as being such an uptight and self-righteous prig that it was difficult to have much sympathy for him.  Of course, that was kind of the point.  Gordon was supposed to be a snob but Burghoff made him such a convincing and such a committed snob that it was hard to believe that he could have changed his ways just over the course of a few days.

The second guest is actress Kim Holland (Loni Anderson), who is the biggest star in the world after appearing in only three movies.  She wants a break from being a star so Mr. Roarke arranges for her to serve as a nurse in a remote clinic that is run by the gruff Dr. Greg Miller (Christopher George).  Kim finds a purpose in life helping Dr. Miller but, when they’re kidnapped by a native tribe, Dr. Miller reveals that he has always known who Kim is.  Dr. Miller plays one of her movies for the tribe, convincing them that Kim is a goddess.  Miller goes on to explain that he’s been in love with Kim ever since he first saw her on screen.  Seeing as Kim’s fantasy was to not be recognized for a few days, it would seem that Roarke failed to keep up his end of the bargain.  But it doesn’t matter because Kim and Greg are in love.  This fantasy could have worked with perhaps a different actress in the role of Kim.  Loni Anderson gave such a blank performance as Kim that it was hard to really believe her either as a movie star or a nurse.

(Interestingly enough, the character of Kim Holland also appeared on the episode of The Love Boat that aired right before this episode.  So, if nothing else, this is the first Love Boat/Fantasy Island cross-over.  Incidentally, I’ll be reviewing that episode of The Love Boat in a few more months.)

This was a fairly forgettable episode.  The island was lovely to look at and I’m glad that everyone found love but I just wish Mr. Roarke and Tattoo could be friends again.

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 3.18 and 3.19 “Kinfolk/Sis & the Slicker/Moonlight & Moonshine/Too Close for Comfort/The Affair: Part 2”

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!

This week, it’s a family affair on The Love Boat!

Episodes 3.18 & 3.19 “Kinfolk/Sis & the Slicker/Moonlight & Moonshine/Too Close for Comfort/The Affair: Part 2”

(Dir by Roger Duchowny, originally aired on January 19th, 1980)

Well, heck, it’s another double-sized, two-hour episode of The Love Boat.

This is actually the third two-hour episode of the third season, following the season premiere and the episode with the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders.  I have to admit that I don’t really look forward to these two hour episodes because they’re usually a bit uneven.  The Love Boat was the perfect hour show, one that featured stories that were specifically designed to be neatly wrapped up in 40 minutes.  The two-hour episodes always seem to lose their narrative momentum after that first hour and that’s certainly the case here.

At the center of the episode is Danny Fields (Donny Osmond), a singer who has been booked to perform on the cruise.  Julie is convinced that Danny is going to be a big star and she’s even convinced a talent scout named Steve Sorrell (Rich Little) to board the ship so that he can see Danny perform.  However, Steve is more interested in Kitty Scofield (Loni Anderson), an innocent West Virginia girl who is eager to see the rest of the world but who is also engaged to marry the unambitious Elmer Fargas (Randall Carver).  Kitty is also Danny’s sister and, in fact, Danny’s entire family (played by Richard Paul, Marion Ross, and Slim Pickens) are on the cruise.  Danny is worried that his hillbilly family will stand in the way of his rock ‘n’ roll career and he goes out of his way to avoid them.  While the rest of the Scofields are willing to accept that Danny doesn’t want to associate with them, Grandpa Luke Scofield (Slim Pickens) lets Danny know that he’s not to happy with Danny and his rock ‘n’ roll ways.  Of course, Luke himself is being courted by Brenda Watts (Eve Arden), a writer who wants to write about the Scofield family and who gets close to them by pretending to be from West Virginia herself.

Fortunately, Danny comes to realize the error of his ways, especially after he sees how Steve has been manipulating his sister.  At his next performance, Danny introduces his family and sings Country Roads especially for them.  Meanwhile, Kitty realizes that she needs to be independent for a while so she dumps both Steve and Elmer, though it’s suggested that she’ll eventually give Elmer a second chance.  Brenda comes clean to Luke about not being a hillbilly and Luke eventually forgives her because he’s in love with her and Brenda’s in love with him.  Even old Steve turns out to be not such a bad guy, though he does tell Danny that his record label just isn’t looking for any new country acts.  Hmmm …. maybe Danny should have stuck with the rock ‘n’ roll.  Oh well!

Got all that?  I hope so because I’m not typing all that out again.

Meanwhile, Frank (Robert Guillaume) and Maura Bellocque (Denise Nicholas) are taking the cruise with their best friends, Dave (Richard Roundtree) and Cynthia Wilbur (Pam Grier).  Frank and Cynthia are having an affair and they aren’t particularly discreet about it.  I was expecting Maura to decide that maybe she and Dave should have an affair of their own but instead, she just spent the entire cruise glaring at Frank.  This was actually a surprisingly dramatic story, one that did not end with the expected positive outcome.  (Is this the first cruise of the Love Boat to end in divorce?)  This is a story that demands at least one big, explosive moment but instead, it was all surprisingly low-key.

Finally, the sprinkler system malfunctioned while the boat was in dock and the cabins of Doc, Gopher, and Isaac were flooded.  So, they move in with the Captain!  The Captain is not amused by Doc’s snoring, Gopher’s New Age chanting, or Isaac’s disco dancing.  And when Doc, Gopher, and Isaac all try to bring different women back to the cabin with them, no one is amused by that.  I’m not really sure I understand why they all had move in together.  Why couldn’t Doc just sleep in his doctor’s office and maybe Isaac and Gopher could have shared an empty passenger’s cabin during the cruise?  (Julie did mention that there were some “small” cabins available.)  Anyway, the important thing is that they all manage to survive the cruise without killing each other.

This was an uneven episode.  The Captain annoyed with everyone as funny because Gavin MacLeod was always amusing whenever he acted annoyed.  The storyline with the cheating couple was well-acted, if dramatically a bit unsatisfying.  But then you get to all the stuff about Danny and his country family.  I know that The Love Boat is not meant to be a realistic or particularly nuanced show but still, Danny’s family was portrayed as being such a bunch of hicks that I was half-expecting them to ask the Captain whether he ever worried about the boat sailing over the edge of the world.  Loni Anderson and Slim Pickens gave likable performances but Donny Osmond was incredibly bland as Danny and the scenes where he “performed” featured some truly abysmal lip-synching.  It was also a bit difficult to buy Rich Little as a swinger.  He came across like he just couldn’t wait to get back home and hang out at the Elks Lodge.

This episode probably would have been fun if it had played out over a compact 60 minutes but, at two hours, things were just stretched a bit too thin.

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 1.8 “Lost and Found / The Understudy / Married Singles”

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!

Love exciting and new….

Come aboard!  We’re expecting you!

Episode 1.8 “Lost and Found / The Understudy / Married Singles”

(Directed by Stuart Margolin, originally aired on November 19th, 1977)

This week’s cruise is all about secrets and lies.

For instance, Durwood Moss (Steve Allen) and Maisie Nolan (Polly Bergen) are currently separated and their therapist has suggested that they try taking separate vacations.  Maisie books a cabin on the cruise so Durwood books the cabin next door.  As Durwood explains it, being in separate cabins counts as being on separate vacations.  Not letting anyone know that they’re married (albeit unhappily so), Durwood pursues Barbie (Loni Anderson) and Maisie flirts with Jack (Joshua Plymouth).  Of course, Durwood and Maisie end up realizing that they’re still in love.  Fortunately, Jack and Barbie also fall in love with each other!

Meanwhile, 8 year-old Theodore Denison, Jr. (James Bond III) lies and says that he has his parents’ permission to be on the cruise by himself.  Of course, it turns out that he’s actually a runaway.  On the cruise, he meets Sharon and Richard Baker (Sandy Duncan and Jim Stafford), a married couple that is struggling to come to terms with the death of their son.  Sharon wants to adopt Theodore and Theodore wants to be adopted.  But then Theodore’s real parents show up and apologize for the fight that caused Theodore to run away in the first place.  Still, Sharon and Richard at least find the courage to try to move on from their tragedy.

Finally, Connie Evans (Jo Ann Harris) is an assistant cruise director who has been assigned to the ship.  Julie (Lauren Tewes) is supposed to be training Connie but it soon becomes clear that, in typical All About Eve fashion, Connie is plotting to steal Julie’s job.  Connie’s plan is … well, it’s interesting.  She continually screws up the simplest of duties and then claims that she was only doing what Julie trained her to do.  When she shows up for dinner in a skimpy outfit, she claims that it’s what Julie told her to wear.  I guess the plan is to make Julie look like she’s bad at training people but just because someone isn’t good at training, that doesn’t mean that they’re bad at their overall job.  In fact, it would seem that most people would look at Connie’s actions and say, “You should have had enough common sense to know better, even if that’s what Julie told you.”  Anyway, it all works out, albeit somewhat bizarrely.  The captain reprimands Connie.  The crew hates Connie and goes out of its way to humiliate her.  And yet, even after it become obvious that Connie has been trying to get her fired, Julie agrees to help Connie because she thinks Connie has the makings of being a great cruise director.  Just how painfully nice is Julie?

This was not a bad episode.  The stuff with Durwood and Maisie was a bit dull but the other two storylines worked.  Sandy Duncan brought a lot of emotional sincerity to her plotline and Jo Ann Harris was hilariously conniving in the role of Connie.  This episode was a cruise that I enjoyed.

Will I also enjoy the next cruise?  Find out next week!

Stroker Ace (1983, directed by Hal Needham)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In 1983, Burt Reynolds had the choice of appearing in two films.

He was offered the role of former astronaut Garrett Breedlove in Terms of Endearment, a role that director/screenwriter James L. Brooks wrote specifically with Reynolds in mind.  The role was designed to play to all of Reynolds’s strengths and none of his weaknesses.  It was also a key supporting role in a film that was widely expected to be an Oscar contender.

Or, Reynolds could star in Stroker Ace, another car chase film that was going to be directed by his old friend, Hal Needham.  No one was expecting Stroker Ace to be an Oscar contender but Needham and Reynolds had made three similar films together and all of them had been hits at the box office.

Reynolds decided to star in Stroker Ace.  Jack Nicholson received the role of Garrett Breedlove and went on to win his second Oscar.  As for Burt, he later called Stroker Ace “the beginning of the end.”

The title character of Stroker Ace is a good old boy race car driver.  He’s a typical Reynolds character.  He grew up in the South and learned how to race cars by watching moonshiners outrun the police.  Now, he’s a star on the NASCAR circuit but he’s also arrogant and needlessly self-destructive.  Because this is a Hal Needham car chase movie, those are portrayed as being good traits.  When Stroker loses his former sponsor after pouring wet concrete on him, he’s forced to accept sponsorship from a crooked chicken mogul (played by Ned Beatty, who deserved better).  When Stroker’s not driving his car while dressed as a chicken, he’s romancing the prudish Pembrook Feeney (Loni Anderson).

It’s hard to describe the plot of Stroker Ace because it really doesn’t have a plot.  There’s a few scenes where Burt looks directly at the camera and smirks.  It’s supposed to remind us of Smoky and the Bandit but Stroker Ace doesn’t have the spectacular stunts that the first film had nor does it have the comedic energy of Jackie Gleason.  Instead, it’s got Jim Nabors as a mechanic named Lugs.  The former star of Gomer Pyle does say “Golly” but he doesn’t sing.

The main problem with Stroker Ace is that there’s no reason to root for Stroker Ace.  The Bandit was good at his job and cared about his car.  The same thing is true about the stuntman that Burt played in Hooper.  Stroker is a racer who would rather destroy his car than come in second and who loses his sponsorships because of his own stupid behavior.  Stroker Ace doesn’t care about anything so it’s difficult to get outraged over him having to wear a chicken suit while racing.

Reynolds later described turning down Terms of Endearment for Stoker Ace as being one of the biggest mistakes of his career.  When he talked about how the Terms of Endearment role won Nicholson an Oscar, Reynolds added that he didn’t win anything for Stroker Ace because “they don’t give awards for being stupid.”  It was a missed opportunity for sure and Reynolds would have to wait another fourteen years before Boogie Nights finally proved that he could do more than drive cars and smirk at the camera.

Despite the failure of Stroker Ace, Reynolds and Needham remained friends and even made two more film together (Cannonball Run II and Hostage Hotel).  Their friendship later served as the basis for the relationship between the characters played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.